by Robin Janney
He certainly was. The moves she had placed with the song, the saucy hip moves in that short skirt and the rolling shoulders…had him aroused long before her crop top had come off.
“Oh my God,” he whispered in delight as the show continued. By the time the song ended, she was completely naked and breathless. Her eyes were bright and shining. Damn, but every part of her was glowing.
“Well?” she asked, pushing the laptop back and providing him with a close-up shot of her bare breasts. She flopped down on the bed, biting her bottom lip again. “Did you like it?”
“Like it?” he asked somewhat incredulously. Why would she doubt that? “I loved it. Angela, you are adorable.”
Angela pouted. “Adorable? I was aiming for sexy and seductive!”
“Oh, you are that…” Craig ran his fingers over the screen, over the image of her breasts pressed into the top of the bed. Did she have any idea the view she was giving him laying there propped up on her elbows? “If I was there right now, I would have you spread eagle and you would not be pouting.”
She turned an even brighter shade of pink. “I am not pouting! Much.” She slid her arms and pillowed her head on them. “When are you coming home, Craig? I miss you.”
“I miss you too, Angela. I should be home sometime next week.”
She smiled at him, and he could see the relief in her face. Was his absence really weighing that heavily on her? “Can I ask you something, Craig?”
“Sure,” he said easily, wondering what could possibly be coming next.
“Do you…do you know anybody who would want to try to break us up?”
“What?” he exclaimed. There was no way she could know about Katie hanging out with him, but even if he hadn’t done anything wrong, it wasn’t something he’d want her to know. “Where the hell did that come from?”
His tone startled her, he registered that much, but he couldn’t take it back. Angela picked her head up and pulled her phone closer to herself. “Someone has been sending me pictures for the past few weeks. Of you and a pretty woman they’ve named Katie.”
“Excuse me?” he asked for clarification. His heart pounded in his chest, and he didn’t know if it was fear or guilt. Why would it be guilt?
Angela shrugged uncomfortably. Her fingers moved across the touchscreen of her phone again. “I don’t recognize the number, but I think it might be a New York one. Here, I’ll forward you some of them.”
“Why? Don’t you trust me?” He could see the doubt and confusion on her face.
“I wouldn’t be asking you about them if I didn’t,” commented Angela as she worked her phone. “I’m not stupid, Craig. If you’d done anything improper, this person would have sent a picture of it. But they haven’t, so I know they’re just trying to mess with us.”
Craig scowled as his phone signaled the arrival of her message. He pulled his iPhone out of his suit pocket and opened the screen. After scrolling through the few pictures she’d sent, his eyes growing darker with each one, he tossed the phone on the desk next to the computer. Shame and anger battled in him, and the anger won. “What the fuck is this shit, Angela?”
“That’s what I’m asking you,” she replied, almost hugging her phone as she trembled.
A thought occurred to him and he cursed again. “What did you do? Get Everett to have someone follow me?”
“What? No! Craig, please…”
But Craig’s anger rolled out of him, interrupting her. “I’m tired of everybody thinking there’s more than just friendship between Katie and me. There isn’t anything going on, Angela. She’s just a friend, someone I enjoy spending time with without having to worry about her. I don’t question any of your male friends! I don’t question how you flirt with the ranch hands.” Right now, her trembling angered him even more. “I’m tired of your anxiety and your fucking insecurities, Angela! Why don’t you trust me?”
“I did. Until this moment.”
It stung, and it pushed him over the edge. “You know what? Fuck it. You all want me to cheat, I’ll fucking cheat. It’s your turn to be the strong one for a change, Angela; I’m sick and tired of it. I’m sick and tired of all your shit. You can sit there and wallow in your anxiety, knowing you only have yourself to blame.”
Craig leaned in, and slammed the lid of his laptop down, effectively but rudely ending the transmission. Picking up his smartphone and leaving the bedroom, he walked to the main door of his father’s large penthouse.
“Craig?” Veronica called from the couch of the living room. His father sat in his wheelchair near her with a questioning look on his face.
“I’m going out,” Craig told them tersely. Why the hell were they still up? He had his phone calling Katie before he’d reached the elevator. “Hi, Katie…”
35
“A bsolutely not!” Nan shook her head.
She sat in the living area of the old ranch house; both Rick and Jared shared the couch while she occupied the plush armchair. They had detailed Angela’s recent behavior for her, as if she was unable to see it herself, and then presented their solution. They’d certainly given it some thought.
“Now Nan, I know it’s something that’s been done before,” chided Rick, his calloused hands folded in his lap. “I’ve heard Craig talking with Toni about slipping Miss Angela a sleeping pill in her tea when she’s wound as tight as she is now.”
“That…was before.” What a predicament she was in!
“Before? Before what?” Jared asked. He was almost bouncing on the edge of his seat. Was it youthful energy, or anxiety of his own? From her understanding, the two did in fact share common genes even though Angela was adopted. “Come on, Nan. If you won’t help, I’m going to do it anyway. My sister isn’t sleeping.”
Running her hand through her hair, Nan had to figure out how to talk them out of this without betraying Angela’s pregnancy, if possible. And the longer this conversation went on, the more she feared it wasn’t going to be possible. “We could try the placebo effect. Craig and I try to mask the pill with extra sugar. She notices, but usually drinks it anyway. I could just make the tea sweeter.”
Confusion was on both their faces.
“Why do that when you could just put the pill in?” asked a frustrated Jared. “And don’t tell me it’s because she’s been taking too many, because if Angela had been taking sleeping pills, she’d be sleeping just fine and we wouldn’t be having this conversation!”
The boy stood and walked to the door like he was going to leave. She raced to catch him before he could open the door, knowing she had no other choice. “Jared, wait. Just slow down and wait. Angela’s not allowed to take any of her medicines right now. It’s why her anxiety is higher than normal. There’s too much chance of her medication hurting the baby.”
Shock was followed by pleasure followed by anger. “Angie’s pregnant? No shit. Does Craig know?”
“No,” sighed Nan, in defeat. “I don’t know what’s going on, all your sister will say is she doesn’t want him coming back home out of a sense of responsibility.”
“But he does have a responsibility to her!” argued Jared. “Especially if she’s pregnant!”
“Oh Jared.” Despite all his cute attempts to flirt with her, the boy was still just a boy. “No one wants their spouse staying because they feel they ‘have to’.”
Jared growled low in his throat. “No, I guess not.” The boy struggled visibly with his emotions. “Alright, we’ll try the placebo effect. Will you help with that much?”
“I will,” agreed Nan. “Let’s go up and see if she’s still up. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll already be asleep.”
The boy nodded and opened the door. And an anxious Princess barked at them as she raced across the darkening distance between houses.
“Oh my,” said Nan. “That’s not good.”
A ngela didn’t know how long she stared at the suddenly dark screen of her laptop. Indescribable horror and despair filled her.
What had sh
e done?
She never thought Craig had been cheating on her, had even told him she knew someone was trying to mess with their marriage. But somehow, she’d managed to convey a lack of trust to him, and now he was going to do it.
“I just…”
Oh my God…oh my God…oh my God…
She slid off the bed, backing away from the dark laptop. Her hands trembled as she redressed herself, this time in a loose t-shirt and night-pants, and she wasn’t surprised when she had to rush to the bathroom to throw up. Dr. Ryan had said morning sickness could start showing up, but the only trouble she’d had so far had been at night.
What was she going to do? What could she do? thought Angela as she walked down the curving stairs. Her iPhone was back in her hand, and she tried calling Craig…but her husband didn’t answer. She opened the messages to text him and tripped over the bottom step of the stairs, the phone flying from her hand.
She lay there on the hardwood flooring a moment, staring at the ceiling and holding her abdomen. Dr. Ryan had warned her about falls. Would this have been too much? But she was used to falling over the bottom step, at least at the farmhouse. She hadn’t even fallen there since…since…
Oh my God…oh my God…oh my God…
“Sorry. I’m sorry, baby,” Angela whispered, vowing silently to be more careful. She found her phone where it had slid into the living room and she scrambled to her feet. Wiping tears from her face, she stood in the middle of her home not knowing where to go or what to do.
Oh my God…oh my God…oh my God…
She found herself walking down the hallway to Craig’s home office without remembering having decided to do so. Her husband was always in there when she needed him, his open door giving her the freedom to come in without hesitation. But of course, he wasn’t here now. How much of it was because of episodes such as right now? Had Pat been right about that much?
Her breathing was ragged, and Angela couldn’t get it to stop. It wasn’t quite panicking. She sat in the cushioned office chair behind her husband’s desk, spun the seat around once, and cursed as a memory sprang to mind. It wasn’t one of the missing ones, but it irritated her just the same.
The day after Susan and Cori had tried to frame her for robbing the store, Craig had taken her into his office and sat her in his office chair. She hadn’t been able to look at him at first, and he’d softly commanded her to look at him. He had done that a few times. He’d been so concerned for her, so afraid when she’d asked if he was going to fire her or if he’d wanted her to quit.
She looked at the wedding pictures he kept on his desk. One of each of their ceremonies. One she remembered, the other she did not…which was why they’d had the second ceremony in the first place. Picking up the picture from their first ceremony, anger flared. Rising to her feet, Angela took the picture out of its frame and found her husband’s sharp letter opener in the center drawer.
“Why did you leave?” she asked, plunging the letter opener into the bride’s smiling image repeatedly. “You’re the one he needs! Not me! Where did you go and why can’t I find you? You’re the one who made him happy! You’re the one he loves. You’re the one he married!”
Her focus shifted to the picture from their second ceremony six months later at the farm. A quick rap against the edge of the desk broke the glass, as well as the frame, and she pulled this picture out as well. “I hate you!” she told this bride, sending the letter opener through her image as well. “You cause him too much trouble! You’re too needy, you stupid bitch. He doesn’t like you anymore! You heard what he said! He’s going to go fuck her because you couldn’t just keep your stupid mouth shut and trust him. She trusted him…”
Angela stabbed the first bride again, though there was little left for the letter opener to tear other than the surface of the desk. “He fished her out of the pond, and when she had a concussion, he carried her because the path was slippery, he stayed by her side when she had pneumonia and when she was in a coma.
“But you!” Her focus shifted back to the second bride, the letter opener showing no mercy even though it was beginning to bend under the strength of her anger and hatred. “You’re the one who woke up! You didn’t even know your own name! Or his! And then you ran like a little scaredy-cat to the farm he said was yours. And now he’s left you just like you left him! I hate you!
“I hate you!” It didn’t relieve her anger to keep repeating the words, or to keep slashing at an image that no longer existed, but neither could she stop. When the fury ran out, the tears began. Throwing the letter opener away, her hand ran over the groom in the pictures. When was the last time she’d seen that smile? Or that light in his eyes? “I just want you to come home…we’re going to have a baby…and I’m too afraid to tell you.”
Her eyes fell on the pencil sharpener next to his phone. “What a stupid gift,” she decided. Apparently the first bride wasn’t as perfect as she’d thought. “What were you thinking?” she asked the obliterated image of the first bride. Angela picked the pencil sharpener up, feeling its weight as she tossed it up and down in her hand. “The man has more money than you can count, and you buy him a cheap pencil sharpener. God, it’s a wonder he married you! Either of you!”
Rearing back her arm, she threw the gift she’d given her husband for their first Christmas together as hard as she could against the wall barely aware of it falling to pieces. Angrily she swept his desk clear of everything…the papers, the phone, pictures.
Wait, where was the Angel? How did she figure into this? How could Angela ever live up to that impossible image? She wanted to obliterate that image too.
Opening the drawers of Craig’s desks, she rummaged through them trying to find the sketchbooks he had of his damnable Dragon Dream. Other sketchbooks landed on the floor, along with files for things she knew nothing about. He loved to sketch her. Country scenes, she and her horses, even occasional erotic poses. But the sketches she was looking for weren’t here and she didn’t know where he kept them.
She plopped back down in the office chair, defeated. Her breathing was heavy, and she wiped at tears which wouldn’t stop.
“Are you done?” a voice asked, and she turned her head to look at the doorway. Her brother Jared came into the room, slowly as if he was afraid of her.
Shrugging, Angela pushed away from the desk and came back up to her feet. She put her hands on the edge of the desk, gave it a test pull to check its weight. She’d never be able to pick it up. “Yeah, sure.”
“Why don’t you come out to the living room or something? You can have a cup of tea and we can talk about what’s going on.”
“Oh, you want to know what’s going on?” She came around the desk, waving her finger at her brother. He backed away from her. “Why? So you can run off and ask people to pray for us? Sure, go ahead. Tell them my husband is on his way to fuck another woman because he’s tired of my shit. That’ll set the tongues back home wagging! Probably be Flo’s juiciest bit all year!”
She gave her brother no chance to reply and marched out of the office. She felt trapped in her own home, even as Princess knocked against her legs. Not even her beloved dog was enough to calm her churning emotions. And dammit, she needed to throw up again.
Heading into the downstairs bathroom, she barely made it before her stomach offered the rest of her supper back up to her. “That tasted so much better going down,” she muttered when she was done. She rinsed her mouth out in the sink. She came back out and saw Nan approaching with a cup of tea.
“I don’t want tea,” Angela protested. Her brother was following behind the housekeeper. “Well, spread the word yet?”
Jared just shook his head. “I haven’t talked to anyone but Nan and Rick. We’re all concerned about you, Angie. More so after…after what you just said. What makes you think Craig’s going to cheat on you?”
“Because he said so.” Angela patted her clothing for her iPhone, retraced her steps to the office and found it in the mess she’d created.
They had followed her, but she walked back out to the living room. She found the texts from the so-called friend as she returned to her brother and housekeeper. “We had our usual webcam chat tonight. It was later than usual because of some stupid party to celebrate his dad going back to work.” She passed the phone to her brother. “All I did, was ask if he knew who might be sending me these pictures. I’m not stupid, Jared, I know this person is just trying to cause trouble in my marriage…but I’m the one who asked him about it. And now, now he’s going to her! And it’s my fault.”
J ared looked at the pictures in the text messages on her phone, seeing the same things his sister was in the pictures. They appeared innocent enough. Except maybe for the kiss, and some of the clubbing pictures. But he could tell Craig hadn’t returned the kiss. And it didn’t look like he’d touched the cute blonde he’d been dancing with, no matter how close they’d looked.
“I wish Dad were here,” he said with a sigh. “He’d be able to calm you down right now.”
“I don’t want Dad,” his sister said crossly, sitting down in the middle of the floor. Princess leaned up against her owner. Looking up at her housekeeper, Angela said, “Nan, do you know if Everett hired someone to follow my husband while he was in New York?”
Jared looked over at the housekeeper, saw her thin eyebrows climb her forehead.
“Not that I’m aware of. Would you like me to ask him?”
His sister hesitated before nodding her head. “Please. I need to know who’s sending me these pictures.”
“Very well.” She handed the mug of tea to Angela. “Here, it’s peppermint. It might help the stomach. I’ll go call him and be back with his answer.”
Nodding, his sister took the mug but set it on the floor next to her without drinking from it.
