Captive Angel

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  Jack Daltry held his hand out, as if he meant to stop her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Short of breath from her straining efforts in the day’s steadily warming sun, Angel stopped her tugging and said, “I’m giving you your clothes back.”

  “I don’t want them back.”

  Defeated, Angel dropped her arms to her sides. “I’m burning daylight standing here and jawin’ with you, Daltry. Make up your mind.”

  “I didn’t change it,” he told her. “I don’t want them back. But you can’t have them, either.”

  Angel thought she understood. And it stung. “What are you going to do? Burn ’em because I wore ’em?” Sudden tears sparked her eyes, had her swallowing. “They’re too nasty to wear since they touched my skin. Is that it?”

  Jack jerked angrily. “Oh, for—I’ve had about all of that I’m going to listen to. Get that damned chip off your shoulder, girl. You’re not the only one who’s had a hard life. Plenty of people have had it worse than—”

  “Maybe so. I wouldn’t know. But I don’t give a rat’s ass about any of them. Or you, either”—Angel stabbed a pointing finger at him—“Jack Daltry. So stay out of my business.” She jerked around, took two steps toward the barn and her horse, but decided she wasn’t through with him. She pivoted again to face him. He hadn’t moved. “And I’m keeping your danged clothes. Mine aren’t worth the putting-on anymore. And it’s too bad if you don’t like it.”

  That got him moving. He stormed toward her. Angel took a step back for every step forward of his, but his stride was longer, and he caught hold of her in three steps and pulled her to him. “Tell me why you’re leaving.”

  Control of her temper a lost cause, Angel strained upward as if she meant to bite his nose off. “Tell me why you don’t want me to.”

  “Because I—you never told me—” He frowned and stared at her a long time. Like wind-blown tumbleweeds, conflicting emotions ran across his face. Then … he chuckled. “I have no idea.” He let her go and laughed. “Go, then.”

  Now Angel frowned as she tried to deny the stab of disappointment that he’d give up so easily. “Fine. I will.” She then tested him further, saying, “And I’m keeping your clothes.”

  He shrugged. “Fine. Keep ’em. You need any money? A gun? Food?”

  Angel cocked her head to one side. Why was he being so cooperative all of a sudden? “Yeah,” she said, hating the hesitance in her own voice. “I can use all that. And a bedroll.”

  “A bedroll. Okay.” He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. Then he grimaced and gingerly probbed the open cut on his chin. “You think that before you go, you could sew this up for me? In exchange for your provisions, of course. And not because you’re the least bit beholden to me.”

  “What?” Angel snapped, her hands again finding her waist. “I don’t like the sound of that, cowboy. Me—beholden—to you? For what?”

  He started ticking items off on his fingers. “For those clothes you’re wearing. For the roof over your head—”

  “Hah!” Stiff-legged, Angel advanced on him, stopping only when she stood toe to toe with him and had to crane her neck to meet his gaze. “A roof over my head? I had to use a gun to keep it there. You didn’t do me any favors, Jack Daltry. You owe me. I cleaned you up. I saved your sorry ass when you were too drunk to care if you lived or died. I brought your pa home and buried him. I’ve done the cooking and the mending around here. And I just now saved you again from your own brother. So don’t—”

  “And that’s another thing”—he now poked her chest with his finger—“you don’t know where my brother is. He could be anywhere out there … just lying in wait.”

  Angel grabbed his finger, shoving it away, even as a shiver of fear coursed through her. Jack was right. But she wasn’t about to give in. “I can take care of myself.”

  Jack spoke in a low voice, as if he didn’t wish to be overheard. “Can you? Seth killed his first man when he was twelve years old. A harmless old drover by the name of Odie Grossman. Just shot him in his sleep one night because he snored.”

  Angel was appalled. “Well…” she said, casting around for something to say. “Too bad for Odie,” she came up with. “He shouldn’t have snored.” With that, she again pivoted away from Jack. And again headed for the corral and her horse. Again she threw her parting comment over her shoulder. “And I shouldn’t have come here.”

  She’d taken about four long strides, figuring she’d won the last word, when he called out, “Why did you come here, Angel Devlin? And what are you running away from now?”

  * * *

  A while later, as storm clouds gathered in the sky above, Jack stood outside the corral’s split-rail fencing, his arms resting along the chest-high top rail, a booted foot against the bottom one. He had washed up some and changed his clothes, and now he quietly watched Angel Devlin saddle her horse. His gaze heated with desire and appreciation for the way her slim hips swayed and moved as she worked. Any other woman probably would have looked comical in denims as big as his were on her. But she didn’t. Far from it. No, she was all woman. Jack mentally applauded God for His exceptional handiwork.

  Just then, Angel’s roan captured Jack’s attention when it turned its head to stare curiously at him. This horse, Jack decided, was one of the finest-looking cow ponies he’d ever seen. Well muscled. Long legged. An intelligent look in its eyes. It also looked familiar. That star on its forehead … Hadn’t Mr. Henton’s young drover—what was that kid’s name? Ben something?—been riding it the last time he’d been through?

  “Angel,” Jack called out, having finally seized on a legitimate enough reason to call his continuing presence to her attention.

  Angel’s hands stilled, but she didn’t turn around, didn’t answer him. Not that he’d expected her to. She hadn’t said a word to him since she’d stalked out here and set about the business of leaving. Jack’s gaze slipped to the ground, to the bedroll and neatly packed saddlebags he’d presented her with a few minutes ago. True to his word, he’d gathered together everything she’d said she’d need when she left. If she left. In his mind, that wasn’t settled yet. He’d only collected it all to humor her. Because he still meant to talk her into staying.

  Realizing she hadn’t answered him yet, that she’d gone back to minding her own business—something he wasn’t doing—Jack grinned, watched the swing of her long hair as she worked, and called out, “Hey, I’m talking to you.”

  “I hear you,” she barked out, still not turning to him as she tightened the saddle’s cinch under her horse’s belly. “And I already said I wasn’t sewing up your cut. So what do you want?”

  “My cut’s fine. It doesn’t need stitching. What I want is to ask you about that animal. It looks familiar.”

  Again, her hands stilled. She turned just enough to send him a sidelong stare through that tangled hair of hers. For about the tenth time, Jack wished he could take a brush or a pair of scissors to it. He slipped his attention back to her face when she began speaking. “The animal looks familiar to you because it’s a horse. You might remember riding in on one.”

  Caught off guard, Jack laughed out loud. Not only was she fast with a gun, she was one of the fastest wits he’d ever run across. He wondered if she knew that about herself. Or even cared. She glared another moment and then turned back to her roan. His laughter having now sudsided to a stray chuckle or two, Jack watched her backside with great appreciation.

  But his humor was suddenly displaced by a solemnity that he couldn’t explain. His gaze now roved over her slender, fragile frame as if he sought its breaking point, as if he sought a crack in her that needed to be repaired. If she leaves here, came his thought to explain his shift in mood, she’ll run into Seth. Jack stiffened, felt the anger build in him, as if Seth already held her in his clutches. Like the thunder that rumbled closer and closer, Jack boiled with his emotions. And knew … he’d kill Seth, the little bastard, if he so much as laid a hand
on her.

  Everything inside Jack told him he should be the one saddling a horse, preparing to ride after Seth. He’d like nothing better. But how could he? He had no idea at which of Seth’s hiding places he could be. Or if he’d be at any of them. Furthermore, Jack knew, if he did go, Angel would be in danger, because Seth could come and find her here alone. That is, if Jack could convince her to stay. Say she did, he reasoned. That meant, if he went looking for Seth, she’d have to go with him. And it wasn’t very likely she’d agree to that.

  Gripped by an acute agitation brought on by his difficult choices, Jack swiped a hand over his mouth, irritating the raw cut there. He grimaced at the pain and fumed that his best course of action was proving to be … doing nothing. Which was how he saw sitting tight at the ranch and waiting for Seth to come back. Because Seth always did. Which was small comfort. But the next time, Jack told himself, he’d be ready.

  But even if Seth hadn’t existed, even if he wasn’t a threat, Jack knew he still had reason enough not to want her to leave. As scanty as her knowledge about recent events here at the Circle D might be, she still possessed the only information he was ever likely to get about them. And about his father’s untimely end. To Jack, Angel’s knowledge represented his only starting point for setting things right in his life. Or as right as they could ever again be.

  But there was yet another reason why he couldn’t stand the thought of her riding out of his life. The truth was, he’d miss her like hell. Every contrary thing about her. From that long hair always in those black eyes of hers, to her slender, womanly form and her graceful way of moving about. And her stinging wit and quick intelligence. Divining his own thoughts, Jack stilled, as if he’d just heard a friend confess to being smitten with Angel Devlin. What would he say to such a friend? Wave good-bye as she rides off. That’s what he’d say. So what was he doing?

  Well, if he had any sense, he’d take his own advice. But Pa had always told him he didn’t have any, that his Daltry temper and his acting-before-thinking always got the best of him. Jack grinned, almost laughed at himself. Here he was, living up to that legacy by annoying her until he could think up some reason why she had to stay. He focused on her again, saw her slinging the saddlebags up behind her saddle. If he was going to keep her here, he’d better talk fast. “Where you intend on heading?”

  “That’s my business,” she said, not looking his way.

  Her answer was the match that lit the fuse on his temper. Jack fought to tamp the angry fire inside him. “You don’t have any idea where you want to go, do you?”

  She turned on her heel. “Don’t you have something better to do, cowboy?”

  “Yep,” Jack said, nodding. “I do. But it’ll keep until you’re gone.” Then, while he had her attention, he pointed out, “There’re some mean-looking clouds rolling in, Angel. You noticed ’em yet?”

  “Yep, I did … with the first grumble of the thunder.”

  Jack took in the challenging glint in her eyes. She obviously still expected him to try to stop her from leaving. Which was exactly what he was doing. “So you don’t mind riding in the rain?”

  She shrugged. “I did it before, on the way here. I dried out okay.”

  Again Jack nodded. “I bet you did. You got a slicker?” When she shook her head no, he persisted. “You want one?”

  Angel eyed him the way wild horses do when they’re boxed in and waiting for their captors to make a move. She looked around, as if trying to determine how to escape. “Why are you being so … nice and helpful, all of a sudden?” she asked.

  He thought of his awful behavior toward her the entire time she’d been here. Trying to provoke a strong response from her, he said, “What do you mean ‘all of a sudden’? When was I not nice and helpful?”

  She took the bait, stiffening and glaring. But before she could do more, a booming clap of thunder rumbled across the prairie sky. Startled, Jack jerked away from the split-rail fence, glanced heavenward. Angel grabbed the agitated roan’s reins and soothed the horse with pats and strokes down its arched neck. As the rumbling lessened, she called out, “Even the Almighty had to call you on that lie. Nice and helpful? Hah.”

  Jack’s mood darkened right along with the weather. As a wind blew up and the landscape was blanketed in a deepening gray, he no longer saw the humor in humoring her in this ridiculous idea she had about leaving. She needed to stay. That’s all there was to it, and it was high time she heard it. “You can’t leave in this weather, Angel. Hell, go if you have to. But just wait until this passes. You’ll get yourself killed out there.”

  Stroking the roan’s nose while she held down on its reins, she laughed humorlessly at his words. “Get killed out there? My life’s been threatened right here no less than three times by two men. Thanks, but I’ll take my chances on the trail.”

  And that was all Jack needed to hear. In one easy bolt, he was over the fence and stalking toward her. The closer he came, the wider those black eyes of hers got. But she didn’t back away. Jack stopped in front of her. “I knew it. Seth threatened your life, didn’t he?”

  Briefly, she looked uncertain, perhaps even a bit fearful. But as usual, she covered it with a thick layer of bravado and a squaring of her shoulders. “So what if he did? You did, too. What’s the difference?”

  Damn her. When it came to words, she always had him roped and tied before he even got out of the chute. “The difference is,” Jack began, speaking slowly and deliberately, hoping that she’d take his words to heart with regard to Seth, “unlike me, my brother’ll do it. He’ll kill you.”

  Angel slid her gaze away from his, but not before Jack saw the fear there. She made a show of paying attention to the roan and making soothing noises to it. After a moment, she turned back to him. No fear remained in her eyes. “I believe you. I believed him too when he said it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It wasn’t you he threatened.”

  Jack’s temper flared, making his eyes burn. He looked off toward the barn and mouthed, “Son of a bitch.” Then feeling more in control, he focused on Angel, contemplating anew her smallness, her saddled horse, the packed bags behind the saddle, and her determined face. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said, sounding to his own ears like a judge handing down a sentence. “Not until Seth’s had time enough either to get far away from here or to show up again.”

  “Is that so?” She jutted her chin out at him. “And how are you going to stop me?”

  Jack exhaled mightily and looked her over. And knew what he had to do, as much as he hated it. “How? Like this,” he said … as he fisted his hand and popped her in the jaw, knocking her out cold and catching her limp body up in his arms, all in one smooth move. Startled, her roan shied and skittered away to the other side of the corral.

  “Shit,” Jack cursed loudly as he settled her slight weight against his solid frame and turned toward the enclosure’s latched gate. “I really didn’t want to do that, Angel,” he told her, speaking as if she could hear him. “But you just wouldn’t listen to reason.”

  And I’m betting that I’d better not be anywhere around here when you wake up, either, he thought as he fumbled with the gate’s latch and stepped outside the corral. Kicking the gate closed, he turned and strode toward the house, his bundle of female no more burdensome to him than a kitten. As he warmed to the feel of her in his arms, as he became aware of her warmth, of her curves, the first raindrop fell, landing on Angel’s cheek and trickling down like a teardrop.

  The sight stopped Jack in his tracks, sobering him. Emotion suddenly ran liquid through him. Tears pricked behind his eyelids. And scared the hell out of him. This feeling … so strange … as if he could look into the distance and see the future. It had something to do with her. He stared into her face. She was so beautiful. Her head lay in the crook of his arm. She could be sleeping. But the angry, swelling knot on her jaw said otherwise. Seeing how he had marred her flesh, Jack could only hate himself for what he’d
done, even if it was for her own good.

  But was it, really? Had he done her any favors by keeping her here? As if in answer to his questions, a feeling of overwhelming despair welled up inside Jack. The crushing emotions nearly sent him to his knees. Angel! Her name was a cry from his soul. He gazed at her intently. She couldn’t be more delicate, more finely boned, more like the child she now appeared to be. Her body was all woman, her words sharp and cutting, but she was a wounded fawn otherwise.

  Before he realized what he was doing, before he could think it through and perhaps stop himself, Jack straightened out his arms, raising them, holding her limp rag-doll body up to the heavens. As if this were its signal, the sky split asunder, sending cascading sheets of rain down on them in earnest. The stinging drops pelted them like lashes from a whip, soaking them. The wind, like circling vultures, skirted them, flapping and mocking. Jack heard the hoarse yells, realized they were his.

  “Why?” he cried out. “Why is she here?”

  No one answered. Sudden foreboding had him clutching her tightly against his chest as he crouched over her still form. Did he seek to hide her? To protect her? From what? The coming storm? Yes. But not this one … not the rain and the lightning that assaulted them. Another storm. Another danger … Seth.

  From the corral, Jack heard the frightened roan’s grunts and bellows, but he couldn’t help the poor animal. No more than he could help the woman in his arms. Sudden defeat tore a jagged hole through Jack’s being. He’d made a mistake in keeping her here. That sudden conviction clamped viselike around his heart. He should’ve let her go. He knew this now, just as he knew he too was lost.

  He tried to attribute some of his emotion to his father’s death, to his trying to hold it all in. But he realized that was wrong. Whatever this was, it had less to do with Pa than it did Angel. Again he lowered his head, stared into her rain-soaked face. Did she know she was lost? Whether she did or not, it was too late. Whether she stayed or not … it didn’t matter. Because she’d never get away. She was caught in his destiny. Or he was caught in hers.