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Meredith opened her book. “This is the mommy and daddy,” she said, pointing to an artist’s rendition of a couple in a house with a roaring fireplace. “The daddy has lots of work to do. He comes home too late at night and the mommy and the little kids are sad, ’cause they miss him.” She turned a page. “See, they decorate the tree, but the daddy isn’t there.
“Then the beautiful angel on top of the Christmas tree hears how sad they are and she comes to life,” Meredith continued. “She sprinkles miracle dust on the mommy and daddy. The daddy kisses the mommy under the mistletoe, and then he stays home and opens presents with the kids. See, the angel looks just like you.”
The woman glanced over at the white-robed apparition. “Meredith, I’m not an angel. How am I going to convince you?”
Meredith just shrugged. The angel lady probably had to keep it a secret in case everybody wanted miracle dust and there wasn’t enough!
Charlie’s Angels
Cheryl St.John
MILLS & BOON
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CHERYL ST.JOHN
A peacemaker, a romantic, an idealist and a discouraged perfectionist are the words that Cheryl St.John uses to describe herself. The author of both historical and contemporary novels says she’s been told that she is painfully honest.
Cheryl admits to being an avid collector who collects everything from dolls to Depression glass, brass candlesticks, old photographs and—most especially—books. She and her husband love to browse antiques and collectibles shops.
She says that knowing her stories bring hope and pleasure to readers is one of the best parts of being a writer. The other wonderful part is being able to set her own schedule and have time to work around her growing family.
Cheryl loves to hear from readers. You can write her at: P.O. Box 24732, Omaha, NE 68124.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
Christmas was for families. Charlie McGraw glanced around the cheerfully decorated interior of the Waggin’ Tongue Grill. A two-foot artificial tree sat at the corner of the counter by the cash register. Lighted garlands had been draped around the window opening that looked into the kitchen, and from the back Harry Ulrich’s off-key baritone could be heard humming a tune that switched between “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Yellow Submarine” every other stanza. Finally Charlie’s attention wandered to the other patrons.
Snippets of excited conversation drifted his way, making it obvious that Kevin and Lacy Bradford and their two kids had just returned from a shopping trip. Just in time, too, if the snow blowing across the nearly empty parking lot was any indication. Heavy snow had been falling and drifting for most of the day. Charlie wouldn’t have brought Meredith out in this weather without his four-wheel-drive Jeep Cherokee.
At another table, Forrest and Natalie Perry took turns picking up a spoon that their chortling baby girl threw onto the floor. Their son, Wade, chattered while finishing off a dish of ice cream. The Perrys lived within walking distance of the Waggin’ Tongue.
Charlie glanced at his five-year-old daughter. That morning he’d wrestled her curly dark hair into a fabric-covered elastic band, but strands were trailing down her neck already. He should take her shopping when the weather cleared. Try to get in the holiday spirit. Have her pick out some gifts for her grandparents.
With school closed for two weeks and no kindergarten diversion, Meredith was bored and had taken to following him around his workshop, asking at least ten rapid-fire questions a minute. His responder had been on autopilot most of the morning.
“If a doctor cut open your neck, could he see hiccups?” she asked now.
“He could probably see muscles moving or something. I really don’t know. I think hiccups come more from your chest.”
“If he cut open your chest, then could he see hiccups?”
“Maybe. But a doctor wouldn’t do that.”
“Where do French fries grow?”
“You cut potatoes into French fries, and potatoes grow in the ground. In Idaho mostly.”
“Is Idaho far away?”
“It’s in the United States.”
She drowned another fry in ketchup. “When are we gonna get a tree, Daddy?”
“Hmm? Oh, soon. We’ll get one soon.”
“That’s what you said the before time, and Christmas is almost here.”
Charlie channeled his attention to this last real concern of his daughter’s. He leaned over and dabbed a napkin at the corner of her mouth. “I know, honey, but I’ve had a lot of projects to finish so my customers will get their gifts by Christmas.”
She gazed at him with wide blue eyes. “When my mommy was here and I was a baby, did we have a Christmas tree?”
Charlie prepared himself for another endless stream of mommy questions. “Yes, of course we did.”
“Did we have a beautiful angel on top of the tree?”
“We have a star for the top, remember? Same one we’ve always had.”
Meredith plopped another dripping fry into her mouth and reached beside her for the book she’d carried everywhere for the past two weeks. He’d picked it up for her at the Dime Store, and she’d insisted he read it to her several times a day.
“We could go over to the library and borrow some new books,” he suggested. He knew that one by heart.
“Do they have angel books at the libary?”
“I don’t know. We’ll have to ask Miss Fenton when we get there. If it’s still open. Take a bite of your burger.”
Charlie’s meal was nearly gone and Meredith was still munching fries and asking questions. He picked up her hamburger and fed her a bite.
She chewed and swallowed before asking, “Is my mommy a angel now?”
Charlie didn’t believe people turned into angels, but he didn’t want to destroy any belief that gave his daughter comfort. “What do you think?”
“I think we should find a new mommy for me. You could marry Miss Fenton, Daddy, and she could come live with us.”
“Meredith, I barely know Miss Fenton.”
“What about my teacher, then, Miss Ecklebe? She’s real pretty and she sings nice.”
“That’s Mrs. Ecklebe. She’s already married.”
Meredith frowned and her rosy lips puckered in displeasure. “Oh.”
She’d become obsessed with wanting a mother and talked to him about it incessantly. Though he’d been widowed for several years, Charlie had no desire to find another wife. Just another flaw in his character, perhaps, but he didn’t believe true love actually existed, and he couldn’t live his life doing things just because other people wanted him to. He’d been down that road before and had no desire to revisit.
Charlie laid his hand on his daughter’s dainty shoulder. “We don’t really need anyone else. We’ve got each other.”
Her dark lashes swept up and those blue eyes fixed on him as if to say, Maybe you don’t need anyone else, bub. If she was fifteen, she’d have said, Yeah, right.
Why should he feel guilty? That was what this twinge in his chest was, right? No reason for guilt. None whatsoever. A man didn’t go in search of a woman just to appease a lonely child. It would be different if he were lonely himself.
Okay, so maybe he was a little lonely. But not enough.
But what would he do when she was fifteen? The thought scared him senseless.
He glanced away from Meredith’s assessing gaze to the Bradfords. Sure, they looked like the ideal little family: beautiful wife, one girl who looked like her mom, a little guy with a chin like his daddy’s, but who knew what went on at home? Or what didn’t. True and lasting love only existed in the movies…and then you never actually saw past the credits to what happened when the bills rolled in and disagreements crept up. No, not enough.
Against his better judgment, Charlie glanced at Forrest and Natalie Perry holding hands on top of the table. If he didn’t believe that, he’d have to believe it was a flaw in his character; other couples seemed happy.
Meredith’s attention turned to the window beside their booth and he followed her gaze. A silver rig with blue detailing pulled into the lot, snow swirling around the cab and trailer as it rolled to a stop. The words Silver Angel were emblazoned on the door, a painted pair of wings adorning the S, a tilted halo floating above the A.
“What’s that say?” Meredith’s voice was laced with awe.
“Silver Angel,” he told her.
She grabbed up her book. “Look! It’s just like the halo on my angel book!”
“So it is.”
They watched as the driver’s door opened and a parka-bundled figure stepped down into the snow and trudged toward the café.
The bell over the door rang.
The driver of the rig stomped snow onto the mat and removed thick gloves, a blast of icy air snaking in and reaching Charlie’s ankles.
A slender hand raised to push back the hood of the parka. A shiny waterfall of silver-blond hair spilled across the snow-flecked shoulders of the coat. The ethereally beautiful woman looked like no trucker Charlie had ever seen. Pink tinged her model-perfect cheekbones, and she stuffed the gloves into her pockets before rubbing her hands together.
Meredith inhaled audibly, but Charlie felt as though it had been him. He couldn’t seem to fill his lungs, and his chest hurt.
The woman hung her coat on one of the pegs inside the door, revealing a slender shape in long-legged, hip-hugger jeans and a soft-looking pale pink sweater that emphasized her tiny waist. She made her way to the counter, and as she did, every eye in the place was focused on her.
She glanced around, almost self-consciously, nodding a greeting to the families at the tables, before her gaze landed on Charlie and Meredith.
If he didn’t take a breath soon, Charlie was going to pass out. He concentrated on breathing in and releasing the air slowly, inconspicuously. He would never admit he’d been waiting for her to look their way.
Her extraordinary eyes were the most translucent blue he’d ever seen, combining with her unusual hair and silver-hued brows for a dazzling prettiness. She smiled and gave them a little wave.
Meredith waved back, delightedly. “Daddy, she’s so pretty!”
The young woman turned toward Shirley Rumford who handed her a menu and placed a glass of water in front of her. “What’ll ya have, sweetie?”
The vision tucked her hair behind her ear while she looked over the menu, revealing a pearl earring in the lobe of her shell-shaped ear. “Something hot. It’s freezing out there. What kind of soup do you have?”
Shirley chanted the short list of soups.
The Perrys called a goodbye to Shirley and left the café, bundling children out into the cold. A few minutes later, the Bradfords paid for their meal and followed. Charlie’s gaze was drawn back to the young woman at the counter.
“Daddy, can I go see her up close?” Meredith whispered, none too quietly.
Charlie caught himself staring and turned his attention to the cup of coffee in front of him. “No, it’s rude to stare, and we’re going to mind our own business.”
“But—”
“Meredith, turn around and finish your hamburger so we can go see if the library’s open.”
His daughter plopped back onto the seat and crossed her arms over her chest. With a dejected pout, she stared at her plate. Five minutes later she still hadn’t finished her food.
“You’ve only taken two bites,” he said. “You work on that while I use the rest room and pay our bill.”
“Okay.” She sighed and picked up the cold hamburger.
Charlie headed back to the rest room.
Meredith sneaked another peek at the angel lady who’d come in from the storm. She was the most prettiest angel ever, even prettier than the treetop angel who came to life in her book.
She flipped open to the page where the angel sprinkles the mommy and daddy with miracle dust and they kiss under the mistletoe. In the picture, all colors of lights twinkled on the beautiful Christmas tree, and three little kids with fuzzy slippers and happy smiles watched from between the stair rails.
If Meredith could get an angel to sprinkle her daddy with miracle dust, he would be happy again. Happy like he used to be. Happy enough to get a new mommy for her, and then they would be a family, just like the family in the book.
Daddy hadn’t been happy for a long time.
She tucked the book under her arm, gave the semi-trailer a long assessing look and turned her focus back to the angel lady who was paying Miss Rumford for her food.
Meredith had an idea.
Charlie returned from the rest room to find both red vinyl seats of their booth empty. More than half of Meredith’s cold burger sat on her plate. She must have gone into the other rest room.
He sat and observed the snow for a few minutes. Checked his watch. Glanced around the deserted café. Finally he got up and wandered back to the narrow hall that held the rest rooms. Tapping on the door to the women’s, he called, “Meredith, you about done in there?”
No reply.
“Meredith? Hello?” Maybe she wasn’t in there. He opened the door six inches and called again. “Meredith? Anyone in there?”
Lord, maybe she’d fallen and hurt herself! He shoved the door open and searched the tiny room with two sectioned-off toilets and a sink. Empty. His heart kicked into overdrive.
Spinning on his heel, he hurried back out into the café. The booth where they’d been sitting was still empty. The room was devoid of customers. Shirley was setting napkin-wrapped rolls of silverware on tables. “Shirley, did you see where Meredith went?”
The sixty-something woman looked up from her chore. “I thought she was in the back with you.”
“No, she was right here when I went to the men’s room.”
“I didn’t see her, Charlie.” Shirley called to the kitchen, “Harry, you seen anything of the McGraw girl?”
Harry and Shirley had owned and run the Waggin’ Tongue together for a hundred years, old friends, apparently without romantic involvement, though speculation in Elmwood ran high.
Harry pushed open the swinging door from his domain. “Charlie’s little one?”
“Have you seen her?” Charlie asked, real panic lacing his voice now and wrapping his throat tight. He purposefully swallowed the alarm and took a deep, measured breath to keep his thoughts rational.
“Haven’t seen anyone. Been in the back room countin’ supplies.”
Unconvinced until he saw for himself, Charlie pushed past Harry. A few cartons had been stacked here and there; a chain guard and bolt locked the rear door. He inspected the back room, where Harry’s grocery list lay on a stool.
“She has to be here somewhere,” he said to convince himself, pushing through the swinging door and hurrying to check places he’d obviously missed.
He peered under every table and booth, behind the potted plants. He straightened like a shot. Her puffy pink coat was gone. Turning and staring at the empty seat, his frazzled brain registered what the absence of Meredith’s coat meant. “She went outside.”
Without bothering to grab his own coat, he sprinted out the front door. She must have tired of waiting for him, or still pouting, had gone out to the Jeep to wait. Maybe she’d been impatient to get to the library.
Fully expecting—praying—to find her in the unlocked vehicle, he ran forward and yanked open the passenger side door. His gaze shot to the empty seat…the bare floor. No puffy pink coat. No angel book. No Meredith.
Leaving the door standing open, Charlie stared around the deserted parking lot, the frigid biting wind bringing tears to his eyes, his chest hurting as though someone was standing on it.
Running back toward the café, he studied the ground for footprints. Something caught his eye, and he bent to pick it up. A pink mitten.
Charlie held it while the pressure in his chest built to a painful crush. The area in front of the door was completely trampled, and his own boot prints were plainly visible, though quickly filling with blowing snow. The wind erased any evidence within precious minutes.
Shirley opened the door and called out. “Find her, Charlie?”
He shook his head, trying to make sense of Meredith’s disappearance, trying to keep his terror under control so he could think straight and find her.
Harry, bundled in a plaid wool coat, brought Charlie’s brown leather jacket out to him. Charlie pulled it on and stuffed the mitten into the pocket. Together they made a circular check of the building and the parking lot, checked the locked car that sat at the corner with a For Sale sign obliterated by snow. They searched beside the ice machine and the cold drink machines and inside the enormous trash container.
“I’d better call the sheriff,” Charlie said, his voice as calm as though someone else was speaking. Odd, because on the inside he was screaming his head off and crying like a baby. “And I need to check the library.”
Shirley wore a stricken look of concern when they returned and Charlie lunged toward the phone behind the counter. She grabbed Harry’s arm and the café owners watched Charlie with eyes round and wide. Nothing like this ever happened in Elmwood. No one had ever been—
Charlie stopped his thoughts dead and punched numbers on the phone. The deputy, Duane Quinn, answered. “This is Charlie McGraw,” he managed to say. “My daughter is missing.”
Chapter Two
Time had never passed so slowly. Charlie threw up his meal, followed later by the cup of coffee he drank to calm his nerves and wash the taste of fear out of his mouth. The sheriff, Bryce Olson, showed up and made the same search of the premises, coming to the same conclusion: Meredith was nowhere to be found. Bryce jotted notes on an incident report clamped to a clipboard.
“Who else has been in here?” he asked Shirley. The lawman showed genuine concern, which comforted Charlie at the same time it terrified him, because this was all too real.
“The Perrys were here,” Shirley told Bryce. “The Bradfords, too. And a lovely young woman trucker. That’s it. Weather’s keeping people home.”
At her mention of the weather, Charlie’s alarm intensified. Had Meredith run off into the cold alone? She wouldn’t. Would she? She was only five; she didn’t know all the dangers.
Had someone taken her out on the treacherous snow-drifted roads? Deliberately taken her?
“Let’s call the Perrys and the Bradfords,” Bryce said. “What about this woman you mentioned? Anything suspicious about her?”
Shirley shook her head. “Had some soup and bought coffee to go.”
Charlie knew there were plenty of demented people in the world. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the possibility of that beautiful young woman being a part of anything like that. But the television news relayed stories every week about abducted children. He’d heard all those horror stories about teenage girls being drugged and taken away from malls to be sold into prostitution. His stomach contracted again.
Meredith had to be all right, because Charlie didn’t know how he could deal with it if she wasn’t. If anything happened to his little girl…or if he never knew what became of her…
Stop. Get a grip on yourself. There’s a simple explanation. She would turn up and he’d have to decide whether to spank her or hug her first. Even if that woman was part of a kidnapping operation, how would she have known that she’d find a child in this particular out-of-the-way café in a storm? The hand he raised to his forehead was shaking, so he stuffed it into his jacket pocket…where his fingers found the soft material of her mitten.
Panic rose in his throat and he swallowed it down.
Bryce’s cell phone rang and he answered it quickly. “Olson. Yeah, Sharon.” Sharon was the sheriff’s dispatcher, and Bryce listened before he spoke. “Nothing, huh. Okay. Give me numbers for Forrest Perry and Kevin Bradford.” A moment later Bryce jotted phone numbers on the edge of his paper. “Okay. Stay put.” He disconnected the call.
“Clarey Fenton closed the library early,” he told Charlie. “Over an hour ago. Duane checked the streets between here and there. Nothing.”
Charlie absorbed the information.
The sheriff called both of the families who’d been in the café and learned nothing, then clipped the phone to his belt. “I’m gonna call the state boys.”
Charlie nodded, numbness setting in.
“We should probably even have ’em watch the road for that truck, since it’s our only other possibility.”
“It had an angel on the side,” Charlie said. “The cab was silver with blue detailing, and the logo on the door read Silver Angel.”
“Real good, Charlie. That’ll give ’em something to go on.”
“Maybe she tried to go home,” Charlie said suddenly.
“Would Meredith do that?”
“This whole thing doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know what she’d do. I’d better drive along the road and look.”
“I’ll get my truck and we can check both sides,” Harry said.
It was two miles to Charlie’s log home. A long way for a little girl in a snowstorm. A little girl without snow boots or insulated pants. He’d carried her from the house to the Jeep and from the Jeep to the café.
If Meredith was trying to walk, she could easily veer off the road or fall into a ditch.
Charlie got out every fifty feet or so and surveyed the sides of the road and the wooded areas, even calling her name. If she was out here, she might hear him.
But he didn’t know. He just didn’t know where she might be and that was the worst. A patrol car paused beside him. Duane Quinn rolled down the window. “I’ll check up ahead, Charlie. We’ll take turns and that way, we’ll have the entire road covered. Bryce has organized a search in town.”
Charlie nodded, grateful, but desperation and self-reproach were clamping down hard on his control. She’d been bored and lonely, and he’d been putting in long hours at his shop. He could have taken time to go pick out a tree and decorate it—should have, but work dulled the edges of his pain like a narcotic.
He hadn’t been there for his child. He’d wasted all those precious hours he should have been spending with her. What would any of that matter if something happened to her?
Duane drove the cruiser on ahead, and Charlie watched the tire tracks fill with snow. His gaze traveled to the bleak, barren trees and white-covered undergrowth. He reached into his pocket and fingered the soft mitten.
Meredith could be anywhere. He pictured her dark hair curling against her neck and the shoulders of her pink coat; remembered those blue eyes, eyes of innocence. His child, so full of life and questions that she bubbled over with energy, could be in serious danger, and he was helpless.