Startled, Angel jerked around. And was forced to pull up short, a hand to her chest, over her thumping heart. Jack was directly behind her, all but on top of her. Wide-eyed, her vision filling with his broad-chested presence, she stared up into his starkly handsome face. And instantly realized, from his expression, that yet something else—in the short space of time he’d been outside—had happened.
He looked away from her, directing his attention to the two old men by the window, and putting his hands to his waist. “Lou, Boots, what’re you doing out of bed? About five minutes ago, I’d have said you two weren’t long for this world, the way you were moaning.”
“We done that for them Co-manch. They didn’t mess with us too much if’n we carried on so. But don’t you worry. We’re still kicking, all right—just not as high,” Boots assured him. Then he smiled broadly, revealing a mouth full of snaggly, yellowing teeth. “You shorely are a sight for sore eyes, boy. I figured after that yellin’ match you and your pa had last winter over the way he was a-runnin’ the ranch, we’d not see hide nor hair of you again. But here you are. I’ll bet your pa is plumb tickled to have you here, too. Did you tell him yet that me and Lou was home? I figured as he’d be up here a-yellin’ at us for layin’ about with them Co-manch and not being here doing our jobs.”
Angel’s heart thudded. She could tell by Jack’s softening expression that he wasn’t ready to deal with what he had to tell them. So she jumped in with, “I told them he’s out back, that he won’t be returning for a while.”
Jack looked into her eyes, nodding, as much as thanking her with a relieved lift of his eyebrows and a roll of his eyes. Then he looked again to the men, exchanging a few more words with them. With him thus distracted, Angel studied his face, noting the lines to either side of his mouth, the eagle-eyed intensity of his stare. Something was eating the man alive. What could it be? Angel fisted her hands against her sudden desire to reach up and smooth away the worry that lined his face. “Jack? What’s happened?” she all but whispered.
He looked down at her again. Almost imperceptibly, he shook his dark head, indicating with a lift of his chin the two older men in the room with them.
Understanding, Angel nodded in return, even as she felt her belly muscles tighten. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to speak of it in front of Lou and Boots. But as the moment stretched out, and he said nothing, simply stared at her, Angel blurted out the belated and the obvious. “You gave me quite a start just now, standing behind me like that.”
Jack exhaled his breath and firmed his mouth until tiny lines, like mocking smiles, formed at either end. “I know. I’m sorry,” he said, sounding weary. Then he pointed to Boots and Lou. “You get anything out of them?”
Angel nodded. “Yeah. Some. About ten days ago, they were ambushed here and dragged off by some yahoos wearing bandanna masks. Boots seems to think the men were cattle rustlers—”
“They weren’t.”
Angel frowned, narrowing her eyes, her mind working. The way he said it, the note of certainty in his voice. She was right. He’d learned something while outside. “Then who were they?”
Jack’s answer was a riveting and blazing blue-eyed glare that all but turned Angel to ashes, had her stepping back, even though she figured it wasn’t directed at her—thank the Good Lord—but was more for the men whose identities were now burned into this man’s soul, no doubt. “I’ll tell you outside,” he said. “Hold on a minute.” When Angel nodded that she would, he turned to his drovers. “You two get back in that bed and stay put, you hear?”
Even as he complied, even as he and Lou shuffled over to the wide four-poster, Boots shook his head. “Now, Jack, I don’t think your pa’s going to be too happy about that if’n—”
“It’s okay for now, Boots,” Jack cut in. “I’ll be back in a minute to check on you and to … talk.” That was one conversation Angel didn’t envy him. It was obvious to her now that these two simple men were as good as family—well, maybe better than family—to Jack.
“All right, Jack, we’ll do that. We’ll wait right here for you,” Boots again assured him.
“Good.” With that, Jack gripped Angel’s arm, turned them both, and escorted her out of the room, closing the door behind them and stalking down the hall with her … to his bedroom. Unceremoniously he led her inside and closed the door. Only then did he let go of her arm.
Angel took a few more steps into the airy room, looking around but knowing already, from her investigation when she’d first arrived here, what she’d see. No frills, solid furniture, and a wide bed covered with a colorful quilt. She pivoted to face Jack, her hand going to the place on her arm where he’d gripped her. He hadn’t hurt her, but still she rubbed her fingers over where his had been.
“I’m sorry I rushed you out of there,” he told her. “But I couldn’t take any more of their questions about my father.” He huffed out his breath, ran a hand through his hair. “That’s going to be a tough one, telling them. They’ve been with the Circle D since I was a boy.”
“I figured as much, watching you with them,” she said. What she didn’t say was how much her respect for him was growing, seeing as she had how he’d taken such care with the older men’s feelings.
As if he hadn’t heard her, Jack shook his head. “I’ve got to tell them about Tex and Calvin, too—the men we found yesterday.” Then he frowned, looking around the room as if he hadn’t realized until now where he’d brought her. He flicked his gaze to her. “You mind being in here?”
“No,” Angel drawled. “One room’s as good as another.”
He gave her a considering once-over. Not a heated stare, just a measuring one. Then he shifted his stance, as if that signaled his change in subject. “All I had time for outside was a few words of greeting to get Lou and Boots over their surprise at seeing me home.”
Angel remembered Boots’s words. He’d said something about the fuss between Jack and his father being over how the ranch was run. There had to be more to it, though, for him to disinherit his son. But she didn’t get any further than that in her thoughts before she realized he was quiet … and again staring at her. Discomfitted by his scrutiny, she blurted, “What?”
His expression and his voice softened. He pointed to her rubbing her arm. “I’m sorry I put my hand on you. I know I’m not supposed to. Did I hurt you?”
“No.” Angel jerked her hand away from her arm and denied to herself the guilty warmth that crept over her cheeks. “It takes more than that to hurt me,” she said, her voice sounding, even to her own ears, a little too high and less indignant than she’d intended.
“I bet it does,” he said, managing to sound as if he felt sorry for her.
And that realization only increased her anger at herself, at her uncustomary reaction to his touch, his voice, his words. How did he do that … seeing inside her and making a mishmash of what he found there? Feeling as if somehow she’d been untrue to herself, Angel notched her chin up, looked him right in his concerned blue eyes, and chose a few sharp words as a salve to her abraded pride. “Still, you’d do well to remember to keep your hands to yourself—before the fact … cowboy.”
* * *
Cowboy. With that one word, she probably just saved my sanity, Jack thought. She just saved him from the soul-deep, raw hurt and anger that tore at his insides. And all but drove him to his knees in defeat. He supposed he ought to thank her for that.
Hell, he admitted, he ought—no, wanted—to do more than that. He wanted to grab her to him. Wanted to hold her close, needed to feel her warmth and the comfort of her embrace. He needed someone—Angel—to touch him, to tell him it was going to be all right. Even when he knew it wasn’t going to be. Not ever. Not after what he’d just learned from Standing Elk.
What his Comanche friend had told him tore at Jack’s heart. No, he pleaded with himself. Don’t think about it right now. Think about Angel. And he did, looking her up and down as she, for whatever reason—perhaps tiredness, perhaps impatience with his continued silence … turned away from him to take the few steps to the window. Once there, she crossed her arms under her chambray-shirted bosom and stood in slender profile to him, staring out at what he knew lay outside within her view. The service yard, the barn and corral, the prairie beyond.
Jack fisted his hands against the urge to go to her, to take her in his arms and just hold her. She’d never allow it. He needed to look away from her, needed to do something. Anything but stand here with his naked want hanging out. His agitation lending abruptness to his movements, he ran a hand through his hair, shifted his weight from one booted foot to the other. And again turned to her. The sight she made, here in his room, staggered him, had him all but crying out the questions in his soul. Is it your touch I want, Angel Devlin? Or just anyone’s right now?
He had to consider both, weigh them against the ugly truth festering inside his heart and possibly clouding his judgment. Was what Standing Elk told him making him think he wanted things he didn’t really? Couldn’t it be, just like on his first day home when she’d told him about his father, that he simply needed the comfort of anyone warm? Or was it, in truth, her—and only her—he wanted?
A sinking feeling in Jack’s stomach gave him his answer. It was her he wanted. Angel Devlin. And only her. He wanted to fall into her arms and clutch her to him … and never let her go. He wanted her to hold him as much as he wanted to hold her. He wanted to feel her kisses on his face, her hands in his hair, her heart beating against his. He needed her to tell him he wasn’t alone, that all would be okay. But he couldn’t go to her. He couldn’t ask her for that.
Because she was Angel Devlin. And she wouldn’t welcome his touch. Or any man’s, he suspected. Not after what she’d watched her mother go through. Hell, common sense said she’d probably seen only the worst side of men all her life. A sadness invaded Jack with his next conclusion. Those experiences had most likely hardened this girl’s heart until no man could touch it.
This realization only added to his misery over what Standing Elk had reluctantly told him. And right now, Jack couldn’t have said for whom he felt more sorry. Her … because she’d never admit to needing him or anyone else. Or himself … because he needed her.
Dejected by his thoughts, Jack fought what he felt as a growing truth inside himself with regard to her. How could it be, he fumed, that he could have such strong feelings for her? He’d known her only a few days. So how, in that short space of time, could he have such a certainty about how he felt?
Maybe, he decided, it was because of their being thrown together like this under such trying circumstances. Maybe it was what they were still going through together. He frowned, shaking his head, thinking no, they weren’t going through anything together. They were going through the same thing … wanting to hang on to the Circle D, but from opposite sides. Then, how…?
A sudden vision from yesterday—of the white wolf lifting her head in the rain and howling as he’d held Angel up in his arms—brought Jack his answer. They were meant to be, the two of them. He repeated it for himself, with a growing sense of conviction. We were meant to be. It really was that simple. Their being together had been written in the stars long before they’d ever walked this earth. Pulled back to the moment, Jack glanced again at her. She’d now turned completely away, her back to him, apparently as lost in her thoughts as he was in his.
He studied her back, noting anew her shapeliness, the slenderness of her frame, a frame that held so much strength, that kept so much inside. Just then, her long, curling black hair shimmered with a slight movement she made, a shifting of her weight. Then, a tiny sniff escaped her. As if that were his signal, Jack let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and called to her. “Angel?”
She pivoted to face him, her arms easing down to her sides. Her black eyes, bright with questioning, considered him, waited for him to speak. Jack then realized she hadn’t been lost in thought. She’d been waiting for him to speak. Under her quiet scrutiny, faced with her vulnerable yet aloof beauty, Jack had to clear his throat, and still wasn’t sure he could get the words out. But finally, he did, speaking haltingly.
“It was—” he began but stopped, choking off his words. He couldn’t look at her as he said this. It was too ugly. He shifted his gaze just to her left, to the white-laced curtains of the window. And took a deep breath, preparing himself to utter the most evil, the most unbelievable words he’d ever have to say in his entire life.
“It was what, Jack?” came Angel’s sudden yet soft prompting. “What’s wrong?”
He glanced her way again. This time, her black eyes, the luminous depths, as always, captured and held his attention. “It was…” he began again. And again stalled. He clenched his teeth, fisted his hands, hating this hurt inside him. Instead, he should be feeling rage. A righteous and vengeful anger. He took a deep breath, firmed his lips together. And felt the first stirrings of those emotions deep within himself. As if he’d planted them in his soul, they sprouted, grew within him, came to his rescue.
Rage, vengeance, a need for justice. They belonged to him now. Jack exhaled, felt his heartbeat slow, his body grow in strength, felt a terrible peace befall him.
This time, as he thought about what he wanted to say, a grim self-assuredness that he hadn’t possessed even a moment ago now gripped him, telling him he had nothing to fear from the words he had to say. The words meant nothing. Because the acts they spoke of had already been done. And that was what he needed to deal with. Retribution for those acts. So, all he had to do was … tell her. And then, he’d leave, go set things to rights. By himself.
With all that decided, Jack focused on Angel and said, “I spoke with Standing Elk … outside. It was Seth, Angel. My brother. He did it. All of it.”
* * *
“Seth?” Angel repeated, not understanding … at least, not consciously. Perhaps some part of her knew, because her heart began thudding, her palms became damp, and her knees weakened. Still, she had to clear her throat before she could get out her next words. “Did what, Jack? What all did Seth do?”
His face a study in stark contrasts, in hardness overlaying an aching hurt, in a man’s sharp planes and angles atop a child’s rounded face, Jack looked away from her, directing his gaze to his boots, his hands to his waist. His dark head seemed to hang between his shoulders. Then he looked up, looking lost, and sought her gaze. “Everything. All of it. Shot up Lou and Boots. Killed Tex and Calvin. The horses, the cattle … the dogs.”
Shock gripped Angel. She gasped, stiffening her knees, and protested … because her mind refused to accept what he said. “But he couldn’t have,” she cried as she took a step toward him. “Boots said there were a bunch of men. Seth’s only one—”
“Seth has a gang he rides with, Angel. They helped him. And I can’t account for them right now. Since he came here alone, I fear he may have sent them riding out after the herd by now. You need to know that if they catch up to them, if they kill the men and take the cattle into Abilene and sell them … then there is no Circle D. Because all the money’s gone, too. There’d be no starting over. This place would dry up and blow away.”
“No.” She couldn’t even entertain such a thought. This was her home. “Why is he doing this, Jack? Why? What does he want?” she said angrily.
“The same thing you do. The same thing I do. The Circle D. He wants it. The land, Angel. It’s about the land.”
“The land? All this killing’s about the land? It’s not covered in gold. What you’re saying just doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does to Seth.”
Shaking her head, confused, angry, Angel stared at him. Could simply wanting the land mean its death? Did coveting its rich grassy acres cost people their lives, kill its innocent creatures, and stain its ground with blood? No, she couldn’t believe that. She wanted to build on it, wanted to make something good for herself on it. She wasn’t like Seth. She wasn’t. “But he’s destroying it,” she cried when Jack just stood there, a grim expression on his face. “What good would the ranch be to him then?”
Jack still didn’t say anything. Angel wanted to shake him. Had he turned to stone? Was he waiting for her to figure it out on her own? But then, it came to her. She knew. And gasped with the truth that lay within her own words. A seeping coldness overtook her limbs and worked its way toward her heart. “My God, that’s exactly what he wants, isn’t it? He wants to destroy everything you’ve built here.”
Finally, Jack nodded and spoke. “Yes.”
“Why?” Angel’s question, the one word, was no more than an angry cry.
“Because he hates us. Me. My father. He always has.”
Something about the way he said “my father” caught Angel’s attention. “Oh, God, no … Jack, don’t tell me.…” Unable to look away from the awful truth darkening his blue eyes, Angel’s knotted hands found their way to her chest and pressed against her lurching heart.
“He did it, Angel. He killed my father. His father.”
Angel swallowed, felt as if her throat were closing up on her. But still she managed to get her words out. “What are you going to do?”
“Kill him,” he said without hesitation. For all the emotion he exuded as he stood there, he could have been made of stone. Indeed, his voice was hard and flinty, his stance rigid. But then, and abruptly, with jerky movements, he turned and went to his bed. Sitting on its side and leaning forward, he braced his elbows atop his knees and cupped his face in his hands. No sounds came from him. His shoulders didn’t shake. He just sat there … frozen.
An eye for an eye. Angel blinked, put a hand out to him, pulled it back. If she touched him, he’d shatter. She knew that. And she also knew better than to argue with him right now. Knew better than to tell him he couldn’t go kill his own brother. That he’d be no better than Seth, if he did. Because this was a family matter. His family. He’d take care of it as he saw fit. She had no business interfering. Not that he’d listen to her, anyway.
But still, she wanted to ask him what had gone on in this house that had brought them all to this. What had made Seth into the monster he was? What was it that had caused the bad blood between Jack and his father? And the bad blood that had been evident yesterday between Jack and Seth, even before Jack knew anything about Seth’s murdering ways?
And what in the living hell was it that made Wallace Daltry leave everything to me, and not to his sons, Angel railed. Why involve me? What’s behind all this? she asked herself for the hundredth time.
It was just sick, was what it was. No, she didn’t hold any particular love in her heart for her mother. But she sure as heck hadn’t ever thought about killing the woman. What ate the worst at Angel now, though, was the notion that the old man had been killed for his kindness to her. It was so hard to accept, that what to her had been a mercy, a blessing—being given the Circle D—was to his sons a betrayal.
She saw that now. And could only stare at Jack’s bent head and shake her own. And pray he was somehow innocent in all this. Because she was beginning to fear she could come to feel something for him. Something more than was good for either of them, given the battles yet to come. Just thinking of battles made Angel want to slump on the bed next to Jack. She’d thought her troubles were over the day she rode out of Red River Station. She’d thought her near rape and then the near lynching she’d been through were the worst things she’d ever be asked to endure.
Now she knew better. Because Seth Daltry was beginning to look like her worst nightmare yet to come. He’d killed two hired hands and had tried to kill those old men down the hall. Then he’d succeeded in killing his own father. A shudder ripped through Angel, when she thought of how close he’d been to her that night on the trail. Quickly she turned her thoughts away from that scene, away from that terror, and back to a litany of Seth’s sins. He’d next tried to kill his own brother. But she’d stopped him. And then he’d threatened her.
Dear God. Now she knew he’d make good on that threat, if he got the chance. Angel drew herself up, telling herself she’d just have to see to it that he didn’t get that chance, now wouldn’t she?
Belying her bravado was a sudden sickness that invaded her soul. Her insides turned to cold stone, locking her muscles, stiffening her knees. She stared wordlessly at Jack. And thought again of Wallace Daltry. Again she saw the knife protruding from his chest, saw again his life’s blood staining his bedroll. For a second, she closed her eyes, forcing her air and the sickness out, and inhaling a dreadful, numbing calm.
Then she looked again at Jack, watched him a moment. Felt for what he must be going through. “You all right?” she heard herself ask. But the voice sounded tinny, not at all like her own, even to her ears.
He looked up at her, dragging his face out of the shelter of his hands. His eyes were dry, bloodshot. He nodded, looking anything but all right.
Angel knew it was a stupid thing to ask—how could he be all right?—but she had no words of comfort to say to him. Except his earlier words to her about her mother. “I’m real sorry, Jack.”
Again he nodded, now dropping his hands between his knees. “Me, too. But not half as sorry as Seth’s going to be.”
Angel swallowed. She hated that he was going through this. Hated it. Not knowing what else to do, how to help him, but seeing that talking to him kept him from walking out the door and strapping on a gun, seeing that her words were keeping him from putting himself in harm’s way, Angel asked, “You sure it was Seth? You sure that Comanche brave—”
“Standing Elk wouldn’t lie.”
“I wasn’t going to say that,” Angel rushed on. “I was going to ask how he knew … since he wasn’t there. With your father, I mean.” Instantly the opposite possibility crossed Angel’s mind, and she gave voice to it. “Unless he was there, Jack. Think about it.”
A flicker of emotion crossed his features. He blinked, a muscle in his jaw twitched, he shook his head. “I don’t need to think about it. Standing Elk wasn’t there. But he knows because Pa’s murder, and everything else, was … seen.”
It was seen. He didn’t have to say how or by whom. Angel already knew. “The white wolf. The medicine man’s vision.” Skepticism had her pressing her lips together into a straight, firm line. When Jack nodded that she was right, Angel’s heart sank. “Jack, you can’t go kill your brother on the strength of what some Comanche medicine man says he saw in a vision.”
With a heavy sigh of exhaled breath, Jack levered himself up, his hands pressing against his knees as he did so. Then he stood there, staring at her. “Yes I can. You don’t understand their ways, Angel. I do. I was raised by one of them. And I know their visions to be true. You, yourself, have seen the wolf.”
Further arguments—all of them logical—screamed to be voiced, but Angel held her tongue. Now was not the time. Jack was hurting too much. He wasn’t thinking straight. But then a sudden vision of her own—of herself pulling the bone-handled knife from Wallace Daltry’s bloodied chest—told her that now was the time to speak of that.
“Then there’s something I want to show you,” she said without preamble, already walking toward him. “Come with me.”
“All right,” he agreed readily enough, not touching her as she passed him, and falling in behind her, then reaching around her to open the door and hold it for her. In that way, him behind her, she walked him to her room.
Once they crossed the threshhold, Jack said, quite out of the blue, “This was Old Mother’s room when she lived here. I’m surprised you don’t feel her in here sometimes.”
Angel’s steps faltered, she gasped as her widening eyes sought Jack’s when he stepped around her and looked the room over, touching things, turning them over. He acted as if he hadn’t even noticed her reaction. So Angel glanced around with him, now seeing the square and inviting area through new eyes. Maybe that explained why she’d been so drawn to this room when she’d come upstairs on her first day here. She recalled again how scared she’d been, what with all the quiet and the abandoned look of the place. But this room had looked warm and sunny. And she’d chosen it—Stop it, she chastised herself. Just stop it.
I chose this room by pure chance and that’s all there is to it, she insisted to herself, refusing to accept any other explanation. Angry at herself for giving in to silly daydreams, she stalked across the room to her narrow, Indian-blanket-covered bed, and without thinking too much about it, bent down and lifted the mattress—Jack said not a word, made not a sound—and reached under it to pull out her oilskin-wrapped belongings.
Allowing the mattress to flop back into place, she laid the pouch on her bed and opened it, exposing her treasures—for the first time in her life—to another person. She mentally defended her actions by asking her protesting half what choice she had in the matter, under the circumstances? “Here’s what I wanted to show you,” she quickly said over her shoulder as she moved aside her tattered rag-cloth doll to reveal the knife.
A sudden hissing intake of breath from beside her preceded Jack reaching in to grab up the long-bladed weapon. He eyed it, turning it over in his hands, and then sought her gaze. Anger blazed in the blue depths of his eyes. “What are you doing with this? Where’d you get this knife?”
Angel swallowed, suddenly hesitant to say where. “Then you know who this knife belongs to?”
“Hell, yes. It’s mine. Where’d you—”
“It’s yours?” Angel blurted, stiffening with surprise.
Jack stilled, as if he knew something awful was coming. He eyed her a long, dry moment before repeating, “That’s what I said. Where’d you get it?”
“I found it,” she blurted.
“Where?”
“Where’d you lose it?”
“I didn’t. It was taken. Somebody took it. I haven’t seen it for nearly a year. My father gave it to me, and a similar one to Seth a long time—” He stopped, as if he’d just heard himself rambling on. Then his eyebrows veed down over his nose. “Dammit, Angel, spit it out. The day’s not getting any younger. Where’d you find it?”
“Just give me a minute, will you?” she crabbed, trying to hear herself saying In your father’s chest. “Take some time, and make sure it’s yours.” He opened his mouth, no doubt to protest, but Angel beat him to it. “Please,” she begged. “And I don’t say that often.”
Still annoyed, he neverthless complied, lowering his gaze to the knife he held, turning it over and over in his hands, running his fingers over the deadly weapon’s contours. Angel watched him. She’d expected him to say the knife was Seth’s. But it wasn’t. It was Jack’s. Obviously the medicine man’s vision hadn’t revealed this detail. To further forestall answering him, Angel avoided his gaze and set about rewrapping her belongings.
It wasn’t that she believed that Jack had killed his own father, she told herself. Because she didn’t. But it wouldn’t sit any easier with him, she knew, to learn that his knife had been used to kill the old man. A sudden low but hissing gasp, at just thinking the words, told her she couldn’t say them. She just couldn’t. Then she frowned, feeling her own eyebrows lower, her mouth pucker. This was just plain silly. Why can’t I? Why can’t I just spit the danged words out and be done with it?
Because … came the niggling response trying to worm its way into her consciousness … you don’t want him to hurt anymore. Because you care. Angel’s hands fisted around her father’s old hat. She stared blindly at it. No. She refused to entertain the thought, refused to lend it credence. Hurriedly, she busied herself with rewrapping her belongings. Too soon done with her task, Angel turned back to Jack.
He was silently watching her now. Apparently had been for a while. She swallowed, flinching when he first spoke. “Well? For the third time, Angel, where’d you get this knife?”
His tone of voice brooked no argument, no further stalling. Finally, Angel said, “You might want to sit down first.”
He shook his head, looking pale and grim, like death warmed over. “No. Just tell me.”
“All right. I didn’t really find it, Jack. I … pulled it from your father’s chest. Seth—or whoever killed him—used your knife to do it.”
“Oh, Jesus,” was all he said. The knife fell from his hand, clattering harmlessly to the wood floor, and lay there, gleaming and deadly. As Angel watched him, feeling helpless, Jack again covered his face with his hands. Underneath his spread fingers she could see his reddening and contorted features.
Angel’s heart flipflopped. Her own features twisted with sympathy. Again, she put a hand out to him. But this time—unlike all the other times in her life when she’d wanted to reach out, but had always stopped herself before the need became an act—she didn’t pull back. This time, she didn’t think of herself, didn’t guard her heart against being turned aside. No, this time she allowed herself to reach out to another human being. To offer solace, comfort … understanding. She took a risk with her heart. She touched his sleeve. “Jack?”
In the next blurred instant, without really knowing how it happened, she was a captive in his embrace … pulled up against his chest and pressed tightly against him from her head to her toes. His arms wrapped around her back and her waist, capturing her hair. Angel circled his muscled neck with her own arms. Nothing had ever felt so right before. She melted against him, gave herself over to him, gave herself up to the safety, the warmth, the strength of his arms.
His face nestled in the crook of her neck and shoulder. He couldn’t seem to get close enough to her, either. Acting out of her own need, as much as his, Angel clung to him, held his head to her, threaded her fingers through the black waves of his hair. And crooned, “It’s all right, Jack. It’s going to be all right. I’m right here.”
He stilled, as if listening. And then … he cried. Great wrenching sobs tore from him, he clutched at her, at her clothing. His hands kneaded her back, fisted around her hair. Sweating with grief, with torn emotions, he pulled her closer … his warmth and his brokenness tearing at Angel’s long-denied heart. Tears invaded her eyes. She blinked them back, refused to think why—or for whom—she would be shedding tears. After all, she was doing this for him. This big, strong, fine man was undone. Not her.
Unbidden, her mother’s words came to her. Virginia had always said a broken heart could hold more love. Angel could never understand that … until now. Now she knew. A broken heart was open, so it had more room. A broken heart understood … and responded.
After a few more moments, he quieted, and pulled away, his hands gripping her waist, his forehead resting against her collarbone. Angel pulled back, too. Cupping his face with her hands and lifting his head from her tear-soaked shoulder, she looked into his face. She wanted to tell him again it would be all right. Or perhaps she wanted to see for herself that he would be all right.
But he stared down at her, his blue eyes bloodshot, and spoke first, his voice hoarse with emotion. “Oh, God, Angel, I’m so sorry.”
Frowning, she shook her head, asking him, “For what? You didn’t do anything.”
“Yes I did,” came his response. He raised a hand between them … she released his face … he swiped away his tears and wiped his cheeks dry. “I kept you here. And now I can’t keep you safe. I should have let you go yesterday. If anything were to happen to you because I didn’t make you—”
“Jack!” she cut him off, again cupping his cheeks with her hands. “Look at me.” Her palms still damp with his tears, she waited until he blinked, waited until she was sure he was paying attention to her. Only then did she speak her mind. “First of all, you can’t make me do anything. And I would have come back. Even if I’d left … I’d have come back”—she faltered—“because … because I don’t have any place else to go. This is my home, too. So whatever happens … would have happened anyway. And it won’t have a blamed thing to do with you.”
He shook his head, releasing her, turning away, again swiping at his face, wiping away evidence of his tears, tears that she suspected now embarrassed him. “I’d like to believe that, Angel. But I can’t,” he said, more to the bed he faced than to her.
“Then I can’t help you,” she said quietly. He pivoted to face her, his own face red, swollen around his blue eyes, his mouth downcast, white around the edges. “Because it’s the truth. Look at me, Jack. I’m still standing here. No one’s stopping me from leaving. Not you. Not those old men down the hall. And yet, I don’t leave. What does that tell you?”
A ghost of a grin flitted across his features. He sniffed, rubbing a finger under his nose, looking somewhat like a little boy. “That you’re too damned stubborn to save yourself?”
“Damn straight,” Angel said, almost losing her battle to keep her own expression sober. “So, come on.” She took a step toward the door. “Like you said, the day isn’t getting any younger. And we’ve got some figuring and some work to do. Some answers to find.”
Jack sobered, bent over to pick up his knife. Angel waited for him. He then stood tall—and maybe a little stronger, she decided, as if something on the inside were fixing itself as he stared at her. “Yeah, work and answers. And some men to kill,” he said, ending the moment.