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

I got here.” Ian led me out of the basement and up the stairs with an arm around my shoulders, his heavy-duty high-beam flashlight showing the way.

“Where were the boys?” I huddled against Ian’s side and clung tight, gratefully letting him lead me out of this hellhole. I’d think about being rational later. “How did you find them?”

“They were going out the window as I was coming in.” He smiled, and I caught the glimmer of his white teeth in my side vision. “I think I scared the piss out of them. I hope so.”

“So Angela—”

“Drove up as I was tossing the boys out the window. I told her to meet us here.”

We reached the dark little room I’d first climbed into. I sniffed back tears. Now that the boys were safe and I wasn’t about to be killed any second, my stifled emotions threatened to erupt.

“Let me climb down first.” Ian handed me his big flashlight. “Then I’ll help you.”

When my Keds hit the red dirt below the window, I’d have crumpled to my knees, but Ian caught me. Adrenaline’s strength had deserted me, so I let Ian lead me to his car and guide me inside. He reached across to buckle my seat belt and gave me a gentle kiss.

“Thank you,” I whispered. The image of him with another woman kept me from saying more.

“Any time.” He closed the passenger door and got into the driver’s seat. An uncomfortable silence shimmered between us. With all my heart, I wished I could go home with him right now. I wanted to spend the night in his big bed and let his strength shelter me from the big bad world. But he had chosen someone else. Even if that betrayal had only been for one night, it was betrayal enough. Once again, I’d come in second with a man I loved.

And shit-fire, I realized what I had just admitted to myself. I loved the bastard.

For a moment, he looked like he was about to say something, but with a tiny shake of his head, he started the engine.

If I had any sense, I’d let him take me all the way home without saying a word. But a quiet little voice whispered inside my head. If you love him, you have to give him a chance to explain. “Ian.”

“Hmmm?” He turned toward me, one hand on the steering wheel though the car was still in park.

“I saw you at the restaurant the night you broke our date. Ben and I were there, and we saw you come in with a woman. Do you want to tell me what that was about?”

Then we could deal with the fact that she had also gone home with him afterward.

Ian leaned against his closed door, as far away as he could get and still be in the car. “First, why don’t you tell me what you were doing there with Ben? That’s not the kind of place people take their kids.”

“The kids weren’t with us.” I hoped to hell Ian felt half as jealous as I did.

He clenched his jaw. His face looked hard, like a stone statue of a Greek god. “I’m unsure why you’re angry about seeing me with another woman, when you were obviously there yourself, accompanied by another man. I guess I’m just slow, but maybe you’ll inform me—what’s the difference?”

I couldn’t believe he’d skirted the issue by putting the heat on me, when he was totally in the wrong. “Ian,” I explained, trying to sound patient, “the difference is you broke our date. I wouldn’t have been there with Ben if you hadn’t.”

“So...” he drew the long O sound out in a way I found incredibly pompous and irritating. “Anytime I’m not able to keep a commitment with you for whatever reason, you’re likely to run to Ben for comfort before the day’s out.”

“Ian, this conversation is not about me and Ben.”

“Oh?” His voice drew out the O sound again, deadly soft. “What’s it about, then?”

“I went to your house that night, after you broke our date to go out with that woman. I wanted to talk, to give you a chance to explain. But when I drove up, I saw her standing in your kitchen, wearing a slinky black robe.”

“Christ, lass, what am I going to do with you?” Ian’s gentle tone made my hopes rise that he could explain all of this away. “The woman is a business associate, nothing more. If you hadn’t been so busy avoiding me, you’d know that. This would have been so much easier if you had answered my phone calls.”

“Well, sure it would,” I snapped. My newly-risen hopes plummeted when he didn’t immediately explain-away the woman’s presence in his kitchen at midnight. “I’d have believed anything you said, without having to see with my own eyes what you were up to. Business associate, my hind foot. What kind of business associate spends the night at your house?”

“Casey.” His voice was quiet. Sad. “I think it doesn’t matter what I say. You’ve already made up your mind.”

“Then change it! Tell me why you stood me up to go out with her. Tell me what she was doing at your house that night.”

“Sure. Then you can tell me why your shirttail didn’t hit your back before you asked Ben to take my place.”

“Just forget it,” I huffed, staring out the windshield into the darkness. I should have known he’d argue like a lawyer, going on the offensive to keep from dealing with the real subject of the conversation.

Thank God we’d used birth control. “Take me home.”

Ian revved the engine more than necessary. “With pleasure.”

*

Monday evening, Ben came up the studio stairs to collect a backpack Maryann had left after her ballet class. “How did Melody keep up with all this shit?”

“It wasn’t easy.” I handed over the backpack. “It never is.” I looked at the room full of girls, some taking off ballet shoes and gathering their things to leave and others getting ready