Angela looked up at Cole, lips puckered. “My, my. Have we gone soft?”
“She’s a good kid.” Cole shrugged.
Angela smiled sadly. He would make a good father, as his own had been.
Now that they were alone he was difficult to read again. She wondered about his thoughts and how he felt about their conversation the other night. Somehow that look about him, and that guarded sheen of uneasiness, told her he hadn’t gotten any more sleep than she had over the last two nights.
She thought he would say more and she hoped he would, but Cole pushed away from the desk and walked out of the room.
****
Angela had never been so glad to see the setting sun. She was exhausted from overhauling The Bullpen Arena’s financials. She had found a way to decrease expenses by four percent, without jeopardizing Cole’s relationships with vendors he called friends. It was a good start, but the pride of a day’s work was short-lived. Four percent was a long way from being enough.
She pushed away from the desk, her mind on a hot bath and some herbal tea.
As she went about the office closing blinds and flicking off lights, Angela glanced at the clock. It was already past eight. She had been at the office for more than fourteen hours. The door jangled open and Tina hurried inside, a teenage boy skulking in behind her.
“I’m so glad you’re still here!” Tina exclaimed as she rushed to the back office. “I forgot my trig book.”
Angela offered a quick “hello” to the boy, whom she presumed was the boyfriend, Billy.
“What’s up?” the boy asked, jerking his chin toward Angela. His eyes were shadowed by the brim of a baseball cap. He was either extremely bored, or a little angry. Probably both.
“Is the dance over already?” Angela asked as Tina came out of the back office.
“Nah, we got bored. Jenny Sentry is having a party down by Hunter’s Hill, so we’re headed there.” Tina grabbed Billy’s hand. She gave him a quick peck on the cheek, but Billy offered no affection in return.
“Don’t worry,” Tina said when she saw Angela’s concerned look, “my mom knows about it and I promised to be home by eleven, so I won’t flunk my trig test.”
Surprised when Tina offered a quick hug, Angela squeezed back. “Be careful,” she said as the two went off into the twilight of a small town evening, “and good luck on the test tomorrow!”
After they left Angela gathered her things and locked up the office. She took out her car keys and realized she had no tea at the house. She would have to make a trip to the corner store. With her hand on the car door handle, Angela turned toward the cool breeze and breathed in the scent of cherry blossoms.
It was late and she was tired, but she let go of the handle, dropped her keys back into her purse, and started on foot to the store. She took the long route down Maple street, past the flowering cherry trees.
If Grace had a trendy district, this was it, with newer buildings and storefronts made to look historic. The color and architecture of each store flowed into the one next to it. Grace’s only upscale restaurant was here, along with its sole spa and workout center. Angela made a mental note to sign up for a gym membership.
A handful of tourists and locals walked along the street. Lights from the businesses shown through windows, cutting across the shadows. Across the street, jazz music from a restaurant spilled into the quiet night. Angela looked up at the white flowers on the trees lining the sidewalk. A breeze shook some loose and a spray of fragrant blooms rained down. Some landed in her hair, and she riffled her fingers through the strands to shake the petals free.
She came to the town center, where Main and Maple streets converged and the Church of Grace loomed over the square. Much of the red brick was covered in ivy, the cross at the top of rising toward a blue-black sky.
The heavy doors opened and Cole walked out. He didn’t notice her right away. She almost retreated into the shadows, but before she could give it enough thought he looked directly at her. Too late. He set his hat atop his head and smiled.
“Howdy,” he said. “Out for a walk?”
“It’s a nice night. What were you doing in there?”
“Talking with an old friend.” He adjusted the hat.
“Do you still go to serviceshere?”
“Every Sunday I’m in town.” Cole jutted his chin in the direction of the long line of cherry trees. “Walk with me, darlin’?”
“You keep calling me that.”
“Calling you what? Darling?”
“No, not like that. Darlin’,” she said, imitating his drawl. “Like that. And you do it with that smile.”
“What smile?”
“You know what smile.”
“Wondering what I’m after by using my charm on you, aren’t ya darlin’?” He laid the drawl on extra thick and grinned.
As a girl, she would have giggled beneath the scrutiny of his attention. As a woman, she simply smiled and ignored the butterflies in her stomach. “Maybe,” she said, taking up step beside him, “but it won’t work. So your efforts are for naught.”
“And yet, I got what I wanted. Here you are, walking with me, aren’t you?”
Angela couldn’t help herself. She tried to stifle the laugh, but in doing so it came out more like a giggle.
Cole grinned.
“Shut up,” Angela said, pushing his shoulder.
They walked in silence. Cole looked ahead, his gaze focused.
“You know,” he began conversationally after a several minutes, “Maisy Markey’s husband finally got baptized.”
“Really?” She laughed as she thought of Jim Markey. When Angela was a child he had styled his white hair in a bouffant with four-inch mutton chops. On more than a few occasions he had broken into song in the middle of a public place, simply because he felt like it. “Is he the same?”
“Worse.” Cole laughed. “The man insisted on being baptized in his shorts.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. The pastor asked for all new believers to come to the alter. Jim walked up there and stripped down to his skivvies right there at the pulpit. He didn’t want to get his suit wet. Maisy was bright as a tomato.”
They both laughed. A spray of flowers rained down on them. Angela reached up and grabbed some out of the air. “I love these flowers,” she said, sniffing them in her hand before releasing them to float to the ground.
Cole flashed a mischievous smile and hoisted himself onto one of the tree trunks. He snapped off a small branch. “Here,” he said, handing it to her, “now you can put it in some water and enjoy it for a while.”
Angela took the branch and felt the warmth of a blush creep over her cheeks. She’d been given dozens of roses over the years. Jeffery had sent her insanely expensive exotic flowers on a weekly basis. Another man had once filled her office with roses of every color imaginable. None of these gestures compared to Cole’s.
She sniffed the flowers. “Thanks, but are you allowed to do that?”
“Probably not.” He shrugged and they continued walking. “How late did you work?”
“Until about…” she glanced at her watch, “fifteen minutes ago.”
He whistled. “A little late, isn’t it?”
“I consider this an early night. There were times in New York I’d go home at midnight only to be back at six the next morning. Don’t look at me like that,” she added when he frowned. “Tonight I am going to soak in a warm bath and drink some tea, and I fully intend on sleeping in until at least seven tomorrow morning.”
“Now that’s an image. The beautiful tycoon in a bathtub, surrounded by bubbles. Monocle and all.” He winked.
Angela shook her head and linked her arm in his. “There you go, being all cute and charming again.”
Cole stopped and turned toward her. He looked both dangerous and adorable in the wash of street lights amidst the gentle shower of fading spring blooms.
“You got real pretty, Ang.” He looked up and exhaled, then laughed at himself.
>
Every cell in Angela’s body warned her to step away, but his hand was at her waist and he smelled of soap and leather. He looked back down at her, his reticent laugh fading as a fierce intensity sparked in his eyes.
“Ah hell,” he muttered, bringing his lips to hers and pulling her close. He threaded his fingers through her hair and deepened the kiss. Angela sighed, hypnotized by the coolness of the breeze, the scent of the flowers and the feel of his lips against hers.
“Angie.” Cole ended the kiss, but he stayed close. “You’ll be my undoing.”
“I think you have that backwards.” Her heart slipped to her stomach. The butterflies fluttered up her throat. She was afraid to pull away, terrified of what she might see. Would his eyes turn cold, as they had done all those years ago by the pond?
She moved out of his grip, refusing to look at him.
“Angie…”
She walked away, ignoring him as he called after her. The kiss still lingered on her lips, the flowers he’d given her still in her hand. Angela glanced up at the moon through the trees. She once found comfort in the moon. It changed daily, but those changes were predictable; something she could count on. Tonight it taunted her, its crescent shape like a crooked smile. Nine
Cole walked into the arena stables after a restless night. He was in a fit of a mood and had a mind set on picking up a tool and getting straight to work.
He would have preferred to faceoff with a bronco, but he was met with only the quiet sounds of docile livestock and the low voices of the workers. Horses neighed and calves chewed audibly on their cud. Even the air was still. All that would change in a few days, when the broncos and bulls arrived before Friday’s event. Their presence would charge the air and quicken every particle of steel and dirt, but for now he would have to settle for the quiet and a bit of hard work.
He grabbed a pair of rubber boots from a hook and pulled them past his knees. A few young men walked by and Cole curtly returned their nods.
“You might wanna tell your girl to buy some boots,” said his ranch hand Jeremy.
“My girl?”
“Miss Donnelly.” Jeremy smirked and pointed to where Angela stood in a gray suit and stiletto heels. She clutched a leather notebook to her chest, watching one of the horses as if she were trying to figure out what it was.
The impulses that tempted him the night before hit him like a shovel to the back of the head. She raised her eyes to meet his across the distance. Surprise flickered across her face, but then she flattened her expression and looked down at her notes.
“Taking inventory?” Cole asked as he walked up to her.
“Just getting a feel for things.” She smiled blandly, tapping her fake fingernails on the notebook.
“You’ll break your ankles in those shoes,” he said, stepping into the empty stall beside her.
“I assure you, I’ve worn heels for most of my adult life.” She scribbled something on her notepad. “I haven’t broken an ankle yet.”
Cole nodded and reached for the broom leaning against the wall. “Might want to take a step back. I wouldn’t want your pretty suit to get dirty.” He gave the broom a quick push against the concrete floor, forcing the muck into the open trench behind the stall with an echoing swish.
It felt good to get back to manual work after having spent so much time on the road. Part of him wished Angie weren’t there. She was just chock-full of complications and he’d come to the arena to get away from all that. He pushed on the broom a few more times, more forcefully than necessary.
“Cole.”
He stopped his work, irritated with the pain that shot up his arm in waves. He sucked in a breath of manure-tinged air and turned to her.
She’d stepped to the rail, still holding the notebook as if it were a shield. “About last night...”
The expression on her face was as serious as a bronc ready to rear. He walked out of the stall, took the notebook out of her hands and shoved the broom at her. She stared at it for a moment, and then wrapped her pretty fake-tipped fingers around the splintering wood, holding it at arms’ length as if it were a snake.
Cole set her notebook on an overturned barrel and grabbed another pair of boots from the hook on the post. “I assure you,” he said, mirroring the tone she had used with him moments earlier, “I’ve kissed plenty of women and I’ve not been broken yet.”
Angie narrowed her eyes. “I don’t believe that for a second.”
Sighing, Cole’s gaze inadvertently shifted to her soft pink lips. A strip of sunlight came through an opening in the corrugated tin roof above their heads. Specks of dusk sparkled around her head, the freckles across her nose made noticeable in this light. For a moment he saw her as he wanted her to be, as she had been that night they went riding.
“At least not broken beyond repair,” he added carefully. “You made your feelings clear on this matter. Point taken.”
Angie raised her eyebrows, her hand still on the broom handle. Cole thrust the rubber boots at her. She gathered them clumsily against her chest.
“Start with the end stall over there,” he said, pointing. “You’ll wanna make sure you get as much of it into the trenches as you can, and then we’ll hose down the rest.”
“You want me to muck stalls?” she asked, a mixture of horror and humor in her eyes. “I’m hardly dressed for it.”
“Didn’t I say your suits wouldn’t work here?”
“I didn’t come out here to do this.” She pushed the boots and broom back at him, and then reached for her notebook. “I’m just going to make a few more notes and then I’ll be heading back to the office.”
“Angie,” Cole said coolly, “this is part of what we do here.”
“I’m not mucking stalls…”
“If you wanna get that profit from selling off your half, you’re gonna have to pitch in and get dirty. We’re understaffed, sweetheart.”
She sighed and shook her head, looking heavenward. Then she let loose a surrendering smile and snatched the broom from him. “At least not willingly.”
“Good girl,” Cole chided, grinning when Angie looked down at her shoes.
“Tina’ll be here in a few minutes,” he said. “She’s training on Moonstar this morning, so I’m sure she’s got a spare outfit you can borrow. Next time come prepared.”
****
Angela watched him walk away. She couldn’t blame him for his impertinence; after all, she was a city girl dressed for the boardroom. She had needed to dress this way, in hope that it would somehow connect her to the calmer and slightly less neurotic Angela; the Angela who could control a business meeting with ease and who refused to put up with anyone’s neuroses, including her own.
As it turned out, none of that was a match against a cowboy and stalls filled with horse poop.
She looked at the stall next to her, empty except for the layers of dirty hay. Control, she thought irritably as she set the broom aside, was something she could never claim in Grace.
Because there was nothing else to do until Tina arrived with a change of clothes, Angela wandered into the tack room, the familiar scent of old leather as potent as she remembered. She was certain many of the saddles hanging there were the same that had been there when she was a girl. She trailed her fingers along the aged leather straps and holsters.
It was a room filled with restraints. As a child she had been terrified of it.
“Put the rabbit through the hole.”
Angela jumped at the sound of Reed’s voice. He came into the room with a smile as big as his belt buckle. She looked down at her hands and realized she had been holding the D ring in one hand and the cinch strap in another.
Reed had taught her how to tack up a horse. He had also been the first to coax her onto the back of one. He’d been like a kid himself, sneaking Butterfield into the practice ring as he’d tried to keep Angela from giggling. By the time they’d gotten her onto Butterfield’s back they were both laughing hysterically and Angela had barely been a
ble to hold onto the reins.
“Put the rabbit through the hole,” she said, repeating the words he had taught her long ago, “and under the branch, then cinch it tight.” She pulled hard and held out her masterpiece to him. “How’d I do?”
“A little rusty,” Reed admitted.
Her thoughts drifted to a twilight meadow a few nights earlier, where she had ridden Dixie through a cloud of fireflies. Shaking off the memory, Angela set the saddle back on its stand.
“What happened to Butterfield? I don’t suppose she’s still here?”
“Ah, now,” Reed said, “she was an old horse when you knew her, Angie. We had to put her down about ten years ago.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Part of life is death,” Reed answered easily. “You remember your mama’s face when she saw you up on that horse the first time?”
Angela smiled at the memory. “You’d have thought I was on top of a rocket ready to launch into space.”
“I never saw her move as fast as she did when she jumped over that rail.”
Laughter bubbled in Angela’s throat. “And then she carried on with such a fuss she made the horse ninny and prance. Oh, that made Mom frantic.”
“She didn’t let me forget it for a very long time.”
Sobering, Angela leaned against one of the saddles. “Me either.”
Reed reached out and rested his hand on the saddle. He frowned and looked down at his boots. “I was always real fond of your mama. She loved you fierce, you know.”
“She loved me?” Angela felt her heart tighten. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“No one knew,” Reed said. “I hated her for a long time after we found out what Henry really was. I hated her for not telling me or anyone else. Your mama was already gone by then, though I still had some harsh words for her. But it was the kinda hate that doesn’t hold, because whatever the reason, it was her reason and she woulda believed in it. Doesn’t mean it was right, but your mama did the best she could, Angie. ”
Angela frowned, wondering over the tears in Reed’s eyes. Memory lane, Angela mused, was a treacherous road. She pushed away from the saddle.
Heart of Grace (Return to Grace Trilogy #1) Page 9