Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance)

by Matthews, Devon

  “Well, he won’t be throwin’ his weight around here anymore.”

  “No. Not after today,” she agreed.

  He sighed and turned his tired looking eyes on her. “I don’t know, Angel. Everything’s gotten into such a tangle. Do you think we’ll ever be able to get it all straightened out again?”

  She scooted closer and was surprised when he slipped his arm across her back.

  “I think we will, Pa. For the first time, I truly think we will.”

  He sighed again and closed his hand around her upper arm, coming as close to hugging her as she could ever remember. She laid her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. He smelled of tobacco and sun-drenched cotton, with an underlying earthiness of honest male sweat. She smiled, filled with a sense of peace. At last—at long, long last—she’d finally come home.

  Far too soon Angel felt her father stiffen as he sat up straighter. “Rider comin’,” he murmured. He pulled his arm from behind her back and stood.

  The harmonious moment dissolved like vapor when she climbed to her feet next to him. Out on the lane, the hoofbeats of a cantering horse broke the stillness. She shaded her eyes. It was the black stallion, Pago, with Rane seated tall and resolute in the saddle.

  “Are there any final words you need to say before I talk to this man?”

  She dropped her hand and stared at her father, aghast. Had the past thirty minutes never happened? “I told you, Pa. I love him. I have no idea what you’ve heard, but he’s a good, decent man.”

  He started down the steps. “I’ll try to remember that.”

  Rane walked the big horse the final distance, then halted and sat there, waiting. Somewhere, he’d changed into a fresh shirt and washed the blood from his face. His dark gaze turned in her direction for a mere instant, and she offered a tenuous smile. Then he focused on her father with a familiar wariness in his eyes.

  “Climb down and cool your heels,” her father said.

  Without turning his back, Rane levered his right leg over the cantle and dropped to the ground. He released his reins and stepped forward, until he stood face to face with her father.

  Roy stared at him a long moment, as though taking his measure. “Last time I saw you, you looked like you’d been drug through a slaughterhouse behind a rank horse.”

  Angel pressed a hand to her mouth, heartened to hear a teasing note in his voice.

  Rane still looked uncertain of his welcome. “I... What you did in town earlier. I’m beholden.” He thrust out his hand.

  Slowly, Roy shoved his own hand forward and they shook. “I can’t help wonderin’ what possessed you to go into town without your gun.”

  “That was my fault,” she injected. “I made him promise not to wear it anymore.”

  Roy brows crowded his hairline. “And you listened to her?”

  Angel’s knees still turned weak when she thought about how close he’d come to dying that day, all because she’d asked him not to wear his gun. She would never make that mistake again.

  Confusion flickered in Rane’s eyes. “You asked me here for an explanation about what happened in town.”

  “I ordered you here to find out exactly what your intentions are regarding my daughter,” Roy amended.

  “My intentions.”

  “Yeah.”

  Still looking like he expected a fist between the eyes at any second, Rane said, “I had planned to do this differently. But since you ask about my intentions then I’ll tell you they are honorable. I want to marry your daughter.”

  “Why do you want to marry her?” Roy fired back.

  “Why,” Rane repeated. His brows beetled. He opened his mouth once and then closed it again. He was getting so flustered, Angel hoped her father would take pity on him soon.

  “Because I love her,” he blurted at last.

  Angel’s heart welled until it was impossible to stop the tears that spilled from her eyes. Rane was too busy glaring at her father to notice.

  “Don’t worry,” he continued. “I have no plans to snatch her from your home and set her down in the middle of hardship. I’m trying to build a herd. I know it will take some time, but I believe I can bring the Hacienda back and turn it into a profitable operation, like the one you have here. This is what I planned, and I think it will be worth waiting for. I only want the best for Angel. I want to make her happy.”

  “And you think she will be?” Roy asked. “With you?”

  “Yes,” Rane replied with conviction.

  Angel’s heart stampeded. It was now or never. She lifted her hand and called out, “Excuse me.”

  Both men swiveled on their heels to look at her.

  Having the full strength of their combined, undivided attention trained on her threatened to strip her courage. She pulled in a fortifying breath. “I hate to put a hitch in your negotiations, but I don’t think this plan is going to work.”

  Now they both looked puzzled. She ventured to the bottom of the steps. “It’s your time frame that concerns me.”

  “What’s wrong with wantin’ to get on his feet before marriage?” her father demanded.

  Angel only had eyes for Rane. With her heart beating to near bursting, she walked to him and laid her hands against his chest. “I meant to tell you the other day at the Hacienda. If you’re going to make an honest woman of me, you need to do it soon.”

  He lifted his hands and covered the backs of hers, pressing her palms more firmly against his muscled flesh. His heat penetrated, along with the wild staccato beat of his heart pounding in rhythm to her own. “Why, Angel?” he asked softly.

  She tried to smile, but the tremor in her lower lip made it impossible. “Because,” she said, “in less than six months you’re going to be a papa.”

  ****

  Rane walked out the door and found Angel standing at the porch railing. On the horizon, the sinking sun flared with otherworldly brilliance across the sky. Instead of watching the sunset, her eyes were closed.

  With light steps, he moved in behind her and slid his arms around her waist. Her familiar warmth and softness beckoned him closer. Sighing with pure contentment, he settled his hips against her sweet, rounded bottom.

  She relaxed into him and pillowed the back of her head on his chest. “Mmm,” she murmured. “I can tell you’ve missed me.”

  His hands tightened at her waist, gathering her closer still. It had been too long since he’d touched her. Loved her. The instinct to move upward and cup her full breasts in his hands nearly overpowered him. Instead, he turned his hands downward and splayed his fingers over the barely detectable bulge of her stomach.

  A baby. His baby. Each time he thought of this miracle he wanted to shout to the heavens.

  He nestled his nose into Angel’s upswept hair and breathed her, the subtle floral scent that had long haunted his dreams. Was he dreaming still? How had he gotten so lucky?

  “Your father is taking it very well,” he said.

  “He and I had a talk before you got here.”

  “Is that why you told me…”

  The whine of the screen door and a soft gasp halted him in mid-sentence. He turned, taking Angel with him. He didn’t dare step from behind the cloak of her skirt just then and risk exposing his aching state of arousal.

  Carmella stood with one hand holding to the screened door and a cheesecloth wrapped parcel in the other. A startled expression froze on her face.

  Just as quickly, she bit her lip and dropped her gaze to the floor. “Perdone me, por favor. I saw Señor Rane leave the house and hoped to catch him before he rides away. I did not mean to interrupt.”

  “It’s all right, Carmella. We were just talking,” Angel said.

  “Why did you wish to see me?” he asked.

  If anything, the question put Carmella even more ill at ease. “I... There was too much pie left from today. I thought you could take some with you when you go.” She held up the parcel. “For you...and Benito.”

  “Ahh. I see.” And
he did see. Very clearly. The pie was, evidently, a peace offering for her estranged husband. He sucked in his cheek to keep from laughing out loud with satisfaction. “Give it to me, and I’ll see that he gets it.”

  “The pie is for you,” she insisted.

  “Yes, I know. Me, and Benito.”

  She nodded. “Sí.” She crossed the porch and placed the cheesecloth into his outstretched hand. “Be sure to tell him I make it,” she added with a twinkle in her eyes.

  “I will,” he assured her.

  Before she left, she stretched up on tiptoe and kissed them both on the cheek. “I am so happy for you,” she whispered and her dark eyes danced with the proof of her words.

  Quietly, Carmella slipped back inside the house, leaving Rane and Angel to settle into their former spot. The sun had slipped lower and dusk quickly stole over the land, shrouding them in the intimacy of shadows. He feathered a kiss against her ear. “In all my dreams, I never thought I’d stand here on your father’s porch and hold you in my arms.”

  She sighed, a contented sound. “It is rather like a dream, isn’t it?”

  “And the best part is, we don’t have to wake up.”

  There would be time later to plan, to build, to think back over the incredible events that had led him to this night. For now, he simply needed to feel Angel in his arms, next to his heart. He desired nothing more. For the first time in his life, he felt complete.

  Epilogue

  Nearly Six Months Later

  The old man shoved his foot against the wood burning in the parlor grate, collapsing a teepee of logs. A brilliant shower of orange and blue sparks shot up the chimney. Earlier, Carmella had witnessed him using his boot in place of the poker and lectured him about tracking soot onto the carpet. For all the good it had done.

  Roy continued to poke at the fire until he had a roaring blaze going. Then he turned his backside to the inferno and thrust his rear end dangerously close to the flames.

  Though the temperature had dipped drastically since sundown, Rane didn’t feel the chill. As he had countless times that evening, he paced the length of the parlor and back, then out into the hallway, pausing a moment to stare up the stairwell at the closed door of Angel’s old bedroom.

  What the hell was taking so long?

  Behind him, the front door opened. Benito entered with another armload of firewood, stomping his boots on the threshold to rid them of mud. He looked at Rane and gave an exaggerated shudder inside his wool jacket. “Ees too cold for my thin blood.”

  “Just close the door and keep your voice down,” Rane snapped.

  Benito took another step into the entry and nudged the door together with his heel. Despite his impatience, Rane noted Benito’s sure strides when he walked into the parlor and dropped the load of wood into the box on the hearth. During the past several weeks, he’d improved so much his limp was barely noticeable.

  “Sit down,” Roy called. “You’re wearin’ a rut in the carpet.”

  “I’m only rubbing in the soot you keep tracking through,” Rane retorted. “And if you tell me to sit down one more time, I swear, old man, I’m going to find a gun and shoot you.”

  The amused look exchanged between Roy and Benito didn’t escape Rane. He gritted his teeth and stomped to a window. His own watery reflection stared back at him from the sweating pane.

  He turned, his attention snagged by the whiskey bottle standing on the bar. The last time he’d looked, it had been half full. Now, it was nearly empty. Small wonder the old man appeared so calm. He’d consumed enough alcohol to pickle a barrel of beets.

  “I should be up there,” he said.

  “It ain’t seemly,” Roy replied. “What you need to do is relax. Babies are born everyday.”

  “Not my baby,” Rane reminded him. He couldn’t stand the thought of Angel up there laboring. How many hours now? If anything happened to her...

  Out in the hall, the big Regulator emitted a loud click and began to chime the hour. Rane counted ten gongs.

  The last chime faded into stillness and he heard another sound. A weak mewling howl drifted down from the upper floor. As one, Roy and Benito started for the hallway. Rane shoved past them and took the stairs two at a time to reach the second floor landing. He stared at the closed-up bedroom while on the other side the cry grew steadily louder. Unseemly or not, he raised his fist and pounded on the door.

  “Uno momento!” Carmella demanded. She sounded out of breath.

  Roy gained the landing with Benito only a step behind him.

  The cry continued unabated. And then, suddenly, it stopped. Rane’s heart nearly stopped as well.

  Several more agonizing minutes passed before the door opened and Carmella appeared with a smile on her face.

  “How’s Angel?”

  “How’s the baby?”

  “Is it a boy or a girl?”

  Carmella held up her hands to halt the barrage of questions. “I’m not telling. You have to go in and see for yourself.” She threw Rane a pointed look. “Papá first.”

  Rane eased the door wider and paused on the threshold. Heat smacked him in the face, along with a raw, earthy smell he couldn’t identify. A bucket of soiled, bloody linens sat on the floor just inside the door.

  Angel lay in the center of the bed with her arm curved protectively around the bundle lying next to her. Beneath the covers, her stomach had lost the bulging roundness he’d grown accustomed to and appeared almost flat. Her damp hair was as limp as tangled ropes against the pillows. Purple shadows of exhaustion smudged the soft skin beneath her eyes.

  “Don’t just stand there,” she said. “Come see your daughter.” Her voice sounded weak and drowsy.

  “It’s a girl!” Roy exclaimed joyfully from the doorway.

  A daughter. Rane’s chest expanded with pride. Unlike most men, he hadn’t wished for a son as his firstborn. He’d wanted a daughter. A healthy, happy, beautiful little girl with her mother’s spirit. Even in this, Angel had given him his heart’s desire.

  Moving with care, he perched on the edge of the bed and felt for Angel’s hand among the tangled covers. When he found it, she held onto him and he returned her gentle pressure.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” Angel asked. The gorgeous, rumpled man sitting on the edge of her bed—the same man who’d faced death more times than she could count—actually looked frightened. She pulled her hand from his and lifted fingertips to his dear face. “I’m all right, Rane. And the baby’s fine. Take a look.”

  She watched in awe while he leaned over and peeled back a corner of the blanket and revealed the precious bundle beside her.

  “Her hair is dark,” he said.

  “Just like yours,” she told him.

  He touched a fingertip to the cap of damp curls and sucked in a breath. The baby’s face reddened and her tiny, translucent lips puckered into an O. His face alight with wonder, he traced down and stroked a velvety cheek. His smile slowly grew. More confident, he slipped a hand beneath her tiny body and lifted her.

  Roy crowded the other side of the bed and craned his neck to get a peek at his granddaughter. “She sure is a beauty.”

  “Yes,” Rane concurred. “Just like her mother.”

  “A little angel,” Roy added.

  “Oh, Pa, don’t start calling her that,” Angel scolded. “You’ll jinx her.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to call her? Have you decided on a name?”

  Rane brows lifted expectantly. His gaze slid to hers, silently questioning.

  “Go ahead and tell him,” she said.

  He carried the baby the rest of the way to his broad chest and cradled her with such tenderness Angel’s breath hitched. “We’re going to call her Ilsa Maria,” he announced in a strong voice.

  Her father nodded and Angel would have sworn she saw tears gather in his gray eyes. “I’m sure both your mamas would be proud of that.”

  Still standing in the doorway, Carmella nudged Benito farther into the
room. Soon, they all had gathered around to marvel and touch a doll-like finger or tiny toe.

  Smiling faces blurred before Angel’s drowsy eyes. Their hushed voices blended to a soothing hum that surrounded her like a warm blanket of security. She smothered a yawn. “Rane?”

  She blinked and found him hovering above her.

  “Yes, my love. I’m right here,” whispered the voice of her husband, her love. Her life. “Always.”

  Always. The sweetest promise this side of Heaven, and he’d shown her many times over that he was a man of his word.

  A word about the author…

  From my earliest memories, I’ve been fascinated with all things western. My first cases of hero worship were aimed at Audie Murphy and John Wayne, and I never did get past them. As a young woman, I traveled much of the southwest and saw the breathtaking vistas that had inspired such awe in the old western movies from my childhood. I called Texas home for several years before returning to my roots in the foothills of Appalachia, where I live with my husband and two children. Though I no longer venture far from home, my passion for the west and those dashing sagebrush heroes remains as strong as ever. I write about those characters and their times because I can’t imagine doing anything else. I hope you enjoy reading about my heroes and heroines of the old west as much as I loved writing about them.

  Visit Devon's website at www.devonmatthews.net