Stripped Down
“Sure, Rose,” he snaps. “And I suppose the whole time you were gone, when you were anywhere but here, you just couldn’t wait to come back.”
He can take his supposition and shove it.
He has the literal truth on his side. I ran, and I ran hard. I’m a serial mistake maker, and there’s no way to fix the past. Maybe, I’ll fail at home repairs, too. Maybe, I won’t get Auntie Dee’s house perfect, but I still get to try. I still get to come home.
I gaze at his gorgeous, hard face, searching for words that don’t come. He shouldn’t be so calm always. Getting truly angry at Angel is unfamiliar territory, but it also feels right. I’m done letting other people tell me how to feel, what to do. Where to go and where to be. First in L.A. as a child and then here in Lonesome, I’ve always believed in some impossible standard that I should live up to. I can’t be perfect, but I’ve also moved passed making a career out of imperfect.
“Hard as it is and as naturally as it comes to you, don’t be an ass,” I snap.
His head whips up. I may have pushed him too hard. Angel gets as immobile as rock. From the look in his eyes, he’s more than halfway to pissed off now. Too bad I don’t give a damn. It’s part of my not perfect plan.
“You don’t get to stand here on my porch and tell me what I do or don’t feel. Auntie Dee was the best thing that ever happened to me, and don’t you think I ever forgot that. I left. That was what I needed to do, then. Now, I’m back.”
“Half,” he says. “You own half of a porch. The other half is mine.”
“Then maybe you should go stand on it,” I snap and point. He can have the half that’s visibly rotted and I hope he falls through.
“Let me write you that check, Rose.” His face is closed off and unreachable.
For once, Angel doesn’t get what he wants. “I’m fixing this place up.”
He turns away from the porch railing, watching me intently. I have no idea what he expects to see. “You want to play house, come stay at the ranch house. You can redesign and redecorate to your heart’s content.”
“Consolation prize?”
“No.” An unrecognizable emotion flashes across his face, and then he closes the distance between us, his big, work-roughened hands caging me in the swing as he plants his arms on either side of me. “You know you always have a place on Blackhawk, Rose. You can come home to us.”
“I’m not family.” It needs saying.
And of course he agrees with me on this one thing. “You’re not. Whatever you were to my brothers, don’t make the mistake of thinking I ever saw you as a sister.”
There is that familiar hurt, followed by a flicker of hot, liquid attraction. I don’t need him to swoop in here and take care of me, but he’s not done telling me how things are going to be.
“This place, this house—it’s too much, Rose, and some of the problems are just plain beyond fixing. You’d need a new roof on the house, new siding, a new porch. And those are just the outside pieces. You get inside, and I’ll lay money the plumbing’s shot, right along with the electrical system.”
He’s not wrong. When I stop looking with my heart, I can recognize the never-ending list of what’s gone wrong with the place.
“I know.” I swallow around the knot in my throat. I won’t cry. Crying never helps. Maybe the house itself can be salvaged with paint, lumber, and some serious contractor elbow grease, but Auntie Dee isn’t here anymore and that’s the soul of this place. There’s no fixing, replacing, or filling her absence. Tears swim in my eyes before I can remind myself I’ve sworn off crying just like I’ve sworn off men.
I’m not doing so well with promises.
Angel growls my name and hauls me into his arms, “Don’t cry, baby.”
ANGEL
Fuck holding back.
Fuck restraint.
Nothing in my life has ever felt more right than pulling Rose Jordan into my arms. When I’ve touched before, when she tempted me at the swimming hole, when she was living in my house, it was accidental. Now I’m touching her on purpose. She stiffens, as if I’ve surprised her, but then she melts. She doesn’t want to, she doesn’t want me, but her body trusts me. She’s not a little girl anymore.
She needs me.
Needs more than my dick inside her, even if I can make her enjoy it.
I can’t replace Auntie Dee. The woman was part of Lonesome for so many years that the town seems emptier now she’s gone. Rose cries for her, and that makes me want to fix things. Make everything better. But even I’m not fucking Superman, and I can’t bring people back from the dead.