Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance) (37 page)

He looked at her, the words he’d been speaking dying on his lips. “What the hell’s the matter?”

Angel gasped for breath. “You’ve got to come quick, Pa. It’s Will. He intends to kill Rane!”

Roy’s face crimped. “What the hell?”

“I’ll explain later,” she said. “Just come on! Please!”

****

Rane walked slowly up the middle of the street with a nagging tingle bothering the middle of his back. Behind him, the crowd continued to talk among themselves, their voices louder now that the spectacle had ended. He flexed his right hand, stiff and achy after the punishment he’d just put it through. He’d always avoided fistfights. The sting in his raw knuckles reminded him of the reasons why.

With each step, the warning chill at the center of his spine grew stronger. He scrubbed his palm over the vacant spot against his thigh where his Colt should have rested. An instant of regret flashed through his mind, followed by acceptance. He’d made his choice.

Abruptly, the crowd fell silent. Dead silent.

Rane stopped walking and waited. Breath moved in and out of his body, slow, measured. The jangling nerves in his back had stopped completely. He knew what to expect. He’d been here before. No sudden movements. He stood as though he’d turned to stone in the middle of the street.

“Mantorres!”

The false-fronted buildings amplified Will Keegan’s ragged voice and it echoed along the street like a death knell.

Rane’s heart kicked up another beat, yet he felt the tug against his fingertip as a drop of blood dripped to the street. He pulled in another shallow breath and released it with agonizing slowness.

“Turn around!”

Rane didn’t move a muscle.

“I said, turn around, damn you!”

Slow and easy, Rane lifted his hands from his sides and turned. The crowd had scattered. Only Will Keegan, so bruised and bloodied he was barely recognizable, stood in the street. Sunlight skipped along the nickel-plated barrel of the pistol in his right hand. He shifted his thumb to the hammer and levered it back to full cock. From habit, Rane counted the sound of the metallic clicks.

Every nerve in his body thrummed as he looked down the barrel of the loaded gun. Hard as he tried, he couldn’t distance himself. Not from the pain. Not from the emotions burning through him like a virulent fever. Most of all, not from the desire to go on living now that he had something worth living for.

Had he changed so much he’d lost his edge?

“Do you plan to shoot me in cold blood, Keegan?” He raised his hands higher. “I’m not wearing a gun.”

Keegan spat a mouthful of bloody froth into the dirt. “I aim to kill you any way I can.”

“No! Stop it!”

The shout jerked Rane’s gaze from the gun in Keegan’s hand to the woman running with awkward lunges along the walkway. Angel! She held to her father’s arm, practically dragging him with her.

When they drew even with Keegan, Roy pulled her to a stop. He shook off her grasp and stepped into the street. “Put that gun away, Will!”

“No! This is between him and me. Stay out of it!”

Roy didn’t budge. “Look at him, man! He ain’t even armed!”

Rane dared a glance at Angel. She stood on the walk, her breast heaving, staring at him with fear running wild in her eyes.

“Cold blood, Will,” Roy reasoned. “Don’t do it!”

Keegan canted his head. His gaze moved restlessly behind swollen eyelids, as though assessing the onlookers crowded close against the buildings on both sides of the street. His upper lip curled back from his clamped teeth. Evidently, he didn’t like the size of his audience.

“So I’ll even things up,” he said. Without losing his aim, dead center of Rane’s chest, he palmed the pistol still resting in the holster against his left hip. After a bare second’s hesitation, he slung it through the air.

The gun hit the dirt and skidded to a stop little more than two feet in front of Rane.

“There you go, greaser,” Keegan yelled. “Now pick it up.”

In the dead silence that followed, Rane stared at the revolver. Unconsciously, he curled the fingers of his right hand and then relaxed them again. His palm itched for the familiar feel of it. The smooth grain of the curved butt, the precise balance and weight.

He looked at Keegan, at the barrel of the gun in his hand and detected a slight dip for a fraction of an instant. The man’s arm was tiring.

“Pick it up!”

Rane flicked another glance at the gun in front of him, gauging his chances of getting his hand around it, lifting it, aiming and squeezing the trigger. All before Keegan merely clenched a finger. It was suicide. And Keegan would walk away free and clear.

Choices.

In the next heartbeat, Rane made his. He turned and started walking again.

“Damn you! Don’t you turn your back on me!” Keegan screamed.

From behind him, Rane heard Keegan’s strangled shout of fury. His back muscles tensed.

A gunshot exploded through the hushed town, followed immediately by a howl of pain. Rane jerked to a stop as the sounds reverberated and finally faded beyond the end of the street. Slender arms clutched at him and Angel’s face swam in front of his eyes. She was crying. Like a man awakening from a trance, he lifted his arms, even his bloodied one, and settled them around her.

“I thought I’d lost you,” she cried.

“I thought you’d lost me, too,” he confessed.

She lifted her head from his chest and looked at him, a gasp on her lips. “Your face!”

“Will heal.” He tried to smile, but it hurt too much.

“You crazy old bastard! What the hell did you shoot me for!”

“Cause I wasn’t about to stand by and watch you shoot an unarmed man in the back!”

“If you knew what that greaser’s been doin’ with your daughter, you’d let me kill him and thank me after.”

Rane turned. Roy Clayton and Will Keegan stood nearly nose to nose on the street. Will cradled his right hand against his stomach and a new trail of blood soaked into the front of his shirt. His gun lay several feet away in the dirt.

Roy, his face mottled with anger, had taken charge. A telltale curl of pale blue smoke lifted from the barrel end of the gun he held on Keegan. “Get on your horse and ride out of here.”

Will looked so surprised he managed to open his puffy eyes another crack. “Ride out! What the hell you mean, ride out?”

“You’re finished here,” Roy declared. “I don’t ever want to see you around here again.”

“You can’t just shoot me and then run me off like I’m some—”

“Shut up!” Roy bellowed. “I said, clear out and stay out! Show your face around here again and I’ll be shippin’ you back to the K-Bar in a pine box.”

Will stumbled back, a befuddled expression on his mauled face. “You’re a foolish old bastard,” he gritted out. “Now I hope it comes back and bites you right in the ass!” He turned and started for his horse, cursing a blue streak as he went.

Roy holstered his gun, then walked over and retrieved the one he’d shot out of Will’s hand. Rane regretted that he hadn’t witnessed that piece of work for himself. The old man straightened and suddenly he found himself pinned by a pair of shrewd gray eyes.

“I’m goin’ to the house,” he said, and there was a grimness about him that told Rane the worst wasn’t nearly over yet. “Angel, get on your horse and go home. I expect to see you there shortly, Mantorres. The two of you got a lot of explainin’ to do.”

The old man turned and walked away. On the walk, the crowd stepped aside when he neared. But it wasn’t fear Rane saw on their faces. On the contrary. They all looked at Roy Clayton with respect. The kind afforded a man who’d worked a lifetime to earn it.

Chapter Twenty-four

The images hung on in Angel’s mind. Her father pulling his gun. Will’s pistol spinning from his hand. In that moment, her father had shed the blinders from his eyes and seen Will for the blackhearted wretch he truly was.

Even if he disowned her now, she’d always feel proud of him for his brave actions that day. She would remember the moment when he’d cast aside his old prejudices and stepped up in defense of the disreputable gunfighter who held her heart.

If you knew what that greaser’s been doin’ with your daughter...

What must he have thought when he heard those words, when she threw herself into Rane’s arms? She’d seen the look on his face. Shock. Disbelief.

A stray tear slid down her cheek. She swiped at it absently and snuffed back the threat of more. She could no longer afford the luxury of weakness. The time for deception was past. Her father had earned the truth today, and she intended to give it to him.

Angel trotted her mare into the deserted barnyard. Over at the house, her father stood on the porch with both hands braced against the rail, watching. She slid from the saddle and hesitated. A stable hand emerged from the barn. She handed over her reins and allowed him to lead away her horse.

Still, she stood there, her back to the house. She looked down at her clothing and rubbed a fingertip over a smudge of blood on her blouse, delaying. Where was her courage when she truly needed it? She’d imagined this moment a hundred times. In each fantasy she’d been angry, had thrown the truth into her father’s face like a weapon. Reality was turning out to be much harder. For two years, she’d tried to live up to the image of her dead mother, and therein lay the problem. The image she aspired to was nothing more than a flat, colorless photograph standing on the mantle. A memorial. A single, frozen second in time from the woman’s life. The pattern was incomplete, and Angel had no idea how to fill in the blanks.

She couldn’t try any longer. How could she walk in someone else’s footsteps, especially when the trail had vanished like dust on the wind? Her own path had been chosen long ago, and she had to follow it, come what may.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she fought to gather in all the straying, ragged edges of her emotions that threatened to tear her to pieces. She had failed to become the lady her father wanted her to be. She’d disappointed him in all things, but amid the muddied chaos of her thoughts, one truth stood out with shining clarity. She liked herself just fine.

Only one question remained. Did her father love her enough to accept her for what she was?

It was time to find out.

Angel opened her eyes and pulled in a deep breath. Over in the corral, a pair of sleek horses stretched their noses through the fence and stared at her. Heat, filled with a fine dust haze hung in the torpid air. Normal, familiar things. A sense of calm filled her. She turned and started for the house.

Her father met her at the top of the steps. The furrows of time plowed deeper into his face. “Let’s sit,” he said.

In funereal silence, they both took a seat on opposite sides of the top step. Angel sat with her back rigid, her arms looped around her bent knees. Sunlight sliced across the lower half of her dusty riding skirt and scuffed boots, blanching them near colorless.

Her father cleared his throat, and his voice came out in a rusty rumble. “You and Mantorres. I just need you to tell me if it’s true.”

The air of sadness that clung to him surprised her. She’d expected anger. She dared a glance at his face and found he wasn’t looking at her. He sat with his elbows laid atop his knees, his hands dangling between them. His hooded gray eyes were focused on the distant horizon.

Angel heard the sound of her own thick swallow. “I love him, Pa.” Having finally spoken the words, her heart galloped, and she felt the vibration clear to her backbone.

Though Roy’s head took a slight dip, he still watched the distance. His silence felt more damning than any angry words.

“I—I tried to do what you wanted, but I’m not Mama, and I never could be.”

His mustache twitched. “You look like her.”

“Maybe,” she conceded. “But on the inside, where it really counts, I know we’re two very different people.” She swallowed back another lump. “Aunt Nelda always said, I might acquire all the polish in the world but underneath it all I’d still be your daughter. I’m sorry, Pa, but I’m afraid she was right.”

It may have been wishful thinking, but she would have sworn his craggy old face softened.

He heaved a weighty, deflating sigh and leaned back. Half turning toward her, he tucked one leg in close and wrapped his arm around it, using the newel post as a backrest. “Your Mama wasn’t suited to this place,” he said. “She hated it.” He huffed a humorless laugh. “She never quite cottoned to me either, if you want to know the truth. Back in those days, I was boilin’ grease, and she was cool, clear water. We never could manage to mix the two. Near the end, I believe she hated me.”

He’d never spoken of her mother before, except to compare their looks or tell her what a fine lady she’d been. To hear him speak of her now in any terms other than respect sent shock racing through Angel.

“Why did the two of you marry?” she blurted.

He leaned back his head and skimmed his gaze along the edge of the porch roof, pursing his lips beneath his brushy mustache, as though trying to remember.

“I was young, and she was even younger, and just so damn pretty it made my heart ache to look at her. She’d come out here from back east with one of the Lundy house parties. That’s how we met. And I cut quite a dashin’ figure back in them days, even if I do say so myself,” he added with a nostalgic smile.