The Cowboy and the Angel

by T. J. Kline

  He reached his free hand out, grasping her chin in his fingers. “Sydney isn’t the person meant for me.”

  “Because she’s with your brother?” Her eyes burned with anguish and he hated himself for causing it.

  He was making a mess of this. How could he show her that it wasn’t Sydney he wanted? He took a step forward and slid his fingers into her hair at the back of her head, pulling her toward him. His lips met hers with a fiery passion, burning uncontrolled as he let the dam of emotions loose. With her hands between Kassie and his chest she gasped for breath but didn’t pull away from him. He hoped it was a good sign.

  “It’s you, Angel,” he whispered against her lips. “I don’t know whether it’s safe or not, but I want you.”

  Kassie stirred in his arms. “Wait here.” She nodded but looked like she might run away. “Promise me.” She rolled her lips inward and nodded again.

  He hurried toward Sydney and Scott, every part of him feeling exposed and raw. If he wasn’t careful she was going to panic and run the other direction. He couldn’t let her think she was a substitute for his brother’s wife, a woman who had never stirred him the way Angela did. He wanted to protect her, not cause her more regret.

  “Here,” he said, sliding Kassie into Sydney’s arms. “Angela said you’re leaving tonight?”

  Sydney looked at Scott. “I have to get Kassie home. She was running a slight fever, so Scott’s going to drive me after we finish eating. I think she might have a touch of what little Blake caught.”

  “I should be back in time for the performance tomorrow,” Scott assured him.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “I’m about to find out.” Derek looked at his brother. “Be careful driving.”

  Scott nodded and chuckled. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  ANGELA SAT ON the tailgate of the truck. She shouldn’t have bothered to wait for him to return. Nothing he said would change things. The light in his eyes whenever he held Kassie, the connection she’d seen between him and Sydney, spoke volumes. He and Scott were close, but the signs were there. Derek was in love with Sydney and she would never be more than a substitute. She couldn’t be a stand-in for any man, even temporarily. Her heart ached at the thought of emotionally walking away while still physically working in close proximity for the next week.

  She looked up in time to see him jogging back to the car without Kassie, and she knew he must have taken her back to her mother. A heavy sigh escaped and she felt tears beginning to burn in the back of her eyes. She closed them, willing the tears away, reached for her anger, and wrapped it around her, tucking her heart behind the chipped wall that had surrounded it before she’d allowed Derek to break through. How could he accuse her of lying about her relationship with Joe when he hadn’t told her about Sydney? She was quickly turning into her mother, falling in love with a man who would put her behind his first love. She couldn’t let history repeat itself.

  Derek stepped between her legs, his hands drifting along her thighs. His touch burned through her jeans just above her knees, sending hot desire shooting up her legs to areas she assumed were long dead until meeting him. She fought the yearning pulsing through her body, wishing she had the strength to push him away. She clenched her fists at her sides and dug her nails into her palms, focusing on the pain in her hands and her knuckles pressing into the hard metal of the tailgate instead of feeling the agony in her heart.

  “Let me try this again.” His hands slid to her hips and he pulled her toward him, staring down into her eyes. “I’ve been jealous of my brother my entire life and it’s always caused contention between us, even as kids. If he had something, I wanted it: his horse, his friends and, yes, his girlfriends.” He shook his head and looked down at her lap. “I have no idea why I thought he had it so easy. I just always knew that he was the one everyone saw as a ‘man’ and I was the ‘boy.’ I hated it.”

  She watched Derek clench his jaw, struggling to make her understand. “But I was so immature. I was good at playing on the sympathy everyone showed me since I was the kid who never knew my parents. I got whatever I wanted. I was a spoiled brat. By the time Sydney came into the picture, Scott and I were barely on speaking terms. I wanted her because she was his. I nearly destroyed their relationship and almost got her killed.”

  Derek met her gaze, and she could see his eyes misting. She could read the guilt and pain in his eyes . . . and the shame. She understood the helplessness of living with that sort of shame and guilt. She knew how it felt to have guilt driving every action, every decision, every breath. She wasn’t sure how to remove the pain from his eyes, to help him push away the guilt gnawing at the edges of his heart now that she’d pressed him for an explanation, but she knew she had to do something to comfort him. Angela knew she was risking her own heart as she cupped his jaw between her fingers. “Derek,” she whispered, joining her lips to his.

  He tore his mouth from hers but remained only a breath away, his forehead pressing against hers. “I never loved her. I thought I did but it’s nothing like . . .” He stopped and her heart paused mid-beat, waiting for him to finish his thought. “There is nothing but friendship between Sydney and me. I am not in love with her. Kassie is special to me because she is a living reminder of the forgiveness I’ve received, how I can never go back to being that person. I will always put my family first.”

  Angela felt her heart pounding against her ribs, wondering what he’d almost said. She couldn’t assume he felt the same way about her that she was realizing she did for him. But now that he’d told her about his past with Sydney, she’d seen his soul completely exposed—baring the ugliness he saw inside himself—and she had no doubts about his honesty. This man took being an open book to a new level, and she wondered if she could return his trust with her own vulnerability. Angela bit her lower lip and he groaned in his throat.

  “Angel?” She lifted her eyes to meet his gaze and saw the desire smoldering in the depths. “Unless you want me to take you right here, in the back of my truck, you better stop looking at me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I’m your dinner and you’re starving.” The corner of his lips curved in a cocky grin and his eyes crinkled at the corners. He was trying to lighten the mood but she couldn’t help rising to the bait.

  She pulled away from him, leaning backward. “I am not!”

  He slid her closer until her butt was barely on the back of the truck, his hands curved around her hips. With her body fitted against him, she could feel the evidence of his desire through their clothing. Flames of longing licked at every nerve fiber. She wanted to rip his shirt off and feel his skin under her fingertips. She did the best she could and slid her hands to his biceps, bared by his t-shirt, her hands tingling where she touched him.

  He gave her a grin that could have melted butter. “Yes, you are,” he assured her as he leaned toward her, nuzzling his lips against the hollow behind her ear.

  She couldn’t help the shiver that coursed through her body and down her spine, and he chuckled against her neck. “You taste like you smell, like vanilla.” His arm came around her back and she arched against him, pressing her breasts against his chest. A soft whimper of delight slipped out as his lips found the magical spot where her collarbone met her neck. Her fingers wound around the back of his neck.

  He growled against her throat, his chest rumbling against her. Spirals of pleasure trailed across her breasts and settled in her stomach knowing that she affected him as much as he did her. She felt a ripple of power and ran her fingers over the front of his shoulders to his chest and over the rippled muscles of his abdomen, allowing her fingertips to rest on his waist as his lips crashed against hers again.

  “Angel?”

  “Yes.” She smiled against his lips.

  “You’re making this really difficult.”

  “What?” She knew exactly what he meant, but she was enjoying his kisses too much to ask him to stop.
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br />   “You know what.” He couldn’t fight the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, and he finally pulled away. “Grab the plates and hang on.”

  “What?” She squealed as he spun his back toward her, quickly sliding his hands under her thighs and lifting her off the truck, piggyback. “What are you doing?” She laughed, feeling like a kid as she tried to not to spill the food left on the plates.

  “You must weigh a ton,” he teased.

  “Brave words from a man with pork and beans only inches from his head,” she warned.

  He hitched her up higher on his back, pretending to have difficulty carrying her, as they closed in on the crew seated around the fire pit. “Any chairs free for this nosy reporter I found back there?”

  Skip and Robert laughed as he pretended to stumble from her weight on his back. Joe glared at the pair before rising and storming toward his van.

  “Take mine. I’ve got to get going.” Sydney glanced at Angela. “Unless you want to help me for a second?”

  “Sure.”

  Angela slid from his back to follow Sydney to the trailer but Derek held her hand for an extra moment, as if it pained him to let go of her.

  Sydney rolled her eyes at him. “She will be right back.”

  “She better be, or I’m coming looking for her.”

  “YOU TWO LOOK cozy.” Sydney smiled at Angela as she packed Kassie’s bag.

  “I think we’re coming to . . . an understanding.”

  “Derek’s a pretty amazing guy, who doesn’t realize how rare he really is.” Her eyes held a tenderness and Angela felt a stab of jealousy.

  “What happened between you two? You mentioned it once and he told me a little, but . . .”

  “You want my side?” She paused with her hands in the bag. “You know, one of these days, you’re actually going to have to trust someone. You’re going to have to take them at their word and stop wondering if they are lying or hiding something from you.”

  “I’m not,” Angela began to deny. “I just . . .”

  “I am married to Scott Chandler, King of Distrust. Someday I’ll tell you about it. But”—she pointed her finger at Angela—“I see the same look in your eyes. You want to believe, but you’re afraid to.”

  Angela turned away from Sydney and grabbed a few dresses from the closet. “I trust him,” she hedged.

  “But?” She took the dresses from her hand, dropped them into the suitcase lying open on the bed beside Kassie’s, and put a hand on her hip. “Loving someone is not going to kill you. It’s going to make you stronger.”

  “It killed my mother,” she pointed out.

  Sydney pulled her into a sympathetic hug, wrapping her arms around Angela. Angela hugged her back, appreciating the support of another woman as tears burned the back of her eyes. She squeezed them shut, forcing the tears away. She didn’t want to admit she was afraid, but the fear bubbled up before she could squash it. She didn’t want to fall in love with a man who would break her heart.

  Sydney held her shoulders and drew her back to look her in the eyes. “Derek is not your father.”

  “I know, but . . .”

  “I have never seen him look at another woman the way he looks at you.”

  “Not even you?” If she was surprised by her question, Sydney didn’t show it.

  “I’m not sure what he told you. We are friends, and he has always been there when I needed him, even if he isn’t perfect. I love him but it’s completely platonic. I swear.”

  Angela had seen plenty of people lie. She’d interviewed politicians, lawyers, judges, criminals and other reporters. She’d seen through propaganda and falsehoods from people who lied for a living or kept dark secrets hidden from prying eyes. Looking into Sydney’s eyes, there was nothing but complete honesty.

  Angela wound her arms around Sydney again. “Thank you.”

  Sydney smiled. “For what? I just want to see you both happy. And I think you make him happy.” She zipped the suitcase closed and carried it to the door of the trailer. “Scott’s heading right back here after dropping Kassie and me at home. Don’t waste the privacy while you have it.” She winked at Angela.

  Chapter Nineteen

  * * *

  ANGELA WAVED AS she watched Scott pull out of the rodeo grounds. Mike locked the gate behind them as the sun set just past the trees, turning the sky various hues of orange and pink. It was a beautiful evening, and she felt bad that Scott wouldn’t be enjoying it with his wife beside the fire the way they’d planned. Derek’s arms circled her waist and pulled her back against his chest, pressing his lips against the shell of her ear, causing shivers of delight to radiate down her spine as butterflies took flight in her stomach.

  “I wish we were heading home,” he murmured against her neck. His words sent waves of desire over her skin, causing goose bumps.

  “One more day, cowboy,” she whispered, speculating on what he had in mind when they arrived back at the ranch.

  Jake walked past them and motioned for Derek to follow him. Derek growled at the interruption. “I’ll be right back.”

  She watched the two men as she wandered toward Mike’s trailer. It was too early to head to bed, but she didn’t want to join the rest of the crew around the fire pit, laughing and telling stories. She saw Jake motion toward Joe and her father, who were talking with Mike near the fire.

  Angela watched her father as he laughed at something Mike said before taking a drink from a bottle of water. Her father had surprised her since they’d arrived. He’d been on his best behavior, not causing any sort of commotion, and she had yet to hear him complain in the slightest. It wasn’t like him but she wasn’t about to question any positive change she saw in him. Maybe she wasn’t the only person Mike and his crew was softening.

  “DEREK, I’M TELLING you, you need to have a talk with him.”

  “What am I supposed to say—‘Stop talking about Angela’?” Derek shook his head and shoved his hands into his pockets. What he really wanted to do was punch something, or someone. He shot a glance at Joe. “What kind of man does that?” He couldn’t understand Joe’s motives, even if what he said was true. Doubt crept up on him, making him wonder if Joe might not be telling the truth. Maybe she was just playing him for a fool.

  “Wait a minute,” Jake said, shoving Derek’s shoulder and forcing him to meet his gaze. “Do you believe him?”

  “No.” Derek answered quickly and frowned. Did he? His heart thudded against his ribs painfully. Why would Joe say something that would ruin the reputation of his best reporter, even if he wanted her for himself, unless it was true? Doubts swirled like smoke in his mind, but he was unable to grasp any sort of proof to dispute Joe’s claims. “I mean, I guess it could be. We don’t really know her.”

  Jake threw his hands up and turned his back. “Are you kidding me?” He spun and faced Derek. “You’re an idiot.”

  Derek noticed a few of the crew looking at them and stepped closer to the man he’d known all his life. “You think you could lower your voice, Jake?” he growled. “I will shut Joe up. The rest of it is my business, understand? Butt out.”

  Jake’s jaw clenched and his eyes hardened, disappointment evident in his scowl. “Yes, sir,” he snapped, turning to walk away. “Scott would’ve taken care of this before it became an issue.”

  Derek glared at Jake’s back. It was a low blow, but it had the desired effect, and he felt like a bronc had just kicked him in the gut. He let out a long sigh.

  “Joe,” he called.

  He saw the man glance his way before sauntering toward him with an arrogant swagger, pausing to make sure Angela was watching them intently from her trailer. Derek knew she was going to grill him about this so he didn’t want it to look like an argument.

  “What the hell is your problem?”

  Joe laughed as if he knew what Derek was about to say. “I wondered when one of these flunkies would run and tell you.”

  Derek was surprised by his forthright answer. “Are y
ou trying to piss me off?”

  “I’m trying to warn you, but you don’t want to listen. I was hoping that maybe one of these guys could talk some sense into you.”

  “By calling Angela a whore?”

  Robert waved his comment off. “I never said that. I just told a few of these guys to watch you and make sure you weren’t falling too hard for her game.”

  “Her ‘game’ being using me to get her story?”

  Joe shrugged as if the answer were self-explanatory. “I told you, you aren’t the first. I’ve watched her do this for years. Ask Skip what people at the station call her. She’s known for being callous and cutthroat.”

  “You make me sick.” Derek fisted his hands at his sides and forced himself to consciously take a deep breath to calm down. “If I hear that you’ve said one more word about me or Angela, you’ll wish you were—”

  “Easy, cowboy,” Joe interrupted, laughing out loud. “I’ll leave first thing in the morning. But when things go south, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  ANGELA WATCHED THE two men talking. Joe looked amused, but Derek was furious. He stood rigid with his hands clenched in fists at his sides and looked ready to kill someone. Even from this distance she could see the rage building in him. When he looked her way she saw him relax, and she felt a wave of pleasure that she could affect him the same way he did her. She wasn’t sure what they could be discussing, but she wanted Derek to be assured of her trust.

  She turned her back on the two men and went into the trailer, grabbing her laptop from the bedroom and booting it up on her lap as she sat cross-legged on the couch. She wasn’t sure how to explain it, but when Derek was near she didn’t feel the need to be in control of every situation. She was learning to relax and be herself, without worrying that she’d fall short of being worthy. She caught herself smiling as she thought about Derek’s arms around her waist, warmth spreading into her stomach and radiating outward.

  She opened her Internet connection and checked her email. Another message from Joe, sent during the rodeo today from his phone. She didn’t bother to skim the message, saving it for later. She frowned and wondered why it seemed like he was trying to sabotage this story. She knew he didn’t want to see her to leave the station, but he had to realize that she wasn’t going to get any promotions reporting the new hardware store opening downtown. She sighed and wondered if he was becoming more of a boss and less her friend. She closed her email and opened a search window for reports of cowboy injuries. She was shocked at how many pages were listed, far more than she’d seen in her research for animal abuse.