Angels Don't Cry

“Angel, I want you so much. I need you.” His voice was an urgent whisper against her ear. “We can’t go on like this.”

Angel swallowed past the rise of panic in her throat. “Do you think we should break up again?”

“No. Breaking up was your idea, remember? I think we should get married.”

She stared up at him in shock. “But...we still have the same problems, Drew. You want to live in the city, and I don’t. I can’t leave the farm, and I can’t leave Dad. He needs me. You know how he relies on me.”

“Yes, I know,” Drew said, almost bitterly. “But don’t worry. I won’t ever ask you to choose between your family and me again. If moving to the city means giving you up, then it’s not worth it. We’ll stay. I’ll find a job here after I graduate. But I don’t want to wait to get married, Angel. I don’t think we should.”

Angel felt a vague sense of unease at the urgency in his tone, but her elation soon swept it away. Wasn’t this what she’d always wanted ever since she’d first set eyes on Drew Maitland?

She smiled through a mist of tears. “I don’t think we should wait, either. Oh, Drew, you won’t be sorry. I’ll make you so happy! We can be together at last...in every way,” she added shyly.

Drew’s blue eyes blazed with an inner fire. “Are you sure about this? I don’t want to pressure you, Angel.”

She laughed lightly, tilting her head to gaze up at him. “You aren’t pressuring me. I’ve wanted this forever.”

He laughed, too, lifting her off the ground and spinning her around in the moonlight. He brought her back down to earth, then pulled a box from his pocket and handed it to her. “In that case, you’d better open your birthday present.”

“Oh, Drew.” Ann’s hands shook slightly as she took the blue velvet box from his hand and opened it. The diamond that twinkled inside was as bright and beautiful as the stars overhead. “It’s beautiful!” she breathed.

“It’s not very big,” Drew apologized as he lifted the ring from the soft bed and slipped it on her finger. “Someday I’ll replace it with a larger one.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Angel cried, appalled at the notion. “I’ll never take this ring off. Do you hear me? Never!”

The house was quiet when Angel tiptoed in sometime after midnight. She climbed the stairs, knowing exactly which step to avoid to prevent a telltale creak. She slipped down the hallway, past her father’s darkened room, until she reached her own at the end. She paused. A thin sliver of light shone beneath Aiden’s door across the hall. Angel held up her hand to the moonlight flowing in from the hall window. The diamond winked at her.

She had to tell someone. She knew she would burst with the news if she had to wait until morning. She knocked softly on Aiden’s door. “Aiden?” She cracked the door. “Are you awake?”

“No.”

Her sister’s voice sounded suspiciously muffled, as though she’d been crying. Angel pushed open the door and walked into the room. Her sister was lying on her side, her knees drawn up to her chest. A wet washcloth was draped across her forehead.

“Are you sick?” Angel asked worriedly. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t feel well,” Aiden mumbled, rolling onto her back. “What do you want, anyway?”

In spite of her sister’s illness, Angel couldn’t help smiling. She sat down on the edge of the bed and held out her hand. “Aiden, I have the most incredible news. Look! Drew and I are engaged.”

Aiden’s head turned slowly toward her, her gaze dropping to Angel’s extended hand. Aiden’s face crumpled suddenly, and she turned her head away, covering her face with the washcloth.

“Aiden, what’s wrong? What is it?” But her sister’s sobs only grew louder. Feeling the first sliver of panic, Angel got up and closed the bedroom door. She came back to stand over the bed. “Aiden, you’d better tell me what’s wrong.”

A pause, then, “I’m pregnant.”

At first Angel thought she must have heard her wrong, but the words slowly sank in, and she felt her breath leave her body in a painful rush. Knees shaking, she sat down heavily on the bed.

“Are you sure?”

“I haven’t been to the doctor, but, yes, I’m sure.” Aiden’s sobs had subsided, but her voice still held a hint of hysteria.

“Who—?”

For the first time since Angel had entered her room, Aiden met her gaze. Angel felt a hard knot of apprehension twisting in her stomach.

“Drew.”

Angel’s heart contracted with the force and pain of a physical blow. Fear, as sharp and piercing as a knife, sliced through her veins. Stunned, she stared at Aiden, striving for breath. “You’re lying!” she finally gasped. “Why would you say such a thing? How could you be so cruel, Aiden?”

“I’m not lying,” Aiden denied angrily.

“How could you do this to me?” Angel screamed, jumping up from the bed and whirling toward the door. She couldn’t stand to look at Aiden’s face, couldn’t bear to think that there could be even a remote chance her sister was telling the truth.

“You broke up with him two months ago. You said it was over,” Aiden said, her voice suddenly sounding calm. “I didn’t think you’d get back together. It just happened.”

Angel wanted to slap her sister, slap that tear-stained face until she made Aiden admit she was lying. But what if she wasn’t?

“I don’t believe you,” she whispered desperately, as much for her own benefit as Aiden’s. “And I’ll never forgive you for this, Aiden!” Angel spun around and fled the room, her heart hammering painfully against her chest. Weak-kneed, her head spinning, she supported herself against the wall outside Aiden’s door. She closed her eyes against the fear, the dread.

Moments later she climbed over the fence separating the Lowell and Maitland property, and stood looking up at Drew’s open window. His light was still on, and she watched for long, heartsick moments as he paced back and forth across his room.

“Drew.” She called his name softly, aware that his parent’s bedroom was on the other side of the house. “Drew!”

He came to the window and looked out. “Angel? What are you doing?”

“I need to talk to you.”

Something in her voice must have alerted him. He stood silently for a moment, gazing down at her. “I’ll be right down.”

“Is it true?” she demanded when they stood face to face at the edge of the yard.

“Angel, what are you talking about?” he asked guardedly.

Already she could read the truth in his eyes. “You and Aiden. Is it true?” she repeated. She turned away from his stricken expression. “Never mind. You just answered my question.” She pulled the ring from her finger and hurled it toward his chest. For just an instant it was a flashing arc in the moonlight, a falling star, before it dropped to the ground and died.

Drew grabbed her arm as she tried to run away. “Angel, wait. Please, let me explain. It’s not what you think. It was only one night—”

“It only takes one night to make a baby, Drew.”

Even in the moonlight, she could see the color drain from his face. “Oh, God, no—”

“Oh, God, yes,” she mocked cruelly. “And just what are you going to do about it?” She jerked her arm from his grasp and left him, stunned, while she turned and ran back along the path toward home.

The lights were blazing in the house when she got there. Aiden had already spread the news, Angel guessed angrily. She let herself into the house and stood at the open door of her father’s study for a moment. Adam Lowell, his gray head resting wearily against the back of his leather chair, looked as though he’d aged ten years. A glass of Scotch sat untouched on the desk in front of him. Some small movement of Angel’s must have caught his attention, for he looked up. Immediately he stood and opened his arms to her. She fled into them.

He held her for several moments while, for the first time since her mother had died years ago, she wept openly in his arms. He held her and soothed her hair, and then he pushed her gently away.

“The time for tears is over now, Angel. You’ve had your cry. Now it’s time to look ahead. Your sister needs you.”

Angel pulled away in protest. “How can you say that? After what she did to me!”

“What’s done is done,” Adam replied calmly. “I never thought you and Drew were a match anyway. I always expected him to break your heart. Aiden needs him now. Don’t stand in their way, Angel.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She and Drew had belonged together ever since they’d met four years ago. She’d only been fourteen and he sixteen, but even then they’d known what they had was special. How could her father even suggest that she was standing in the way. It was Aiden. Always Aiden.

Adam’s position, however, remained firm. Calmly, gently but resolutely, he pointed out how difficult a time Aiden would have if she were to have the baby alone. In a town as small as Crossfield, an illegitimate baby was still very much a stigma. There would be gossip; Aiden’s life would be ruined.

What about my life? Angel wanted to scream. What about me? But she already knew what her father’s answer would be. Angel was the sensible one, the smart one. Angel was always the dutiful daughter and sister. She knew what had to be done, the right thing to be done. In time, she’d get over this. In time, she’d meet someone else....

Angel flew from her father’s study and up the stairs to her own room, slamming the door behind her. She was vaguely aware that the phone started ringing and barely registered when someone picked up, only to have it ring again a minute or two later. She huddled beneath the covers of her bed, feeling devastated, betrayed, and utterly alone.

“Angel? Angel, answer me.”

She could hear Aiden calling to her from the hallway as her sister jiggled the knob on the locked door. “Angel, please let me come in.”

“Leave me alone, Aiden.”

“I’m sorry, Angel. I’m sorry you’re hurt. It happened—”

“Shut up!” Angel barely realized she was screaming the words. “Shut up, Aiden! I don’t want to hear how it happened! I never want to talk to you again, do you hear me? I hate you! I hate you! I wish you were dead!”

Angel pulled the covers over her head, blocking the outside world, shutting out the pounding in her head, the pounding on the front door. Even when she heard Drew downstairs, urgently shouting up to her, she shut him out, as well.

Angel left town the next day. Her father arranged for her to visit a friend in Los Angeles for a while. After a few weeks she decided to enroll in UCLA, eventually completing her graduate studies there and securing a professorship in the history department. For eight long years she’d stayed away, until her father had called her home before he’d died. Even then, his last thoughts had been of Aiden.

“I’m leaving the farm to you, Angel. Aiden would sell the land, squander the money, but I know I can count on you to hang onto it. This place is all your mother and I ever had, all we ever worked for. I promised her before she died the land would be our legacy to you and Aiden. I’m depending on you to see that it stays in the family. With Jack managing her trust fund and you the land, I’ll rest easier knowing Aiden will always be taken care of.

“I know there’s still a rift between you two. Don’t bother denying it, I can see it in your eyes every time her name’s mentioned. But she’s your sister, Angel. There’s no bond stronger than that. I want you to forgive her, as much for your sake as for hers.”

Seeing him lying there, so pale and weak and clinging to her hand, Ann hadn’t the heart to deny him anything.

So she came back home as her father expected her to, and in doing so, she realized that all the changes she had forced upon herself since leaving had only been superficial. She was still Angel Lowell, and changing her name had changed little else.

But at least one part of the promise had been kept. She had held onto the land. Forgiving Aiden hadn’t been so easy.

She’d tried. God, she’d tried, but Ann could never feel the same about her sister. Even when Aiden had started reaching out to her again, Ann had never been able to think about her without feeling resentment and anger, and she could never forget that Drew had chosen Aiden over her.

* * *

“You’re wrong, Drew,” Ann whispered brokenly into the silence of the night. She’d never forgiven Aiden, and now it was too late. What was more, the message Aiden had sent her the night she’d died proved that, even in death, Aiden had still been reaching out to her, and Ann had not been able to help her.

I wish you were dead. How that one hateful sentence had haunted her all these months since her twin’s fatal accident. The jealousy that had festered inside her for so many years had then turned to guilt, an emotion just as destructive and just as binding.

And now Drew was back, reminding her so painfully why she and Aiden had gotten lost from each other in the first place. He’d taken almost everything from her once, and now he’d come back to try and take her home, to try and make her break a vow that had been all she’d had to give to her father.

Impatiently, Ann wiped the back of her hand across the dampness on her cheeks. She could almost hear her father admonishing her—over a scraped knee, a bad grade, a broken heart— “Here now, no more tears. Since when do Angels cry?”

Since she’d met Drew Maitland all those years ago.

Three

Drew clattered down the metal steps outside his room at the Crossfield Motel, then checked his stride as he spotted the figure reclining against the front fender of his Jaguar.

Dressed in faded jeans, a white T-shirt and a used-up pair of tennis shoes, this man was yet another image from Drew’s past. And the look of wary distrust he wore was only slightly more welcoming than Ann’s had been last night.

“’Morning,” the man remarked in a voice that sounded neither cool nor friendly, but not totally indifferent, either. “Nice car. Yours, I presume?”

Drew smiled slightly. “You don’t think I’d come driving into Crossfield, Texas, in a stolen car, do you?”

One dark brow shot up. “Wouldn’t be the first time you took a car out joyriding, now would it?”

“If you’re referring to the incident with the Mercedes, I believe that was your idea.”

“You were driving,” came the lazy response.

“And as I recall, that didn’t make one iota of difference to your mother. Maddie took a frying pan to both our butts.”

They grinned simultaneously at the memory, the awkwardness between them fading. “Imagine that,” Jack Hudson said ruefully, shaking his head. “Sixteen years old and my mother spanking me in front of my best friend.”

Drew chuckled. “The best friend got it just as hard as you did. I couldn’t sit down for a week, but I must say, I lost my affinity for Dad’s new Mercedes in a hurry. Your mother could be very persuasive.”

“Couldn’t she?” Jack agreed ruefully.

“What are you doing up and around this time of the morning?” Drew asked with a certain amount of suspicion.

“You forget I was raised on a farm. Half the day’s gone. Besides, I knew you had a meeting with Sam McCauley this morning. I wanted to catch you before you left.”

Drew stared at him for a moment, his eyes narrowing. “How the hell did you know that?”

Jack grinned crookedly, and for the first time his expression took on a hint of the devil-may-care look he’d always sported as a teenager.

Back in the old days Jack Hudson had been the most carefree soul Drew had ever met. They’d been kindred spirits from the moment their paths crossed. If Drew’s parents had thought moving and getting their growing boy out of the city would keep him out of trouble, they hadn’t figured on Jack Hudson and his twin cousins. They had been holy terrors that first summer, and Drew had quickly become their willing accomplice. They might all have ended up in reform school or worse if Angel hadn’t kept a sensible head for all of them. Their guardian Angel, they’d teased her. She hadn’t much appreciated that, Drew remembered wryly.

“Haven’t you learned yet that every move you make in this town is reported five minutes later by no fewer than a dozen eye witnesses? Nothing’s secret in Crossfield. You should know that as well as anybody.”

“Yeah, well, I guess some things never change,” Drew said dryly.

“Some don’t,” Jack agreed, his expression sobering as his gaze cut back to Drew. “But Ann has.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I hear you drove out to see her last night after the meeting.”

Drew shrugged. “So? I’m seeing and talking to a lot of people. Ann’s a member of the town council as well as a property owner. Why wouldn’t I go see her? I’m sure you’ve heard that’s why I’m here,” he added with a faint trace of bitterness.

“As long as that’s all it is.” Jack’s voice was low and even, but there was a subtle note of warning in it. He stared thoughtfully at the toes of his worn Nikes for a moment. “Frankly, as Ann’s attorney, I’ve advised her all along to sell to Riverside. She’s spent a mint on that old house the last couple of years—a new roof last year, a new pump a couple of months ago. The plumbing’s a constant battle, and the wiring—that’s a nightmare in itself. Uncle Adam named me executor of his estate so that I could keep an eye on the trust funds he set up from their mother’s inheritance, but Ann’s is dwindling faster than I can keep up with it. I don’t mind telling you, it worries me.”

He paused for a moment, and Drew said, “I sense there’s a `but’ in there somewhere.”

Jack’s gray eyes narrowed to a squint. “I don’t want to see her hurt again.”

“I have no intention of hurting Angel.”

“I’m glad to hear it, because she’s been through enough in the last several years. She’s lost her father, she’s lost her sister. Mom was like a mother to her and now she’s moved to Houston. I’m all the family Ann has left around here, and I intend to look out for her. I wouldn’t like to think that this sudden interest in her after all these years has anything to do with your company wanting to acquire her property.”

Drew’s head snapped around in a sudden blaze of anger. “I ought to punch your face in for that remark.”

“Yeah, you probably should,” Jack agreed amiably. “But I had to say it just the same.” He ran an admiring hand over the dark green surface of the car hood. “Anyway, looks like you’re doing all right for yourself.”

Drew smiled coolly. “I could say the same about you,” he said, nodding briefly in the direction of the new red Vette sitting beside the Jaguar.

“Yeah, I guess you could,” Jack agreed. “But as we both know, appearances can be deceiving, can’t they?”

* * *

It was still early, but the sun was already hot against her neck as Ann walked along the mossy bluff overlooking the river. Below her the wide green river slid along lofty banks where water irises grew in violet profusion in a morning light that was misty yellow. A white crane skimmed the glassy surface of the water, searching.

Rising over the treetops, she could see the rusted, towering rafters of the the old river bridge, which had been a ruin for as long as Ann could remember.

The very sight of that bridge always terrified her. Many of the iron supports were missing and the wooden floorboards had been rotting away for half a century. As children, she and Aiden and Jack had been instructed never to play there, but to Aiden and Jack, that had been the equivalent of putting ice cream before them and telling them not to eat it. The temptation became irresistible.

Ann could still remember standing on the road in the hot sun watching them walk across that bridge one summer afternoon. Her heart had pounded with fear, and her stomach had revolted from the terror. She’d lost her lunch right there in front of them, and Aiden and Jack had taunted her from the other side of the bridge, laughing at her and daring her to join them.

For a long time afterward, Ann had had recurring nightmares about that bridge, about seeing Aiden in the middle of it, one minute laughing and calling out to her, and the next minute gone. Ann would inevitably wake up screaming until she heard her father’s brisk voice penetrating the nightmare and, reassured, would stop.

With a start Ann realized someone was on the bridge now, staring down at her from his lofty view. She shaded her eyes with her hand, and as she watched, he lifted a hand to wave at her.

“Drew?” She whispered the name in the early morning silence. What was he doing here? And on that bridge of all places! Didn’t he know what that would do to her? Her stomach knotted painfully as she saw him start across the crumbling floorboards.

Her heart in her throat, she watched him near the end. Something buzzed past her cheek. Absently, she swatted the air, and then her movements froze as something struck the tree beside her with a loud thwack. A fraction of a second later the sharp crack of a rifle split the silence of the river.

For one heart-stopping moment she stood in stunned disbelief, her eyes still glued to Drew. Then terror sliced through her like a saber as reality sank in. Someone had been shooting in her direction, had almost hit her! Dazedly, she realized Drew was shouting something, a heated warning at the careless hunter, but she couldn’t hear his exact words.

Behind her several thrushes were startled from a hedgerow. Ann whirled in panic at the sound, her toe snagging an exposed root. With a shriek she went sprawling to the ground, hands splayed wildly in front of her.

Panic detonated inside her at the sudden stillness all around her. Whether the hunter was moving toward her or away from her, she couldn’t be sure. She lay motionless for several minutes, listening to the quiet.

“Ann! Where are you? Are you all right?”

Her head snapped to attention at the sound of Drew’s voice. She looked around to find him sprinting through a clump of trees toward her. She tried to lift herself up, but her left wrist had twisted when she’d broken her fall. It refused to hold her weight now, and with a grunt of pain, she collapsed back onto the ground.

Drew was on his knees beside her in a flash. “Angel, are you all right? Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m okay. I tripped over something—”

His eyes closed briefly as he let out a quick breath. “Thank God. I heard the shot and then I heard you scream. When I saw you fall, I thought—”

“What are you doing here?” she asked as she struggled to get up again. Drew’s hand shot out, grasping her arm as he helped her sit up.

“I had a breakfast meeting with Sam McCauley, and I decided to take a walk along the river afterward.”

“And you decided to walk across that bridge?” she said with a note of censure in her tone.

“It’s in worse shape than I remembered,” he agreed wryly. “Listen, are you sure you’re okay? What’s the matter with your arm?”

“I twisted my wrist when I fell. It’s nothing,” Ann said shakily, trying to pull away. But Drew held her, gently but firmly, refusing to let her go.

“Let me take a look.” His fingers tentatively explored along her wrist, probing the bones with a light, sure touch, reassuring them both that nothing was broken.

But Ann felt anything but reassured. His seeking fingers were touching more than just her skin. He was touching memories deep within her soul, awakening feelings she’d long ago buried. With each tender stroke, she could feel herself slipping away, drowning beneath a pool of emotion that should have been drained long, long ago. A soft sigh slipped through her lips, drawing his gaze to hers.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked in a strangely guarded tone.

More than you could ever imagine, she thought, but she only shook her head slightly, feeling the excitement of his touch spreading through her like a wildfire out of control.

He felt it, too. She could tell by the glint of wonder in his eyes, by the trace of some indefinable emotion in his features. His mouth had grown softer, luring her gaze. There had always been something so timelessly seductive about Drew’s mouth. An image came to her now—she was standing beneath a full moon, wrapped in his arms, experiencing for the first time the wonder of his masculine lips against hers—