An Angel for Christmas (13 page)

Friends had made that so—learning pool tricks from the Williamson family was easing the day for him.

She smiled back at him. “A budding pool shark, eh?” she teased affectionately.

He smiled back at her. “My dad…my dad is going to be okay, right, Auntie Wenna?” he asked.

She saw that Gabe was still listening and obeying as the group in the tavern vied for selections on the old jukebox. His eyes were alight.

She had been suspicious of the man from the beginning. Then she had begun to believe in him. Then she had found her way back to mistrust. And why? Because someone else spoke against him.

She winced. Well, that hadn't stood history very
well. Proof was needed. Well, proof was what they awaited.

“You dad is going to be just fine, Connor,” Morwenna said. “And so are we.”

But just as the words left her mouth, the electricity went.

And the tavern was pitched into shadow.

 

Bobby braked the snowmobile just off the point where he
thought
the road made way for the lookout point. Shayne dismounted and instantly started for the car.

“Bro! We have to be careful. That car is right on the ledge,” Bobby told him.

Shayne froze in his tracks, as if at his statement, and Bobby saw that his face was white. And then he knew why. He couldn't see that it was indeed Cindy in the car, but he could see the driver.

And the driver was in a hooded parka, head down on the steering wheel. Frost and snow covered most of the windshield.

There was no way to tell, until they touched the driver, whether the person was alive or dead.

“All right, come on, Shayne, I want to bring you both—and me!—back alive. Let's take it slow.” He reached into the side compartments on the snow-mobile. He got out the rope and the pulley chair, and followed Shayne as his brother more cautiously approached the car. He saw one of the huge light poles by the side of the road. It wouldn't carry the weight of a car if something happened, but it would carry the weight of a man—and a woman.

“Approach the car, and carefully open that front door just in case the ground by the back tires is—is gone. Grab the person out of the car, and screw whatever the hell else is in it, okay?” Bobby said. “I'll tie us together with the rope.”

Shayne nodded. “Let's hurry,” he said.

Bobby took the rope to the massive light stand and quickly tied it around, securing it with double loops. He hurried back to where his brother stood, already securing himself. He looked at Bobby. “Thanks,” he told him.

“I'll be right here, but not coming close. Until she's out of the car, and you need me,” Bobby said.

His brother moved toward the car then, taking every step carefully.

Bobby looked back at the rope attached to the giant light pole, and then frowned as he looked up at the light. Dusk was settling on them more heavily now with each minute that passed.

And the streetlight hadn't kicked on.

Strange, the lights usually came on automatically as dusk moved in.

Unless, of course, the electricity had finally gone in the mountaintops here.

And, if so, back at the tavern, his family was locked in darkness.

Bobby forced himself to remain still, to watch his brother, and to wait. He couldn't go screaming like a terrified child, and rush back to the snow-mobile and leave Shayne and the driver.

What if the woman was Cindy, and she had skidded and lost control last night, and she had frozen to death already?

He didn't dare think it.

What about his family, back in the tavern, suddenly pitched into darkness?

His father was a smart man; he'd have his shot gun at the ready.

But could he aim in the dark?

“Almost there,” Shayne called to him. “And the ground feels steady thus far…don't know about the back, and I'm not going to test it.”

Shayne stood then by the driver's-side door. He reached for it slowly, and opened it more slowly. He let out a cry as the driver slumped to the side, and into his arms. He fell to his knees, cradling the woman in his arms.

Bobby heard a strange sound; it was like a rumble, but it was a quiet rumbling. He looked at the Subaru, and the back end of it seemed to be sinking.

“Shayne, get her out of there!” Bobby shouted. He went for the rope, ready to drag his brother if it went taut against the pole.

But Shayne stood, cradling his ex-wife to his chest, and he started a stumbling run through the snow toward Bobby. And as he did, Bobby heard a creaking sound, once and again, and then grow
ing louder, and he saw that the Subaru was slipping, slipping…

There was a loud smashing sound as it hit the guardrail, and then a rumble as it burst through the railing and went tumbling down the mountain.

“Brace yourself!” Bobby said, hunkering down.

And Shayne dropped to a knee, covering Cindy's body with his own. They both waited for an explosion.

None came.

Bobby stood slowly and walked as close as he dared to the ledge. He looked over, and he was glad to see that the Subaru had not exploded, or hurt anything other than a number of scraggly, half-dead winter trees and brush. It had landed—right side up—on a narrow ledge about fifty feet down.

He looked at Shayne. His brother had gotten Cindy to the snowmobile; he had her wrapped in the blanket, and he was trying to urge some brandy through her lips. Bobby hurried over to them, falling to his knees in the snow, and look
ing down at his sister-in-law's face. She was such a beautiful woman, but right now, he felt a burst of cold fear sweep through him. She was so white; her eyes were closed, and her lips appeared to be a strange shade of blue.

“She's—she's—” Bobby began.

Shayne smiled grimly at him. “She's alive,” he assured her. “She's…she's a fighter. She's going to make it. Her pulse is weak, but steady. She's going to come around. We just have to get her back as soon as possible, and get her warm…and I can find out if any damage was done. She should get to a hospital, but the tavern will do. I need her to come around…to sip some of this.”

Bobby felt words coming in a repetitious prayer.

Let her live, let her live, please, God, let her live.

“Come on, come on, come on…please, God!” Shayne breathed.

Cindy suddenly choked, coughed and stuttered.

Her eyes flew open in panic, and she strained at the arms that held her: Shayne's.

A weak scream escaped her lips, and then died as her eyes focused on Shayne's face.

“Shayne!” she said.

“Hey,” Shayne said, his voice tremulous. “You're all right. You're all right.”

Was she? Bobby wondered. God knew, she might be suffering from some kind of frostbite.

She saw Bobby then. “Bobby!” she whispered. “My God, you two found me…how on earth did you find me? You couldn't have known that I was coming. I didn't know that I was coming until it was time to leave for the airport, and then I knew I—I knew I couldn't leave for the whole week, and I tried to call you all, but no one was answering and I just took a chance, and, oh, Lord, please forgive me, Shayne… I meant to get here and beg that you all forgive me for showing up so rudely, and let me spend the holidays with the kids, too, and—”

“Cindy, you may be suffering some real effects from this,” Shayne said gently. “Drink a bit more of this, and let me get you some water, too. We'll wrap you up really tightly in the parka, because it's even colder when we're on the snowmobile. It will be slow going…the thing is only meant for
two, but I know that we'll manage. The tavern is warm, and once we're there, we'll talk.”

“But, Shayne, I asked you to take the children, and I came here, and then…I thought I was going to die. I was terrified to move in the car.” She stopped speaking and stared at Bobby. “The car, I was in the car…”

Shayne looked at him. “Um, well, it's standing. But I have a feeling the insurance company might consider it to be totaled,” Bobby said.

“Oh! Oh, God! It did go over! I was terrified when the car spun out and stalled, and then when the wheels wouldn't catch. There was nothing for them to catch on!”

“It's okay, Cindy, you're safe,” Shayne said.

“Shayne, you risked your life for me,” Cindy said, her eyes filled with wonder as she looked at him. “After everything…but, it's what you do, isn't it?” Her eyes filled with tears.

Shayne drew her to him.

“Cindy, don't cry. Please, don't cry.”

“But you forgive me?” she whispered.

“Forgive you? For loving our children? Don't
be silly, Cindy, there is nothing to forgive. And you will always be a part of the family, and always welcome,” Shayne said.

“And we'll all freeze if we don't get back,” Bobby interjected.

He glanced at the light pole, and far up—at the light that wasn't lit.

Cindy was alive.

And now, the worry that something had gone wrong at the tavern began to eat into him again.

“We need to hurry, as much as we safely can,” Shayne said.

Screw
safely!

Bobby's urge to get back to the tavern was almost overwhelming. He began hurriedly gathering the equipment they had used, stuffing it into the compartments. He crawled back onto the snow-mobile and felt Shayne doing his best to get on with his ex-wife in his arms.

“What is it? What's wrong?” Cindy asked.

Where in the hell did they begin to explain?

He'd leave that to Shayne, Bobby decided.

He turned on the snowmobile's lights—a con
trast to the darkness now settling heavy on the mountains.

The cold hit Bobby's face as he revved the snow-mobile into gear; going back would be even more treacherous.

He kept seeing the pool of light before him.

And all he could think was
dark, dark, dark.

His family was trapped in the dark, with strangers whose intentions were still unknown.

The sudden darkness seemed complete at first; the sun was almost down outside the tavern walls, and the shadowy world of the outside was now inside, compounded by the walls surrounding them.

But it wasn't completely dark.

There was that moment when it was just suddenly dead silent, smoke gray, and dead still, and yet shapes and shadows seemed to run amok.

They were frightened, of course; man's fear of the dark
was an instinct left over from prehistory when darkness meant the coming of fearsome beasts of prey.

Morwenna wasn't sure at all why such stark terror came to her. It wasn't unusual that they should lose the electricity. Mac had a generator, and it would kick in soon. But she had the strangest feeling that
this
sudden darkness was worse than any other, and that something evil was moving about the room. Light couldn't come back to them fast enough.

Something almost touched her, and for a moment, she felt as if her skin was literally crawling, as if a horrible scent of death, decay and sulfur filled the air.

She reached for Genevieve, terrified that the little girl was in some kind of danger. She groped blindly, watching shadows move.

“Hey, folks, it's okay, everything's all right now. We've got an emergency generator,” Mac said.

As if on cue, low light returned to the tavern, and the jukebox spun into action. Bing Crosby and David Bowie came on together
.

Morwenna looked instantly for her niece; she
was standing beside and slightly behind Gabe, almost wedged against the jukebox. She had a wide-eyed look of fear on her face.

“Baby, it's okay,” Morwenna said. “It's all right, see, the light is back on.”

“Auntie Wenna, I was scared!” Genevieve said.

Morwenna quickly hunkered down by her side.

“It's all right. It was just dark,” Morwenna said.

But Genevieve shook her head. “No, didn't you feel it…someone was here, someone very, very bad!”

“Genevieve, no one else is here. It was just a matter of moments before the lights came back on.”

Genevieve looked up at her. “No! No, Gabe saved me. He saved me from the bad thing, the evil thing that was here.”

“Hey!” Mike said suddenly.

Morwenna quickly glanced to her father. He had jumped up first, apparently to look for his family members, and to assure himself that they were all right.

“What?” Mac asked.

“He's gone!” Mike said.

Morwenna looked to the booth where Luke DeFeo had been sitting.

It was empty.

She quickly looked around the room. DeFeo wasn't anywhere to be seen.

She had the uneasy feeling that he had been near; that he had nearly touched her. And Genevieve.

“Well, hell, maybe that's just good riddance!” Mac said.

“I didn't hear or see the door open,” Connor noted, frowning.

“Well, he is gone,” Stacy said. “Maybe—maybe it is just as well.”

Gabe spoke up suddenly. “No, no, it's not just as well. He's still out there somewhere. And he's dangerous.”

“Dangerous? But,” Morwenna said, turning to him, “
you
said that he was a white-collar criminal. He said that
you
were the dangerous one.”

He shook his head. “You don't understand…you can't understand. He's—all right, he's on the
run. And he may want to bring a few down with him. You have to let me go after him.”

He walked around the pool table, toward Mike. As he did so, Morwenna noticed the distance from the booths and around the pool table to where she was standing.

Luke DeFeo couldn't have come around the whole place so quickly. Could he? And yet she had the uncomfortable, uncanny feeling that he had.

“But—he's out there, alone in the snow. He won't be coming back here,” Mac said.

“He's out there, and he's thinking of something, and he will come back,” Gabe said firmly.

“My sons are out there,” Stacy said. “My sons are out there, somewhere on the mountain.”

“I can find him. I can stop him,” Gabe said. “Look, please. I was with you for a long time, and no harm came to you. Trust me. Let me go after him, before he finds a way to hurt anyone. Please.”

A silence followed his words. Thoughts raced through Morwenna's mind.

There was simply no way to know the truth; maybe Luke DeFeo had escaped because he was desperate to
find a way to communicate with the law. Maybe he had escaped because he was a cop, and he was going to come back.

And maybe every word that Gabe was saying was the truth. He'd done nothing but show them gratitude and kindness since he'd been with him.

She stepped forward, coming to stand behind him. “I think we need to believe in Gabe. He's been nothing but level and kind—he risked his life for Genevieve, and I don't care what DeFeo said—Gabe risked his life, and you don't do that unless there is something really decent in you. He wants to set out to find Luke DeFeo. I say we let him go, and I say that I go with him.”

“What?” Stacy said incredulously, sliding off her bar stool to stare at her daughter.

“Mom, I'm well over twenty-one,” she said quietly.

“No, I should go,” Mike said.

Morwenna shook her head. “No, Dad. You and Mom need to stay. You need to be here, because you're really great parents.” She paused, looking at Genevieve and Connor, not wanting to scare
the children, but hoping her parents would understand.

If something had happened to Shayne, Bobby or Cindy—and something was to happen to her, God forbid!—the kids would need stable, loving parents. And that,
she realized,
they were.

She smiled suddenly. “Gabe will never hurt me. I know it. I know it just as I know the sun will rise in the morning. And I'm going to untie his hands, and we're going to go out together. When we reach Shayne and Bobby, I'll come back with them. But they have to know that DeFeo is out there, and he could be very dangerous. We can't accomplish that with one person—I'll need to come back, and Gabe will need to find DeFeo.”

“Now, wait, I can go out with this man,” Brian Williamson said.

“Or me,” Mac volunteered.

“I'll be able to find my brothers. I know that I'll be able to find my brothers,” Morwenna said.

“This is crazy!” Mike said, still studying her.

“It's what we need to do, Dad. Mr. Williamson, you need to stay with your kids. And Mac, well,
you just need to watch out for everyone here. And I need to find my brothers, and Gabe needs to stop DeFeo,” Morwenna said firmly.

“And my mommy!” Genevieve said. “You need to find my mommy!”

“If she's with them,” Morwenna said.

“She is,” Connor said. “She is. My father went to find her. He
knew
that she was out there, and he went to find her. And I know that he did.”

“Morwenna!” Her father lowered his head. “Morwenna, we just don't
know!
”

But Genevieve came to stand next to Morwenna and Connor. “I know!” she said. “I know that Gabe is good, and that he can find my daddy. Gramps, please, let him go, and let Auntie Morwenna go with him to bring my mommy and daddy and Uncle Bobby back.”

Her father stared at her. She didn't know if he was thinking that he couldn't really stop her, or if he was feeling the same way;
they had to be right about Gabe Lange.
He nodded slowly. “You're taking my only daughter out there,” he said to Gabe.

“I'll be careful with her,” Gabe promised. “I swear to you, I would lay down my life for her.”

Genevieve tugged on Morwenna's shirt, and Morwenna hunkered down to her. Genevieve looked at her with a child's wide eyes and then reached out to touch the little gold angel she was wearing around her neck.

“You'll be protected. You have your angel.”

Morwenna smiled.

Faith,
again.

Children could be so amazing. And it could be argued that faith could lead to stupidity, and that fanatical faith could lead to horrible things, but this wasn't that kind of faith. There was something in Gabe Lange's eyes unlike anything she had ever known before.

He made her believe.

She walked across the tavern, collecting her coat and gloves and scarf.

“We'll be back before you know it!” she assured the room cheerfully.

“Wait!” Mike protested. “You're just walking out with nothing—”

“We'll find Bobby and Shayne and the equipment. Dad, I know this mountain, and the valleys. We'll find them soon—I know it. I'm good, I'm fine. Have faith in me!”

Mike looked into her eyes. He smiled slowly and painfully. “I do have faith in you,” he said.

Gabe followed her, and turned back. “You are going to be all right, and so are the others. I will find DeFeo. And I will stop him.”

 

Bobby drove the snowmobile slowly and carefully; even so, the air was biting, and bits and chips of snow and ice flew before them and around them. Shayne's face was numb.

And yet, he felt a sense of wonder as they moved through the snow.

He had never been a violent man in any way, and certainly not with his wife or children. But when he looked back, he could see the danger signs that had led to his divorce. He had been oblivious to the amount of time he was gone—he felt that his days had been full from beginning to end. He
had
changed diapers. In fact, when trying
to explain why she was leaving, Cindy had told him that he'd been a wonderful father when the kids had been babies. He was still a wonderful father.

He had tried to understand when she'd told him that she'd rather be alone on her own than always alone with him. That hadn't made sense. Not then. He'd been perplexed; he didn't go to strip bars, he didn't head out on wild nights looking for some thing new, hoping to get lucky with an exotic stranger.

But she hadn't thought that, apparently.

And he hadn't seen it coming, and when he did, it had been too late. She hadn't been angry; she had told him that she just didn't know him anymore, and he certainly didn't know her. And it was better to be alone, going about life on her own schedule than wondering what his might be, or if and when they were going to see him. Maybe if she wasn't always on the spot, he'd show up for his son's baseball games, or realize that Connor was falling in love with music, much like his uncle
Bobby, who would really stop and listen to him at times.

Now, of course, it was all so clear.

He still loved his wife.

He was certain that even if she had fallen out of love with him, she still cared about him.

And his hold on her was firm; he realized at that moment, as long as he had breath in his body there was hope, and if they never made it back together again, he was desperately glad that she was alive. She was a wonderful person, and an exceptional mother, and thank God, no matter what they chose to do themselves in the future, they were lucky—they knew how to be family.

Cindy moved slightly in his arms, wedged between him and Bobby on the snowmobile. She looked up at him, and she smiled.

She didn't try to speak, the snowmobile was making far too much noise.

He wished he could try to explain; he had been indignant, so certain that he had done nothing wrong.

And he hadn't. He just hadn't been there.

But the way that she looked at him then…

He brought his lips as close to her as possible, and whispered against the roar of the motor, “Cindy, I…don't ever feel that you have to…to look at me that way or be too grateful… I mean, I know I wronged you, and I'm just so grateful that you're alive!”

“I
feel
alive right now,” she told him. “And I feel that I'm
with
you as I haven't been in forever, Shayne.”

He started to lean his head against hers. Then he heard his brother shout over the loud
whir
of the snowmobile. “Almost there! Just one more bend!”

Shayne nodded. He moved his head enough to smile at Cindy.

“The kids will think that you're the best Christmas present ever,” he told her. She smiled.

Then Shayne heard Bobby shout, “What the hell?”

He slowed the snowmobile, but too late.

They hit something again, something buried beneath the white drifts.

And the snowmobile veered to the side—thank fully inward, toward the mountain—but then it careened into the pines, cracked against a tree and overturned.

 

“You know where you're going, right?” Gabe asked Morwenna.

She looked at him; it was bitterly cold. They'd already made the walk down, and made it through the snow. But it seemed that the going was rougher now. It was difficult to make sure that she was staying on the road, and it seemed that here, even more so than higher, the snow had collected in deeper piles.

She shrugged with a sheepish smile. “Down,” she told him. She added anxiously, “They should be getting back up toward us, but I keep thinking we should hear the motor of that snowmobile—it's old, and it's loud.”

“We'll catch up with them soon,” he said.

“And how do you know that? And aren't you looking for DeFeo—not my family?” she asked him.

He looked ahead, and there was something grim in his expression.

Morwenna gasped. “You think that DeFeo is after my brothers! But, why? Why would he be after my brothers? Why wouldn't he just want to escape?”

“He wants to use them,” Gabe said after a minute.

“Use them? As hostages? Gabe, he's unarmed, and my brothers aren't exactly puny!”

“He has his ways.” Gabe looked at her then and sighed. “There are many things that you can steal from someone that aren't really tangible.”

“That made no sense! What could he steal from my brothers?” she asked.