Daddy's Angel

She felt his anger that God could have allowed such a thing to happen.

The newborn was a healthy little boy with his mother’s black curls and gray eyes. Bret gave him the name Patti had picked for a boy—Travis.

Travis was four months old his first Christmas. If the older children hadn’t insisted, Bret wouldn’t have put up a tree that year. He found the season too painful a reminder of other years when Patti had been by his side.

The children missed their mother with a heartbroken intensity. Having the new baby to care for kept them going. Travis became their focal point. Taking care of him helped to heal their pain and ease their loss.

Three more years had passed and it was Christmastime once again, the fourth Christmas the Bishop family had spent without Patti. Noelle wanted to weep at the harsh changes that had taken place in Bret.

The laughing young man she’d first caught sight of all those years ago was gone, never to be seen again. In his place was a grim-faced rancher with overwhelming duties and responsibilities.

Bret had adjusted to his new way of life in some ways. He’d grown accustomed to being on his own with the children. He made certain he was there whenever they needed him. He planned his work schedule around their school schedules. He watched over them and supervised them.

What saddened Noelle the most was that over the years Bret had lost more than his mate.…

Bret had lost his belief in the goodness of life.

Bret had abandoned all his hopes and dreams.

Noelle knew that yet another upheaval was soon to cause additional problems for the Bishop family. Unfortunately, as a mere Christmas tree angel she didn’t have the jurisdiction to change certain events that had already been set into motion. She understood that every seemingly random event had a positive reason and result behind it. However, she knew that Bret wouldn’t see the event in that light. He would see another burden placed on his shoulders.

She was afraid for him…afraid he would falter under his grim load of responsibilities because he’d lost sight of the very things that could lighten the burdens for him.

Somehow, someway, she wanted to be able to help him—to ease his load, to help him regain some of his beliefs about life, to help him to understand how things have a way of working out if we only give them a chance.

If we only believe.

Noelle contacted her supervisor to discuss the present situation in the Bishop household. She had a request to make—a very special request—one that was most unusual but because of the upcoming emergency, most necessary.

She knew the risks. As an angel she had never taken human form, never experienced human emotions, never been plagued by earthly considerations. She knew there would be limitations placed on her. She knew that, if she was given permission to take a more active role in the Bishop family, she would have to return to her original form no later than midnight on Christmas Eve.

She didn’t know if that would give her enough time to help Bret. She only knew that she had to make the effort before he gave up on life completely.

She had to try.

Chapter One

Dark clouds rolled along the northern horizon, adding an urgency to Bret’s movements. He gave the barbed wire an extra twist of his wrist, then wearily straightened and looked along the fence he’d recently mended.

No doubt a deer had pulled the top strand loose while bounding across the fence, causing the line to sag. He’d been checking all the fence lines of his ranch for the past several days. Some of the terrain was too rugged for him to use his pickup truck, his usual mode of conveyance. For the last two days he’d ridden Hercules.

Perhaps traveling around the ranch on horseback had prompted the recurrence of his memories of Patti. After all, Patti had given Hercules to him. She’d always enjoyed riding with him whenever she could get away for a few hours.

No doubt his saddling up Hercules and riding him yesterday had triggered the dreams he’d had last night.

He’d dreamed that Patti was alive. She’d been there next to him, holding him, talking to him, loving him.

His dream had seemed so real.

In it he told her that he thought she’d died. They laughed about such a silly idea. She’d held him in her arms and told him that she would never leave him. Not ever.

In the first seconds of awakening that morning he’d reached for her with joy in his heart, glad to be through with the nightmare of doing without her, only to find the other side of the bed empty.

He’d opened his eyes and realized the truth.

Patti was gone. She’d been gone for more than three years now.

No doubt his vivid dream the night before had caused the ache of missing her to be so strong today. He’d been feeling her loss all day in the same way he’d felt during those first black months when he hadn’t believed he could go on without her.

A soft whine and the familiar weight leaning against his knee called Bret back to the present. He glanced down and rubbed his hand over Rex’s head, glad for the German shepherd’s company.

Even though the dog was getting up in years, he continued to follow Bret around the ranch, generally riding in the truck cab when it was raining or cold.

“Yeah, I know, old man,” he murmured. “The wind’s picking up and we’ve got a ways to go before we’re home, with no truck heater to take the chill off.”

Bret glanced around, seeing the gusts of wind create eddies of silt around them. He readjusted his broad-brimmed hat, pulling it low over his eyes, and headed over to where the horse waited.

The creak of the leather made a familiar sound as he mounted the horse and gathered the reins in his gloved hand. He glanced to the north, narrowing his eyes as he measured the swiftness of the clouds racing toward him.

Those clouds looked ominous, threatening cold wind and icy rain. He didn’t want to get caught in the hills when the rain hit. The footing among the rocks and cacti was dangerous enough in the best of conditions. Hopefully they would make it to the ranch road before the threatened downpour reached them.

Bret started down through the heavy underbrush of the rock-strewn hillside. Rex followed close behind.

Now that he was headed home, Bret’s thoughts raced on ahead to his family, his expression growing more grim.

Chris had reminded him over breakfast this morning that they needed to get a tree before the yearly shipment of firs were all picked over. Chris, especially, insisted on keeping all the family traditions Patti had started. Even to the point of dragging out the same decorations year after year.

Thinking about the decorations reminded Bret of the year he’d suggested to Patti that they should replace the bedraggled-looking Christmas tree angel they’d found the first Christmas they were married.

The tiny figure had lost the tip of one of her wings, her dress hung limp and the glitter had long since disappeared from her halo. Patti had been shocked and incensed that he would suggest such a thing. The angel was part of the Bishop Christmas tradition.

Now the children were just as bad about adhering to tradition. Christmas season didn’t officially begin in the Bishop household until the tree was up, decorated and Bret had placed the angel with great ceremony at the top.

If Chris had his way, Bret would be up on the stepladder tonight, clutching the tiny ornament in his hand.

Bret had tried to explain that he didn’t have time to go to town today, that he had too many other things to do. That’s when Chris had asked if he could get Roy to take him to get the tree.

Bret didn’t know what he would have done during the past three years without Roy Baker. The ranch hand originally had been a part of the crew that worked for Bret’s father ever since Bret had been a teenager. When Patti died, Roy—with no commotion—had moved to Bret’s ranch and taken over the daily chores around the place. He knew as much about ranching as anybody in the district, but had never wanted the responsibility of his own place.

Roy was exactly the kind of friend Bret had needed during that black time after Patti’s death, when Bret hadn’t been certain he could survive without Patti by his side.

Roy had filled in wherever he was needed. A shy man only a few years older than Bret, Roy understood what needed to be done to keep the ranch in working order without Bret having to mention it.

Bret had been grateful for the help. They had never discussed whether the move would be temporary or permanent, but during the past three years Roy had settled into the small house that was part of the ranch buildings and become an integral part of the Bishop family circle.

Bringing a brand-new motherless child home from the hospital had been a painful and traumatic time for all of them. Bret hated to think what they would have done if fate, in the form of another lifelong friend, hadn’t come to his rescue.

Freda Wilkenson had spent her early youth caring for her invalid mother and had never had time to develop a social life of her own. A few years older than Bret, Freda, timid and soft-spoken, approached him with a suggestion a few days after he’d brought Travis home.