Heavenly Angel (2 page)

Chapter Two

Teresa went through her work day in a daze. She helped customers and tidied displays, distracted by the constant humming in her body. Angel came to mind repeatedly. When she thought of his kiss and the heat of his body when he’d embraced her, her heart would pound again. She had a full work day to get through, and at this rate, she would be thoroughly exhausted by the time the store closed and she could leave.

Today was already Wednesday, so she was lucky she’d been able to arrange for her neighbors’ teenage daughter to watch Michael on Friday evening. Marissa loved her two-year-old, Michael, and came over to play with him while Teresa did housework and laundry on the weekends for the fun of it. She was young, only fifteen, but her parents’ apartment was right next door, and Teresa trusted them with Michael.

Teresa was sitting on a stool behind one of the gemstone display cases, rearranging and cleaning the interior. The memory of the smile on Angel’s face when he realized it was her in the car that afternoon came to mind.

She blotted the sheen of perspiration off her forehead as she rested her elbow on the inside edge of the display case. Somehow she was going to have to survive the next two days of anticipation. Why did she do this to herself? Get so worked up over him? He was just a man. That was probably exactly what Angel would say. He wouldn’t have intended for her to become so worked up.

Beyond the lone disaster of the past, she’d never had a real date. Her parents had sheltered her rigorously when she was growing up and raised her with strict, moral standards which she could appreciate. But she sincerely wished her mother would’ve had some heart-to-heart talks with her over the years to help prepare her for the real world. She missed them both terribly sometimes, despite their old-fashioned ways and faults. She wished she could visit them so they could meet Michael, but that just wasn’t possible.

A fresh wave of guilt over leaving them in the care of strangers, in a nursing home, came over her. It was necessary. A clean break and no ties was what she’d needed for both her and her baby. She wondered what Angel would think if she told him the whole sordid tale. She felt more guilt with the knowledge that he’d come completely clean with her about Patricia long before he’d ever asked her out.

She’d heard from Grace that Angel had been interviewed by the police and other investigators regarding Patricia and her general state of mind. The less Teresa was involved with that whole situation, the happier she was. It only increased her respect for Angel that he had esteemed her enough to tell her about his part in the upsetting story.

Teresa remembered Grace’s voice, filled with stress and worry as she explained to her on the phone what had happened to Angel, knowing Teresa was interested in him. Teresa knew she needed to fill him in on her past. She hoped he’d appreciate how difficult it would be to share that story with him. She reached in the case and replaced the display boards. She smiled when she heard a familiar female voice behind her.

“Well, isn’t that a pretty blush you’re sporting, Teresa? You must have a lot on your mind. A little birdie told me you have a date with a certain hotly handsome cowboy,” Grace said, snickering. Teresa smiled and hid her hot face in her hands. “Word travels fast on the ranch. Angel told Jack. Did he kiss you? I heard you brought him a pie. Aww, look at that blush, he
did
kiss you didn’t he?” she whispered then giggled. Teresa knew the last thing Grace would want to do was embarrass Teresa within the hearing of others. Grace understood her.

“Yes, you bad girl, he did,” Teresa said in a barely audible voice.

“Mmm, did you like it?” Grace asked as Teresa stood from the low stool behind the counter. “That’s a dumb question. I can tell you did. So he’s a good kisser?”

“Wonderful.”

“Good. It’s about damn time he made a move. Are you looking forward to your date?”

“I’m a nervous wreck.”

“What are you going to wear?”

They chatted for a few minutes, and Grace reminded her about her bridesmaid dress fitting the following day. Teresa went back to work, and Grace returned to the embroidery shop.

* * * *

Teresa looked in the mirror nervously and wondered if the outfit she chose was all right. Angel was used to women in tight jeans and revealing tops, with big hair and long, manicured nails. She only owned one pair of jeans, and she didn’t think they fit the way Patricia’s had. She’d seen Patricia a time or two in the store before her arrest. Teresa remembered her being very thin, wearing a lot of makeup, hair teased and sprayed, almost plastic and fake in her perfection. No, Teresa would keep the dress on. It was feminine and nothing like anything Patricia would have worn. Maybe that was why Angel asked her out because she was nothing like that other woman.

She clasped a necklace around her neck and put on her earrings, checking the clock. It was seven fifteen. Her heart lurched a little. She smiled, hearing Michael giggling with Marissa in the living room of her small apartment. On her salary, it was all she could afford, but it was clean and in a safe neighborhood, which was more important. Her heart jumped again a few minutes later when she heard Angel’s big pickup pull into one of the parking spaces outside her building. It was a diesel and hard to miss with the way it rumbled.

She giggled when she heard Michael make a rumbling motor noise while he played on the floor with his trucks. “Truck! Brbrbrbrberb!”

She primped one last time and waited for the doorbell to ring. When it came, she took a deep breath to calm her nerves and walked to the door to open it. There he stood, handsome as could be, with a bouquet of pretty Gerber daisies in one hand and her pie plate in the other, empty and clean.

“Hello, Teresa.”

Heat rushed over her cheeks when she noticed him taking her in from head to toe. He was dressed in dark, pressed blue jeans, a white dress shirt, black snakeskin cowboy boots, and a fresh straw cowboy hat which he removed as he entered her home. She welcomed him into the apartment and took the pie plate and flowers from him and felt her cheeks heat again when, once her hands were full, he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.

“Cowboy! Yee-haw!” Michael yodeled from his spot on the living room floor with Marissa. Teresa smiled at Angel and laughed softly.

“Angel, you remember my son, Michael, and this is my neighbor, Marissa.”

Michael had come with her on a brief visit when Angel was still in the hospital. Angel squatted down to Michael and nodded his head at him and smiled. Michael grinned at him and made a pretend gun out of his chubby fingers and pointed it at him and fired, making sound effects. Angel grabbed his chest in mock agony, and Michael laughed outrageously at him. Angel rose up and greeted Marissa politely.

“Thank you for the flowers. They’re beautiful.”

“You’re welcome. The pie was delicious. Your pecan pie is my new favorite.”

“Thank you. I’ll make it again for you some time. Did you share?”

He shook his head negatively. “No. I ate it all myself.”

She smiled when he rubbed his hard, flat belly. He must have burned it off because it sure wasn’t stored anywhere on his muscular body.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

She kissed Michael on top of his black curly head and reminded Marissa of his bedtime before they left. He walked her out to his truck, and she hesitated when he opened the passenger door and turned to her. She was wearing a shin-length, flowing dress, and his truck was a little farther off the ground than she could probably manage in it. She hadn’t thought of that when dressing.

Turning to him in embarrassment, she said, “Perhaps I should change into slacks?”

Perhaps you shouldn’t waste your time on a loser like me
.

He shook his head. “You look beautiful. I don’t want you to change. Would you allow me?” He held out both hands.

Oh no!
He wanted to
lift
her? People would see him trying to lift her! He’d hurt himself, and she’d be
humiliated
! He didn’t wait for her assent. He placed her arm around his shoulder and slid his arm around her back. He reached behind her and lifted her under her knees. He smiled at her sudden intake of breath and slight whimper.

“Don’t worry, beautiful. I have you safe.”

He deposited her in the passenger seat and helped her with the seatbelt. He smiled down at her and grazed a knuckle over her heated cheekbone as she thanked him. He must be very strong because he’d lifted her as if she were as light as a feather. While he walked around the front of the truck, she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. This was just a date. Just a date, maybe. But it was her first date. She was twenty-seven years old on her first date! He pulled open the driver side door and hopped in, smiling at her before he turned to buckle himself in.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

“I’m fine.” She was a
basket case
, thanks to all her helpful self-talk.

He covered her hand with his rough palm. “You sure? I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. I like what you have on, and I didn’t want you to go back in and change clothes. I didn’t mind lifting you. You’re light as a feather.”

“I—Well, it, um…you did take me by surprise. I’m sorry. I’m just being silly.” She sighed softly and paused before confessing. “I don’t date. I’m not used to this.”

* * * *

Angel lifted the hand curled in her lap and wrapped his around it. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He remembered his conversation with Grace a few weeks before. She’d warned him Teresa did not date, and she’d asked that he not trifle with her. Teresa was not someone he could date casually.

He knew she was feeling nervous and flighty, more so now after he lifted her up into the truck. She probably thought she was too heavy for him to lift. He liked her petite but voluptuous form and wouldn’t change a thing about her. He still thought that was a good move, but it definitely took her by surprise. She’d need time to settle now. She’d blushed more for him in the past five minutes than Patricia had in the entire time he’d known her.

“I’d planned on taking you out to O’Reilley’s and buying you a steak dinner. We could still do that, if you’d like, but I have another idea. Rudy’s is open for supper, and by now his early crowd will have been served. We could go over to his place, have dinner, and talk. It’ll be quiet, and nobody will bother us. Would you rather do that?”

He asked because he knew O’Reilley’s would be busy right now. They were well known for their excellent food and service, but it was also the place where people went to be seen, and he knew a lot of people in Divine. It was practically guaranteed that people he knew would see him out with a new woman and want to stop at his table and say hello. He wouldn’t mind that at all but doubted Teresa wanted to do that on their first date. If he was lucky, this was only the first of many.

Teresa looked up at him and smiled sweetly because she understood what he was offering. He could practically feel the relief rolling off of her in waves.

“We could get dessert and coffee, too, and just talk. I promise not to keep you out late.” He hoped that by telling her this he would convey to her that he had not made any assumptions.

She squeezed his hand and replied, “Rudy’s sounds wonderful. Thank you, Angel. I’m not sure I’m up to all the excitement at O’Reilley’s.” Angel remembered the “excitement” Grace had to endure when she was out with Jack, Adam, and him at O’Reilley’s the night of the shooting. Her engagement to Jack had been broadcast by a well-meaning friend of his to the entire restaurant and had drawn an unfriendly response from one nosey individual. He understood completely how Teresa would feel being under scrutiny, even if it was friendly. Many of Patricia’s friends lived in Divine. He couldn’t necessarily guarantee it would be all friendly.

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”

They sat in the corner booth at Rudy’s, and true to his prediction, the restaurant was quiet with only a trickle of customers coming and going. When she asked, he told her about his work and how he’d come to know Jack and the others. She told him about Michael and her work. When he asked about where she came from, he could sense her reluctance to talk about her past, and she spoke in broader terms. He backed off to safer topics and gave her a chance to get comfortable again, which she did.

He noticed it was difficult for her to make steady eye contact with him. Angel had always looked upon that as a weakness in someone’s character, as if they had something to hide. He didn’t feel that was the case with Teresa, and he didn’t become impatient with her for being that way. It was one more question whose answer would have to wait until she trusted him more. He’d earn her trust, and then she’d feel comfortable looking into his eyes. Her eyes were a deep chocolate brown, and he was willing to bet they were almost black when she was angry or aroused. Not that he could picture her angry, but he’d love to test his theory with his lips and hands to see if he was right. If he earned her trust, maybe he’d have that chance.

The only facts she parted with were that her parents were elderly and that she was born to them late in life. She was raised by loving but strict old-world parents. That might explain why she habitually averted her eyes.

Blushing, she told him when he asked that she’d never been allowed to date as a teenager. Right about the time she’d looked forward to a little more freedom and possibly attending college, both her parents’ health had taken a downturn, and they’d needed her to stay home and help them. This had allowed no time at all for socialization with men her age, and he wondered secretly if maybe they’d preferred it that way so they would always have someone to care for them. If they were as old world as she let on, it would be a natural assumption to make.