Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

H enry looked at the full moon and decided it was the biggest star in the sky and that he could wish on it.

He did so silently from the back porch of his cabin instead of on his way to see Angel that night. He thought it wise to maybe put a little bit of distance between them until after he’d met with her daddy.

Pure anticipation drove through him, for he had no idea what Bard would say to him. At the bottom of Angel’s steps that morning, he’d said, “Your daughter is a beautiful woman, sir,” and then he’d left before Bard could rip his arm off and feed it to him.

He hadn’t heard from the man yet, and he wondered if this was part of Bard’s strategy to torture him to death—or until Henry showed up at the farmhouse with his hat in his hand, apologies streaming from his mouth, and promises to break up with Angel.

She hadn’t said what she’d told her father that morning when he showed up with the scent of bacon emanating out of a brown bag, and Henry hadn’t asked.

She’d gotten his leave approved for next week, and his family had all cheered for him. He said he’d be there Thursday morning, bright and early, where he’d leave his truck at Courage Reins, load into his daddy’s truck, and they’d all immediately head for Waco.

Momma didn’t like leaving anything to chance, and though John wasn’t graduating until Friday, she wanted to be in town with plenty of time the night before. Henry sighed as he sank into a patio chair and watched as clouds passed in front of the moon, dimming the light.

His phone brightened with a text, but Henry didn’t want to look at it. Angel had messaged that she needed a cowboy hug, and he texted the same thing back. But he’d since told her he didn’t think he should come tonight. She’d accepted his text without argument, but that didn’t mean she liked it. Or maybe she did. Henry wasn’t really sure right now.

He knew one thing: their relationship was only two months old, and he sure didn’t want to cap it now before he had a chance to really know if he could fall in love with her and she could fall in love with him.

Henry had been in plenty of relationships that didn’t make it past the first date. He had some that had made it a month or two, and he’d had a few that had made it to six or seven months. None longer than that.

Almost all of that was his fault, he knew, but he also acknowledged that he’d changed. His phone bleeped out another text, and Henry sighed in irritation as he looked at it. He found a photo coming up, and as it crisped and came into focus, he saw his brother’s handsome face full of stars and sunshine, joy and happiness.

A pretty woman with dark hair pressed her cheek to his, and she held up her left hand with a glinting, glittering diamond taking center stage.

Henry’s heart stopped completely for a moment, then fell to his bare feet and rebounded back to his chest in the most painful way possible.

Paul had just gotten engaged.

Save the date for November tenth! Paul said. Brielle and I are getting married that day!

Henry swallowed, not really jealous, but totally jealous at the same time. Thankfully, happiness poured in over that a moment later, and he lifted his phone to answer.

HOLY COW , he typed in all caps. SHE SAID YES! He added a few exclamation points, one of the rare times he thought more than one should be used, in reply to his brother.

He wanted to ask if they had decided where they were going to live once they got married, but he wasn’t sure if she was still with Paul and if it was a sore subject or not. Last time he’d asked about it, Paul said he was just going to try to get through the proposal before he brought it up again.

“Surely she wouldn’t say yes if they didn’t have a plan,” Henry said to himself, but he didn’t know that. He didn’t know Brielle, as he’d never met the woman.

Paul texted, You can meet her when you come next week for John’s graduation.

Can’t wait , Henry said, though all that did was remind him that Angel had told him she would not be coming to his brother’s graduation.

And really, it had been stupid of him to ask anyway. Stupid, and foolish, and out of complete desperation had Henry asked Angel to come to John’s graduation with him. He’d known she wouldn’t be able to, but the thought of going alone had been more than Henry could handle in that moment.

He’d texted her that he needed a cowgirl hug, but since she lived alone and he did not, he always made the trip to her house to talk through the things which bothered him. She’d slowed him down, gotten him out of his head, and then sent him on his way with a kiss goodnight.

The truth was, Angel White rescued Henry on a daily basis. Whenever he felt like he was drowning in dirty water, she appeared to pull him out. When she felt like that, Henry knelt on the side of the pond and reached for her to bring her back.

He wasn’t sure if he could fall in love in two months or not, but the feelings he had for Angel were definitely stronger and bigger and fiercer than any he’d had for anyone else in the past.

I can’t wait to meet her , Henry told Paul.

Are you bringing anyone to graduation? Paul asked, and the fact that he did that told Henry how pathetic he really was. Henry had taken women to family functions, game nights, and friends’ weddings on first dates. He simply didn’t want to attend anything alone, ever.

But again, he had started to change in the past year since he’d come on at Lone Star. He could be alone now. In fact, sometimes he craved being alone. Like right now, as he sat on the back porch while Levi finished up a load of paperwork for his new job.

Levi would be moving into Flint’s cabin in another five or six weeks, and that meant Henry would get a new cabinmate. That brought a flutter of nerves to his gut, and he wondered if life would ever just be steady, even, and predictable. Where he would have peace of mind that every day he would wake up with the people he wanted to be with, work with the people he wanted to be with, and go to bed with the people he wanted to be with.

Only if you get married , he thought. All at once, he realized why marriage was so spectacular. He didn’t have to worry about a cabinmate then, or if they’d get along, or if he’d be annoyed if the man shed his boots by the front door or if he left food in the fridge so long that it molded and stunk up the whole house.

In a marriage where he was committed to his wife and his wife to him, they would work through any problems they had together . And Henry suddenly wanted that more than anything.

He thought of his momma and daddy, and then Bard and his wife Justine. He’d seen them together too, and they were sweet and kind and clearly best friends. He tapped away from Paul’s text, suddenly realizing why Bard hadn’t texted him.

He wanted Henry to come to him. The man would probably be in bed by now, but Henry texted anyway. I’d love to come talk to you about Angel , he said. Tell me when a good time is, and I’ll make it work. I am leaving next Thursday to go to my brother’s graduation, so I’d like to do it before then, if possible. I don’t want anything weighing on me or anything between us for too long.

He read over the words, thinking of Bard’s rule of not going to bed angry with anyone on the ranch, and he wondered if Angel had changed that in the employee handbook or not.

And it became apparent that Bard lived by the rules he’d expected his cowboys to, because he responded with, Come by tomorrow for breakfast , when he should’ve been in bed a couple of hours ago.

Henry’s pulse hammered as he tapped out a reply. Don’t you and your wife eat breakfast with Angel?

Yes , Bard said. But she wasn’t real keen on me talking to you alone. And I figure you’re both adults, and we can have an adult conversation.

Yes, sir , Henry said, because he could have an adult conversation. That settled, he didn’t feel like he was breathing pond water anymore, and he went inside to find that Levi had left the light on over the stove for him but had gone down the hall to bed.

Henry did the same, and he closed his door and fell to his knees in front of his bed. “Lord,” he prayed, “I feel slow of speech like Thy servant Moses. But I know that You gave him the words he needed, and I’m begging You to give them to me tomorrow when I meet Angel’s parents…as her boyfriend.”

The following morning, Henry attended roll call as usual, and he noticed that some men had grouped up differently than before. He still stood with Levi, sipping a to-go cup of coffee that he’d gotten from the machine in stable three.

Justin made that every morning, and the man was a good coffee maker. He didn’t see Angel anywhere as he listened to the announcements, as Trevor went through their inspirational message, and as the day’s work began. But the moment that Levi turned and left his side, she seemed to materialize out of nowhere.

“Hey.” She wore a hoodie this morning, and she tucked her hands into the front pocket of it. It had rained a little bit overnight, and the sun hadn’t come out that morning, making everything above the emerald-green fields and pastures gray and white and dreary.

“Morning.” He turned toward the farmhouse, glad when she fell into step beside him. “Tell me what I’m walking into here.”

“I don’t rightly know,” Angel said. “Daddy said he wanted to meet. I’m surprised I got invited at all.”

“Hm.” It didn’t take long to make it to the farmhouse, and with Angel with him, he didn’t even knock. She just opened the door and said, “Morning,” and expected him to follow her inside.

He did, closing the door behind him. He’d been to this house many times as he’d met with Bard for various horse issues and other work-related business. They’d remodeled the farmhouse, so the living room flowed right into the kitchen, where Bard turned from the fridge with a pitcher of bright pink liquid.

Henry’s knees weakened on his next step, and his legs almost buckled underneath him. But he managed to keep walking. Angel’s mama wore an oxygen tube in her nose, and the steady hum and hiss of the canister as it pumped pure oxygen into her airways almost comforted him.

“Morning, ma’am,” he said to her. Justine, who had always been kind, squeezed his hand and gave him a smile.

“Chocolate croissants are almost done,” Angel’s daddy said, and she came to a complete stop.

“I’m not making scrambled eggs this morning?”

He put the grapefruit juice on the table and said, “Sit down. The chocolate croissants are almost done.”

Henry saw no choice but to sit down where a bowl of cubed watermelon, pineapple, and cantaloupe already waited. Trying to put forth his best effort, he pulled out a chair for Angel and looked at her. She threw him a menacing glare but took the seat, and he sat next to her, Bard on his immediate left and Justine down on the other end next to Angel. Sure enough, the chocolate croissants came out a moment later. Bard put the hot tray from the oven right in the middle of the table.

“They’re supposed to sit for five or ten minutes,” he said as he pulled his chair back. “I reckon that’s enough time for us to talk.” He sat and surveyed everyone at the table, and it was very clear that he was going to lead the conversation.

After several long seconds, Angel made a scoffing sound and said, “Daddy, this is ridiculous.”

“How long have you been dating my daughter, Henry?” he asked as he reached for the fruit bowl and spooned some chunks of only pineapple onto his plate.

Henry refused to look over at Angel, though he really wanted to borrow some of her strength, to lean on her the way she leaned on him sometimes. “A couple of months, sir,” he said. “We talked about it first when I went home to Three Rivers that time in February.”

Bard nodded, and Henry decided he’d passed some sort of test. “Anything before that?”

Henry swallowed, not sure if he should bring up the incident from last year. He figured his conscience would be clear if he did, and so he said, “Well, I did something real stupid a year or so ago,” he said. “When Angel came to Sherman to make the announcements for apprenticeships and internships?—”

“Henry,” she interrupted.

“No, I’m going to tell him,” he said, feeling his lungs expand and then collapse. “I was really angry that I didn’t get one. See, I hadn’t gotten her email from the day before, and I went to talk to her about it, because I didn’t have a position anywhere and I was desperate. I needed an apprenticeship to graduate.”

He realized his tongue had run away from him, but he didn’t know how to stop it. Surely Bard could understand the desperation a man would have after four years in farrier school, and all he needed was an apprenticeship to graduate.

“When I was talking to Angel, and it became clear that I had gotten the apprenticeship—the only one Lone Star had offered—which I was real thankful for, sir. Real grateful. I’ve loved being here, so much that I’m coming back next year.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” Bard said.

Henry’s vision flashed black and then white before the kitchen came into view again. “My job is in jeopardy?” he asked. “For dating Angel?” He couldn’t handle the pressure now descending through his shoulders. It mixed with that same desperation he’d felt in the apprenticeship meeting last year. “Sir, she’s a grown adult and so am I. She barely gets off this ranch.”

“Henry,” she said again, softer this time.

He turned to look at her, hearing something significant in her tone, and he tried to figure out what she was trying to say to him with her eyes. But something inside him told him that he needed to stand up for her, and himself, and this relationship.

It meant something to him, and he wanted Bard and Justine to see that. He looked down to her momma. “She takes care of everything around here. All the cowboys, all the farriers, all the land, all the schedules, Trevor, you guys. She goes to church every week. She’s awake at the crack of dawn, and she’s staying up late to get various things finished. And I have to admit that I’m part of the problem with that. I’ve been trying to leave her place by nine-thirty so we can both get a good night’s rest. I’ve been trying to be real respectful of her time. Real respectful of her as a woman.”

He reached over and took her hand the way his daddy taught him. “I sure do like your daughter, sir.” He switched his gaze back to Bard. “I like her. I like spending time with her. I like talking with her. And yeah, I like kissing her. We’ve only been dating a couple of months, but in my mind, we’re headed toward something serious, something long-lasting. A real commitment. Something that could be beautiful and wonderful and forever.”

Beside him, Angel sniffled. But Henry wasn’t done talking yet. “So last year when I found out about the apprenticeship, I was just so excited. And I can admit maybe I was a little bit of a player back then. I really started to change the most when I came to Lone Star in the summer.” His voice cracked because his friendship with Bard was real to him, and the mentorship that Bard had done for him meant a great deal to Henry.

“Anyway, I grabbed onto her right there in the conference room at Sherman Academy, and I kissed her. I shouldn’t have. I know that. It was just my way of celebrating in that moment.”

Bard blinked. “Kind of like this morning when you showed up at her house and kissed her on the front porch after you got your promotion?”

“Yes, sir,” Henry said quickly. “Kind of like that. Except this time, Angel and I are dating, and she’s not with some other guy.” He chuckled lightly and glanced over at Justine. She wore a smile now, a soft look around her eyes, and Henry felt like maybe he’d scored some points.

“That’s all?” Bard asked.

“Yes, sir,” Henry said. “I came on last summer. Nothing happened. Angel and I have worked together just fine. We’ve been friendly, but.”

He cut a look over to her. “I wouldn’t call us friends. Until the day Levi got sick. I sent that text and Angel showed up, asked about him, and completely broke down. I offered to take her home to Three Rivers with me, and things really started then. I confessed my crush on her, and you know what, sir? She told me that she would go out with me if there wasn’t this no-dating rule. So we decided that we would…kind of bend the rule a little bit. We’d see each other when we could. We’d find private moments.”

“You’ve been sneaking around, you mean,” Bard said.

“Only a little, Daddy,” Angel said. “Nobody got hurt. It’s not that big of a deal.”

Henry wasn’t sure Bard saw it that way, but he figured he’d said everything he needed to say. And it’d been about five or ten minutes. So he reached for the spatula and scooped up a chocolate croissant. He put the first one on Bard’s plate, the second on Justine’s, and the third on Angel’s. That only left one for him.

Henry put it on his plate, turned to Angel, and said, “You want some fruit salad, baby?” as if he ate breakfast with her parents every day. As if he’d start calling her “baby” in front of everyone at Lone Star. All three of them gaped at him.

“Oh, do we need to pray first?” Henry asked.

Angel’s face broke into a smile, and she laughed. “Yeah, cowboy,” she said. “We usually pray first.”

Henry looked over to Bard, who gave him a single nod that Henry took as total acceptance of his relationship.

“Angel says the two of you are going to handle telling the other cowboys about your relationship,” he said.

“Yeah,” Henry said. “That’s right, we are.”

“When?”

“When Angel’s ready.”

She didn’t give further details, and Bard didn’t ask. Justine said grace, and Henry lifted his chocolate croissant to his mouth, moaning when he got the flaky pastry and the chocolatey goodness all in one bite.

“I wish you could come with me,” Henry said almost a week later. His packed bag sat in the backseat of his truck, solo. Angel had met him on the side of his house, and since he lived on the end, they’d taken a risk that no one would see them. He’d attended roll call as usual, but he needed to get on the road in the next ten minutes to satisfy his momma’s timeline.

“Me too,” Angel said as she rested her cheek against his pulse. He held her, brushed his fingers through her hair, and gently tipped her face up to kiss her.

“I’ll miss you while I’m gone,” he said.

“It’s only a few days,” she said.

“I’ll call you tonight. We’ll be down in Waco, and I’ll find a way to sneak away.”

“You aren’t going to tell your parents about us?”

His eyebrows went up. “You think I should?”

“Well, my parents know now,” she said. “And who are your mom and dad going to tell? Someone here on the ranch?”

He grinned at her. “No,” he said. “They don’t know anyone here on the ranch.”

She smiled back. “Exactly,” she said, and then Angel matched her mouth to his again.

Henry could kiss her for a long time, but he pulled away, resettled his hat on his head, and said, “I’ll call you tonight.”

He got behind the wheel of his truck and drove away from Angel, which happened to be one of the hardest things he’d done in the past couple of years. It felt odd to think that, to know it, to feel it deep down inside his chest. And he wondered once again what it would feel like to be in love.

Maybe this weekend, he could ask Paul about it.

He could talk to his momma and daddy about Angel.

Maybe when he visited Three Rivers, everything would once again be reset, and he’d know exactly what to do and when to do it when he came back to Lone Star next week.