‘I have to,’ he said. They stopped in the middle of the street and looked at each other. A woman walking along the sidewalk frowned as if in disapproval. ‘You know that’
‘I know it,’ she said. ‘I always knew it would be like that.’
‘You could make it easier for me,’ he said.
‘That’s right,’ Sherry replied. ‘But I don’t think I will.’
‘It’s my job,’ he said to her. ‘It’s what I do.’
‘I’ll put you up some food,’ she said. ‘While you go say goodbye to Howie.’
She turned away quickly and went into the hotel, but he caught the gleam of the tears in her eyes. He told himself he was being dumb. It wouldn’t matter if he stayed one more night. No one would ever know. Not true, he thought. I’d know. And anyway, all I’d have to do would be to do it over tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or whenever it was. So it might as well be now.
He still didn’t want to go.
He went over to Mrs. Mahoney’s and said goodbye to Howie. They shook hands.
‘I figured you’d stay around,’ Howie said.
‘No,’ Angel replied.
Howie shook his head. ‘Your boss, this attorney general character you mentioned,’ he said. ‘He must be some hell of a holy terror, he can booger you into action from that far away.’
Angel thought of the man in the big high-ceilinged room in Washington, of what his reaction would have been had he been able to hear Howie’s assessment of him. He grinned.
‘You’re about right,’ he said. ‘He’s a kind of hell of a holy terror at that.’
‘I never thanked you,’ Howie said abruptly.
‘Good,’ Angel told him. ‘Don’t start now.’
He went out of there before it got maudlin. You made friends very fast in the kind of circumstances he had walked into in Madison. It was hard to just walk away from them, back to his own lonely life, knowing that in all probability he’d never see them again. He thought he’d quite like to know whether Howie would make out. He figured he probably would.
‘I made you beef sandwiches,’ Sherry Hardin said, her face just that shade closer to held set than too composed. ‘And a canteen of coffee.’
‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘Thanks. Thank Chen for me, too.’
‘He didn’t make them,’ she said.
‘Not for that,’ he replied. ‘I’m not too good at leaving time.’
‘Me neither,’ Sherry Hardin said. There was a silence.
‘This job,’ she said. ‘How long will it take?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Honestly don’t know.’
‘And when it’s over? When you’ve found this man, Magruder? What then?’
‘Then,’ he said. ‘I’ll be coming back.’
‘Here?’ she said. ‘To Madison?’ Her eyes were bright, dancing.
‘Here,’ he agreed. ‘To Madison.’
‘Oh, Frank Angel!’ she said softly. She stood on tiptoes and kissed him softly on the lips. Then she kissed him properly and didn’t let up until they both wanted to let go. He touched her lower lip with a gentle finger, looked for a long moment at the bright copper glow of her hair. She was a very beautiful lady, and the gift of her love was priceless. How could he do less than fulfill the need that shone from her eyes? He kissed her again, this time for goodbye.
‘I’ll be back,’ he told her. ‘You be ready.’
Piccadilly Publishing
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If you enjoyed this book we recommend others in the series:
FIND ANGEL!
SEND ANGEL!
TRAP ANGEL!
HANG ANGEL!
Also by Frederick H Christian
the Sudden series
SUDDEN STRIKES BACK
SUDDEN AT BAY
SUDDEN – APACHE FIGHTER
About the Author
Frederick Nolan, a.k.a. 'Frederick H. Christian', was born in Liverpool, England and was educated there and at Aberaeron in Wales. He decided early in life to become a writer, but it was some thirty years before he got around to achieving his ambition. His first book was The Life and Death of John Henry Tunstall, and it established him as an authority on the history of the American frontier. Later he founded The English Westerners' Society. In addition to the much-loved Frank Angel westerns, Fred also wrote five entries in the popular Sudden series started by Oliver Strange. Among his numerous non-western novels is the best-selling The Oshawa Project (published as The Algonquin Project in the US) which was later filmed by MGM as Brass Target. A leading authority on the outlaws and gunfighters of the Old West, Fred has scripted and appeared in many television programs both in England and in the United States, and authored numerous articles in historical and other academic publications.
Hunt Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #5) Page 14