Holding up his hands in surrender, Stone backed away, but Tess never once glanced at him. She was filthy, covered with scratches, and her blouse had several rips. She had never looked more beautiful.
She was also so furious that he didn't dare try to interfere. That snarling, spitting package of wrath might retaliate against him next for the asinine way he had treated her the past few days.
"Answer me, damn it!" Tess clenched her fingers tighter in Rose's blouse. Her fist wobbled, but she forced herself to say, "Or do you want more of the same?"
"No. No, please," Rose moaned. "I'll go. I'll leave. Just don't turn me over to the sheriff or hit me again."
Tess got to her feet, wiping her hands on the legs of her jeans and trying to ignore the sticky feel of blood on her knuckles. She stood over Rose, gulping in draughts of air as she watched Rose lift a tentative hand to her face.
"You'll remember what you've done every time you look in the mirror for the rest of your life, Rose Brown," she spat. "And I'll tell you another thing. I'm going to have you watched for as long as you live. You'll either send me your address from wherever you are, or I'll hire someone to find you and I'll track down those men you hired to poison the waterhole. If their testimony won't convict you, I'll hound you until there's not a place left on this earth where you'll be able to live in peace. If you ever even think about harming another person, I'll know. And I'll hang your hide on a mesquite tree so anyone passing by will remember what happens to a woman who tries to harm a child."
Sobbing in misery, Rose rolled to her side and struggled to her feet. She stood swaying for a moment, then glanced up the hill.
"My horse is up there," she whined in a piteous voice.
"Then I guess you better get moving," Tess said as she took a step toward the blood-smeared blonde.
"I'm going!" Rose wobbled a few steps before she looked at Tess. "My...my rifle."
"You're out of your mind if you think I'm going to give that gun back to you. Move!"
"But my ranch...it's mine."
"You should've thought of that when you started setting fires and poisoning waterholes. I don't suppose there's any legal way I can keep you from selling it, but you do it by mail. And you use any money you get to keep yourself way the hell away from Oklahoma territory and my two kids!"
Rose started climbing the hillside, and Tess kept her blazing green gaze on the blonde all the while. At one point, she marched over and picked up her rifle.
"If she's got another gun on her horse, she's going to get a surprise," she murmured.
Stone kept quiet. Tess's finger was awfully near that rifle trigger.
Finally Rose disappeared over the top of the hill. A few seconds later, they heard the sound of a horse galloping away. Tess waited for at least a minute after the hoofbeats faded before she rounded on Stone.
"Now you!"
***
Chapter 34
"I'm sorry," Stone hurriedly said, raising his hands shoulder high. "I apologize. I've been acting like an ass, when I should've been proud of what you were doing. I would've come back today and told you how sorry I was."
"Sure," Tess sneered. "You can say that now, after I've spent all this time feeling like you'd stopped caring for me. Do you have any idea what I've gone through the last few days?"
"Yeah," Stone said in a soft voice. "I've been going through it, too."
"I don't much give a damn! Do you hear that? I could care less how you've been feeling. I've spent three days in hell, and to top that off, I've been shot at and ended up in a fight with a blond bimbo who thought she'd crawl into your bed as soon as I was dead. That same bed that you've been denying me because you think I'll get so lonely I'll crawl to you on my hands and knees and beg you to forgive me for something that I've got every right to do."
"I agree," Stone began, but Tess waved the rifle around and continued to yell.
"I pull my weight around that ranch. I cook your meals, wash your dirty clothing and teach my kids. Do you know how many buckets of water it takes from that stupid well to wash a week's worth of laundry?"
Stone did, but he wasn't about to try to tell her that — not with the rifle wavering in front of his face.
"I counted them yesterday," Tess went on. "Twenty buckets of water. And I'll bet you that well's a hundred feet deep."
"A hundred and twenty-five," Stone whispered to himself.
"So if you think I'm going to tell Sid to cancel that pipe order, I'm not!"
"O.K." Stone could feel his patience starting to slip. "But anything you buy with that damned money you've got had better be to make things easier on you and Flower. I don't want one penny of it spent on me."
The picture of the slipper toe sticking out of the toilet hole flashed in Tess's mind. "Fine," she agreed. "But I'm not going to come to you with my hat in my hand every time I want a few dollars to spend."
Suddenly Tess blinked and stared at the rifle, then glanced down at her finger.
"You either need to put that gun down or go ahead and shoot me," Stone said. "My arms are going to sleep."
Tess inched her finger away from the trigger guard and shifted the rifle into her arms. She tilted her head a little, studying Stone's face. "You can put your hands down now," she finally said.
Stone dropped his arms and took a step forward. Tess shook her head and backed away.
"We're not done talking yet," she insisted.
"Is that what we've been doing?" Stone asked. "I thought you were issuing ultimatums and I was agreeing with them."
"Was I?" Tess murmured. "Oh. Well, let's hear your side of it now."
"My side of it's just this. I love you. Whether you believe me or not, I've thought of you every second the past few days. I finally realized that part of the reason I fell in love with you was because I admired you and respected you. If I try to change you, you won't be the Tess I fell in love with." He chuckled wryly. "Not that I'd have any success at trying to do that anyway."
"Yes, you will." Tess threw the rifle aside and ran into his arms. "I love you. All I need to know is that you love me, too, and we can work anything out. I promise we can."
Stone buried his face in her hair and held her tightly. "God, I've been so miserable," he whispered. "And I was so damned scared when I found you out here. Not just because of Rose, either."
Tess jerked away, her eyes starting to flash again. "What's that supposed to mean? It didn't bother you that that bitch was trying to kill me?"
"Damn it! Of course it did. But you were taking care of that without any help from me. What really scared the daylights out of me was you being out here — like you were trying to find your way back to where you'd come from. Like you'd finally gotten fed up and wanted to leave me for good."
"Oh."
"Is that it? Oh?"
Tess shrugged her shoulders, and stared at the ground. "Well, it didn't work anyway. Dorothy and Toto had the Good Witch of the East to help them. I still haven't figured out who my good fairy is."
"Who are Dorothy and Toto?"
"Nobody, really. And I didn't really want to go, so maybe that's why it didn't work." She raised her head and laid a hand on his chest. "Let's go home, Stone. I want to go home."
"In a minute," Stone whispered as he pulled her close and kissed her.
But it was a lot longer than a minute. Michael had plenty of time to savor the success of his plan and explain to Angela just how he'd accomplished it as they drove around.
"I put blanks in both their rifles," he told his angel partner. "I didn't want to be a part of either one of them getting killed or wounded. I knew Stone was just over the hill there, and that the gunfire would bring him running. Not that Tess ended up needing him."
"It worked out beautifully," Angela admitted. "But what about that fight Tess and Rose had?"
"Hey, you can't blame that on me. That was all Tess's idea. She lost her temper and tore into Rose all on her own. Other than changing the bullets to blanks, all I did was
help that slide out a little bit."
"I still can't believe Tess let that...that blond bimbo go."
"Angie," Michael said in mock horror. "Watch your language!"
Angela blushed prettily and dug her toes into the carpet on the floorboard. "Well, I can't. Stone heard Rose's confession, too. Wouldn't that have been enough to put her behind bars?"
"Tess evidently didn't think so, and she's the lawyer. 'Course, Tess is thinking in terms of law back in 1993. But you've gotta remember that, even though she chose to go into corporate law, she had training in the criminal end of it in law school. And sometimes even their corporate clients end up breaking other laws — or their kids do, and they come to the first lawyer they can think of when they need one."
"Maybe she handled Rose the best way," Angela mused. "Can you imagine living the rest of your life looking over your shoulder — knowing someone's always out there watching you — waiting for her to show up at any minute?" Angela gave a delicate shiver.
Michael broke out into guffaws. "Yeah, and what about looking in the mirror every morning and seeing that missing tooth? There ain't no dentists back here that know how to put a missing tooth back in. Anyway, Rose swallowed it. I don't imagine she'll...."
"Oh, hush, Michael," Angela said with a giggle. "You know," she continued when her giggles subsided, "you've been doing so well on this assignment that you really don't need my tutoring any longer."
"So what's that supposed to mean?" Michael asked in a worried voice.
"I thought you understood, Michael. My job's just to teach you what you need to know about using your powers, along with what is and isn't accepted behavior for guardian angels. Although I think I've learned a lot myself on this assignment. Anyway, when you're capable of carrying on alone, I'm supposed to go back and see who my next pupil is."
"You mean, leave me? Angie, honey, you can't do that!"
"But I...."
"Look, they can get hold of you if they need to, can't they?"
"Yes, but...."
"Don't you want to see what's going to happen with Tess and Stone? And don't they ever let angels work in pairs?"
"Of course I want to know if Tess stays back here, but you can tell me later. And it's very rare for two angels to work in a pair. I've only heard of one other case, and that was a husband and wife who were killed together in a car crash. Most of the time even husbands and wives have different interests. It sort of works out like it did when they were alive."
"They each go off and do their own thing, huh? Follow their own interests?"
"Not exactly like that. They see each other a lot."
Michael spun the steering wheel to head back toward Stone's ranch. He chewed on his cigar stub, frowning in disappointment. He'd thought they were doing pretty well together. And after all those lonely years on earth, he didn't really want to be on his own up here.
He supposed Angie wanted to get off to her next challenge, though. After all, she was a teacher and teachers like to teach. It would probably be awfully boring for her to spend her time with a pupil who didn't need any more training.
Angela stared down at the ground with a forlorn look, not making any effort to read Michael's thoughts. He would probably be glad to get rid of her. She wouldn't be around to always be telling him that he couldn't to this or shouldn't do that. Complain about the cigar stub in his mouth, even though she'd come to think it made him look sort of cute.
She'd learned just as much as she'd taught this time, though. She'd learned that her job could be fun — she didn't always have to take it so seriously. Always when she taught on earth, she had to remember that a teacher had to be a model of propriety — an example for her pupils. A frivolous teacher was frowned on by the school board.
Darn it, she'd never had any fun. And she'd learned to drive from Michael....
"You can't go yet, Angie," Michael said suddenly. "I'm still not comfortable with my wings. You haven't taught me how to fly yet."
"Oh," Angela said with a measure of relief. "You're right. We'll have to take care of that, won't we?"
"Darn right we will." Michael grinned to himself. He didn't have any intention of fluttering around like some...some angel. Not when he had a perfectly good set of wheels to carry him around.
***
Chapter 35
Stone propped his head on his hand and watched Tess climb out of the creek bed. Water streamed down her shapely body as she paused to wring out her hair, and he eyed the tiny bathing suit she wore with appreciation. Who'd ever have thought that a couple scraps of material like that would tantalize him even more than her naked body. Designers in the future sure knew what they were doing when it came to stirring up a man's fantasies.
The future. Damn it, if he could only stop thinking about it. He didn't know how much longer he could stand this uncertainty. He'd been stupid to waste even one minute separated from Tess, let alone almost three entire days.
The kids were due home today, the Sunday two weeks after they had left. He should have felt a little guilty about neglecting his work the past few days since he and Tess had arrived home, but he couldn't find even a speck of remorse in his conscience. And he'd already decided to talk to Jasper about becoming a permanent hired hand.
As soon as he discussed it with Tess, of course. After all, she'd be the one who had to do extra cooking for another mouth, and extra washing, which Jasper would expect to be part of his wages.
One thing he could do was order one of those wooden washing machines from Germany that he'd read about. Some of the money he got for those horses would buy that, especially since he didn't have to worry about the taxes. And who knew? Maybe someday someone would use this new electricity they claimed to have invented to make a few machines to lighten the workload for women. Harvesters, for both baling and threshing, and cotton gins were fairly common now, and the harvester was on his want list. He still couldn't quite figure out how that horseless carriage worked, though.
"Whoo hoo! Where is everybody?"
Lonesome jumped up barking and Tess let out a gasp.
"Stone, that's Tillie. What's she going to say when she sees me in this bikini? Oh, why didn't I bring my clothes with me?"
Stone tossed his shirt to her with a laugh and stood up. "Let's just hope I've got time to get my jeans on before she gets here. My underwear floated away while we were...busy."
"Busy getting into trouble," Tess said with a giggle as she slipped into the shirt and worked on the buttons.
"Huh uh," Stone said with a wicked grin. "Trouble was busy getting into...."
"Stone!" A blush stole over Tess's cheeks. "Oh no! Lonesome, come back here!"
Tess took off after the dog, expecting any second to hear a wild screech from Tillie. But when she ran out from the trees lining the creek bed, she found Tillie standing with one hand on a slightly slimmer hip, shaking a finger at Lonesome.
"Now, we're going to come to terms here, dog," Tillie said. "I'm going to be a frequent visitor out here, and I'm not about to have to worry about repairing my skirts every time I go home. Do you hear me?"
Lonesome sat down on his haunches and lifted a paw.
"That's much better." Tillie shook the paw, then looked up at Tess.
"There you are. It's so hot, I thought maybe you'd be taking a swim when I found the house empty. I drove out to see why you didn't show up for our meeting and to tell you all the latest news."
"Let's go on back to the house..." Tess began.
Tillie glanced over Tess's shoulder and snickered. "Oh, my. Did I interrupt something?"
"Would it bother you if you had?" Stone asked as he walked up to them, wearing his jeans and a towel draped around his neck. "Remember, we're married now. We can't be part of all the juicy gossip in town any longer."
"Such a shame," Tillie replied with pursed lips. "I did so enjoy keeping you on your toes, Stone. But I guess I'll have to turn that job over to Tess now. She seems perfectly capable of handling it to me."
Stone threw back his head and laughed. "That she is, Tillie."
"Well, I did want to let you know that I sponsored a change to the bylaws for our Guild. We're going to get involved in social issues, too, not just things that effect the town. After what Tess said, we decided to start a drive to integrate our school in Clover Valley — allow children of any race to attend, and get a teacher that can teach the different cultures to all the children."
"Tillie, that's wonderful," Tess said. "Your Guild will be well ahead of its time in doing something like that."
They started walking back toward the house as Tillie explained, "Things will never get done if people don't start working on them. Uh...I wanted to talk to you about one other thing, too, Stone."
"What's that, Tillie?"
"Daddy's home. At my house, I mean."
"He's done his time, Tillie. I've no quarrel with him, as long as he doesn't pick one with me."
"Good," Tillie said.
"Besides, I think you might need him around to shuffle through your suitors if you keep losing weight like it looks like you've been doing."
"Can you tell already?" Tillie simpered.
"Sure can. Good thing I'm safely married now."
Tess swatted him on the arm. "And don't you forget it, either."
"I won't, I won't." Stone raised his hands in mock alarm. "I'm outnumbered here. I'll get on with my work and let you ladies gossip."
"Gossip!" Tess said. "Why is it that when men talk about each other, it's a discussion, but women gossip?" She shook a finger at him. "You better watch it, or your chauvinistic tongue will get you into more trouble."
"Not trouble. Oh, please, not trouble," Stone groaned. "Trouble's tired."
Tillie smiled and shook her head as the two of them broke up in laughter. When Stone walked away, the women started for the porch, and Tillie gave Tess a nudge and a teasing look.
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