A seemingly lost little girl leads Bart to the scene of a horrible accident. As he consoles Sawyer, who crashed his bike into a New York City bus, he finds himself comforted instead when Sawyer offers him a pendant to keep him safe as he heads off to boot camp and eventually war.<br><br>More than a decade later, the pair are reunited on Thanksgiving Day, one on one side of a soup kitchen serving table, one on the other. They nearly miss each other, but fate -- or something else -- seems to want to bring them together.<br><br>It isn’t only on that day, either, but throughout the holiday season, during which Bart discovers the significance of the pendant and both men learn to believe in angels and second chances.

Angel Wings and Bullets

“The doctor said the bump to my head had me hallucinating. Of course there were cops there, but Molly claimed I went on and on about a little girl and this dark haired heavenly spirit with wild hair and stunning black eyes.”


I closed mine, and thought back to the tousled mane the army barber had shaved off with glee. I was glad I kept my place sort of dark—just the TV, ten mini-lights on the tree, a battery angel candle, and the glow of streetlights outside. Unlike at Thanksgiving, I now hoped to God Sawyer wouldn’t realize who I was.


“Molly made me promise that day if anything ever happened to either one of us, we would come back and help the other. ‘We’re all we got left,’ she’d said, because, you know, my mom is the way she is. Molly would have been seventeen about then.”


I sat down after setting the cookies between us. Sideways in my chair, I faced away from Sawyer, too nervous to look at him squarely.


Chapter 8