Angel Falls (Angel Falls Series, #1), Babette Jongh [books for 6 year olds to read themselves .TXT] 📗

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

All dark tones, honey skin and wild black hair, the woman on Ian’s arm could have been a Spanish Flamenco dancer. In a skin tight red dress and high-heeled red-soled fuck-me pumps, she stood only a couple of inches shorter than Ian.

Her painted-on dress left nothing to the imagination, but any man looking at her didn’t have a working brain left in his head anyway. Her image, mixed with testosterone, would immediately liquefy any remaining gray matter and send it sliding south.

The bitch was tall, curvy, voluptuous. A centerfold in the flesh. Loops of black hair rioted around her oval face, emphasizing dark, almond eyes and a luscious red mouth. I couldn’t help but compare my not-quite blond hair and tiny but perky boobs.

She leaned into Ian and whispered.

He bent toward her, listening intently. An intimate half-smile lingered on his lips.

Asshole.

Bastard.

Liar.

Still, I couldn’t much blame him. What a woman. And Ian was one of the few men on the planet who could hope to hold her attention for more than a day or two.

That strange phone call he’d made this afternoon made perfect sense. He’d wanted to tell me something, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Now, I knew what—or who—that something was.

Ben turned around to see what had me so transfixed. “Good God.”

My thoughts, exactly. I slugged back the last of my wine and watched Ben’s eyes widen.

“Oh, Angel...” His voice held a world of compassion.

I was about to need a truckload of it. I’d been kicked in the chest by a rodeo bull and was still trying to figure out how to get up off the dirt. I just hoped to God that Ian and his new girlfriend weren’t about to be led to a table near us. I could get over being gored by the bull’s horns, but I damn sure didn’t want Ian to see me squirming in pain.

Ben put a hand over mine. “Let’s go.” He raised a hand to signal the waiter.

“Wait.” I held my head down during a dicey moment when the hostess looked our way, then tapped the computer screen at her podium. Frantic on the inside, I sat rooted to the chair and considered exit options, which pretty much amounted to hiding under the table. But God was on my side in this, at least, and the hostess led Ian and his sex-goddess to the opposite wing of the restaurant.

My stomach decided whether to give up the meal I’d just eaten while Ben paid the bill. The next thing I remembered was him speaking to me as we drove out of the parking lot. “It might not be what you think.”

I tried to laugh but it sounded like a wheeze. “Ben, I’m more heterosexual than any woman I met in New York, and I’d have sex with that woman if she’d let me.” She was that compelling, no kidding. “And Ian is a man. It’s exactly what I think it is.”

“Maybe it’s just business.” Ben sounded about as sure of that as I was.

I tried to take a steadying breath, but it shuddered on the way out. “Yeah, and I’m the Secretary of State.”

Ben took his eyes off the road for a second and brushed gentle fingers across my cheek. “You really care about this guy?”

“Yes,” I whispered. My throat tried to close up but I wouldn’t let it. “I guess I do.”

He put both hands on the steering wheel and returned his attention to the rain-drenched highway. “Do you love him?”

I watched the windshield wipers swish away a scattering of tiny, star-like raindrops as soon as they fell. “Well, that’d be pretty damn stupid, wouldn’t it?”

Wisely, Ben didn’t answer my question. He turned off onto a dirt road, one I remembered but hadn’t seen in years. After a few minutes, the headlights illuminated a deserted, fallen-down house overgrown with Kudzu. “Remember?”

Ben and I had made love on the concrete picnic table in the back yard of this place more times than I could count. “I can’t believe it’s still here.”

“Land doesn’t tend to move around much.” Ben put a hand on my thigh and squeezed, teasing just a little to urge me into a better mood.

“I mean, you idiot, I thought someone would’ve built something else here by now.” A stone’s throw from the river’s edge, right across from Angel Falls, the landmark for which the town was named, this should be prime real estate.

Ben drove around back of the vine-smothered ruin. He parked on the last scrap of high ground, turned off the engine, turned out the lights, and plunged us into the past. We sat in the car and watched the fast-flowing river hiss past below. Across the river, the silver thread of Angel Falls slipped down the limestone cliffs and into the embracing arms of the Angel, an eerily lifelike formation complete with wings and a white robe shimmering from water that seeped through fissures in the limestone.

The moon peered from breaks in the shredded clouds above, drenching the angel’s face in its pale glow. The light rain had turned to a soft, silent mist that settled on the windshield like dew. I opened my door and walked across the wet grass to the concrete picnic table at the edge of the river’s sloping bank.

“Hang on a second.” Ben took out the blanket I’d left in the back of his Cherokee so Lizzie could ride in the back without messing up Ben’s precious leather seats when I used Ben’s car to squire his kids around. He spread the blanket over the table. I took off my shoes and set them side by side on the bench seat, then climbed to the tabletop and sat cross-legged.

Ben sat beside me, put an arm around my shoulders and hugged me close. “You’re shivering. Wouldn’t you rather sit in the car?”

“No.” I watched the rain-swollen water ripple and shine, and made excuses for Ian’s bad behavior. I had