Angel couldn’t believe she’d just said that. Not so much because she’d admitted such a thing. But more because she hadn’t thought she’d be able to say anything ever again. Even now, as she sat there shaking, trying not to cry again, as she watched the play of emotion over Jack’s face, watched the effect her words had on him … she couldn’t shake the sense that she was awakening from a nightmare, one that had been followed by a deep and long sleep, one she’d entered into because she didn’t want to be aware.
And yet, now she was. Aware. Now, in only a flash of a moment, she relived every second, knew every detail, felt every scratch and bruise, heard every ugly word Seth had said to her, felt every punishing thrust she had to endure. And found—surprisingly, reassuringly—that, despite it all, she wanted to live. And wanted to make sure that Seth didn’t. Even as she looked into Seth’s brother’s eyes, even as she recalled Jack’s many kindnesses, his warmth, his tending to her … she wanted to kill his brother. How would he feel about that, about her when she did it?
“No one ever cut your hair for you before?” Jack asked, pulling her out of thoughts she was all too glad to abandon.
Angel shook her head, shrugging as she loosened her grip on Jack’s hands and reached up to brush away the wetness on her cheeks. “My mother used to, when I was a girl,” she said, surprising herself because she couldn’t seem to stop talking about this, couldn’t seem to stop the flow of words. “But then she … well, she couldn’t, anymore, after … that. I tried to, over the years, but I’m not too good at it. And there … weren’t always scissors around. And then it just didn’t matter. No one cared. Not even me.”
Jack stared at her with such warm sympathy that Angel feared more tears. Why did she keep bawling like an abandoned calf? This wasn’t like her. She didn’t cry. And why was she telling him these private matters to do with herself? She didn’t talk. She kept to herself, kept herself shut off … frozen, she now realized. That stopped her. It’s no longer good enough, something inside her said, further capturing her attention, making her sit up straighter. No longer, Angel. Reach out. Take this love offered.
Love? Is that what this was that she felt? She blinked, staring at Jack as he watched her, apparently content to talk with her if she wanted to, or to be quiet and wait for her, if that was what she needed. Her thoughts produced a frown, which made Jack’s eyebrows rise. But he didn’t say anything. Love. Is that, Angel wondered, what kept him squatted down in front of her, kept him taking care of her, and talking about silly things from when he was a boy? Was this love … this sharing, this wanting to be here, this wanting to hear his voice, feel his touch? Was this love?
She suspected as much, but just didn’t know. It could be. But she couldn’t afford to find out, couldn’t afford to need him, to want him … not if she still planned on killing his brother. Which she did. She still planned on it. Still fully intended to do it. And that meant she’d most likely lose Jack. Because no matter how much he might hate—and she suspected that he did, being the decent man he was—what had happened to her, this was his brother she was talking about. And blood was thicker than—
“What’s wrong, Angel?” Jack suddenly asked, again pulling her away from thoughts of Seth … as if he knew where her mind had wandered and tried to interrupt her. “Why’re you frowning like that? What were you thinking about?”
Angel looked at Jack. Should she tell him? Was she strong enough right now to deal with his reaction, no matter what it might be? And she had to admit, she had no idea what he’d do. He’d been tender with her so far, but as she’d just admitted … this was his brother she meant to kill. Just as she thought she’d decided to go ahead and say what she was really thinking, an unbidden image popped into her mind, stopping her words.
The white wolf … grinning, wagging her tail, letting Angel touch her fur. The memory had Angel blurting, “The wolf. Yesterday. What did it mean?”
Jack pulled back, stiffening but quickly trying to disguise that he had, Angel realized. Her senses went on alert as she watched him come to his feet and busy himself with cleaning up the kitchen from her bath. She sat where she was—waiting for him, waiting for him to speak—but pivoted in her chair to see him.
“What did it mean, Angel? In what sense?” came his offhand-sounding response as he picked up the towels and the comb and scissors.
She cocked her head, gripping the chair back with one hand, almost afraid to wonder why he’d not answered her right away. Still, sore as she was, it gratified her to be able to move, to function, to think. Feeling stronger by the second, and realizing that she did, Angel pronounced herself ready to deal with everything that had happened, and more than ready to get her life in order. She reached up, out of long-standing habit, to brush the hair out of her eyes, only to find there was nothing impeding her view. She lowered her hand to her lap and challenged, “You know what I mean, Jack.”
Her words caught him on his way to the sink. He stopped and turned to her, staring, his expression changing with his thoughts. Angel drew a small measure of satisfaction from his reaction. She could tell that she’d surprised him. Could see—just by watching him, by the way he held himself—that he was realizing, as she had, that her time of weakness, of needing care, was quickly passing. She was back. And he would have to deal with her. “All right,” he said, laying the things he held in his hands on the wood counter.
Then, again facing her, leaning his butt against the sink, crossing his arms over his chest, and looking as if he were etched in stone, he said, “It means, Angel, that someone is going to die.”
Angel clutched the chair back with both hands. “Someone? You mean me? Because she came to me and let me touch her?”
His expression impassive, he shrugged, saying, “I don’t know.” His voice was flat, his body rigid.
But Angel didn’t believe that he didn’t know and opened her mouth, meaning to tell him so, when he cut her off.
“No, that’s a lie. I do know. But it’s not you.”
His answer made her slump down in her chair. She didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to know, but yet … she did. “Then who, Jack?”
He looked her right in the eyes, never changing his dead-sober expression. “Me. Or Seth. Maybe both.”
Angel’s heart seemed to lodge in her throat. For long moments she could do nothing but stare at him … and be afraid for him. Then she burst out with everything she was thinking. “That doesn’t make sense, Jack. Why would she come to me? I don’t have anything to do with her. You do. She was as good as your mother for years—”
“I thought you didn’t believe all that.”
Angel clamped her lips together, raised her chin a notch. And realized that yes, she did believe it. How else to explain it? But still she wasn’t ready to admit as much to him. “Well, let’s just say I do.”
“All right. She comes to you because … you’re here and you have strong ties to us.”
Angel cocked her head. “You mean the land, the ranch?”
Jack sent her an assessing, almost accusing, look that made Angel’s face heat up. “It’s more than that. And you know it.”
She did, but felt shy about it. So she deflected his accusation with another question about the white wolf. “How come her coming to me, grinning, her tail wagging, has you thinking that you or … Seth is going to die?”
Jack shrugged, evidently allowing the change in subject. “Well, it’s hard to figure what lies in a spirit wolf’s head. But now—and too late for you—I think I understand. Since Pa is already gone, Seth and I … well, we’re the only ones left. So it has to be one or both of us.”
Both of us. Angel ignored the sick feeling his words gave her and gestured her confusion. “I still don’t get it, Jack. How you’d know that, I mean.”
“Well, neither do I. But she comes either as a warning or as a comfort. And yesterday, for the first time, she was both, I believe. Her showing herself to you was a warning for me. To point me where the danger lay. She knew you’d tell me … and you did.”
Suddenly, as if overcome, Jack jerked away from the sink, turning to it, pounding it with his fist, gripping its rim, and hoarsely crying out, “I should have heeded your words, Angel. But I was too damned stubborn and hell-bent on doing things my own way. I should have listened. I am so goddamned sorry.”
Then, he became quiet, his body seeming to hang as he stood staring out the window for long, silent moments. Angel swallowed, didn’t know what to say, what to do. Then Jack pivoted, staring at her with eyes burning, hurting. And suddenly, she knew. He wanted her forgiveness. Angel lowered her gaze, mumbling, “You did what you thought you had to, Jack.”
“Yeah. And didn’t it turn out great?”
Angel looked up at him, hating the bitterness wrapping itself around his words, and perhaps around his heart. This time, with more force, she told him, “You did what you thought you had to do.”
His grimace said she might believe that, but he didn’t. “Fine. I did what I had to do. To hell with me. I’m just grateful Old Mother came to you. At least you can count on her. Her tail-wagging and grinning … that was to let you know you’d be all right. Maybe she knew I wouldn’t heed her warning. Maybe she already knew I’d be a hardheaded jackass.”
Angel swallowed, fighting back the prick of tears edging against her eyelids. “You don’t have to be so hard on yourself. I’m all right.” He didn’t say anything, just continued staring at her as if she—with her scratches and bruises—were evidence enough of his own shortcomings.
Angel sighed out her breath, felt its warmness brush over her hands where they gripped the chair back. She could only wonder how, after what had happened to her last night, she could be up and around so quickly. She could only credit it to the way her life had always been, getting over hard knocks quickly, before the next one came. But too, this time, she had another reason for hurrying her recovery. She had someone outside herself to think about. Jack. Before Seth, he’d shown her what caring was, what it could be like between a man and a woman who cared about each other. To that, she would cling.
To that and to her fears for Jack, she would cling. She’d rather die herself than have anything happen to him. A part of her brain, and her heart, registered that this was quite an admission. One very unlike her, given her shut-off heart … if indeed it was, despite what Seth had done to her. And wasn’t that what the quiet voice inside her had said during his attack? That no matter what he did to her body, he couldn’t touch her heart or her soul? And wasn’t she sitting here … thinking, feeling … proving it now?
Warming thoughts, hopeful thoughts. Thoughts that made her want to deal with something Jack’d said a moment ago. So, out loud, she queried, “You think the wolf considers me part of your family now? Why would she do that?” She wanted Jack to say it was because he loved her.
But he stared at her a moment, his expression becoming bleak … and unaccountably sad. “Why? Because you are a part of my family.”
On the inside, Angel pulled back, looking again for that place where she used to hide. “You don’t have to look so happy about it.”
Jack gestured, shrugging. “I can’t help it. Because I’m not happy about it. For what it means to you. You’ve seen enough of us to know we’re not a good family to be a part of.”
Not finding that hiding place, but feeling his words healing her, Angel, suddenly shy, told him, “Well, I think you are. You, anyway. And your father. I liked him … too.”
Jack surprised her by covering his face with his hand and muttering, “Jesus.” Then he looked up at her, his face pale, haggard. “My father.” He huffed out his breath. “The Daltrys. What a sorry lot for you to be mixed up with.”
Angel’s hands fisted atop the chair’s back. “I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t. And I wish I could let you go on not understanding. But I can’t, not if I ever hope to—All right, here it is. You may not be blood kin, Angel, but you—your life, your mother’s—have been tangled up with my family since you were five years old. Only you haven’t known it.”
“My mother?” His words hit her like bullets. Something awful—something he knew and she didn’t—was going to be said. Her mouth suddenly dry, her heart’s thumping no more than a shallow beat-beat-beat in her chest, Angel rasped out, “What … what do you mean?”
Jack cocked his head, ran his gaze up and down, assessing her. “How’re you feeling, Angel?”
It was going to be bad, what he had to say. Very bad. But impatience with his stalling had Angel shoving to her feet, pushing away from the chair, and gesturing widely. “I’m fine. Tell me what you have to say. I won’t break. I’ve been through hell, and I haven’t broken yet.”
His eyebrows rose, but he said, “All right.” But maddeningly, that was all he said. He pulled away from the sink and paced across the kitchen, stepping out into the hallway and checking up and down its length. He didn’t want Boots or Lou to hear him, Angel realized, scared now all the way to her toes. Apparently satisfied that they were alone, Jack turned back to her, saying, “You might want to sit back down.”
Angel did want to—desperately—but she stiffened her knees, bracing herself, remained standing. Although she clutched at the chair back to her right. “I’m fine. Just say it.”
Jack nodded … and looked suddenly tired, haggard. Clearly anguished, he paused before saying, “I found some things, Angel, at Seth’s hideout, some things that were missing from here.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “The papers?” she blurted.
He nodded. “Yes. And a knife—Seth’s knife—stabbed through them. You were right. Pa did want you to have the place.”
She couldn’t stop herself. She had to see them. “Where are they?”
Jack eyed her, sobering even more. “They’re here. I’ll get them in a minute. But there was a … a letter with them, too. A letter to you … from my father.”
“A letter?” she asked, puzzled. But then she knew. This letter contained the why of everything. Wallace Daltry’d written it all out. That’s what he meant when he said the answers were here. Angel’s blood pulsed with anticipation as she forced herself to wait for Jack’s explanations. Why didn’t he just give her the papers and the letter and be done with it? “Well?” she prompted when he remained silent. “What about the letter?”
A peeved look crossed his face. “This isn’t easy, Angel. What I have to say is going to hurt. And hurt bad.”
“Me or you?” Instantly, seeing the fleeting hurt replace his peevishness, Angel regretted her abrupt words … another first for her. Before a few weeks ago, she hadn’t cared how anyone took anything she had to say. But now she did. She wanted to say she was sorry, but didn’t have the words … or the courage.
“Both, Angel. They’ll hurt both of us. But in different ways. And I don’t know how we can ever survive this—well, let me just say it. My father—” He stopped, swallowed, and said, “Killed yours. By accident.”
Angel’s blood … every drop of it … went to her feet. She collapsed onto the chair, sitting sideways on it and staring straight ahead, breathing laboriously. She put a hand to her chest, held it there. It was all she could do for long, painful seconds. But then she whipped around, found Jack, her hair flying around her shoulders and stinging across her cheek. “How do you kill a man by accident, Jack? There’re accidents and there’re killings. They don’t go together.”
“Yes, they do,” he said, sounding to her ears as if he’d moved about a hundred yards away, when in reality he hadn’t moved an inch. “They did, Angel. Thirteen years ago. When your father was walking by the Silver Star and my father was inside in a fight over a card game that broke out into gunplay. He shot and missed the man he meant to hit—and got your father, instead. It’s all in the letter.”
Angel heard him, believed him, but couldn’t take it all in. She stared at his face, a face she was just coming to believe she loved … and would always. If only she could get past the burgeoning hatred for all things Daltry that was taking seed in her heart as she sat there … staring at him, blinking, swallowing. “Wallace Daltry,” she said, thinking she’d pronounced his name as if she’d never heard of him. And suddenly wished she hadn’t.
“And here all this time,” she went on, hearing the note of crushing wonder in her voice, “I was thinking he was such a good man. I carried his body back here and buried it. Even put flowers on his grave. And he killed my father?” Fierce anger, a building rage, now tore through her, tightening her chest, raising her voice. “That’s why my mother wouldn’t take his money. That’s why she had to become a whore. To feed me, Jack. To feed me.”
Angel jumped up, her hands fisted at her sides as she advanced on him, as if he’d done something wrong. “Do you know how that makes me feel? Do you? Her life, my life … shot to hell, right along with my father’s. My father—a good and kind man. Dead. Because of a Daltry. A goddamned Daltry. I worked day in and day out in that stinking hotel, Jack, since I was twelve years old, cleaning up other people’s slop. And my mother sold her body and her soul in a way that finally killed her. And all because your father couldn’t abide the outcome of a card game?”
It was too much to bear. Angel suddenly realized she was standing in front of Jack and hitting him with her fists … pounding on his chest. He gripped her arms, but wasn’t trying to stop her. Even that was too much. “Fight me, damn you. Fight me. Your father paid my way all these years out of guilt, Jack. Guilt. Not kindness. But guilt. He brought me here—why? So I could be—”
“Stop it, Angel.” Jack shook her, enough to get Angel’s attention. She stared up at him. “Stop it. He tried to make it up to her. To your mother. He offered to marry her—”
“Marry her?” she spat out. “He’d just killed my father and the next words out of his mouth are marriage? Had he lost his mind?”
“It wasn’t like that. It was a while later when he asked. But yes, he was out of his mind. With grief over what he’d done. He wanted to take you both in. He tried. He hated what he’d done. Every damned day of his life, according to his own words. But he was the man you saw, the one you knew. He was. No matter what went before, Angel … in the end, he saved your life.”
“Why?” she screamed, her voice rending, tearing on a jagged sob. “So he could bring me here and I could be raped by his bastard of a son?”
Jack’s grip on her tightened, his face reddened. “No, goddammit, no. Listen to me, Angel. He brought you here because he cared. It ate at him, you and your mother’s predicament. It ate at him. Ate and ate until it became a cancer inside him, a cancer that was killing him anyway, killing him—until Seth—”
Jack abruptly broke off, staring down into Angel’s face with a deep and dark look of the purest hatred she’d ever seen. Her breath caught. She opened her mouth with her need for more air and nearly choked when he rasped out, “What the hell am I doing standing here?”
His voice—cold, flat, dead—chilled Angel. He pushed her back, practically flinging her aside as he stalked over to the kitchen table, jerked up his gunbelt and flung it around his waist, buckling it as he made for the back door to the kitchen. There, he jerked it open and stepped outside, slamming it closed behind him.
“No!” Angel screamed, not done with him. She took a step toward the door, saw Boots appear in the kitchen’s entryway, the Winchester gripped in his hands. “We heard the yelling,” the old man said. “Is everything—”
Jerking toward him, Angel pointed, warning, “Stay out of this.”
The old man pulled up short, looking scared and confused. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, staying where he was. Only then did Angel see Lou’s wide-eyed little face peeking around from behind Boots.
She’d scared the heck out of them. Even in her frantic, angry state, she couldn’t live with being mean to such defenseless old creatures as they were. So she forced a calm into her voice she didn’t feel, and reassured them. “It’s okay. I’ll be right back.”
They nodded. With that, Angel dismissed them from her mind. She charged over to the back door and, mimicking Jack’s actions of only a moment ago, jerked it open, tore through it, and slammed it shut behind herself. Outside, only marginally aware of the day’s quiet and warmth and bird-chirping sunshine, she looked this way and that, hunting for—There he was, loping for the barn with an intensity that spoke of purpose. He wasn’t running away from her, she realized. He was running to something. His horse?
Seth. He means to go after Seth. Angel couldn’t let him do that, for reasons all her own. She took off after him, ignoring her body’s many aches and sorenesses—as well as the stinging, jarring, jabbing pain of running barefoot over the sandy, gravelly ground, softened only slightly by last night’s rain.
“Jack?” she called out, running, fearing she’d fall and twist an ankle, but still not sparing herself. “Jack?” she called out again, hardly pulling any closer to him, given his head start, and his longer legs and loping gait. “Damn you, Jack Daltry,” she cried out. “Wait for me.”
He didn’t wait for her. Or even act as if he’d heard her. She knew he had to have. She wasn’t that far away. And even her horse had its ears pricked. The roan had heard her. Because it ambled over to the corral’s split-rail fence and stared at her and then at Jack. Just then, Jack veered toward the corral, heading for her horse. The roan backed up, tossing its mane as it skittered to the other side of the enclosure and circled it at a canter. He means to take my horse. No, he’s not, came Angel’s realization and her protest.
She ran faster, her air-starved lungs burning, the stitch in her side forcing her finally to slow down. But then she was at the corral, braking, her hands out to stop her from colliding with the fence. Pushed up against it; she saw that Jack had already vaulted it and was reaching for a rope, no doubt to lasso the skittish roan. “Where are you going?” came Angel’s breathless demand, even though she already knew.
Without turning around, just handling the braided reata, forming a looped knot in it, his gaze not leaving his handiwork, Jack ignored her question to ask his own. “What are you doing out here, Angel?”
“I’m asking you where you’re going.”
His hands stilled, but he didn’t turn to look at her. “What difference does it make to you? You made your position clear. And I don’t blame you one bit for hating the lot of us. Just go on back inside and let me take care of my business.”
Ignoring what he told her to do, her emotions roiling, Angel’s heart thumped wildly. “I don’t hate you, Jack,” she said softly. He turned his head, not enough to look at her, but enough to show he was listening. Angel tipped her tongue out to wet her lips and hurried on. “I don’t even hate your father. Maybe I should. I thought I did a minute ago, back inside the house when you told me about him and my father. But now I’m thinking, what good would it do? He’s gone.”
A sniff came from Jack. He scrubbed a sleeve under his nose, turned his back more fully to her.
And Angel hurt for him, felt compelled to add, “The man saved my life, Jack. Like you said, no matter what else he did, he stepped in when he didn’t have to. And he did try to make up to my mother, and even to me, for his … mistake. I don’t know, maybe I could hate him if I hadn’t gotten to know him. But I did. And he was a good man. I saw that for myself. And I can see now, with what you just told me, that he was hurting for what he did. That says a lot for him. I don’t take that away from him.”
Several wordless seconds ticked by. Then Jack said, just as softly, “I think he’d feel better knowing you felt that way. It’s a lot for you to forgive, Angel. I know that, and I thank you for it.”
Angel shrugged, shaking her head, uncomfortable with her own goodness. “Don’t make too much of it. It’s just the way I feel. Now will you tell me where you’re going?”
Again ignoring her question, he said, “I’m taking your horse. I rode mine all night. He’s worn out.”
“So are you,” Angel accused. Jack jerked around and stared, his burning eyes accusing her of caring. Her chin suddenly quivered, giving her away. Angel struggled for control, blurting, “You’re liable to get my horse killed, riding him when you’re that tired.” It was true, that could happen, but … it was not her real concern. Jack didn’t say anything, just turned away. She drew in a deep breath and let it out. “Where are you going?”
Jack arrowed her a sidelong glance over his shoulder. “Where do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Angel lied again, wanting only to stall him, to maybe change his mind. “That’s why I’m asking. But you’re not taking my horse.”
“Yes. I am.” He swung the rope above his head, threw the looped end, and expertly caught the roan. He then began hauling in the rope and making soothing noises to the white-eyed, struggling horse.
“Dammit, Jack, no you’re not.” Angel began climbing the rails, gritting her teeth against the splintery wood poking into her hands and her bare feet. “He’s mine. Let him go.”
With the horse under control, Jack turned to her, his eyes narrowing as she came over the fence, landing lightly on her feet. “What are you doing out here dressed like that?”
She looked down at herself, at his checked shirt and her bloomers, and then threw her arms wide, facing him. “What differenece does it make? Who’s going to see me who hasn’t already, Jack? You? Boots and Lou? Seth? I have no secrets.”
His knuckles whitened around the rope he held, and his expression clouded. “Don’t talk like that.”
Avoiding the horse apples dotting the enclosure, Angel advanced on him across the mushy, churned-up ground, feeling the cool earth squish between her toes. “Why not? It’s the truth, isn’t it? Tell me, since you haven’t said yet, Jack … how do you feel about what happened to me? What does it mean to you?”
His expression hardened, seemed to make the bones underneath stand out more, like rocky outcroppings pinning up a tan and wintery desert. “What does it mean?” Jack gritted out. “It means that Seth won’t live to see the sun go down, Angel. I’ll kill him for what he did to you, just like I meant to kill him for what he did to my father. My only regret is I can’t kill him twice, once for each of you, the two people I love the most.”
Angel stopped, frozen, suddenly feeling every bruise and scratch she had, every sore muscle, every torn bit of heart … knitting, healing. He loved her. She wondered, though, if he’d even heard himself say the words. Because he stood there, glaring, holding her roan still, as much as daring her to try to stop him. Which she intended to do. But how? Well, she knew one way. “You can’t kill him, Jack.”
He tilted his head, as if he weren’t sure he’d heard her right. “The hell I can’t. I can, and I will.”
“No. You won’t.”
His face took on a peevish expression. “You already said that. Don’t tell me you don’t think he deserves to die.”
“He does. But are you just going to ride out again, not knowing where he is? Because we’ve been through this before.”
His stricken look touched Angel’s heart. But she couldn’t afford to soften any right now. Too much was at stake. Then he said, “Angel, up to and including the day I die, I’ll regret my leaving yesterday. And my leaving four months ago. I can’t bring back Pa or undo what happened to you. But I can do this. Because this time, I know where Seth is. He left his own note with Pa’s letter and the Circle D papers. He said if I wanted him and the money he took from the safe, he’d be at a place only I’d know.”
Hungry for this one piece of information, Angel licked at her lips. “And where’s that?”
Jack must have seen something in the way she looked or the way she suddenly straightened up because he asked pointedly, “Why’re you asking?”
Angel shifted her weight, her stance. “I have a right to know.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not going to kill him. I am.”