ROYAL'S CHILD

by Sharon Sala

  "Angel."

  She sounded small and lost, and he wished to God he was there with her.

  "We're on our way."

  "Okay."

  "I love you, baby."

  A fresh set of tears spilled down her face. She squeezed the receiver tightly, holding on to her man in the only way she could.

  "I love you, too," she said softly.

  "You'd better," he growled. "We've got at least a good sixty years ahead of us, and some good loving, too."

  She was smiling when she hung up.

  The click sounded in Royal's ear and he hung up with a sigh. When he turned, he realized that Will had long ago hit the mute button, and every ear in the store, including Maddie's, had been trained on his end of the conversation.

  "Uh…" Will began.

  Royal's jaw slid forward in a mutinous thrust as he reached for Maddie's hand.

  "If you want any more of my business, Will Smith, then you won't bother to finish what you started to ask." He looked around the feed store to the half dozen men gathered there. "That goes for the rest of you, too."

  None had the guts to look him in the eye.

  Will had known Royal Justice for more years than he cared to count. He'd seen him deck a man for raising his voice in front of his wife. But that had been before his wife died. After that, old Royal had kept to himself. He grinned. Maybe the gossip he'd been hearing was right, after all. Maybe Royal Justice was sweet on his housekeeper. And wouldn't that be fine.

  "I ain't sayin' a word," Will muttered, pretending great indignation. "Alls I was goin' to ask was do you want to charge the feed you picked up?"

  "Yes," Royal said, and started out the door. But he should have known his Maddie would have the last word.

  "Daddy, are you in love with my angel?"

  He groaned and slammed the door behind him.

  * * *

  Chapter 15

  « ^ »

  Angel heard Royal's truck coming down the driveway and ran out of the house. She was standing on the porch when it came to a sliding halt. He got out before the dust had settled, set Maddie on her feet with an order to go wash the grape sucker off her face and hands and headed for Angel with single-minded intent.

  Angel met him at the steps. Within seconds, she was in his arms, her face buried against his neck. Safe. She was safe.

  Maddie stared intently at the couple, drawing her own conclusions to what she was seeing. At that moment, Flea Bit came sauntering around the corner of the house with its tiny tail straight up in the air like a flag at full mast.

  "Flea Bit," Maddie squealed, and held out her hands.

  Royal turned. The word no was at the edge of his tongue when she picked the cat up. By then it was too late. Cat and girl were now stuck to each other with a thick, grapey glue.

  "Well, damn," he muttered. But the look on Maddie's face was priceless. He couldn't help it. He started to laugh.

  Laughter was the last thing Angel expected to hear, but when she turned to look, she started to grin.

  Maddie was trying to let go, but every time she lifted her hand, a new patch of kitty hair got caught in the mess. The cat was squalling in pain and climbing the front of her shirt in a futile effort to get free. The closer it got to her face, the wilder Maddie's expression became.

  "Daddy!" she screeched.

  Angel was laughing as she ran to help. "Wait, honey," she cried. "Don't move. Let Daddy and me help you."

  Maddie was considering the wisdom of a real good cry to offset the fact that she hadn't done as she'd been told, then decided it wasn't going to be necessary after all.

  Her daddy was on his knees, trying to peel the cat's claws from the front of her shirt, while her angel was trying to unstick the hair from the palms of Maddie's hands.

  "We're all stuck," she announced.

  Royal paused and looked up. In every way that counted, Maddie was right. She was stuck to the cat. The cat was stuck to her shirt. Angel was getting sticky from both cat and Maddie, and intermittently, the cat stuck its claws into him.

  "Yeah, honey, we sure are," he said, then grinned at the look on Angel's face as Flea Bit's little tail hit her square in the face.

  Flea Bit hit the porch running and didn't look back. Maddie looked at her hands and sighed.

  "Daddy?"

  "Hmm?"

  "Will the hair grow back on Flea Bit?"

  Angel sat on the porch, folded her arms across her knees and dropped her head. Her shoulders were shaking uncontrollably.

  Guilt hit Royal belly-first, and he started to panic as he realized he'd completely forgotten why they'd rushed home. He dropped to one knee and cupped the back of her head.

  "Angel, honey, I'm so sorry. It's not that I didn't think of your feelings, but Maddie was … uh, well, the cat was so…"

  "Oh, God," she gasped, and fell backward onto the porch with her arms out and her face streaked with tears. But they weren't tears of sorrow. She was laughing so hard she couldn't stop.

  "If you could have seen your face," she mumbled, then rolled onto her side and laughed even harder.

  Relief settled. All he could think was, thank God she wasn't mad.

  Maddie started off the porch in the direction the cat had gone. Royal grabbed the tail of her shirt and gave it a yank.

  "Inside. Now," he said shortly. "And don't come out until those hands are clean and shining."

  She disappeared, leaving them alone on the porch.

  "Here," Royal said. "I'll help you up."

  Angel shook her head and held out her hands. "Don't touch me," she said, and laughed even harder. "I'm all catty, too."

  He stood with a silly grin on his face, staring at her while the last empty place in his heart slowly filled. She had become his touchstone to sanity—his friend and his love. As he watched her, still trying to come to terms with her hysteria, she suddenly blurred before his eyes. It came to him then that without her beside him, his life would be far less than it was meant to be.

  "Marry me."

  The words silenced her as nothing else could have done. She rolled on her back, the last of her smile still fixed on her face.

  "What did you say?" she asked, and heard the panic in her voice.

  "You heard me," Royal said.

  "Say it again," she whispered. "Say it while I'm looking at your face."

  He squatted beside her. "Marry me."

  She sat with a jerk. "Just like that? Without an I love you or I can't live without you? You say marry me just like that?"

  His voice was shaking. "I love you. I can't live without you."

  Angel started to cry. But not like she had before. Not because she was afraid of the killer. But because she was afraid she was dreaming.

  "I don't know what to say."

  Royal felt sick. He didn't know where this was going, but he would have liked a resounding yes.

  "Say I love you. I can't live without you," he said. Angel pressed a hand against her chest. The pain in there was so great that she thought she might faint. If this didn't work out, it would kill her.

  "I love you."

  He rocked on his heels and started to grin.

  "I can't live without you," he prompted.

  She bit her lower lip and took a deep breath. "I can't live without you," she echoed.

  The grin widened as he stood and pulled her to her feet.

  "My hands," she muttered, trying in vain to wipe the cat hair from her palms.

  Cat hair was the farthest thing from Royal's mind. He lowered his head, nipping at the edge of her lower lip, then kissing the tears on her face.

  "Angel, sweetheart…"

  She felt rootless, as if she could take wing and fly. It was all she could do to answer.

  "Hmm?"

  "Isn't there something else you've forgotten to say?" Her mind was racing. To the best of her knowledge, she'd said enough already.

  "Like what?" she murmured, then groaned when he backed her against the wall of the house
.

  "Like yes."

  If he'd just take his hands off her breasts, she might remember what they'd been talking about.

  "Yes, what?" She sighed as her nipples peaked beneath his caresses.

  "Yes, you will marry me."

  "Yes, you will marry me," she echoed.

  He lifted his head. There was a devilish grin on his face. "Well, now, Miss Rojas, don't mind if I do."

  * * *

  Royal was red in the face and way past congeniality. His last ounce of patience had run out the moment the federal agent had started to mouth weak excuses.

  "Look, Deaton. I don't give a tinker's damn whose fault it was. The fact is that someone leaked the information to the media about Angel's existence. If you don't find out who did it and put a stop to it, the next thing will most likely be her name and address running on a crawl at the bottom of the screen. And if that happens, you better start running. And don't bother with a forwarding address because I'll be right on your ass."

  Deaton winced. He'd known from the start that Justice could be trouble, but he didn't much blame him. He had no idea who'd leaked the information to the press, but he would find out. He'd already accessed the bank accounts of everyone who'd had seen to the files. If anyone tried to claim receiving a recent inheritance, they'd better have a dead body to back it up.

  "Look, Justice, all I can say is I'm sorry. And you know as well as I do that it would be next to impossible to find Miss Rojas based on the information the media put out. There's what? A million people living in the Dallas area alone?"

  "Hell if I know," Royal said shortly. "All I'm saying is, you screwed up. Don't let it happen again."

  He slammed the phone down in disgust and picked up a paperweight from the desk.

  "If you throw it, something will break," Angel said calmly. "And if it does, you're cleaning it up, not me."

  Royal dropped the paperweight to the desk and reached for her, pulling her into his arms and hugging her close.

  "Okay, okay," he said softly. "I hear you. I'm calm."

  "And I'm Snow White," she said.

  A frown creased his forehead as he gave her a cold, hard stare. "Was that a crude ethnic joke I didn't get?"

  She grinned. "So I'm not lily-white and we're missing a few dwarfs, but there's still Maddie … and you."

  This wasn't the first time he'd heard her make a remark about the color of her skin, something she should have been proud of. Then he remembered what she'd told him of her past. When life was a struggle, sometimes ethnicity got lost in just trying to survive.

  "If I'd wanted lily-white, I could have had lily-white," he muttered. "Personally, I like my women like I like my toast. Hot and brown all over."

  Angel's mouth dropped open. "Toast?" She started to grin. "Toast. Well now, you sweet-talking man, how can a woman resist after a compliment like that?"

  Still grinning, she hooked her fingers in the belt loops of his jeans, pulling him closer and stealing a quick kiss.

  Before he could follow through on the notion she'd put in his head, she spun out of his arms and headed for the door.

  "Hey!" he called. "Where are you going?"

  She stopped in the doorway. "To see if Maddie is asleep."

  "Why?"

  A wicked smile tilted the corners of her lips. "Because I can't seduce you if I don't have you all to myself."

  All things considered, it was a long, eventful night.

  * * *

  Tommy Boy Watson sat on his motel bed, staring blankly at the television. A young, dark-haired man was walking the fields with a journalist, pointing out the recent damage done to this year's wheat crop. From what Tommy Boy gathered, Grant County had been hammered by the storm that passed through, and the current crop was shot. He sighed. If things didn't change, he was going to be next.

  He closed his eyes and laid on the bed, trying to recall his daddy's face. It wouldn't come. All he could see was that dark-haired bitch turning her back on him and hitching a ride with that trucker.

  It was her fault. Even though they hadn't said her name, he knew it had to be her. They'd talked about her on the six o'clock news, and he knew they would repeat it on this broadcast. Because of her, every lawman in the country would be looking for him. Then he reminded himself they'd be looking for the old Tommy Boy. He looked different now. He rubbed his hands up and down the length of his face, testing the baby-soft skin that had been underneath his beard. It made him feel strange, almost nude. His father, if he'd still been alive, wouldn't know him. When he looked in a mirror, he didn't know his face. They would never recognize him as the man in the sketch.

  But there was his truck. The bitch had described it. And he had hauled the bodies in it until he found a place to dump them. He'd washed it out good, but with today's technology, if he missed so much as a hair or a drop of blood, his goose would be cooked. He frowned. As much as he hated to face it, he had to at least consider the wisdom of getting rid of his truck.

  * * *

  The sun was high in the sky the next day when Tommy Boy pulled into the street from the parking lot of Melvin's Used Cars. He adjusted the rearview mirror as he drove and fiddled with the radio stations until he had them all set to his liking. The interior of the little red Toyota pickup smelled like lemon oil and Armor-All. There was a cigarette burn in the seat, and one of the floor mats was missing. The right window was hard to roll down, and there was a faint scratch across the tailgate. The grudge he had against that bitch kept growing. Because of her, he'd had to give up his pride and joy—his new Dodge truck. His gaze slid to the dusty red hood. He narrowed his eyes. The paint job on this truck would never hold a shine.

  He drove west out of Blackwell, heading toward the interstate. He'd been thinking all night about what he should do. He could go home. But if he did, he would spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, waiting for the day when that bitch would show up, pointing her finger at him and screaming, "It's him." Or he could go to Texas and find her, like he should have done before. It would be a pleasure to shut her up once and for all.

  He kept heading west. Either way he went, it was a long drive.

  The interstate appeared. His belly knotted with uncertainty. Which way? A bridge was imminent. If he took the on ramp before he crossed it, he'd be in Kansas in less than half an hour. If he crossed the bridge and headed south, it would take a good day's driving to cross the Red River into Texas.

  If he hadn't been so ticked off about the situation in general, he might have laughed at the incongruity of his dilemma. What was that old saying? Something about crossing bridges when you got to them? Well, here he was, facing the biggest bridge of his life and he couldn't make up his mind.

  Make her pay. Make her pay.

  Tommy Boy jerked when the voice echoed inside his head. A slow smile spread across his face as he gunned the little red truck across the bridge and took the southbound ramp.

  "I hear you, Daddy. I hear you loud and clear."

  * * *

  Maddie was digging holes in the dirt at the edge of the garden with a stick as Angel picked ripe tomatoes from the vines. Every now and then she would jump up and run down the row, pointing to one Angel missed. After the third time this happened, Angel set down her bucket.

  "Come here to me," she said softly, then hugged the little girl tight. "You know what, Maddie mine?"

  Maddie grinned. She loved the nickname Angel had given her. It made her feel as if they all really belonged together.

  "What?" Maddie said.

  "You are the best helper anyone could have. I don't know what I'd do without you."

  Maddie threw her arms around Angel's neck and closed her eyes in pure delight as Angel kissed her all over her face. Still giggling when Angel turned her loose, Maddie dropped to her knees and began fiddling with a bug running through the dirt.

  "Angel?"

  Angel stopped and turned. The plaintive note in Maddie's voice was unexpected.

  "What is it
, honey?"

  "Are you and my daddy going to get married?"

  Again, Angel set the bucket aside, but this time she sat down in the row and faced Maddie. She took her by the hands and pulled on the ends of her fingers until she had Maddie giggling.

  "What would you say if we did?" Angel asked.

  Maddie's eyes rounded, and her forehead wrinkled in a thoughtful frown. Finally, she answered.

  "I do?"

  Angel grinned, and then, ignoring the dirt and the proximity of the tomato plants, she lifted Maddie into her lap and pulled her close against her breasts. At that moment, the scent of little-girl sweat and freshly turned earth seemed sweeter than any flower could have.

  "So you think it would be a good thing?" Angel asked.

  Maddie nodded as she leaned against the softness of Angel's breasts. "The lady told me you would be my mama." She looked at Angel, testing her … judging her … waiting to see if she got that same look Daddy did when she talked about the lady who sat on her bed.

  Angel shivered. There was so much going on with this child that neither she or Royal understood. But she had enough faith in herself and in God to know there were some things one didn't question.

  "You still haven't told me what you think," Angel persisted. "I would live here for always. And your daddy and I would sleep in the same bed. But that wouldn't mean that your daddy didn't love you as much as he used to. It would mean you would have two people, not just one, who loved you most of all."

  Satisfied with what Angel had told her, Maddie nodded, then sighed. A few moments later, her eyes began to droop, then her head lolled against Angel's shoulder.

  And so they sat between the rows of ripening tomatoes. A small sweat bee buzzed around a skinned spot on Maddie's knee. Angel waved it away as she bent and kissed the edge of her ear.

  "I love you, Maddie mine," she said softly.

  Maddie was silent for so long, Angel thought something was wrong. She looked down and smiled. Madeline Michelle was asleep.

  Angel looked up. Royal was standing at the end of the row. She smiled and motioned him forward.

  "She's been playing so hard," Angel whispered as he bent to lift his daughter out of her arms.