Sighing, I thought I should probably be honest. Who knew how this was going to turn out. At the end of the day, he abducted a little girl, but I didn’t know whether the current circumstances would change things.
“I’m really not sure, Caroline. All I know for sure is, no matter how long you are both apart, he will always love his special pumpkin.” I flicked her nose as her eyes widened.
“That’s what he calls me.”
Shit. I didn’t think before I spoke. For a moment, I was at a loss for words.
Pulling away from me, she cupped my face and looked deep into my eyes. “Are you superwoman?”
Her question shocked the hell out of me. “What do you mean?”
“You have superpowers. I can tell. I can feel it all around you. You make me feel nice.”
I was absolutely speechless. How do I answer something like that? I was so consumed by her presence and her willingness to see into me that I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I wasn’t even aware Simon and Molly were right behind us until Molly spoke. “Caroline, what are you doing to the poor girl?”
“I always told you I had a guardian angel, didn’t I, Mummy?”
For a moment, I thought my heart had stopped beating. Suddenly, all the oxygen had disappeared as the shock and adrenaline pumped through my body.
Looking over at Simon, my eyes locked onto his. The expression on his face was one of amazement as he stared at his beautiful, intelligent, and perceptive niece.
“Yes, you did, Caroline. Now, come on. We need to get going home. It’s getting cold.”
Caroline didn’t move, though. Instead, she threw her arms around me and held on as tight as she possibly could. “I’m not going now that I’ve found her. I want to stay with angel Cassie. She’s missing someone she loves, too.”
Oh, my god! If I thought this couldn’t get any weirder, I was wrong. I wasn’t the one with the superpowers. This wonderful little girl was. She’d only met me minutes ago, yet she knew more about me than most people.
“Angel Cassie is hurting and needs someone to give her a cuddle.”
All I could do was sit there, wondering how on earth she could possibly know.
Everyone was still as I held this wonderful child in my arms. I could see Simon’s and Molly’s faces. They both looked as utterly bewildered as I did.
After a few moments, I managed to compose myself a little. Stroking her silky hair away from her face, I kissed her forehead. “Thank you, Caroline.”
Her head tilted once again and the sad face was suddenly gone. Now her face radiated happiness. “Everybody needs a hug sometimes, right?”
Chuckling, I laid my hand on her head. “They sure do.”
“Did mine make you feel better?”
Laughing again, I stroked her head. “It sure did. More than you could possibly know.”
“Come along, Caroline. Cassie looks completely and utterly shell-shocked,” Molly laughed.
“Okay, Mummy, but can Cassie come with us to get some ice cream? Please, Mummy?”
Smiling, Molly shook her head. “Only if Cassie has time.” She looked over at me and I suddenly had all sets of eyes bearing down upon me…the most piercing being Caroline’s. She was twitching slightly in anticipation of my answer.
“I always have time for ice cream.”
“Yay!” Caroline shouted as she ran to her mum.
Still completely dumbfounded, I walked towards Simon. “Angel, huh?” he said in an amused tone.
I snorted. “Yeah.”
We walked behind Molly and Caroline, who was now skipping with joy. Simon suddenly stopped and turned to me. His expression said it all. The wheels in his brain were working.
“You can’t be…?” He paused a moment, then shook his head. “Nah,” he said, then carried on walking.
The panic that had risen again suddenly subsided. I had a feeling he wanted to ask me that question, but I knew I wasn’t prepared to answer it. It was okay that an innocent child thought of me as her guardian angel. Children were naturally more perceptive and sometimes wiser than adults. They can sense things that adults couldn’t. However, children’s imaginations tend to run wild, so I was hoping that was all they saw in Caroline. Whatever it was, I could smile in the knowledge that Caroline was a different girl from the one we saw when we first arrived.
I thought it best to change the subject because my head was swimming with it all at the moment. “How are things between the two of you now?”
Placing his hands in his pockets, he smiled as he watched his sister and his niece walking together. “We’re still a long way off, but at least it looks like she’s forgiven me. She was so distraught when she heard Mum was in the hospital because she thought about what she had been missing all these years. She said she would hate to know something happened to one of us before letting us know she still loved and cared for us. Which reminds me, I have something to tell you, but now isn’t the right time. We’ll talk later.”