Small Town Romance Collection: Four Complete Romances & A New Novella

by Brown, Carolyn

  "Where?" Angel asked.

  "Out there on the swing. Asleep. Lot of man to be curled up like that. I told him to get out of here when I come in to work, but he said you knew he was there and he wasn't leavin' until you talked to him. So I just ignored him. He's been asleep about two hours. Just sat there swinging all mornin'. Is he all there? You know, is he a little bit strange or something?" Hilda's wise old eyes narrowed slightly.

  "He's strange all right," Angel had to smile. Clancy could sleep until he grew gray hair and died in that swing. She'd even see to it his sorry carcass was taken home to his mother and they could bury him—still in the swing—but she wasn't talking to him . . . not ever again.

  "I'm going to the cemetery today to take care of the plots."

  Angel slapped a sandwich together and put it in a paper sack along with an apple and a can of Coke. "But I'm leaving by the back way. If Clancy wakes up, tell him I've gone to Europe for a month."

  "Oh, Angel, are you takin' a vacation? Honey, you've needed one for a long time." Hilda patted her on the back.

  "Hell, no!" Angel giggled. "But don't tell Clancy that. He doesn't need to know where I am."

  "Oh," Hilda said. "So that's Clancy Morgan out there, is it?"

  "Hilda, don't you dare tell him anything," Angel pointed her finger and shook her head.

  "Me? I wouldn't give that man the sweat from my brow if he was dyin' of thirst. Not me!" Hilda fumed as she picked up her broom and started toward the fireplace to sweep the flagstone in front of it.

  "See you later," Angel whispered, and eased out the back door.

  Hilda counted to ten slowly, then went out to the front porch where Clancy was snoring loudly on the porch swing. So this was the sorry bastard who'd caused her Angel to be single at the age of twenty-eight . . . who'd made her cry when she was younger, and who'd upset her today. He wasn't a bad-looking fellow—tall, well built, dark hair, dark stubble starting to show on his face where he needed to shave.

  She hooked the broom handle in the back of the swing and shoved with all her might. One minute Clancy was dreaming of the sweet angel he used to know in his arms beside the creek bank, and the next he was flying across the porch, grabbing at the air for something to hold on to. Then his eyes sprang open just in time to see the wood floor as he landed facedown.

  "Why did you do that?" he sputtered as he sat up.

  " Me?" Hilda looked shocked.

  The old green pickup he remembered from high school roared around the end of the house and out onto the dirt road headed west. "Where's she going?" He sat up, checking his nose to see if it was bleeding.

  "I wouldn't know, you dirty scoundrel. But she drives fast. Perhaps you'd best haul your butt on out to that fancy car of yours and get out of here."

  "Kept my promise," Hilda spoke to herself as she watched Clancy gun his engine and peel out, barely in time to see Angel top the hill. "Didn't tell him nothin'. Wouldn't tell him the time of day to save his sorry hide. Wouldn't throw him a life ring if he was drownin' in the river. But I'd help Angel . . . and she needs to get this mess settled once and for all and get on with her life, so there!"

  The housekeeper set her broom against the house, sat down in the swing and smiled.

  Angel was on her knees in the fenced enclosure at the far east side of the little cemetery, when she looked up and saw him standing just outside the gate. "What in hell are you doing here?" she demanded. "Get out right now, Clancy. I mean it with all my heart, soul, and mind. Get out of my life."

  "No. We're going to talk," he said slowly. "We can do it over dinner tonight. We can do it right here. You name the place. Is this where your grandmother is buried?" He read the name on the center granite stone, Dorothy June Conrad, 1912-1991, then turned and read the one to her right, John Herman Conrad, 1910-1960. Before he could look at the one to the left, Angel was standing in front of the tombstone, shielding it.

  "I'm not talking to you. Not today or ever," she declared.

  "What happened, Angel? Did you marry someone? Did you have our baby and give it away or did you keep it? God, I thought you'd embarrass me and tell everyone in Tishomingo it was mine, but you didn't. Then you were gone and I was so relieved . . . but now—"

  "But now what?" She tried to will the tears to dry up, but they dripped down her cheeks.

  "I want to know what happened. Angel, give me some answers."

  She stepped to one side and sat down on the park bench beside the third tombstone. "There is your answer," she whispered.

  And he read out loud, "Clancy Morgan Conrad, March 18, 1988."

  "Your son was stillborn. Eight pounds, and so beautiful he would take your breath away, but he couldn't live—not any more than your love for me could live. Now you've got your answers, so go away, Clancy Morgan, and leave me alone," she said through clenched teeth.

  Four

  "Good mornin'," Patty greeted Angel when she opened the door to her office. "Have a good weekend?" She tossed her long, straight brown hair over her shoulder and opened another letter with a silver dagger.

  "Had a helluva weekend." Angel took her sunglasses off, revealing red and swollen eyes. "I've cried buckets and buckets and Hilda has used every cuss word she knows both in English and Spanish."

  "What happened?" Patty's brown eyes were round as saucers.

  "Call the rest of the girls for a meeting in my office," Angel said, adding, "Just us, not the rest of the board." She opened the heavy double doors into her private office and poured steaming, hot coffee into a mug with the Conrad Oil Enterprises logo on the side. Bless Patty's heart, she was more than the best secretary in the world. She was also a good friend and she made powerful coffee.

  "Okay," the five of them said in unison as they trooped into the office and pulled up chairs around the long conference table.

  "Clancy followed the bus from Davis to Denison, and then he followed me across the river to Hendrix. I stopped the car and pointed my gun right at his nose, and I thought he'd turned around. But he kept after me all the way to the farm," she said dryly.

  "Damn! Then what?" Patty asked.

  "He followed me to the cemetery and now he knows everything," Angel told them. "I asked him to leave and never come back. After I showed him his son's tombstone, he hung his head and walked away. When I got back to my house, he wasn't there. So why the hell did I spend the whole weekend crying my stupid eyes out? He did just exactly what I told him to do."

  Angel looked around the table at the faithful friends who had stood by her for all these years. They had all come a long way since she'd met Allie in the university library ten years ago this fall. Angel had been five months pregnant with Clancy's baby, and working on a geology assignment. The two young women became instant friends.

  Before long Allie had introduced her to the rest of the gang, and every one of them had cried with Angel when the baby was stillborn.

  Now, every one of her friends knew for a certainty that if their boss didn't get Clancy Morgan out of her heart, she would never be able to lead a full life.

  After all, Angel almost never dated. The few times she had, she had turned tail and run when the fellow began to get the least bit serious.

  "Damn him!" Mindy swore. "Just when I thought I had you on the right track. Just when you were starting to do some serious dating. Why did he have to come back in the picture now? Lord, we haven't got time for this. We've got a wedding to plan for Bonnie and a divorce for me to get through, and Lord knows Susan is going to wake up someday and say yes to Richie. Seems like he asks her to marry him at least once a week."

  "And I'm pregnant," Allie said bluntly. "Guess there ain't no time like the present to announce it. We seem to be having a group confession."

  "Well, hallelujah." Angel smiled and her eyes began to twinkle. "I'm glad to hear that. You aren't goin' to quit work, are you?"

  "Hell, no. Next to you, I'm the best damn geologist in the great state of Texas and I'm not even thinkin' about quitting work. I'll
strap my baby on my back and tell those drillers how to do their jobs, and my kid can grow up knowing everything there is to know about oil wells," she said. "But what are you goin' to do if he comes back again? He knows where you live and where your company is," Allie said.

  "I don't know. I thought it was all behind me. I thought I could go back to that alumni banquet, strut my stuff, show off the band and leave feeling fine, but it didn't work that way. The minute I saw him my insides turned to jelly and that old ache was right back in my heart," Angel told them. "I just wanted you all to know the situation up front. I may be an old bear these next few days, but it doesn't mean I'm upset with any of you. And I don't know if he'll come walking through the door at any time, and I'm not so sure I want to see him if he does. One part of me still wants to kiss him and the other part wants to watch him die a slow and gruesome death."

  "If you want to watch him die, I won't let him past my part of the building." Susan gave her the thumbs-up sign. "Don't worry. First office is my territory. If he gets past me and my big, old double-barreled shotgun, then Mindy can head him off at the pass."

  "Sure." Mindy nodded. "I'm in a bad situation. You know this divorce stuff is for the birds. I've decided sex is a misdemeanor. The more I miss, de meaner I get. Clancy Morgan better not try to sweet talk his way past my office or he'll find out he's dealin' with PMS and abstinence all at the same time. Don't worry, we'll toss him out of the second-floor window on his handsome face, and by then your insides won't turn to jelly when you look at him."

  Angel laughed and shook her head. It seemed like such a big mountain this morning, but the girls were whittling it down to the molehill it really was. "You're good for me," she said. "Guess we better dry our tears and run this oil business now. The big boys would just love to see me blubbering over a lost love, wouldn't they? They said I'd never make it in a man's world, but I've got you all. Six of us can outdo the work of a hundred men."

  "Hell, one of us can outdo that many," Patty swore. "We'll manage, Angel. We've lived through marriages and rumors of marriages, war and peace, and I betcha this don't keep the sun from coming up, either."

  Angel went back to her office and turned on her computer. It was time to get out of the rut she'd allowed herself to wallow in for the past two days, and to get back to work. That's what she needed—good, complicated, exhausting work to erase Clancy Morgan's face from her mind.

  By noon she'd argued with the board of directors, had a meeting with Mindy concerning the wording on a multimillion-dollar contract, and met with Susan about advertising in The Daily Oklahoman. The phone rang, and Patty answered, "Conrad Oil Enterprises. May I help you?"

  "Whoops." She put her hand over the receiver and pressed the intercom button into Angel's office. "Guess Susan is out to lunch. Seems like the monster has gotten past her double-barreled shotgun."

  "What?" Angel whispered back.

  "It's Clancy on the phone," Patty said. "Want me to tell him to drop dead or that I'm putting a contract out on his hide? How about I tell him you've left for a month on your honeymoon?"

  "I'll talk to him," Angel said. "I hope he's been as miserable as I have."

  "Yeah, for a whole weekend," Patty said sarcastically. "That isn't ten years, you know."

  Angel frowned at Patty and shut the door between their offices.

  "Hello, Clancy."

  "Angela?" His voice sounded weary.

  "Yes, this is Angel," she said.

  "I owe you one helluva an apology. I'm so sorry. I'm miserable from it all, and I don't even know what to say. I've been a jackass and there's no excuse for what I did back then. I was just a scared kid and . . ." he stammered.

  "And what?" she said. "Am I supposed to forgive you? Will that make you leave me alone?"

  "I don't deserve your forgiveness, Angela," he said in a broken voice. "I don't deserve anything from you. I was prepared to meet a little kid that might look like me, or for you to tell me you'd given it away to a couple who couldn't have children. I would like to talk to you in person and then I promise I'll get out of your life and never bother you again."

  "Is that a real promise or one of those like you used to make?" she asked.

  "It's real, and it's coming from a broken heart," he said. "Can I meet you or pick you up for dinner?"

  "Sure," she said. "If you'll promise you'll never, ever call me again. You can pick me up right here in my office at five o'clock this afternoon. But you'll have to be seen with me in public this time, since I don't think we've got time to go to Pennington Creek like we used to."

  "I'll be there," he said tersely.

  She punched the intercom and said, "Patty, tell Susan and all the girls to hold their fire. Clancy is coming at five o'clock and I don't want a single shot in him when he gets to my office. When he walks in, Susan is to meet him at the door and take him back down the hall. . . Mindy gets him there, and you know the rest. I want him to see every office and talk to every one of us before he gets up here. We're going to settle this thing, and I'm going to get him out of my life and my heart tonight. When the sun comes up tomorrow, Clancy Morgan is going to be forgotten as far as I'm concerned."

  Patty hid a smile. She'd be willing to bet her brand new pickup against a wagonload of horse manure that by tomorrow Clancy would still be swaggering around looking like a million dollars, and by the end of the month, Angel would have a mended heart.

  At five o'clock, he pushed the door open to the first floor, and Susan met him with a fake smile plastered on her face. "Mr. Morgan, I believe. Welcome to Conrad Oil Enterprises, Incorporated. My name's Susan. I'm in charge of PR and advertising. Maybe you remember me from the alumni concert we gave last week. I play the fiddle." She stuck out her hand and shook his firmly, hoping to intimidate him.

  "Who died and left this company to Angela?" he asked bluntly.

  "No one," Susan said "Follow me, please. Angel is a top-notch geologist, and she knows as much about the oil business as anyone. She majored in geology and minored in business and she's a hell cat on wheels when it comes to making deals. She played a hunch right out of college and drilled a well on the property she inherited from her grandmother. People all told her she was crazy. There wasn't any oil in that part of the state. But she ignored them and bet every last cent she had on a hunch. It paid off, and then she invested the money wisely and, in a few months, she owned her own company. When the Texanna Red Oil Company wanted to move their base to Louisiana, they offered to sell this building to her, and she bought it."

  "Hello, Mr. Morgan." Mindy met him at the open door to her part of the building. "These are our director's and lawyers' offices. Follow me, please. By the way, I want you to keep in mind that I could shoot you between the eyes and enjoy watching you die a slow and painful death," she said, in the same matter-of-fact tone she would've used to order a tunafish sandwich for lunch. "You've made Angel miserable and she's my best friend."

  "I realize that, Mindy," he said. "Am I going to have to talk to everyone in Conrad Oil before I get to her?"

  "Yup. That's the only way you get to the top in one piece and alive," she said. "Angel takes care of us all, and we take care of her. So you better watch your step or I'll dream up some crazy lawsuit to bedevil you with," she added sweetly.

  Clancy just nodded.

  "Hello, Clancy." Allie met him at the top of the stairs on the second floor. "So you're the infamous rich boy who—"

  "Nice to meet you, too." He gritted his teeth. "This is ridiculous."

  "But necessary," Allie said firmly. "Shall we continue the tour? This is the geology department, where we decide when, if, and where to drill. Angel spends a lot of time here since she's the only geologist in the whole state of Texas who has better intuition than I do. There's been times when my call would have netted us a million dollars worth of dry well. She's got a sixth sense when it comes to drilling. Too bad she doesn't have one when it comes to you."

  He scowled, but said nothing.

  "C
lancy Morgan, I do believe." Bonnie took over next. "I'm glad to finally meet you and I think maybe I owe you a pat on the back. If you hadn't been such a rat to Angel ten years ago, not one of us would be where we are today. She's kept us together and we love her. So say what you have to, then back out of her life."

  "If I ever get to see her," he said flatly. "I didn't know I had to run the gauntlet to reach the top floor. I thought I'd just ask where she worked, get on an elevator and find her office."

  "Well, that's what you get for depending on your own shallow thinking," she said as she opened the door marked with a brass plaque that read Angela Conrad, President. "Patty, he's all yours," she said.

  "Clancy, you S.O.B, come right in here and sit down," Patty said with a big smile. "Angel is on the phone to Maine and she'll be a little while."

  She filed the sheaf of papers she'd been typing and sat down across the desk from him. "Why did you treat her so rotten anyway?"

  "Because I was a scared eighteen-year-old kid who thought the whole world was Tishomingo, Oklahoma. I was stupid enough to believe that what people thought about me would either make or break me," he said honestly. "I've listened to all of your opinions all the way up from the bottom. Now let me ask you something. Why in the hell did she make me meet every one of you?"

  "Because every one of us were with her the night she gave birth to your son. We timed the contractions for her when she was in labor, and held her hands when it was time to push. We were her cheerleading squad when the pains were so hard they took her breath away, and we cried with her when that little boy was stillborn. We all held him in our arms one by one, and offered to kill you to make it up to her. She wouldn't let us do it.

  "So we just thought we'd get to know you, even though all she'll let us do now is walk with you from one office to the next. And if you talk your way back into her life and make her cry again, you're going to disappear—just like that. Someone might find you in six million years when they drill for oil . . . but it'll probably be a dry hole like your cold old heart."