Captive Angel

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  Angel exhaled her rising exasperation with his rambling tale. He still hadn’t told her what she needed to know. She decided to try again, this time being more specific in her questioning. “Mr. Cornwell, what happened to you … before the Comanche came along?”

  “Oh. We was ambushed, is what we was.” Boots then turned to his friend. “Ain’t that right, Lou?”

  Lou nodded, looking a bit simple as he stared at Angel but pointed at Boots, as if to say he agreed with him. Then “Yep,” he blurted.

  Angel wanted to scream, and even feared she would. But she got no further than a frown with their names on it before the two men once again directed their attention outside, pulling back the curtain to peer down at the activity in the yard.

  Just then, an unexpected tenderness—still a new emotion to her—assailed her, tugging at her heart. She exhaled her anger, ready to chuckle at them. Or perhaps, herself. How could she be mad at them? The poor old things were tattered, hurt, and scared breathless from their ordeal. And how many times in her life, Angel asked herself, had she been the same? How many times had she needed someone to care that she was, only to have no one take pity on her … except, of late, Wallace Daltry?

  And these were his men. She needed to return the man’s favor to his hired hands. Yes, she still needed answers from them. After all, they represented the only links she had to what had gone on here. They might even know a name or a direction she and Jack could go to find answers. But she needed to ask gently … even if the notion of herself doing such a thing did go against the grain. But it was worth a try. Angel unlisted her hands and spoke up … kindly. “Did you see who ambushed you, Mr. Cornwell?”

  Boots let go of the curtain to look back at her and scratch and rub at his balding pate. “No, I can’t rightly say that I did, ma’am. Had their bandannas over their faces, they did. But there was a passel of ’em that showed up here. Rustlers, I suppose. After the cattle. Weren’t no Injuns, that’s a fact. But whoever them ornery critters was, they dragged us off when we told ’em the cattle was already on the trail and then they shot us up pretty good.”

  Even though her heart sank with his negative answers, answers that did not divulge the identities of the murdering thieves, skepticism born of Boots’s allegation that he and Lou Montana had been shot up drew a skeptic frown on Angel’s face. Her gaze slowly slipped over the two men. They looked hale and hardy enough to her. She met Boots Cornwell’s suddenly wavering gaze and reddening face.

  “Well, leastwise, they meant to shoot us up,” he blurted. “Just nicked and grazed us some, is more like it, before them Co-manch rode up, a-yellin’ and a-hollerin’. Plumb scared them rustlers off. But still, me and Lou got enough injuries to give us a gawd-awful fever, that’s for sure. And I ain’t never seen the like of them poultices and medicines them squaws forced on us and into us.” He again turned to Lou for support. “Ain’t that right, Lou?”

  Not surprisingly, Lou’s widened brown eyes and his frowning nod again verified Boots’s version of events.

  Gawd-awful or not, Angel suspected the women’s remedies had saved these men’s lives. “When did all this happen?”

  Boots shrugged. “Well, I lost track of time, what with the fever and all, but near as me and Lou could figger, once we come to, it was a good ten or more days ago.” Then he frowned, sending her a considering look. “Why you askin’, ma’am?”

  Angel heard his question, saw his waiting stare, but momentarily turned her thoughts inward, making some calculations of her own. So, Lou and Boots had been shot up right before she arrived here. Right about the time Mr. Daltry was killed. If she considered those two events and the missing men and cattle from the Circle D—and those men she and Jack found yesterday—then yep, all those things were happening about the same time.

  And, no doubt, being done by the same men. But she didn’t for a minute believe that cattle rustling was what lay at the bottom of events here. For one thing, rustlers who knew their business wouldn’t have killed off the most valuable of the lot, the breeding stock. They might have killed the men and the dogs, but not the horses, valuable cow ponies. No, cattle rustling didn’t explain much, especially the missing papers. Or Mr. Daltry’s murder, which she’d always said was personal, like a revenge killing.

  So, something else, something a lot worse, something just plain evil, was behind all this. Her fearful thoughts chilled Angel’s blood as she entertained the question What could it be?

  “Ma’am? You all right? You look a mite frownish around the edges.”

  The sound of Boots’s voice snapped Angel back to the moment. “I’m fine. Just doing some figuring.”

  “Figuring about what?” asked a deep male voice from behind her.

  Twelve

  Startled, Angel jerked around. And was forced to pull up short, a hand to her chest, over her thumping heart. Jack was directly behind her, all but on top of her. Wide-eyed, her vision filling with his broad-chested presence, she stared up into his starkly handsome face. And instantly realized, from his expression, that yet something else—in the short space of time he’d been outside—had happened.

  He looked away from her, directing his attention to the two old men by the window, and putting his hands to his waist. “Lou, Boots, what’re you doing out of bed? About five minutes ago, I’d have said you two weren’t long for this world, the way you were moaning.”

  “We done that for them Co-manch. They didn’t mess with us too much if’n we carried on so. But don’t you worry. We’re still kicking, all right—just not as high,” Boots assured him. Then he smiled broadly, revealing a mouth full of snaggly, yellowing teeth. “You shorely are a sight for sore eyes, boy. I figured after that yellin’ match you and your pa had last winter over the way he was a-runnin’ the ranch, we’d not see hide nor hair of you again. But here you are. I’ll bet your pa is plumb tickled to have you here, too. Did you tell him yet that me and Lou was home? I figured as he’d be up here a-yellin’ at us for layin’ about with them Co-manch and not being here doing our jobs.”

  Angel’s heart thudded. She could tell by Jack’s softening expression that he wasn’t ready to deal with what he had to tell them. So she jumped in with, “I told them he’s out back, that he won’t be returning for a while.”

  Jack looked into her eyes, nodding, as much as thanking her with a relieved lift of his eyebrows and a roll of his eyes. Then he looked again to the men, exchanging a few more words with them. With him thus distracted, Angel studied his face, noting the lines to either side of his mouth, the eagle-eyed intensity of his stare. Something was eating the man alive. What could it be? Angel fisted her hands against her sudden desire to reach up and smooth away the worry that lined his face. “Jack? What’s happened?” she all but whispered.

  He looked down at her again. Almost imperceptibly, he shook his dark head, indicating with a lift of his chin the two older men in the room with them.

  Understanding, Angel nodded in return, even as she felt her belly muscles tighten. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to speak of it in front of Lou and Boots. But as the moment stretched out, and he said nothing, simply stared at her, Angel blurted out the belated and the obvious. “You gave me quite a start just now, standing behind me like that.”

  Jack exhaled his breath and firmed his mouth until tiny lines, like mocking smiles, formed at either end. “I know. I’m sorry,” he said, sounding weary. Then he pointed to Boots and Lou. “You get anything out of them?”

  Angel nodded. “Yeah. Some. About ten days ago, they were ambushed here and dragged off by some yahoos wearing bandanna masks. Boots seems to think the men were cattle rustlers—”

  “They weren’t.”

  Angel frowned, narrowing her eyes, her mind working. The way he said it, the note of certainty in his voice. She was right. He’d learned something while outside. “Then who were they?”

  Jack’s answer was a riveting and blazing blue-eyed glare that all but turned Angel to ashes, had her stepping back,
even though she figured it wasn’t directed at her—thank the Good Lord—but was more for the men whose identities were now burned into this man’s soul, no doubt. “I’ll tell you outside,” he said. “Hold on a minute.” When Angel nodded that she would, he turned to his drovers. “You two get back in that bed and stay put, you hear?”

  Even as he complied, even as he and Lou shuffled over to the wide four-poster, Boots shook his head. “Now, Jack, I don’t think your pa’s going to be too happy about that if’n—”

  “It’s okay for now, Boots,” Jack cut in. “I’ll be back in a minute to check on you and to … talk.” That was one conversation Angel didn’t envy him. It was obvious to her now that these two simple men were as good as family—well, maybe better than family—to Jack.

  “All right, Jack, we’ll do that. We’ll wait right here for you,” Boots again assured him.

  “Good.” With that, Jack gripped Angel’s arm, turned them both, and escorted her out of the room, closing the door behind them and stalking down the hall with her … to his bedroom. Unceremoniously he led her inside and closed the door. Only then did he let go of her arm.

  Angel took a few more steps into the airy room, looking around but knowing already, from her investigation when she’d first arrived here, what she’d see. No frills, solid furniture, and a wide bed covered with a colorful quilt. She pivoted to face Jack, her hand going to the place on her arm where he’d gripped her. He hadn’t hurt her, but still she rubbed her fingers over where his had been.

  “I’m sorry I rushed you out of there,” he told her. “But I couldn’t take any more of their questions about my father.” He huffed out his breath, ran a hand through his hair. “That’s going to be a tough one, telling them. They’ve been with the Circle D since I was a boy.”

  “I figured as much, watching you with them,” she said. What she didn’t say was how much her respect for him was growing, seeing as she had how he’d taken such care with the older men’s feelings.

  As if he hadn’t heard her, Jack shook his head. “I’ve got to tell them about Tex and Calvin, too—the men we found yesterday.” Then he frowned, looking around the room as if he hadn’t realized until now where he’d brought her. He flicked his gaze to her. “You mind being in here?”

  “No,” Angel drawled. “One room’s as good as another.”

  He gave her a considering once-over. Not a heated stare, just a measuring one. Then he shifted his stance, as if that signaled his change in subject. “All I had time for outside was a few words of greeting to get Lou and Boots over their surprise at seeing me home.”

  Angel remembered Boots’s words. He’d said something about the fuss between Jack and his father being over how the ranch was run. There had to be more to it, though, for him to disinherit his son. But she didn’t get any further than that in her thoughts before she realized he was quiet … and again staring at her. Discomfitted by his scrutiny, she blurted, “What?”

  His expression and his voice softened. He pointed to her rubbing her arm. “I’m sorry I put my hand on you. I know I’m not supposed to. Did I hurt you?”

  “No.” Angel jerked her hand away from her arm and denied to herself the guilty warmth that crept over her cheeks. “It takes more than that to hurt me,” she said, her voice sounding, even to her own ears, a little too high and less indignant than she’d intended.

  “I bet it does,” he said, managing to sound as if he felt sorry for her.

  And that realization only increased her anger at herself, at her uncustomary reaction to his touch, his voice, his words. How did he do that … seeing inside her and making a mishmash of what he found there? Feeling as if somehow she’d been untrue to herself, Angel notched her chin up, looked him right in his concerned blue eyes, and chose a few sharp words as a salve to her abraded pride. “Still, you’d do well to remember to keep your hands to yourself—before the fact … cowboy.”

  * * *

  Cowboy. With that one word, she probably just saved my sanity, Jack thought. She just saved him from the soul-deep, raw hurt and anger that tore at his insides. And all but drove him to his knees in defeat. He supposed he ought to thank her for that.

  Hell, he admitted, he ought—no, wanted—to do more than that. He wanted to grab her to him. Wanted to hold her close, needed to feel her warmth and the comfort of her embrace. He needed someone—Angel—to touch him, to tell him it was going to be all right. Even when he knew it wasn’t going to be. Not ever. Not after what he’d just learned from Standing Elk.

  What his Comanche friend had told him tore at Jack’s heart. No, he pleaded with himself. Don’t think about it right now. Think about Angel. And he did, looking her up and down as she, for whatever reason—perhaps tiredness, perhaps impatience with his continued silence … turned away from him to take the few steps to the window. Once there, she crossed her arms under her chambray-shirted bosom and stood in slender profile to him, staring out at what he knew lay outside within her view. The service yard, the barn and corral, the prairie beyond.

  Jack fisted his hands against the urge to go to her, to take her in his arms and just hold her. She’d never allow it. He needed to look away from her, needed to do something. Anything but stand here with his naked want hanging out. His agitation lending abruptness to his movements, he ran a hand through his hair, shifted his weight from one booted foot to the other. And again turned to her. The sight she made, here in his room, staggered him, had him all but crying out the questions in his soul. Is it your touch I want, Angel Devlin? Or just anyone’s right now?

  He had to consider both, weigh them against the ugly truth festering inside his heart and possibly clouding his judgment. Was what Standing Elk told him making him think he wanted things he didn’t really? Couldn’t it be, just like on his first day home when she’d told him about his father, that he simply needed the comfort of anyone warm? Or was it, in truth, her—and only her—he wanted?

  A sinking feeling in Jack’s stomach gave him his answer. It was her he wanted. Angel Devlin. And only her. He wanted to fall into her arms and clutch her to him … and never let her go. He wanted her to hold him as much as he wanted to hold her. He wanted to feel her kisses on his face, her hands in his hair, her heart beating against his. He needed her to tell him he wasn’t alone, that all would be okay. But he couldn’t go to her. He couldn’t ask her for that.

  Because she was Angel Devlin. And she wouldn’t welcome his touch. Or any man’s, he suspected. Not after what she’d watched her mother go through. Hell, common sense said she’d probably seen only the worst side of men all her life. A sadness invaded Jack with his next conclusion. Those experiences had most likely hardened this girl’s heart until no man could touch it.

  This realization only added to his misery over what Standing Elk had reluctantly told him. And right now, Jack couldn’t have said for whom he felt more sorry. Her … because she’d never admit to needing him or anyone else. Or himself … because he needed her.

  Dejected by his thoughts, Jack fought what he felt as a growing truth inside himself with regard to her. How could it be, he fumed, that he could have such strong feelings for her? He’d known her only a few days. So how, in that short space of time, could he have such a certainty about how he felt?

  Maybe, he decided, it was because of their being thrown together like this under such trying circumstances. Maybe it was what they were still going through together. He frowned, shaking his head, thinking no, they weren’t going through anything together. They were going through the same thing … wanting to hang on to the Circle D, but from opposite sides. Then, how…?

  A sudden vision from yesterday—of the white wolf lifting her head in the rain and howling as he’d held Angel up in his arms—brought Jack his answer. They were meant to be, the two of them. He repeated it for himself, with a growing sense of conviction. We were meant to be. It really was that simple. Their being together had been written in the stars long before they’d ever walked this earth. Pulled back to
the moment, Jack glanced again at her. She’d now turned completely away, her back to him, apparently as lost in her thoughts as he was in his.

  He studied her back, noting anew her shapeliness, the slenderness of her frame, a frame that held so much strength, that kept so much inside. Just then, her long, curling black hair shimmered with a slight movement she made, a shifting of her weight. Then, a tiny sniff escaped her. As if that were his signal, Jack let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and called to her. “Angel?”

  She pivoted to face him, her arms easing down to her sides. Her black eyes, bright with questioning, considered him, waited for him to speak. Jack then realized she hadn’t been lost in thought. She’d been waiting for him to speak. Under her quiet scrutiny, faced with her vulnerable yet aloof beauty, Jack had to clear his throat, and still wasn’t sure he could get the words out. But finally, he did, speaking haltingly.

  “It was—” he began but stopped, choking off his words. He couldn’t look at her as he said this. It was too ugly. He shifted his gaze just to her left, to the white-laced curtains of the window. And took a deep breath, preparing himself to utter the most evil, the most unbelievable words he’d ever have to say in his entire life.

  “It was what, Jack?” came Angel’s sudden yet soft prompting. “What’s wrong?”

  He glanced her way again. This time, her black eyes, the luminous depths, as always, captured and held his attention. “It was…” he began again. And again stalled. He clenched his teeth, fisted his hands, hating this hurt inside him. Instead, he should be feeling rage. A righteous and vengeful anger. He took a deep breath, firmed his lips together. And felt the first stirrings of those emotions deep within himself. As if he’d planted them in his soul, they sprouted, grew within him, came to his rescue.