Page 19 of Lone Star Secrets

But maybe he was hoping by spelling it out, that the words would have a magical effect and stop them from doing something stupid. The words wouldn’t do squat, but the threat of Angel being killed might do the trick for her. She didn’t want him to pay for something she should have shut down twenty years ago.

“The first time Kenton tried to come onto me, I should have kneed him in the balls,” Mia said. “If I’d done that instead of just avoiding him, he might have realized he stood no chance with me.”

Angel glanced at her again, but this time there was a different kind of heat. There was anger. “The first time? Are you saying he tried shit with you before that night?”

Sweet heaven.

Mia instantly regretted her babbling. Angel didn’t need to deal with another slam of emotion. Still, she’d opened this Pandora’s box so she had to go with it.

“Yes, twice,” she admitted. “Once on the day he arrived. He asked me out, and I told him that you were my boyfriend. Then, a few weeks later, he sort of cornered me when I was in the pantry searching for a late-night snack. I was trying to get by him, and he was moving in for a kiss when RJ came in to ask what was going on. I said nothing and then hurried back to my room. That’s when I should have kneed RJ in the balls.”

Angel did a whole lot of cursing. “Yes, you should have kneed him and then come straight to me. Why the hell didn’t you?”

Oh, it was so hard to explain the mind of a teenage girl. “Because I didn’t want you to think I’d done something to lead Kenton on.”

As she expected, that brought on an f-bomb and some other ripe profanity. “I wouldn’t have thought that.”

“Yes, I know that now, but at the time, I didn’t want to do anything to lose you.” She paused. Had to. “Because you were pretty much the only good thing in my life right then.”

Or for the years before that.

Or after.

No way would she admit that. Mia figured she’d already spilled way too much for one day.

Thankfully, Angel didn’t get a chance to push for more info because he turned onto a narrow private road, and she could see the house ahead. Definitely not what she’d been expecting. It looked like a very modern take on a two-story log house with sharp roof angles and lots of windows and decks.

“I didn’t expect to see a place like this out here,” she muttered.

He didn’t jump to answer, and for a moment she thought he was going to ask for more details about her encounters with Kenton. He didn’t. But Mia figured this wasn’t the last of that particular conversation.

“Ruby had several houses built out in this area, and I bought this one when I started working for her,” Angel finally said.

“Your boss has good taste,” she remarked. “Guess you do, too, since you made it your home.”

And it was indeed a home.

The yard was bursting with flowers of all colors, and the land behind it, a clearing of at least ten acres, was covered with wildflowers. She was about to ask him if he’d gotten into gardening, but his phone rang, and she saw Presley’s name pop up on the screen.

“Is everything okay?” Angel asked him the moment he answered the call on speaker.

“No one attacked me or anything. Hope you can say the same for Mia and you.”

“No attacks,” Angel assured him as he drove the van into the garage. “I just got home, and we’re about to go in.”

“Good. Because I’m sending you a lab report about Mia’s knife.”

Her stomach instantly knotted, but she didn’t pepper Presley with questions. She just waited for him to continue.

“It had blood on it,” Presley said. “Not Mia’s.”

Mia’s breath of relief rushed out. “Kenton’s?” she managed to say.

“Yeah, and someone else’s,” he explained. “Birdie’s.”

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Chapter Seven

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