Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance) (38 page)

“I guess we both got caught up in the excitement of picnics and long summer evenin’s filled with fireworks. It was only after we were married that we ever spent any time alone together. She got a real look at me then, outside the surroundings of Lundy’s fancy dinner parties. She saw this place, and me, for what we really were. By the time it sank in on her, it was too late. She was already with child.”

Angel blinked back the threat of tears. “Why did you never tell me any of this before?”

He shrugged. “I figured it would hurt you to know.”

“It does hurt,” she admitted. “Did she even care...” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the question.

“About you?” he asked, peering into her eyes.

She nodded.

“You were the one thing she did care about,” he said. “Before she died, she made me promise I’d send you back to her folks in New York. She didn’t want you growin’ up here. And she sure as hell didn’t want me to have a hand in your raisin’.”

Angel frowned. “But you didn’t follow her wishes. Why not?”

“Didn’t want to.” A sheepish grin briefly compressed his lips. “You were my little girl, and I was proud as hell of you. You thrived here, grew strong. Hell, you could ride a horse before you learned to walk.”

He fell silent and absently raked a fingernail over a callus on his thickened hand.

In that moment, he was more exposed than Angel had ever seen him. She never dreamed her heart could break all over again. For her father, no less. But it did. For the first time in her life, she ached to reach out to him.

“I don’t even know where the years went,” he continued. “They just flew. First thing I knew, you were turning into a woman and people were startin’ to talk cause I let you run wild as a Comanche.” He dropped his hand to the top of his thigh and shrugged. “I started feelin’ guilty. Maybe your mama had the right idea after all. I knew I couldn’t hold onto you forever, so I decided to try it her way. I couldn’t send you to her folks, of course, since they’d already passed on. So I did the next best thing and sent you to her sister.”

Angel sat a long moment with her brows knitted, trying to sort out all the things he’d told her. There was a message in it somewhere, but she wasn’t quite sure she grasped it.

She leaned down and peered into his face. “Let me get this straight. Are you trying to tell me you
liked
me the way I was before?”

He bridled and stared at her as if she’d said something ridiculous. “Course I liked you. Why wouldn’t I? While you were gone, I missed the hell out of you. I wanted you home.”

“So you sent for me.”

“Yeah. And then when I saw you again, it scared the hell out of me.”

She shook her head. “That makes no sense.”

“You’d changed,” he explained. “You looked just like her.”

She recalled the first evening she’d dressed in one of her fashionable gowns and styled her hair. He’d walked into the room and looked like he’d seen a ghost.

“Not only that, you talk all proper now and have to have everything in the house just so-so. I didn’t figure you’d want to be here anymore. After what happened, I was afraid all the talk would start up again. I was afraid you’d want to leave. So I got the idea of gettin’ you hitched up with Will.”

At the mention of the man’s name, she rolled her eyes. “Pa, Will only had one thing on his mind. Getting his hands on the Flying C. And he didn’t care who he had to hurt to accomplish it.”

“Well, he won’t be throwin’ his weight around here anymore.”

“No. Not after today,” she agreed.

He sighed and turned his tired looking eyes on her. “I don’t know, Angel. Everything’s gotten into such a tangle. Do you think we’ll ever be able to get it all straightened out again?”

She scooted closer and was surprised when he slipped his arm across her back.

“I think we will, Pa. For the first time, I truly think we will.”

He sighed again and closed his hand around her upper arm, coming as close to hugging her as she could ever remember. She laid her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. He smelled of tobacco and sun-drenched cotton, with an underlying earthiness of honest male sweat. She smiled, filled with a sense of peace. At last—at long, long last—she’d finally come home.

Far too soon Angel felt her father stiffen as he sat up straighter. “Rider comin’,” he murmured. He pulled his arm from behind her back and stood.

The harmonious moment dissolved like vapor when she climbed to her feet next to him. Out on the lane, the hoofbeats of a cantering horse broke the stillness. She shaded her eyes. It was the black stallion, Pago, with Rane seated tall and resolute in the saddle.

“Are there any final words you need to say before I talk to this man?”

She dropped her hand and stared at her father, aghast. Had the past thirty minutes never happened? “I told you, Pa. I love him. I have no idea what you’ve heard, but he’s a good, decent man.”

He started down the steps. “I’ll try to remember that.”

Rane walked the big horse the final distance, then halted and sat there, waiting. Somewhere, he’d changed into a fresh shirt and washed the blood from his face. His dark gaze turned in her direction for a mere instant, and she offered a tenuous smile. Then he focused on her father with a familiar wariness in his eyes.

“Climb down and cool your heels,” her father said.

Without turning his back, Rane levered his right leg over the cantle and dropped to the ground. He released his reins and stepped forward, until he stood face to face with her father.

Roy stared at him a long moment, as though taking his measure. “Last time I saw you, you looked like you’d been drug through a slaughterhouse behind a rank horse.”

Angel pressed a hand to her mouth, heartened to hear a teasing note in his voice.

Rane still looked uncertain of his welcome. “I... What you did in town earlier. I’m beholden.” He thrust out his hand.

Slowly, Roy shoved his own hand forward and they shook. “I can’t help wonderin’ what possessed you to go into town without your gun.”

“That was my fault,” she injected. “I made him promise not to wear it anymore.”

Roy brows crowded his hairline. “And you listened to her?”

Angel’s knees still turned weak when she thought about how close he’d come to dying that day, all because she’d asked him not to wear his gun. She would never make that mistake again.

Confusion flickered in Rane’s eyes. “You asked me here for an explanation about what happened in town.”

“I
ordered
you here to find out exactly what your intentions are regarding my daughter,” Roy amended.

“My intentions.”

“Yeah.”

Still looking like he expected a fist between the eyes at any second, Rane said, “I had planned to do this differently. But since you ask about my intentions then I’ll tell you they are honorable. I want to marry your daughter.”

“Why do you want to marry her?” Roy fired back.

“Why,” Rane repeated. His brows beetled. He opened his mouth once and then closed it again. He was getting so flustered, Angel hoped her father would take pity on him soon.

“Because I love her,” he blurted at last.

Angel’s heart welled until it was impossible to stop the tears that spilled from her eyes. Rane was too busy glaring at her father to notice.

“Don’t worry,” he continued. “I have no plans to snatch her from your home and set her down in the middle of hardship. I’m trying to build a herd. I know it will take some time, but I believe I can bring the Hacienda back and turn it into a profitable operation, like the one you have here. This is what I planned, and I think it will be worth waiting for. I only want the best for Angel. I want to make her happy.”

“And you think she will be?” Roy asked. “With you?”

“Yes,” Rane replied with conviction.

Angel’s heart stampeded. It was now or never. She lifted her hand and called out, “Excuse me.”

Both men swiveled on their heels to look at her.

Having the full strength of their combined, undivided attention trained on her threatened to strip her courage. She pulled in a fortifying breath. “I hate to put a hitch in your negotiations, but I don’t think this plan is going to work.”

Now they both looked puzzled. She ventured to the bottom of the steps. “It’s your time frame that concerns me.”

“What’s wrong with wantin’ to get on his feet before marriage?” her father demanded.

Angel only had eyes for Rane. With her heart beating to near bursting, she walked to him and laid her hands against his chest. “I meant to tell you the other day at the Hacienda. If you’re going to make an honest woman of me, you need to do it soon.”

He lifted his hands and covered the backs of hers, pressing her palms more firmly against his muscled flesh. His heat penetrated, along with the wild staccato beat of his heart pounding in rhythm to her own. “Why, Angel?” he asked softly.

She tried to smile, but the tremor in her lower lip made it impossible. “Because,” she said, “in less than six months you’re going to be a papa.”

****

Rane walked out the door and found Angel standing at the porch railing. On the horizon, the sinking sun flared with otherworldly brilliance across the sky. Instead of watching the sunset, her eyes were closed.

With light steps, he moved in behind her and slid his arms around her waist. Her familiar warmth and softness beckoned him closer. Sighing with pure contentment, he settled his hips against her sweet, rounded bottom.

She relaxed into him and pillowed the back of her head on his chest. “Mmm,” she murmured. “I can tell you’ve missed me.”

His hands tightened at her waist, gathering her closer still. It had been too long since he’d touched her. Loved her. The instinct to move upward and cup her full breasts in his hands nearly overpowered him. Instead, he turned his hands downward and splayed his fingers over the barely detectable bulge of her stomach.

A baby.
His
baby. Each time he thought of this miracle he wanted to shout to the heavens.

He nestled his nose into Angel’s upswept hair and breathed her, the subtle floral scent that had long haunted his dreams. Was he dreaming still? How had he gotten so lucky?

“Your father is taking it very well,” he said.

“He and I had a talk before you got here.”

“Is that why you told me…”

The whine of the screen door and a soft gasp halted him in mid-sentence. He turned, taking Angel with him. He didn’t dare step from behind the cloak of her skirt just then and risk exposing his aching state of arousal.

Carmella stood with one hand holding to the screened door and a cheesecloth wrapped parcel in the other. A startled expression froze on her face.

Just as quickly, she bit her lip and dropped her gaze to the floor. “
Perdone me, por favor
. I saw Señor Rane leave the house and hoped to catch him before he rides away. I did not mean to interrupt.”

“It’s all right, Carmella. We were just talking,” Angel said.

“Why did you wish to see me?” he asked.

If anything, the question put Carmella even more ill at ease. “I... There was too much pie left from today. I thought you could take some with you when you go.” She held up the parcel. “For you...and Benito.”

“Ahh. I see.” And he did see. Very clearly. The pie was, evidently, a peace offering for her estranged husband. He sucked in his cheek to keep from laughing out loud with satisfaction. “Give it to me, and I’ll see that he gets it.”

“The pie is for you,” she insisted.

“Yes, I know. Me, and Benito.”

She nodded. “
Sí
.” She crossed the porch and placed the cheesecloth into his outstretched hand. “Be sure to tell him I make it,” she added with a twinkle in her eyes.

“I will,” he assured her.

Before she left, she stretched up on tiptoe and kissed them both on the cheek. “I am so happy for you,” she whispered and her dark eyes danced with the proof of her words.

Quietly, Carmella slipped back inside the house, leaving Rane and Angel to settle into their former spot. The sun had slipped lower and dusk quickly stole over the land, shrouding them in the intimacy of shadows. He feathered a kiss against her ear. “In all my dreams, I never thought I’d stand here on your father’s porch and hold you in my arms.”

She sighed, a contented sound. “It is rather like a dream, isn’t it?”

“And the best part is, we don’t have to wake up.”

There would be time later to plan, to build, to think back over the incredible events that had led him to this night. For now, he simply needed to feel Angel in his arms, next to his heart. He desired nothing more. For the first time in his life, he felt complete.

Epilogue

Nearly Six Months Later

The old man shoved his foot against the wood burning in the parlor grate, collapsing a teepee of logs. A brilliant shower of orange and blue sparks shot up the chimney. Earlier, Carmella had witnessed him using his boot in place of the poker and lectured him about tracking soot onto the carpet. For all the good it had done.