She shook her head, her cheeks rubbing against the too fluffy hotel pillow. “You shouldn’t have married him. He deserved to be loved.”
Her mother’s hand held her own in what felt like a death grip. “I did it for you, Angie. For you. Can’t anyone see that?”
“Bullshit,” Angie said, trying again to rise. She found her strength and sat up. “You did it for yourself. Your boyfriend was going to prison, and you were stuck pregnant. You trapped an innocent man into a marriage neither of you wanted. I’ll never forgive you for this. Never!”
“Angie, please.”
“The girl’s right, Mia. What you did was wrong on so many levels.”
Maria sighed. “I’m not arguing that point.”
“Christ, Mia. I loved you. I would have done anything for you. For our child.”
“You couldn’t escape a prison sentence.”
“But I would have fought. I could have turned state’s evidence, I could have gotten a better lawyer, I could have…”
“I had to make a decision quickly. A decision that I thought was best for my child. You’ll be happy to know, Jeff, that Angie never wanted for anything. She had everything a little girl could want.”
“Except her real father,” Jeff said.
I had a real father.
But he wasn’t mine.
He was Harper’s.
He was Catie’s.
He was never mine.
“You can’t take her inheritance. You can’t do this to your own daughter.”
“She’s not my daughter.” Jeff stalked forward.
Was he going to grab her mother again?
“You took her from me and gave her to my brother. My sainted brother. He had everything. He was the older. He had Grandpa’s love and devotion. He had everything I could never have, except you. I had you. But you took that away and gave yourself to him. You gave my child to him!”
“He wasn’t the one I loved, Jeff. You were.”
“You think that matters now?”
“Yes, it should matter. The fact that she’s yours should matter. Please don’t take her ranch away from her.”
“The ranch is mine. She can have it when I’m dead. Now the two of you get the hell out of my hotel room.” He stormed across the carpet and opened the door.
“Jeff, please.”
“Sorry. It’s all falling on deaf ears.”
“But she’s your flesh and blood!”
“She stopped being mine the moment you gave her to Wayne. Now get out!”
Angie’s brain was in a fuzzy haze as she leaned on her mother and left her uncle’s—her father’s—room.
What had just gone on? She wasn’t her father’s daughter? Her father was her uncle and her uncle was her father? Were her sister and brother her siblings? Or her cousins? Or some twisted hybrid of both?
She didn’t have her father. He was dead. She didn’t have her inheritance. Her uncle—father—was taking it away. She didn’t have a mother anymore. She hated this bitch holding her up. What a liar! She no longer had a fiancé. She’d broken it off with Frank of her own accord. And she didn’t have Rafe. He was married to someone else.
Someone else who wasn’t her.
She had nothing.
Truly nothing.
Heaviness laced her eyelids. Her mother’s brown eyes glared into her own, striking, and then fuzzy, and then striking again. Two Mamas. Then one. Two again. Icy needles pricked at her neck.
The room spun.
A curtain of blackness fell.
* * *
Angie’s eyes fluttered open. Where am I? Her body lay supine on what she thought was a bed. Where am I?
“She’s coming to.”
Whose voice is that?
Masculine. Deep. Oh, so familiar.
Daddy?
“No, sweetheart. Daddy’s gone, remember?”
Had she said that out loud?
Mama?
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Where am I?”
“Back in Jeff’s hotel room. You fainted after we left. Do you remember?”
Fainted. Daddy. Mama. Uncle Jeff. Her birth father.
Yes, Uncle Jeff was her birth father.
Tears flooded her eyes. Her legs itched. Itched and burned. Move. She needed to move. Had to run. Run far away from these two people. They’d lied to her, cheated her out of her inheritance. They were horrible, ugly people.
Only she couldn’t move. Couldn’t make her body respond to her need to escape.
What’s going on?
“Jeff, maybe we should call 9-1-1.”
“Don’t be silly. She’s fine. She just passed out.” His voice got louder. “When’s the last time you ate, Angelina?”
Ate? Heck, I have no idea. She hadn’t been able to choke down food since Daddy took to the hospital. Then Daddy passed, and Uncle Jeff—Daddy Jeff—showed up and took her inheritance. Scrambled eggs appeared in her brain. Yes, Rafe had fed her a bite of eggs. Then he’d dropped the bomb about being married, she got engaged to Frank, and now she found out her daddy wasn’t her daddy after all. Had she truly only eaten scrambled eggs since…since…
“Can you answer, Angie?” her mother asked.
Angie shook her head. “I… I’m not sure.”
“I didn’t see you eat anything at the memorial service, or at the party we gave for the men.” She smoothed Angie’s hair off her forehead. “Jeff, I think we need to feed her.”
“I’ll call room service.”
“This is Bakersville. Small-town hotel. There’s no room service here.”
“Fine, fine.” He sighed. “I’ll go down and find something for her. Wait here.”
The door squeaked lightly as it closed.
“Angie, darling, I’m so sorry,” her mother said.
Doesn’t matter. I hate you. I hate him. I’ll never forgive either of you. Her vocal cords seemed fused. Couldn’t bring the words out. She wanted to say them. Lord, how she longed to say them. She had nothing.
Nothing.
“Angie, I hope you can forgive me.”
Angie turned her head to look away from her mother’s face. She focused on the beige wall of the hotel room.
Icky plain beige.
“All right. I won’t force you to talk,” Maria said. “We’ll wait till Jeff gets back with some food.”
You’ll be waiting a heck of a lot longer than that. I’m through with you. Through with Uncle Daddy Jeff. Through with men I don’t love. Through with the man I do love. Through with everything. What left is there to live for?
Maria smoothed her hair back again, but Angie jerked her head.
Don’t touch me.
She closed her eyes. The soft breath of her mother’s sigh met her ears.
“I’m so sorry, Angie. This will work out. I promise.”
I promise.
Right.
The door squeaked open. “I’m back.”
Jeff’s voice.
So like her father’s…
It was her father’s…
“I got her a turkey sandwich and some water. Something easy for her stomach.”
“Good thinking.” Her mother’s voice. “Can you sit up. Angie?”
Go away.
“Come on, sit up.” Her mother urged her forward, and she leaned back upon several pillows. “You have to eat something, sweetheart. Please.”
Her mother unwrapped the sandwich and tore off a piece. “Here.”
Angie turned her head away.
“Come on now.”
Her stomach betrayed her and growled. Yes, she was hungry. Her tummy felt gaunt and empty, as though she hadn’t eat well in days. Which, of course, she hadn’t.
She opened her mouth and took the bite.
“Good girl,” Maria said.
She chewed the meat and bread into a tasteless lump and forced it down her throat. And found, to her surprise, that she wanted more. She took the rest of the sandwich from her mother’s hand.
“She’ll be fine, Mia. She’s just hungry.”
“For God’s sake, Jeff, she’s more than hungry. Her father just died. Then you showed up and took her inheritance. What do you expect?”
Jeff said nothing. Or if he did, Angie didn’t hear it. She was busy munching on the sandwich.
“Water,” she said.
Maria opened the bottle of water and handed it to her. “I know this is all very upsetting, sweetheart. I’m sorry I blurted it out like that.” She stood and pulled on her brown hair. “I just didn’t know what else to do.”
Angie drank the water and said nothing.
“Jeff, please.”
“I’m not discussing this anymore, Maria. The child is fine. She’s just hungry and probably a little depressed with all that’s gone on.”
“You could help her, you know.”
“No one helped me my entire life.”
Maria sighed and moved toward him. “You’re never going to change, are you? Always a victim. Nothing is ever your fault. You could have led a better life, you know. You didn’t have to be such a rebel.”
“You liked me that way. You found it exciting.”
“I was eighteen years old, for goodness’ sake. Of course I found you exciting. But I grew up, Jeff. The minute I found out I was pregnant I grew up. That baby became the most important thing in my life. Her life was more important than my own, and I made sure I gave her the best I could.”
“That’s the difference between us, I guess,” Jeff said. “You didn’t give me the chance to give her a good life.”
Uncle Jeff walked out the door again.
Angie finished her water.
“Are you better now? Can you stand up? I want to get you home. I want to get you away from that man.”
Angie nodded. She wouldn’t forgive her mother, but right now she needed to leave this room as much as Maria did.
She said the words in her mind that now had two distinct meanings.
Goodbye, Daddy.
Chapter Twenty
He had to see her.
Had to see her one more time before she married another man.
Maybe kiss her one more time. Would it be enough to last the rest of his life? Probably not. But he had to tell her how he felt. Yes, it was too late. She’d made that clear. But she deserved to know.
Rafe hopped in his car Saturday morning and sped to Angelina’s.
* * *
Angie picked up her cell phone. “Hi, Catie. What’s up?”
Silence on the other end of the line.
“Catie?”
“Ang, listen. Chad and I have been talking.”
“Yeah?”
“I want to… That is we want to…to give you our share of Bay Crossing.”
Angie dropped the phone and picked it up quickly. “What?”
“I’m serious. We don’t need it, and we both feel terrible about what your fa—” She coughed. “What Uncle Jefferson is putting you through.”
A tempting offer, but one the new Angie would not accept. “I love you both for offering,” she told her sister, “but it’s time I made my own way. I don’t know anything about ranching yet. I’m staying here with Mama. We have a lot to work out.”
“But Ang—”
“I’m going to work things out with her, don’t worry. After that, I’ll find my way, I promise. You just take care of yourself and that little angel you’re carrying.”
Catie gulped and said goodbye with a quiet sob.
Her sister and brother-in-law were good people. The best. But she couldn’t depend on them or anyone else anymore. Time for Angelina Bay to make it on her own.
She put the phone in her pocket and got back to work folding clothes and placing them in boxes. Later she’d drive into Denver to donate them to one of the shelters. Preferably one for single mothers and their children in need. They held a special place in her heart.
After all, she could have easily been one of those children herself.
When a rapping met her ears, she quickly taped up the box of clothes and got up to answer her door.
Rafe stood on the other side, his hair in his signature ponytail, his jeans slung low on his hips as usual. Sadness shadowed his beautiful bronze features.
“Hello, Rafe.”
“May I come in?”
She sighed. Why not? “Sure.” She held the door open for him.
He looked around her cluttered living room. “Getting ready to move, I guess?”
She shook her head. “These are actually donations to charity. I went through my closet this morning. I decided I don’t need but about a quarter of the clothes I have. So I’m going to help those less fortunate than myself.”
He didn’t smile. “That’s right nice of you, Angie.”
“Oh, I don’t know how nice it is.” She smiled, hoping it didn’t look too forced. “I wish I knew more about being nice. But it’s never too late to learn, I guess.”
Still no smile from Rafe. “The poor will appreciate your sacrifice. And your future husband can buy you a whole new wardrobe, anyway.”
She shook her head. He thought she was being facetious. Of course he did. He only had her past actions to consider. Time for him to meet the new Angie.
“No new wardrobe. From now on, I’m only buying what I need.”
“Oh?” His eyes widened. “You’ll save him a bundle then.”
She let out a breathy laugh…or what she hoped sounded like a laugh. “I’ll save him more than that. I’m not getting married after all, Rafe. I couldn’t go through with it.”
His eyebrows rose. “Oh?”
“My parents married for the wrong reasons, and I can’t do it. I won’t marry unless it’s for love. And I can’t fall in love in two months.”
She couldn’t fall in love because she was already in love. In love with a man who was married to someone else. The man standing before her now. But she couldn’t tell him that. He’d never know.
In a flash, his demeanor changed. Still no smile, but he grabbed her shoulders and his dark eyes came back to life. “Could you get married if someone loved you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Frank loves me. Or he’s at least infatuated with me. He has been for years. But he deserves a woman who loves him.”
“Most men do,” Rafe said. “And I agree with you. Getting married for the wrong reason, no matter what the circumstances, is a mistake. Believe me, I know.” He touched her cheek oh-so-gently. “Angie, would you listen to me? Would you let me tell you about my…my wife?”
His touch seared her. But she steeled her strength against her need for him. “I don’t see what purpose that would serve at this point.”
“It would serve many purposes, the most important of which is that I want you to know the truth. It’s important to me.”
She sighed. Fine. What could it hurt? It didn’t matter now anyway. She’d lost the ranch. More importantly, she’d lost Rafe.
She’d never love again. She’d resigned herself to spinsterhood. She’d find her calling, make it on her own. And live out her days alone. She found herself smiling. Maybe she’d live out her days with her widowed mother.
The widowed mother she’d decided to forgive.
She’d wasted too much of her precious life being petty. Life was too short to hold grudges. Love was too precious to let slip away. And she did love her mother. She might have been Daddy’s girl, but she’d always adored her Mama.
“Fine. Go ahead.”
“I’m getting a divorce.”
“Not on my account, I hope.”
“On my own account. I married for the wrong reasons, like you said.”
She widened her eyes. Was his marriage truly over? Did she dare hope? “What do you mean?”
She listened as he told her about the woman named Lilia who lived with his father. Who’d fallen in love with his father.
“But we figured it out. Dallas McCray talked to an immigrat
ion attorney in Denver, and I can get my divorce. I would have gotten it anyway, but the attorney fixed it so Lilia doesn’t have to go back to Mexico. She can stay here and keep her green card.”
“That’s nice, Rafe. I’m happy for her. And for you.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you save your ranch. The divorce won’t be final for six months.”
“No worries. There are more important things in life than the ranch.”
Strange words, coming from Angie Bay. But she meant every one. There were so many more important things. Like love. She regarded the beautiful bronze man who’d captured her heart. Could he have ever loved her?
“Yes, there are more important things than the ranch,” he agreed. “Like people.”
She nodded. Thirty-two was a late age to learn that valuable lesson, but at least she’d learned it.
“Would you marry for love, Angie?”
“Yes, of course I would.”
“Would you… Would you marry me?”
She widened her eyes. “What?”
“I love you, Angelina.” He dropped down to one knee. “Would you be my wife?”
She dropped down next to him. His words echoed in her mind, their sound sweeter than a Mozart sonata, sweeter than a baby’s laugh. “Say it again?”
He took both her hands in his. “I love you more than life itself. I swear I’ll take care of you. It might be a modest life, but I’ll work two jobs if I have to. I’ll kick Tom out of the apartment and you can move in. Or we’ll find our own place. A better place. I’ll do anything, if only you’ll say yes. Please, Angie. I love you.”
Tears welled in her eyes. He loved her.
And suddenly nothing else mattered. Not the ranch she’d lost, not the fact that he’d already been married, not that her mother had lied to her entire life, and even not that the father she’d adored had been her uncle, not her biological father. Nothing mattered but Rafe and their love for each other.
His gaze penetrated her. “Do you… Do you think you could grow to love me?”
She threw her arms around his neck. “Rafe, I already do. I’ve loved you for so long.”
He clenched her in a bear hug. “I’ll bust my ass to provide for you, I swear it.”
“Oh, Rafe, Rafe. I love you so much.”
Taming Angelina: The Temptation Saga: Book Four Page 15
