Some Kind of Angel Read Free Page B

naiveté, it made a strange, unnerving combination.  Heaven knew, I was unnerved.
    “Perhaps you’d like to go and get a cup of coffee while you wait for me.  There’s a nice coffee shop around the corner.”
    “That sounds like an excellent idea.”
    He turned and strolled away from me toward the door.  What was that strange light that shone around him?  It was almost as if he walked about in his own halo.  I shook my head.  Wow, was my imagination on over drive.  It couldn’t be a halo.  It must be some new light Bernard had installed close to the front door.  Either that, or I was lightheaded from having just a cream cheese bagel with my tea this morning.  It took all the determination I had to keep that down.  Then a strange thought occurred to me.  I’d asked Michael’s name but he hadn’t asked mine.  It was if he already knew who I was.  A slight shiver sent goosebumps over my arms.
     
    Michael took his coffee and his cinnamon bun to a window table and looked out at the pedestrians hurrying by.  He sent a mental message to Gabriel. “ You found Sandra and Jim Bower a bigger apartment?”
    “Not without a great deal of trouble ,” Gabriel huffed.
    “ I can’t help Leslie if I’m not close to her.”
    “Just make sure the only ‘help’ you give her is to take her toward her life as it should be.”
    “ Gabriel.  How can you think I’d do anything else?  I’ve watched over Leslie for a very long time.  I have nothing but her best interests at heart.”
    “It looked to me like there was more in her eyes than friendly interest when you came out of that dressing room.”
    “It is your imagination.  Thank you for fixing the sleeves, by the way.”
    Gabriel sighed.  “I thought I’d have some peace with you on earth.  Now I can see it is going to be nothing but trouble.  You have turned me, God’s own trumpeter, into a tailor.”
    “And an excellent one, sir, if I do say so.”
    “Flattery will not avail you,” Gabriel said grumpily, as he took his leave from inside Michael’s head.
    A woman came into the coffee shop.  She looked as if she were in her late thirties.  Her coat was frayed, her hair tangled, her young face desperate.  Michael went on instant alert.  He didn’t need x-ray vision to know she clutched in her coat pocket a bottle of sleeping pills.   Her name was Chloe and she was going to kill herself…because she was pregnant with a child and the wrong man was the father.
    Michael might be naïve about the ways of city people, but he knew it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to approach her.  The miracle would have to be accomplished some other way. 
    There.  There out on the street was a woman about the same age as Chloe.  At her side was a boy child of maybe three.  Yes.  They were exactly what he needed.  Michael closed his eyes.
    “Mommy, mommy, donut, donut.”
    “Oh, ho, my little donut monster.  I can never sneak you past this place, can I?”
    “Please, Mommy?”
    “Well, you are a growing boy.”
    The woman and her child opened the door and entered the shop to stand in the line behind Chloe.
    “Lift me up, Mommy.  I want to see if they have the donut with colored sprinkles.”
    “They always have the donut with colored sprinkles, baby.”
    “But I like it when you lift me up.”
    “I like it when I lift you up, too.  Okay, here we go.”
    Before his mother could stop him, the little boy in her arms leaned over and touched Chloe’s shoulder.  “Excuse me.  Could you move over so I could see if they have the colored sprinkles donut?”
    Chloe turned, thinking what a charming little boy he was…and went pale. 
    The woman holding the boy said, “Chloe?  Chloe Marsden?  I haven’t seen you since college.”
    “Hello, Susan.  It’s…nice to see you again.  You have a little boy.”
    “Yes.  He’s our miracle child.  I tried for five years to become pregnant and it finally happened.  Alex and I couldn’t