Johanna Lindsey - Angel

“She stayed home okay last summer when we went to Chicago,” Cassie reminded her.

“We were gone only ten days that time, and she was locked up tight in the barn with a constant companion in old Mac, to keep her from ripping up the walls.”

Cassie took exception to that. “She doesn’t rip walls, Mama. But if you want to talk about walls and pets, let’s talk about Short Tail, your sweet elephant. Do you think the barn will still be standing when we get home?”

Catherine gave her a sour look. “I’m beginning to think that man was a bad influence on you.”

“What man?” Cassie asked innocently.

“You know which one,” Catherine admonished sternly. “Your impertinence is getting worse.”

“I thought it was getting better.”

“You see what I mean?”

Cassie rolled her eyes. “Mama, if you haven’t noticed lately, I’m all grown up. When are you going to stop treating me like a child?”

“When you’re sixty-five and I’m dead, and not a day sooner.”

If Catherine hadn’t sounded so serious, Cassie wouldn’t have laughed. “All right, you win, Mama. I’ll keep my impertinence to myself. But could you at least not call me baby in public?”

Catherine’s lips twitched slightly. “As long as we’re making allowances, I suppose I can manage—”

She didn’t get to finish her sentence. Their driver suddenly hauled back on his reins, stopping the carriage and jerking them both nearly out of their seats. A large delivery wagon had come out of a side street and moved in front of them, apparently intending to turn in the opposite direction they were headed. But traffic was heavy going in the opposite direction and its driver couldn’t move out into it, so he ended up stuck where he was, blocking their path.

Their driver was angry enough at the near accident he’d had that he started yelling. The other driver looked over at theirs and flipped him a rude gesture, at which point their driver retaliated with a string of curses at the top of his lungs.

Catherine’s face went red-hot at some of the words coming out of his mouth that could be heard half a block away. “Close your ears, Cassie,” she admonished and tossed a dollar on the driver’s seat. “We’ll walk.”

“But this is just getting interesting,” Cassie protested.

“We’ll walk,” Catherine repeated with more force.

She really was embarrassed. Cassie found that amusing, especially since she’d heard worse out of the cowhands on the Lazy S, and words nearly as bad out of her mama when she was upbraiding those same cowhands about something. But then that was one of Catherine’s eccentricities. Unlike Cassie, who only wore her Colt on the ranch, Catherine was never without here — except when she headed east. Then she turned into a model of fine etiquette and elegance befitting a high-society matron, with an attitude running in the same vein.

It was worth a little teasing. “You know, that wouldn’t have happened if Angel were here.”

“You’re boasting because that man scares people just by looking at them?” Catherine said incredulously.

“I guess I am. That trait of his would come in handy on occasion. Imagine how easily you’d get rid of the Misses Potter if Angel walked into the room.”

Catherine snorted. “Don’t kid yourself. He’d be scared off by those two chatterboxes.”

“Then there’s Willy Gate who harangues you every Sunday with his Civil War stories, and you’re too softhearted to ignore him.”

“He was a hero — and you wouldn’t happen to be hinting that Angel would be nice to have around, would you?”

Catherine’s look was so stern, Cassie chose not to answer. “We’re going to be late if we don’t hurry,” she said as she moved ahead on the crowded sidewalk, leaving no chance for further teasing — or hinting.

A few minutes later they arrived at the dress shop, just in time to be delayed entering by another arrival, that of a well-dressed young gentleman and his overdressed lady friend. The man was so handsome, Cassie couldn’t help staring at him. Catherine didn’t notice that, but she couldn’t help noticing that, after a brief glance at them, the man so dismissed them from his mind that he didn’t even hold the door open for them, but followed his companion into the shop.

“Some people have no manners.”

Catherine had said it before the door closed behind the man. He heard and turned to give her a disdainful look that had her cheeks glowing. Cassie decided she’d better not mention that that wouldn’t have happened, either, if Angel were there.

But their conversation on that subject was too recent, and Catherine glowered at her, warning, “Don’t say it.”

“I wasn’t.”

“I’ve a good mind to complain to Madame Cecilia,” Catherine continued, “and take our business elsewhere.”

“It’s not her fault,” Cassie protested.

“Isn’t it? When she schedules our fitting at the same time as that loose woman’s?”

“What makes you think she isn’t a lady?”

“I know a man’s mistress when I see one,” Catherine replied huffily.

Cassie rolled her eyes. “Mama, you’re getting all upset over nothing.”

“Am I?” Catherine countered. “When you’re still thinking about that gunfighter?”

So that’s what this was all about? Cassie should have figured her mama wouldn’t get that heated up over a little rudeness when they’d encountered much worse before in big cities.

She gave in to avoid an argument. “So I won’t mention him again.”

“Good. And now I think I’ll show that ill-mannered fellow some rudeness of my own— Wyoming style.” And as she walked into the dressmaker’s shop, Cassie heard her add, “I wish to hell my Colt wasn’t packed away.”

Cassie wished Angel didn’t have to be packed away, too.

That evening, Cassie didn’t wait for her mother, who stopped by to compliment the dining room staff on another excellent dinner. She wandered out to the lobby of the hotel, far enough until Catherine could no longer see her, then hurried over to the front desk to find out if any messages had been left for her.

She’d managed to get away from her mother a couple of times each day to check at the desk, even if she had to wait until Catherine retired for the night. Since they had separate, though connecting, rooms, that was easy enough to do, but she didn’t like going down to the lobby that late by herself.

Tonight she wouldn’t have to, or so she had hoped. But when she was only about five feet away from the desk, she was stopped.

“Don’t I know you, miss?”

Cassie couldn’t help staring — again. It was the young man from the dress shop, who Catherine had been disappointed to find wasn’t there when they’d entered it. He’d been whisked away to a back room with his lady friend, so she couldn’t repay his rudeness that afternoon. Cassie was being rude herself by staring, but he was mesmerizing in his handsomeness, with russet-tinged blond hair, dark emerald-green eyes, a smooth-shaven face without an imperfection on it, and such style in an impeccable charcoal three-piece suit.

“Miss?” he repeated.

“No,” Cassie replied abruptly.

She managed to control her embarrassment at being asked twice, consoling herself that he was probably accustomed to having women of all ages stare bemusedly at him. She wondered where his lady friend was tonight, and if she really was his kept woman.

“Are you sure we haven’t met?”

“Positive,” Cassie assured him. “We merely frequent the same dress shop.”

He smiled then. “Ah, yes, the young lady with the harridan for a companion.”

She arched a brow. He was certainly consistent in his insulting manner. “That harridan was my mama. Is it arrogance that makes you so rude, mister, or maybe you just don’t know any better?”

“It’s an art form, actually, that the ladies of my acquaintance find quite challenging.”

Cassie had a feeling he really believed that. She almost laughed, but restrained herself. Instead she warned him, “You’ll be in for a challenge of the real sort if you stick around, mister, because my mama will probably unpack her gun if she finds you talking to me.”

She thought that that would send him on his way, but he merely gave her a sure-she-will look and humored her by asking, “Your mama carries a gun?”

“Only when she comes to the city.”

“But St. Louis isn’t dangerous.”

“That’s why she packs her Colt away. She usually wears it, you see.”

“Don’t tell me you’re from out West?”

Cassie wondered at the man’s sudden surprise. “What if we are?”

“But I find that fascinating,” he replied, and she didn’t doubt for a second that he was sincere in his new interest. “Have you ever seen real Indians? Or witnessed one of those street duels we hear about?”

She wasn’t going to answer that. She’d met people like him before who were avid to hear about the “wild” West, but would never try to experience it themselves. Even with the boom towns that continuously sprang up with the advance of new rail lines, the gold and silver towns that came and went with each new strike, the cow towns, all only days away now by train, folks like him wouldn’t leave their safe, civilized cities to see any of them, though they thrived on hearing about the primitive frontier and all its bloody aspects.

She decided to be ornery and answer after all. “We spot small bands of renegade Indians every so often, but they only bother the isolated settler and the occasional stagecoach. They aren’t nearly as troublesome as they used to be. But I was in a Shootout myself just last month. It was over too quick to be all that exciting, and mine wasn’t the killing bullet. That honor went to a fast gun named Angel. Actually, they call him the Angel of Death. Ever heard of him?”