Alex And The Angel

Sandy was waiting with a pitcher of fresh lemonade. “It’s not from a mix, either,” she said proudly. “Mrs. Gilly made it up just for us. Hey, if you need to use the john or comb your hair or anything, the bathhouse is over there.”

“Thanks, but combing won’t help. My mother says it’s a curse Granddad Reilly laid on her when she married my pop instead of the nice Irish boy he had all picked out for her. Neither comb nor brush, nor the finest conditioners shall ever unsnarl these tangled locks,” she intoned solemnly.

She grinned, and Sandy pointed to her own waterfall-straight hair. “At least yours is interesting. I wanted to have mine cornrowed, but Daddy wouldn’t let me. He won’t let me do anything.” Sighing, she poured two glasses of lemonade that frosted up invitingly, and hooked a lounge chair with her foot, dragging it over. “Sit. You look like you’ve been working. Hey, it’s really neat, owning your own business and all that. How’d you do it?”

It was impossible not to respond to such frank, fresh admiration. And besides, Angel had been working hard. She had plodded over every square foot of raw red mud on the Lancaster site, figuring what went where, allowing for root growth and overhang, and then drawing up a plat her guys could follow.

By the time Alex pulled into the driveway, some forty-five minutes earlier than usual, they had covered Angel’s widowhood, which she had glossed over in deference to her listener’s youth and innocence, touched on the problems of doing business in this age of city, county, state and federal regulations, backed up by the usual bureaucratic alphabet soup of agencies, and moved on to the stupid rules that prevented a woman of nearly fifteen from pursuing her own interests.

Which in Sandy’s case, included a boss hunk named Arvid Moncrief who drove a Vette, and becoming either an artist or an airline pilot.

Alex came around the house, having already shed his coat, turned back the cuffs of his white-on-white monogrammed shirt, and loosened his tie, in time to hear Angel saying, “—hooch, hormones and horsepower. My brother used to say any one of the three could cause trouble, but taken together, they were a surefire recipe for disaster. Now, I’m not saying big brothers can’t be a royal pain, because they sure as heck can, but I learned the hard way that it pays to listen to mine. Not that I always do.”

“Not that you ever did, to my knowledge.” Alex watched the color come and go in her face, watched her struggle to climb out of the low lounge chair, and felt a sharp, hot pull of sexual awareness that took him totally by surprise.

“What do you mean, the hard way? Hi, Dad, we were just having some lemonade before we get to work. Angel’s going to show me how to prune a tree so it scars over just right and doesn’t get infected. I guess that’s why they call ‘em tree surgeons, huh? You used to talk about being a doctor, didn’t you?”

How could she have known? That had been another lifetime. Before he’d become a father, before he’d met Dina. Before his father had hammered home his responsibility as the sole heir to two generations of furniture makers.

“Sorry you caught me goofing off,” Angel said, her smile as fresh and unabashed as ever. “Don’t worry, the meter’s not running yet.” She set her empty glass on the wrought iron table. “So! Shall we get started, Sandy? I can tell you right now, Alex, you’re either going to have to waste a couple of those gorgeous Japanese maples or bite the bullet and cover your pool.”

Another thing about her that hadn’t changed, Alex thought as she took out a grubby-looking notebook and put on her business face, was those eyes of hers. The color of lapis, with sparkles of gold that glittered when she laughed.

He’d almost forgotten the way she had of wrinkling her nose when she concentrated. He used to tease her about it back in the days when she’d look for any old excuse to hang around, gazing up at him in a way that had made him feel manly and worldly and about seven feet tall.

How would he handle it if she looked at him that way now?

“I suppose you know that maple roots always head for water. They can be a royal pain where you have a septic tank.” He was thinking hero worship and she was talking septic tanks?”I’m not sure a pool’s much safer.”

Sandy started humming the theme from Jaws, and Alex found himself grinning. Once, maybe twice every few months he found something to smile about, which made it all the crazier, the way the woman affected him, coveralls and combat boots notwithstanding.

They set off for the pool, Sandy and Angel moving on ahead, Alex lingering to empty the lemonade pitcher into the glass Angel had used. He didn’t deliberately seek the place where her mouth had touched, but he didn’t avoid it, either.

Kid stuff. God, just let him run into an old friend, and he reverted to his childhood!

Following the two females as they sauntered off down the hill, he couldn’t help but admire the way the center seam in Angel’s bright green coveralls twitched when she walked. She had the kind of build that, according to the medical experts, was the best kind to have for a healthy heart. Pear-shaped. Full hips, small breasts, tiny waist.

Studying that small-scale, pear-shaped body from behind, it occurred to him that it wasn’t his own heart that was giving him trouble at the moment, but a part of him that had been anesthetized for so long, he’d damn near forgotten it existed.

He was aroused. By a woman in coveralls and combat boots. A woman who had come to talk to him about trees and septic tanks. Not only was he embarrassed, he felt guilty! Angel Wydowski had definitely grown up, but she was still off-limits. She’d said she was no longer married, so that was no problem, and he was certainly long past the age where he could be led around by his gonads.

But she was still Gus’s kid sister. Now that he had a daughter of his own to protect, Alex understood fully why Gus had come down so hard on any guy who’d even looked at his kid sister for more than five seconds running.

The old 3-H Club. Kid stuff. This time, there was no hooch involved, only watered-down lemonade. Definitely no horsepower. What could be safer than a stroll across a backyard, with a daughter acting as chaperon? The only trouble was, a few hormones he’d thought had gone into early retirement were evidently still alive and kicking.

His stride took on elements of swagger, his grin a certain macho quality that would have sent him gunning for any kid who came sniffing around his daughter with the same look on his face. By the time he caught up with them, they were designating which branches above what height would have to go. Every time Angel lifted her arm to gesture, Alex found himself unconsciously searching her chest for any indication that she’d matured in the bosom department. Why couldn’t she wear jeans and a T-shirt like everyone else?

Judas Priest! When had he turned into a dirty old man?

Embarrassed at the direction his thoughts had taken, he stared at the spreading limbs and tried to concentrate on what she was saying. Something about how close to the trunk to make the cut so that it would scar over properly.

Before he could come up with a single intelligent question that would prove he was interested in her mind and not lusting after her body, the phone inside the house began to ring. Reprieved, he turned toward the house just as Mrs. Gilly stuck her head out the French doors. “Sandy, it’s for you. Your young man.”

Alex’s knees locked. His angular features took on a steely look that had made more than one young man swallow his Adam’s apple. “If that’s Moncrief, Alexandra, you can tell him—”

But Sandy was already gone, long legs flashing in the late afternoon, early autumn sunlight.

Angel came up silently beside him. “Not that it’s any of my business,” she said quietly, “but if Sandy were my daughter—”

“She’s not.” He regretted his short reply even before he saw the gold flecks in her eyes disappear, leaving them opaque. “Sorry. Nothing personal, Angel, but Sandy’s my problem.”

He might have known she wouldn’t back down. “Fine. But I hope you know how lucky you are to have such a problem. She’s a bright girl, Alex, but even the smartest girl needs more than some fathers are willing to give.”

“Are you offering your services?” Another dig he regretted too late. The trouble was, since his divorce he’d had to go on the defensive where women were concerned.

“To Sandy, maybe—if she needs me. Not to you.” Very deliberately, she scribbled a name and number on a scrap of paper, tore it off and then closed her notebook, twisted her mechanical pencil and tucked them both away in the pocket of her coveralls. With a smile that was about as genuine as a ten-dollar Rolex, she said, “Here’s the name and number of the best tree guy in town. He’s not cheap, but your trees will be in good hands. I’ll see you around, okay?”

Alex jammed the scrap of paper into his shirt pocket without even glancing at it. “Angel, wait! Look, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, it’s just that—”

“I’ll tell Gus I saw you, shall I? He usually calls on weekends.”

Feeling lower than pond scum, Alex watched her walk away, her short legs twitching the heavy cotton twill enticingly over her rounded buttocks. He cursed himself for being rude, for being an arrogant jerk. And then, as he watched her tug open the door of her van and swing herself up by the side view mirror, he cursed himself for being a lecherous bastard.

Watching her back down the driveway, he wondered if she still had to sit on a pillow, the way she had when he and Gus had taught her to drive Gus’s old Falcon. She’d begged to try out Alex’s Mustang, but Gus had put his foot down. Alex would probably have given in. He’d had a secret weakness for Gus’s kid sister in those days. Part of being an only child, he’d tried to tell himself.

“Hey, where’s Angel going?” Sandy asked plaintively, coming to stand beside him at the edge of the driveway.

“Home, I suppose. It’s getting late.”

“But I wanted to invite her to have dinner with us tonight. Mrs. Gilly said it would be all right.”

“Mrs. Gilly doesn’t make the rules around here, in case it escaped your notice.”

“Is it because she’s wearing, like, coveralls? Daddy, that’s just plain arctic! Nobody—”

“Archaic,” he corrected automatically.

“I mean, nobody cares about junk like that anymore! I think your old rules stink!”

“I’m sure you do, but as long as you’re—”

“I know, I know—as long as I’m living under your roof, I have to bow and scrape to your royal highness.”

A grin threatened to kick in again, against all logic. He had a pretty fair notion what she was thinking, and it wasn’t about his royal highness. “Sorry, sweetheart, it’s the system. It suckers us all in, and before we know it, we’re nothing but mind-numbed robots, having to wash up before meals, having to listen to DWEM composers instead of demolition derbies set to music while we dine. Having to—”

“All right, all right!” Out came the lower lip. Down came the scowling brows. “But I’m not going to stop being friends with her, I don’t care what you say! And I might even work at her place next summer. She hires, like, school kids sometimes.”

“Fine with me,” he said mildly. Last week it was the record shop at the mall. The week before that, she was planning to look for a job at a riding stable. At least she’d given up on the airline thing. “By the way, I won’t be in for dinner tonight, but I won’t be out late, either, if you want to talk after you finish your homework.”