Johanna Lindsey - Angel

Hitched up? It was too incredible for her to grasp immediately, but when she did, Cassie started to laugh. “You’re joking.”

“No, ma’am.” R. J. shook his head. “Got the preacher waitin‘ in your parlor to say the words. He was happy to oblige when he heard you two’ve been livin’ under the same roof all this time without a proper chaperone.”

Hot color flooded her cheeks at the insinuation R. J. was making, only to have every speck of it desert her as the greater implication hit her. They were going to force Angel to marry her. But no one could do that to a man like him. He’d be so furious, he would kill every one of them without a qualm the very second he got his gun back.

Damn Frazer. He’d said his pa would get a kick out of this idea, and he’d probably made sure that it occurred to him. She gave him a glare worthy of a lightning bolt. He grinned back at her unrepentantly.

“It came out of your own mouth, Miss Cassie,” Frazer said, rubbing it in. “And gettin‘ married is what engaged couples do, ain’t it?”

Her own lie, and coming back to haunt her in a monstrous way. Frazer knew it was a lie. R. J. probably did, too. They were only using it to get revenge—“just deserts,” as Frazer had called it. But she couldn’t let them go through with it. For their own sakes, she couldn’t.

Cassie was afraid to look at Angel to see how he was taking this new dilemma, but she knew he wouldn’t say anything. That wasn’t his way. Afterward he’d deal with them, and feel justified, since they weren’t exactly lawful in what they were doing.

Still, she couldn’t allow it to go that far. She’d have to lie some more. And if that didn’t work, she’d have to flat out refuse to cooperate.

She turned back to R. J. “I appreciate your concern, Mr. MacKauley, but my mama’s already planning a big wedding for the end of January. Hundreds of guests have been invited. She’d never forgive me if she had to cancel it.”

The old man chuckled. “No need to disappoint your ma. Ain’t no law says you can’t get married twice — leastwise to the same man.”

Cassie gritted her teeth. “Then I’ll wait until my papa gets here so he can give me away.”

“You can have yourself even another wedding when Charley gets here, but we ain’t gonna disappoint the preacher on this one, since he come all this way to do the right thing. I’ll give you away, little girl. If d be an honor.”

At which point Cassie got angry. “The hell it would. I’m not getting married to suit your misplaced sense of revenge, R. J. MacKauley. If you’d just open your eyes, you’d see that Clayton and Jenny want to be together. It’s your orneriness that won’t let them, and the same thing’s brought you here today. So what are you going to do now? Shoot me?”

“Well, now, I can do that,” he said with some careful thought before nodding in the direction behind her. “But I’d probably shoot him instead.”

“Him” was Angel, and the very thought of him being shot turned Cassie’s blood cold. He still hadn’t said anything, and she could no longer avoid looking at him. But that was a mistake that gave her the jolt of fear the MacKauleys hadn’t been able to. Angel was furious, all right, and for some reason, the full blast of it was coming her way. No, not some reason. This was her fault, too, and he was putting the blame right where it belonged.

She swung back around again, frightened enough now to plead with R. J. if she had to. Angel didn’t give her the chance. He came around and yanked her down from the carriage. No one tried to stop him.

“Let’s get this over with, Cassie. One wedding or three won’t make any difference at this point.”

His tone was as smooth as his expression now was, but she wasn’t fooled. She’d seen the fury, and her feet dug in as he started pulling her toward the house. They got there anyway, with the MacKauleys following close behind. And the preacher was indeed waiting.

Her last hope. All she had to do was tell him that she and Angel were being forced to marry…

“Not another word except ‘I do,’ ” Angel hissed in her ear. “You got that?”

Cassie stared at him, uncertain why he was giving in. Possibly because the sooner it was over, the sooner he’d get his gun back, and then all hell was going to break loose. She hoped he’d let the preacher leave first. The MacKauleys she had no sympathy for at the moment. Poor Maria was going to have a fit at all the blood…

“You got that?” Angel repeated.

She nodded. What did she care if she had a bloodbath in her parlor? First she was getting married, and that was accomplished quite painlessly, actually. There was even a small, crazy part of her that regretted that it wasn’t for real. Crazy was right. When she thought about what her mama would do when she heard about this shotgun wedding… of course, she’d have to be alive to tell her, and she wasn’t at all certain she was going to survive the night.

R. J. was laughing as he walked the preacher out. Morgan hadn’t come into the parlor to listen to the vows, though Cassie heard his disgruntled voice in the hall before he left with his father. Richard looked no more amused now than he had earlier. In fact, he seemed kind of uneasy now. Smart man. He’d be smarter still if he took Angel’s gun with him, but he was already removing it from his belt as he left the room, obviously to leave it on the hall table. Cassie hoped he would change his mind before he left.

But Frazer, that bizarre miscreant, was still standing there grinning at the newly wedded couple as if they ought to share in his delight. Fortunately, Angel was ignoring him. He’d moved to the window to watch the others ride off. Cassie couldn’t ignore him. The man’s flashing teeth irritated the hell out of her at that point.

So she marched over and literally shoved Frazer out of the room and toward the front door, saying in a furious whisper, “Are you happy now? If Angel doesn’t kill you for this, I think I will.”

“What’s the big deal, Cassie?” he had the gall to reply. “Pa’s satisfied now, and you’ll just get it annulled. So what’s the harm done?”

“The harm is that Angel might not see it that way, you jackass. Now get out of my house.”

It was very satisfying, slamming the door behind Frazer, but a glance at the hall table proved Richard wasn’t as smart as she’d hoped. He’d left Angel’s gun. She picked it up, looking for a place to hide it, but there was nowhere in the hall, so she slipped it inside her coat and felt it lodge against the form-fitting waist. Suddenly she realized that she hadn’t even thought to remove her coat for her wedding.

A laugh bubbled up in her throat. She swallowed it down with a silent groan.

“Cassie?”

Her head snapped up at the sound of his voice coming from the parlor. She wasn’t ready for this. Tomorrow they could discuss the annulment. Tonight, his gun wasn’t the only thing that needed hiding.

Without answering him, she raced up the stairs and locked herself in her room.

When Cassie didn’t come down for her dinner that night, Emanuel was sent up with a tray. Maria had outdone herself in preparing several of Cassie’s favorite dishes. Well, she’d had the time, since she hadn’t had to clean up any blood yet. And the housekeeper had either been listening to or guessed what had happened. But Cassie barely picked at the offerings.

She did a lot of pacing, with Marabelle prowling right alongside her and nearly tripping her a half-dozen times. As usual, the panther sensed her upset and wouldn’t settle down until Cassie did. But Cassie was a bundle of nerves, wondering if Angel had left the house, wondering what he was going to do— and to whom. It was impossible for her to sit down, much less think of going to bed yet.

When the knock came at the door, she was so deep in thought she didn’t think twice about opening it, assuming the person was Emanuel returning for the tray. It wasn’t.

“Didn’t think you’d open up to me,” Angel said.

She wouldn’t have if she’d known it was him. And she would have immediately closed the door again if he hadn’t taken a step forward so she’d end up smashing him if she tried it. She didn’t. She started backing up instead. She seemed to do a lot of that when he was around.

He must want his gun. No, he couldn’t know she had it. He probably wanted hers. She had to talk him out of whatever he was going to do — somehow.

“You must have been hungry.”

She followed his gaze to the empty tray. “Marabelle was,” she replied, not trusting for a minute the mellow tone he was using. “Look, can we talk about this?”

“Sure — after you get rid of the cat.”

Marabelle was sitting on her haunches next to Cassie. The last thing Cassie wanted to do, knowing Angel’s wariness of the panther, was to send her out of the room. But she supposed a peace offering would be more appropriate now, so she led the big cat to the door and shooed her off. Angel had stepped farther into the room to get out of Marabelle’s path.

Cassie closed the door, but stayed near it. Angel had been in her room only once before. She remembered that night and felt flutterings in her belly. And he was staring at her bed. Why was he staring at her bed?

She took a deep breath and began to speak conversationally, hoping to set the tone at a rational level. “You know, you really don’t have to kill anyone over this. I’ll get an annulment. It will be like it never happened.”

His eyes came to her, briefly meeting her gaze before dropping to her mouth. “You’ll have to make that a divorce instead.”

“No, you don’t understand. An annulment will be much easier to obtain.”