Angels Don't Cry Read online

  Her hands fluttered weakly to his chest as she tried to gather her resistance, but still she couldn’t find the strength to push him away.

  Another shot rang out, farther down river. The hunter had obviously moved on, the danger was past, the enchantment shattered. Drew’s head lifted as his hands fell away from her. They both struggled to their feet, then stepped apart as he whirled in the direction the shot had come from. “What the hell is going on here, a war?”

  He turned back to her, looking as shaken as she felt, but that moment had given Ann the time to wipe away the tear she’d found coursing down her cheek. With an effort she fastened her mental armor back into place.

  “Not yet,” she tried to say lightly, but her voice trembled in spite of her best effort. “Just a few crazy, trigger-happy hunters.”

  “What the devil are they doing this close to the house?” he asked with a frown.

  “That doesn’t seem to bother these guys in the least,” she said, forcing her gaze back to the woods as she waved a careless hand in that direction. “I’ve been having trouble for a couple of months now with poachers hunting on my land.”

  His scowl deepened. “I don’t like the sound of that. Those shots were too damned close. Have you talked to Sheriff Hayden about this?”

  “I’ve called him a few times, and he in turn has called the county game warden. But by the time either of them can get out here, the hunters are always long gone. Jack suggested I post the perimeters of my property with No Trespassing signs, and that seemed to help for a while. I guess they’ve decided to come back and take their chances.”

  “You’re sure that’s all it is?”

  Ann looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

  Drew shrugged, his gaze uneasy as he surveyed the surrounding woods. “Mayor Sikes said there’d been a couple of incidents after the last council vote—a rock thrown through someone’s window, some near fights in town.”

  “You think someone tried to shoot me because I’m opposing the development project?” Ann asked, seizing on the one topic she knew would buffer her from Drew’s dangerous effect on her. “Seems to me you’d be the most likely suspect in that case.”

  His eyes met hers, issuing a challenge of his own. “I prefer to do my convincing in other ways.” His blue gaze drifted over her and then came back up to once again meet her eyes. But he’d let her know with that one brief look that what had passed between them moments ago was not something he was going to forget. Or let her forget.

  “I wasn’t suggesting that someone deliberately tried to shoot you,” he continued, his voice steady. “Whoever it was might have been trying to intimidate you, though, and got closer than he meant to. Nate Bennett’s property adjoins yours, doesn’t it?”

  Ann nodded briefly. “Nate’s a hothead, but he wouldn’t do anything that foolhardy. More likely it’s someone who’s moved to the area recently to work in one of the new plants along the interstate. But that’s part of the progress you seem to value so highly, isn’t it? Strangers invading your privacy, escalating crime, noise pollution—just to mention a few.”

  Drew’s posture remained casual, but anger flashed like summer lightning in his eyes at her derisive tone. “I suppose you’d rather sit back in your little retreat out here, and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Crossfield was changing long before I ever got involved with Riverside Development. All those factories, the new airport not twenty miles away—it’s all part of the surging growth in this area. You can’t blame me for this, Ann.”

  “Then whom should I blame?” she shot back. “You couldn’t wait to get away from here, so what the hell are you doing back?”

  He blinked in surprise at her sudden change of tactics and at her use of such strong language—at least strong for her. Jack was right, he thought in fascination. She had changed. He couldn’t help wondering how much. But obviously her negative feelings concerning him hadn’t altered. It hurt him to see bitterness and contempt glittering in those lovely green eyes when there had once been love. So much love, and all wasted.

  He turned away from her angry gaze.

  “Can we talk about this? Reasonably?” he added as he stared pensively at the woods. “The situation in town could easily get out of hand, and this animosity between us only adds fuel to the fire.”

  “What did you expect, Drew?” Ann’s temper blazed in sharp comparison to his calm tone. “That you could come back here after all these years, and I’d hand over the title of my farm to you without a word? That I’d let you uproot a whole town, my town, without a fight?”

  “I was expecting—I was hoping,” he amended with emphasis, turning back to her, “that you’d at least be willing to listen.”

  “There’s nothing you can say that will change my mind,” Ann said stubbornly, folding her arms firmly across her chest. “I don’t see that we have anything to talk about.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s always been your attitude,” Drew said with heated impatience. “You never thought what anyone else wanted was important. All you cared about was your feelings. What about the other people involved here? What about their feelings? Don’t they count?”

  “This is my land, and I have no intention of selling. I’m not trying to tell anyone else what to do with theirs,” Ann said loftily, but the truth was she’d been miserable for months, wondering if she was doing the right thing.

  “All right, forget about your own property for a moment. What about your council vote on the rezoning issue? That doesn’t affect your land one way or the other. Why are you so against it?”

  Her chin tilted. “I’m doing what I think is best for the community.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Oh, I see. And you can determine that without even listening to what I or anyone else from my company have to say. Hasn’t that self-righteous attitude worn a little thin over the years?”

  Ann glared up at him, seeing him through a red mist. No one had ever been able to make her angrier faster than Drew Maitland. “I have good reason to be self-righteous where you’re concerned. Or have you forgotten?”

  “I haven’t forgotten anything,” Drew responded quickly, his own anger growing. “So if you want to take this little stroll down memory lane, let’s remember who dumped who that summer. You didn’t want me anymore.”

  “Because you tried to make me choose between you and my family!”

  “I only tried to make you see what they were doing to you, to us. It irked me the way they used you, Ann. Both Adam and Aiden played you like a violin, and you let them because you thought it was your sacred duty to take care of them. Everything else, including me, had to take a backseat.”

  “You think that excuses what happened?” she asked bitterly, turning away from him.

  Drew took a deep breath and let it out, the sound as loud as a steam engine in the dead silence between them. “I never tried to make excuses, I only tried to explain, to make you understand. You’re a grown woman now. Surely you can understand how things might have gotten out of hand under the circumstances—”

  “I may be a grown woman, Drew, but I’ve never been able to understand how you could have slept with my sister when you professed to love me.”

  He shoved a tired hand through the golden strands of his hair as he stood silently for a moment, his eyes remote, as though he was trying to distance himself from their conversation. “It always comes back to that, doesn’t it?”

  “You’re damn right it does,” Ann retorted, her green eyes glistening with contempt. “I’ve waited ten years to tell you exactly what I think of your mistake as you so euphemistically put it last night.”

  “Then say it,” Drew said angrily. “Say it all, Angel. You can’t tell me anything I haven’t told myself a million times over. Yes, I made a mistake, but don’t you make one in assuming I didn’t pay for it. I paid for it all right. I paid for it with ten years of my life.”

  “And so did I,” she said simply. “You made your choice, Drew. I didn’t
have one.”

  “We all have choices. I learned that lesson the hard way. You have a choice right now, Ann. You can let the past stay where it belongs, and we can start over, right here and now.”

  She looked at him incredulously. “Why should I want to do that? Because you’re suddenly ready to start over? Because your job requires you to get along with me now?” She shook her head in disgust. “I think I resent you more now than I ever have.”

  He turned away from her, muttering an oath, then spun back around to face her. “Do you think this is healthy?” he asked in frustration. “You living with your bitterness and me with my guilt?”

  “Guilt?”

  “Of course I feel guilty,” he said wearily, the anger suddenly draining away. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

  “But—” Ann’s gaze wandered toward the green expanse of the river, her own anger dissolving like the early morning mist, leaving her feeling drained and openly vulnerable somehow. “If you felt so guilty, why didn’t you try to call me or see me after the divorce?”

  He searched her face, his gaze deep and probing. Then he shuttered his expression. “I had my reasons.”

  “I’m sure you did,” Ann replied caustically, studying his silent profile. Then, as if to herself, she said, “In ten long years, there wasn’t one word from you.”

  “I did come to see you once,” Drew said, his gaze still pensive. “Right after the divorce, I came out to L.A. to talk to you. I waited across the street from your apartment building for you to come home. I saw you and your...friend—” Hell, call him what he was, Drew mocked himself. Her lover. “I saw the two of you drive up and go into the building together.” Would he ever forget that day? Forget that unknown man’s possessive hand on Angel’s back, the way he had smiled down at her, sharing secrets with her that Drew had never known.

  “Why didn’t you come in?”

  He smiled slightly, but there was no humor in his voice when he answered. “I didn’t think I’d be particularly welcome, an old boyfriend showing up out of the blue.”

  “David wouldn’t have minded. He knew all about you.”

  David. So that was his name. Somehow putting a name to that face made Drew feel worse, made their relationship harder to deny. Envy, as he hadn’t known it in years, suddenly rose up inside him, threatening the fragile control he’d fought to maintain for so long.

  “If you told him about me, about us, then you must have trusted him a great deal.”

  There was only a slight hesitation before she answered, “I did.”

  “And loved him?” Drew found that he couldn’t look at her anymore, did not want to see the answer in her eyes. He already felt as though someone had punched him, very hard, in the gut.

  “Yes.”

  His eyes closed briefly. He thought he’d known pain, emptiness, but the emotions plunging through him now were razor-sharp, precise, slicing open wounds he knew would be a long time in healing. He wanted to ram his fist against the wooden post by his side, or into David’s face. He wanted to grab Ann and make her tell him that she had been lying, that she had never loved anyone else.

  Instead he said, very quietly, “I told myself when I first heard you were with someone that it was because I had hurt you so deeply you were on the rebound. I told myself you had made a mistake just as I had, and that it wouldn’t last. I told myself a lot of things back then, but I never dreamed you’d fallen in love with someone else.”

  Tell him the truth, Ann commanded herself. I didn’t fall in love with David. I loved him as a friend, a companion, someone who helped me through the worst time of my life. I loved him, yes, but I wasn’t in love with him. You ruined that for me forever. I could never love anyone the way I loved you.

  “You don’t have to talk about it,” Drew said softly, breaking the heavy silence between them. “In fact, I don’t think I want to hear any more.”

  She cut her eyes back to him. “You were the one who wanted to get into all this, Drew. I was perfectly happy leaving things the way they were.”

  “I know,” he said, frowning at the toe of his boot. “But no matter how...uncomfortable it may be, there are things we need to say to each other, things that have gone too long unsaid. We need to talk about—”

  “Aiden.”

  A cold knot formed in the pit of Drew’s stomach as he tried not to outwardly react to the name. But it was a name that would always be between them, and if they were ever to put the past behind them, they would have to deal with it, starting here and now. He took a long breath. “I never really knew the circumstances surrounding her death. Would you mind telling me?”

  “I don’t mind,” she replied, but when she lifted her eyes to his, pain flickered in the soft, green depths. With an unconsciously graceful movement, she sank to the ground and drew her knees up, clasping her slender hands around them. She stared thoughtfully across the river as Drew sat down beside her. “I suppose I should have called you and told you myself when it happened, but I...couldn’t.”

  She faltered again, dropping her gaze, and Drew wanted to stop her from going on, but he knew he couldn’t. Not now. Not when this conversation might be the final cleansing they both needed.

  “She’d gone with a group of people to some sort of private island off the coast of Cozumel for a midnight party. Evidently there was a lot of booze floating around. Everyone was pretty out of it. No one missed her until it was time to head back to the hotel. The last anyone had seen of her, she’d been going out for a swim. A search was conducted, of course, but they couldn’t find her.

  “I was contacted two days later by the Mexican authorities. She was missing, presumed drowned. The search went on for a few more days, but with the currents around the island, the authorities told me it was pretty hopeless. Jack flew down to try to keep the search going for as long as possible, but...” she trailed off, shrugging helplessly. “He recovered her personal effects from her hotel room and brought them home. Her wedding ring was among the jewelry she had with her. Would...you like to have it back?” Ann asked hesitantly.

  “No!” Drew exploded, then realizing how he sounded, he tried to temper his words. “I’m sorry, Ann, but I don’t want it. You keep it.” Or better yet, throw it away, he thought bitterly.

  Ann nodded briefly, her gaze not quite meeting his. “The rest you know,” she concluded softly.

  “Was she in Mexico on vacation?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “I don’t know if you were aware of this or not,” Drew said slowly, measuring his words. “But Aiden was into gambling. She had a serious problem.”

  Ann stared at him in surprise. “Problem? I knew she liked to gamble. She and Jack used to meet in Las Vegas once or twice a year, but I’d hardly call that a problem.”

  “Ann...Aiden had a very addictive personality.” Pills, booze, you name it. Nothing was ever enough, he thought bitterly, remembering acutely the agony she’d put them both through. He said softly, “She couldn’t stop. I paid off her debts for years, even after the divorce. But there was never an end to it, and I finally had to say no the last time she came to me for help.”

  Ann was still looking at him as if she didn’t quite believe him. “When was this?”

  “About a month before she died.”

  “She called and asked me for money, too,” Ann told him. Her words were calm, but her expression was rigid, as though she was trying very hard to hide her emotions. “She was still living in L.A., picking up an occasional acting job, mostly commercials. Neither one of us was able to touch our trust funds without Jack’s okay, and evidently she couldn’t convince him she really needed the money. I didn’t have any money to give her, either, but I could have helped her out. I could have gotten the money somehow. I’ll never forget the desperation in her voice when she hung up that day. I thought she was acting, Drew. She could be so convincing when she wanted to be. If only I’d known—” She broke off, then lifted her haunted eyes to meet Drew’s. “That was the la
st time I talked to her.”

  “You never heard from her at all?”

  Again a slight hesitation. “Not until the night she died. She contacted me then.”

  As their eyes met, Drew felt a slight tremor of dread course through him. “You’re not talking by telephone, are you?”

  “She was still reaching out to me,” Ann said in a broken whisper. “I’d turned my back on her, and she was still reaching out to me, even at the end.”

  A deep helplessness settled over Drew. He felt powerless to fight this. He could see the guilt in her eyes, the deep sadness that creased her features. Now might be the right time to clue her in on a few basic truths concerning her sister, but he had no wish to cause her more pain. Besides, telling her the truth about Aiden wouldn’t erase what he had done ten years ago. Nothing would do that.

  He’d thought talking about Aiden, about her death, might somehow release them from the anguish of the past. But he could see now that he had been mistaken. Aiden would always be a part of both of them, an inescapable reminder. Even from her grave, she was still coming between them.

  “Ann—” he began, but she had already turned away.

  “I think we’ve both said enough for one day,” she said.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he agreed with a heavy sigh. He stood and stared down at her for a moment. “Goodbye, Ann.” She looked up at him then. Her eyes were dry, but he could see the tears deep inside, even if she couldn’t.

  “Drew—”

  “Yes?”

  She paused for a moment, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, as though torn by indecision. Finally she said softly, “Don’t go back over that bridge.”

  He smiled sadly. “Don’t worry. I’ll take the long way home. I always have.”

  * * *

  Except for periodic cleaning, her sister’s room had been left untouched since the day Aiden had left home years ago. Ann stood in the doorway, her gaze roaming the elegant white, gold and crystal decor—so incongruent for a teenage girl’s bedroom, yet so suited to Aiden.