Angel Falls (Angel Falls Series, #1)

by Babette de Jongh

  “Do the best you can.” He said it as if he was sending me to the grocery store for milk and couldn’t figure out why I was having trouble with the assignment.

  “Ben,” I said, exasperated.

  “Angel, I’ve got to go. You’ll pick the kids up after school tomorrow?”

  “Yes, I will.”

  “You can drop them off at Lois and Herb’s if you need to, but they’d rather sleep in their own beds, if you’re willing to stay with them.”

  “Fine, Ben. I’ll keep them at your house.”

  I called Joan and set up an early morning appointment, since I’d have to pick Amy up at noon.

  I went to bed feeling... I don’t know... manipulated, unappreciated. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but I knew I didn’t like it. I pulled Chester’s furry bulk closer. “Come here, fat cat.” Poor thing, he lived alone half the time while Lizzie and I stayed at someone else’s home. “Let’s go to sleep.” And after a while, we did.

  Friday morning dawned blustery gray, spitting a half-hearted drizzle that made the cold go all the way to the bone. I dressed in layers topped off with a rain slicker, grabbed a kiwi-strawberry smoothie from the fridge, patted Lizzie on the head, and left the house.

  Joan’s big maroon Cadillac was parked outside Murphy Realty, a squatty red-brick building in a row of others just like it. I parked in the empty space next to Joan’s ostentatious land yacht, and saw her sitting inside. She honked the horn and waved to motion me in. I exited my car and entered hers in less than a minute, but the spitting rain hurled big fat drops like pebbles that pelted my face, soaked my hair and drenched the hem of my jeans in seconds.

  “Lovely day you ordered.” Joan backed out and pointed to the console. “I got us some coffee from Bo’s.” She pointed to the new restaurant at the end of the block. Close to a line of train tracks, the restaurant’s front was built around a real boxcar. “Their coffee is actually quite good.”

  I picked up one of the steaming Styrofoam cups stamped with the logo from Bo’s Boxcar Diner, and held it between my palms. Taking a sip, I decided that Joan’s definition of quite good differed from mine. It wasn’t Starbucks, and it wasn’t Jiffy-Stop, but somewhere in-between. Bottom line, I could drink it. “Thanks.”

  While rain showers came and went, we looked at all the houses I’d thought were likely choices. They all had their good points, they all had their bad. The one I liked best had a flooded front yard—good information to have, and maybe worth the trouble of house-hunting in the pouring rain. None were as perfect for Ben and the kids as the one they lived in right now, and I still had serious reservations about his plans to move. I knew he thought it would help them rebuild their lives, but it seemed too soon to me.

  Ben would have to realize this was going to take a long time. His expectations would have to bow to reality. You can’t just order up the perfect house and expect it to appear. And once they made it through this first Christmas without Mel, things wouldn’t seem so bad.

  Joan folded the MLS listing we’d been working from and put it aside. “I have one more that isn’t on the list. The one I was telling you about on Tuesday.” She sounded so mysterious a shiver of anticipation went through me. Or maybe it was just the raindrops drying on my skin. “This one had a sale pending, but the financing fell through. It has passed all the inspections, and the owner has already moved out. It’s a little more expensive than the others, but I think the owner would come down off the price for a quick sale.”

  She pulled up in front of a gray brick Tudor-style house in an old neighborhood. Within walking distance of my house and the elementary school, the location was ideal. Ivy covered the walls, and with the overhanging oaks surrounding the house, it looked as if it had grown up out of the ground. A welcoming ray of sunlight parted the clouds to shine on the wet window glass and make it sparkle.

  “It backs up to the canal. You’ll have lots of birds and wildlife coming to your back yard.”

  “Ben’s back yard, Joan. Not mine.”

  “Sure. I get it.” Her tone implied that she didn’t believe me. “Let’s go inside.”

  The wood floors echoed as we stepped into the empty house. But even empty, the house had a warm, welcoming feeling.

  “Oh, Joan,” I whispered. If I spoke too loud—or even breathed too hard—would this mirage disappear?

  “Wait until you see the kitchen.” She led the way to a huge custom kitchen where delft blue and white tiles accented the eggshell walls and ceiling. An antique butcher-block island occupied the center of the brick tile floor.

  The window above the sink looked out over a fenced back yard dominated by a huge dark tree with low-growing branches.

  “That’s a flowering plum,” Joan said. “It’s lovely in the spring. You can see it from the other side of the canal.” I could imagine a tree house there for Jake, Amy’s Little Tykes cottage huddled below.

  Joan left the kitchen, expecting me to follow. “Let’s see the bedrooms.”

  I couldn’t believe it. The house was perfect. A long bank of windows in the downstairs master suite offered a glimpse of the canal through the trees. A small adjacent room would be suitable for an office. There were four rooms upstairs, two on each side of a central hallway, each pair linked by connecting baths.

  “This is it.” I was awed by the luck that must have been shining down on me, or at least on Ben, this rainy day.

  “There’s a half-basement, too,” Joan said, “and a space over the garage that you could convert into a studio. It needs some work, though. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  I didn’t bother to correct Joan about her assumption that I’d have any use for a studio at Ben’s house. It never did any good.

  We got back to Joan’s office around eleven-thirty, and I walked in distractedly, eager to call Ben and conscious that I’d soon have to pick up Amy from school. Joan pressed the key into my hand. “Keep it for the weekend. Ben can drop it on Monday, after y’all have another look at the house.”

  “Thanks.” I had that being-watched feeling, and looked up to see Ian standing there. He looked powerful and elegant in gray trousers, white shirt, gray silk tie, his gray suit coat unbuttoned.

  She was right behind him, smiling and shaking hands with Joan’s husband, Richard. Her glossy curls weren’t just dark, they were ebony. Her curvaceous body was expensively clothed in a sweater-dress that had to be cashmere. I looked away from her to meet Ian’s gaze.

  No, his glare. He looked murderous, and that piercing stare was directed straight at me.

  He turned to the woman. “Will you excuse me for a moment?”

  He reached me in three strides, grabbed me by the arm, and hauled me out of the office. I had a quick impression of everyone staring open-mouthed at us before I found myself alone with Ian on the sidewalk.

  His fingers squeezed my upper arms. “What are you playing at?”

  “Playing?” Through the window of the real estate office, I could see Joan and Richard standing in the lobby with that woman. All of them stood like statues, watching the show we were putting on. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  With a quick glance at the window, Ian hauled me by the arm again, this time to the edge of the building. He was seething, his anger barely leashed. The thunderclouds overhead looked meek by comparison. “House hunting with Ben? I must say, this happened mighty fast. Just a few weeks ago, you were under the covers with me. Having trouble making up your mind?”

  His angry expression, his rough treatment, his mean words, turned up the heat on my simmering anger, making it flare out of control. I slapped his face. Needles of pain stung my palm, chastising me for hurting him on purpose, for being a bitch instead of the lady I’d been raised to be. My face flooded with heat. “Ian, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”

  He pulled me into his embrace.

  The door to the realty office opened, and the woman drifted onto the sidewalk, a quizzical expression on her beautiful face. “Ian, I hate to interrupt.”
She glanced down at the bracelet-style wristwatch on her slender wrist. “I really should be going, or I’ll miss my flight.”

  Ian buttoned his coat, smoothed his tie. “The car’s unlocked. If you wouldn’t mind...”

  “Certainly,” the statuesque beauty said. “But I do need to get to the airport soon. I told my husband I’d be on the next flight out as soon as we finished our business here.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Ian promised. His voice was cool, neutral, businesslike.

  Had I been wrong? I felt horrified and relieved at the same time. The combination of feelings turned my knees to mush. He still hadn’t explained why she was at his house that night wearing that sexy black robe. But it suddenly dawned on me with absolute certainty—I had been wrong, all along. “Oh, Ian. I’m sorry. I should’ve...”

  “Trusted me?” A bitter smile twisted his lips. I reached up and laid my palm against the red mark I’d left on his cheek. He pulled away, just slightly, but enough for me to feel it. “Yeah, I guess you should’ve.”

  “Ian, you have to understand how it looked... how I felt when I drove up to your house and saw her through the window. I couldn’t think of any explanation except the obvious one. I still can’t.”

  He stood like a stone statue, arms crossed. My words poured off him like water off granite. Nothing I said made his expression soften.

  I held my hands out, but didn’t dare to touch him. “You can’t blame me for taking what I saw at face value. You know you’d have done the same in my place.”

  “Maybe,” he allowed, his voice low. “But I’d have given you the chance to explain.”

  “I did give you the chance to explain, when you helped me find the boys, but then you—”

  “You want to go there now? Really?” He looked at me like he hated me. His amber eyes were cold, his mouth a hard slash in his stony face.

  I saw with sudden clarity how finding out that I’d gone to dinner with Ben that night must have felt to Ian. I thought about everything Meredith had said, about Ian not wanting to buy the house he was renting. About him putting the newspaper up for sale. Had all that happened before, or after, Ian had broken our date and I’d gone out with Ben instead?

  “You’re right. I was being childish, and I’m sorry.” I put a hand on his coat sleeve, and he moved back just far enough that I had to let it fall to my side again. “Ian, please. I know I was wrong. But I still deserve an explanation for that night, don’t I?”

  Ian took another step back and stood at the edge of the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, looking out toward the street. When he turned back toward me, his closed-off expression made my heart flop over. “You know what, Casey? I’m through.” He didn’t sound angry anymore, just very, very tired. “I was married to a woman who did her best to suck me dry. She demanded more than I could give, then manipulated me by withdrawing when I didn’t please her. I can’t do that again. I won’t.”

  “Ian, please. I didn’t—I wouldn’t...”

  “Yes, you did. That’s exactly what you did. I waited for you outside your house. I left messages begging you to call me. I felt like a goddamn stalker, the way I kept after you.”

  God, he was right. The realization went through me, a rollercoaster of regret that bottomed out in the pit of my stomach. “Ian...”

  I stepped toward him, but he put up a hand to stop me. “Tell Ben I said hello.” He turned and walked away, didn’t even bother to look over his shoulder at me. He just got into his car and slammed the door.

  The roar of the engine and the crunch of gravel under tires assaulted my ears. I didn’t look up. I was looking down, imagining my heart at my feet, flattened as if it had been run over. I had no one to blame but myself and my stupid pride. I had thrown away something rare and precious. I stumbled to my car, fell into the driver’s seat, looked at the clock.

  “Shit.” It was almost time to pick up Amy. I’d have to fly to get there on time. Past all those school zones. Shit.

  Then, with a peal of thunder, a jagged fist of lightning zipped open the skies, and it poured rain.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  That evening, I did the fifty-thousand things I had to do for Ben’s kids, when all I wanted was to climb into bed with a bottle of wine and my dog and feel sorry for myself. But kids have a way of forcing you to get over yourself, so I stood at the stove, stirring the spaghetti noodles to keep them from sticking. Amy clung to my leg, absently patting my hip.

  We got through dinner, word problems, and a science project proposal. I fed Lizzie, cleaned the kitchen, and tucked Amy into bed. When Maryann retreated to her room to read before bedtime, I climbed into Ben’s bed with my wine, my dog, and the phone.

  I wanted to call Ian, but I called Ben instead. Smoothing the comforter over my thighs, I leaned back against the headboard, waiting for Ben to answer his cell. I could just barely hear the bedtime music I’d put on for Amy in the next room. Other than that, the house was quiet. After a few rings, I figured I’d have to leave a message, but then he answered.

  “Hey, Casey.”

  “Ben, I found y’all a house. Joan left a key so we can look at it tomorrow.”

  “That’s great. But I won’t be home until Sunday.”

  “Sunday? But you said—”

  “I’ve been asked to stay and socialize. I kind of have to.”

  “Ben, has it occurred to you that I might have other plans beyond keeping your kids indefinitely?” As it turned out, I didn’t, but he didn’t know that.

  Ben made a huffing sound of exasperation—as if he had any right to be exasperated with me. “Go ahead and show the house to the kids, and if you can’t keep them after that, I guess you can take them to Lois and Herb’s.”

  “I can watch them.” Since I’d blown it with Ian for good, I might as well be taking care of Ben’s kids. “I’ll take them to see it tomorrow.”

  “Good. Then I’ll see it on Sunday.”

  “Okay, fine.” I sighed.

  “Casey, you sound a little off. Is everything okay?”

  “It’s been one of those days.”

  “Except for finding the house.”

  I sniffed. “That was definitely the high point.”

  “Well, tuck the kids in and get some sleep. Maybe I can try to get home late tomorrow night.”

  “No. I don’t want you driving on that road at night unless you have to. I’ll see you Sunday.” I hung up the phone and scooted down into my nest of pillows, then pulled the comforter up to my chin and waited for my body heat to create a warm cocoon. I had just started to get toasty when the bedside phone rang, jolting me out of a light doze. I managed to snatch the receiver up before the second ring.

  “Hello? Ben?”

  “It’s Ian. You didn’t answer your cell.” His voice sounded strained, and I knew it had cost him to call me here, at Ben’s house. But he’d called, so maybe it wasn’t really over between us. Maybe I had another chance. He could still buy the house he was renting. He could still decide not to sell the newspaper.

  “Hi.” I stacked pillows at the headboard and leaned against them. “My cell is muted for the night. I’m glad you called.”

  “I just got back into town. I had to drive Bianca to the airport, and rush hour traffic in Birmingham was horrible.”

  Bianca. So that was the curvaceous beauty’s name. It suited her. “Oh,” was all I could think of to say.

  Ian cleared his throat. “I called to apologize. I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did this afternoon. You’re not like Maeve, and I shouldn’t have compared you to her. That was unfair.”

  “I was unfair to you, too, and I’m sorry.”

  “Is Ben there?”

  “Of course not. I’m here because he isn’t.”

  “I’m coming over. See you in twenty minutes.” Then he hung up.

  Still wearing my flannel nightgown, I went out onto the front porch to wait for him. Lizzie followed, taking the opportunity for a nighttime potty and patro
l around the yard.

  My heart rate tripled when Ian’s car pulled into the drive. Butterflies flooded my insides when he killed the lights and stepped out of the car. They started doing backflips as he came up the walk. Everything about him made those butterflies flutter and swarm. His broad shoulders, gleaming black hair, the devastating smile I could just make out when he got closer to the porch light.

  I opened the front door and stepped into the foyer. Lizzie scooted past into the dark house. “Come in. It’s freezing out here.”

  “No wonder you’re cold.” He came in, closed the door, turned the bolt, took me in his arms. “If you were wearing something besides this...”

  “It’s called a nightgown, Ian. And it’s more fabric than you’ve ever seen me in yet.” I shivered against him, absorbing the delicious heat beneath his jacket for a minute, then pulled away and led him into the darkened den. I had closed the doors to the kids’ rooms and the hallway. We would have complete privacy for our talk, unless one of the kids woke up.

  I prayed that wouldn’t happen, because once Ian’s body pressed mine into the couch, we didn’t do much talking. Explanations could come later. Right now, I wanted nothing more than to climb into his skin and inhabit his warm strength.

  In Ian’s arms, I felt a sense of rightness, of belonging, of blessed relief. I sent up a silent prayer of thanks. “I missed you.” Sliding my hands around the muscular warmth of Ian’s ribs and back, I kissed him with joyous abandon. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  He trailed kisses down my neck and murmured against my throat. “I’ve missed you, too.”

  His hands molded my breasts, skimmed my ribs, caressed my hips. His touch roused me to squirming, panting, gasping need, and I reveled in the electrical response of every nerve-ending. Through the combined layers of our clothing, his erection pressed into the aching cleft between my legs. Full, hard, insistent.

  The thick folds of my nightgown wrapped around us both, and Ian tugged at the voluminous fabric, pulling it up though his weight trapped it between us. I reached down and tried to help, hiking up handfuls of cotton and lace to expose—