Hawk's Way (7 page)

“That's the way a lot of kids dress,” Dallas explained.

“Girls too?”

“A girl would be wearing a top of some kind,” Dallas conceded.

“Would her limbs be bare from the knee down, the way his were?” Angel demanded incredulously.

“Her legs—and probably her shoulders, back and midriff, too,” Dallas said.

“Why that's scandalous!”

“Not these days,” Dallas said with a chuckle. “Women are liberated.”

Angel gasped. “You mean they were all in prison at one time?”

Dallas laughed. “Being liberated' is just an expression. I suppose the prevailing social customs seemed as restrictive as being in prison—so women busted out. For the past twenty years or so they've been evening things up between the sexes.”

“How?”

“Women can take the same kinds of jobs as men—and get paid the same.”

“That sounds fair. Can they own property? And vote?”

“Of course they can!”

Angel smiled. “I could get to like some of these new-fangled ideas.”

When they got back to the stable, Angel offered to brush down Red. Dallas agreed so he could go ahead to the house and fix something for supper.

“I'll walk back to the house when I'm done,” Angel said. “Don't worry about me.”

Once Dallas was gone, Angel made a point of locating the switch in the barn he had used to control the lights and making sure everything was set out so she could quickly saddle up Red when she returned in the middle of the night. She also spent some time petting Red and talking to him so she would be familiar to him when she returned without Dallas. Once everything was as ready as Angel could make it, she returned to the house.

“I'm back,” she called as she pulled open the screen door.

“In the kitchen,” he answered.

When she found him, Dallas was checking some potatoes with a fork. “They're almost done. Only a few more minutes.”

Angel watched Dallas put the potatoes inside a box and punch some buttons. There was an odd chirping sound as bright blue-green numbers
came up on a black surface. Then the box began to hum. “What is that?” she asked.

“It's a microwave oven.”

Angel tentatively touched the sides of the box. “It isn't hot,” she said. “How can it cook anything?”

Dallas grinned wryly. “Well, there are these microwaves in the air inside the box and they get the molecules in the potato to moving real fast and—”

“Stop!” Angel cried, covering her ears. “I don't want to hear any more.”

“Come on, then. You can help me set the table.”

Angel was never sure what surprise Dallas was going to spring on her next. It was a relief to see that people still used knives, forks, spoons and plates. But sour cream in a
plastic container?
Butter wrapped in
foil sticks?
Bacon bits in a
glass bottle?
Bread crumbs in a
cardboard box?

Angel couldn't have been more surprised when Dallas pulled lettuce and tomatoes and cucumbers from his refrigerator. “I thought you said it's spring,” she accused.

“It is.”

“Where did you get all these fresh vegetables that only grow in the summer?” she asked suspiciously.

“These were probably shipped in from Florida or California, or maybe even some other country south of here.”

Angel just shook her head and gritted her teeth. There was no sense letting the strangeness of it all get to her. She wasn't going to be here much longer—if everything went as planned. She refused to contemplate what she had to face if she couldn't find her way back to the past.

Dallas saw the tension in Angel's shoulders, the way her jaw worked as if she had her teeth clenched, the unhappy shadows in her blue eyes. Something had happened to rob her of her memory of all this. The least he could do was be patient with her. He was certain that at some point it would all come back to her.

They sat down to a dinner of grilled steak, baked potatoes and a green salad. Angel laughed when Dallas turned out the electric lights in favor of a couple of candles on the table. “Why on earth would you turn out the lights and purposely make it so dark?”

“It's…” He didn't want to say
more romantic
. He had no business romancing her. He settled for saying “So you'll feel more at home.”

“Then you ought to have a beer at your elbow,” Angel said with a grin.

“I don't drink.”

“Not at all?”

“Whiskey sometimes. Liquor dulls the senses,” Dallas said. “I like to know what I'm doing all the time.”

Angel met his searing gaze, and her heart started thumping. Her grin faded. She stared at his hands, remembering the strength of them smoothing over Red's hide, the gentleness of them cupping her breast.

Dallas recognized Angel's heavy-lidded look. He was no novice at seduction, even if she was. He had to be the one who used good sense here. So he said, “I figure you can take advantage of some courses at the junior college in Uvalde to help you catch up on things. Maybe some art and history and literature. What do you think?”

His abrupt change of subject jolted Angel from the trance into which she had fallen. “College? I only got as far as the eighth grade.”

“No problem,” Dallas said. “These are courses intended for people who aren't particularly interested in getting a degree, but who want to broaden their knowledge of a subject. We need to be thinking about what career you might pursue.”

“I can draw a little,” Angel admitted.

Dallas frowned. “I don't know how useful that'll be.” Texas had its share of local artists,
and he'd seen a lot of good work at the art festivals that were held in San Antonio. But “drawing a little” didn't sound like much on which to build a future. To tell the honest truth, he was having trouble picturing Angel in any kind of job.

When the meal was finished, Angel helped him stack the dishes in the dishwasher. She must have brushed against him a dozen times in the process. Every time she did his body tautened. The hell of it was, she seemed to have absolutely no idea what effect she was having on him. If he didn't put some space between them, and soon, he wasn't going to be responsible for the consequences.

“We'd better get some shut-eye. We have a big day tomorrow.”

Angel thought getting to bed early was definitely a good idea, especially since she couldn't leave until Dallas was asleep. She meekly disappeared into the bedroom with the T-shirts he had bought for her. In order to put Dallas off guard, she had to convince him that she was reconciled to staying with him. She stripped down until all she had on was a soft cotton T-shirt, and slipped under the covers. Then she called to him.

“Dallas?”

He answered her from outside the bedroom door. “What is it, Angel?”

“Uh…could you come in here a minute?”

Dallas hesitated, but not for long. He paused a step inside the door. He had expected her to look alluring, but he wasn't ready for the shock of seeing her looking like that in
his bed
. He reminded himself she was innocent and walked over to stand stiffly beside her. “What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to thank you for everything you've done for me,” Angel said.

“Think nothing of it.”

“No, I'm really grateful. I didn't want to let that go unsaid.”
In case I never see you again
.

“It's been my pleasure,” Dallas said.

At that moment he truly meant it. The T-shirt was so big it had slipped down off one shoulder. He could see the dark shadows of her nipples through the thin cotton. He scowled as his body reacted to the sight. He hadn't been this hard and ready with so little provocation since he was a teenage kid, wet behind the ears. It irked him to think he had so little control around her.

Seeing the ferocious look on his face, Angel asked, “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” he muttered. To save his sanity he pulled the blankets up to her neck and said, “Sleep tight,” then turned and left the room.

Angel smiled and snuggled down under the covers. Dallas Masterson was a nice man. It was
too bad she wasn't going to be around to get to know him better.

Dallas wasn't worried when the light didn't go off in Angel's room. He figured she was sleeping with it on again. He hadn't any intention of going in to check on her. Because he just plain didn't trust himself. It wouldn't take a tiny crook of her little finger and he would be in bed with her. The problem was if that happened he would end up being responsible for her. She had a whole different set of moral values than he was used to dealing with. Bed her and the next step was marriage. Dallas Masterson wasn't a marrying man.

He turned out the lights all over the house, checked the doors to make sure they were locked, then went into the guest bedroom and shut himself inside. He wasn't coming out again until morning—no matter what the temptation. Dallas listened with a sharp ear as, creaking and groaning, the house settled for the night.

Angel didn't even have to guess at the time. The electric clock beside the bed told her it was 11:48. She had promised herself she would be out of Dallas's hair before midnight. That didn't leave her much time.

She had long since packed everything she would need and a few odds and ends for good measure. She'd had to make do with what she had
in the bedroom, because she was certain that rooting around in the dark house was liable to wake Dallas. That she couldn't afford to do.

As she silently closed the front door of the house behind her, Angel realized she was going to miss Dallas. She hadn't much trusted anyone in her life—for good reason—but Dallas was different. Maybe it had something to do with reaching out to him in the darkness of the cave, but she felt a closeness to him that she had never felt with any other human being.

Angel shivered when she thought about how angry Dallas was going to be when he discovered that not only had she run away, but she had stolen his horse. She consoled herself with the thought that she wouldn't be around to deal with his wrath.

“Goodbye, Dallas,” she whispered as she tiptoed across the porch and down the front steps. “Think of me sometime.”

Then she was off and running for the world she had left behind.

A
ngel greeted the approaching cave entrance with a weary smile of relief. It was a starry night, so she hadn't been forced to deal with total blackness, but there was something eerie about being in a time and place where one didn't belong. Red started nervously dancing sideways, and she patted his neck to calm him down.

“There's nothing out there, boy. Nothing but hill country and you and me. Nothing to get spooked about. Take it easy now.” It was questionable which of the two of them she was trying more to convince. Red's ears flicked forward and back, as though he was listening to her but distracted by something else.

Was there something out there? Most likely a coyote, she thought. Or maybe a snake slithering away from Red's hooves. “Don't worry, boy,” she soothed the anxious horse. “They're as afraid of us as we are of them.”

As she stepped down off the gelding at the cave entrance she felt the hairs rise on the back of her
neck. She patted the horse again but didn't speak aloud. There was someone here. She felt sure of it. She let the reins trail on the ground, effectively ground-tying the animal, knowing any good cowhorse was trained to stay where he was left.

She had the child's Mickey Mouse flashlight Dallas had bought for her, which made a less-bright light than the flashlight he had used. But it was light. She didn't have to stand there in the dark. Still, she felt reluctant to turn it on. What if there was somebody—some human—around here? She hadn't forgotten the incident that had brought Dallas to her rescue. Angel fingered the penknife she was carrying in her pocket through the rough denim of Dallas's jeans. She stood quietly, listening, but heard nothing. Things just didn't feel right.

Angel started talking to herself. “I have plenty of light. I have a knife. What else do I need? Quit spittin' on the handle, Angel, and get to work!”

She flicked on the flashlight and felt a lot better. The trail of light was easy to follow, sweeping away the dark as she went. Unfortunately the dark closed in behind her. The deeper she went into the cave, the greater her sense of foreboding.

“Stop acting like a hen on a wet griddle,” she chastised herself. “There is absolutely
nothing
to be afraid of.”

But she
was
afraid. She tried to talk herself out of it. “Give yourself something else to think about, Angel, so you don't spend so much time pondering on the dark. Now there you go again, making note of how black this pit of hell is. Think about something happy. Something wonderful. Like Dallas.

“Now there's a man God spent some time on. Whooee! He is one fine-looking fellow. Never thought you'd fall for a handsome face, Angel, but you sure did go for that Ranger! He—”

Angel distinctly heard a voice. A male voice. And it was behind her. Dallas must have woken up and followed her!

She wasn't about to get caught before she had a chance to look for some sort of portal to the past. She moved faster, almost running. However, she couldn't hold the light steady at that pace, so she missed seeing a dip in the cave floor and lost her balance. She reached out a hand to catch herself as she tumbled. By rolling into the fall, she saved herself hurt, but the flashlight flew out of her hand. The dark was deep and instantaneous as the face of the flashlight hit an outcropping on the rock wall and broke.

“No!” Angel cried. But it was too late. She curled herself into a protective ball, shutting her
eyes, as though to shut out the immensity of the dark that surrounded her.

She was six again, and Miss Higgens of the Orphans' Home in Galveston was terribly angry and yelling at her.

“Whatever possessed you to do such a thing, Angela! We have little enough to go around. We can't afford a thief in our midst!”

“But I didn't take anything!” Angel protested.

“I found the biscuits under your pillow,” Miss Higgens said. “Are you saying someone else put them there?”

“They must have!” Angel retorted. “My ma taught me better than that. I would never steal—”

“No more than your mother did, I expect,” Miss Higgens said disdainfully. “And you see where it got her! In jail, young lady, where she belongs!”

Angel was helpless to deny what Miss Higgens had said. Her mother had stolen—but only food, and only enough to keep them alive.

Then Belinda stepped forward and said, “I did it, Miss Higgens. You're punishing the wrong sister.”

“Your loyalty is to be commended, Belinda. But I know who is the real culprit here.” She spitted Angel to the spot with a piercing glare.

“I didn't do it,” Angel said, her chin tilting mulishly.

“Enough! It won't help to add lying to your list of sins. It's the cellar for you.”

Angel started to run, but Miss Higgens grabbed her by the arm in a grip that would have done a vulture proud. She was hauled out back to the root cellar and thrust down inside. The wooden door was dropped closed and a piece of wood pushed through the door handles to seal her inside.

“Let me out!” she cried, pounding against the wood, unmindful of the splinters gathered by her flailing fists. “Please.” Her terror was so great that she was even willing to confess and show remorse for a crime she hadn't committed. “Please,” she begged. “I'm sorry. I'll never do it again!”

Miss Higgens was ruthless in her determination to stomp out sin. It simply wasn't to be tolerated. She had proof of Angel's transgression. After all, the biscuits had been right there under her pillow. “You will stay in there until you've had a proper chance to reflect upon your sins and find
true
remorse.”

Angel didn't know how long she was left in the cellar, but the horrors of the place magnified over time. The cobwebs held poisonous spiders. The bugs crawling over her grew to immense propor
tions. The mice became rats and threatened to chew off her fingers and toes. And the dark, the oppressive, relentless dark, seeped into her soul.

“Angel? It's me, Belinda. Can you hear me?”

Angel had been wishing so desperately for the sound of another human voice, she thought she was dreaming. She answered, anyway. “Belinda? Is that you?” She leaned her ear against the crack between the cellar doors, so she could hear.

“I'm sorry to be so long in coming,” Belinda said. “This is the soonest I could sneak away to visit you. I'm so sorry, Angel. I knew I shouldn't have taken the biscuits. But I was so hungry. It seems like I'm always so hungry!”

“Oh, Belinda. How could you? Mama would—”

“Mama's not here,” Belinda said in a sharp voice. “We're on our own, Angel. If we don't take care of ourselves, no one else will. You saw how willing Miss Higgens was to think the worst of you. Our mama was a thief. Nobody, especially not Miss Higgens, is ever going to let us forget it. I'm sorry you got blamed, but I'm not sorry I took the biscuits!”

Belinda left without giving Angel a chance to argue with her. Belinda's words stayed with Angel in the dark and created an epiphany. What good was it to be honest and starve? Why
shouldn't she take what she needed? The trick was not to get caught. And she wouldn't, not ever again. Because she would be the one doing the stealing, and she would hide her tracks better than Belinda had.

Miss Higgens had left her in the cellar for twenty-four hours without food or water or—except for Belinda's visit—any other human contact. Angel had come out of the cellar a changed person—harder, more self-reli-ant…and terrified of the dark.

Over the years Angel had lived along a fine line that sometimes crept over into lawlessness. She had taken, when not taking meant going hungry; she had done an honest day's work when it could be had. Despite her epiphany, Angel had never been able to leave behind the notion, ingrained from birth by her mother, that breaking the law was wrong.

Belinda hadn't been so fortunate. The deprivation in their youth had made Belinda crave things, and her scruples had been discarded as she satisfied those cravings. Eventually Belinda had taken to selling herself to live better during the war. Angel had cried the last time she'd seen her sister alive.

Suddenly the cave's darkness was broken by a ray of white light. Dallas had found her. Angel
couldn't help the feeling of relief that swept over her. The blackness was gone and with it the memories of a painful past. Here was a man who made her wish she had lived a better life. A man to whom truth and honesty meant something. A good man…whose horse she had stolen, whose trust she had betrayed.

Why did she feel so guilty? She had survived in the past by “feeling true remorse,” and then putting the guilt aside. Since childhood, duplicity had held a limited, but necessary, role in her life. Why was she feeling regrets now?

Because she liked and respected Dallas Masterson, and she wanted—needed—his respect. Still, she couldn't set aside the practical side of her nature. The damage was done. She had stolen his horse and left. It made more sense to go forward from here than to turn back.

Angel uncurled slowly and raised a hand to shade her eyes, but she couldn't see the man who stood in the darkness beyond the light. “You might as well come with me,” she said, lifting her chin pugnaciously. “I'm not leaving until I explore that exit on the other side of the cave.”

“Why, I just might do that, pretty lady,” a guttural male voice said. “But I think maybe some of my friends might wanta come along. Hank, Ty-rel, Clete,” he called. “Come see what I found!”

* * *

Dallas wasn't sure what woke him, but he was suddenly alert, all his senses tuned to danger. He reached down to the floor beside the bed and touched his revolver in the dark. He always kept it nearby, ready at a moment's notice. He listened, but the house was quiet. He left the gun where it was and rose. The feeling of danger had passed; now he felt anxious. He quickly yanked on a pair of jeans before he headed for Angel's bedroom.

The door was ajar. It had been shut last night. He slowly eased it farther open, not certain what to expect, but ready for anything. His gut tightened when he found the bed empty.

“Angel?” The bathroom door was open. That room was empty as well.

He knew she was gone, but that didn't stop him from searching the house. He shoved a frustrated hand through his hair as he tried to imagine where she would have gone, and why. He peered out the front window. The truck was still there—not that he had expected her to try to drive it. But she had done a lot of things he hadn't expected.

She went back to the cave.

He didn't want to think that, but it was the only conclusion that made sense. As he pulled on his socks and boots and threw on a shirt and jacket, he swore at himself for not paying more attention to what she'd said yesterday.

She took my horse!

That thought came out of nowhere, but as soon as it came, he knew it must be true. All the same, he drove his pickup around to the stable to check. Sure enough, Red was gone.

“Damn! Angel Taylor you have a lot to answer for!” he muttered to himself.

She's scared of the dark.

As he drove like a madman toward the cave, he worried about how she was handling the dark. Was she afraid? Would she have the courage to go into that darkened cavern by herself?

She has a flashlight and a knife.

Of course! He had bought them for her at the store. He had thought she was delighted by the penknife and Mickey Mouse flashlight merely because they were unusual. She must have been planning to run away all along! He smiled ruefully. He wondered whether she had tried the Twinkies or the potato chips yet, and how she had liked the taste of them.

She may get lost.

There were three turns to make before she arrived at the water-bound tunnel. He wasn't sure she had been paying close enough attention when they were in the cave together to realize that. What if she accidentally took a wrong turn and
got lost? What if her flashlight battery wore down before he found her?

She might find a portal and disappear into the past!

Dallas didn't want to contemplate that possibility, but asked himself why he refused to accept the fact she might really be what she said she was. What if she really had come from the past? What if she did manage to get back?

He would well rid of her. Why, she had been nothing but a bother and a nuisance since he had rescued her from those cowboys. He was a solitary man, used to his privacy. Angel had invaded it and brought…excitement and laughter and a curiosity that made him look at everything with new eyes. She also possessed an innocence that was as seductive as it was charming.

Dallas reminded himself that he had no use for the marrying kind of woman. Hadn't his mother cured him of the notion that true love could last a lifetime? He had watched his father become a shell of his former self after his mother ran away. He had heard his father cry when he read the note his mother had left and had hidden his own sobs of despair and betrayal in his pillow. He would never let a woman do to him what his mother had done to him and his father. No woman was going to wrap herself around his heart and leave him
hurting when she decided to see what was over the next horizon. Better just to take what he needed from a woman and avoid the emotional strings that tied a man in knots.