Chapter 2 #2
“Holy horses,” he said. “I forgot I’m not coming back here.”
“Not coming back here?” Angel had just repeated the words, but they didn’t make sense.
“I’m staying at my parents’ until Monday.”
“I can’t do that.”
Henry looked at her and cocked his head. “Can’t you?”
“No,” she snapped at him. “I look after Trevor, and I…. Daddy likes his eggs a certain way in the morning, and Mama can’t light the stove anymore.”
Henry reached for his phone, which rested in the cupholder. “I’ll make sure your brother and parents are taken care of this weekend.”
“Henry, no.”
“Angel, by your own admission, you need a break, and my momma will feed you, let you sleep as late as you want, and my daddy has the sweetest therapy horses in the world. You can go play ball with them or go riding. Soak in the sunshine. Enjoy the big, wide sky over my family’s ranch.
” He smiled at her, and Angel could admit that everything he said sounded absolutely wonderful.
Still, she hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“It’s less than forty-eight hours,” he said gently. “And I can see you need it.” He ducked his head, his eyes on his phone but his hands absolutely still over it. “Will you let me help you?”
Angel closed her eyes and let herself go. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Okay, then,” he said. “I’m going to send a couple of texts, and then I’m going to call my momma.
” He stayed stopped right there on the dirt road as his fingers tracked over his phone.
A minute later, he said, “Clay, Zane, and Derrick are going to make sure your family is taken care of. Only the senior farriers, your foreman, and the team leads know you’ll be off-site for a couple of days. ”
Henry looked at her, and Angel’s insides shook with nervous energy—and so much attraction to this man. “What did you say?” she asked.
“I told them you needed a break and that I was helping you get off the ranch for a couple of days. Asked them for some help with your brother and parents, and within sixty seconds, it’s done.”
Angel nodded and looked away from him. “Thank you, Henry.”
“My word, I’m going to say something my uncle lectured me about endlessly.” He gave a mirthless chuckle. “If you need help, Angel, say something. There are plenty of people willing to help you.”
“I know.” She sniffled and reached up to wipe her eyes. “I’m sorry, Henry. I swear I’m going to pull myself together before we get to your cousin’s house.”
“If you can’t, that’s okay too,” he said gently.
She’d seen him working with horses, and he was this polite and respectful and kind to them too.
His quiet, almost dormant strength spoke to them, and just as easily to her too.
“It’s just game night, and everyone will survive without me. You just let me know.”
She drew in a breath, trying to use the oxygen to fill herself with bravery and strength. “I want to do something fun, and game night with people our age sounds fun.”
“Our age?”
She heard the teasing note in his voice, but she hid her smile. “Yes,” she said. “I know how old you are from your application.”
“Sneaky,” he teased. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight,” she said. And Henry would be twenty-seven this year. June, if she remembered right.
“That’s pretty young to shoulder all you do.”
She could only nod, because yes, she carried a lot of responsibility. “Trevor is seven years older than me,” she said. “He was supposed to take over.”
“He’s a great guy,” Henry said.
“I’ve seen you with him.” Angel released the self-hug, glad when the tension in her muscles started to recede. “You’re so kind to him. So good with him. I really appreciate it.”
“Sure,” Henry said easily. “I’ve worked with quite a few therapy patients through my daddy’s equine unit. He’s just a person.”
“Yes, well, some people don’t know how to deal with or talk to a disabled person.”
“Mm, sure,” Henry said again, and he made the turn onto the main highway, aiming the truck toward Three Rivers and not Amarillo.
“Okay, we’ve got better service here. Let me call my momma.
She can find you some pajamas and clothes for the weekend.
She’ll probably need to get a bedroom ready for you. ”
“If it’s too much—”
“It’s not.” He cut her a look out of the side of his eye and tapped on the screen in his truck. A loud chirp filled the vehicle, and he said in a loud, clear, slow voice, “Call Momma Chelsea.”
“Calling Momma Chelsea,” his truck repeated to him, and Angel couldn’t hide her smile this time.
Oh, and now she knew his mother’s name. She’d run into the woman when Henry had moved in last summer, but she’d deliberately kept all the doors between her and him closed, hoping her insane and intense attraction to him would diminish with time and space.
Sadly, that hadn’t happened yet, and now she was currently riding in his vehicle, toward his cousin’s house for game night, and then a weekend away at his parent’s house.
“Henry, baby, hey,” his momma said. “Are you still coming tonight?”
“Yes, Momma,” he said. “And I need to warn you: you’re on speaker with me and a friend.”
“Okay,” she said.
Henry looked over to her, and Angel had looked at him when he’d called her “a friend.” She would not classify Henry as a friend, and she really didn’t like him calling her that. Not because they weren’t friends yet, but because he hadn’t used the word girlfriend.
And why would he? The very thought was insane—and absolutely not allowed due to Lone Star’s dating policies.
“Momma, my friend is a woman in desperate need of a break from the stables. But I forgot to tell her I was coming for the weekend, and she doesn’t have anything. Not a toothbrush, a stick of deodorant, or any pajamas.”
His mother stayed silent for a couple of seconds. “And I’m assuming she’ll be staying for the weekend.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “It’s Angel, Momma.”
“Oh, Angel.” His mother’s voice brightened, and Angel could only imagine what he’d told her. At least it sounded like they were good things. “Okay, so you’re on your way to game night?”
“Dinner first,” Henry said. “Then game night. Who knows what Finn and Edith have planned, but they’ve got that baby now, so I’m guessing we’ll get to Three Rivers by like….” He hemmed and hawed for a moment and then said, “Ten-thirty.”
“Okay,” his momma said.
“Is that too late? We can leave early.”
“Ten-thirty is fine, baby.”
“Okay,” he said. “Ten-thirty then.”
“I’ll make sure she has what she needs.”
“You’re the best, Momma.”
“Thank you, Missus Marshall,” Angel said, leaning toward the screen where a clock ticked up the length of the phone call.
“You’re welcome, honey. See you two soon.”
“’Bye, Momma.” Henry reached out to the screen. “Love you.”
“Love you, baby.”
Henry tapped the screen to end the call, and he relaxed back into his seat. “That actually went better than I thought it would.”
“Did it?”
“Yeah, well, I mean—yeah, she didn’t ask a bunch of questions about why you’re coming with me, if we’re dating, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.”
“Will anyone assume that?”
“Honestly?” He sighed, and that combined with his rhetorical question made her adrenaline spike. “Yeah, my cousins and friends and siblings will probably assume we’re on a date. But I’ll just tell them we’re not. It’ll be fine.”
Angel nodded, though everything inside her writhed and squirmed. “I mean, it would be okay with me if you just let them think we’re on a date. You are taking me to dinner and everything.”
Henry said nothing as he drove, the ride easy and smooth along the paved road. “I guess it feels like it could be a date.”
“Sure,” she said, mimicking him.
“But you can’t date the men at Lone Star.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t want to.” Angel sucked in a breath when she realized what she’d just said.
She tried not to, but she looked over to Henry anyway.
He wore a semi-stunned look on his face, and Angel wanted to wipe it away.
Say something pithy about how she had a big crush on Levi or Clay or someone other than him. Anyone other than him.
“Okay,” he drawled. “I just need you to answer a couple of questions for me. Can you do that?”
“Maybe,” she said.
“I’ll take a maybe.” He cleared his throat and coughed twice. “One, when I inadvertently kissed you last winter, did you or did you not kiss me back?”
Angel balked at telling him the truth, but her parents had taught her not to lie. She’d been hiding a lot, and she couldn’t carry another secret. “Yes,” she said. “I did.”
“Mm hm. Yes, you did.”
She rolled her eyes, though every cell in her body told her to smile instead. “Is that it?”
“No,” he said. “If I asked you out on a real date, would you say yes?”
“That’s cheating.”
“What does that mean?”
“You just want me to tell you I’ll go out with you without you having to ask.”
“It’s against the rules at Lone Star to date anyone who works there,” he said. “I can’t ask you out, even if I wanted to—and I’m not saying I do.”
“Then why does it matter?”
“Because a man would like to know if the incredibly beautiful woman he’s had a crush on for seemingly ever would go out with him, that’s why.”
“I—”
“And because if she would, and she can feel this bubbling, sizzling thing between them, then maybe some rules need to be broken.”
“Henry Marshall,” she admonished. “You don’t break rules.”
“They’re your rules,” he said, cutting her a look out of the side of his eyes. “You could change them.”
“They’re my daddy’s rules.”
The truck traveled down the road, the signs for Stinnett coming into view. Angel sensed she’d lose him and the thread of this conversation once they stopped for dinner. But she didn’t know what to say.
He’d just admitted to having a crush on her, and that made warmed honey ooze through her veins.
“I can feel this thing between us,” she whispered.
“Mm hm. And?”
“And.” She finished drawing in her breath and blew it all out noisily. “I’d go out with you if you could ask me.”
“Mm.”
“You hum a lot.”
“I just want you to know I heard you.” He reached over and took her hand in his. Part of Angel wanted to protest, but she looked at him and saw the determined set of his jaw.
“Henry,” she said, but she didn’t have the words to continue.
“I’d break all the rules for you, Angel,” he said, his voice soft and powerful at the same time. “But let’s not deal with it this weekend, okay? You need a break, and me adding all this too your plate is selfish and unnecessary.”
“Okay,” she said, her emotions teetering on the edge of sanity again.
“Okay.” He lifted her hand to his lips and gently pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. He said something else about the pub they’d be at soon, but all Angel could hear was the sweetest words a man had ever said to her: I’d break all the rules for you, Angel.
So she started praying that something could be done about the no-dating rules at Lone Star. But that meant talking to Daddy about his policies, and he’d never been very open to her suggestions.
Not this weekend, she told herself. She deserved a relaxing, carefree break from the ranch, and that was exactly what she was going to do for the next two days.
With Henry Marshall at her side.
Biscuits and gravy, she thought-swore. Dear Lord, don’t let this be the biggest mistake of my life.
Oh…biscuits and gravy! Read UNDONE AT MIDNIGHT now!