Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance)

by Matthews, Devon

  Her father sat on the seat, watching her, his leathery face pale and pinched. He looked as if he’d seen a ghost. Again.

  “Why did you do it, Angel?” She’d expected anger. She preferred his anger if it would erase the tired, hopeless expression from his face.

  She answered him the only way she could, the only honest way she dared.

  “He was thirsty, Pa.”

  ****

  Angel paused on the upstairs landing and listened to the sounds of her father’s and Will’s receding footsteps as they entered the parlor. Feeling like a disobedient child again, she hunkered at the top of the staircase and pressed her shoulder against the wall, out of sight from the doorway below.

  During the ride home, she’d endured her father’s studied silence. It reminded her—way too much for comfort—of their last ride together, when he’d taken her to the stage depot and sent her east.

  She perked her ears at the clink of glass coming from the parlor and envisioned her father pouring drinks for Will and himself. A long silence followed, and she imagined them savoring their whiskey while each waited for the other to speak first.

  Will finally took the leap. “What the hell do you think got into her today?”

  “Pity,” Roy said. “She always did have a big ol’ soft spot for dark horses.”

  “Then you better see to it she takes up respectable charity work and not go around handin’ out dippers of water to a bunch of goddamned savages, in the middle of the street, in front of the goddamned saloon!”

  Angel’s heart sped with shock at hearing Will speak with such disrespect to her father. Now, maybe he would put the arrogant bastard in his place.

  “Now simmer down, Will.”

  Angel’s head snapped up. That was it? That was all he had to say? She waited, barely daring to breathe, but nothing more than silence followed.

  After a moment, Will’s deep rumble broke the stillness, but she couldn’t make out his words. Then he said clearly, “If you ask me, she needs to be kept on a shorter rein, and I’m just the man to do it.”

  Heat poured into her cheeks, scalding flames that brought tears to her eyes. Oh, please, Pa!

  “Nobody never said you weren’t,” Roy replied. “Leastwise, not me.”

  Despair sank into Angel’s heart. Her father wasn’t going to champion her. On the contrary. By giving Will permission to put her on a “tighter rein,” she knew he’d just handed her over on a pretty platter to a man she despised.

  She no longer cared what they said. Their words no longer mattered. Pulling her feet back so they couldn’t be seen from the hallway below, she settled the side of her face against the wall and gave in to heartbreak, the likes of which she hadn’t felt since she was a child.

  By the time her tears dried, a deeper layer of bitterness had settled around her heart. Drawing on an inner strength, she straightened from the wall and swiped at the salty residue coating her cheeks. They thought they would control her, somehow force or cajole her into marriage with an insufferable tyrant not of her choosing.

  Well, she’d just see about that.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Pewter-bellied clouds slid across the moon, pushed by a freshening wind laden with the smell of rain. Like a thief keeping to the shadows, Angel crept along the alley separating Dowling’s Mercantile from the hardware store. Clayton Station had settled for the night. From the cantina on the far side of the street, yellow lamplight spilled through the open door, the only sign of life in the sleeping town.

  Angel halted at the end of the alley and pressed closer to the wall as silvered moonlight bathed the open ground. Across the street, Wolf and his two cousins were still handcuffed to the hitching rail. Behind them, a soldier sat on the walkway with his back propped against the cantina’s adobe wall and his legs sprawled across the uneven boards. His chin drooped on his chest, as though he’d fallen asleep.

  She pulled in a long breath and released it slowly. Now what? If only she’d been able to find Rane. Together, they might have come up with a plan. But she had no idea where to look for him, and alone, she felt useless. Even if she somehow managed to distract the guard, the problem of the iron cuffs binding Wolf and the others to the rail seemed insurmountable.

  The sound of the guard’s snort carried across the street. He shifted, as if trying to find a more comfortable position. Reflected moonlight winked on metal against the dark blue trousers covering his left hip. Angel stared at the gleaming object while her heart quickened. It was a key.

  She pressed the backs of her shoulders against the uneven boards and tried to calm her breathing. What was she thinking? Just being here, alone and in the middle of the night, was foolish, maybe even insane. But hadn’t insanity been the driving force in her life since meeting Rane? Wolf was important to him. They called themselves blood brothers. She couldn’t allow him to be taken to the fort and hanged as a horse thief without even attempting to stop it somehow.

  She needed a plan.

  Still hugging the shadows, she backed down the alley. Beyond the confinement of the buildings, a welcome sage-scented cross breeze bathed her clammy skin. She turned and started to round the back corner of the store when a hand came at her from behind and clamped over her mouth. Before she could lift her hands, an arm snaked across her waist and her back fused with a solid male chest.

  “Don’t scream,” Rane whispered against her ear.

  Relief enabled her to breathe again. She reached up and pulled his hand from her mouth. “Where have you been?” she whispered fiercely.

  He released her.

  Angel turned—and nearly blurted her astonishment. The dressed-to-kill gunfighter had disappeared. Instead of his usual tailored garments, he wore sackcloth, both trousers and shirt, the crude garb favored by Mexican field laborers and nearly half the males in the nearby village. After giving her a look that dared her to comment, he snatched a straw sombrero from the top of an upended barrel—one of many piled haphazardly against the back of the store—and capped it over his head. The spacious brim was broken down in several, strategic places. To disguise his face, no doubt. Despite having transformed himself into a common peon, the mere sight of him sent her heart into a quick flutter.

  He kept staring at her with a dark, knowing gaze that lingered on her manly disguise of worn denims and loose, faded shirt. He’d seen her this way before, so why the sudden interest?

  “Sweet Jesus, Angel. What are you doing here?”

  “The same as you, I would imagine. I want to help Wolf.” She spotted her battered felt hat on the ground. It must have fallen off when he grabbed her. She reached down and retrieved it.

  “You can’t.”

  His refusal caught her in the act of placing the hat over her head and tucking in her hair. She stopped and looked at him, as if she hadn’t heard correctly.

  “What do you mean, I can’t? I sneaked out of the house, caught a horse in the pasture with nothing but a halter—which was no easy feat, by the way—and rode all the way over here, bareback, so don’t tell me I can’t.”

  “I don’t intend to argue,” he said.

  His dismissal stung her. “Do you at least have a plan?”

  “Yes, I have a plan. But it’s risky. Your being here only complicates the situation.”

  “Well, then. Since you have it all figured out, I certainly wouldn’t want to get in your way.” She turned to leave, and hesitated. The moment stretched into awkward silence. Crickets chirped in the tall grass. Overhead, dark clouds continued their silent march across the face of the moon. Yet Angel stood there, hoping he would say something more.

  When he didn’t, she started to walk.

  “Where did you leave your horse?”

  The question stopped her. “In the grove, at the edge of town.”

  “Will you wait there for me?”

  Her pulse sped another tiny beat. “Why? I thought you wanted rid of me.”

  “Will you wait for me?”

  She knew sh
e should tell him to go to hell. How many times did the man have to spell out how little she meant to him before it finally sunk in? Walk away and don’t look back, her good sense told her, but her treacherous heart refused to cooperate.

  “Yes, I’ll wait,” she said.

  As he watched Angel walk away, Rane’s conscience flailed him. She’d risked much in coming here tonight. Yet, he’d dismissed her like an unwelcome nuisance. For her own good, he reminded himself. Still, the urge to go after her remained strong. When she melded into the darkness on the far side of the wagon track, he blew out a breath. She would be safe. He had to think of Wolf and the task at hand, yet thoughts of Angel waiting in the darkness, splintered his concentration.

  What had she planned to do? What would she have done if he hadn’t been there to stop her?

  He couldn’t think about that now. He couldn’t afford a mistake.

  Turning his attention to more immediate concerns, he bent and picked up a thick amber bottle. Using his teeth, he pulled the cork and spat it to the ground. The reek of cheap, rotgut whiskey assaulted his nostrils. He held his breath and poured a liberal dousing down the front of his clothing. Fumes wafted upward, engulfing him. Going for broke, he tilted the bottle to his lips until he had a mouthful. He swished and swallowed. Primed for the taste of it, he repeated the process and swallowed a second drink.

  Keeping a tight grip around the neck of the bottle, he crept through the dark alley. At the end, he stopped and studied the scene before him. The sleeping guard. Wolf and his cousins. The exact location of the key attached to the soldier’s belt.

  The street was still deserted. ¡Gracias a Dios! He pulled in a long breath and released it, then relaxed his spine and rolled his shoulders forward in a pronounced slump. Allowing no time for second thoughts, he staggered forward into the street and the revealing moonlight. Keeping his head down, he aimed for the walkway on the opposite side.

  At the corner of the cantina, he paused a moment to get his bearings. Straight ahead the soldier’s legs all but blocked the path. Grating snores sawed from his bulky chest. Rane glanced at Wolf and received a barely perceptible nod. Time to carry on with his little playact.

  Raising the bottle to his lips, Rane lumbered forward and caught the toe of his boot under the guard’s leg. The soldier roused instantly and tried to leap up. Rane never gave him the chance as he collapsed and fell on the man. The soldier’s head connected with a dull thud against the adobe wall and all the starch drained out of him.

  Rane snatched the key and snapped the string attaching it to the guard’s belt. Shedding all pretense of drunkenness, he scrambled to the edge of the walk and dropped to the ground next to Wolf.

  “I’d say this makes us even,” he said as he unlocked Wolf’s cuffs.

  Wolf shrugged. “For now, but who’s keeping count? There’s always tomorrow, hermano.”

  “No tomorrow,” Rane said. “Take these youngsters and head into Mexico. Don’t show your faces around here again.”

  “What about you? You’re not going with us?”

  “No. I still have unfinished business. But we’ll meet again. This I promise.”

  ****

  Angel strained her ears, listening for any sound other than the normal chirp and trill of the insects and small creatures in the trees surrounding her. She was still near enough to town if a fracas broke out at the cantina she would hear it. Thus far, she’d heard nothing. The absence of gunshots and shouting didn’t reassure her. Worry for Rane twisted her stomach into knots.

  A branch snapped. Angel clapped a hand over her heart and whirled toward the noise. The limbs of a pine undulated just before the black stallion stepped from the blinding darkness with Rane bent low over its neck. Relief weakened her knees. He no longer wore the broken sombrero and a dark shirt had replaced the crude sackcloth.

  She emerged from her hidden bower. “What happened?”

  He layered his hands on the saddle horn in front of him and eased forward. “There was a mishap in town a few moments ago. A drunken villager stumbled over the guard stationed in front of the cantina. In the confusion, the handcuff keys went missing.”

  Remembering his disguise, she didn’t even have to guess the drunken villager’s identity. “A risky plan, indeed,” she said and smiled in spite herself.

  “But it worked. Wolf and his cousins are across the border and headed west.”

  “Congratulations,” she murmured. She walked to her horse and pulled herself onto its back. She took up the reins and pointed the mare toward the road.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “Home.”

  “You can’t go that way. When the soldiers discover their prisoners are missing, they’ll start beating the brush looking for them. You’ll be seen on the road.”

  “Then how am I supposed to get home?”

  “Follow me.”

  For the better part of an hour, he led them over obscure game trails. Darkness slowed their progress. Sheltering branches overhead offered only an occasional glimpse of the glowing moon. They rode in silence, the horses’ footfalls eerily cushioned by past seasons of rotting leaves.

  Rane halted his horse at the edge of a stand of cottonwoods. She urged her mount in next to him. Across the distant, open ground, the two-story white house—her home—stood out like a beacon amid blue-black surroundings.

  “This is as far as I go,” Rane said softly. “I’ll stay here and watch, until you reach the house.”

  And safety.

  Though he didn’t say the words, she plainly heard them. She knew she should kick her horse into motion and ride away into the clearing. Yet, she hesitated while the knot in her stomach twisted tighter. As always, so many things remained unspoken between them. Things she longed to tell him, yet dared not put into words for fear they would drive him completely away.

  It was insanity. They had no future together. She had nothing more of him than these rare snatches of time. Though she loved him with all her heart, nothing at all had changed. Stolen moments were all she would ever have of him.

  “Rane?”

  She sensed his hesitation. Had he picked up on her mood? Finally, he pulled his gaze from the open view and looked at her with a fierce scowl on his handsome face. He expected her to go.

  Leaving just then was the last thing Angel wanted. Something primal and all consuming had her in its grip. Before she could change her mind, she reached out and softly cupped his unyielding jaw. Not waiting for him to react, she leaned over and brushed her lips against his. One miniscule part of her mind screamed in protest at what she was doing. The rest of her gloried at the tremor of response that ran through his body. She knew she still affected him on some basic level. At least that, too, remained unchanged.

  He lifted his hand and enfolded the back of her neck, tilting her head to better fuse his mouth to hers. He took command of the kiss with a groan of hard fought surrender. Pressing deep, he parted her lips and delved inside with a hunger that told her he was just as starved for the taste of her as she was for him. The faint flavor of whiskey still lingered and mingled with his own unique woodsy spice.

  He backed off slightly, though he didn’t fully relinquish her lips. Still touching, lightly brushing, he asked, “Why?”

  “I’ve missed you...” she murmured against his mouth, “...want you.”

  He pulled back and searched her face, as if looking for some piece of understanding that still eluded him.

  The sidestepping stallion separated them. Rane dismounted and tied his reins to a branch. He moved to the side of her horse and held up his arms. Angel lifted her leg over the mare’s back and gladly slid into his embrace.

  He pulled her tight against him and bent his head to hers once more. She ran her hands over his strong shoulders, up the back of his neck, clinging, unable to get enough of the feel of him. Then he lifted her and carried her away from the horses, into the cover of the trees. He stood her on her feet while he hastily stripped off his sh
irt and spread it over the spongy, moldering ground cover.

  She sat on his makeshift bed and peeled off her denims while he made fast work of the buttons on her shirt, exposing the whiteness of her breasts to the dappled moonlight. He stroked her with his hands, his mouth hot and urgent, as he laid her back on the cushioned earth.

  When they came together, the intensity of their mating—untamed with need—lifted her so high she never again wanted to drift down. The feeling both frightened and exhilarated her.

  She had no idea how much time had passed. An hour? Two? The moon had dipped lower through the tree trunks. A breeze ruffled the highest branches and created the mock sound of a rushing stream. Nearby, the stallion whickered softly. Rane’s arm lay across her, just beneath her breasts, and with each rising breath, the crisp dark hairs tickled her skin.

  She felt content, blissfully peaceful. She turned her head, wondering if he’d fallen asleep. Moonlight shimmered in the darkness of his eyes. She started to speak, “I think it’s time—,” until he pressed a fingertip to her lips and silenced her.

  He lifted to one elbow and replaced the pressure against her lips with his mouth. She closed her eyes and gave herself over to pure sensation again. Surprised that she could feel anything at all so soon after their wild lovemaking.

  He primed her with long, languid kisses—her throat, her breasts, then lower to her belly—until she tingled with renewed awareness. His lips were an exquisite, dragging friction. A slight scrape of teeth. The gentle lave of his tongue. When he moved lower and lovingly nuzzled the tender insides of her thighs, she couldn’t have stopped him if she’d wanted to.

  Like a master of seduction, he unerringly found her swollen bud and quickly lifted her so close to the pinnacle, she strained toward him, panting, moaning. Just when she started to tumble into the blinding heights, he buried himself deep inside her and rode them both over the edge of no return.

  Rane held himself rigid above her while wave after wave of shatteringly sweet aftershocks rocked through him. Sex had never been anything more than a pleasant interlude, the twining of two willing bodies, a blinding instant of release. But since the first time with Angel, he’d known it would never again be the same for him.