The Heart of Hill Country

by Sherryl Woods

  He’d missed months of this. He’d been cheated of hearing his baby’s heartbeat for the first time, of seeing Angela’s body change to accommodate the child she was carrying. OK, so that was partly his fault, but she was the one who’d impetuously taken off. She was the one who’d kept on running.

  “Damn you,” he said softly.

  She stared at him in shock. Her eyes filled with hurt and confusion at the harshness of his words. “What?”

  “You’ve robbed me of so much.”

  Never one to take an accusation lightly, she scowled back at him. Temper flared in her eyes. “You had a choice,” she reminded him stiffly. “You could have reacted like a man and accepted responsibility from the beginning.”

  It was the same old story, dragging them back to square one. Clint sighed. If he were entirely honest, he’d have to admit they shared the blame. There was more than enough to go around. Even so, he couldn’t resist one last dig.

  “Is that all you expected, for me to accept responsibility? I never questioned that this was my baby. Not once. I was always under the impression what you really wanted was for me to declare my love and marry you.”

  “It’s the same thing,” she said defiantly.

  “Not quite, angel. And if you were being entirely honest, you’d admit that back then you and I were nowhere close to sorting out our feelings for each other. You didn’t even trust me enough to tell me the truth about who you were.”

  Her lips compressed into an angry line before she snapped, “Don’t talk to me about honesty, Clint Brady. You’ve never once owned up to what you’re really doing here.”

  He went absolutely still at the unspoken accusation behind the words. “Meaning?”

  “Just how did you find out who I was and where to find me? Was finding out that I came from a wealthy family enough to drag you down here after me?”

  She had hinted at as much earlier, but Clint still couldn’t believe his ears. The unfairness of her charge apparently never crossed her mind. Quick-tempered retorts came into his head, but he knew if he spoke even one of them, ugly words would start flying fast and furiously. Their tempers had always been their downfall. There was no such thing as a quiet, rational conversation between Hattie and him over even a small difference of opinion. They shouted whatever came to mind at full volume.

  When the dust settled, there were always hurt feelings and fences to mend. He suspected it was the one area in life that didn’t improve with practice. He suspected the cuts just went deeper and the fences grew harder and harder to mend. Maybe it was time to break the cycle and find a new way of getting along. Since he didn’t have an imagination vivid enough to figure out how to do that on the spur of the moment, he decided some distance was called for.

  “Go back inside, Angela,” he said abruptly, backing away from her. “It’s too damned cold for you to be out here.”

  “I will not,” she said, digging in her heels literally and regarding him with fire in her eyes. “You don’t make decisions for me.”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake, can’t you do one thing because it’s sensible and stop worrying about the fact that the suggestion came out of my mouth?”

  With that he scooped her up in his arms and headed for the house. After a moment of stunned silence, she blistered the air with protests loud enough to wake the dead. Half the family was standing in the kitchen watching by the time he deposited her unceremoniously on her feet inside the door. Thank heaven no one laughed or she probably would have grabbed the carving knife lying in plain sight by the turkey and come after them.

  He turned on his heel, then, and struck off for a very long walk. He glanced at the sky, hoping for signs of an impending blizzard. He’d figured no less than a foot of snow was likely to cool his temper anytime tonight.

  He’d been walking for the better part of an hour, his face chilled, his hands jammed into his pockets, the wind cutting through his coat, when he saw Luke Adams walking slowly in his direction. He had the feeling Angela’s father would either go or stay at a signal from him. He gave the older man a curt nod that was apparently accepted as welcome enough.

  “I suppose you’ll be wanting me to leave now,” he said eventually.

  He thought he caught a glimpse of Luke’s smile in the moonlight.

  “Not unless you want to,” Angela’s father said. “You’re going to have to make up your own mind what the best solution is to this. You and Angela. If you decide to stay, we’ll welcome you. If you decide to go, we’ll look out for Angela and the baby.”

  “And hate my guts for the rest of your days,” Clint concluded.

  “Hating is a waste of time and energy,” Luke said.

  He said it with such passionate conviction that Clint stared at him. “You ever hated anyone?”

  “Myself for a long time,” Luke said candidly. “My father for a bit.”

  The response stunned Clint. If Luke could hate a man like Harlan Adams, then there was no word for the depth of his own feelings toward his father. “You hated your father? How’d that happen?”

  Deeply felt sorrow seemed to etch new lines in Luke’s rugged face. “I figured between us we killed my brother,” he explained, echoing the story that Angela had told Clint earlier. “I also resented the hell out of the fact that he was trying to control my life. Jessie was the one who made me see that the only thing in life that really counts is family. When you love people, you work out your differences, no matter how difficult it is or how long it takes. I was never a big talker, so it was always harder for me.”

  “I know what you mean,” Clint said. “I always figured actions ought to speak loudly enough.”

  “I’d say yours do,” Luke said with a grin. “They were loud and clear earlier tonight.”

  “Sorry,” Clint apologized again. “That woman can make me angry quicker than you can set off a rocket on the Fourth of July.”

  “So I noticed, but that wasn’t what fascinated me so.”

  “Oh?”

  “What I saw was a man who cared enough about a woman to make sure she was in out of the cold, even when he was mad enough to throttle her. That’s the kind of man I could respect.” He gave Clint a direct look. “It’s something to think about, isn’t it?”

  Before Clint could respond, Luke headed for the barn and left him with nothing but his thoughts for company.

  At least there was one member of the Adams clan that didn’t think he was here with an ulterior motive, he concluded bitterly. Too bad it wasn’t Angela.

  Where she’d gotten the nut-brained idea that he was after the Adams fortune was beyond him. He hadn’t even known she had a dime to her name when he’d traced her to Dallas and met Betsy. If he was an ambitious, money-hungry kind of man, would he have been scrambling to make ends meet on a broken-down ranch in Montana? There were far easier ways to make a buck.

  He just happened to love ranching. He liked the exhausting work and the never-ending challenges and the intellectual stimulation of figuring out how to better his herd from year to year. It might never make him rich, but fulfillment was all he was after. It was enough to have something of his own, something he could take pride in. If Angela hadn’t seen that much in their months together, then she hadn’t really known him at all. And it was damned sure he hadn’t known her.

  * * *

  “Well, that was certainly humiliating,” Angela said, when she’d finally calmed down enough to speak. Most of the family had discreetly slipped away, leaving her in the kitchen with two of her cousins and Consuela.

  “I thought it was romantic,” Sharon Lynn said with huge eyes and an exaggerated sigh.

  Sharon Lynn was less than a year younger than Angela, but she’d stayed in Los Pinos her whole life, surrounded by family, content with running Eli Dolan’s Drugstore, where her mother had once worked and where her mother and Cody had carried on much of their high
ly irregular and high-volume courtship. Maybe that explained why she thought that Clint’s he-man act was so romantic. She wasn’t worldly enough or liberated enough to know better.

  “You want him, you can have him,” Angela snapped.

  Her cousin laughed. “Not on your life. I’m not wasting my energy chasing after a man who’s already hooked.”

  “Besides, she already has eyes for Kyle Mason,” Dani said. She gave Angela a sympathetic look. “Are you OK?”

  “Just peachy.”

  Dani, who was now a veterinarian in town, urged Angie toward the kitchen table. “Sit down. Your hands are like ice.” She glanced around the kitchen until her gaze found Consuela. “Could you make her some tea, please?”

  Angela accepted the tea and the solicitude. Dani hadn’t been born an Adams. She’d been adopted by Jordan when he and her mother, Kelly Flint, had married. She was older than Angela by four years, but it seemed to Angela that something had changed in her cousin.

  Angela studied her intently, trying to figure out what it was exactly. Once exuberant and outgoing, Dani now seemed shy and quiet, even as she managed to take charge of the situation. Obviously her veterinary training had enabled her to cope well with unexpected emergencies, but there was a vulnerability about her that was out of character.

  When she handed the cup of tea to Angela, her worried gaze shifted away the instant Angela made eye contact with her. Angela put the cup on the table and caught her cousin’s hand. “You OK?”

  Dani’s responding smile seemed forced. “Hey, you’re the patient, not me.”

  “It must be nice having a patient who can tell you what’s wrong for a change,” she teased. “I’m just cold. It’ll pass.” She sobered and added quietly, “There’s something else going on with you.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m perfectly fine.”

  Sharon Lynn stepped in and circled an arm protectively around Dani’s waist. She met Angela’s gaze evenly. “Let it go,” she said quietly, but firmly.

  Angela was taken aback by the fierce joining of forces. The cousins had all been close growing up. There’d been no way around it, with family gatherings as common as Texas bluebonnets in summer. They’d never taken sides back then. In fact, the girls had all been amazingly compatible, practically as close as sisters. Had things changed since she’d been gone? Was she now viewed as an outsider? Were there secrets that would never be shared with her?

  “I’m sorry if I pushed,” she apologized.

  Dani gave her hand a quick squeeze. “Don’t worry about it.” Her expression turned briskly professional and her gaze warmed. “How are you feeling now? Better?”

  “I’m warmer,” she said.

  “But still unsettled,” Dani guessed. “Clint strikes me as the kind of man who could keep a woman unsettled.”

  “He is a royal pain in the—”

  “Whoops,” Sharon Lynn said with a laugh. “Don’t get her started again. There won’t be enough chamomile tea on earth to calm her down.”

  “Maybe you should go upstairs and rest,” Dani said.

  “No,” Angela protested.

  “A few more weeks and you’ll be begging for rest,” Dani warned.

  “Not with me around,” Consuela said. “I cannot wait to hold this child in my arms. Angela will have to fight me for a chance to take care of the little one.”

  “You’re still spoiled rotten, I see,” Sharon Lynn said to Angela, even as she reached up and squeezed Consuela’s hand. She eyed her cousin speculatively. “Have you ever actually held a job?”

  “Don’t be mean,” Dani said.

  The familiar bickering made Angela smile, even though she was the butt of the teasing. “Actually, I’ve held quite a few jobs.”

  “Couldn’t keep one, huh?” Sharon Lynn taunted.

  “You just wait until this baby is born. I’ll take over the soda fountain for you one day and my milk shakes will have the residents of Los Pinos weeping.”

  “Have you ever actually worked a soda fountain?” Dani inquired skeptically.

  “No, but I worked a bar. How different can it be?”

  “My customers are sober,” Sharon Lynn pointed out. “They know what they’re getting.”

  Angela grinned at her. “Oh, how I’ve missed you two. Nobody could ever put me in my place the way you do.”

  “Not even Clint?” Sharon Lynn asked.

  The back door slammed open just then, caught by the wind as Clint tried to enter. “Not even Clint what?” he asked, his gaze fixed on her.

  “Not a thing,” Sharon Lynn said.

  “See you,” Dani said, dragging her cousin out of the room.

  Consuela snatched up a silver coffee service and slipped out behind them.

  “Et tu, Brute?” Angela muttered.

  “I do not know this Brute,” Consuela said, then leaned down to whisper, “Talk to the man, niña. Do not stop talking until you have reached an understanding. ¿Si?”

  Angela glanced up into Clint’s stormy eyes and shuddered. She had the distinct impression that quiet conversation was the last thing on his mind.

  8

  “Are you planning to apologize?” Angela asked Clint, figuring that a preemptive strike was called for.

  “Me? You were the one throwing insults around,” Clint shot right back, his blue eyes as stormy as a hurricane-tossed sea.

  “Maybe we should take turns,” she suggested cheerfully. “I’ll apologize for making disparaging insinuations about your character, and you can apologize for being a dyed-in-the-wool macho jerk.”

  His gaze narrowed at the deliberate insult. “You’re not off to a very promising start with that apology.”

  “Sorry.” She smiled. “Best I can do.”

  “Let me get this straight. Are you admitting that you know perfectly well that I’m not after the family fortune?”

  She thought about that for a minute. It was apparently about fifty-nine seconds too long, judging by the increasingly furious expression on his face. His righteous indignation did carry some weight with her. He’d never been an especially good actor. His emotions were always right out there in plain view. If he’d ever lied to her, she was pretty sure she would have known it. Of course, he’d probably thought the same of her. Maybe both of them were just plain lousy at character assessment.

  “OK, I admit it,” she said eventually.

  He regarded her skeptically. “Say it like you mean it, angel.”

  “I know you didn’t come here because of my family’s money,” she said solemnly.

  “Mind telling me who sowed that idea in your head in the first place?”

  Now that was tricky turf. She didn’t want him to realize that her grandfather had been speculating about his honesty. They seemed to have built a good rapport in a very short time. She didn’t want to force Clint’s pride to kick in. It would destroy that relationship before it ever got a decent chance.

  She bit back a sigh. No matter how she fibbed to herself about wanting Clint to back off and leave, the truth was she liked having him here, liked seeing him slowly becoming a part of the family. Getting along with Grandpa Harlan was a huge part of that. Perhaps her grandfather had had his doubts about Clint, but she wanted to believe Clint could prove to him there had been no merit to those doubts.

  “It was just the only thing I could come up with to explain your persistence,” she told him, skirting the truth by a wide margin.

  He studied her intently for some time, then shook his head. “I never thought I’d say this, especially given recent evidence to the contrary, but you’re a terrible liar, angel. If you came up with that notion all on your own, then I’m Billy the Kid.”

  The irony of the remark wasn’t lost on her. “I guess I used to be more convincing, huh?”

  “Much more convincing,” he agreed. “So, ’fess
up. Who was it?”

  She debated lying again, then decided there wasn’t any point to it. He was the kind of man who’d nag at it and sooner or later, he’d figure out the truth. Maybe it would be better if she told him. She settled for an explanation that was true as far as it went and left her grandfather out of it.

  “Janet, actually.”

  “Janet,” he repeated, his expression more thoughtful than furious. “I should have known. Was she advising you to protect yourself from my greedy clutches?”

  “Something like that.”

  “She was just thinking like an attorney, I suppose.”

  “Exactly.”

  His gaze clashed with hers. “Unless your grandfather was the one who put the idea into her head. Was he?”

  “Does it really matter?” Angela asked hurriedly. “The bottom line is Janet was looking out for my best interests the way any good attorney would.”

  “Did she want you to insist on a prenuptial agreement?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “Not a bad idea,” he said calmly enough, though his eyes were once again turbulent. “Did you agree?”

  “We’re not getting married so what’s the point?” she retorted.

  “Let’s just say we were, would you want the agreement?”

  “Yes,” she said instinctively, then hastily retracted it. “No. Dammit, Clint, I don’t know what makes sense.”

  “You really don’t trust me, do you?” he asked, sounding more defeated than angry.

  “Do you trust me?” she shot back.

  His grin was rueful. “Maybe not, but there’s one big difference, darlin’. I’ve never betrayed you the way you betrayed me. I may have been a fool back in Montana, I may not have responded to your announcement the way you’d been expecting, but I have never betrayed you or lied to you. I accepted you at face value. Apparently you can’t say the same.”

  She swallowed hard against the tide of hurt that washed over her at his charge. She couldn’t deny it, either. He was right. He had far more reason to distrust her than she did him.