“This is me saying that I have to forget about it, Cole. No one else. Just me.” She looked away, but not before he caught the regret in her eyes. “I’m leaving in two months.”
“You don’t have to do that, either.”
“I told you’d I’d give you three months. That’s it. It was never my intention to stay.”
“It never is, is it?”
“Did you expect me to stay?” Angie demanded.
“No,” Cole said stiffly. “I expect you to leave. I expected you leave fifteen years ago, too.”
She straightened her spine. Gray-green eyes hardened against a sheen of tears. “After my mom’s funeral I went to the pond. You followed me there. You kissed me.”
“I remember.”
“I’m almost twice as old as I was back then, but when you look at me, when you kissed me a few weeks ago, it’s like I became that kid again. That stupid, lovesick kid falling all over herself just to get some boy to notice her.” Angie let out a harsh, self-deprecating laugh. “And no matter how far I moved away, or how much more sophisticated my life had become, I never stopped being that stupid, lovesick kid. Different boys, same stupidity.”
“Angie-”
“I know you saw them.” She grabbed hold of the railing again, as though it were an anchor. “The first time you kissed me. Afterwards you brushed my hair away. You saw the marks on my neck. And you rejected me because of them.”
Cole closed his eyes and exhaled. A thousand words came to mind, but he couldn’t utter a single one.
“I’ve always known,” she said quietly. “Back then I thought it was because they made me ugly. As I got older I realized you were only seventeen, and just looking to get the girl, not the drama that came with her. But you didn’t tell anyone. You let me go home to him. And that night he…”
She sucked in a sob and pressed her lips together, holding her breath until she could trust her voice again.
“I’ve never really forgiven you for that,” she continued, her voice steady, “and now you have the gull to stand there and try to make me feel guilty for leaving?”
“I’m not that seventeen-year-old kid anymore.”
“Neither am I.”
She ducked beneath the rail and stepped off the stand. Cole watched her retreat. His heart urged him to follow, but he let her go.
****
Angela tucked a bag of fertilizer into the crook of her arm and walked out of the garden supply store. She’d used Maisy’s coupon; she owed it to her flowers to at least attempt to save their lives. Besides, the coupon had been about to expire and she had needed to fill the hours between her confrontation with Cole earlier that afternoon and the circuit rodeo later this evening.
She hadn’t meant to let all of that out with Cole. In truth, she hadn’t even known all of that was still there. It left her raw and hollow. As she carried the fertilizer to her car she tried to focus on other things.
The rodeo area had seen steady increases over the last month. Angela had cut costs and their newest promotion was bringing in crowds. The tickets that had been sold for tonight’s event brought in twice the revenue of the average weekly event over the previous three years.
Remembering the message she had left the Cowhide Boots’ marketing rep, Angela set the bag onto a bench and pulled out her cell phone.
No messages. Darn.
She curled her hand around the phone and mulled over strategies. Because she had run out of professional options – and perhaps also because she needed a distraction from the personal tornado that had become her life – Angela opened her contact list and dialed Jeffrey’s number.
“I hoped you would call.”
“Jeffrey.” Angela refused to move even an inch for fear of losing the signal. It was more miss than hit most days. “I’m so glad I caught you.”
“It’s good to hear your voice, Angela.”
His voice made her think of their time together: kissing him in a rowboat on a half-frozen pond in Connecticut; sitting together at a coffee shop concert in Greenwich Village; hearing him say her name for the first time. She lowered onto the bench.
“Are you well?” Jeffrey asked.
“I am fine, yes.”
“Do you miss me yet?” Jeffrey asked.
“Jeffrey…”
“The other day I went to that little coffee house we found in Greenwich Village. Café Riscatto. We went to a jazz concert there. Do you remember it?”
“Jeffrey,” she said more forcefully, steeling herself against the temptation to indulge in him. “This is not a personal call.”
“I still remember how beautiful you looked in that dress.”
Angela sat in the heart of Grace, surrounded by the bustle of a small town. She closed her eyes and struggled to recall the images of that long ago night in New York, her memories like the hazy images of a barely remembered dream. Her dress had been purple, but she could remember nothing else about it. She could barely even remember what Jeffrey’s face looked like.
“When are you coming home?” he asked. “I miss you.”
Angela swallowed hard and opened her eyes. “I need your help.”
“Oh?”
“I came back to Montana to claim a rodeo arena that my father left me in his will. It’s not doing well. I need you to shop it for me.”
“You want me to sell shares to a rodeo arena? To New Yorkers? Angela, are you daft?”
“It’s a partnership. There are no shares. I want you to find me an investor.”
Jeffrey laughed.
Angela set her forehead in her hand, barely noticing the cool breeze that fluttered her hair. The bag of fertilizer sat beside her. She wondered what Jeffrey would say if he knew she had taken up gardening.
She wondered what Cole would say if he knew about Jeffrey and what she was asking of him.
“Are you done?” she asked once Jeffrey had calmed down and taken a breath.
“Look, honey, I feel for you, I really do. But come on, you know this business.” Jeffrey paused. When she said nothing, he continued, “It’s a hard sell.”
“Are you saying you can’t do it?”
“Hardly,” he scoffed. “Are you challenging me, Miz Donnelly?”
“Perhaps. If that’s what it takes…”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can do. Send me the details and I’ll have Sheryl look them over.”
“Sheryl? My assistant? Whom I fired?! Who you-”
“I rehired her,” he said unapologetically. “You left, Angela. I needed the extra help and Sheryl knows your accounts.”
Angela had walked in on Jeffrey and Sheryl. She had seen them together, and after she’d let herself begin to think, to hope.
“I’ll get the information to tonight,” Angela said icily.
“Angela.”
“What?” She closed her eyes and took in a careful breath when she realized she had snapped out the word.
“I rehired her only because she is familiar with your accounts.” Jeffery paused deliberately. “It was your choice to leave.”
“No it wasn’t,” Angela muttered and then added quickly, “I’ll be in touch. Check your email in the morning.”
“Will do, goodnight Angela.”
“Goodnight.”
She hung up the phone.
“Now, that looks like the face of a ticked off woman.”
“Confused is more like it.” Angela smiled as Sophie sat beside her on the bench. The woman was relentless, despite Angela’s efforts to ignore her. Sophie either hadn’t gotten the hint, or she had decided to not let it deter her. And in a town as small as this, it was hard to not run into her, especially since she taught the yoga class every week.
“Does it have anything to do with boys?”
“Is there anything else more confusing?” Angela laughed and slipped her phone back into her purse. “Actually, it has a lot to do with a little bit of everything.”
“Who’s Jeffrey? Sorry,” she added quickly, “public place…I
couldn’t help but hear.”
“He’s my boss in New York. Wasmy boss.”
“Uh-huh.” Sophie cast a sideways glance at Angela. “I saw you smiling into the phone. I also saw you scowling into it. Both reactions say he’s more than just your boss.”
How long had she been listening? Irritated, Angela said, “I wasn’t smiling. We dated, but it’s over now.”
“What about Cole?”
“What about him? We work together.”
“And you are obviously so against having personal relationships with people you work with.” Sophie retorted.
“Dating is the last thing on my mind these days. I’m just trying to get through the summer.”
“My sister knows this woman in Missoula who claimed to be a witch. But her crystal ball was electric and her long pointy nails were fake. It was all a sham. When she wasn’t at work trying to swindle people for money she looked just like you and me.”
Angela frowned. “What does that have to do with-”
“Illusions.” Sophie smiled. “People will believe anything if they want to believe it badly enough. Same as forgetting. If you want to forget it, you will. The problem is that the truth always comes out one way or another and sooner or later you’ll be sitting there like an idiot with your crystal ball sputtering out.”
Sophie looked down at her hands, fingers tangled together in her lap. When she looked back up, pain peppered the wisdom in her eyes.
“I lived with a man for five years,” Sophie continued, answering the question that Angela would not ask. “He cheated on me constantly and knocked me around a little, but I was too afraid to leave him. So I stuck to my illusions. And when I got pregnant-”
“Pregnant?” Angela asked, surprised. “You’re a mother?”
“No.” Sophie smiled sadly. “I’m not, he saw to that.”
“Sophie,” Angela felt the tears rise up, “I’m so sorry.”
“Stop it.” Sophie waved away Angela’s concern. “It was a long time ago. The only reason I brought it up is because I know what it’s like to lose yourself, and a lot more that you didn’t even have to give, to someone you once trusted.”
“It wasn’t like that with Jeffery and I.”
“I’m not talking about Jeffery. I mean your dad.”
“Sophie-”
“You think you’re past it,” she interrupted hastily, “but you can’t get past it until you face it. I don’t think you’ve done that yet, but you will. It’ll be hard, but when you do you’ll move on and you’ll realize that maybe the bad things happened to bring you to something so much better.”
“It already did. It brought me to New York.” Angela said, although as she sat on the bench in this small town with its meandering people, laughter and cheerful Fourth of July banners flapping overhead in the breeze, she was unable to recall a memory of the streets of Manhattan. “I always wondered if I would have had the courage to leave if Henry hadn’t done what he had done.”
“And I am certain that I wouldn’t have left Chris if he hadn’t made me lose the baby. It was a horrible sacrifice and I suffered for it, but that’s what it took to shake me out of the illusion and to look for something real.” Sophie flicked her gaze toward heaven and smiled. Then she stood and took Angela’s hand, coaxing her up. “Maybe your time in New York, and away from Grace, was your sacrifice. And the thing that’s supposed to make you see where you really should be. Maybe you thought New York was where you were supposed to be, but I think you were meant to return to Grace.”
“Only for the summer, I plan to-”
“You plan to leave once it’s over and your obligations at the arena are done. You keep saying that, but you know,” Sophie winked, “the wonderful thing about making plans is they often change when we least expect it.”
“That’s the wonderful thing?”
“Of course!” Sophie beamed. “Would life be any fun if you always knew where you were going?”
Angela nodded and hoisted up her bag of fertilizer. “I think you’re wrong, but thank you for giving me something to think about.”
“You’re saying that to be polite, but I know you really will think about what I’ve said.”
“And how do you know that?” Angela asked, unable to stop herself from smiling.
“Because I’m right.” Sophie laughed. “There’s a reason you just happened to walk into my yoga class that day. Coincidences don’t really exist you know, everything happens for a reason. Are we still on for lunch on Tuesday?”
“Of course.”
Sophie hugged Angela and walked down the sidewalk. Angela frowned after her. The woman had lived through the horror of losing a child, something Angela could not imagine. Yet, as Sophie walked away there was a bounce in her step and a certain lightness to her movements.
Angela walked to her car and thought of Jeffrey, Cole and her father, the thoughts like machine gun fire: random and unpredictable. She hefted the fertilizer and her heavy burden into the backseat, grateful that tonight she’d be too busy to think about any of it. She’d also have to find a way to work on getting the proposal to Jeffery.
Ralph spotted her car and waved her down. She pulled up to the curb.
“The hay and oats are there. Sent off the load about twenty minutes ago.” He smiled and leaned down so they were eye to eye, “told ya I’d come through.”
“You’re a prince, Ralph,” Angela said, “my hero.”
She pressed the button to roll up the window before he had the chance to agree with her, but she smiled and waved as she drove away.
****
The crowd was already starting to gather as Angela parked at the arena. She used the back entrance, pleased when she saw several bales of hay stacked throughout the area inside the loading dock. A group of six hands were busy pitching it into the corrals.
“Where’s Cole?” She asked one of the young men, halfhoping he wouldn’t know the answer.
The kid responded with a jerk of his head. Angela followed the direction and found Cole standing in front of a bronco, the steel fence between them. He appeared to be engaged in a staring contest with the animal. When he pushed away and turned, the anger in his eyes revealed a whole lot more than a silly contest.
She walked up to him slowly, wishing he was farther away. When she approached him she offered no greeting and said, “You want to go out there, don’t you?”
“This is circuit, sweetheart.” Cole walked past her and took up a pitch fork. He started on the hay. “I don’t ride circuit anymore.”
“You know what I mean.” Angela grabbed work gloves and a fork. Her muscles had adjusted since she had come back and it had become second nature to perform this manual task. Her sculptured nails were a thing of the past, but at least she was developing killer biceps.
“We got Devil’s Ticket,” Cole said conversationally after a few minutes. “And he’s mad. Should make for a good night. I asked an extra team of paramedics to be on hand. Just in case.”
He stopped working and turned to her, his breathing heavy. “I was thinking about the timing of all this. What do you suppose the chances are that you and I end up in Grace at the same time? I should be in Arizona right now, in the middle of a twenty thousand seat arena. I should be far from here.” He went back to work. “And far from you.”
Angela took a step back, the hurt like a knife to the gut. She thought of Sophie’s comments about illusions and tossed her pitchfork aside.
“And I should be wearing a Burberry suit and sitting in a room that smells like lilacs and furniture oil. Not here.” She shot him a seething glare and turned to leave.
He grabbed her wrist and yanked her back.
“Let go,” she said quietly, wary of causing a scene.
“I’m sorry.” His loosened his grip, but held on. “I’m in a bad mood.”
“Clearly.” She tried to pull free, but there was little effort in it and she allowed him to pull her closer.
“You look good, Ang.” He m
oved in, their noses an inch apart. “Too good. Those Burberry suits got nothing on you in a pair of jeans and those work gloves. You wanna forget that kiss, but I can’t get it off my mind. Not the one a few weeks ago, and not the one fifteen years ago.”
She barely had the chance to suck in a breath before he crashed his mouth onto hers. The kiss was urgent and thorough. Every muscle in her body tightened in response, even as her throat let out a surrendering sigh.
Someone whistled and called out from a distance. Another person laughed and shouted “woohoo Cole!” She knew she’d be teased mercilessly for this, but in that moment she couldn’t gather the gumption to think about the repercussions. She wrapped her arms more tightly around him and felt the rapid beat of his heart.
“Angie.” His voice was not the least bit gentle. His lips hovered hesitantly over hers. “This is complicated.”
“I know.”
“Tell me you don’t want this, Angie, and I’ll stop. I’ll be your business partner if that’s all you really want with me and the rest will end here and now. I’ll stop trying to make it right.”
“Cole, can you help us with the barrels?”
Cole muttered under his breath at the interruption. He took a retreating step back and looked up toward the direction of the voice: the announcers’ stand on the platform above them. “On my way!”
He looked back at her, his gaze fluttering to her lips before he turned and hurried away.
Unsure of what to do now, Angela turned back to the hay. A young hand took up Cole’s pitchfork. He went straight to work, but his grin spoke of the tease he had yet to utter.
“Shut up, Jeremy.”
He snickered as she walked away.
Eleven
The rodeo was like hundreds of others that had taken place at The Bullpen Arena over the years. The circuit was a stage for amateurs, but the participants took it seriously and so did the crowd. The atmosphere was more relaxed than it would be at a pro event, but as an event planner, Angela had no time for relaxing. Still, as the night wound to a close and they were down to the last few events, she found the opportunity to escape to the arena office.
The rooms here were small and functional. She left off the obnoxious florescent lighting, choosing the gentle light from the lamp on her desk instead. As she booted up the computer, the music from the rodeo vibrated the walls. One of the announcers must have said something amusing, because the crowd erupted into shouts and laughter. Angela smiled and opened her email.
Heart of Grace (Return to Grace Trilogy #1) Page 11