Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance) (28 page)

Angel’s heart nearly stopped. He had her right where he wanted her. She tried struggling again, but her actions only made her more aware of him. His groin pegged her hips to the wall, and with each movement, he grew harder against her belly. Did having her under his power excite him? Or was he imagining her with Rane? Either possibility sent her stomach into a sick churn.

“You were supposed to play the little lady when you came back here.” His hot breath blasted her face again. “Your Pa’s been lookin’ forward to gettin’ you hitched all nice and proper. How’s he s’posed to do that with you playin’ loose and easy with that lowdown half-blood? Huh?”

She refused to respond to his goading.

“Just look at you. Miss High and Mighty doesn’t look so high right now. And all this time, you’ve been lookin’ down your nose at me. So, tell me,” he gritted through his teeth. “What’s that Mex got that I don’t have?”

While he spoke, he methodically ground his hips against hers.

Angel knew she should be afraid. Will was out of his mind to accost her this way on her father’s very doorstep. But, as usual, fury burned away caution. She
would
have the last word, and the devil take the hindmost.

She lifted her chin and looked directly into the black voids of his eyes. “You ask what he has,” she said, “so I’ll tell you. He has me, Will.
Me!
”

Anger vibrated through him. So palpable, she flinched despite her bravado. His taut muscles quivered with it. She had pushed too far. She fully expected him to release her wrist and strike her.

He did release her, but only to step back. Angel dropped her arms quickly and stood there, wary and waiting for his next move.

He pulled in several deep breaths through his nostrils, as if striving for calm. “You’re wrong.” Bitterness had replaced the grit in his voice. “He doesn’t have you, and he never will. I’ll see him dead first. Remember that, cause I’ll be watchin’ from now on.”

Angel sucked in a startled breath when he reached toward her. He paused there a moment, as if savoring the fact that he inspired fear in her. Then, he completed the motion and dropped the key down the front of her shirt.

“Damn you.” His bare whisper resonated menace. “You’re supposed to be mine.”

For several long minutes after Will crossed the yard and faded through the door of the bunkhouse, Angel stood frozen in place with her back pressed against the wall.

Chapter Eighteen

Gloom enclosed the house. A slow rain had started falling sometime during the pre-dawn hours. Angel had been awake to hear it. She hadn’t slept at all, and as she descended the back stairs to the kitchen, she couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that plagued her through the wee hours of the night.

In essence, she had confessed her affair with Rane. A stupid move, but Will had pushed her beyond the limits of discretion. Now, she could only wait and wonder what he would do with the information.

She lit a lamp and stood it in the center of the kitchen table. The stove was cold, the ashes inside dead and gray. She rummaged through the corner wood box for pieces of kindling and shoved them into the open portal. The small blaze tried to gutter and was slow to catch. When she was satisfied the flames wouldn’t die, she lifted the iron cover into place and adjusted the damper.

Her first attempt at making coffee ended in spilled grinds. She was in the process of wiping them up when the back door opened, letting in the smells of wet wood and musty earth. The last person she wanted to see was Will Keegan, but there he stood, filling the entire doorway.

“Mind if I come in?” he asked.

She straightened and tossed down her cleaning rag, scattering grinds across the table once more. “If I said yes, I doubt it would make a difference since you’re already here.”

Determined to go about her business and not let him see how he rattled her, she filled the coffeepot with water and sat it on the stove. Drips of water sizzled on the hot iron surface. Behind her, she heard the door close and the scrape of his boots on the wood floor.

Her pulse kicked into a dead gallop. What was he doing here? Blackmail sprang to mind. That, and other possibilities, had kept her awake the entire night. Rather than stand there and drive herself crazy second-guessing, she swiped her hands down the front of her dress and turned to face him.

“What do you want, Will?”

“To talk,” he said.

She threw a glance at the back staircase. “My father will be coming down any minute.”

“Then I guess we’d better hurry and say what we gotta say.”

Out of habit, he’d removed his hat and held it with both hands in front of him. His eyes looked red-rimmed, as though he hadn’t slept either.

Angel crossed to the table, picked up the rag and attacked the spilled grinds again. “After last night, I have nothing more to say to you.” She decided on the spot to call his bluff. “If you intend to tell my father you caught me sneaking into the house, then go ahead and do it. There’s nothing I can do to stop you.”

“I got no intention of runnin’ to the old man with what happened last night.”

“Huh! I would ask why not, but I’m sure I already know. If you tell on me, there would be nothing to stop me from telling him about your disgusting behavior. And since the ‘old man’ is my father, there’s a slight chance he might be more tolerant of me. You, on the other hand, would be out in the road so fast you wouldn’t know what hit you.” She flashed him a mocking smile. “Does that sound about right?”

He glanced at the doorway to the stairs. “Keep your voice down.”

When he edged closer, she gripped the rag in her hand until her knuckles strained the skin, but didn’t give one inch of ground.

“Look,” he said, “we’ve both got a lot to lose here. We’ve been handed a second chance, and you’re about to foul the nest and ruin everything. We both know, no respectable man is gonna come beatin’ down your door. I’m all you’ve got.”

“Pity me,” she murmured.

Yet, his words battered her because he hit too close to the truth. They also instilled her with sadness that went bone deep. As hard as she wished to break free, the vicious cycle of her life kept sucking her deeper into a dark hole, and she saw no way out.

“Since you think so little of me and my tainted virtue, why are you so willing to sacrifice yourself?”

When he opened his mouth, she held up her hand.

“Don’t answer that. I already know. If you marry me, the Flying C will be yours. You’ll become a man of property again, respectable in your own right. You’ll be able to spit in the eye of your family, who turned you out without an acre of ground or a dollar in your pocket. So, as it turns out, I’m also all
you’ve
got—unless you think you can find some other heiress willing to marry the black sheep of the Keegan clan.”

His chuckle held no real warmth or mirth. “Smart girl,” he said. “At least all that high-flown schoolin’ ended up countin’ for somethin’.”

“So you admit it?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t say it. You did.”

Her fingers itched to slap the smirk from his face.

His pale gaze flickered over her, lingering on the bodice of her dress. “It won’t be all bad.” He reached out and stroked a fingertip down her cheek. “I know what it takes to keep a woman happy. I can give you everything you need.”

She flinched away from his touch, disgusted by his blatantly sexual insinuation and his foregone conclusion that they were already as good as wed. What did he think she was? She knew, of course. Her confession last night, coupled with years of rumors that pointed to wanton behavior. He believed she tossed up her skirt for nearly every man she encountered.

Only one person knew the truth, the only one that mattered to her—Rane. That he viewed her as nothing more than a willing and convenient dalliance filled her with wretchedness.

A heavy tread on the back stairs announced her father’s arrival just before he rounded the doorway, pulling his galluses onto his shoulders. His gray-streaked hair stood stiffly on end. She forced a pleasant expression while flames of guilt burned into her cheeks.

Roy’s gray eyes widened when he saw her unexpected visitor, standing there so innocuously with his hat in his hands.

“Mornin’, Will. You’re makin’ your rounds early today. What’s up?”

“I just dropped by to tell you some news I heard this mornin’.”

Angel had to admit, the man was quick on his feet.

Roy detoured to the stove and touched fingers to the coffeepot, then frowned. “What news?”

“Those renegades we saw in town yesterday escaped last night.”

Angel’s head came up quickly. Will was looking straight at her. New alarm thrummed with each rapid beat of her heart.

“How?” she asked.

The small, knowing smile that curved Will’s lips was just for her. “Some Mex stole the key from the guard and turned them loose.”

“Well, that’s a hell of a note,” Roy injected. “Best keep an eye on the horses. If them skulking devils are still around, we’re liable to start missin’ a few.”

“I don’t think there’s any danger of that,” Will added. “I’d say they’re tail to the wind in Mexico by now.”

Angel abandoned the men to their small talk, relieved that Wolf and the others had—evidently—gotten away. She resumed her breakfast preparations while hopelessness for her own predicament closed around her tighter and tighter. There would be no reasoning with Will. He’d set his sights on the brass ring—the Flying C—and she knew he’d stop at nothing to possess it. But he could only get the ranch by going through her, and she would never agree to
any
arrangement between them. Never!

So, what were her options? She realized she had none. If she kept refusing him, Will would eventually find a way to force her into the marriage he sought.

Her frantic thoughts turned to Rane. Savage, killer Rane. Feared and reviled by all who didn’t know him. But she knew him as a gentle, loyal man. Her heart deflated. If only he loved her as she loved him. If she thought there was even a prayer of a chance, she would willingly defy her father and everyone in the state of Texas to be with him. But he didn’t love her. He’d already made that abundantly clear.

Acid tears scalded the backs of Angel’s eyes. Rather than let them fall, she turned her face to the searing heat from the stove and flipped strips of bacon with a long-pronged fork.

Damn you, Rane Mantorres! If only I’d never laid eyes on you!

****

Rane hunched his shoulders against the steady drizzle and watched as dismal dawn crept over the mean looking shack squatted on the outskirts of the village. The one-room structure of warped, mismatched planks and crumbly adobe chinking looked in danger of tumbling over in a stiff breeze. The door was missing and a flimsy, sodden blanket—held in place by a couple of nails—hung over the opening.

With the coming of light, he adjusted the brim of his Stetson to cover the back of his neck and waded across the muddy wagon track that served as a road. Quick and silent, he pushed the blanket aside and slipped into the room.

A tallow candle burned in a shallow bowl, surrounded by an assortment of food-encrusted dishes, atop a small, circular table in the center of the room. The fumes of rancid fat hung thick in the dead air, but didn’t disguise the smells of dirty clothing and unwashed bodies. A variety of snores sawed through the stillness. Moth-eaten blankets lay over the uneven floor where several bodies sprawled in slumber.

After a quick search to get his bearings, Rane walked to the middle of the room, picked up the fluttering candle, and upended the table with a lift of his fingers. The dishes slid to the floor in a resounding crash meant to wake the dead. The table rolled on its edge until Rane’s boot halted it. He reached down and stood it back on its pedestal, then returned the candle dish to its former spot.

Despite the sudden violence, the sleeping transients roused slowly, as lethargic as the denizens of an opium parlor. One by one, they sat up, bleary and blinking as they looked around. The moment they spotted Rane, they scrambled up and scurried out the door like routed rats.

All save one man.

In a corner, Benito Reyes slept on with his crutch cradled to his chest, unfazed by the noise.

Rane paced a slow circle around his quarry while a mixture of disgust and fury roiled inside him. He had imagined this moment and envisioned his vengeance since he learned Benito betrayed him to Lundy’s men. He planted a boot against the saggy trousers covering Benito’s backside and shoved.

“Get up!”

Benito opened his eyes slowly and blinked. Moving slug-like, he sat upright, lifted the heels of his hands and pressed them to his temples. After a moment, his bloodshot gaze focused on Rane’s muddy boots and traveled upward. Recognition, and then shock, leapt to his face. He scrambled to get his feet under him.

Rane wrapped his hand in the front of the little man’s shirt and jerked him to the ends of his toes. Snarling, he propelled Benito against the wall and pinned him. The wall shuddered from the impact and gave up several chunks of loose chinking which dropped to the floor.

Reaching down, Rane pulled the knife from the hidden sheath inside his boot. Benito squealed with terror and slammed his eyes shut.