Beyond Ordinary

She wasn’t ready to quit. She’d come out of her mother’s womb a fighter. This was a temporary setback. Ordinary, Montana, the second I have enough money to leave, you can kiss my butt goodbye.

She felt Timm’s gaze on her as palpably as a touch.

“Why were you burning that bike?”

“Never mind.” She couldn’t talk about it. The words were too big, too enormous in their dark intensity, and clogged her throat.

She wanted to yell, to act out, to smash something.

That’s why she liked cool, logical math so much. It didn’t have miles of shit-kicking emotion attached to it the way everything else in her life did.

They traveled the length of Main Street, then turned and stopped in front of her mother’s house. What should she say? Thanks for stopping the only thing that could have eased my pain?

She slipped her feet into her cowboy boots. Offering him a terse “Thanks” she stepped out of the truck, dragging her saddlebags with her.

Behind her, Timm sped away.

She trudged toward the bungalow. The rosebushes that lined the walkway were well cared for, the green cushion on the wicker chair on the veranda well used.

Mama had done well for herself in the past five years. She’d nursed her former boyfriend until his death. Hal had left everything to her—the house and enough money to leave Missy secure for years. The first thing she’d done was pay for Angel to attend college.

Mama no longer had to depend on men—she had security. Yet she was on the verge of throwing it all away on another man. Somehow Phil Butler—a slimy example of the worst of his gender—had convinced Missy to marry him.

“Angel,” Mama had said in yesterday’s phone message, “Phil and me are getting married.”

Maybe that’s all Donovan women were good at—squandering their advantages when so close to success.

But Angel couldn’t figure out why Missy was so dependant on Phil. Why did she defer to him in her own house?

Angel knocked so she wouldn’t scare Mama, then used her key to enter.

“Is that you, Phil?” Mama called, her voice huskier with age.

“No. It’s me.” So Phil wasn’t home? Perfect time to confront Mama about him.

“Angel?” Mama rushed from the living room with a broad smile creasing her face. “Oh, honey, I wondered when you’d get here. You didn’t call.” She pulled Angel into a hug.

Angel filled her lungs with Mama’s scent—Avon’s Sweet Honesty and cigarettes. She’d missed this. She liked the perfume Mama had used all her life, but wished she would give up the smokes.

Oh, it felt good to be cradled in Mama’s arms. Mama might be the town tramp, but she’d always been a good mother.

Missy pulled away to look at her. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too, Mama.” She fingered a lock of Mama’s hair. “Why did you go back to the blond?”

Missy had stopped dyeing her hair after Hal died. Now she was using again.

“Phil likes it this way. He says it makes me look younger.”

Phil was an ass. He was a big part of the reason Angel had come home instead of heading off to a big city, any city where people didn’t know her. The moment she’d heard her mother’s message, she’d packed her saddlebags and set out for Ordinary.

Mama would marry Phil over Angel’s dead body.

Of course, that was only part of the reason she’d run home. To be honest, she was also here for Mama’s TLC. Mama always knew how to make her feel better about things. At the moment, Angel needed a double dose of her mother’s care.

Angel tried to turn away before her mother could read her expression. But Mama held her still and saw everything Angel tried to hide.

Mama’s happiness turned to concern. “What’s wrong, honey? What happened?”

Giving in to the impulse to lean on someone else for a minute, to let someone take on her battles, Angel hid her face against her mother’s shoulder and sighed.

“Oh, Mama, I screwed up so badly.”

CHAPTER TWO

“YOU QUIT COLLEGE?” Mama asked.

Angel nodded.

“But—” Mama sighed. “I wanted you to do good. What happened?”

Angel shook her head, mute in the face of Mama’s disappointment in her. Resentment burbled beneath the surface, though, that Missy had never tried to change, to become someone better than the town tramp, but she had expected Angel to fight the good fight, to put the effort into overcoming her roots.

Angel had at least tried.

They sat in darkness, on Mama’s rose-patterned sofa, illuminated only by the streetlight filtered through the trees and sheers on the window.

Angel couldn’t tell Mama about Neil. Not yet. How could she tell her that she’d crumpled like a day-old balloon when Neil died? How could she explain how hopeless and hard trying to change was? Or how difficult it was to outrun a reputation? How could she say any of it without hurting Mama’s feelings? After all, it had been Mama’s reputation she’d been running from.

She’d wanted to settle anywhere but here.

Then Mama had called and Angel had come running to Ordinary to save Missy from herself.

Mama must have seen the turmoil on her face, because she rubbed Angel’s knuckles and said, “Never mind for now. Let’s find you something to eat.” Before Angel could start in on what she thought about Missy’s fiancé, the front door opened and she tensed.

Phil. Her skin crawled before she even saw him.

He stepped into the living room. “Why is it so dark in here?” he asked, his tone brusque.

Mama flicked on the lamp. “Look who’s come home, Phil,” she said, her voice soft, tremulous.

Angel bit her tongue so she wouldn’t say what she thought. For God’s sake, Mama, stand up for yourself.

In the split second before Phil realized Mama wasn’t alone, he looked severe. That changed when he saw Angel.

His manner became snaky. Oh, Lord, he could be the villain in a silent movie, scrubbing his hands in glee over the heroine tied to the train tracks. The word unctuous came to mind. Yuck.

That image was only her imagination, though. Phil was an ordinary man, not a cardboard villain in a movie. Still, Angel had trouble liking him.

Was hating a person as much as she loathed Phil illegal?

His crafty gaze took in the tension between Angel and Missy. Phil never missed a thing. Chances were he would somehow use this to his own advantage.

“Angel,” he said. “How’s my favorite daughter?”

Daughter? Gag me.

Just because Mama had agreed to marry him, Angel was suddenly his daughter? No freaking way. Never. That was too creepy.

When he approached the sofa, Angel remained seated and held her breath while he embraced her, endured it because Mama watched her with such hope, as if to say, Please, Angel, like him, for me.

Oh, Mama, you’re all I’ve got. I would die for you, but put up with Phil? No way.

Angel smelled beer on Phil’s breath.

She pulled away. “You’ve been drinking. Where?”

Mama gasped. “Angel, that’s rude.”

Phil watched Angel with a smug grin. She could see the hamster maniacally spinning the wheel of Phil’s mind, calculating how much he could get away with because he knew she didn’t want to hurt Mama more than she had to. He knew she would do whatever she could to ruin his chances with Mama. He also knew that Mama’s happiness mattered more to her than anything.

Phil made her think of rodents. Too bad for the rodents.

“At the new place,” Phil replied. “Chester’s Roadhouse.”

“Why did you go alone?” Angel asked. Mama placed a soft warning hand on Angel’s shoulder that she ignored. “Why did you go without Mama?”

“Your Mama doesn’t like it there. Right, Missy?” Phil looked at Mama. She nodded.

“Do you remember Chester Ames?” Mama asked.

Angel remembered Chester. He used to treat Mama and her like gold.

“He opened a bar on Main Street,” Missy said.

Okay, that answered her question why Phil hadn’t taken Mama with him. Chester had a giant crush on Mama that time had never dimmed. Mama had always had a soft spot for him, too. Angel used to fantasize about how good life would be if Chester were her father. Chester had been married, though, and faithful to his wife.

Clearly Phil had picked up on that mutual at traction.

“Good for Chester. He’s a great guy,” Angel said, her emphasis implying that he was a better man than Phil.

“I can take you there tomorrow night,” Phil said.

Not on your life. “No, thanks. Mama, I’m heading to bed. We can talk more in the morning.”

Angel passed Phil without a backward glance. For the sake of Mama’s happiness, Angel would consider that he might be good for Mama in some way that Angel hadn’t yet determined. She would try as hard as possible in the next few days to see him from Mama’s point of view. But no way was she ignoring her instincts. While checking for the good, she would also watch for the ways in which Phil was trouble.

MISSY FELT PHIL STIR beside her and roll out of bed. Sitting on the side of the mattress, he pulled on his underwear then left the room.

Her breasts hurt, ached, and a weird sort of…stopped-up feeling…throbbed in her lower belly. Sex with Phil never satisfied her.

He wasn’t big enough—in his size or in his attention to her needs. Sex was about him and what he wanted. She was dumb enough to always give in.

Lord knew she had needs. Always had.

Face it, Missy, you’re forty-five years old. Phil is thirty-five. You’ll do anything to keep him.

You would think a man Phil’s age would have more energy, more to give a woman.

She listened to him shuffle down the hall, noted that he slowed in front of Angel’s room. She bit her lip.

A grown woman shouldn’t be jealous of her own daughter, but Missy was feeling her age.

Angel was young and beautiful. Men fell all over her. They used to do that with Missy.

What if Phil left? Where would that leave her?

With no one.

The darkness pressed in on her. She remembered those days after her own mother had left.

“You’re sixteen now, kid. Take care of yourself.”

“Mama, not yet. I can’t. I’m not smart like you.”

“With a body and face like yours, you’ll do fine.”

“Please don’t go.” Missy had pleaded more.

Mama had left anyway.

In the trailer alone, with no way to support herself, to finish high school, with no skills, Missy had turned to men. They liked her body. She had learned early to lean on them.

What if Phil left and no other man ever found her attractive again?

She was so pathetic, clinging to Phil as though he was the last man on earth. What if this was the rest of her life? What if she never enjoyed sex again? What if she kept on being jealous of her own daughter?

Missy heard Phil exit the washroom and walk toward their bedroom.

He stopped in front of Angel’s door.

Angel’s doorknob rattled, ever so slightly, but Missy heard it.

She held her breath. Don’t go in there.

He continued toward Missy’s room and the breath she’d been holding flew out of her. She rolled away so Phil would think she was sleeping.

He hadn’t gone into Angel’s room tonight, but he’d thought about it.

AFTER MIDNIGHT, ANGEL lay on her bed, watching the headlights of a car sweep across her ceiling.

She couldn’t sleep, not with her mind traveling a mile a minute with memories of Neil. She picked up a stone from the bedside table. Neil had given it to her because somehow time and the elements had shaped it into a heart.

He’d said it reminded him of her, of how time and life had shaped her into a truly good person.

Horse poop. It had done no such thing. As she rolled over, though, she clutched the stone.

The night lay still around her. She couldn’t breathe.

Someone stirred in Mama’s room. She knew what was coming. Or who.

Here we go again.

Phil’s footsteps whispered along the bare floor in the hallway.

He stopped at her door.

She flipped a sheet over herself and gripped it.

Come on in, Phil. I’d love to clock someone right now. Come in, buddy. Give me a reason to hit you.

He moved on, his footsteps entering the bathroom. She heard the door close.

When she’d come home on Christmas break, he’d played the same game every night.

A couple of minutes later, he retraced his steps, stopping outside Angel’s door long enough to turn the doorknob.

The door wasn’t locked. He could enter if he wanted to, and Angel would fight him tooth and nail.

After rotating a few degrees, the knob returned to its normal position and she heard Phil move on.

He was teasing her, letting her know that while he was in this house, he was the boss. He controlled everything.

Only because Mama let him. She owned it.

Angel uncurled her fingers, releasing the bedsheet she’d been gripping.

If Mama wasn’t bright enough to protect herself, Angel would have to do it for her.

At 1:00 a.m., she gave up trying to sleep. She sat on the bed and hung her head, tired of trying so hard to forget.

She dressed in the outfit she’d arrived in. Tomorrow, she’d unpack the saddlebags she’d left in the hallway.

Quietly, she stepped out of the house. These nights Angel haunted hallways and streets. After Neil’s death, she’d walked the many paths and trails of the campus every night, because to stay in bed with no distractions from thoughts of Neil and her own guilt in his death was murder.

In a strange way, it soothed her that Ordinary, Montana, never seemed to change. The street Missy had lived on for the past several years, in Harold’s house, was more upscale than what Angel had grown up in.

She rushed through the poorer part of town, where their old trailer still sat, and headed toward Main Street to see what the brouhaha about Chester’s was all about.

TIMM STOOD AT THE FRONT window of his apartment above the newspaper office trying to catch any hint of breeze to cool off.

He had a gift for insomnia. Probably did it better than anyone else he knew.

Glancing toward the end of Main Street, he watched several of Chester’s bikers drift out to their bikes, some of them none too steady on their feet.

The sheriff should be sitting out there every night, arresting them. But really, what could he do when he worked a twelve-hour shift every day and had only one deputy to take over for the night?

That issue needed to be addressed in Timm’s bid for mayor.

A movement from the other end of Main caught his eye. Angel Donovan. What the hell? He’d warned her that the town wasn’t the same one she’d grown up in now that Chester’s drew the worst clientele from the next county.

She always had been stubborn, though.

She was out there, in the dark, alone and he didn’t like it one bit.

She just had to pull old tricks and court trouble. She had a real talent for it.

He pulled on a shirt and jogged downstairs. He let himself out of the office, locking the door behind him.

From the recess of his door, he watched her. No need to tell her he was there. With a little luck, nothing would happen and she would wander home.

As Angel passed on the opposite side of the street, the bar’s door opened and a bunch of bikers stepped out.

Timm watched and waited for her to move on, but she didn’t. She’d always had too much curiosity for her own good.

A couple of the bikers mounted their hogs parked out front. Another one noticed Angel and wandered over. She stood her ground.

For God’s sake, Angel, do you have to stand up for every fight? Walk away. Run.

She didn’t.

He’d watched her fight since she was old enough to understand the names kids called her mother.

“Haven’t seen you here before,” the biker said, his voice tobacco-roughened, his posture aggressive he-man. “Who are you?”

His gaze traveled her body, slowly, as if he already owned it. The hair on Timm’s arms rose. He shifted his stance, ready to defend Angel.

“No one,” she answered, obviously not impressed by the bruiser. He had a layer of fat padding his belly, but enough muscle on his bare arms to bully.

“Let’s party. Come on.” He turned but when she didn’t follow, he looked back at her. “I wasn’t asking.”

Timm straightened away from the wall. Bastard was going to cause trouble, all right.

“No, thanks,” Angel said. “Not if you were the last Neanderthal on earth.”

For God’s sake, Angel, don’t be stupid. Grit and balls are admirable in life, but with a guy like this?

The biker didn’t take her comments well. He grabbed her arm, and Timm shot out of the doorway.

As a teenager, he’d been helpless because of his injuries and had watched her fight her battles alone. He wasn’t helpless now.

“Get your hands off her,” he ordered.

At the same moment, Angel kicked the biker’s shin and he slapped her.

Timm was on the guy in an instant. Not a fair fight. A hundred and eighty pounds of intellectual versus a two-hundred-and-thirty-pound wrestler look-alike.

Timm smashed the heel of his hand against the bruiser’s nose.

“Angel, run!” he shouted.

The biker slammed his fist into Timm’s jaw and he saw stars and staggered, but caught himself before he hit the ground.

Angel jumped her attacker and grabbed a fistful of hair.

“Move on.” A voice called out from across the street. Brawny Chester Ames, with a good set of biceps, a tough attitude and a baseball bat in one hand, ran toward them and shoved the bat into the guy’s ribs.

With a roar, the biker pushed Angel away from him and spun around.

Chester held the bat raised and ready to do serious harm if the guy didn’t leave.

“You want to drink in my bar again, you go on home and stop bothering her.” Chester ground out the words. “Now.”

The biker hesitated. Chester waited. Timm bounced on the balls of his feet, ready to try to take the guy down if he dared to touch Angel again.

When the guy finally walked to his bike without a word, the breath whooshed out of Timm. Then he cursed his lack of control. He’d been too angry—he knew better than to be so emotional—and because of that emotion, he’d lost the fight. Sensei Chong had taught him how to fight smart, how to remain calm and rational.

He looked at Angel. What was it about her that called up so many feelings? That cost him his precious self-control? He only knew that he’d gone into a rage when the biker had hurt her.

Chester approached Angel. “Why are you out here this late at night?”

“Hey, Chester,” she said, her tone soft and affectionate, raising Timm’s hackles. Had she been with him at some point? But he was old enough to be her father.

“You shouldn’t be here alone,” Chester scolded, his tone stern like a father’s, easing Timm’s tension. A bit.

“I’m not alone.” She gestured toward Timm.

Chester eyed him dubiously, and not as a friend. He returned his attention to Angel. “D’you want a drive home? I can be ready in ten minutes.”

Before she could answer, a flash of possession roared through Timm, and he interjected, “I’m taking her home.” He wasn’t much better than the Neanderthal Chester had chased away.

Chester gave him a cold look, nodded, then crossed the road to go back inside.

Angel confronted Timm with her fists on her hips. “What are you doing here?”

“Watching out for you.” He stepped closer to her. “Making sure you don’t get hurt. I saw you from my window.”

Before she could respond, he said, “The next time I tell you to run, do it.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. I don’t run away from battles. I’m not a damsel in distress who needs a man to rescue her.”

“And yet, you just needed two of us.”

Framed as she was by the streetlight, Timm saw her cheeks fill with color.

“That guy was typical of Chester’s clientele.”

“I can take care of myself.”

His jaw ached where he swore he could feel bruises forming already. “I don’t doubt it, Angel, but why would you put yourself in a situation in which you would have to?”

“That’s my business.” She strode away and turned down a side street.

She got under his skin, made him angry, but he trailed her home. He hadn’t liked seeing her hurt. No woman deserved that.

She spun to face him. “Why are you following me?”

“Seeing that you get home safely.”

“I told you, I can take care of myself. Stop following me.”

“No.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Tough. That biker could circle back, looking for you.”

He trailed her to her old neighborhood. The landscape changed from well-to-do to not on the flip of a dime. Heads, you’re rich. Tails, you’re poor. Heads, you live on pretty, tree-lined streets. Tails, you live behind the ugly, industrial feed store.

She stopped at the trailer she’d grown up in. After Missy and Angel had moved to Harold’s house, no one else had taken up residence. It stood lonesome, threadbare, neglected. Even so, it didn’t look much worse than the other trailers on the dead-end street.

What are you thinking, Angel?

He’d had so much room in the four-bedroom brick house where he’d been raised, yet it hadn’t been enough to separate him from his father on the nights he drank. On those occasions, the house had been claustrophobic. So, how had Angel felt in this little tin can while her mother’s boyfriends cycled through Missy’s revolving door?

Had those men ever bothered Angel once she became a teenager? God, he hoped not.

“How did it feel to grow up in there?”

She stared at him for a protracted minute. Then swearing, she picked up a stone and tossed it at the trailer, where it pinged off the metal loudly enough to awaken a nearby dog.

After a couple of barks, someone yelled and the barking stopped. The night turned quiet again, still and hot.

Breathless and waiting.

In front of the trailer at the end of the short street, Timm spotted the red tip of a burning cigarette. Was that a man? Was he watching Angel?

Timm’s muscles bunched and tightened, waiting for trouble.

He stepped closer to protect Angel if he had to, but at that moment she moved on, cutting through the trees and someone’s backyard to access the next street.

He followed her until she reached the short sidewalk to her mother’s house.

“Good night, Angel,” he called softly.

Nothing but the gentle click of her front door closing behind her answered him.

ON TUESDAY MORNING, Timm finished proofreading a hard copy of the Wednesday issue of the paper, then sat at his desk in the storefront to input the changes he’d made.

Megan and Mason, a pair of his reporters, had written excellent articles. He had to remember to tell them so.

As soon as he finished, he sent the file off to the printer in Billings.

They would print twelve thousand copies overnight and deliver them to Ordinary and other small towns throughout the county early tomorrow morning.

On page one was the announcement for the meeting he planned to hold on Thursday night. The town had a problem with Chester’s bar and it was time they organized and did something about it.

As important as the issue was, Timm’s mind had only been half on the job. The other half had been thinking about Angel.

He was a fool. He didn’t rate even a second thought from her, while he fell right back into his old crush the second she came to town.

As if his mind had conjured her, Angel walked into the newspaper office wearing dark jeans and a white T-shirt, the sun behind her skimming her body with loving hands. On anyone else the clothes would look normal, but on Angel? Well…wow.

“What can I do for you?” With her in his space, Timm was surprised that his brain functioned well enough to string together a whole sentence.