Alex and the Angel (Silhouette Desire)

by Dixie Browning

  “Safe enough. Until it’s finished, though, it’s pretty much of a mess. Walls out, insulation all over the place. The old-fashioned glass wool type, probably. Itches like the very devil. If you’re thinking of diving into that bottle, I believe I’ll join you.”

  Alex poured two shots and moved the bottle within reach. “I could go bring her back.”

  Gus chuckled. “You and whose army?”

  “You’ve got a point.”

  As the tide in the pinch bottle steadily receded, the two men talked more and more freely. They started out with business, with Alex’s going out on a limb to buy a stagnating factory. “Company’s pri-vately held, which helps. The family’s wanting out from under, but they hate to let down the employees. I happen to be in a position to help out.” At Gus’s quizzical look, he hurried to say, “Not that it’s all one-sided. I’m getting good value for my money.”

  “Sure you are. A sinking wreck of a plant that probably needs a complete retooling and overhaul to come up to minimum standards. It’s a rescue mission, man—admit it.”

  “Don’t confuse me with Kurt. Is he still flying rescue missions for the Coast Guard?”

  “As far as I know. But Alex, face it. This is a bailout, plain and simple. I remember a time when you were all set to study medicine and save the world. Then your old man blackmailed you into taking over the family business, and now you’re trying to make it up by playing the corporate Albert Schweitzer, right?”

  “Crap.” So what if he’d nurtured a dream for a little while? All kids did. As an only son, he’d never been allowed to forget his responsibility. Children—particularly only children—were the repository of their parents’ dreams. “Yeah? What about you? I understand you consistently overorder materials and then pass on the extras to some charity home-building outfit.”

  Gus shrugged. “So sue me.”

  “Dues-paying time, right? So no more cracks about my little business venture. I get enough flak from my board of directors.”

  “That I can believe. What’s the bottom line?”

  “It’s a wash. The initial capital outlay probably won’t affect our stock. We’ll have to do some retooling, sure, but not as much as you might think. It’s a labor-intensive operation. In the long run, we’ll be breaking into a new market.”

  “Meanwhile, a one-mule town will survive and a lot of people who’re too old to find other work will go on bringing in a paycheck for a few more years. Not to mention the added comfort of the generous Hightower benefits package. Am I right, Dr. Schweitzer?”

  Alex shrugged. “Like I said—it’s a wash.”

  They were silent for several moments, both men thinking of roads not taken. After a while, Gus said, “Sometimes I wonder if I’m not spreading myself too thin, taking contracts at both ends of the state instead of settling down in one area. I’m on the road so damned much, I’ve even considered buying a plane and learning to fly. Maybe Kurt could be talked into coming back home and taking the job.”

  Inevitably the talk moved into more personal channels. Alex voiced a few of his doubts about getting further involved with Carol. “She reminds me a lot of Dina, and God knows, I fell like a ton of bricks for her. Dina, I mean—not Carol.”

  “Who didn’t?” Gus commented wryly, which was as close as he had ever come to admitting that the reason he’d left town right after Alex and Dina had married was because he’d been so damned blind, stupid in love with Alex’s bride.

  Kurt had, too. Not that any of the three of them had ever discussed it.

  As for Gus, he’d known right from the first that he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, even if Dina hadn’t already set her sights on Alex. He wasn’t handsome like Kurt, or wealthy like Alex. Looks, wealth and pedigree were important to women like Dina Hathaway-Addams Hightower Whatever. The Wydowskis were strictly blue-collar, and had never pretended to be anything else.

  All the same, for a while there, he’d almost hated Alex for being who and what he was—for being the man Dina had chosen. Gus had fallen in love twice in his life, both times with women who were not only ineligible, but way the hell out of his league. Which proved, he supposed with a bleak sort of amusement, that he had excellent taste.

  “No law says a man has to marry,” Gus mused after a while.

  “Sandy needs a mother. She’s dropped a few heavy hints in the last few days.”

  “Somehow, I can’t see your friend Carol in the role.”

  “Neither can Sandy. Unfortunately.”

  They drank silently for a few minutes, each lost in private thoughts. And then Alex said, “I guess it’s no secret that Dina and I didn’t always get along so well.”

  With a short bark of laughter, Gus said, “Seeing’s how she’s currently the high muckety-muck of whatchamacallit, I figured something of the sort. It happens, I guess.” At least Alex had had a shot at it. If it had been him, he’d never in a million years have let her go. Which just went to show that a guy could be smart in some ways and dumb as wet plaster in others.

  “It was mostly my fault. The split, I mean. D’you know something? We never talked. I’m a pretty boring guy—Dina said so. Said it more’n once. Funny thing, though—we found plenty to talk about before we were married.”

  “Yeah,” Gus said dryly. “If I remember correctly, you were always telling her how beautiful her eyes were, and how great she looked in whatever she happened to be wearing, and what a lucky son of a bitch you were to have her.”

  It was Alex’s turn to laugh. “I was never that bad.”

  “Believe me, you were worse. I never heard an intelligent sentence out of you the whole time you two were dating. Not that I blamed you. Guess we all sorta fell for Lady Dina—she was a classy broad.”

  Alex waved his glass, which was fortunately too near empty to spill over. “Hey, watch what you call my ex-wife, Wydowski!”

  Sighing heavily, Gus stared down at the knees of his rumpled khakis. “Least you’ve got Sandy. Man needs kids. Family. Something to work for.”

  “Gus, you wanna know something real sad? I can’t talk to Sandy, either. God knows I love her, but I can’t seem to get in touch with her head anymore. We used to be close—she used to do her homework while I read the paper—we used to talk about everything. Funny thing, though—she never talked much about Dina.”

  Gus nodded sagely. “Figures. Kid’s mother walks out, leaves her flat—must hurt like hell. Angel got that way a few months after she married that bastard, Perkins. Clammed right up. Smiled too much, and never said anything. What was that old blues number? ‘She nev-er said a mum-ba-lin’ word,’” he sang tunelessly.

  Alex lifted the bottle, changed his mind and set it down again. “What was he like?”

  “Who?”

  “Perkins.”

  “Oh, him. A real jerk. Good-looking, I guess. Women always seem to go for the type. Angel was on the rebound, else she’d have seen through him. Didn’t even know the bastard but a few months before she married him.”

  Alex didn’t want to hear it. It was none of his business, but Gus’s tongue had loosened up, and as a dutiful host, he told himself solemnly, it was his duty to listen.

  “First guy who hurt her real bad—you probably know the slimeball, so I won’t mention any names. He started coming on to her right after you and Dina got married. Hell, she was still just a kid. I’d already left town, else I’d have done something about it. You know Angel—straight as a narrow—um, an arrow. Never even occurred to her that the bastard was just playing games.”

  “I don’t think I want to hear this,” Alex said.

  “Yeah, well maybe I need to talk about it, so just shut up and listen, will you? You owe me for all that slushy crap you used to spout about Dina until Kurt threatened to cram a pair of sweat socks down your throat.” Gus poured himself another drink, his movements only slightly unsteady. Setting it aside, he said, “Angel thought the bastard wanted to marry her. Like I said, he was smooooth. By the time he dump
ed her, she was in pretty bad shape. Time I came through town about a week later, she looked like hell warmed over. Didn’t say much, but I could tell something was baaad wrong. I finally found out what had happened from one of her friends. I was all set to shove his ass to the altar with the barrel of a shotgun.”

  Alex scowled, his pink-rimmed eyes not quite focused. “Who is he? I’ll murder the bastard.”

  “Not worth it. B’lieve me, after checking him out, I decided she’d got off pretty easy. He’s a user. You know the type. An’ you know Angel, my frien’.” His words were beginning to slur around the edges by now. “Knock her down, she jus’ comes back fightin’. Ol’ Ange, she decides to show him she don’t give a sweet damn in hell by marrying Perkins, only Perkins is cut from the same bolt of cloth. I know for a fact he ran around on her. I don’t know how much she knew, but she must’ve ‘spected something when he wrapped his truck around a tree on his way home from a party with some bimbo.”

  Alex muttered a word he hadn’t used in a dozen years.

  “Word around the patrol station was that Perkins was half out of his pants when it happened. I was able to keep that much off the record, at least, thanks to a couple of friends from our old Wolfpack days.”

  Alex, soberer than he had any right to be under the circumstances, swore softly.

  “All in all, I guess she took it pretty well. She’s tough, my little sister. Trouble is, she’s not quite as tough as she tries to make out.” Gus stirred and rose stiffly from the leather and feather-cushioned bergère. “Reckon I’d better go call while I can still dial a phone, see if she’s managed to burn the place down again.”

  Six

  There was nothing at all of Alex in his daughter as far as Angel could see, except for her coloring. If newspaper pictures and that glitzy spread in Uptown could be believed, the poor child was Dina through and through, Angel thought dismally.

  So why do I like her?

  “Junipers come in all sizes and shapes. These squishy ones over here are called blue rug juniper. They’re great for banks and ground covers. Those tall ones over there are columnar junipers. They’ve got a Latin name, too, but it’s a mouthful.”

  Sandy had hitched a ride out with one of her teachers, and after assuring Angel that she had her father’s permission, she’d made a beeline for the field where the boys were heeling in new arrivals. Once they’d gone home, she’d wandered over to the shed and started moaning again about the fact that she was too tall, too skinny and her feet were too big.

  “You have to remember, Sandy, it takes all sizes and shapes to make a beautiful garden. Too much of any one thing would be boring.”

  “You’re like, trying to make me feel better, right?” Crouching over the tray of succulents Angel had been labeling, Sandy nibbled a thumbnail, grimaced at the taste and wiped her hands on the seat of her jeans.

  “Hey, gardening’s my business. I never joke about business.”

  “Mrs. Gilly says we have to take what the good Lord gives us and be grateful it isn’t worse, but I mean, why couldn’t He’ve given me a bosom while He was at it?”

  “He’s probably saving it for your sixteenth birthday present.”

  “Oh, sure, when I’ll be too old to care. I’m the only girl in my class at school who has to stuff her training bra, and—oh, darn, here comes Daddy! Why did he have to come after me?” Sandy’s gaze strayed toward the house, where Gus was talking to the electrical inspector. “I thought you and Gus were going to take me home.”

  Gus had arrived in town the night before, but only shown up at Angel’s place a few hours ago, obviously hung over. She knew he’d spent the night at Alex’s but hadn’t asked any questions.

  Rising, Angel dusted off her knees, scattering bits of pine bark mulch, as Alex sauntered over, looking tired and impatient and altogether too attractive in a lightweight gray suit with a rumpled tie tugged loose from his collar and a shadow of beard darkening his stubborn jaw.

  Come to think of it, he looked a bit hung over, too.

  He greeted his daughter, but his gaze homed directly on Angel. “I see you made it through the night with no major disasters.”

  Darn it, it wasn’t fair. Even his voice was a stealth weapon. Her chin ratcheted up another notch. “You sound surprised.” She braced herself as all the old familiar symptoms set in—the shuddery feeling in her chest, the tingling between her thighs and the sudden tightness of her nipples. So far, he hadn’t so much as smiled at her. Heaven help her if he ever actually laid a hand on her!

  He used to laugh, flashing those big, white teeth. Now he seldom even smiled. He had changed so much over the years while she’d watched from a distance, and yet, the essential Alex had to be in there somewhere under all those well-bred suits, those white-on-white monogrammed shirts and polished cordovans. Even back in his high school and early college days, when he’d been a rough and rugged defensive lineback, there’d been something special about him. Something strong, modest, honorable, and noble—all the old knight-in-shining-armor virtues that seemed to have disappeared about the same time Camelot had been bulldozed and turned into a shopping mall.

  Angel told herself that the knight was still hiding in there somewhere. His sword might be a little duller and his armor considerably more battered, but then, that was the dragon business for you.

  She went on labeling succulents. “You’re expected for dinner tonight,” he reminded her. “Did Gus tell you?”

  Angel nodded silently. She had no intention of subjecting herself to any further temptation. Gus could go to dinner. At the last minute, she fully intended to have a headache.

  Gus sauntered up, looking only a little bit paler than usual. “Hey, you didn’t have to battle traffic, man. We could’ve taken Sandy home with us.”

  “I was in the neighborhood.”

  Gus lifted one brow. Angel concentrated on the clump of composted cow manure on the toe of her left boot. Sandy heaved an exaggerated sigh and slogged off to the office, where she’d left her schoolbooks.

  “He’s got a handful in that young lady,” Gus mused a few minutes later as brother and sister stood side by side outside the greenhouse, watching them drive off in Alex’s XJ6.

  “Fourteen’s a rough age. She’ll come through just fine, though. Sandy’s a very special young lady. By the way, I’m not going with you tonight.”

  Pursing his lips in a silent whistle, Gus said, “I was afraid of that.”

  “It’s no big deal. I feel a headache coming on, that’s all.”

  “Too bad. I used up all your aspirin. And anyhow, unless I miss my guess, this particular headache has been coming on for about twenty years, right?”

  She glared at him. “Did my electrical pass muster?”

  “Good as new. Better. I had ‘em put in a heavier service. This old place was built in the forties when all you needed was a radio, a fan, a few lights and an icebox. At least now you can operate a decent-size hot water heater.”

  “Fine. And since you’re going out tonight, you might as well have the first shower. Once I finish up here, I intend to soak my bones until they stop aching.”

  “I thought it was your head that was aching.”

  “Are you telling me to go soak my head?”

  He grinned, looking considerably younger than his thirty-nine years in spite of the touch of gray in his dark hair. “Change your mind and come with me tonight, Angel. You’re all grown-up now. Alex can’t hurt you.”

  He watched the light go out of her eyes and cursed his own careless words. He knew how it felt. Fortunately, his own pain had lessened over the years until it was little more than scar tissue now. The trouble with Angel was that she kept on jumping back into the ring and getting her wounds reopened, first by that tennis-playing bastard who’d looked enough like Alex to be a cousin but wasn’t. Gus had checked him out thoroughly. And then by Perkins, who at least had had the decency to marry her.

  Not that that had turned out to be any great blessing. He d
idn’t know if there’d been any others—he rather thought not, because he suspected that through it all, his little sister had been carrying a pretty big torch for Alex.

  Evidently she still was.

  * * *

  Angel hadn’t come. Alex freely admitted to being disappointed. It was the depth of his disappointment that worried him. To make up for it, he went all out to appear convivial. He made a point of including Sandy in the table talk, and was rewarded by her occasional ingenuous comments on current affairs. Gus beamed like a proud uncle and Alex thought, she’s growing up. In spits and spurts, with frequent lapses, his little girl was definitely growing up.

  Gus was telling them about a recent horseback riding experience that had ended up in his being tossed down a ravine and being confronted by an old woman with a double-barrel shotgun who took him for a federal agent out to burn her marijuana patch.

  “Oh, do you like horses?” Sandy asked, brightening. “Daddy has this mare named Tansy that used to belong to Mama. I ride her sometimes. We could go riding. I could ride Tansy and you could borrow Shadow, couldn’t he, Daddy? How about Saturday?”

  Alex was caught between amusement and irritation. “Maybe Gus has other plans for the weekend, princess,” he suggested mildly.

  “Matter of fact, it sounds like fun. Why don’t we make up a party—you two and Angel and me. If someone doesn’t pry Angel away from that mud hole of hers, she’ll work herself to the bone. Trouble is, she never learned how to play.”

  Sandy obviously hadn’t planned on a foursome, not with her father making up the numbers. “But doesn’t she have to be there on Saturdays?”

  “The boys can cover for her while she takes off a few hours.”

  “Oh. Okay, then Daddy can rent a couple more horses and we can take the back trail—it’s wider, and I can show you where Tansy flushed a covey of bobwhites and almost threw me last fall.”

  Alex wondered if Gus knew what he was letting himself in for. Sandy could talk the hind end off a jackrabbit when she was wound up. And she was nearly always wound up when Gus was around. “I’ll call in the morning and make arrangements,” he said. “Gus, I’ll leave it to you to arrange things with Angel.”