Alex And The Angel. Dixie Browning

a crush on him, and he’d been flattered as all get out, because Kurt had been right there, too, and Kurt had been every girl’s dreamboat.

      Dreamboat. Did that term date him, or what?

      But, of course, Angel had been off-limits to both of them. She was Gus’s sister, and besides, she was just a kid. Still, Alex had always sort of liked her, even when she drove him up a wall. Nor, to be perfectly honest, had he been unaware of her budding attractions. But whatever thoughts he’d had along those lines, he had managed to shove out of his mind. She’d been a kid, after all. His best friend’s baby sister. Off-limits.

      Levering himself up again, he poured a finger of Chivas and moved to the window, staring out at the scattering of dogwood and maple leaves that patterned the freshly clipped lawn.

      September already. Another year slipped past.

      Where had the years gone? All the old excitement? There had been a time when every sunrise had been like a big surprise package, all wrapped up in shiny gold foil with a big, floppy satin bow on top.

      Somewhere along the way, he must have torn off all the wrappings and ripped open all the boxes, because they weren’t there anymore. Whatever had been inside them was gone, too. He couldn’t even remember what it had been.

      Except for Sandy. His precious, maddening, hair-graying, blood-pressure-raising Alexandra. She was his gift, the most precious thing in his life.

      And he damned well wasn’t about to share her with any card-carrying member of the 3-H Club!

      * * *

      Angel was in the tub when the phone rang. Having finished half a glass of port and just started on chapter seven, where things really began to heat up, she was tempted to let the machine take it. But then, what if it was a job? Some people still didn’t take kindly to electronic commands and hung up before the beep.

      And face it—she’d been half expecting Alex to call. Sandy had said he would. Either way, whether he wanted her or not, the Alex she remembered would call and let her know. Gentleman’s code, and all that.

      “Angel? I hope I didn’t call at an inconvenient time.”

      “No, not at all,” she panted, dripping frangipani-scented bubbles all over the marble-patterned vinyl. “Alex? Did Sandy put you on the spot? She sort of insisted I should look at some trees on your property, but I told her I wouldn’t unless you said so.”

      “No, that’s fine. I mean, they definitely need looking at. The thing is, the pool was built back in the fifties, and I never got around to enclosing it....”

      “I know how it is, you keep on putting off things and then when you finally get around to it, you wonder why you didn’t do it years ago.”

      “Right.”

      Angel shivered in the draft that crept through the open back door. It was warm for September, but cool when one was standing stark, strip, dripping-wet naked in a draft. “Like storm windows. I never get around to putting them up until winter is practically over.”

      “Yeah. Well, then. I suppose we should set a time.”

      “A time for what?”

      “To, uh—look at the trees?”

      “Are you sure? I mean, just because Sandy and I were talking, and she said something about it—I mean, you probably have your own tree people. Or maybe you’d rather ask around? Actually, I’m more of a landscaper and plant salesman than a tree surgeon.”

      She was turning down business? What was she, sozzled out of her skull on port wine and paperback romance?

      “No, you’ll do just fine. So maybe you or your husband could come around? Or send somebody. That would be just fine, too. Either way, whenever someone’s in the area, my housekeeper can tell him anything he needs to know. Her husband—that’s Phil Gilly—he sort of looks after things outdoors.”

      “Okay. Fine. Only, first, I don’t have a husband anymore, and second, I do all the estimates personally—and I can come anytime it’s convenient since I’m doing two places in Hope Valley and there’s this citizens committee that’s asked me to look at the magnolias outside your office building. Did you know some jerk wants to take them out because they hide his precious architecture? Those trees were there when the place was practically wilderness! Over my dead body will those trees come down! There’s probably a historical society somewhere that looks into—”

      “Angel?”

      “Oh. Sorry. Wait’ll I kick my soapbox out of the way.”

      Alex sounded as if he were smiling. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”

      “We’ve already done that routine. And Alex—I really like your daughter. She’s special.”

      “Yes, she is,” he said quietly, and Angel could hear the pride in his voice. They settled on Thursday if it wasn’t raining, late in the afternoon. Long after she hung up, Angel could still hear that deep, whiskey-smooth baritone. If he had any idea what even hearing it over the phone could do to a woman’s libido, he’d be shocked right down to his patrician toenails!

      * * *

      The week crept past, but eventually Thursday arrived, and thank goodness, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky! Angel had to force herself to concentrate on measuring the Lancasters’ new patio and platting the placement of a dozen dwarf hollies, three fifteen-foot willow oaks, and an embankment of blue rug juniper.

      Her crew had already taken up the balled and burlapped oaks and loaded them onto the truck. The whole thing should be in place, sodding and all, by Sunday, when the Lancasters planned to celebrate with a patio party.

      With her mind on hurrying out to Alex’s house, she didn’t even take time to add up all the overtime, which just went to show that in some respects, she hadn’t improved one bit with age.

      Sandy was waiting with a pitcher of fresh lemonade. “It’s not from a mix, either,” she said proudly. “Mrs. Gilly made it up just for us. Hey, if you need to use the john or comb your hair or anything, the bathhouse is over there.”

      “Thanks, but combing won’t help. My mother says it’s a curse Granddad Reilly laid on her when she married my pop instead of the nice Irish boy he had all picked out for her. Neither comb nor brush, nor the finest conditioners shall ever unsnarl these tangled locks,” she intoned solemnly.

      She grinned, and Sandy pointed to her own waterfall-straight hair. “At least yours is interesting. I wanted to have mine cornrowed, but Daddy wouldn’t let me. He won’t let me do anything.” Sighing, she poured two glasses of lemonade that frosted up invitingly, and hooked a lounge chair with her foot, dragging it over. “Sit. You look like you’ve been working. Hey, it’s really neat, owning your own business and all that. How’d you do it?”

      It was impossible not to respond to such frank, fresh admiration. And besides, Angel had been working hard. She had plodded over every square foot of raw red mud on the Lancaster site, figuring what went where, allowing for root growth and overhang, and then drawing up a plat her guys could follow.

      By the time Alex pulled into the driveway, some forty-five minutes earlier than usual, they had covered Angel’s widowhood, which she had glossed over in deference to her listener’s youth and innocence, touched on the problems of doing business in this age of city, county, state and federal regulations, backed up by the usual bureaucratic alphabet soup of agencies, and moved on to the stupid rules that prevented a woman of nearly fifteen from pursuing her own interests.

      Which in Sandy’s case, included a boss hunk named Arvid Moncrief who drove a Vette, and becoming either an artist or an airline pilot.

      Alex came around the house, having already shed his coat, turned back the cuffs of his white-on-white monogrammed shirt, and loosened his tie, in time to hear Angel saying, “—hooch, hormones and horsepower. My brother used to say any one of the three could cause trouble,