Angel suppressed a chuckle. "Red, you connivin' old cuss, you're not about to run my life, even if you did have a heart attack. You might have grandchildren someday . . . but it won't be because you pretended to be sicker than you really were. You're tougher than shoe leather and buzzard bait combined. I'm goin' home and when we get back tomorrow, you better be sittin' up in bed, unwired from all these contraptions, and makin' oil deals on the phone. Good night, you old sweetheart." She kissed him on the cheek.
Red opened one eye to see her leave, then popped the other one open and winked at Clancy. "I'm holdin' you to your word. Call that school and tell them you're resignin' before school starts up and be ready to go to work in your new office on Wednesday. That'll give you two days to catch that filly out there in the hall."
"It's not that easy, Red," he shook his head. "I'm not entirely sure she wants to be caught."
"Then you'd better hurry up, son, she's gettin' away." Red talked out of the side of his mouth and closed his eyes again.
They swung open the doors into a waiting room on the ward and Anna stood up, ready to go back to Red's side. "Did he talk to you?" she asked.
"Yes, Anna, I'll start at Texanna on Wednesday morning." Clancy hugged her again. "Tell him not to worry. If I've got a question, and I'm sure I will have, I'll just call Angel."
"Thank the Lord," Anna shuddered "I've been around the oil business all our married life. More than forty years, and I don't know jack squat about any of it. I can throw a party, flutter my eyes and help talk a deal, but if I had to fill out a single form, I'd probably be signin' the whole business over to a swindler. I'm glad you'll be there, Clancy."
He stopped dead in his tracks. "I forgot to ask Red where the office is located now. Is the company still based in New Orleans?"
"Hell, no!" Anna laughed. "We sold that building last week and moved to Sherman, Texas. Everybody on Red's staff is as happy as hogs in a big, wet mud puddle to be back. Not a one of them liked Louisiana."
"Okay, I'll call for the address," Clancy smiled. "See you and Red in the mornin' right here. How long do you think they'll keep him?"
"Couple of days, the doctor says—if Red promises not to go to work for two weeks when he gets out. And don't forget to call your mother and tell her Red's okay. Today was a special day for her and Tom—I'm so sorry we interrupted it."
Clancy stopped at the grocery store on the way home so Angel could pick up necessities . . . milk, bread, cheese, sandwich makings, canned soup, and fresh fruit. Then he followed her directions as they drove through town to her apartment, a two-bedroom condo in a beautifully landscaped complex.
"Welcome to my adobe hacienda." Angel opened the front door and stepped inside. She set the bags of groceries on the dining-room table and opened glass doors that led onto a private patio and a lush green lawn that looked like a little bit of paradise, right there in northern Texas at the end of July. "Come look here, Clancy!" she yelled across the living room. "Look at those big black storm clouds over there. We're goin' to get rain, right in the middle of the hottest part of summer."
Clancy walked up behind her and circled her waist with his arms, knowing a moment of pure contentment. "Guess hurricanes follow us wherever we go." He nuzzled her neck, enjoying the intriguing scent of her perfume.
"Oh, no, we don't get hurricanes here. We get tornadoes. And we're not havin' one today. The emotional roller coaster we've been on for the past week is enough to wreck my nerves. So I command that cloud, if it's planning to produce a tornado, to go tear up something a hundred miles away from me and you." She pointed toward the dark masses like one of Salem's best witches.
"I guess I better call the superintendent of schools tomorrow morning." Clancy changed the subject when he thought about all he had to do in the next few days.
"Yep." Angel nodded. "And I'm goin' back to Conrad Oil tomorrow morning for some peace and quiet. My vacation is over. But this whole week has been—"
"Wonderful," he finished for her. 'I'm starving, though. I think I got one bite of ribs before Anna called. And you didn't have much more than that. So, do you cook or do I?"
"I told you I don't cook. I can make a mean ham sandwich, and I know how to heat up a can of bean with bacon soup to go with it, but if you want cooked food, you'll have to do it." She turned and laid her face on his chest.
"Then it's ham," Clancy massaged the tension out of her shoulders. "I can't cook, either."
"Hey." She smiled "I understand. Tomorrow night we'll go to the farm and Hilda will feed us right. She might not even throw you out on the porch on your face if you're nice to me. And maybe she won't put rat poison in your potatoes. You've got two hours to stop that wonderful massaging on my back." She wiggled in appreciation.
"We'll really be starved in two hours," he reminded her. "Now, are you making the entree of ham à la sandwich? If so, I'll make the side dish of soup à la bean with bacon."
"Deal." Angel reached into the first grocery bag, pulled out a loaf of whole grain bread and a package of cured ham. "Let the gourmet cookin' begin." She started unloading items onto the bar separating the dining room from the kitchen.
"Why in the world do you live in two places?" Clancy opened the can of soup and rummaged around in the cabinets until he found a saucepan.
"Because I wanted two places. Sometimes I didn't feel like driving to the farm when we got home from a gig. Sometimes one of the girls needed a place to sleep if they didn't want to go home. So I rent this and own the farm. Okay with you?" She said testily.
"Fine with me," he laughed "It's a lovely condo, Angel. Got your special touches everywhere, just like the farm. I'm surprised you don't have a porch swing here."
"I've got one ordered. It's a wooden thing made to look like a miniature love bench," she admitted.
After they'd eaten supper and cleaned up the kitchen together, she declared she was changing into something more comfortable than the suit she'd worn to his mother's wedding party and disappeared into the bedroom. In a few minutes, she came back out wearing her Betty Boop nightshirt and carrying a quilted throw. She told him it was his turn to get out of his Sunday best and to find something he could lounge in while they curled up together on the couch to watch a movie.
"Angel, what am I goin' to do?" Clancy cuddled down beside her on the deep burgundy velvet sofa and propped his feet on the massive oak coffee table. She pushed a button on the remote and the TV came on.
"About what? Working at the company? Red's office staff will take you under their wings and smother you half to death. Those women have been with him since I've known him. Hell, they're probably the same women you used to visit with when you and your daddy came down here on Saturdays. The geologist and the lawyer are pretty new, but they're friendly. You'll like them. In a couple of weeks, you'll fit right in. Don't worry." She snuggled her body next to his and kissed him on the cheek. "Now, what do we intend to do about us?"
"Us?" he asked.
"Yep, us," she said "I'm in love with you, Clancy Morgan. And I don't intend to let some smooth-talking hussy take you away from me this time." She nibbled on his earlobe and he groaned.
"I intend to court you like a lady. I intend to take you everywhere I didn't take you all those years ago, and I fully intend to beg you until you say you'll marry me," Clancy said honestly.
"I hope so," she sighed. "Now can we just watch this movie and be still for a while? I want to feel you near me, but I don't want to make wild, passionate love—all this just plain wore me out. But I want to fall asleep in your arms and wake up to find you beside me, but before I do it, I want to hear you say—"
"I love you, Angel. I've loved you for ten years," Clancy kissed her on top of the forehead and knew another moment of blessed contentment.
"We might fight," she purred.
"We'll make up," he said.
"We might disagree. I'm obnoxious when I disagree," Angel said pertly.
"So am I, but for now, let's just think about toda
y." Clancy pulled her even closer and leaned his head back on the velvet couch and shut his eyes. Way down deep in his soul he knew this was right, and he loved the feeling.
Fifteen
"Mornin', Angel," Patty greeted her with a big innocent smile.
"Call them all in," Angel said in the meanest voice she could muster. "Just us girls, in the conference room in three minutes, pronto."
The grin faded from Patty's face in an instant. She pushed the red button on the intercom sitting on her desk and said, "Angel's home, ladies. She says meet in three minutes in the conference room, and I think she means it. We're in trouble."
Angel looked down at the main street of Denison while she waited for her friends to assemble behind her. She wanted them to think she was so angry she didn't want to face them, but it was hard to keep a smile off her face. Especially when she thought about Red in his hospital bed trying to act more sick than he really was, and when she thought about waking up beside Clancy this morning. She'd opened her eyes half an hour before the alarm sounded, and she spent that time lying next to him, thinking about the future and what it would be like to watch Red and Tom both play with their grandchildren.
Patty cleared her throat and Angel turned around to find all five sitting in their places around the conference table. "I ought to shoot every one of you for the stunt you pulled, but for once your intuition was better than mine. I have to thank you." She smiled brightly.
Patty wiped her brow with the back of her hand in a dramatic gesture. Mindy sighed. Allie rolled her eyes to the ceiling, and Susan giggled.
"Want to tell us about it?" Bonnie smiled back and Angel figured that she'd been in charge of the whole set-up.
"Nope." Angel shook her head. "After what you did, not one of you deserves to hear the details. But Clancy and I intend to get on with the future and put the past behind us. This weekend he'll probably move from his old place in Oklahoma City, and I'm here where I belong, trying to keep the bunch of you in line. Now, Susan, bring me up to date on what's going on in the front office. The rest of you have to meet with me at thirty-minute intervals . . ."
"Hey . . ." Bonnie stopped her midsentence. "We're your friends. We've shared evening from busted fingernails to divorces. We only did this to help you get over the sorry sucker who made you walk around here all down in the mouth."
"I'm over the past," Angel smiled at her friends. "I told you that." She suppressed a giggle.
Then she started to laugh. One minute everything was as quiet as a prelude to a funeral, the next minute Angel was wiping tears from her face and hiccuping. "You are all a bunch of devils," she said. "Clancy is moving in with me. We're goin' to make it this time! I've realized anything worth having is worth fightin' for, and no one is getting between me and Clancy Morgan again. Maybe I should have fought for him all those years ago, but then if I had, we wouldn't be where we are today. Clancy and I needed ten years to grow up enough to realize what we have . . . and I thank my bunch of honky-tonk devils for seeing that when I was blind."
"Hot damn," Patty swore loudly. "Is there goin' to be a weddin'?"
"Maybe someday." Angel nodded.
"Someday . . ." Allie drew out the word and raised an eyebrow.
"Let's get back to business," Angel said. "And you should know that Red has hired a new man, who's pretty sharp. His name just happens to be Clancy Morgan and I don't think even I will be able to blink my pretty lashes and get him to give me a good deal," she told them.
"Well, isn't it a small world," Mindy said. "Angel, it might take a while for us to forgive that man, but we promise to give him a chance. Right, girls?" She grinned and disappeared out the side door to the hallway leading to her office.
"Nothing much has happened since you've been away," Susan said. "Except for Red's heart attack. Shook us all up. We reckoned he'd be around until eternity." She toyed with a lock of her short red hair. "Life sure don't offer any guarantees, does it, Angel? I think I'm goin' to tell Richie to set the date. Maybe a Thanksgiving wedding would be good. Bonnie will be married by then. I think I'll suggest we fly to Jamaica, for the holiday and tie the knot down there."
"If that's what you want, then go after it," Angel led the way from the conference room to her office and sat down behind her desk. "I'm hoping that Clancy and I will just wake up some morning and know that it's the day and find us a judge."
"I'm really happy for you," Susan said. "Guess he turned out better than we expected. Can't punish him forever for a mistake he made ten years ago."
"Ain't that the truth." Angel opened a portfolio on her desk and reviewed Susan's proposition for a new advertising campaign. "Looks really good," she muttered, turning the pages. "Let me know when you're ready to spring it on the oil industry."
"Will do, and it's good to have you home. Gotta run. Never know what might come walkin' in the front door," Susan stood up and smoothed the wrinkles out of her emerald-green column dress.
Angel had barely gotten through her minimeetings with each of her friends when Patty buzzed to tell her Clancy was on the phone. "I've forgotten it all," he moaned when she picked up the remote phone and went to the window to watch the people on Main Street. "They're talking drillers and roughnecks and rigs and casings, and my mind is in a whirl. I knew the terminology at one time, but damn it all, it's gone now!"
"You'll learn. You're not that old, Clancy," she said seriously. "Remember, anything worth having is worth fighting for. Like Red told you last night, half of Tex-anna Red is yours right now. If you want to keep it, you'll learn."
"How can I learn this and court you, too? I can't think about business for thinking about you," he said.
"Then you better learn to control your thoughts a little better. From nine to five only think about Tex-anna Red, and from then on you belong to me," Angel laughed.
"Are we still going to the farm tonight? Do we have to go across that high bridge, or can we go up the highway and across?" he asked.
"Clancy, it's twice as far to go the highway, and it only takes thirty seconds to cross the bridge over into Hendrix. I'll drive," she said shortly. She couldn't imagine anyone being so afraid of heights. How in the world was he ever going to put on a hard hat and climb to the top of a rig for an inspection?
"Are we fighting?" he asked just as shortly.
"Who knows?" she said. "But we'll talk about it later. I've got a meeting with Margie this afternoon and I'd rather do battle with the Hendrix bridge any day than that old barracuda. You better hope Red is up and well by the time she knows you're a new person in the office. She'll eat you for lunch and lick her fingers afterward."
"You think I can't hold my own with her?" Clancy's voice held a challenging edge.
"Not if you don't learn the difference between a rig and a casing," she threw right back at him.
"I'll see you at five. And I'll drive over the Hendrix bridge. We'll take my Bronco," he said authoritatively.
"Anything you say, sweetheart. Have a good day," she said acidly.
Good grief, were they going to bicker like this every day? This was not good. Perhaps she and Clancy should live together before they really thought seriously about a permanent commitment, because Angel certainly didn't need this kind of conflict in her life every day.
She was still mulling the matter over in her mind when she arrived at the apartment that evening. Clancy's Bronco sat in the driveway beside her parking place. She opened the door and found his bags packed beside the door, but he was sleeping soundly on the couch. She sat down on the floor beside him and stared at him for ten minutes, trying to figure out what she should do. Would it be best to send him on his merry way? He might be her competitor forever, and then he wouldn't be her lover anymore.
That old familiar feeling tickled the inside of her mind and Angel knew without another thought what she was going to do. Clancy was going to face some difficult times as he learned a new business and had to face more responsibility than he'd ever faced before. She'd be there for
him, and if they fought along the way, then they could damn well make up afterward, because she was committing herself for the long haul right now.
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "Hey, sleepyhead, we've got to go see Red, and I called Hilda. Supper will be on the table at seven, so you'd better wake up and face the dreaded bridge."
"Shut up." He didn't open his eyes, but he did smile. "You know how afraid I am of heights. Always have been. Couldn't even dive off the dam because it looked like it was six miles to the bottom."
"I know." She kissed his eyelids and his cheeks, rough with a five o'clock beard. And then his mouth. "But you'll get over it."
They found Red sitting up in bed with a cordless phone and a yellow legal pad in front of him. Anna's jeans were creased perfectly and she'd visited the hairdresser that day. "Hey, how'd the first day go? Dennis, the geologist, said you were frustrated but determined." Red held up a hand. "By the way, I want the offshore drillers to start spending three weeks out and three weeks in. Give them more time at home with their families at a stretch."
"He's back to wheelin' and dealin'," Anna said cheerfully. "I'm takin' him home and he'll be back at work by noon, but only for half a day this week. Doc says it'll be two weeks before he can go all day. You'll do fine, Clancy. In a while, you'll know as much about it as us old dogs. You younguns learn fast."
"Now, talk to me about you two." Red pushed the off button and set the phone down. "I want to know why neither of you ever mentioned the other's name in all these years."
"Wasn't any reason," Clancy said. "I didn't know Angel was in the oil business, and I figured she was off and married to someone else."
"I thought he and Melissa were married and living happily ever after, amen," Angel said. "And my intuition didn't tell me different."
Red chuckled. "Must be the only time it's failed you. I'd still pay you big bucks to sit behind a desk and tell me when that crazy feeling hits you. Clancy, if you don't take advantage of this girl's sixth sense, you're a lunatic."
Small Town Romance Collection: Four Complete Romances & A New Novella Page 14