Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance) Read Online Free PDF

back on his heels. “I think he plans to use the money to cut and run. His place is mortgaged to the hilt.”
    The news that Horace Lundy was strapped financially came as no surprise. He and his wife had always spent money as though they dipped it up from the creek in buckets.
    Along the border, the Lundys had been an enigma. When she was a child, Angel viewed them as some kind of displaced royalty. Especially Horace’s wife, Francine. The woman had conducted herself like a queen.
    Rather than raising cattle, the Lundys held court at the Hacienda. The outrageous house they’d built squarely in the middle of a barren wasteland where only longhorns and rattlers thrived.
    The Hacienda, itself, was about the only thing remaining of those glory days. In it had gone the finest furnishings and fixtures money could buy, all freighted in from the East Coast and even as far away as Europe. It was well known that Francine came from Boston’s upper crust and refused to live in anything but the style to which she’d always been accustomed.
    After Francine’s short illness and subsequent death, the guests had stopped coming and the money had ceased to flow. About that time, Horace had started looking at his cattle venture in a more serious light. Naturally, everyone concluded that the Lundy affluence had been funneled in by Francine’s family back in Boston. When she died, the remittance was cut off.
    Now, Horace had aimed his sights on a new source of revenue—her father. The very idea made her so mad she no longer noticed the cold air against her skin.
    Clad in skin-tight pants and a loose shirt, Angel felt she’d taken a step backward in time. Guilt washed over her. She quickly forced it to the back of her mind. This was merely a detour. Once she was home again, she’d slip back into the fashionable dresses and new air of refinement with no problem. She hoped.
    Angel walked back and forth along the wall several times, nearly jaunty with the freedom of being uncorseted.
    “Finished yet?”
    His question intruded like a dash of cold water. He expected her to return to the fire. She hesitated, feeling self-conscious, before stepping away from the concealment of the wall.
    He merely watched her in silence with an unreadable expression in his dark gaze while she crossed the short distance and rejoined him.
    The flames writhed before Angel’s eyes in a hypnotic dance. She smothered another yawn. She was exhausted, yet how could she even think of falling asleep? She ventured a glance at the bleary-eyed man reclining an arm’s length away. His eyes appeared closed.
    “I never sleep,” he said, as if he’d read her thoughts. “Remember that.” But his voice had grown gravelly since the last time he’d spoken.
    Without moving, he reached out an arm and latched onto the bedroll he’d taken from the horse along with his saddlebags. He pitched it next to her.
    Tomorrow, she promised herself. After she rested, she’d tackle the problem of escaping.

    Chapter Three
     
    Rane pried open his resistant eyes. Within those first seconds, panic flared inside him. He’d been asleep, deeply asleep, and something was wrong.
    Though his body felt strangely lethargic, his heart slammed hard and fast, jolting him to full awareness.
    His arms were full of clinging woman.
    Angel lay twined in his embrace like a well-sated lover. Her ample breasts expanded against his chest with each breath she took. Softness and heat penetrated to his skin right through the layers of their shirts and the silken remnant of the chemise she wore.
    One slender knee was drawn up and wedged tightly between his thighs. Pressed against his trouser buttons, her hands moved with her restless sleep as she tried to burrow deeper into his warmth.
    He sucked in a long, shuddering breath and released it into the chill darkness. ¡ Mierda ! Her fumbling had turned him hard as stone.
    How had she ended up in his arms? And why had her first touch not alerted him?
    He lay still,