Angels Fall

scuffed left boot tapped the time.
    His handsome face looked sulky and ridiculously handsome despite, maybe because of, the puffy bottom lip and the bruising around his eye.
    The sight of him made Linda-gail's heart melt, drowning the leading edge of her temper.
    "Lo."
    His head came up. Sulky went to scowl. "What do you want? I'm working."
    "I can see that. I'm not stopping you." She'd be big about it. Linda-gail decided, take the high road. "I'm sorry about your eye."
    He kept his gaze on hers for one long, humming moment, then shifted it back to the saddle, got back to work.
    "I am sorry." she said. "Still, it's not like it's the first time you've ever had a fist in the eye. I was just dancing."
    He rubbed leather, kept his silence. And Linda-gail felt a tickle of anxiety bubble under her melted heart.
    "That's it? You're not even going to speak to me? You're the one who got all het up just because I was dancing with somebody. How many times have I been in Clancy's when you've been dancing with somebody?"
    "That's different."
    "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. What's different about it?"
    "Just is."

    "Just is," she repeated, scathingly. "I dance with somebody and it's okay for you to start a brawl. But you can dance and whatever with anyone you like and I'm not supposed to think anything of it."
    "Doesn't mean anything."
    "So you say." She pokeci a finger in the air at him. "And I say I can dance with whoever I want and vou've got no right to cause trouble."
    "Fine. You can bet I won't from here on. So if that's it—"
    "Don't you dismiss me, William Butler. Why'd you start that tight?"
    "I didn't. He did."
    "You got in his face."
    "He had his hands on your ass!" Lo threw down his rag and surged to his feet. "You let him paw you, in public."
    "He was not pawing me. And I wouldn't have let him put his hands on my ass it you weren't being such a dick."
    "Me?"
    "Damn nght."This time, she jabbed her finger into his chest. "You've always been a dick because that's what you use for a brain. I've waited long enough for you to grow the hell up and be a man." Danger shot into his eyes. "I am a man." He grabbed her arm and yanked her forward. "And I'm the only man who's going to put his hands on you. Got that?"
    "What gives you the right?" Tears started in her eyes even as her pulse bumped. "What gives you the right?"
    "I'm taking the right. Next time you let some other guy handle you, he's going to have more than a bloody nose."
    "What do you care who handles me?" she shouted. "What do you care? If you can't say it, say it to my face and mean it, right here and now, I'm walking away. I'm walking, Lo."
    "You're not going anywhere."
    "Then say it." Tears tracked down her cheeks. "Look at me and say it, and I'll know if you mean it."
    "I'm so damn mad at you, Linda-gail."
    "I know you mean that."
    "I love you. Is that what you need to hear? I love you. Probably al ways have."
    "Yeah, that's what I need to hear. Hurt a little, didn't it?" 
    "Some."
    "Scares you a little, too."
    His hands had gentled on her, stroked up and down her arms. "Maybe more than a little."
    "That's how I know you mean it. That's how I know," she murmured, laying a hand over his bruised cheek. "I've been waiting my whole life to hear it from you."
    "I never could get over you." He pulled her close, sent his abused lip throbbing by pressing it to hers. "I wanted to. I tried to. A lot."
    "A hell of a lot. Here." She took his hands, pushed them around until they cupped her ass. "No other guy puts his hands where yours are, and you don't put them on any other woman. Is that a deal?"
    "That's a deal."
    "You think you can get the rest of the night off?"
    His smile spread, slow. "I reckon I can arrange it."
    "And come on home with me?" "I could do that."
    "And get me all stirred up, and naked, make love with me till sunrise'"
    "Only till sunrise?"
    "This time." she said and kissed him again.

    HE WAS GOOD. Linda-gail imagined he would he—and she'd been imagining since she was old enough to understand what men and women did together in the dark. But he was better than even her active imagination had reached. Strong hands that found all the right places, a hot mouth with an endless appetite. A long, lean, tireless body.
    He had her twice betore her fevered brain could cool long enough to think. Hallelujah. Naked, loose, skin slick with sweat, she sprawled crossways on the bed. "Where in God's name did you learn all that?"
    "I've been studying on it