Dark Angel (Casteel 2)

"You look beautiful, but you looked even more beautiful with your own dark hair."

"Of course you'd say that. You like everything as God gave it to us. But I know nature can be improved upon."

"Are we going to start off again fighting, and over such a silly thing as the color of your hair? I quite honestly don't care what you do to your hair."

"I didn't think you really did."

He set down his bundle on the middle of the kitchen table, and looked around. "Where is your grandfather?"

"He's down the hill, bragging about Pa and his circus. Why, you'd think Pa had become the president of the United States from the way he's carrying on."

Uneasily Logan stood in the center of the kitchen, looking around, obviously not wanting to leave yet. "I like what you've done to this cabin. It seems so cozy."

"Thank you."

"Are you going to be staying awhile?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure yet. I've filed my application at the Winnerrow's school board, but so far I haven't

heard a thing."

I began to try and iron my dress. "You didn't marry Troy Tatterton, why not?"

"It's not really any of your business, is it Logan?"

"I think it is. I've known you for many years. I took care of you when you were sick. I loved you for a long time . . I think that gives me a few rights."

It was several minutes before I could say thinly, with tears in my voice, "Troy died in an accident. He was a very wonderful man who had too many tragedies in his life. I could cry for all he should have had, and didn't."

"What is it the super-wealthy can't buy?" he asked, with a certain mocking tone in his voice, and I whirled to confront him, still holding my iron in my hand. "You're thinking as I used to think, that money can buy everything, but it doesn't and never will." I turned and began to iron again. "Will you please leave now, Logan? I have a thousand things to do. Tom will be staying here with us, and I want the house to be perfect in time for his arrival--I have to make it feel like home.

For the longest time he stood behind me, so close he could have leaned forward and kissed my neck, yet he didn't. I felt his presence, almost as if he were touching me. "Heaven, are you going to find time in your busy schedule to fit me in?"

"Why should I? I hear you are as good as engaged to Maisie Setterton."

"Everyone is telling me that Cal Dennison returned to Winnerrow just to see you!"

Again I whirled around. "Why are you so eager to believe anything you hear? If Cal Dennison is in town, he's made no effort to contact me, and I hope never to see him again."

Suddenly he smiled. His sapphire eyes lit up and made him seem a boy again, the boy who used to love me. "Well, it's nice seeing you again, Heaven. And I'll get used to your blond hair, if you decide to keep it that way." And then he was turning and walking out the back door, leaving me staring after him, and wondering, wondering.

As the day of the circus dawned, Grandpa was so eager to see his youngest son and Tom that he was almost hopping with excitement as I tried to knot the first tie he'd ever worn. He grouched and complained and said I was worse than Stacie, who was always trying to make him look like what he wasn't. "Ya kin't do it, Heaven chile. New clothes won't do it . . jus' get ya gone. I kin brush my own hair!"

It was my intention to make him look like a gentleman as much as possible and to show all those pseudo-snobs in Winnerrow that even Casteels could change. Grandpa was wearing, also, the first real suit of his life. I tucked a colorful handkerchief in his pocket, fiddling with it for a few minutes, while Grandpa itched for me to get on with it.

"Why, durn iffen ya ain't gone an' made me look like some big city gent," he proudly said, eyeing himself up and down in the full-length mirror that had been ordered for the bedroom that I was using. He preened like a bird in bright plumage, touching tentative fingers to his hair, the little he had left.

"You be careful with yourself, Grandpa, until I'm dressed."

"But I don't know now what to do wid myself."

"Then I'll tell you what to do. You won't go farther from this house than the front porch, and don't start whittling or you'll cover your good suit with sawdust and shavings. Sit in one of the rockers next to Grandma, and tell her all about what's going to happen today. And sit there until I come out, ready to go."

"But Annie not gonna want to stay here widout us!" he said in shrill objection. "Luke's her son, too."

"Then Grandma will go with us." He smiled when I said that. He touched his withered old hand to my face. "Yer gonna dress her up fancy, too?"

"Of course."