Home on the Ranch: Texas Cowboy, Be Mine

by Trish Milburn

  “You look just like me when I was young.” Her expression did appear as if she was looking in a mirror back in time at her younger self.

  “Why did you abandon me?” Every way Angel had thought of to introduce herself flew away as the most pressing question shot from her like a cannonball.

  Nora’s lower lip quivered, and Hunter tugged on Angel’s hand.

  “Maybe we should go somewhere else to talk,” he said, making her aware of all the pairs of eyes staring at them.

  “My house isn’t far from here,” Nora said.

  Angel considered the wisdom of letting Nora have the equivalent of home-court advantage, but then she already did, didn’t she? So she gave a quick nod.

  While Nora went to grab her purse from the tent and tell her coworkers she was leaving, Angel imagined them all asking what was going on. Would she tell them that Angel was the daughter she’d abandoned as a newborn in an entirely different state? How many of them would be shocked? Or did at least some of them know?

  Hunter wrapped his arm around Angel’s shoulders. “You’ve already taken the hardest step. You’ll get through this.”

  She kept telling herself that as they followed Nora’s dust-covered compact car through a series of streets before she pulled up in front of a small but neat house. It wasn’t going to appear in any home magazines, but Nora had planted a bright array of flowers along the front and painted the mailbox a vibrant turquoise blue, Angel’s favorite color. Honestly, those splashes of color looked like obvious attempts to add some life to the drabness of the house and lot.

  Angel deliberately didn’t touch Hunter as they made their way to the front door after Nora. She needed to prove to herself she was strong enough to walk toward the answers she wanted without aid. Sure, Hunter was still close enough she imagined she felt the heat coming off his very masculine body, but the lack of physical connection was something she needed at the moment. She didn’t want anything to distract her from the task at hand.

  After Nora stepped across the threshold into her home, Hunter touched Angel’s shoulder.

  “Would you like me to stay outside so you can talk in private?”

  She was already shaking her head before he finished his question. Sure, she wanted to prove to herself she could do this on her own, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t benefit from the ample amount of moral support he offered by simply being there.

  When they stepped inside, Nora indicated a tiny living room that would fit into the one back at the ranch twice over. The furniture was not anywhere near new, and it showed obvious signs of wear. But even a single drive through town had revealed that this slice of Oklahoma was not wealthy. The large plant on the outskirts of town that was being overtaken by scraggly weeds was evidence of a town in decline. She wondered how Nora made a living or if perhaps she had to depend on government assistance as so many people in dying towns left without other viable options often did.

  “I’ll get us something to drink,” Nora said as she stepped to the wide doorway that led into a bright yellow kitchen. She didn’t ask what they wanted and Angel wondered if that was because there was only a single option. But she returned with a tray with not only bottles of water but also a couple of soda options.

  Considering how little Angel had slept in the past few days, she immediately chose one of the sodas for a quick infusion of caffeine. She and Hunter sat side by side on the couch while Nora sank into one of those cushy chairs that not only rocked but also swiveled. Angel watched as the woman who was a complete stranger to her took a long drink of water. If she wasn’t mistaken, she saw Nora’s hand shake. After a few seconds of silence, she looked up and met Angel’s gaze.

  “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Angel.”

  Nora’s hand lifted to her chest. “They kept the name I gave you.”

  Angel nodded, thinking about the note that had been with her when the hospital staff found her, how that note was sitting in the bottom of her jewelry box even now.

  “I left you at that hospital to protect you,” Nora said just as suddenly as Angel had asked her the question that precipitated the answer.

  “From?” Angel knew she still sounded confrontational, making her acutely aware of all the anger she’d long buried deep inside.

  Nora looked up and met Angel’s gaze. “Your father. He was a violent man. He used to beat me, even when I was pregnant with you, but I managed to always protect you from his fists.” Nora took a shaky breath. “But I was afraid that after you were born, I wouldn’t be able to and so I took off. It nearly killed me to leave you behind, but I knew it was the right thing to do. It was the only way you were going to have a chance in life. Not a day has gone by since that I haven’t wondered about you, hoped that you ended up with a good family who loved you.”

  Angel saw the question in Nora’s eyes, and part of her didn’t want to answer. But there was such raw emotion staring back at her. Coupled with what Camille had told her about seeing Nora sobbing as she ran from the hospital, Angel found herself believing Nora, wanting to alleviate some of that old pain despite how much it had caused Angel.

  “I did. My parents are wonderful.”

  Nora bit her lip, and Angel saw the shimmer of unshed tears in the woman’s eyes. “Thank the Lord. Do you have brothers and sisters?”

  Angel nodded. “Three brothers and a sister, all adopted.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  Suddenly, another question formed in Angel’s mind, demanding to be answered. Did she have more brothers and sisters, ones who shared her blood? “Did you have other children?”

  Sadness clouded Nora’s expression. “No. As soon as I could, I had a hysterectomy so there was no chance I’d ever get pregnant again.”

  Angel jerked at that answer, evidently enough that Nora noticed.

  “Not because of you. I just knew I couldn’t go through giving away another child, and there was no way I could raise a child in this house.”

  Angel’s hands curled into fists until she forced herself to relax them. “If he beat you, why would you come back?”

  “I had nowhere else to go, no education, no money. I used what I’d taken from Joe’s wallet to pay for gas and a little bit of food when I fled to Austin. I barely had enough to get back.” She flinched at a memory, and Angel realized that she must not have had a pleasant homecoming. “Plus, at the time my mother was still alive and needed me to help take care of her.”

  “Didn’t everyone wonder why you came back no longer pregnant but with no baby?”

  “I told everyone I lost the baby. Some might have suspected otherwise, but no one ever questioned it. I think there were many who didn’t blame me for whatever I’d done considering the alternative.”

  “So my father didn’t want me, either?”

  Hunter’s hand wrapped around hers, giving support but maybe also suggesting she go a bit more easily. As she watched Nora, she wondered if her birth mother was going to answer this time. She picked at the frayed arm of her chair and appeared to be waging a debate in her head. Eventually, she sighed.

  “The truth isn’t pretty.”

  “But I want to hear it. I’ve spent a life with so many questions, so I deserve the answers, no matter what they are.”

  “Joe didn’t ask what happened or where you were. He was just glad not to have another mouth to feed, and then he smacked me so hard for taking the money that I fell into the wall and ended up with a black eye.”

  Angel couldn’t sit still anymore. She stood and paced halfway across the room. Anger toward Nora still sat heavy in her chest, but the more she learned the more she began to understand what kind of home she could have been born into. She, too, might have followed a similar path of abuse.

  “Is he going to walk in here any minute?”

  “I hope not. He died three years ago. Lung cancer.”
>
  Despite all she’d learned about Joe Martin, Angel experienced what felt like a punch to her lungs. She would never meet the man who’d been her birth father. As she stood there in the middle of Nora’s living room absorbing the news, she realized that perhaps that was for the best. He didn’t sound like anyone she’d ever want to know. Honestly, she was still undecided about Nora.

  Chapter 12

  Hunter didn’t know if he’d ever seen someone appear so wrung out and exhausted before. Angel looked not only physically tired but also as if her brain might need to hibernate for a while, as well. He reached across the cab of the truck as he stopped at a red light and took her hand.

  “You okay?”

  “I think so, though I feel as if I could sleep for a week and still not be rested.”

  That was understandable considering she’d just spent several hours questioning her birth mother about Nora’s life, Nora’s decision to abandon Angel instead of putting her officially up for adoption and her Choctaw heritage. And Nora seemed to soak up every piece of information Angel shared about her own life as if she’d been starving for it ever since she’d run away from the hospital all those years ago. Maybe she had.

  When Nora found out she had a granddaughter, she’d begun to cry. Angel had showed her a picture of Julia on her phone, and the tears had streamed down Nora’s cheeks.

  She’s so beautiful, Nora had said, and then her crying had turned into full-blown sobbing.

  Hunter and Angel had exchanged glances, neither knowing the right way to respond. And then Angel had taken a huge step when she reached out and wrapped her hand around Nora’s.

  I’m sorry, Nora had said through her sobs. I’m so, so sorry.

  That broke something inside Angel, and she’d begun to cry, too. And he’d felt utterly helpless. So he’d stepped out onto the porch to give them a few minutes of privacy to let out the raw emotion and collect themselves. By then the sun had sunk below the horizon and he could see the first few stars in the sky. After several minutes, Angel came out to say that Nora had invited them to stay for dinner. And so they’d ended up sitting around Nora’s little Formica-topped table, eating chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes, hominy and banaha, a Choctaw bread.

  Nora had seemed more relaxed at the table, and she’d even asked him about himself and his family. She sympathized when he told her about his mom’s diagnosis, sharing that she worked in a nursing home and had seen how the disease could steal who a person had always been. She’d realized then what she’d said and apologized, but he’d responded that there was no need because he’d read enough to know what was coming.

  Now, as he drove back to the hotel, he thought about those facts again, how he had pushed away the truth over the past few weeks as he and Angel had grown closer. The doubt came back. Was it incredibly selfish of him to get more involved with her when the years ahead were going to require that his attention be on his mother? She would gradually need more and more help, and he had no idea how he was going to handle it while also working enough to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. An unusual feeling of panic clawed its way up his chest, causing his heart to speed up. He took a deep breath to calm down. He’d figure things out when the time came.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He glanced over at Angel. “I’m just wiped, too.”

  Despite being dog tired, when they reached their room his gaze took in the king-size bed again. He’d forced himself not to think about it earlier, how he was going to be sleeping next to the woman who’d come to mean more to him than even he could have imagined after all the years of crushing on her. His body stirred at the thought of how they might make use of that bed, but now was not the time. Angel needed sleep, and a lot of it.

  “I think I’ll take a shower,” he said, aiming to give her time to change and pick the side of the bed she preferred. If he kept thinking about Angel in that bed, he was going to have to do more in the bathroom than shower.

  He took his time, not wanting to rush Angel. But when he came out, she wasn’t curled up asleep as he’d expected. Instead, she sat motionless on the side of the bed in the same clothes she’d been wearing all day.

  “Angel?”

  She lifted her gaze slowly to his. “Have you ever had so much going on in your head that it felt impossible to ever sleep again, no matter how tired you were?”

  He crossed to the bed and sat down beside her. “Yeah, the night after Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. It felt like my brain was some combination of a race car and a Ping-Pong ball.”

  “That sounds about right.” She leaned her head against his shoulder.

  “Why don’t you go take a warm shower? Maybe that will relax you enough so that you can sleep.”

  “I don’t think I could stand up that long.” But she did stand and retrieve some clothes from her suitcase and head for the bathroom.

  Was she so tired that she was saying one thing but doing another?

  Though he normally slept in just his underwear, he kept on the pair of shorts and T-shirt he was wearing and stretched out on the opposite side of the bed, giving her plenty of room so that she didn’t feel crowded. His head had just hit the pillow when she came back out wearing a thin T-shirt and pajama shorts that exposed the length of her gorgeous legs. Hunter was thankful he was already under the cover, though he did shift onto his side so that he didn’t obviously tent it.

  He expected her to curl up on the other edge of the bed and fall immediately to sleep. Instead, she slipped under the cover and all the way across the bed to him.

  “Angel?”

  She didn’t say anything in response. Instead, she lifted her mouth to his and kissed him like a sweetheart welcoming home a soldier after a long deployment. When her tongue slid into his mouth, his entire body was flooded with heat and lust. He wanted this woman like he’d never wanted anything or anyone in his life. But he somehow cobbled together enough sense to pull away.

  “You’re so tired you’re not thinking straight.” His body screamed in protest that he was denying what she was offering.

  He jerked when her hand slipped underneath his shirt and started making its way up over his chest.

  “Yes, I’m tired, but not so tired that I don’t know what I want.”

  “Just a few minutes ago you said you were so exhausted that you couldn’t even stand in the shower.”

  “This doesn’t require standing.”

  He closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face. “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”

  When she didn’t answer, he opened his eyes and examined the look on her face. His heart hurt at how rejected she appeared to be. He lifted his hand to her face and caressed her gently.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to. Heaven knows I do. But I don’t want you to do this because of the circumstances,” he said, gesturing to the bed, “or because you’ve got all these emotions twisting inside you.”

  Angel placed two fingers against his lips. “Stop.” She let her fingertips run lightly over his cheek. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fantasized about this because I’ve lost count. We’ve just never had this kind of opportunity.”

  She was right. They were always around other people, or had family responsibilities tugging them in opposite directions.

  “It’s been a hell of a day,” she said. “I want it to end with us together. Really together.”

  “If you’re sure.” Oh, please be sure.

  She lifted away from him, and he nearly groaned in pain. He’d talked her out of what he, too, had done a hell of a lot of fantasizing about. But when she grabbed the hem of her shirt and lifted it over her head, leaving her breasts bare and on full display, he took her at her word and rolled her onto her back.

  They alternated kissing and getting rid of the rest of their clothes. When they were naked, skin on heated s
kin, he had to take a deep breath or he would really embarrass himself.

  Angel placed her palm against his cheek. “It’s been a long time for me, too.”

  “I don’t want to ruin this.”

  She smiled at him. “You won’t.”

  She sounded so confident, and he really, really hoped this wasn’t just the most vivid dream he’d ever had about her. That would be cruelty at the highest level. And he hoped that she wasn’t disappointed afterward, especially considering her past with men. He felt enormous honor and responsibility that she’d chosen to be with him, to trust him when it wasn’t easy for her to trust.

  He ran his hand gently over her silky hair. “You’re so beautiful.”

  She reached up and wrapped her hand around his neck, pulling him down to her for another kiss that rocked his world. The way their hands ran over each other’s bodies, coaxing moans of pleasure and the desire for even more, grew more heated and insistent. Somehow he managed to remember the condoms he’d stashed in his bag just in case.

  “You’re certain?” he asked against her ear.

  “Yes,” she said in a breathy voice that sent him bolting for the protection as fast as he could.

  * * *

  Angel couldn’t move. If the hotel caught fire around her, she was fairly certain she’d burn. That was what happened when you’ve just had the best sex of your life, sex so awesome that everything that had come before seemed like only an imposter instead of the real thing.

  Beside her, Hunter lay on his back, still trying to bring his breathing back to normal, same as her.

  “You okay?” he asked, also without moving.

  “I think the word you’re looking for is fabulous.”

  He chuckled and somehow found the energy to roll onto his side to look at her. “That right?”

  “How would you describe it?”

  “A dream come true. Literally.”