MONTANA SKY 07.5: Angel In Paradise by Debra Holland Read Free Book Online

Rafe wasn’t an inexperienced boy, and this kiss wasn’t gentle, tentative. Instead, his mouth claimed hers, his lips possessive, demanding her passionate response.
    Angelina wrapped her arms around him and slid her hands up his wet back, the muscles strong and sleek under her palms.
    The kiss deepened. Tongues touched. All her senses heightened. The feel of his lips, their shape and texture felt so familiar, so right .
    The kiss ended as suddenly as it began. She pushed against Rafe’s chest at the same time he pulled back.
    They stared at each other, breathing raggedly, before Angel leaned away.
    Rafe seized her wrist and towed her over to a flat rock submerged in the shade of the overhanging trees. He gently pushed her onto the wide surface—a comfortable seat.
    “Rafe…Rafe, wait—”
    “I know,” he murmured. “We need to talk before we….”
    Angelina lifted her chin. “I agree.” She brushed her fingers across her lips. They still tingled from Rafe’s kiss, sensitive and swollen under the pads of her fingertips. She thought they might tingle for hours—no days from that kiss. Maybe they’d never recover. Maybe she’d never recover.
    “Who’s going first?” Without waiting for a response, Rafe cocked an eyebrow. “I brought up the topic of talking, an unmanly thing to do. Therefore I get huge points, and you should be so impressed you’ll spare me further masculine humiliation by plunging right into the conversation.”
    Angel gave him a half smile, withdrawing even though she didn’t move. “I waited for you, Rafe. Waited for the phone to ring. Ran to the mailbox for months, hoping for a letter. I couldn’t believe you’d left without saying good-bye. Then the rumors started circulating….” Her voice broke.
    “What rumors?” But Rafe knew. Horse thief. He closed his eyes, as if he could turn off the sound of the slur by shutting out his vision. The McCurdys hadn’t kept that bit of slander to themselves.
    “Mongrel.” Angel spoke the ugly word in an even tone.
    Rafe could see the shadow of pain in her eyes. “ What? ” Her response was so unexpected that it threw him. “How did you know Granddad called you that?”
    She made a rueful turn of her lips. “Gabe told one of his friends what your grandfather said. Then he told one of his—”
    “Gabe talked?” Rafe couldn’t believe it. He and his brother had always abhorred tattling and gossip. They had a pact to never betray each other to their grandfather, no matter what punishment they suffered. After many years had passed, Rafe had figured out that Gabe had only gone to their grandfather that night because he’d believed the old man would take care of the situation with Dustin McCurdy. And he did. But not in the way his brother expected.
    “Gabe confided in Ben Grayson. Remember how they became buddies because of football?”
    He grimaced. “Benjamin Grayson, the…whatever number was tacked on the end of his name. What did we call him? Five and a half?”
    Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.
    “Never liked the guy.”
    “Gabe beat up Ben for talking, and that was the end of their friendship.”
    Good for Gabe. Rafe had a surge of missing his brother. He cupped Angel’s neck. “I’m sorry. My grandfather was wrong to judge your family’s heritage, to say such an ugly thing about you, and I told him so. It was one of the things we fought over.”
    She looked down. “I thought you must have believed him. Why else would you have left me?”
    Rafe gave her a little shake. “Because I was young and stubborn and stupid. Because I’d vowed never to return to Sweetwater Springs, and I knew you dreamed of practicing law with your dad. Because if I allowed myself to miss you, then I’d miss my friends, my family, the ranch, and I couldn’t… wouldn’t go crawling back. Came here, put my mind and my back into creating a new life. When I wasn’t working, I stayed drunk and numb for a long time. But by God, Angel,” his chin