Alex And The Angel. Dixie Browning

that anymore! I think your old rules stink!”

      “I’m sure you do, but as long as you’re—”

      “I know, I know—as long as I’m living under your roof, I have to bow and scrape to your royal highness.”

      A grin threatened to kick in again, against all logic. He had a pretty fair notion what she was thinking, and it wasn’t about his royal highness. “Sorry, sweetheart, it’s the system. It suckers us all in, and before we know it, we’re nothing but mind-numbed robots, having to wash up before meals, having to listen to DWEM composers instead of demolition derbies set to music while we dine. Having to—”

      “All right, all right!” Out came the lower lip. Down came the scowling brows. “But I’m not going to stop being friends with her, I don’t care what you say! And I might even work at her place next summer. She hires, like, school kids sometimes.”

      “Fine with me,” he said mildly. Last week it was the record shop at the mall. The week before that, she was planning to look for a job at a riding stable. At least she’d given up on the airline thing. “By the way, I won’t be in for dinner tonight, but I won’t be out late, either, if you want to talk after you finish your homework.”

      She looked hurt. He didn’t want to see it. “If I want to talk, I’ll call Angel. At least she treats me like an adult, which is more than I can say about some people.”

      Pond scum. That about said it all.

      * * *

      Before they even ordered dinner, Alex knew the evening was going to be a bummer. Carol had made several pointed remarks about friends whose daughters went off to school and how well it turned out for all concerned.

      “I’d be the first to admit I lose patience sometimes—whoever said raising a daughter alone was easy, obviously never had tried it—but I’d miss her too much, Carol. She’s all I’ve got left.” He attempted a smile, but it failed for lack of conviction. “I guess it comes of being an only child of an only child. We only children have special obligations. We have to be there for each other, whether or not it’s always convenient.”

      “Nonsense! Darling, Sandy has plenty of friends. No girl her age wants a father always hanging around, cramping her style.”

      “Maybe her style needs a bit of cramping.”

      “And maybe she just needs to be with kids her own age. It’s not as though you’re some doddering old relict, gathering his family around him for support in his waning years. You’re young, healthy, virile—and certainly more than able to take on additional responsibility.”

      “Additional responsibility?”

      “You could even have a second family.”

      “Not if I want to stay sane.”

      “That’s what boarding schools are for. Did it ever occur to you, darling, that Sandy would adore having a baby sister or brother? It would give her something to do with her evenings besides hanging around boys.”

      A waiter appeared at his side, and Alex ordered the broiled chicken for Carol and braised calf’s liver for himself. Maybe he needed more iron in his diet. God knows, he needed something he wasn’t get-ting.

      “Things are different now than when we were kids, Carol. These days, girls Sandy’s age are exposed to a lot of new dangers. I want her to know—especially after Dina—” He shrugged. “At any rate, she needs to know she comes first with me. I’m not sure taking on a second family would be the thing to do.”

      “Oh, but the experts all say—”

      “Any dozen experts will say at least a dozen different things. Experts are like statistics. You can always find a few to back most any crackbrained theory you want to propose. The trouble comes when you put theory to the test and find out it’s full of holes. I guess I’ll just have to blunder along the best way I can and hope for the best.” Leaning back, he crossed his arms casually over his chest, hoping she would take the hint.

      Subject closed.

      “Now...shall I order us another bottle of wine?”

      * * *

      Later that evening, Alex told himself that he owed Angel a call. Owed her an apology, too, only he wasn’t entirely sure which offense to apologize for first. Cutting off her attempt to help with Sandy, or lusting after her delectable little body.

      The truth was, he suspected it was more than her body he lusted after. She made him smile. She made him want to laugh. She made him feel young again.

      Which was why he decided not to call her. Not to expose himself to danger. He had enough to deal with without waking any sleeping dragons.

      Three

      Having recently studied every new line, every slightest hint of aging on Alex’s face, Angel now examined her brother with the same squinty-eyed concentration. “Ah-ha! Six more gray hairs,” she pronounced with grim satisfaction. Why was it that men improved with age, while women only aged?

      While he would never be called classically handsome, with his wicked blue eyes and his full black beard, Gus looked like the pirate hero on the cover of one of her new paperback romances. He had aged remarkably well.

      So had Alex, dammit.

      There was a lot to be said for aristocratic bone structure, she concluded dismally. So far as the naked eye could discern, she didn’t even possess any bone structure.

      “What happened, did you fall on your head?” She indicated a scar that snaked into the edge of his unruly hair, diagonally up from the one she happened to know was hidden by his beard.

      “Two-by-four. Guy didn’t signal his turn in time. Hey, Angel, what’s with the blinking lights? Does that happen often?”

      “No more than once or twice a week. Want a bagel with your coffee?”

      “Hmm. I should’ve checked out the wiring last time I was here. A bagel? Yeah, sure, hon. Remind me to get my meter out of the truck when I bring in my bag, will you?”

      Angel poured coffee, set out a crock of cheese and a half-dozen fresh bagels. She’d been working like a Trojan all day. Gus had pulled in just before dark, looking gaunt and tired, but when she’d offered to cook him a meal, he’d said he wasn’t hungry.

      The day Gus Wydowski wasn’t hungry was the day they laid him out in the front parlor with a lily in his fist. Something was bothering him, and it was her duty as his only relative east of the Mississippi to drag it out of him.

      She decided on the indirect route. She wasn’t very good at it, but one didn’t butt heads with Gus Wydowski and come out the winner. “Guess who I saw twice last week?” she mentioned casually as she slathered cheese on half a bagel and handed it across the table. “Hightower. And I met his daughter, too, and she’s something else. Blond, gray eyed, tall—she looks like Dina, but she’s a lot more interesting, even at fourteen.”

      Gus had been in love with Dina. They’d never spoken of it, and Angel didn’t think Alex had ever guessed, but she’d known practically from the first. If she hadn’t already hated the woman for stealing Alex, she would have hated her for that. Dina ex-Hightower was a gold-plated bitch, even if she was a countess or duchess or whatever in some two-bit kingdom nobody’d ever heard of.

      Poor Gus, he’d stood up with Alex at the wedding, and then headed for the hills, seven months short of graduation. He never had gone back for his degree.

      “Great. So how’s Alex?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued. “You know, I’ve got a job lined up at the beach, kid. Probably take until November to get it under cover. Why not take a break and come on down for a week or so?”

      “Aren’t you even curious?”

      Gus