Annabelle's Angel Read online

  “Liam and Joe is strong,” she said.

  “Are strong,” Annabelle corrected.

  Rick stared at the little girl. “She understood? I mean, she got that from my saying their strengths?”

  “Sure, she did.” Annabelle grinned at Victoria. “Our Torie's good at words.”

  “I guess she is.” Rick nodded.

  “We're all good at something.” Brody spoke through a mouthful of potatoes and peas. “I'm good at stories and pictures. Tori remembers words, and Faith is good at dancing and boys. Joe likes math and trains and running, and Liam wants to be an actor. And Matt's good at people.”

  “People, huh?” Rick chuckled.

  “Yeah, and schemes. You gotta be careful about Mattie.”

  Rick grinned. “Gotcha. What is Annabelle good at? Besides cooking and baking, I mean.”

  In the second of silence that followed, Annabelle died at least three times. Then the other five started talking at once, so fast she didn’t hear a word they said. She only knew they left Rick laughing.

  “That's a lot to be good at,” he said, slanting Annabelle a look she couldn't interpret. “Maybe I should make a list.”

  “Don't bother. They exaggerate.” Boy that sounded rude, even to her own ears. “But I'm glad you like the food. Would you like anything else?” She backpedaled.

  He took small helpings of everything, including another slice of bread.

  Annabelle decided she'd make two loaves the next game night and then mentally jeered at herself. Unless he was desperate for another home-cooked meal—and he might be—he'd be sure to avoid this situation again.

  Still, two loaves wouldn't be a bad idea.

  ~*~

  Rick went to bed remembering the taste of homemade bread and the sparkle of old-fashioned ornaments tied to a real pine garland wound around a bannister. He dreamed of making snow angels and of children laughing and trying to catch a glimpse of a woman whose face he couldn't see. He woke thinking he’d scheduled the next practice too far in the future for his taste.

  But Wednesday evening finally came, and he offered to pick up the Archer boys again. He also got to their house fifteen minutes before he'd promised.

  The house had to be around a hundred years old, a good track record for a home in Southern California, and the old, polished wood inside suited the age of it. Outside, gardens that would grow even lusher come spring and an oak that retained most of its leaves finished off the slightly old-fashioned air of the place.

  He strolled up the walk, his hands in his pockets, desperate to hide the hurry that got him there so early. As he passed under a branch of oak, he felt something—a rush of something—flowing over his head and trickling under his jacket collar.

  "What?" He slapped at the back of his neck, and his hand came away with a sheen of glitter clinging to his palm.

  Giggles made him look up.

  The three youngest were stretched on the branch.

  Rick batted at his neck again and tried to scowl. "What was that?"

  "Sugar.” Mattie flipped off the branch, swinging from his hands for a moment before dropping to the ground.

  "You want to tell me why you poured sugar on me?"

  "To turn you into a snow angel."

  "He’th already a th'now angel." Victoria watched Brody follow Matt’s example. Then she held out her arms to Rick. "Help me down, pwease."

  She tumbled out of the tree, and he barely managed to catch her before she hit the dry grass. When he set her on her feet, she grabbed his hand.

  It felt—nice. He’d held children’s hands before, but that had been entirely different. This was—trust. Liking. Simple and human and humbling. He hadn’t had much connection with small girls. Even in sports, he tended to coach the older ages, but he found Victoria’s actions endearing.

  She tugged him up the walk, to the front door this time. “Grandma wants to thee you.”

  He stopped so fast one of the boys ran into him from behind.

  “Your grandmother?” Yeah, who else would she be talking about? “I can just wait out here until Joe and Liam come.”

  “No, you can’t. Grandma thaid.” And the tiny child dragged him up the steps, across the porch, and into the house, and he could do nothing to resist her.

  He didn’t know what he anticipated—nothing terrible, really. How could a monster produce such a wonderful family? But she still exceeded his expectations. But this was no monster. Mrs. Archer was a gentle-faced woman, and Rick couldn’t imagine her anywhere but with a gaggle of adoring grandchildren around her.

  “So you’re the boys’ coach.” Her emphasis on the word you’re made his knees quake a bit. So did the gleam in her eye, the almost unlined face, and almost all blonde hair. “They think you’re absolutely wonderful.”

  “Grandma.” Joe came into the living room and plopped onto the couch next to her. “But he’s a great coach.”

  “Of course he is. The church would never pay him if he were no good.” She nodded as if she’d just won an argument.

  “Um, they don’t pay me.” Rick managed to hide his smile. “It’s a volunteer position.”

  “Seriously?” Joe, who’d bent over to pull on his socks, straightened. “You do all this for free?”

  “Sure.” Rick shrugged. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. It just takes a lot of time.”

  It did. Rick liked the amount it took. Because what did he have otherwise? Some friends from the county engineer’s office who didn’t understand his reluctance to go partying? Distant relatives back in Chicago who still tended to view him and his parents as black sheep? Parents who actually acted like said black sheep, and were hiding out somewhere in Mexico, last he’d heard?

  The kids he coached were his family.

  Funny he’d never realized that before.

  Here he thought he was doing something noble and giving and admirable, and he was just feeding his own needs.

  “Where’s Liam?” he asked. “We need to get going.” Despite the fact that they still had plenty of time.

  “Getting ready.”

  He nodded, crossed his hands in front of him, and rocked heel to toe.

  Victoria grinned up at him. “Hey, Grandma, did you know Mr. Thock-the-man is a th’now angel?”

  “Is he? That’s nice, dear.”

  Was he? Well, from the feel of it, he probably still had half a cup of sugar filtering down his back.

  Annabelle came through from the hallway. “OK, who spilled sugar all over the kitchen?”

  Mattie and Brody burst into laughter, and Victoria bent her head. “Thorry, Annabelle.”

  “Come help me clean up, all right?” She held out her hand, and Victoria took it.

  Rick felt a twinge of jealousy. Whose hand he wanted to be holding right then, he didn’t know, but he wanted someone’s.

  “What were you doing with the sugar, anyway?”

  “Making th’now angels.”

  Rick watched them go, grinning as the two younger boys collapsed on the floor, unable to stand under their laughter.

  “Maybe someday you’ll explain?” But the kids’ grandmother only sounded amused, not angry.

  Rick turned. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Archer. I think they were playing a trick on me.”

  “Really?”

  Before he was forced to go into more detail, Liam pounded down the stairs. “Never fear, for I am here.” He looked around, stepped over Brody’s leg, and headed for the front door. “What are you all waiting for? Let’s go.”

  They went.

  Rick spent most of the drive laughing at the boys’ antics, his thoughts taken up by the elusive and alluring Annabelle.

  When had she become important?

  As he drove the two home Rick expected a lot of celebrating, rough-housing, general teenaged insanity. Instead, he got a few subdued agreements to his praises.

  Finally, looking much younger than his fifteen years, Liam poked his brother. “Ask him.”

 
; “I’m gonna.”

  “Ask him now.”

  Rick stopped at a light and gave Joe a glower, pretending severity. “So ask,” he said and grinned. “Come on, Joe. You know you can ask me.”

  The tip of Joe’s dirty sports shoe dug into the car mat. “The thing is—”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Annabelle.”

  At first, Rick thought the kid was about to ask him to date his sister, and a huge part of his heart leaped to attention and hollered, “Yes!” Then his ears started working again, and he heard something about how Annabelle always organized all the Christmas gifts for the Archer kids, and while they each managed to get her something little, she never had the amount or the kinds of gifts to open that the rest did.

  “Even Grandma gets more presents than Annabelle,” Liam said. “And no one ever noticed until last year.”

  “Yeah, Christmas morning, when it was too late.”

  “I see.” Rick pictured Annabelle, too shy, or simply too nice, to say anything. Or maybe she’d never noticed the lack herself. Yeah, that sounded like her. Even he already knew that much about Annabelle.

  “You do?”

  He grinned. “Sure. You want me to take you guys shopping for her.”

  “To start with, yeah.”

  Rick shrugged. “OK.”

  “You’ll do it?” Liam leaned over the backseat.

  “Of course I will.” And he might get around to asking her for a date, too. Why not? He already knew he liked her family.

  Even the ones who poured sugar down his back and made coaching a game an exercise in wriggling discomfort.

  3

  He was back and Annabelle hadn’t had any warning except—she studied Faith, who seemed to be concentrating especially hard on the table setting.

  “Faith, did you know Rick was coming to dinner?”

  “What?” Faith looked up, her eyes brimming with so much innocence that Annabelle was immediately suspicious. “Oh, yeah, Liam said they were going to ask him.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Faith shrugged. “I thought Liam did.”

  Hadn’t she had a similar conversation recently? Was she getting into such a rut that she had to pick on a simple visit from one of the kids’ friends as something to look at with narrowed, distrustful eyes?

  “I wish someone had told me.” She glanced into the living room where Rick sat with half of Annabelle’s family surrounding him, laughing, as he encouraged them to join in a game he’d made up when they begged him to.

  Faith put down the dishtowel and planted her hands on her hips. "Look, I don’t mean to offend you or anything, but here’s something for you to think about. You're turning into the crazy cat lady, and we don't even have a cat.”

  "Faith," Annabelle whispered, the word full of hurt feelings.

  Faith put her hand over her mouth but pulled it away. "You have siblings instead. All you do is us. Nothing else matters."

  Arguments and defenses fought at the tip of Annabelle’s tongue. "I—I have a job," she finally stammered. Medical transcription and it wasn’t easy, either.

  Faith went back to wiping dishes to put on the table. "A job you do at home. And you’ve got church. But you don't have much of a life."

  "Well, I like it for what it is."

  Tears pooled in Faith's eyes. "I just want more for you."

  Annabelle fought the hurt. What was more important, her feelings, or Faith’s? And here Faith only wanted good things for her. Maybe she wanted them in a way Annabelle couldn’t live with, but she cared.

  Annabelle pulled her sister into a forgiving hug. "And I love you for wanting so much for me, but I'm happy just the way I am."

  Faith shrugged away from her. “Yeah, I bet.” She glanced into the living room. “You still OK with me going to Carrie’s to study tonight?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “I mean, you don’t need me for moral support or anything?” She jerked her head toward Rick, who held Mattie upside down in the air. The others howled with laughter.

  How well did her sister know her? Annabelle sighed. “I’m fine. You go. I think that’s Carrie honking now. I’ll pick you up about nine.”

  Only after she watched Faith run down the front walk to join two of her friends at the curb did Annabelle wonder if she’d just told her sister a lie.

  ~*~

  Rick glanced for the fourth or fifth time into the dining room through which he could catch glimpses of Annabelle moving in the kitchen.

  “Does she always do all the cooking?” he asked. “And cleaning? Don’t any of you help?”

  “Yeah, sure, we help,” Joe said. “But we got company, so we get to visit.”

  Annabelle called them into the dining room, and Rick waited for Mrs. Archer to shuffle through before he followed. The three youngest had disappeared, and he felt only a moment’s concern before he simultaneously saw Brody standing on a chair just past the door and felt powder slide over his head and down his back.

  Again.

  It wasn’t as itchy as the sugar. Smelled different, too, like—a baby? At least, a clean baby…

  Baby powder?

  “Brody!”

  Brody jumped to the floor, his cheeks pink, but he was still laughing.

  Annabelle advanced on him, and Rick felt an urge to block her. Maybe because she looked so adorably embarrassed more than to shield the boy.

  “Why on earth would you dump baby powder on him?”

  She glanced at Rick, looked away, and then reached up to bat the white off his shoulders. He stood still and let her.

  “Sorry. But Torie said she wanted him to turn into a snow angel.”

  “Did not. I thaid he ith a th’now angel.” Victoria marched past the three bunched in the doorway and slid a chair from under the table. “And it’th my turn to thit next to him.”

  “Aren’t you afraid he’ll get powder in your food?” Mattie asked, reaching for the same chair.

  “No arguments.” Annabelle pointed. “Grandma’s eating with us tonight, so she gets to sit beside our guest.”

  “And Annabelle gets to sit on my other side,” Rick said.

  Joe and Brody gave him surprised, delighted stares.

  Rick raised his eyebrows at them and then shrugged. He took Annabelle’s elbow and led her to a seat two down from her grandmother, held her chair for her, then sat between the two.

  As they’d done the previous night he’d shared dinner with them, the younger children brought in dishes and set them on the table.

  The entire meal’s conversation centered on snow angels and how to make them, and how to get snow. Joe suggested having it delivered to the front yard, but considering the current temperatures, it wouldn’t last long enough to make anything out of it.

  When things looked as if they’d descend into an argument, Rick intervened. “If you’re so interested in snow angels, why don’t we take a trip up into the mountains? I can teach you how to make them. It’s not hard.”

  “All of us?” Brody asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Even Annabelle?” Liam speared him with narrowed eyes.

  He almost explained how this was his way of getting Annabelle out of the house and off somewhere—well, somewhere somewhat romantic—with him. Not that all those extra bodies would make for a whole lot of romance, but really, wasn’t that the way to Annabelle’s heart? But with all those eyes on him—some challenging, like Liam’s, others trusting, like Victoria’s, and some plain shocked—at least, Annabelle’s expression was shocked—he was glad his tongue tended to trip over itself and keep him from an embarrassing reveal.

  “If I’m taking six kids up to the mountains, I need backup.” He grinned, pleased with his strategy.

  “It’s not like Joe and them are little kids and can’t take care of us—” Brody started.

  “No, it’s a good idea,” Joe said. “Then we don’t have to worry about babysitting.”

  Not quite the plan Rick h
ad in mind, but then Joe winked.

  Surprised, Rick stared at Joe while around them, the kids made plans.

  “OK, so, this Saturday, right? We can all get up real early and go. Right, Annabelle?” Joe asked.

  Annabelle looked at her plate, and her hand hovered near her cheek. “Rick hasn’t agreed yet.”

  “It was his idea,” Liam pointed out.

  “Yeah.” Rick jumped in, terrified she’d back out before he had her completely committed. “And Saturday is the perfect day to go. Next weekend is the church Christmas Bazaar. No one wants to miss that, do we?”

  A chorus answered him, the general agreement that no one wanted to miss it, and as Christmas fell the week after that, they needed to go as soon as possible.

  “If you’re OK with that?” Rick asked Annabelle.

  She looked up. “Oh, sure.”

  “We’ll need snow suits,” Faith said.

  “And boots,” Mattie added.

  Joe and Liam looked at each other. “Thrift stores.”

  Annabelle laughed. “You guys grow too fast to spend full price for something you won’t use much.”

  Rick spent half a second resenting how the whole family treated Annabelle and then let it go. Maybe it wasn’t totally her choice, but she was a smart woman. She wouldn’t live this way if she didn’t like it.

  “Mrs. Archer, would you like to go?”

  “No, it’s not anything I’m interested in. I have plenty of things to keep me busy. I’m a spry one, for my age.” She twinkled at Rick. “I don’t drive, of course, but I can get myself where I want to go.”

  Then why didn’t she take some of the burden off her granddaughter? It wasn’t Annabelle’s fault the seven kids were orphans.

  Then it hit him. Of course. It was her grandmother’s fault—if he wanted to be cruel. She hadn’t caused the accident, of course, but she’d been driving. And Annabelle had given up her life to relieve the woman of any guilt.

  She’d probably been really young when she’d agreed to it. Might not have realized it then, might not realize it now. But that was exactly what had happened.