LITMIR.BIZ

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the knot in her stomach, Angela shook her head. “I need to see him sooner or later. It might as well be now.” She paused, wet her lips. “Maybe it would be better if I spoke with him alone first. Would you mind?”

      “You sure you want to do that? The man looks mad as hell.”

      “I’m sure.”

      “All right. I wanted to have a chat with Sal, anyway, see if he knows what’s going on between Pop and Del Brio. But I’m going to keep my eye on you. And if Wainwright starts giving you a hard time, I’m coming back whether you want me to or not.”

      “Thanks,” Angela murmured.

      Ricky winked at her, then headed to the corner of the room where his father and his cronies were gathered. Bracing herself, Angela turned around and waited for Justin to make his way to her. When he got waylaid by the town’s mayor, she took advantage of the moment to study him. Despite the sedate business suit and neatly combed hair, there was still something untamed about Justin Wainwright, an energy and restlessness about him that made her think of gunslingers and lawmen of the Old West. And blast her foolish heart if just the sight of him didn’t make her pulse quicken now as it had all those years ago.

      As though sensing her scrutiny, Justin looked up, locked eyes with hers. Within moments, he was excusing himself from the mayor and heading toward her again. Angela’s heart pounded faster with each step he took. And as he drew nearer, she noted the changes in him—the new lines that creased the corners of his eyes, the hint of gray mixed in with the dark blond hair at his temples. She stared at his mouth, that incredible mouth that had always made her knees go weak when he smiled at her, that had made her skin burn when he’d kissed her, that had whispered promises of love and forever in her ears.

      “Hello, Angela,” he said, his voice deadly soft.

      “Hello, Jus—”

      “You want to tell me just what in the hell you’re doing here?”

      Two

      Angela sucked in a sharp breath, taken aback by the stinging remark. Determined not to be intimidated, she hiked up her chin. “It’s good to see you again,” she said, and extended her hand.

      For a second, something hot flashed in those green eyes before he looked down at her outstretched hand. But when he lifted his gaze to hers, those eyes were as cold as his voice as he said, “Too bad I can’t say the same.”

      Angela’s smile died, along with any hope that Justin would make this easy for either of them. She dropped her hand to her side. “I’m sorry you feel that way. I know we didn’t part as friends, but I had thought…” She swallowed, tried again. “I had thought that after all this time we could at least be civil with each other.”

      “Then you thought wrong.”

      “Apparently,” she conceded. “Still, I had hoped…”

      “What? That maybe I’d forgotten how you walked out on me five years ago?”

      “I didn’t walk out on you.”

      “Funny, that’s sure how it looked to me when you packed your bags and hightailed it off to San Antonio.”

      “I asked you to come with me,” she reminded him.

      “Because you knew I wouldn’t go.”

      It was true, Angela admitted in silence. She’d known he would never leave Mission Creek. So she’d run away to save both of them from hurting each other even more.

      “Evidently you forgot what I told you when you left here.”

      “I didn’t forget,” Angela told him. It was a scene she would never be able to forget no matter how hard she tried. Just as she’d never forget that look of shock and disbelief on Justin’s face when she’d told him she was taking the job in San Antonio. Nor would she ever forget seeing that shock turn to desperation when he’d pleaded with her to pass on the job, to stay in Mission Creek with him and work out the problems in their marriage. Even now she could still hear the lie trip off his tongue as he’d insisted that her being unable to have a baby didn’t matter to him. And when his attempts to reason with her had failed, his passionate pleas had turned into a white-hot anger that bordered on disgust and had left her chilled to the bone. She pressed a fist to her heart at the ache that came as she remembered the frigid way he’d looked at her and the coldness in his voice when he’d warned her that if she walked out that door, their marriage was over and he never wanted to see her again. Two weeks later she’d saved him the trouble and had filed for divorce.

      “Then you know you’re not welcome here. Go back to San Antonio, Mason. You don’t belong here.”

      Angela tipped her chin up a notch higher, met his cool gaze. “You don’t own Mission Creek, Justin. And you certainly don’t own the hospital. I have as much right to be here as you do.”

      He narrowed his eyes. “Since when do you give a damn about Mission Creek? You wanted the bright lights of the big city, remember?”

      “That’s not why I left, and you know it,” she told him, irritated with herself for letting him goad her. “We both know why I left Mission Creek.”

      “Yeah. You left to get away from me,” he said, his voice bitter, his expression hard. “So I’ll ask you again, Mason, what are you doing here? Better yet, when are you leaving?”

      His words stung, hurting her more than she’d ever thought they would. But after growing up in a household where her visions had made her a frequent target for her father’s verbal and physical lashings, she’d learned long ago that it was better not to show pain or fear. So she lifted her gaze and met Justin’s chilling green eyes. And with an aplomb she thought worthy of an acting award, she said, “In answer to your first question, I’m here as a guest. As to when I intend to leave, I’ll go when I’m ready. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

      He blocked her path. “No. I won’t excuse you. I don’t want you here.”

      He was so close, Angela caught the woodsy scent of his aftershave and spied the muscle ticking in his jaw. “You’ve already made that clear. Unfortunately, we don’t always get what we want.”

      Johnny Mercado clamped a hand down on his son’s shoulder. “Ricky, quit badgering Sal here and go see to your lady friend. Looks to me like the sheriff is giving her a rough time.”

      Ricky shifted his gaze to where the woman in question was in what appeared to be a heated discussion with Sheriff Justin Wainwright. “Angela can handle herself,” Ricky informed him.

      “What kind of talk is that?” Johnny countered. “The lady came with you, didn’t she?”

      “Angela Mason’s no schoolgirl, Pop. She knows what she’s doing. Give it a rest.”

      When Ricky started to turn back to Sal, Johnny cuffed the back of his son’s head—something he had done many times when Ricky had been a teenager, hell-bent on getting into trouble. “You show some respect for me, and for that girl.”

      Ricky smoothed a hand at his nape, eyed his father warily. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”

      Johnny sighed. “I know you didn’t,” he said, softening toward this dark-haired, dark-eyed stranger that was his son. It had always amazed him that such a handsome and fierce young man had actually come from him and Isadora. Ricky had always been so much braver, so much stronger than he had been, Johnny thought. He still didn’t know what the hush-hush military mission was his son had just returned from, but he had no doubts that it had been dangerous. Ricky had never shied away from danger. And whatever this mission was his former commander sent Ricky on, it hadn’t frightened his son. Ricky hadn’t hesitated to go. Since his return, the boy had seemed different, more serious. But Ricky had said little about what had happened. Perhaps if he himself had been half the man his son was, Johnny thought, his Isadora would still be

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