The Christmas She Always Wanted

“I had no idea that you were here on the Sandbur,” he admitted. “If I’d known—well, I would have looked you up before now.”

Five years had passed and she’d not heard a word from him. Until tonight, when happenstance had forced him to see her. She found it difficult to believe that he would have sought her out.

Pain crept through her chest, while sarcasm edged her one word question. “Really?”

From the grimace on his face, he obviously considered her presence on the ranch a nuisance. Well, she could tell him that having him around wasn’t exactly making her want to shout hallelujah, either.

“I’m not quite the bastard you think, Angie.”

There was no malice or anger in his voice, but then, he had no reason to be spiteful, she thought as she struggled to keep from breaking into sobs. He’d gotten what he wanted.

“I came to work here two months ago,” she said hoarsely. “A few days after I’d been on the job, I heard through the grapevine about the ranch hiring a resident vet. I didn’t know—until tonight—that it was you. But don’t worry, Jubal, I’m not going to give you or your family any problems by trying to stir up old ashes.”

He looked uncomfortably down at his boots. “I…wasn’t exactly worried about that.”

When he didn’t add more, Angela decided to plunge ahead. After all, she didn’t expect that they would be speaking to each other again. His work here would hardly cause them to brush elbows.

“So—where’s Evette? Didn’t she want to come to your party tonight?”

His gaze lifted to hers and something in his expression made her heart leap.

“I’m not married to Evette anymore.”

Chapter Two

Shock hit Angela’s stomach and twisted it into hard knots. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Our marriage ended in divorce—about a year after it began.”

His features were expressionless as though he were talking about the weather or something mundane, not a life-altering event. As for Angela, emotions were colliding inside her, sending tiny tremors through every nerve in her body. He’d gotten divorced shortly after Melanie had been born. Oh God, if she’d known, what would have happened? Anything?

“Well, I should say I’m sorry. But it’s just not in me, Jubal.”

His shrug was negligible, as though his divorce meant nothing to him. Angela wanted to scream at him for being so casual. Did he not understand that his marriage had totally devastated her life? Or did he just not care?

“That’s all right. Being sorry can’t change what happened.”

Angela couldn’t believe she was standing here with the father of her child, whom she hadn’t seen in five long years, discussing his marriage to and divorce from another woman. It was like a ridiculous scene out of a soap opera. And it was angering her like nothing had ever angered her before.

When she finally managed to speak, bitterness coated each word. “You’re right. Nothing can change things now.”

His features twisted. “Evette was the sort that wouldn’t stop until she got what she wanted. And then the game was over.”

Is that what Jubal had been to the mayor’s daughter? A game? A pawn? The idea made Angela feel even sicker.

“What about your child? Does he or she live with you or Evette?”

Suddenly his face was a mask of cold stone and when he answered, Angela felt as though she’d been punched by a fist.

“She lost the baby midterm. There was a problem with the placenta.”

Oh, God. How utterly awful. Not just for Jubal, but for Angela, too. She’d given up this man so that he could marry Evette and be a father to the baby the other woman was carrying. Now he was telling her that the baby hadn’t survived.

Angie hadn’t believed her heart was capable of breaking any more than it already had, but she’d been wrong. At the moment, it was tearing into tiny, throbbing pieces.

“I don’t know what to say, Jubal,” she said, her voice hardly above a whisper. “That I’m sorry for you? Sorry for me? Sorry for the whole damn bunch of us? Telling you how I feel right now is…impossible!”

Shaking her head, she turned to her car. “I’d better go,” she muttered more to herself than to him.

Jubal couldn’t let her go. For the past five years, she’d haunted his days and nights. He’d tried to forget her, tried to tell himself that it was best he let her get on with her life. But that hadn’t stopped him from wondering where she’d gone and agonizing over what could have been if things had worked out differently. Tonight when Jubal had looked up and seen her, his heart had somersaulted. Even now, he wanted to touch her, to make sure she was real and not one of his tortured dreams.

“Angie, wait! We haven’t—can’t we talk a little more?”

“About what?” she asked flatly.

She was even more lovely now, Jubal realized, as his gaze wandered over her. Her heart-shaped face was more lean and angled, her small features more pronounced. He didn’t remember her ivory skin being so smooth and pearly, her brown eyes so dark and sultry or her pink lips so full and lush. But then time dimmed everything, he supposed. Except the regret he carried around his heart like a ball and chain. And the passion he still felt for her. As for Angie—she’d loved him deeply once. Were all those feelings truly gone?

He cleared his throat. “Where have you been living all this time?”

Shortly after their relationship had ended, he’d heard that Angela had left town and he’d assumed that she’d moved totally out of the area. How bittersweet to find her so close and yet still so far away.

She glanced over her shoulder at him and he could see from the tight clamp of her lips that she didn’t want to talk to him. It crushed him to think that the love she’d once given him was now nothing more than dead ashes buried beneath a heap of anger.

“I’ve been living in Goliad for the past five years.”

She’d been living only thirty minutes away from him! It amazed Jubal that they’d not accidentally crossed paths before now. And if he’d known she was actually that close, would he have gone looking for her? No. He didn’t want to think so. He’d made his choice to marry Evette and then struggled to stick with the forced union. Walking away from Angela had been incredibly hard. If he’d seen her in that awful year when he was trying to make things work with Evette, he might not have had the strength to walk away again. And after their marriage had ended, he’d felt like a complete loser. He’d convinced himself that Angie was much better off without him and the baggage of horrible mistakes he carried around with him.

“Oh,” he said. “Guess you’ve had time to get to know a lot of people around here.”

“A few. The Saddlers and Sanchezes are some of the best.”

In spite of her work clothes and weary face, she looked utterly beautiful and Jubal felt himself moving forward, closer to the woman who’d irrevocably changed his life.

“I guess I’m trying to ask if you’re married now?”

For a split second he saw a spark in her eyes as though she wanted to jump straight at him with claws bared, but then just as quickly her face went eerily placid and she quickly glanced away from him.

“No,” she said bluntly. “I’m still single. Not that it’s any of your business. And right now I really do have to get home.”

By the time she’d opened the driver’s door, Jubal was at her side, his hand curling around her arm. The moment he touched her, she jerked as though he’d shot her with a bullet. As for Jubal, he couldn’t remember a time he’d felt so completely shaken, so aware of another human being in his life. She was single! The news shouldn’t mean anything to him. But hope was surging through him like a ray of sunshine amidst thunderclouds, and he wanted to cling to it. The same way he wanted to cling to her.

“Angie,” he said in a low, raspy voice, “I’m sorry about tonight. Sorry about all the pain and mess I put you through with Evette.”

She closed her eyes, as though to shut him out of her sight. All Jubal wanted to do was pull her into his arms.

“I don’t want to hear it, Jubal. Your apologies are too little, too late.”

Jubal felt sick inside. She’d once trusted him completely. She’d once looked up to him, respected him. Loved him. Oh, how he wanted that Angie again. Would he ever see that loving woman again?