Angel Creek Read online

  He strode to meet her as she walked back to the well. She would have gone past him without even glancing at him, and his temper erupted. He jerked the bucket out of her hand and hurled it across the yard. “What in hell are you trying to do?” he yelled. “Kill yourself?”

  She pulled her shoulders up very straight. “Thanks to you,” she said softly, “I’m having to water my garden by hand.”

  “Goddammit, Dee, it’s too late!” He grabbed her arm and dragged her over to the garden. “Look at it!” he raged. “Open your eyes and look at it! You’re pouring water on dying plants! Even if you could get some of them to bloom again, winter will be here before they can bear.”

  “If I don’t have a garden, then I don’t eat,” she said. She tugged free of his grip and walked over to pick up the bucket.

  He followed her and kicked it away from her outstretched hand. “Don’t pick it up,” he said with clenched teeth. She had been almost back to normal when she had left him, now she was noticeably thinner, and dark circles lined her eyes. Her face was pallid and drawn. “You’ve lost,” he said. He put his hands on her shoulders and shook her. “Damn it, you’ve lost! It’s over with. There’s nothing left out here worth having. Get your clothes, and I’ll take you home.”

  She jerked away from him. “This is my home.”

  “This is nothing!” he roared.

  “Then I’m nothing!” she suddenly shrieked at him.

  He tried to regain his control, but his voice was iron hard when he spoke. “You have two choices. You can take the money I offered you for the land and live in town, or you can marry me.”

  She was taking deep breaths, searching for her own control. Carefully she said, “Why would you want to buy worthless land? I don’t want your conscience money, and I won’t take charity.”

  “Then we’re getting married.”

  “Those are your choices, not mine.” Her hands were knotted into fists. “If I won’t take your money to ease your conscience, you can bet I won’t marry you for the same reason. My choice is to stay on my land, in my own home.”

  “Damn it, you’ll starve out here.”

  “My choice, Cochran.”

  They faced each other like gunfighters. In the silence that stretched between them they heard a deep rumble, and a cool wind played with her skirt.

  Lucas lifted his head, a frozen expression on his face. He sniffed, catching the unmistakable scent of dust and rain.

  Dee looked up at the bank of dark clouds advancing toward them. The sky had been clear for so long that she stared at them in stupefaction. Rain clouds. Those were actually rain clouds.

  They saw it coming, a misty gray wall sweeping down the slope. Within a minute it had reached them, slapping at them with scattered raindrops so big that they stung when they hit and made little dust rings fly up from the earth.

  Lucas took her arm and propelled her up on the porch; they reached it just as the rain became a deluge. Thunder boomed so loud that the ground shook.

  They stood in silence on the porch and watched the rain blow in sheets. It became apparent that it wasn’t going to be a brief summer thunderstorm as the rain settled down to a hard, steady downpour.

  He had seen it before and knew it for what it was. It was a drought-buster, the signal of a change in the weather, and just in time, too. None of the surrounding ranches had gone under, but another week would have seen cattle dying. Everyone had survived the drought.

  Everyone but Dee.

  The hard rain would replenish the ground water and refill the wells. It would save ranches and herds, bring grass springing back to life. Runoff from the mountain would fill Angel Creek again, but it would only be temporary. The valley would revive, but it would be too late for her, too late for the garden. When it was all said and done, everyone had made it through the drought except her.

  She turned and walked into the cabin, quietly closing the door behind her.

  She hadn’t cried before, but now she did. She had kept herself under strict control, forcing herself to work automatically instead of thinking, but she could no longer keep the thoughts at bay.

  Lucas could not have chosen anything designed to hurt her more. She had fought so hard for her independence, had carefully carved out a life for herself that she had loved, and he had destroyed it. If it had been Kyle Bellamy, she could have understood it; she could have been angry and hostile, she would have done what she could to prevent it, but she wouldn’t have been so totally stunned by betrayal. It wouldn’t have devastated her emotions if she hadn’t loved Lucas, but she did. Even now she loved him. And he had demonstrated more clearly than she could ever have imagined that she meant nothing to him at all.

  Lucas stood outside the door and listened to her crying, the sound mixing with that of the rain until sometimes they were indistinguishable, or perhaps they were the same.

  He had never imagined Dee crying. He had never imagined that the sound of it would tear at his soul and leave it ravaged.

  He had never imagined that he could hurt her, and now he knew just how stupidly arrogant he had been.

  22

  LUCAS REMEMBERED WHAT LUIS HAD SAID: IF DEE loved Angel Creek so much, she would be too hurt to see beyond the pain. He had known she loved it, but he had disregarded her feelings, assuming that he knew what was best for her. The truth was, he had done what was best for himself, not only in securing water for the ranch but in trying to manipulate Dee so that she had no choice but to marry him. Not once had he considered that losing Angel Creek would break her heart, though he should have; he loved the Double C in the same way. He loved it so much that he would never, ever forgive anyone responsible for destroying it.

  But he had done exactly that to the woman he loved.

  He had been so arrogant that he had blithely assumed living on the Double C would more than compensate her for losing Angel Creek. He had assumed that she would merely be angry, and that he would eventually be able to wear her down.

  He should have remembered her deep, fierce passions, and the way she had looked that morning when he’d found her in the meadow, her face so radiant it had hurt him to look at her. He had discounted the strength of her love and made the worst mistake of his life. How could he convince her that he loved her after he had deliberately smashed the very foundation of her life?

  Everyone was jubilant about the rain, almost giddy as they watched water holes refill and streams begin to run. Even the Bar B had managed to get by. Lucas felt savage as he watched it rain again the next day, and the next. It had all been for nothing, everything that Dee had endured. Bellamy had attacked her for nothing. He, Lucas, had destroyed Angel Creek valley for nothing. Fate and nature had mocked them by sending the rain just in time for the ranchers, but far too late for one woman.

  He had her bull and two cows returned to her, and he bought some chickens to replace the ones that had left when he’d diverted the creek. He didn’t take them himself because he didn’t think she would be glad to see him under any circumstances just then, and maybe never.

  Dee forced herself to go through the motions of living. She was too stubborn to let herself give up, but she did everything automatically, without hope or purpose. As Lucas had so caustically pointed out to her, she had been wasting her time pouring water on dying plants. None of them had recovered enough to bear.

  No matter how she looked at it, she was in a hopeless situation. She still had some of last year’s bounty that she had canned, but not enough to last through the winter, unless she could live on milk and eggs. She didn’t have enough money to repair the cabin and buy food, too, but she wouldn’t be able to stay in the cabin through the winter without repairing it. If she repaired the cabin, she would starve. Every alternative she explored brought her to a blank wall.

  Unless she could find a job, she didn’t know how she could live through the winter. And even if she did, what about next year? Could she manage a large garden without Angel Creek to nourish it, relying only on what r