Angel Creek Read online

  “Relax, no one knows but me. I just happen to know who wasn’t at the picnic yesterday, and word got around about how you left early. She came into town yesterday morning, to the general store, but it was closed. I was sitting outside and saw her. She waved at me. I’ve seen her before, and she’s never been snooty. She’s a straightforward woman, with more grit than just about any two men put together.”

  “She does have grit,” Lucas said.

  “There’s been lots of talk about you and the banker’s daughter,” Tillie said. She looked him up and down, then shook her head. “I never could see it. You need someone meaner than that, a woman who can stand up to you without blinking an eye.”

  Lucas smiled. “Tillie,” he said, “you know too damn much about people.”

  “I’ve had a lot of time to study them.”

  He put the little sponges in his pocket. “How much do I owe you?”

  “They’re on the house. Next time I order some from New Orleans, I’ll let you know so you can get a supply.”

  He leaned down and kissed that exquisite mouth, lazily taking his time about it because she was so damn beautiful. When he straightened she blinked and said, “My, my. I haven’t been kissed like that since Charles Dupré—never mind. Are you sure the sponges are all you want?”

  He cupped her chin and kissed her again. “I’m sure,” he said. “I need to save my strength.”

  She gave a wonderful, lusty laugh. “I guess you do. This is going to just destroy my reputation, us up here laughing like jackasses and you going back downstairs within five minutes.”

  He grinned at her as he opened the door. “No, it’ll be my reputation that’s ruined if I couldn’t last more than five minutes.”

  She fluttered her lashes at him as she passed by. “If I ever got my hands on you, you might not.”

  Lucas was in a good mood as he rode back to the Double C. The sponges in his pocket provoked a big temptation to swing east and visit Dee, but he resisted it. She would be too sore for making love again, and he wasn’t all that certain of his self-control.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance, underscoring his decision to go home. He looked upward but saw only deep blue sky. The storm clouds must still be beyond the horizon, he thought. They needed a good rain, since the snowpacks on the mountains weren’t as deep as they should have been, but he sure hoped he got to the ranch before the storm arrived.

  Luis looked upward at the same rumble of thunder. Olivia kept her attention on the ground before her as her mare carefully picked her way over some rough ground. “I hope it rains and settles the dust,” she said.

  He hoped it rained for more basic reasons. It had been too long since they had had even a brief spring shower, and the water holes were getting a little low, especially since it was just May. But as much as the rain was needed, he hoped it held off for another couple of hours. He didn’t want his time with Olivia cut short.

  She had been distinctly nervous when he had ridden up beside her, so he had restricted himself to conversation and the quiet enjoyment of her company. She had slowly relaxed, and now the strain was gone from her face. As much as he wanted to hold her again, he wanted more for her to feel at ease with him. It was time for her to get to know him better. Besides, there were some things he wanted to know about her, too.

  “Is there an understanding between you and Lucas Cochran?” he asked quietly, watching her face.

  “No,” she replied. “He’s never spoken of marriage, and neither have I, though everyone just assumed that he would.”

  “Don’t you want him to? He’s a powerful man, and from what I hear he’s going to be even bigger than he is now.”

  “I like Lucas, but he’s just a friend.” How good it felt to be able to say that! From the way he had acted the day before, she was certain he was fascinated with Dee. “If he had asked me, I don’t know what I would have said.”

  “Because he’s rich?”

  “No. I know I’ve been raised with luxuries, but I don’t think I’ve ever expected them as my due. But I’m twenty-five, and I’m afraid that if I don’t marry soon, I never will, and then I’ll never have my own family.”

  “I’m thirty-two,” he said. “I’ve begun to think that I want to have a family, too.”

  She gave him a quick look and blushed.

  “Why haven’t you married before?” He quietly soothed his horse when the animal shied as a blossom blew in front of it. “I know you must have had offers.”

  “No. No one ever asked. Somehow I just never fell in love with anyone, and evidently no one fell in love with me either.”

  “I was serious about what I said. About my intentions.”

  “I know,” she whispered. She sighed. “Why have you drifted?”

  “It’s always seemed the natural thing to do.” He looked up at the sky again, but it was still clear. He wondered if he could explain it so she would under stand. “I’ve always been good with a gun. I’ve never hired it out, but when a man is fast with a six-iron it tends to make most people uneasy around him. And sooner or later someone thinks he’s faster and wants to prove it. No town wants to have a fast gun settle down there, because it draws other guns. For a while I worked for the Sarratt brothers down in New Mexico, and I could have stayed there, but then Celia died, and so did my reason for staying.

  “After a while, moving on seems like the natural thing to do. It has its own lure, to see what’s beyond that mountain range, then the next one, then the next one. Always a new place and new faces, and sometimes nothing but a huge empty world with me right in the middle of it, just me and the horse and the sky. I’ve gone weeks without seeing another human being. And sometimes, when I’m in a town, I miss that.”

  “But you hired on with Mr. Bellamy. Do you intend to stay?”

  “I hired on to rest from the trail for a while and earn some money doing it. I’ve been here almost two months now, and so far I’m content. I like the town. It’s the kind of quiet, sturdy town I like.”

  She noticed that he hadn’t answered her question but didn’t feel that she had the right to press him further. What would it take to induce him to settle down? she wondered. Marriage? He hadn’t said so, and she would be foolish to assume that such was his intention, perhaps almost as foolish as she would be to consider marrying him at all.

  But he fascinated her in a way no one else had ever done. She glanced at his dark, lean face, admiring his wonderfully chiseled features. There was an obvious aura of danger about him, but she never felt threat ened. Instead, when his warm, dark gaze touched her, she felt infinitely admired and . . . safe, as if he would forever stand between her and anything that would harm her.

  Thunder rumbled again, closer this time. He looked regretful. “We’d better turn back.”

  Common sense agreed with him, but she felt like shaking her fist at the sky. Why couldn’t the rain have held off just another hour or so? The storm might even bypass them completely, but they couldn’t depend on that.

  Smiling at the disappointment on her face, Luis reined his horse closer to hers and leaned over to kiss her lingeringly. Her lips parted for him without hesitation, so sweetly that it was all he could do to break away. He might not have if his horse hadn’t sidestepped nervously, away from such close contact with her mount.

  One kiss would have to be enough, he thought, or they would likely get caught by the storm anyway. They reined the horses around and started back.

  “I don’t know when I’ll get back to town,” he said after a while, “but I’ll see you when I do.”

  She started to ask him how he would contact her but kept silent when she realized how insulting the question would be, for it would imply that he wasn’t good enough simply to come to her house and ask to see her. Yet weren’t they going out of their way not to let anyone see them together precisely because they both knew her parents would object?

  She should tell them, she thought, and let them know that she . . . what? Was considering ma