Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance) (23 page)

He stood with his elbows propped atop the well-used makeshift bar he’d built next to the liquor cabinet, holding a half-filled glass of whiskey in his hand. The top of the bar was scarred and water-ringed, like many of the furnishings in the house. The parlor’s worn horsehair sofa and a pair of matching armchairs looked downright shabby compared to the things in Aunt Nelda’s elegantly furnished home. Standing there in her silk evening dress, Angel felt out of step with her surroundings. Her father fit here perfectly, but she no longer knew exactly where she belonged.

Hugging her arms across her stomach, she wandered to a window with a southern view. Across the darkened yard the faint glow of lamplight revealed someone now occupied the bunkhouse. She strained her ears, but heard no banter of rowdy cowhands. Only eerie silence came back to her. Where were all her father’s men? Out there in the darkness somewhere, guarding over the house? Somehow, she didn’t think so.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” She turned from the window. “When I spoke to Horace, he said you’ve fenced off lands that are public domain. Is this true?”

His jaw worked with irritation. “Horace is talkin’ about the land that stretches between here and the Hacienda. It used to be open range. Well, it ain’t no more. For years, I’ve been buyin’ it, piece by piece. The deeds are in my office, if you want to see them. That land is mine, bought and paid for.”

“I believe you, Pa. I don’t need to see any proof. But I do have another question.”

“What’s that?”

“When you learned Horace had me locked up down at the Hacienda, why did you still refuse to give him what he was demanding?”

He blinked several times, and then dropped his gaze to the glass in his hand. Lifting the liquor to his lips, he took a long swallow before facing her again. “Cause I ain’t never bowed down nor give in to any sorry, lowdown bastard that’s tried to take something away from me. If I had, we’d be standin’ out there in the road right now without a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out of.”

Typical Pa. Crude. Stubbornness, pure and simple. He’d allowed her to remain locked away in that darkened room, agonizing about the fate of the two men she loved, because he was simply too stubborn to consider doing anything else.

“I would have gotten you out of there,” he continued, “if Mantorres hadn’t interfered.”

He thought of Rane’s intervention as interference. With a sigh, she turned back to the window. “Do you think we’re safe here?”

“Don’t you worry. I ain’t gonna let anything happen to you.” His baritone chuckle filled the room. “Times sure have changed. Two years ago, you’d have been sittin’ out on the porch with a pistol across your knees, guardin’ the place yourself.”

“Yes, I probably would have,” she agreed. Across the yard, the light inside the bunkhouse dimmed, and then was snuffed altogether. Faced with nothing but darkness and her own dejected reflection in the sullied pane, she turned away and pressed her back against the wall.

“If you don’t feel safe,” her father continued, “we’ll see about gettin’ some help around here. I didn’t want you back home just so you would work yourself to a frazzle, cookin’ and cleanin’.”

She started to ask why he
did
want her back with such urgency, but a knock at the front door intruded. Strange. She’d heard no horse outside.

Gauging from his reaction, he’d been expecting it. He thumped his glass down on the bar and hurried into the hall. After a moment, the front door opened and her father’s voice boomed, “Well, come on in, Will.”

Angel rolled her eyes, then stood up straight and wondered if it was too late to slip into the kitchen and up the back stairs without being seen. At the moment, exchanging polite chit-chat with one of her father’s cronies was the last thing she wanted to do.

But it was too late.

Her father breezed into the parlor, followed closely by a man whose head nearly brushed the ornate lintel topping the door.

Not what she had expected.

Her father stepped aside, as if to give her an unobstructed view of the prime specimen of manhood he’d dragged into the house. “Angel, do you remember Will Keegan?”

Oh, yes, she remembered him. Will Keegan, youngest son of Eb Keegan, who owned the K-Bar outfit over on the big bend of the Pecos River. An old and distinguished family, there had been Keegans in Texas since before the Republic.

Since he stood head and shoulders above most men, Will had always been hard to overlook. Though he was tall, there was nothing lanky about him. A cattleman through and through, he had the lean, hard physique of a man who spent long days in the saddle. A man who could rope and wrestle a rank steer to the ground with a minimum of fuss. And he’d always been just as adept with the ladies, or so she’d heard.

Back during the days when she’d roamed the range and been privy to campfire gossip, there had been talk of a scandal involving Will and a squatter’s daughter. In cattle country, anyone who attempted to plow the land and grow crops was labeled a squatter. The rumors had been quickly swept under the rug, mainly because the farmer had suddenly pulled up stakes and moved his family, including his wayward daughter, to unknown climes. At the time, Angel had known without being told that the tight-knit Keegan clan had threatened the man off his land.

The Keegans had always taken care of their own, so what the hell was Will doing here?

Remembering her training, Angel forced one foot in front of the other and glided forward. She extended her hand. “Mr. Keegan. How nice to see you again.”

His severely combed cap of wavy blond hair took a barely perceptible dip. Then, his ice-pale blue eyes lifted to hers and stayed. “Miss Clayton.” His deep baritone sounded stiff and formal. Briefly, his big, callused fingers enveloped her hand. When he released her, she stepped back.

The steady way he looked at her, the unmistakable gleam of curiosity in his eyes made Angel feel like a prize breeder being inspected by a potential buyer. As gracefully as she could, she moved away from him and took a seat on the sofa where she could keep both men under a watchful eye.

The twinkle in her father’s eyes as he looked from one to the other of them made her uncomfortable. He looked entirely too pleased with himself, as if he knew a secret.

“Want a drink?” her father asked.

“Yeah,” Will replied.

Finally tearing his eyes from her, he tossed the hat he’d been holding against his thigh onto the seat of an armchair and followed her father to the bar.

With his back turned, Angel studied him with interest. Instead of the usual cowboy work clothes of denim and muslin, he wore dark gray serge trousers, creased front and back. His big pointed-toed boots were remarkably dust-free. Had he brushed them off while waiting at the door?

Or had he simply walked across the yard to get here?

She remembered the light in the bunkhouse. It had gone out only minutes before he arrived. An unsettling picture began to form.

Her father lifted another glass from the cabinet and poured a liberal amount of whiskey. He slid it across the bar and picked up his own glass. “Here’s mud in your eye.”

“Mud” Will nodded. He picked up his glass and drank the entire contents.

Her father splashed more whiskey into the glass. “Drink up. I reckon we got good reason to celebrate tonight.”

Will cast a speculative glance at her over his shoulder. Her father beamed. They both downed a second shot.

“After today, I’m hopeful we’ll be able to start roundup close to schedule. What do you think, Will?”

The younger man shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe. Depends on Lundy now.”

“Course, while all this fightin’s been goin’ on, the herd’s drifted to hell and gone.”

From the easy conversation taking place, Angel got the idea that the two of them had done this before, and probably many times. With the other man’s arrival, her father had grown animated and looked almost happy. Will appeared more thoughtful. He wasn’t as much of a talker as her father. But some men didn’t need to use a lot of words to get what they wanted. Things just naturally gravitated to them without being coaxed.

While they continued to talk cattle, Angel stood and wandered back to the window. Reflected in the mirror-like panes, she saw Will Keegan take another drink of whiskey. Then he laid his forearm on the bar and shifted to face her. While he still appeared to listen to her father, he watched her from heavy lidded eyes. He began at the back of her head and slowly worked his way down her body. Somehow, his roaming eyes made her feel exposed, indecent even.

She turned, meeting his insolent gaze for a brief instant. One corner of his lips twitched. Leisurely, he put both arms down on the bar and faced her father again.

Angel clenched her teeth while her heart kicked to a faster rhythm, pouring heat into her face. She wanted Will Keegan gone.

Rather than gnash her teeth, she aimed a sweet smile at her father. “If it’s all the same to you, Pa, I think I’ll go to—retire.” At the last instant, she amended what she’d started to say, remembering that a lady never made mention of her bed in the presence of a gentleman.

Stupid, stupid rules!

Evidently, Will Keegan wasn’t so dense he couldn’t catch a hint. He straightened and sat down his glass, and then walked over and plucked his hat from the chair. “I guess I’ll be goin’ now, Roy. Thanks for the drink.”

“But, you just got here.”

“It’s late,” Will replied, “and I think Miss Clayton is still tired from her...ordeal.” He walked to the parlor door, where he stopped and looked back at Angel. “It was a real pleasure seein’ you again, Miss Clayton.”

She forced a smile.

Seemingly oblivious to the undercurrents wafting around the room at twister velocity, her father hurried from behind the bar. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

Angel watched the two men leave the parlor, and then she waited. She had no intention of calling it a night until she exchanged a few words with her father and found out what was going on.

The front door opened, and then closed, followed by the metallic snap of a lock. Seconds later, her father reappeared.

“What is Will Keegan doing here?” she blurted.

“He works here.”

“I gathered that. What I’m wondering is
why
is he working on the Flying C when his family owns one of the biggest cattle operations in West Texas?”

“They had a fallin’ out.”

“What about?”

“Well, I don’t know. And if a man don’t offer to tell me somethin’, I figure it ain’t my business to ask. But it just stands to reason that with five grown men all tryin’ to ramrod the same spread, there’s bound to be friction. Will showed up about a year ago and asked for a job. Naturally, I gave it to him. But I figured he’d mend fences with his kin after a little while and go on back home.”

“And?”

“And they didn’t, and he didn’t, and so he’s still here, and he’s one of the best damn hands I’ve ever had.”

“I see,” she said, sounding so much like her haughty Aunt Nelda it startled her. Shades of her youth ran together like spilled ink and colored her thinking. Her father had always been wont to champion a “good hand,” but not her. Never her. She had a sneaking suspicion he saw more in Will Keegan than just a good cowhand and meant to keep him. Permanently. “Is this the reason you summoned me home on such short notice while you were in the middle of a range war?”

He appeared taken back by the question. “What do you mean by ‘reason’?”

She crossed her arms in a defensive pose. “Why did you summon me back, Pa?”

“Because, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not gettin’ any younger.” He stomped to the bar and poured himself another drink. “The way things have been goin’ lately...well, I didn’t know what might turn out, so I wanted you here in case the worst should happen.”

Angel snorted. “If you ask me, the worst
has
happened. I’d have been better off staying in New York.”

Her father dropped his head and went thoughtfully silent, staring into his glass. After a moment, he asked quietly, “Do you miss it?”

“New York?”

“Yeah.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “No. The whole time I was gone, I thought of nothing but coming back here. I wanted to come home.”

“I figured you’d meet somebody.”

“I met a lot of people, but no one who made me want to stay.”

“I’m glad,” he said. “When I’m gone, this place will be yours. It’ll take a strong hand to run it. I’d like to see you settled with someone man enough to hang onto it.”

“Someone like Will Keegan?” Her voice had chilled to ice, but she didn’t care.

“You could do a whole lot worse than Will.”

What he didn’t say was that she could probably never do any better. Not with her reputation, which now bore an even worse stain than before, since she’d spent nearly two weeks alone with Rane, a man whose reputation made hers seem positively angelic.

Her father’s motives were so transparent it was almost insulting. In Will, he’d found her the perfect candidate for a husband. Even her mother would have approved his lineage. And since his own family had evidently disenfranchised him, he had nothing to lose and everything to gain by marrying her.