Alex And The Angel

“Fine with me,” he said mildly. Last week it was the record shop at the mall. The week before that, she was planning to look for a job at a riding stable. At least she’d given up on the airline thing. “By the way, I won’t be in for dinner tonight, but I won’t be out late, either, if you want to talk after you finish your homework.”

She looked hurt. He didn’t want to see it. “If I want to talk, I’ll call Angel. At least she treats me like an adult, which is more than I can say about some people.”

Pond scum. That about said it all.

* * *

Before they even ordered dinner, Alex knew the evening was going to be a bummer. Carol had made several pointed remarks about friends whose daughters went off to school and how well it turned out for all concerned.

“I’d be the first to admit I lose patience sometimes—whoever said raising a daughter alone was easy, obviously never had tried it—but I’d miss her too much, Carol. She’s all I’ve got left.” He attempted a smile, but it failed for lack of conviction. “I guess it comes of being an only child of an only child. We only children have special obligations. We have to be there for each other, whether or not it’s always convenient.”

“Nonsense! Darling, Sandy has plenty of friends. No girl her age wants a father always hanging around, cramping her style.”

“Maybe her style needs a bit of cramping.”

“And maybe she just needs to be with kids her own age. It’s not as though you’re some doddering old relict, gathering his family around him for support in his waning years. You’re young, healthy, virile—and certainly more than able to take on additional responsibility.”

“Additional responsibility?”

“You could even have a second family.”

“Not if I want to stay sane.”

“That’s what boarding schools are for. Did it ever occur to you, darling, that Sandy would adore having a baby sister or brother? It would give her something to do with her evenings besides hanging around boys.”

A waiter appeared at his side, and Alex ordered the broiled chicken for Carol and braised calf’s liver for himself. Maybe he needed more iron in his diet. God knows, he needed something he wasn’t get-ting.

“Things are different now than when we were kids, Carol. These days, girls Sandy’s age are exposed to a lot of new dangers. I want her to know—especially after Dina—” He shrugged. “At any rate, she needs to know she comes first with me. I’m not sure taking on a second family would be the thing to do.”

“Oh, but the experts all say—”

“Any dozen experts will say at least a dozen different things. Experts are like statistics. You can always find a few to back most any crackbrained theory you want to propose. The trouble comes when you put theory to the test and find out it’s full of holes. I guess I’ll just have to blunder along the best way I can and hope for the best.” Leaning back, he crossed his arms casually over his chest, hoping she would take the hint.

Subject closed.

“Now...shall I order us another bottle of wine?”

* * *

Later that evening, Alex told himself that he owed Angel a call. Owed her an apology, too, only he wasn’t entirely sure which offense to apologize for first. Cutting off her attempt to help with Sandy, or lusting after her delectable little body.

The truth was, he suspected it was more than her body he lusted after. She made him smile. She made him want to laugh. She made him feel young again.

Which was why he decided not to call her. Not to expose himself to danger. He had enough to deal with without waking any sleeping dragons.

Three

Having recently studied every new line, every slightest hint of aging on Alex’s face, Angel now examined her brother with the same squinty-eyed concentration. “Ah-ha! Six more gray hairs,” she pronounced with grim satisfaction. Why was it that men improved with age, while women only aged?

While he would never be called classically handsome, with his wicked blue eyes and his full black beard, Gus looked like the pirate hero on the cover of one of her new paperback romances. He had aged remarkably well.

So had Alex, dammit.

There was a lot to be said for aristocratic bone structure, she concluded dismally. So far as the naked eye could discern, she didn’t even possess any bone structure.

“What happened, did you fall on your head?” She indicated a scar that snaked into the edge of his unruly hair, diagonally up from the one she happened to know was hidden by his beard.

“Two-by-four. Guy didn’t signal his turn in time. Hey, Angel, what’s with the blinking lights? Does that happen often?”

“No more than once or twice a week. Want a bagel with your coffee?”

“Hmm. I should’ve checked out the wiring last time I was here. A bagel? Yeah, sure, hon. Remind me to get my meter out of the truck when I bring in my bag, will you?”

Angel poured coffee, set out a crock of cheese and a half-dozen fresh bagels. She’d been working like a Trojan all day. Gus had pulled in just before dark, looking gaunt and tired, but when she’d offered to cook him a meal, he’d said he wasn’t hungry.

The day Gus Wydowski wasn’t hungry was the day they laid him out in the front parlor with a lily in his fist. Something was bothering him, and it was her duty as his only relative east of the Mississippi to drag it out of him.

She decided on the indirect route. She wasn’t very good at it, but one didn’t butt heads with Gus Wydowski and come out the winner. “Guess who I saw twice last week?” she mentioned casually as she slathered cheese on half a bagel and handed it across the table. “Hightower. And I met his daughter, too, and she’s something else. Blond, gray eyed, tall—she looks like Dina, but she’s a lot more interesting, even at fourteen.”

Gus had been in love with Dina. They’d never spoken of it, and Angel didn’t think Alex had ever guessed, but she’d known practically from the first. If she hadn’t already hated the woman for stealing Alex, she would have hated her for that. Dina ex-Hightower was a gold-plated bitch, even if she was a countess or duchess or whatever in some two-bit kingdom nobody’d ever heard of.

Poor Gus, he’d stood up with Alex at the wedding, and then headed for the hills, seven months short of graduation. He never had gone back for his degree.

“Great. So how’s Alex?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued. “You know, I’ve got a job lined up at the beach, kid. Probably take until November to get it under cover. Why not take a break and come on down for a week or so?”

“Aren’t you even curious?”

Gus reached for another bagel, smeared it with cheese and then got up and rummaged around in her refrigerator for something sweet to spread on top of that. “Curious?”

“About Alex. How he’s doing and all. You two haven’t seen each other in years, and you used to be close as two nuts in a hull. Make that three, counting Kurt.”

“So? I’ve been busy. Have you got any lime marmalade?”

She took a jar out of the pantry, opened it and handed it over. “Your teeth are going to rot out. You know, if Alex were my best friend, and I hadn’t seen him in—”

“All right, already! Lay off, will you?”

“Dina’s history, Gus. I doubt if Sandy even remembers much about her. Sandy’s their daughter, did I tell you? She’s about the same age now that I was when—”

“Yeah, I know. The same age you were when you embarrassed the hell out of me by coming on to Alex.”

Angel slammed her cheesy knife down onto the yellow enameled table. “I did not! I never in my life came on to any man—at least, not to Alex!”

Gus grinned, and even his sister was forced to admit that the years had not diminished his old appeal. He and Alex were as different as day and night—yet no woman alive could fail to appreciate either one of them. Singly or together, they were enough to drive a woman up a wall.

Gus piled on marmalade with the skill and precision of a master craftsman. “So...you’ve still got a thing for old Lex, huh?”

“Sure, like I still have a thing for poison ivy.”

“Why not just scratch and be done with it?”

“What, the poison ivy?”

“No, witchlette—Alex. He’s free. You’re free. Why not give it a go? The worst that could happen would be that he’d turn you down and you could finally mark him off your wish list.”

“You mean the best that could happen! The worst would be if he took one look and started laughing like a hyena.” Angel flung herself up from the table and stalked over to the kitchen sink just as the lights blinked again. “Fine brother you turned out to be,” she grumbled. “For your information, Alex’s seeing this woman named Carol Something-or-other. You probably knew her—she’s part of that country club set. Anyway, poor Sandy’s scared out of her gourd he’s going to marry her. She says this Carol person keeps sending her information about boarding schools and dropping heavy hints about how much fun it is to live in a dorm with girls her own age and date boys from all the best prep schools.”

“For a kid you just met, you two sure got down to cases in a hurry.”

Angel shrugged. “So we happened to hit it off. Maybe because Sandy knows I’m no threat to her in that respect. She did say, though, that the day Alex marries this Carol person is the day she’s out of there.” She ran a sink full of sudsy water and plopped in her breakfast dishes, her lunch dishes, and the accumulation from last night’s snacks. “I don’t think she’s planning on moving into the palace with Dina, either. There’s this boy she knows who drives a Vette? From her description, my guess is he’s a perfect candidate for your old 3-H Club.”

Gus grinned, his teeth startlingly white in his dark, bearded face. “Oh-oh. Maybe I’d better give Hightower a call and offer him a little moral support.”

“I think you should. Gus...what’s worrying you?” So much for the subtle approach.

He slanted her a wary look. “Nothing’s worrying me, kid. I’ve got more business than I can handle, but I can handle that.”

Angel knew a stone wall when she ran into one. He’d tell her in his own sweet time. If he told her at all. Gus was a very private man. “You’re not fooling me, you know. You’ve got that squinty look around your eyes you used to get when you were worried about a game or a test or Daddy’s finding out you’d been drinking.”

His eyes were the same color as her own, only hers were several shades darker. “Just remember, I’m always here if you want to talk.”

Passing by on his way to the telephone, Gus grabbed her in a bear hug, lifting her off the floor. “Know something, witchlette? You turned out pretty good for a smart-mouthed kid who took to trouble like a duck takes to water.”

* * *

Alex had just finished filling Sandy in on Gus Wydowski when the door chimes sounded. He’d been advised by his CEO, who had two kids in college and another one in high school, that treating them as adults sometimes produced surprising results. He figured it was worth a try.

Expecting Gus, he swung open the door and found Carol. She was holding out a bouquet of pink roses in one hand and a bottle of his favorite wine in the other.

“Surprise,” she crowed softly, leaning forward to kiss the air beside his cheek. “Well, aren’t you going to invite me in, darling?”

“Sure, come on in. Uh—did I slip up and forget something?” Alex closed the front door, mentally flipping through his engagement calendar. It was going on eight, and he could have sworn they hadn’t made a date for tonight, but he’d had a lot on his mind lately.

“I’ve been in Raleigh all day—did I tell you I’m sitting for my portrait? That’s where the roses came from—I’m holding them in my pose, wearing white silk brocade with Mother’s sable cape over one shoulder. Anyway, I thought as long as I was passing so close, I’d stop in and see if you wanted to go to the club dance next weekend. Oh, hi, Sandy. Are we all finished with our homework?”

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