Phineas whipped out his notebook before he asked, “As dark as yours?”
“No. I think they were brown.”
“Any scars or distinguishing marks?”
“Not that I recall.”
“What about her age or nationality?”
“She was young and pretty.”
“All mothers are pretty to their five-year-olds. Did she speak with an accent maybe?”
“If she did, then I would have, too, so I wouldn’t have noticed a difference, now would—?” Angel paused, looking slightly abashed. “Now that you mention it, I recall Old Bear said I talked funny when he first took me. ‘Course, he butchered the English language himself, so maybe I didn’t.”
“Then,” Phineas added, bringing back Angel’s scowl. “But, of course, you’re a product of your upbringing, which I imagine was quite primitive.”
“I don’t have any problem making myself understood,” Angel said in clear warning.
Phineas chuckled. “I don’t imagine you do. Guns always do speak louder than words.” And then he got back to the subject. “Now, my first guess would have been that, with your coloring, you’re part Indian, but you don’t really have the bone structure for it, and that mountain man would have known enough Indian not to remark on it if you spoke one of the dialects. My second guess is you’re Spanish, possibly pure. At any rate, the likelihood that she was a foreigner will help narrow down my questioning if I can’t locate any old newspapers.”
“You really think in a city this size that the disappearance of one kid would have been mentioned in a newspaper?”
“Absolutely. The problem will be finding one that keeps old issues. Most can’t afford the storage space, though some of those make an effort to at least keep their front pages. Then, too, news printers come and go just like other businesses. But like you said, this is a large city and has been for a very long time, so with any luck, there will be at least one paper that’s been around for the last twenty or so years.”
“And with my luck, that won’t be the one that keeps old issues.”
“You’re feeling unlucky these days?” Angel just grunted, causing Phineas to laugh. “Well, your luck’s about to change. This is one of my easier assignments. It’s tracking people with unlawful reasons not to be found that is time-consuming. This case won’t take any time at all.”
Angel wasn’t going to hold his breath. “If you do find ‘em, bring the bill to me. I’m not going to owe another debt to that woman I married.”
“I doubt she’ll appreciate that. She seemed to be looking forward to finding them for you.”
“Too bad.”
“But there’s a matter of ethics involved. She did hire me first.”
“Then I’m firing you on her behalf and hiring you on mine. Last I heard, a husband can still do that.”
“Up until he’s a divorced husband he can.”
“Get out, Kirby.”
Phineas was chuckling as he left. Angel slammed the door shut behind him. A few moments later, though, it hit him, forcefully, that Cassie was actually here in the city, probably no more than a few blocks away— and his damn body reacted to that knowledge with a vengeance.
Chapter 32
“Are we divorced yet?”
Cassie woke with a start, that soft drawl echoing in her ears. “What?”
“Are we divorced yet?”
She knew instantly who he was, she just couldn’t believe he was there. “Angel?”
His hand slipped into her hair as his body moved to cover hers. “Just answer the question, Cassie.”
“We’re not.”
“Are you—?”
“No!” she quickly assured him. “I just haven’t had the time—”
His mouth came down to cut off the rest of her explanation. Obviously, he wasn’t interested in her excuses just now. But what he was interested in was bundled up in warm flannel.
“How come you don’t sleep naked?”
It was a question born of frustration, not one for a lady to take seriously. Cassie answered anyway. “I do in the summertime.”
He groaned, knowing full well an image of her naked was going to haunt him now. And his tongue slid in deep, eliciting an answering groan out of Cassie. It was a while before they drew breath.
“You got the sweetest, softest lips I ever did taste,” he said against them.
“Your voice makes me tingle, Angel.”
“What does my mouth do to you?”
“It makes me weak.”
His mouth moved up to suck on her earlobe. “What else?”
“Hot,” she whispered.
“Oh, God, Cassie, I’m going to burst if I can’t get inside you right now.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
He laughed and kissed her again. Then he rolled to her side to shove the covers off her. She tore the top of her nightgown open, popping off three buttons in her impatience to get it off. He yanked his shirt out of his pants and sent his buttons to join hers on the bed and the floor. In seconds he was back, pressing her into the mattress. Her arms and legs wrapped around him, locking him in place. And then he was inside, deep inside, and that familiar throbbing came so quickly, bursting on her senses, pulsing around him, drawing his own climax to mesh with hers.
Cassie lowered her legs slowly. Her toes slid against leather. Angel was still wearing his boots, and his pants. She wanted to laugh, but she felt like crying.
God, how she hated the reality that surfaced after the passion was spent. She wished just once it would stay away for a while. But that was like asking winter to go away in January. Both were there to stay.
She resented that. She resented Angel, too, at the moment. And she particularly resented the fact that he hadn’t taken off his boots.
She let him know it with the curt admonishment, “Next time take off your boots.”
“Is Marabelle here?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll take them off now.”
“No, you won’t. You aren’t staying.”
“I’m not ready to leave yet, Cassie. And that was too intense. We’re going to try it again, slow and easy.”
Her stomach fluttered in response to those words. She suppressed the feeling.
“No, we aren’t,” she told him stiffly. “You’re going to get out of here before my mama hears you and comes charging in with her gun blazing.”
“Where is she?”
“In the next room.”
“Then we’ll have to be quiet, won’t we?”
“Angel—”
His mouth was back, slanting across hers with tantalizing skill. She couldn’t let that work this time. She couldn’t.
She did. She’d missed him too much, wanted him too much, to be sensible about it. And there had been the thought, haunting her ever since he’d ridden out of her life, that she’d never know his touch again.
Now his touch was breaking the last of her resistance with a slow sweep of his hand over her breasts and belly. Gooseflesh followed in its wake; nipples tingled to hardness. She’d just had the most incredible explosion of pleasure imaginable, but her body was firing up to experience it again. And in no way did Angel hurry her toward that end. He’d said slow and easy, and that was exactly how he proceeded.
Before he was done, Cassie was sure he knew her body better than she did. No inch of her had been left untouched. He even turned her over at one point to lick his way down the center of her back. His teeth scraped over her buttocks, bringing a startled giggle from her as she was reminded of Marabelle’s habit. His tongue traced circles on the back of her knees. She never knew how many sensitive spots there were on her body. He found them all, her moans and shivers of pleasure guiding him, while his hands slipped beneath her to tease the more common areas of sensitivity.
It was nearly dawn before Angel finally got his fill of her. Cassie was too sated to feel any more resentment. And he’d been right. The first time had been over with too quickly.
The rest... Lord love him, the man was as good at loving as he was with a gun.
She wanted nothing more at the moment than to fall into blissful sleep, but she didn’t dare until Angel was gone. Only he seemed in no hurry to leave, and she didn’t have the strength left to urge him to go.
He lay stretched out beside her, his arms crossed under his head, his eyes closed, but she know he wasn’t sleeping. There was the barest trace of a smile on his lips. She wondered about that for only a moment. He was the very picture of a man well satisfied, after all, so why shouldn’t he be smiling? He’d gotten his way—in everything. And she couldn’t begrudge him that. She felt like smiling herself. Until reality intruded—again.
She was back to facing the possibility of pregnancy, and another delay in getting a divorce. She wouldn’t mind that so much if she didn’t have to explain the delay to her mother. That wasn’t going to be easy. The very thought of it ruined her pleasant lethargy. And misery loved company, so she was quick to ruin Angel’s, too.
“You know I’ll have to wait again now, before I can get a divorce.”
His shoulders moved in a slight shrug. “What’s another month?”
He wanted the divorce. How dared he sound indifferent about when they got it?
But he wasn’t finished. “Why didn’t you start the process already?”
“I’ve been too busy.”
He turned to look at her then. “Too busy to sever our ties? You should have found the time, honey. Leaving me with rights that I can’t resist taking isn’t doing either one of us any good.”
Now he sounded annoyed. Cassie grew defensive. “What are you doing here, Angel?”
“Now, that was going to be my question,” he replied. “Why aren’t you home by now, tucked away on your ranch where I can’t get to you?”
He’d managed to “get” to her tonight, which reminded her. “And that’s another thing. Just how did you get in my room tonight?”
“I get my answers first, Cassie.”
“Why?”
“Because last I looked, I was bigger and stronger than you—and the husband always gets his answers first.”
He sounded altogether too smug for her to take that lying down. “Where’d you hear that nonsense?”
“You mean it isn’t true?”
“Not in any family I know of, but particularly not in mine.”
“You’re talking about your mama, but you’re nothing like her.”
“I can be if I put my mind to it.”
His answer was a doubting grin and a finger that came over to flick at her nose. “Your lying hasn’t improved lately, has it?”
Cassie gritted her teeth. “You’ve only seen me dealing with people I’ve wronged. You haven’t seen me deal with people who wrong me.”
“Like me, Cassie?” he asked softly.
She could feel the heat climbing up her cheeks. “If I’d felt you wronged me, Angel, I would have done something about it.”
“Like what?”
“You wouldn’t like my spur-of-the-moment answer, so give me a minute to think about it.”
He laughed. “I’ll concede you think you can be as formidable as your mama, so we’ll go by stubbornness instead. I can outwait you, honey, right up until your mama comes knocking on the door.”
She opened her mouth to call his bluff, but on second thought, she decided she’d better not. She didn’t want to see him and her mama squaring off again if she could help it, and he was just stubborn enough to let it happen.
“What was that question you wanted answered?” she asked with ill grace.
His expression changed abruptly, all playfulness gone. “Why aren’t you home where you belong?”
“When my mama wants to go shopping, we go shopping,” she explained with a shrug.
“In the dead of winter?”
“She figured since we were already a long way from home, a little detour wouldn’t hurt.”
“And St. Louis was her choice?”
“No, it was mine.”
“That’s what I figured. So what I want to know is, how’d I get put at the top of your meddling list?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked cautiously.
“You know exactly what I mean.”
She sat up, her eyes widening incredulously. He couldn’t know. It simply wasn’t possible ...
“How did you find out?”
“Your detective figured I could supply him with more facts than you did, so he paid me a visit tonight.”
“The man is absolutely amazing,” she remarked in awe. “To locate you in a city this size, when he didn’t even know you were here—”
“He knew,” Angel cut in sourly. “We came in on the same train.”
“Oh,” she said, a bit deflated. “Well, still—”
“Forget ‘still,’ ” Angel interrupted curtly. “Whaf d you hire him for, Cassie?”
“Because I didn’t think you’d make the effort again to find your folks yourself.”
“You don’t owe me any favors.”
“I figured I did.”
“How’s that?” he demanded. “Or are you forgetting what I took from you?”
“No,” she said quietly, her cheeks hot again. “But you aren’t aware what you did for my parents. They called a truce of sorts that night you locked them in the barn—at least, they’re talking to each other again.”
Angel snorted. Belaboring who owed whom was pointless. “Let me put it this way, Cassie. I don’t want you hiring detectives on my behalf, so I took the liberty of firing Kirby on your behalf.”
She took exception to that. “Now what’d you do that for? Don’t you want to find your folks?”
“I only want to know who they were. That’s why I’m here. But I’ll be the one to find that out. You got that?”
“But Mr. Kirby can help.”
“I’ll give you that much, which is why he works for me now, not you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t think I like your high-handedness one little bit, Angel.”
“Too bad.”
“And what do you mean, you only want to know who they were? You are going to go and see them, aren’t you, when you find out where they are?”
“No.”
That answer so surprised her, her irritation with him dissolved instantly. “Why not?”
“Because we’re nothing but strangers. I don’t remember my father. I barely remember my mother. I doubt I’d even recognize her. And it’s not as if she raised me.”
“She nurtured you for five or six years.”
“And then lost me.”
She heard the bitterness, loud and clear. “You blame her for that? That old man took you up in the mountains where no one could find you. Your mama was probably out of her mind with grief—”
“You don’t know—”
“Neither do you,” she interrupted in return. “So find out. What can it hurt? At least let her know you didn’t die all those years ago. More than likely that’s what she ended up thinking.”
“You’re meddling again, Cassie,” he said in sharp warning. “This isn’t your concern.”
“You’re absolutely right,” she replied stiffly, her irritation back in full force. “And this isn’t your bedroom, so why don’t you get out of it?”
“Finally a suggestion I can happily agree with,” he shot back angrily as he threw off the covers and grabbed his pants from the floor. “And let me give you one in return. Get your butt home if you don’t want me using the spare key I have to this room again.”
“I’ll be gone by morning,” Cassie assured him.
“It is morning.”
“Then by afternoon.”
“Good!” he said, and leaned over to give her a hard, unexpected kiss before he swept up the rest of his things and was gone.
Cassie stared at the black bandana he’d missed in his rush to get out of there because it was half covered by the blanket. She reached down for it and raised it
to her lips, still moist from his.
She’d made him angry again, though that was nothing new. For some reason, they seemed destined to part that way. So why the kiss this time, as angry as he’d been? He’d done it without thought, like a longtime habit—like he couldn’t help himself. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure him out.
Chapter 33
Their baggage came down first and was taken out to the coach waiting to take them to the train station. Angel only made note of it because he was watching for their departure. Five minutes later, Cassie and her mother descended the stairs and went straight to the front desk to settle their bill. The mother looked like she’d take anyone’s head off who looked at her wrong. Cassie didn’t look too friendly herself. But Angel wasn’t planning on approaching them. He’d just wanted to make sure they were leaving today.
He’d waited nearly eight hours to find out. Cassie had obviously gone to sleep after he left her. He had spent the day sitting on a sofa in the lobby, watching the stairs, tired, and hungry, since he’d used all the money he had on him last night to bribe that spare key out of the desk clerk.
He’d gotten only a few hours of sleep last night before Kirby showed up at his door. He hadn’t been back to bed since—for sleeping. He hadn’t been back to his room, either, to clean up, so his cheeks were shadowed with stubble, his hair was still tangled from Cassie’s fingers, and his shirt was minus the buttons to close it with.
The management had come by twice to ask him to leave. He was frightening their guests. Two men had come by first in their fancy suits. Four had come the second time. He’d told them all the same thing. He wasn’t leaving until his wife did. Apparently they’d decided not to press it, though they’d checked the registry to verify that he had a wife there. But he wouldn’t have minded if they’d pressed it some. He was in that kind of mood.
Divided. He wanted Cassie gone, but he knew by tonight he’d wish she were still where he could get to her, instead of miles away. He was still irritated at her for meddling again, yet he wished they hadn’t parted angry with each other this time. He could rectify that right now before she left, but he wouldn’t, because it was better for her if she stayed mad at him. Then she wouldn’t waste any more time in ending their marriage.