Finally Satisfied by Tori Scott Read Free Book Online Page B

practicing what she’d learned from Vanessa.
Relax. Breathe. Act.
    “Sure. I don’t know how much help I’ll be
since I’ve never bought kid gifts before, but I’ll tag along.”
    It was his turn to breathe a sigh of relief.
Sometimes being with Angel was like walking a minefield. You never
knew when you were going to step in it and blow your last chance.
“Great.” He made a U-turn and headed back to the toy store. “Might
as well start here.”
    The store was crowded with holiday shoppers.
Angel hated crowds. Crowds were filled with happy families,
teenagers she couldn’t stop staring at, mothers she couldn’t help
but envy. She thought about leaving, but the one thing Vanessa had
challenged her to do this week was to face the things that made her
want to run. She’d already faced Mitch and triumphed over the urge
to run. She had to face this hurdle, too.
    With renewed determination, she smiled and
said, “Lead the way.”
    She was relieved when he bypassed the aisles
filled with baby items. She’d known from the time she was six
months pregnant that she had to give her baby up, so she’d made a
point of never, ever allowing herself to shop for baby items, or
even be caught in the baby aisle. Not hard at all when she did all
her shopping online. And if a friend had a baby and a gift was
needed, she’d found gift cards were the easiest way to avoid
thinking about it for long.
    “I know Eric has two kids, but what about
your sisters?” She needed to keep him focused and on task. She
didn’t know how long her bravery would last.
    “Susannah has three girls, Erin has a girl
and a boy, and Jessica doesn’t have any yet. Their ages range
between five and twelve years old.” He turned down an aisle filled
with bright pink boxes. “Barbie stuff is a safe bet for the two
younger girls . The twelve year old, Beth, has outgrown them.
She’ll be the hardest to buy for.”
    “Not necessarily. Clothes always work for
that age. Have you checked their wish lists?”
    He stopped and looked at her. “What wish
list? You mean, like, letters to Santa? “
    Angel laughed. “You don’t spend much time
online, do you?”
    “Other than work-related stuff, no.”
    “Most people these days have wish lists on
Amazon. We should check their lists to see what they want.” She
pulled out her phone, punched a few keys, then asked, “Okay, their
lists are probably embedded under their mothers’ names, so what are
those?”
    He gave her the info and in another minute
she handed him the phone. “Looks like Susannah’s girls still like
Barbie, so let’s get those first.” She turned to the shelves and
scanned the multitude of choices. “How much do you want to
spend?”
    Once they’d filled the cart with pink boxes,
they moved to the video game section for the oldest girl. Mitch
looked uncertain. “Are you sure this is what she wants?”
    “Look at her list. The games are all listed
as high priority, the other stuff is marked low, so I suspect those
were her mother’s idea.”
    It only took a minute to pick out a couple of
games for Beth. Mitch checked for a wish list for Eric’s kids as
well and sure enough, they both had one. Which made the rest of the
shopping a breeze. With the addition of a bicycle for Erin’s boy,
they were finished way before he was ready. He’d figured the
shopping would take several hours. It always did when he went by
himself.
    Though Angel seemed anxious to get out of the
store, she didn’t seem anxious to go home, so he suggested they go
to his house, where she could help him wrap the gifts and he could
ply her with hot chocolate. To his surprise, she agreed.
    She’d made a lot more progress than he’d
realized.
     
     

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Angel was more impressed than she wanted to
be. Mitch had grown up with several siblings in a small frame house
in a working class neighborhood, so she’d expected him to go for a
big, flashy house up in the hills now that he was a doctor.
Instead,