The Texan. Catherine Lanigan
Three
Angela walked out of the weekly staff meeting feeling like five pounds of dog meat. “Does Randy always have to pick on me?”
“Right now, you’re the only one screwing up. This isn’t like you, Angela. Last year, you were number one in the company and one of the top twenty-five producers in Houston. Then six months ago, your numbers started falling. Sometimes I think you’ve taken this birthday thing too much to heart.”
It’s not being thirty that bothers me. It’s finding out there’s no such thing as a “hero” anymore. “It’s an inner-growth thing, Julia. Don’t worry about it.” I’ll look for a group workshop for “fairy-tale junkies.”
Julia put her hand on Angela’s shoulder and pulled her aside. “I’m only saying this for your own good Randy’s right. Sales haven’t been this good in Houston since the oil crash. We’re all making money and you’re not. The problem is only with you, sugar. Maybe if you’d get that damn mystery cowboy out of your head, you’d...”
Feigning ignorance, Angela tossed her arms in the air. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean.”
Julia leaned over conspiratorially as a trio of their fellow agents passed by. “I know guys like him, Angela. They breeze into your life, make you think you hung the moon and then whammo! You never see or hear from them again. You don’t even know his name. So forget him.”
“I will. I mean, I did,” Angela replied quickly, but from the quelling look in Julia’s eyes she knew she wasn’t fooling anyone. “I’m working the phones all this week. I even signed up for the graveyard shift on Sunday. How’s that?”
Julia shook her head. “I know it sounds as if I’m criticizing, but I’m just worried about you, is all. Besides, if you don’t make some vacation money how can we plan our February trip to Grand Cayman, huh?” she asked jovially.
Nodding, Angela smiled. “I came to the same conclusion myself, Julia. I can do anything once I put my mind to it.”
Just then Angela heard her name announced on the office PA system. “I’ve got a call. Maybe things are turning around already,” she said, rushing to her desk.
She lifted the phone. “Angela Morton.”
“This is Matt Leads. I’m a CPA and I got your name through an associate of mine. I was hoping you could help me out.”
“I’ll do my best, Mr. Leads.”
Matt went on to explain that through a series of misfortunes one of his clients had been forced into bankruptcy. Since Matt would be handling the sale of the property, Matt requested that Angela fax their company’s contract to him immediately. Then he asked if she could ride out to Waller County and take a look at the horse ranch and give him her professional assessment of what she felt it was worth. Matt wanted the property listed as quickly as possible.
“You realize that December is just about the worst time of year to sell, Mr. Leads.”
“I understand. However, I personally plan to advertise the ranch in several upscale magazines along the East Coast. Texas always looks appealing to someone caught in the middle of a blizzard,” he chuckled.
“I absolutely agree, Mr. Leads.” Thrilled as she was, Angela kept her tone professional as she noted down the particulars of the property.
“Could you take a drive out there this afternoon? I’ll let the owner know you’re coming,” Matt asked.
“Certainly. I’ll prepare this paperwork and I can be there shortly in the early afternoon. Say, one o’clock?”
“That’ll be fine,” Matt replied and hung up.
Angela didn’t waste a minute faxing the contracts to Matt Leads. She would need the owner’s approval, of course, but she was confident she was turning her life around.
Obliterating the memory of an angel-faced birthday girl required superhuman strength and massive outputs of energy, but Rafe had infinite stores of both. In the week since his brief but unsettling interlude with Angela Morton, Rafe had put two coats of white paint on the ranch house, mended the corral fence, swept every last autumn leaf from the three acres surrounding the house and horse barn on his riding mower and restocked the enormous pond with bass. He’d pitched hay, bathed and brushed all eight of his horses, soaped his saddles and bridles and done just about everything he could to exhaust himself.
He forced himself to remember the incredibly painful wounds his ex-fiancée, Cheryl, had inflicted. He rehashed how easily he’d trusted her and given his love to her, and how she’d made a fool of him. Never again would he allow himself to be put in that position. He’d been a lot of things in his life, but never a fool, he thought as he rammed his pitchfork into a mound of fresh hay. He spread out the hay on the floor of Rising Star’s stall.
Angela had seemed sweet, but then so had Cheryl in the beginning. Angela’s kisses had been like nothing he’d ever experienced. He’d known passion, tenderness, lust and fun sex, but Angela was different. When he’d kissed her it was as if he’d kissed her before, he didn’t know where or when. It was as if they’d had some kind of inner connection. Every move she’d made, even the most infinitesimal press of her lips against his had seemed familiar.
But that was impossible, he thought, stripping off his sweat-soaked plaid cotton shirt. He ground his jaw in frustration at himself. He should have been able to forget Angela. No one knew better than he that women were poison. Maybe if he repeated that to himself a thousand times he’d wise up.
Matt heard the blasting jangle of the horse-barn phone. Dropping the pitchfork and yanking a blue bandanna from his back jeans pocket to wipe the sweat from his face, Rafe picked up the phone. “Hey, Matt, how’s it goin’?”
Rafe listened resignedly as Matt explained that he’d contracted with a Realtor to list the ranch. Though he’d been preparing the house for sale, it was still a blow to know he was going to lose his great-grandfather’s land. “The company’s sending an agent around one? It’s almost that now.” Rafe glanced out the barn door and saw a baby blue BMW convertible pull up to the ranch house. The car door opened.
“I think the Realtor is here.” Rafe nearly dropped the phone when he saw Angela get out of the car. “Matt, you SOB!”
Matt chuckled with satisfaction. “I’ve never known you to react like that to a woman, Rafe. Maybe she’s what the doctor ordered.”
Rafe slammed down the receiver and stomped out of the horse barn. Rising Star whinnied approvingly as he sauntered into his freshly made-up stall.
Shielding her eyes from the bright afternoon sun, Angela surveyed the property. Thick clusters of oak trees still bearing half their leaves cast long wintry shadows over the newly painted ranch house. She couldn’t help thinking this was just the sort of house she would have built had she been born a hundred years earlier. It had a wide wraparound front porch with delicate gingerbread trim along the roof line. Huge Boston ferns hung between the hand-carved posts and pots of winter chrysanthemums decorated the front steps. Though only two wicker rocking chairs sat on the back porch nearest the door to the kitchen, she imagined wicker tables and chairs, covered in summer calico, ready for huge family reunions.
The dark green shingled roof and green shutters made the house look as if it were part of its natural surroundings. Angela couldn’t help smiling as she thought of the caption she could use to sell this ranch: “What home should be.”
From a distance, Rafe’s voice boomed across the corral and stretch of land like rolling tumbleweed. “There’s been a big mistake. You might as well leave.”
Mistake? Leave? Blasphemous words such as those she was hearing were not part of Angela’s professional vocabulary. She didn’t know who this Rafe Whitten was, but she wasn’t moving a single inch until she’d appraised this property.
Who was this