Angel

Chapter 3

The Double C Ranch wasn’t hard to locate. If you rode due north out of town as directed, you sort of ran into it. But it wasn’t what Angel had been expecting. This far south, most ranchers took a cue from their Mexican neighbors and built the Spanish-style adobe houses that helped to ward off the worst of the summer heat.

What Angel rode up to was a two-story wooden house of mansion size in a design more common in the Northwest. A half-dozen steps led up to a porch that surrounded the lower floor and was wide enough to accommodate chairs, rockers, and even a two-seater wooden swing in each corner. A balcony with double doors that opened onto it from what he assumed were bedrooms circled the second floor of the house and shaded the porch below.

The house seemed vaguely familiar to him, as if he’d seen it before, though he’d never come this far south before. The outbuildings, or what he’d seen of them before he got this close, were spread out behind the main house, so that twenty feet from the front of the house, you couldn’t tell that this was a working ranch. Even the carriage drawn up in front was more like the fancy rigs you’d see in a large city than the smaller buckboards favored in the country.

Angel got no farther than that twenty feet when the front door opened and a black cat the size of a mountain lion was suddenly loping in his direction. He had no time to wonder where the hell it had come from — it was inconceivable that it had come from inside the house— before he was fighting to control his terrified mount and reach for his gun at the same time.

He hadn’t quite reached his gun before his hat flew off his head to the accompaniment of a shot, and he heard, “Don’t even think about it, mister.”

Angel had only seconds to make up his mind as his eyes went to the speaker to find a woman with a gun trained on him, then back to the cat, which had been somewhat arrested by the shot and wasn’t coming at him quite so quickly now. But it was still coming, and his horse was getting desperate, sidestepping, wildly tossing its head, and finally rearing up on its hind legs.

While he was fighting to keep his seat— he was damned if he was going to face that enormous animal on the ground — the woman spoke again, one word. When his horse had all four hooves back on the ground, he saw that the cat had stopped and was just sitting there now, not five feet away, looking up at him with large yellow eyes.

Marabelle, she’d said, in a tone meant to be obeyed. He hadn’t heard her wrong. Marabelle… and he did something he never did, something he couldn’t afford to do in his line of work. He got mad and showed it.

“Lady, if you don’t get that animal out of my sight immediately,” he gritted out in what was by force of habit a very moderate tone, “I won’t be responsible for what happens.”

She seemed to take exception to that, probably because she was the one holding the gun — still trained on him. “You aren’t in a position to—”

What happened took only seconds, Angel palming his gun and sending off one shot that knocked the weapon from her hand, her cry of “Son of a bitch!” as she shook her stinging fingers, the cat snarling, loudly, in response to her cry, and Angel’s horse starting to buck wildly in response to the cat’s snarl. Angel ended up in the dirt this time, the horse lit out for the next county, and the now hissing cat was no more than a foot away from him before she said it again, that one word that stopped the feline immediately. Marabelle.

He had a mind to shoot it anyway. He had a mind to shoot her, too. He couldn’t remember when he’d been so out of control of his emotions. An idiot could surmise that the cat, whatever it was, belonged to her. A pet. It had to be a pet to obey her like that. And she’d let it out to terrify his horse, terrify him, too, he didn’t doubt.

Even as angry as he was, and realizing that the cat had to be tame, or somewhat tame, he still had considerable courage to take his eyes off an animal that size that was sitting no more than a foot away, especially with him down on the ground with it, the two of them eyeball-to-eyeball. But he did it, found her again, still up on the porch, and narrowed his eyes on her.

She’d managed to retrieve her gun and was holding it in her other hand, the hand with the sore fingers squeezed between her arm and her side. It was doubtful the gun would shoot now without a visit to a gunsmith first, but she didn’t seem to think of that and was pointing the damn thing at him again.

“I’ll tell you right now that my aim’s as good as yours, mister, but I won’t have to shoot you. You move that weapon you’re holding even a quarter inch in my direction, and Marabelle will tear you to pieces.”

Whether she could hit what she aimed at was debatable. Shooting his hat off could have been deliberate, just to get his attention, or she could have been trying to kill him and missed. The second threat he didn’t doubt, however. But she had to be afraid of him to issue a double threat like that. Well, she’d seen what he was capable of. He’d disarmed her when she’d had her gun pointed right at him and his had still been holstered. And she had good reason to fear him right now, as angry as he was.

“You’re crazy if you think I’m putting my gun away with this thing breathing down my neck.” They could have had a standoff at that point, neither willing to budge an inch. In fact, several long moments of silence passed before Angel decided he’d rather get rid of the cat, so he added grudgingly, “Call it off, lady, and maybe we’ll talk.”

Her chin rose a notch. “There won’t be any talking, since you’ll be leaving. And you can tell them they had no reason to bring in a fast gun.”

“They?”

“Whichever of them hired you.”

“No one hired me, lady. Lewis Pickens sent me to—”

“Well, for God’s sake,” she cut in, and lowered her weapon. “Why didn’t you say so to begin with?” And then: “Marabelle, come here, baby. He’s harmless.”

This had to be the first time Angel had ever been called harmless since he’d reached manhood. He didn’t take exception to it. He waited to see if the animal would obey, and damned if the large head didn’t swing around to look at the woman, then the long, sleek body slowly followed as the cat ambled across the yard and went up the steps. Angel let out a sigh, but he didn’t put his gun away until the feline was inside the house.

“You can go back to the kitchen, Maria,” the woman said to someone just inside the door, adding before she closed it, “Do you actually know how to shoot that rifle?”

Angel cringed. He’d had another gun trained on him and hadn’t even sensed it. He was getting careless. No, his senses had all been attuned to that monstrous black animal and that idiot woman on the porch — please, God, don’t let her be Cassandra Stuart.

She was coming down the steps toward him now. For the first time he noticed her fancy attire, a long black coat with fur trimming over ice-blue lace at her throat, and five layers of blue pleated ruffles in the skirt, which was seen only from her knees to her toes. A small beaver hat was perched at a jaunty angle on dark brown hair. Citified clothes, to be sure, but the incongruity of the outfit was that she wore a gun holster on the outside of the coat.

She slipped the gun into that holster just before she held out her hand to him. “I’m Cassandra Stuart. Will Mr. Pickens be arriving soon?”

Angel ignored the hand, unsure what she expected him to do with it. There was even a smile that came with it, as if she hadn’t shot at him, sent that man-eating cat after him, and run off his horse. He ignored the smile, too.

That she was apparently the woman he had to deal with made him curse silently as he got to his feet and dusted off his slicker. At the moment, the last thing he wanted to do was help the woman. But that’s what he was here for. A debt was a debt He went after his hat before he answered her. Seeing the bullet hole that had passed dead-center through the crown had him swearing again, this time aloud. Hell, she could have killed him!

He swung around and gave her a dark look. “When you get that six-shooter fixed, I want to see proof that you know how to use it.”

All she did was frown, take out her gun again and examine it, then exclaim, “Damn, you’ve ruined it!”

“And you’ve ruined my hat.”

She gave him a narrow look. “This happens to be a special-made weapon, mister — who are you, anyway?”

“Angel — and this happens to be a twenty-dollar hat, ma’am.”

“I’ll replace your damn hat—” She paused to take a step back. “What do you mean Angel? You aren’t the Angel, are you? The one they call the Angel of Death?”

His lips twisted sourly. Most folks never said it within his hearing. “I don’t care for that name.”

“I don’t blame you,” she replied.

But there was a wary look in her silver-gray eyes now that gave Angel a wealth of satisfaction to see. It should have been there sooner. Even folks who didn’t know who he was usually gave him a wide berth. He simply had a look about him that said “Beware.”

“Well,” she said with a nervous laugh when he just stared at her. “It’s lucky for you that I have more than one of these modified Colts, or I would probably be quite angry now.”

“You better hope it don’t take me long to find my horse, lady, or you’ll find out what angry—”

“If you lay a hand on me—”

“I was thinking more along the lines of shooting you.”

He didn’t mean it, but she didn’t know that. And he wondered what the hell he was doing, letting his anger build back up again when he’d had it under control. He never made idle threats. But there was something about her that just irritated the hell out of him, even when she wasn’t pointing a gun in his direction.

“Forget I said that,” he said curtly.

“Gladly,” she replied, but she still took another step back from him.

He almost smiled. Her nervousness was soothing his temper as nothing else could.

“Do you make a habit of taking potshots at folks paying you a visit?”

She blinked, pursed her lips — lushly shaped lips, he now noticed — and straightened her spine. Damn. He could see it coming. She’d just got her courage back.

“You were about to shoot Marabelle. I couldn’t let you do that just because she’d sneaked out the door before I could stop her.”

That gave him pause. “Then you didn’t set her on me?”

“Certainly not,” she said in an indignant-sounding tone that implied he was stupid for asking.

“I saw no ‘certainly’ about it, lady.”

“Common sense—”

“I think you better drop it,” he warned before her insults got any worse.

She stiffened, taking his meaning. “And I think you better state your business and then go.”

If only he could — go, that is. “Pickens isn’t coming,” he said tersely.

She stared at him blankly for a moment, then gasped, “But he has to! I was counting on him— why isn’t he coming? He said he would.”

Her genuine distress made Angel uncomfortable with his other feelings. He didn’t like the young woman, and with good reason after what she’d done to him, but he had trouble maintaining his animosity in the face of her upset.

Angel unbent enough to assure her, “He was coming. In fact, he was at his bank taking out enough money to get him here when this bunch of comancheros rode in from the Staked Plain with the idea of making a withdrawal of their own at gunpoint ‘Course, Pickens couldn’t just mind his own business and let them go about theirs. He felt obliged to stop them and got shot up pretty bad in the effort.”

She’d gone from pale halfway through his little speech to sickly-looking at the end, her distress switching causes. “Oh, God, he — he didn’t die, did he? If d be my fault. Grandpa will never forgive me—”

“Now, how do you figure you’re to blame when you weren’t there?”

“I asked him to come. He wouldn’t have been in that bank if—” She paused, seeing him shake his head at her, and her tone as well as her expression turned stubbornly belligerent. “I’ll accept blame if I choose to. I’m quite good at it.”

At that point he shrugged, not about to try to convince a fool woman she was being foolish when he didn’t care one way or the other. “Suit yourself.”

The fight went out of her instantly. She bit her lower lip. She suddenly looked like she was about to cry, which had Angel’s stomach clenching. Shit. He’d never tried to deal with a crying woman before, and he wasn’t going to start now. One damn tear and he was walking.

“Is he…?” She couldn’t manage to say “dead.”

“No!” Angel couldn’t get the word out fast enough. “The doc says Pickens will live, but he won’t be traveling for a while, which is why he had his lady friend send for me.”

That got rid of Cassie’s teary-eyed look. She was frowning now. “I don’t understand. This was nearly six weeks ago. Why didn’t he send me word sooner to let me know he couldn’t come? Now I’m almost out of time.”

Angel could accept blame as easily as she could. “That’d be my fault. Pickens tracked me down easy enough, but I got delayed up in New Mexico for a few weeks. But then, his message didn’t mention a time limit.”

“I see.” She didn’t. She looked confused as all hell. “Bearers of bad news are rarely appreciated, but thank you all the same for coming out of your way when a telegram would certainly have sufficed. And I’m sorry about your horse. You can borrow one of ours to find it. Just return ours when you’re through.” She reached into one of the wide pockets on her coat and came out with a twenty-dollar gold piece. “And this should get you a new hat.”

All Angel did was stare at the hand she held out to him, forcing her to say, “Take it.” He still didn’t, so she shrugged and closed her fist on the coin. “Suit yourself. But if you’ll excuse me now, I was leaving for town when you arrived.”

She actually turned and walked away from him. Angel rocked back on his heels, letting her get halfway to her carriage before he drawled, “I guess I should have spelled it out, ma’am. Lewis Pickens sent for me to take his place. I’m here to settle your problem, whatever it is, so maybe you ought to tell me what it is before you head for town.”

She’d whipped back around at the words “take his place,” her eyes incredulous, but she had her belligerent expression back on by the time he finished. “I beg your pardon.”

“You heard me plain enough.”

“I know I heard you,” she gritted out, giving every indication of a woman about to lose her temper. “I just don’t believe it. What could Mr. Pickens have been thinking of to send you, you of all people? I need a peacemaker, not a gunfighter. You’d only make the situation worse.”

“Just what is the situation?”

She waved a hand impatiently. “There’s no point in my discussing that with you when you can’t help. If a gun was the answer, I’d use my own.”

He couldn’t help it. He grinned at the image her words brought to mind, of hats flying through the air. But he turned aside before she noticed. There were very few people he allowed close enough to glimpse his sense of humor. She wasn’t going to be one of them.

“You got a bunkhouse?”

“Yes, but — wait a minute!” she cried when he started toward the back of the house. “You can’t stay here. Weren’t you listening?”

He stopped long enough to say, “Yeah, but you weren’t. I’m here to see to your problem as a favor to Pickens. I owe him, so I won’t be leaving until my debt’s paid.”

She hurried to catch up with him as he rounded the side of the house. “Whatever debt you owe has nothing to do with me, mister.”

“It does now.”

“That’s unacceptable. I’m only going to say this once more. You can’t—”

The roar coming from inside the house stopped them both. Angel turned to see the large cat sitting in front of a window looking out at them. Fortunately, the window wasn’t open, but that fact didn’t settle his nerves as fast as it should have. Knowing the cat was a pet didn’t make it look any less dangerous.

“What is that thing?” he finally asked.

“A black panther.”

“Didn’t know they had such things in Texas.”

“They don’t. Marabelle came over from Africa.”

He wasn’t going to ask how. “Just keep it away from me as long as I’m here.”

She visibly bristled at that. “If you were staying, which you’re not, I would insist you get along with Marabelle. And you’d have to introduce your horse to her for obvious reasons— but you’re not staying. The stable is there.” She pointed to a long building next to a barn. “Go find your horse and go back where you came from.”

She must have thought that settled the matter. In a way, it did. His slow drawl told her so as she started to turn away from him for the second time. “Then I guess I’ll have to take care of your problem in my own way.”

Her eyes flared wide in understanding. “You wouldn’t.” He was silent. “All right!” she snapped. “You can stay, but you can’t kill anyone. No shooting. No dead bodies. Is that clear?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. She stomped away this time, leaving no doubt that she had conceded under protest. Irritating woman. If he didn’t figure he’d need her input to fix her trouble, this would be the last he’d see of her. He’d still handle it his own way. But as he heard her carriage leaving for town, it occurred to him that he still didn’t know what the trouble was. Damned irritating woman.