Christmas at Timberwoods - Fern Michaels [50]
Immediately he backed off a step. He would mention it later in the day when they were talking. That’s what he would do. He’d buy her a tube of something while he was on his break, make it a gift to her. An overpowering urge to touch the spiky curls came over him. Before he could think about it, he moved closer to the bed and reached down. Gently he tried to brush them from her cheeks. Maybe she needed a hairbrush. He turned and went to his room, fetched a brush, and placed it on the night table next to her bed. He wanted to kiss her nose. He bent over and stared at her a second longer before he gave her a quick peck. It was a strange nose, just like the rest of her. He frowned. She didn’t look like she was put together right. In the end, he decided it didn’t matter how she was put together. He liked her just the way she was. And the best part of all was that she liked him; he could tell. Looks weren’t all that important; not to him, anyway.
Charlie went through his day in a state bordering on euphoria. He called Angela on his break, then managed to buy the right ointment for her fingers and get back to work to provide backup for Santa as needed.
Dinner was the same as Wednesday night, only this time Angela had made spaghetti and meatballs. All evening long he prayed silently, as the line of children dwindled, that she wouldn’t bolt out of his life as suddenly as she’d arrived in it. Please, he pleaded silently, don’t let things change. Let me have this. I never asked you for anything before. Just this. Please, let me keep her.
That evening Angela suggested they watch an old movie called Back Street with Irene Dunne. She said she liked old movies better than the new ones, that the actors and actresses were better and the plots more interesting. Charlie agreed. All of today’s movies were about drugs and crime. He hated them.
Angela made a huge batch of fried onion rings and they drank beer from the bottles. She might be an oddball, and she might not be pretty, but she was a great companion. Charlie couldn’t remember being so happy in his entire life. He hadn’t really been happy since the year he got an electric train set. His father had given it to him and then said he was too young to play with it, that he might get electrocuted, but that if Charlie was a good boy he could watch Mommy and Daddy play with it. Damn, now what made him think of that?
He smiled inwardly. He would get it down out of the attic and he and Angela would put it together and play with it. He’d even let her turn the switch on and off. She’d like that.
He’d get a Christmas tree, too. A live tree in a pot, which you could plant in the yard later. A big one with strong branches so it could hold all the ornaments packed away in the attic. He and Angela would decorate it together, hang lights on it, glittering red balls, popcorn, and tinsel. He would put on some Christmas music, choir music. And they would drink apple cider.
How had he gotten so lucky?
It was early according to the small clock on the night table. Angela stared at the luminous dial, not believing her eyes. Why had she woken up at 5:10 in the morning? She lay back and listened to the driving rain—or was it sleet?—that rattled the windows. She snuggled deeper under the covers, willing sleep to overtake her again. It didn’t work. She was wide awake. She might as well get up and go downstairs. At least she could turn on the TV in the living room and get the weather report off the local news station. Was this the storm the weatherman had touted the night