Desert Angel (Family Justice Book 2) (7 page)

“He’s not,” Meghan complained. “And maybe that’s a good thing because I think your brother was about fed up. Calder’s been impossible since Stephanie left. We thought he’d go after her, but . . .”

Alex interrupted gruffly. “Fucking whiny bitch, that one. Ran off to the mountains. Something about getting his head together.”

Angie was amused by the snark in Alex’s tone. But then again, she’d never witnessed her handsome uncle in a tailspin over a woman.
Sheesh.
Stephanie Bennett must be one hell of a lady.

“Okay.” Angie shrugged. “So if Calder’s M.I.A., who’s the fourth place setting for?”

“Hello, Angel.”

Angie didn’t need a mirror to know her eyes just bugged out of her head and she’d turned a sickening shade of white.
Parker.

Across the table, Alex was motionless, watching her intently, while Meghan looked an awful lot like someone trying to ignore the elephant in the room.

His voice coming so unexpectedly and catching her off guard had wound around every nerve ending in her body rendering her stupid. Pivoting slowly, her breath stalled by surprise, Angie turned and came face-to-face with the one person in her life who didn’t fit into a category. He had been her friend. Her stand-in brother and protector. Her Prince Charming. Her first lover. Her first heartbreak. Her greatest sadness. And by her own doing, someone she hadn’t spoken to in a very, very long time.

And holy fucking shit.
He’d always been the cute boy. Then the good-looking rebel. And Parker Sullivan had pretty much written the book when it was his turn to be the serious, hungry professional. But the drop-dead gorgeous one hundred percent man in front of her was a big time grown-up. And shit! Had he always been so ruggedly hot? The man staring her down was a far cry from the conservative lawyer she’d known.

And just like that—a thousand flashes of memory lit her up. All of her and Parker naked and entwined. Considering all the things they did together, naked was the thing they did best.

Dammit. And just like that, she dropped a stitch and couldn’t get it back.
Fucking jet lag.

She had a choice. She could fold like a cheap suit or act like this moment was no big deal and hope it was enough to save face. Some part of her wanted to strangle Alex for doing this to her on the first night she was back.
Asshole.

Clearing her throat, she forced a smile to her lips and met his gaze. “Hey, Parker.”

“It’s been too long,” he murmured.

She opted to let that comment slide. “I expected to find you in black robes by now,” she offered more sarcastically than intended. “No judgeship yet?”

He snickered as his eyes bored into hers. “No robes. Still just an unrepentant ambulance chaser.”

The part of Angie that was fried from travel and overexcited from being home just couldn’t stand there and trade quips and one-liners. Not with nothing but whiskey in her system. Not if she wanted to get through the rest of the evening with some shred of decorum.

“Um, will you guys excuse me a minute?” she asked in Meghan’s direction. “It’s been a long day for me and I think some fresh air would help. Give me a few minutes, Red, and I’ll lend a hand in the kitchen, okay?”

And on that false note, Angie smiled tremulously at everyone and headed for the patio.

“U
H,” MEGHAN MOANED. “WHAT WAS
that?”

If there was an easy answer to that question, Parker wasn’t aware of it. He’d never known Angie to fold and run—it wasn’t her style.

“Dude,” Alex growled. “What the fucking fuck? She was fine, then you show up, and suddenly it’s chilly in here? Care to explain?”

“Am I missing something?”

Parker swallowed at the dark scowl Meghan shot his way.

A perplexed Alex headed for the door. His gruff, unhappy tone felt like a punch to Parker’s gut. “I’ll talk to her.”

“No,” Parker interjected, holding up his hands to block his friend’s path. “No. This is between me and her.”

“You want to tell me what the hell is going on, Sullivan? Or do I have to smack it out of you?”

“Alex,” Parker implored testily. “Give it a rest, okay?”

His friend instantly bristled and looked at him like he was sizing Parker up for a body bag.

“That’s my fucking sister, man.”

“Gentlemen,” Meghan, the referee, cut in—trying to defuse the rapid escalation of tension in the room. But she also looked like she wanted to smack the shit out of him, which made Parker flinch and swallow harder.

When the stern-faced Irish beauty glared at him, honest to god, it was like having a bucket of ice water thrown in his face.
His buddy had his hands full with this one,
he thought. Christ, but Meghan O’Brien, soon-to-be Marquez, had a no-nonsense way about her that made his balls shrivel

Parker was astonished when she suddenly softened and put her hands on the snarling bear standing next to her.

“He has to go, darling,” she murmured to Alex. “Let Parker handle this.”

He didn’t miss the unspoken conversation that went on between the two. Though Alex looked unhappy about it, he backed down after fixing Parker with a hostile frown.

“Dinner is in ten minutes. Understand, shithead? Ten fucking minutes and then I take matters into my own hands.”

Parker practically sprinted down the hallway in pursuit of Angelina. Ten minutes to repair years of damage? Shit.

He found her instantly because he knew exactly where to look. Ever since she was a little kid, whenever she came to the Villa, she eventually found her way to her very own hidey-hole. A big, wooden double-seater swing set in a tiled alcove draped with climbing vines and blooms. It was her favorite place to disappear and had been since she was a kid so she wasn’t all that hard to find.

His angel saw him approaching. He could tell by the way she appeared to draw inward—become smaller. The sight made him feel like a dick.

Leaning casually against the end of the swing, Parker was surprised at how calm his voice sounded when, in fact, he was freaking the fuck out inside. “Want to start over?” he asked quietly.

Oh, my god. Angelina.
Right there. An arm’s length away. And she was even more striking than the last time he’d seen her in the flesh. The years had been good to her. Though the young, gangly girl with the braces and the impish grin was long gone, the beautiful woman he fell so desperately in love with was achingly present.

Her hair was still long, and the features on her face, so familiar and haunting. He’d know her anywhere–especially since she’d been frequenting his dreams for longer than he cared to admit.

For a tantalizingly brief second, he considered dropping to his knees and prostrating himself as he begged for forgiveness. Desperate for some form of penance to make up for his part in destroying their friendship.

And then she lifted her eyes as an unsteady and visibly trembling hand tucked the hair behind her ear. When he felt her sapphire gaze on his face, he prayed to all that was holy that whatever came next wasn’t the beginning of the end of his world.

But she didn’t say anything. Silence hung all around them. Parker’s hands clenched tightly at his sides when the sparkle of tears rimmed the eyes staring back at him. The emotion in the air was thick and heavy.

“I take it they didn’t tell you that I was coming for dinner.” It wasn’t a question. Her reaction to his unexpected presence was tearing him up inside. Did guys cry? Nobody he knew ever admitted to crying, but right then, he was sure that was where he was headed.

Her slight head shake said it all. Hadn’t been expecting to see him and wasn’t happy about it.
Fan-fucking-tastic.

Knowing that Alex was counting back from a thousand, and likely to come thundering in at any second, rattled Parker’s cage. He needed to pull this shit show back from the ledge and do it quickly. And after that, he should probably figure out what the hell he could do to repair his relationship with Angie.

But right here, right now, he had to smooth things in a hurry. Maybe a touch of mockingly sarcastic humor would help. Sort of darkly acknowledge the fucked-up-ness of the situation and pray it acted as a pressure release. Buy a little time. The sort of thing he did in front of a judge all the damn time.

“So . . . I should take from your silence that you’re still mad at me?”

Now, that wasn’t so bad,
he thought. A straightforward admission that he’d been a dick. She should be happy with that, right? At least as a start, anyway.

His first inkling that he was way off base came when she shot to her feet and rushed toward him. In the muted light, she looked like an angry wraith, her dark hair flying, eyes glittering with something he couldn’t name.
Holy shit.

Unease gathered at the base of his neck. The cold, heavy squeeze of anxiety knowing he’d miscalculated made it difficult to breathe. She looked like she meant to do him bodily harm.

“Mad at you?” Angie hissed as she bore down on him. “
MAD
at you?” she yelled with rising emotion.

“Guessing . . . that’s a yes?” he ventured cautiously.

Coming to quick halt mere inches from where he stood, a visibly pissed off Angie adopted a combative pose that was very much meant to make it seem like she was getting up in his face. She was spitting fury and looked like she was going to rip him a new one, a thought that only ended up turning his sex to stone.

Her fire turned him on. Always had. Unexpectedly finding himself on the receiving end of her fierceness awakened the sleeping giant inside him. Everything about her body language, expression, and tone warned Parker that she was set on stun and he was directly in her line of fire. The thing was though, watching her get ready to tear into him made whatever decision-making he imagined was necessary a lot less involved.

It hit him like a lightning bolt.
Angelina Marquez was his. And she knew it.
Maybe not before they came face-to-face, but she knew it now. She also wasn’t happy about it, which was why she ran. And looked like she was going to do everything she could to build a wall of anger between them.
Good luck with that.

Okay, Angel. Let me have it. Give it your best shot.

Hands-on-hips, she tossed her hair over her shoulder with a jerky headshake then tilted her chin up so she could fix him with a salty glare. He wanted to laugh but thought better of the suicidal response. She’d flay him alive if he so much as cracked a grin.

“You think not speaking for years is because I. Am mad. At
you?
”

Maybe the edgy disbelief in her voice should have clued him in, but the truth was, with her so tantalizingly close, all his mind could grasp was how fucking awesome she smelled and how ridiculously sexy her sapphire eyes were when she was spitting mad. The rest? Parker was a clueless idiot.

He shrugged and tried to act like he was all unruffled and composed when nothing could be further from the truth. “Well, would explain why I haven’t heard a word from you or seen you in forever.”

The minute the words left his stupid mouth, he knew he’d stepped in it. Big time. What the hell had he been thinking? It was as if all sense deserted him and he conveniently forgot that he had been the asshole in their relationship and was one hundred percent responsible for why they no longer had even the shell of a friendship.
Fuck.

“Oh, right,” she spat at him. “Yeah. That was
all
me.” Playfully smacking her temple like she was an idiot, she drawled, “Well, duh. Of course, it’s my fault. I mean, it’s so annoying isn’t it, when you’re babysitting and the little kid you’re forced to hang out with is a . . . what did you call me? A nuisance?”

Her caustic glare was enough to give him a permanent sunburn.

“This is ALL you.
You
did this,” she growled as her hand shot out and two fingers stabbed him in the chest. Hard.

“
You.
All you.”

And then she shoved him with both hands and ducked around his off kilter body as she made a quick dashing getaway—leaving him standing there with his mouth open and his stomach in a knot.

T
HE MINUTE PARKER VANISHED AFTER
Angie, Meghan turned on Alex.