He didn’t seem to notice the reactions his words had evoked from Olivia and Clark as he continued. “Then there was Effie. Your sister,” James scoffed, almost to himself. “I tried to stay away from her at first, wanted nothing to do with her, but she was always around, always wanting to know more about me, and you, and Clark. Teasing and flirting when I’d get angry with her for asking so many questions.” James grimaced. “After we were married, I did catch her with another man—that sorry excuse for a bartender. You seemed well acquainted with him, Angel-no-more.”
James nodded at her, and Angel felt a chill shoot through her body. That was the reason James had shot Tom?
Olivia’s face was pale with shock. “Effie . . . wouldn’t have done that.”
James tsked at her. “And yet she did.”
“You admit you did kill her then?” Olivia accused.
“No,” James said impatiently, “I already told you I didn’t kill Effie. She jumped off that cliff all on her own.”
Then he shrugged his shoulders. “I am what I am, Livvy. You should know that. You all think you’re so different from me. Well, you’re not. Someday you’ll see.”
Something snapped inside Nathan. He had listened to enough, seen enough, and now understood enough. He held out his hand to Olivia. “Give me the gun.”
Olivia hesitated, opening her mouth to protest. Something in Nathan’s eyes stopped her, and she mutely handed him the weapon. He turned his eyes toward his father, and then, without looking away, raised the gun toward the ceiling and pulled the trigger six times.
No shot came. Only the snap of hammer on metal.
James had briefly smiled as Nathan had begun to raise the pistol, but his smile had turned to a frown when the gun’s trajectory had moved beyond him to the ceiling. Now, he scowled. It was, Nathan realized, the first time since James had first walked into the room that he had seemed anything less than completely in control. Nathan smiled in grim satisfaction.
James hissed through his teeth, then smiled, speaking to Nathan, but gesturing toward the others and resuming his conversational tone. “What of them, Nathan? What will you do when the gun is loaded and it’s in my hand? Would you kill me—your own father—to protect them?” James asked curiously.
Nathan spoke evenly, deliberately, emphasizing each word. “They are more my family now than you ever have been, James.”
James’s eyes narrowed as Nathan called him by his name, but he persisted. “You didn’t answer the question. Would you kill me to protect these people?”
Nathan hesitated for only a moment, but it was a moment too long, and James said contemptuously, “That’s what I thought.”
“What did you think?” Nathan asked irritably.
James paused, then drawled, “I’ve overstayed my welcome. I believe I will be on my way for now.”
Clark made a choking noise as James moved to leave. James paused, turning slightly, then asked innocently, “I am free to go, am I not, brother? After all”—he shrugged, motioning toward the empty gun Nathan still held—“you are a man of principle. I am unarmed, and you wouldn’t harm an unarmed man.”
***
Angel watched James’s back as he left. It was the same silhouette that had haunted her since that day seven months ago. The same silhouette that had left her lying motionless on the floor, broken like the glass strewn around her.
“No,” she whispered. She couldn’t help following as James walked out the door. Then she spoke again, louder this time. “No.”
The sound wasn’t loud, barely raised above conversational tones, but it made James pause. He turned to look at Angel, and she felt sharp shards of ice lance through her veins.
“No, what?” he asked, his tone dangerous.
“No, you don’t win,” Angel said. Her mouth and throat were dry, and the words croaked past her lips. But they were louder than a whisper.
James stared at her, then laughed. “And what exactly don’t I win, Angel-no-more?” He began walking back toward her. Her heart thudded against her chest, feeling off rhythm and horribly loud. “Olivia and Clark—their marriage is a farce. Clark always has been and always will have been Olivia’s second choice. I know it, Olivia knows it, and Clark knows it.”
James pulled a gun from underneath his coat pocket as he walked—so he had been armed. He continued. “Nathan—he is just like me. He just hasn’t figured it out yet. And you, Angel-no-more, you are the best of the lot. Pregnant with one of my sons and in love with the other.”
He was close enough to touch. James took one more step, then took Angel’s hand, wrapping her fingers around the stock of the gun and placing the open end of the barrel against his chest.
“How are you going to keep me from winning, Angel-no-more? Are you going to kill me?” James whispered.
“Angel,” the voice came softly. Nathan. She hadn’t noticed he had come up behind her. Something told her Clark and Olivia were standing behind her as well, silent and breathless.
“Don’t shoot him, Angel.” The voice was pleading, and it stung, pricking her eyes and making them water.
James held Angel’s eyes.
“Go ahead,” James challenged her. “Shoot me.”
Angel stared at Nathan’s father. She had thought she knew exactly who he was—what he was. She had been wrong. There was no fiendish light in his eyes, only darkness and death. His were the eyes and misery of a corroded and decaying soul, of one who despised life yet fought for it. She wasn’t sure which was worse—the vision she had held of a man who took pleasure in cruelty, or this new image of a man who was cruel because it was easier to justify, and entice others to do the same, than to do any differently.
“No,” she whispered, then spoke again, louder this time as she realized she wasn’t afraid. “No.” James’s eyes darkened. “You are wrong. Nathan is nothing like you. Olivia loves Clark more than she ever loved you. And I am not broken. This isn’t Nathan’s tragedy, or Clark’s tragedy, or Olivia’s tragedy. James, it’s not even my tragedy—it’s yours.”
A strange look flitted over James’s face, then vanished. He snorted, pulling the gun from Angel’s grasp and turning it around to face her. “You sure do have a smart mouth on you, Angel-no-more.”
Angel met his gaze evenly, refusing to flinch. And as James stared at her, the strange look came over his face again. He shook his head. The movement was so slight Angel hardly saw it, even though they stood face-to-face. Even though he was looking straight at her, his eyes were distant. Then, almost to himself, James said, “I can hardly remember . . .”
As he spoke, his eyes searched her face, and he raised a hand and placed the gun back in Angel’s grasp, then reached toward her as though he were going to lay his hand against her cheek. This time, Angel did step back.
With Angel’s movement, James suddenly focused on her. “Why did I shoot him?” he asked.
A slow anger started to burn inside Angel’s chest, and her hands clenched into fists at her sides, but her voice was steady as she replied, “Effie?”
James nodded. “Probably.”
Then James seemed to shake himself from his trance and looked at each of them in turn. “I’ll be on my way now. I’m sure the sheriff will be along soon. I won’t be back.”
And for the second time that night, James turned to leave, but this time, a new voice spoke.
“I’m already here, James. Make it easy on yourself and come with me.” The sheriff.
James turned slowly and faced the sheriff, focusing on the gun the man had leveled in his direction. “Howdy, Sheriff,” he drawled. “I was wondering if you were gonna show up.”
The sheriff didn’t acknowledge James’s words, only motioned for his deputy to move to flank James.
“There are four guns focused on you right now, James,” the sheriff said as the deputy executed his silent instructions. “And as far as I can tell, you are unarmed. If I were you, I wouldn’t make any more trouble than you already have.”
James snorted. “And what difference would it make, Sheriff, even if I came quiet? If I had to guess, I’d say I was going to hang no matter what. And I only count one gun.”
The sheriff glanced around. Olivia, Angel, his deputy, and he himself all held guns aimed unwaveringly at James. “Just how do you figure that, James?”
James motioned toward the deputy. “Your deputy there, he’s not even a man—just a boy playing with a gun. He’s not going to shoot me.” He looked pityingly at Olivia, holding the gun he had first laid on the table in the house. “And Livvy, you and I both know that gun isn’t loaded.
“As for you, Angel-no-more”—James looked at her thoughtfully—“I just don’t think you have it in you to shoot me.”
Then, James considered the sheriff. “And as a matter of fact, Jonah, I seem to recall that you never were much of a shot. So maybe I have a pretty good chance after all.”
James reached into the front of his coat and pulled out another gun—Nathan wondered how many guns his father could possibly have brought with him—and two shots rang out. Only one found its target, but that single bullet did its job, striking James in the chest. He fell instantly and did not move.
“Who fired the second shot?” the sheriff asked, and his voice sounded muffled to Nathan’s ears after the noise from the gunshots. Nathan immediately looked at Angel, then the deputy. They both shook their heads. As one, everyone looked at Olivia, and in answer, she opened the cylinder of the revolver. There were six chambers. Five held bullets. And Olivia’s expression—Nathan had never seen an expression quite like that on Olivia’s face. It was a combination of horror, and relief, and disbelief.
Nathan gaped at Olivia, then Clark, who was watching Olivia with a strange expression, before his attention was drawn by the sheriff. The sheriff knelt down beside James, closing his eyes and removing the gun from his hand. He opened the clip, then looked up with a strange expression.
“It’s empty,” he said. Nathan’s stomach dropped.
“And there’s something else in his hand,” the sheriff continued, pulling a tightly folded piece of paper from James’s grasp and handing it to Nathan.
Nathan unfolded the tattered paper slowly, first looking at the familiar penmanship without seeing the words. Then, he began to read.
I saved my brother’s life once. Every day since then, I’ve wished I let him die. Does that make me more like Cain or Abel, I wonder?
Chapter 20
Maybe the honorable thing would be to let them hang me for all I’ve done, my last words pleading for forgiveness, but the truth is, no one has ever accused me of being honorable. It’s better this way.
***
Angel was the last one to read the letter. After Nathan had finished reading, and when they were all back inside Clark and Olivia’s house, sitting wordlessly around the table with the lamplight flickering around them, Nathan had wordlessly handed the letter to Clark, who had then handed it to Olivia, who had then passed it to Angel.
Nathan sat, head in his hands, as Angel unfolded the tattered paper—she was surprised to see that the penmanship was crisp and well-formed—and began to read.
As she read, she couldn’t help glancing up at Clark, and Olivia, and Nathan as the letter mentioned each in turn, beginning to understand their reactions now that she herself was reading what they had reacted to.
When Clark had finished reading, he had pushed the letter across the table and away from himself and rested his head in his hands, and fingers clenched in his hair so tight Nathan had wondered if Clark might actually rip the hair from his own head, Clark had wept.
Upon finishing the letter, Angel glanced around the table, feeling as though she should hand the letter to someone. Finally, she set it carefully in the middle of the table, where it sat for several moments until Clark reached for it and began reading it again.
Nathan caught Angel’s eye and tilted his head toward the parlor. Angel glanced at Clark and Olivia, who had edged their chairs closer to one another and sat talking quietly at the table, Clark holding one of Olivia’s hands in his own, then nodded, and Nathan walked through the door into the other room. Angel followed.
They sat uncomfortably on the green, high-backed chairs, facing each other.
It was Nathan who finally broke the silence. “You didn’t pull the trigger.”
Angel shook her head, avoiding Nathan’s eyes. “No.”
“Why?”
“You asked me not to,” Angel said simply. Then, darting a glance in Nathan’s direction, she asked, “Why didn’t you want me to shoot him?”
Nathan paused, then answered, “He took enough from you already. He didn’t deserve any more.”
“And now he’s gone.”
“And now he’s dead,” Nathan corrected her.
Angel shuddered. “Doesn’t that make you sad at all?”
Nathan was silent for a long moment. “I don’t know. Maybe some,” he finally answered. “What makes me sadder is that I think I’m almost glad.”
“When you looked at me—when you came to me after the trial,” Angel said hesitantly, “you looked like you hated me.”
Nathan shook his head and stood, his back turned toward her. When he finally spoke, the words came slowly. “I won’t lie, I was angry that you kept the truth about my father from me. But whatever hate you saw, it wasn’t meant for you. It was for myself, and for every part of me that’s any part of my father.” He paused, then added quietly, “I’m afraid that when you look at me, you will only ever remember him.”
“I don’t see your father when I look at you. If I had, it wouldn’t have taken me so long to realize he was the one who—” Angel couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. She thought back to the day she had met Nathan on the road, how brazenly she had used that word—rape—and shuddered. Why should it be any different now? she thought. And yet it was.
She was grateful when Nathan nodded his understanding. She took a deep breath and continued. “I was afraid of what you would think. I was pregnant, and then the baby died, and then—”
Again, Angel’s words cut off, this time choked by anguish. This time, she finished, “And then it was your father’s.”
Angel looked down as she spoke, covering her face with her hands, unable to bring herself to meet Nathan’s eyes. She had used past tense, but the pain, and the shame, and the utter misery of the truth was as fresh now as ever. Her body shuddered with sobs as she said, “I’m so sorry.”
Between her fingers, she saw the slightest movement, and she looked up to see Nathan leaning forward slightly, frozen in midmotion, his hand hovering halfway between the two of them. Then, he appeared to change his mind. Instead of laying his hand on her shoulder, he took her face in both his hands, tilting her chin upwards, speaking with an earnestness that pierced Angel’s chest.
“I would have loved that baby like he was my own son.”
With those words, Angel sobbed even louder, but this was a different kind of cry. It was a cry of relief, and healing, and then, hardly without Angel being aware it was happening, she had wrapped her arms around Nathan and leaned against his chest, still crying. He awkwardly wrapped one arm around her shoulders, pulling back uncertainly, then relaxed and held her against him until her sobs quieted and her breathing evened out.
Nathan’s words had pulled the keystone from the walls she had never quite been able to tear down on her own, and they tumbled down around her. Angel felt safer, more whole, than she had since she was a little girl, before her parents had died. She had lost a part of herself when her parents died. James had stolen another piece of her. Those parts were still gone, but she no longer felt empty.
Nathan ran a hand over Angel’s hair, smoothing it as she rested her head against his shoulder. Just breathing.
“Ask me to stay,” Angel said suddenly, leaning back and looking up at Nathan.
“Nah, I already asked you that.” He grinned down at her. “I have a different question in mind—marry me?”
“You asked me that before too,” Angel objected.
“I know, but you told me no. I’m hoping this time you’ll have a different answer.”
The warmth behind Nathan’s dark eyes told Angel he knew that this time, her response would be different. Still, she couldn’t help pausing for a moment before she answered. Over and over, she had refused to let herself even wish for this moment, but now there were no more secrets. Nathan knew her, loved her. This time, she could unreservedly say yes, and that knowledge filled her with joy.
Before the warmth in Nathan’s eyes could give way to uncertainty, Angel threw her arms around him again. “Yes,” she whispered, then added, “I’ve wanted to be able to say that for so long.”
“I’ve wanted to hear you say that for a while,” Nathan said.
“When—the wedding, I mean?” Angel asked.
Nathan smiled again—Angel loved seeing the smile reach his eyes. “Well, I do know a preacher . . .”
Acknowledgments
First of all, huge thanks to my family for their continual support. To my husband, Seth, for supporting me and my decisions all along this crazy journey (I totally owe you helicopter pilot lessons, love). To my sweet kids, L and J, for reminding me of what’s important. To my sis-in-law, Amy, for reading an early version of my book and helping it become the YA book that it is. To my brother, Seth, for holding me accountable—both in writing and in life.
Second of all, I need to thank the Lafayette Literati—Alyse, Sara, and especially Sam and Andrea. You all have read more drafts of Angel than any normal human being should have to read of any book, and somehow managed to be always helpful, always enthusiastic, and always encouraging. Angel would not exist today if it weren’t for you.
Third, to Jennavier: thank you for always believing in my ideas and in me, no matter what; for hanging out with me in my sometimes-crazy headspace; for being my sister in the best and worst of times.
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