Angel Mine

by Sherryl Woods

  “Can you put that into a take-out box?” he asked Heather. “I’ll eat at home, so I can actually get some work done.”

  “Can’t handle the heat, huh?”

  He frowned. “Meaning?”

  She grinned. “I saw that look in Henrietta’s eyes.”

  “What look?”

  “The one that said you’re in for it, pal, for upsetting Angel.”

  “Oh, that look.”

  “You can finish your meal,” Heather said. “I’ll protect you.”

  “I can fight my own battles with Henrietta,” he said. “She doesn’t scare me.”

  “But a sweet little three-year-old does?”

  “I can handle Angel, too,” he insisted, though there was definitely some question about that. She’d manipulated him pretty easily a few minutes ago.

  “Then I must be the one chasing you off.”

  “No one is chasing me off. I have work to do and I can’t get it done with all this commotion.”

  “What commotion? Five minutes’ reading about a runaway bunny?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Must have been pretty disturbing stuff to rattle you like this. Maybe I’d better take another look at that story. Could be it’s too scary for Angel.”

  “You know, Heather, you have a really smart mouth.”

  She laughed at that. “Clever, too. Want me to demonstrate?”

  Memories of her lips on his slammed into him with the force of a freight train. Oh, he wanted her to demonstrate, all right, just not here and not now.

  Not ever, he corrected himself with his one remaining functioning brain cell.

  “Another time,” he said lightly.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  She left his dinner right where it was and walked away with a provocative sway to her hips that was obviously meant to inflame him. It worked, too. He felt as if the temperature in the restaurant had climbed at least twenty degrees.

  He loosened his tie and opened the top button of his shirt, then took a long swallow of his iced tea. It soothed his throat, but didn’t do a blasted thing to cool the blood throbbing in another part of his anatomy. There was only one way to relieve that, and she had just sashayed over to flirt with that same cowboy who’d been hanging around here way too frequently lately. Stevens, that was it. Henrietta had introduced them at the counter. If it wasn’t for the way he looked at Heather, he might have actually liked the guy.

  Todd glanced across the room and saw Henrietta watching him with a knowing glint in her eyes. That nosy old woman saw too damn much for her own good. Todd forced his attention back to his rapidly cooling meal. If he didn’t eat every bite, Henrietta would draw her own conclusions about his lack of appetite. She was already storing up a lecture regarding Angel. He didn’t need another one on the topic of Heather or his dietary habits.

  When he’d eaten the last bite, he crammed his papers into his briefcase, left a hefty tip on the table, then stopped at the register to pay his bill.

  “Everything okay?” Henrietta inquired cheerfully.

  “The food was terrific as always.”

  “And the company?”

  He leaned closer as if to confide a secret. “You know, Henrietta, if you start meddling in my life, I might just get it into my head to start encouraging a certain judge in his pursuit of a certain diner proprietor. I know a few things that might help him out. For instance, I know that she is not nearly as immune to him as she’d like him to think. I know that if he were to take an interest in Will and Sissy, spend a little quality time with them, it just might work in his favor.”

  She frowned at his warning. “I am not the least bit interested in that old man.”

  “I know better.”

  “You don’t know anything about it.”

  “Care to test me?”

  “You cannot blackmail me, Todd Winston.”

  He laughed. “Don’t look now, but I just did.”

  “You tried. That doesn’t mean it worked.”

  “I guess we’ll see about that.” He glanced toward the door. “Why, there’s the judge now, right on time. I wonder if he’d like a little company for dinner.”

  Color flamed in her cheeks. “You stay away from him, you hear me?”

  “And you’ll steer clear of my relationship with Heather?”

  She looked torn, but finally gave a curt nod. “As long as you don’t do anything to hurt her or that little girl.”

  He nodded with satisfaction. “Deal.”

  He turned to go, but Henrietta put her hand on his arm to catch his attention.

  “If you send them away, it’s going to hurt them, Todd.”

  He sighed heavily. “Not half as much as I would if they stayed.”

  The diner had pretty much cleared out when Flo came in for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie.

  “You’re late,” Heather said. “Joe’s already come and gone.”

  “I know. I was watching from across the street.”

  Heather gave her a sharp look. “Why? I thought the two of you hit it off the other night.”

  “We did. He’s a terrific guy. That’s the trouble. He’s not going to be interested in a woman like me, not when he knows my whole story.”

  Heather glanced around, saw that Henrietta was with the judge, who was the last customer, and that Angel was curled up and fast asleep in a booth. She poured a cup of decaf for herself and took a seat opposite Flo. Over the past few days, she had developed a real fondness for the flamboyant, plainspoken woman who was only a few years older than herself.

  “Tell me,” she suggested. “What’s so awful that it would make Joe not care about you? He looked pretty interested to me.”

  “He is. At least, he said he is. He called me at Jake’s and asked me out the other day, but I turned him down. It’s one thing to sit in here and flirt with him. It’s another to let it progress to anything more. He doesn’t deserve someone with all my baggage.”

  “What baggage is that?”

  Flo stared at her untouched pie, looking miserable. Her usually flawless makeup was smudged and her eyes were red-rimmed, as if she’d been crying. It was such a contrast to her usual devil-may-care demeanor that Heather was concerned.

  “Flo, tell me. I promise I’ll just listen. No judging, no advice, unless you ask for it.”

  “I told you the other day. I’ve got a kid,” Flo said finally, as if that were some sort of character flaw.

  “So? Why is that a problem? A lot of men aren’t put off by single moms.”

  “It’s not that,” Flo said. “It’s because she lives with Megan and Jake, instead of me. I glossed over it the other day, but the truth is I pretty much abandoned her.”

  “But you’re back in her life now,” Heather reminded her. “Isn’t that what you told me?”

  “I know, but that’s gotta look weird to Joe. If somebody else is my kid’s legal guardian, he must think it’s because I was really lousy at it. And the truth is, I was.”

  Her expression turned sad. “I don’t know why I didn’t appreciate Tess more when she was with me. I guess I just felt overwhelmed all the time. I hadn’t told her father a thing about her. We were close for a while, but I was living in Laramie, and he just stopped coming around. When I found out I was pregnant, I never called him up and told him. I figured it was my deal, right? I should have been more careful.”

  Her story was all too familiar. Heather could empathize completely. “I know exactly how you felt,” she said at once.

  “You do?” Flo said, staring at her. “You don’t think I was awful, not telling him?”

  “I pretty much did the same thing with Angel’s daddy,” Heather admitted. “I’m trying to make it right now, but it’s not working out the way I thought it would.”

  Flo blinked, her eyes widening as understanding registered. “Todd?” she breathed in a hushed tone. “He’s Angel’s daddy?”

  Heather hesitated, then nodded.

  “Oh, boy.
No wonder he looks shell-shocked most of the time these days. That’s why you were in to see Jake, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. So you see, I do know what you were going through.”

  “But you never walked out on Angel.”

  Heather hesitated. “In a way, that’s what I was planning to do when I came here. Not for good. Just to get a break. I couldn’t handle doing it all on my own anymore.”

  “That’s exactly how I felt, like I was going to do Tess more harm by keeping her with me than by giving her up.”

  “Have you considered fighting for custody now?”

  “Once in a while I think about it, but I’m not really ready. Tess is happy. I think she’s finally forgiven me for walking out on her. She’s real lucky to have so many people in her life who care about her. And I’m finally getting the rest of my life together. Megan made Jake hire me, mainly to drive him nuts, I think. I’m actually turning out to be a pretty decent secretary, though. Not that he has that much for me to do.”

  Her expression turned despondent again. “Anyway, you can see why a man like Joe, a man who stuck it out with a woman through the most terrible time of her life, no matter how it hurt him, would never understand that I walked out on my own kid.”

  “Maybe you’re not giving him enough credit,” Heather suggested. “He strikes me as a pretty decent guy, who’d try to see your side of things. For all you know, he’s already heard the whole story. It must have been a hot topic here in Whispering Wind for a while. Why not just be up-front with him and let him decide, rather than making the decision for him? You might be surprised by how things turn out.”

  “You really think so?” Flo asked hopefully.

  “I think it’s always better to take a chance and know for sure than to do nothing and spend the rest of your life wondering.”

  “Are you going to take a chance with Todd?”

  Was that what she wanted? Despite all her claims, did she want him back in her life for herself as much as she did for Angel?

  Maybe so, she admitted to herself. Unfortunately the decision wasn’t up to her.

  “I don’t know,” she told Flo honestly.

  “Sounds to me like you’re pretty good at handing out advice, but not at taking it.”

  “You could be right,” Heather conceded.

  But Todd was here and her life was in New York. Maybe it wasn’t much of a life, but it was the one she wanted. Why start working on something that didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of being successful? Better to concentrate on bringing him and Angel together and leaving it at that.

  “But you can’t recapture the past or dwell on past mistakes,” she told Flo. “You can only move forward. And that’s advice both of us would do well to remember.”

  9

  Over the next few days, Heather found herself settling into a surprisingly comfortable routine in Whispering Wind. She’d always been adept as a waitress, but she’d never particularly enjoyed it before. But here it was as if she were at the hub of a very small universe, in which the customers were rapidly turning into friends. The pace was leisurely. She had time to pause and chat, to ask about their families, to fill them in on Angel’s latest skill.

  And while most of them knew by now that she’d once been on a television soap opera, they were more curious than awed. Even the ones who’d recognized her from the show accepted her as a friendly newcomer to town, rather than the villainess she’d portrayed on TV.

  Equally important, Angel loved being the center of attention in the diner. And though she apparently hadn’t made the leap to the conclusion that Todd was her daddy, she always gravitated toward him whenever he was around, much to his obvious discomfort.

  Even though there had been no real sign that his resistance was weakening, Heather was determined to wait Todd out. Sooner or later, he would come around and do the right thing. That was what Todd was all about. Pressuring him would accomplish nothing. She also thought the blood-test results would go a long way toward hastening his acceptance of the facts. He and Angel had been tested on Tuesday and preliminary results were due back anytime.

  Since she knew exactly what the results would show, there was no anxiety for her during the wait, as there clearly was for Todd. Each time she saw him, he looked like a man awaiting sentencing for a felony, but at least he no longer stayed away from the diner.

  In the meantime, she was finding the slow-paced rhythm of small-town life oddly satisfying, a welcome break from the struggles and frenetic pace back in New York. Because Henrietta was a morning person and Heather wasn’t, Henrietta took the early shift most days. Heather had time then to feed Angel, bathe her, take her along while she skated to the park, pushing Angel’s stroller in front of her. There Angel spent time playing on the swings and feeding her beloved ducks, before Heather went to the Starlight at eleven to get ready for the lunch crowd.

  The park was where Jake found her on Wednesday morning. He sat down beside her on the bench.

  “Nice day,” he observed.

  Despite her faith in those test results, her stomach churned, anyway, at his unexpected arrival. “You didn’t come out here to talk about the weather, did you?”

  “Nope.”

  “The preliminary results are in?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “The blood types are compatible.”

  Of course. “I told you they would be. Have you told Todd?”

  “I’m heading out to the studio to tell him in person. Do you want to come along?”

  She shook her head. “It’s better if you do it. He’ll believe you. He still doesn’t trust me. A part of him desperately wants to believe I’m trying to put something over on him. I wish I understood why, but I don’t. Not really. It’s not like him to be so cynical and suspicious.”

  “I think a part of him knows the truth and it scares him,” Jake suggested. “That’s why he’s been so blasted tense. If he accepts the truth, then he has to deal with the guilt. Even though you made the decision to keep the pregnancy from him, he’ll find some way to blame himself for not knowing about it, for not being there to help you through it.”

  “If that’s true, if this is just about guilt, what do you think he’ll do when he knows for sure?”

  “Heather, you’ve known him longer than I have. What do you think he’ll do?”

  She wished that what she wanted him to do matched what she thought he’d do. “He’ll insist on doing the right thing, or at least what he sees as the right thing. He’ll start throwing money in my direction.” She regarded Jake despondently. “Whatever it is, it won’t be enough. Angel needs her daddy. Jake, you should see her with Todd. I haven’t said a word, but she clearly senses a connection. She doesn’t let his cool responses put her off. She crawls into his lap whenever he’ll let her. If I give them enough time, I just know she’ll break through that reserve and he’ll come around.”

  “How much time are you willing to give? Can you stay here indefinitely?”

  She’d been thinking a lot about that the past few days. The urgency to get back to her life in New York had faded. Although she missed being on stage, missed the adrenaline rush of going to auditions, she didn’t miss the struggle just to stay financially afloat. Here she and Angel had everything they needed without her feeling as if she had to work two jobs.

  With people like Henrietta and Sissy pitching in to spend time with Angel, she no longer felt overwhelmed. With a good friend like Flo, who understood what she was going through, this was turning out to be exactly the break she needed, much more like a vacation than what she’d envisioned when she’d made the plans to come.

  She could stay awhile. It wasn’t as if she was abandoning her dream. She was just getting her batteries recharged. She would go back to New York revitalized, take Broadway by storm.

  “Through the summer, anyway,” she said, making up her mind. “This is too important to rush.”

  Jake nodded his approval. “Good. Then when Todd
starts making offers, I’ll tell him that the terms for settlement include some form of custody.”

  She’d been telling Todd exactly that since she’d arrived. He didn’t seem to be getting the message. “What if he flatly refuses?” she asked Jake. “I can’t very well make him spend time with her.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when the time comes,” Jake said. “For now, let’s just see where these preliminary test results and a little patience get us.”

  Angel spotted Jake just then and came running over from the edge of the pond.

  “Hiya, Jake!”

  “Hey, sweetheart. How are the ducks today?”

  “Hungry. I needs more bread, Mama.”

  “You’ve already fed them all the stale bread Henrietta gave you. That’s enough for today. Otherwise they’ll get so fat, they’ll waddle.”

  Angel giggled. “Mama, that’s what ducks do. They waddle.”

  Jake winked at her. “You are so smart. I hope when my little boy or girl gets here, he or she is as smart as you.”

  Angel looked intrigued. “You gonna have a baby?”

  He nodded. “In a few months.”

  “How long is that?”

  “A long time, sweetie,” Heather told her, thinking that Megan wasn’t even showing yet. She had to wonder if they would even be here when the new baby arrived in the fall.

  “Can I hold the baby?” Angel asked as she crawled into Jake’s lap.

  “Of course you can,” he said. “You can come out to the ranch and play with the baby any time you want.”

  Her eyes widened. “You gots a ranch?”

  “Yep.”

  “’Retta told me ’bout ranches,” she said, surprising Heather. “You gots horses?”

  “Lots of horses.”

  She patted his cheek. “I come see, okay?”

  Jake laughed. “Anytime.” He glanced at Heather. “In fact, why don’t you drive out after work tonight? It’ll still be daylight in case that rattletrap you bought conks out on you.”

  Heather hesitated. “I don’t know.” She glanced pointedly at Angel. “Megan might…” She didn’t finish.