Page 28 of The Cowboy Who Worked Late
Something inside her crumpled, as if someone had picked up an empty plastic water bottle, smashed it flat, and then pulled it back to normal. She blinked a couple of times, the few tears that had gathered in her eyes going right back in. “I haven’t hugged my mother like that in a long time,” she said. “Sure feels nice.”
Chelsea pressed one hand over her heart and said, “I’ll pray for your mama too.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Angel said, and then she turned to follow Henry before she could start crying again. Strangely, as she left through the side door, she didn’t feel like crying. She didn’t feel like even talking about her mother would push her over the edge. She didn’t feel like she was about to lose her mama the way she had many times in the past.
She’d texted both of her parents by now. After all, she’d been off the ranch for forty-eight hours, and they needed to know shewas alive and okay, doing well. She’d sent them some pictures of her and Nevaeh, she’d had Henry take some pictures of them playing with the ball, and she’d sent those as well. They both responded positively and said that the ranch was doing fine. They missed her and they’d see her when she got back.
When she got in the passenger seat, she pulled out her phone and texted her daddy.We’re on the way, should be there within the hour.
Henry put the food in the backseat and then climbed in behind the wheel. “Everything all right?”
“Yep.” She looked up, turned toward him, and gave him a full smile. “I really like your mom and dad. Thank you for inviting me this weekend.”
“Anytime, Angel,” he said easily, and Angel could tell he absolutely meant it. “You know the way now. You can come anytime you want.”
She scoffed and looked away as he put the truck in reverse to back out of the driveway. “I’m not going to come without you,” she said.
“Oh, are we going to talk about that?” he asked, his voice pitching up all innocent when it wasn’t innocent at all.
“Talk about what?”
“Oh, come on,” he said. “Are you going to do that?”
She gave a light laugh and shook her head. “I suppose we should talk about it.”
“Why don’t you defineitfor me?” he said.
“Why don’tyoudefineitforme?” she fired back.
“Holding hands,” he said. “How about that? How about you hugging me, telling me thank you twenty-five times a day, saying how much you liked my family? I mean, if we’d been dating, if we’d gone to dinner a few times, and maybe I’d kissed you, this could be the weekend I took you home to meet them. Like it was for Libby, bringing her boyfriend home to meet her family.”
Angel had known Henry for a long time, a couple of years now at least. He’d done a summer internship two summers ago, and he’d been an apprentice at Lone Star for almost a year. She’d known him before that too, as her father had done quite a bit of training at the farrier academy Henry attended, and she’d gone with him several times.
“I see your point,” she acknowledged. “But we haven’t gone to dinner a bunch of times. We haven’t gone to the movies. We haven’t kissed.”
“Well, technically the last one isn’t true.”
She could hear the smile in his voice, and she didn’t even need to look over at him to see it. Oh, that blasted kiss. If only Angel didn’t think about it every night before she went to bed.
“You know what I mean,” she said.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he said. “Because trust me, when I kiss you for real, we’re both going to know it, and we’re going to know what it means.”
She whipped her attention to him now. “You think you’re going to kiss me again?”
“I’d like to,” he said in a brave, bold voice. “I think the rule about no dating at Lone Star is a little antiquated. And I think you have the power to change it. Your daddy’s not in charge anymore. He doesn’t have to deal with any of the drama at Lone Star. You do. And if you’re the one dating, it’s your drama.”
He gripped the wheel hard, released it, and turned to go around the corner that would lead them back to the highway. Angel watched the landscape. It wasn’t all that different than at Lone Star.
“I can also see that point,” she said. “But you know my daddy, right? You’ve talked to him lots of times.”
“Yes,” Henry said. And he had a guardedness in his voice, which meant he knew exactly what Angel was going to say next.
“He’s not the easiest man to convince to do something he doesn’t want to do,” she said.
“I can see that,” Henry said. “But you’ve made new rules since you’ve been in charge.”
“Yes,” Angel said. “And each one of them took hours of consultation with my father.” She crossed her arms across her middle, hoping that she wouldn’t say too much. “I love Daddy,” she said. “I love him with my whole heart. He is a frustrating and irritating man to work with sometimes, but whenever I have a problem, I go to him and I talk it out. He never leads me wrong.”
