Page 16 of The Cowboy Who Worked Late

Angel didn’t want to argue because she also didn’t want to make lunch. She thought it polite to offer, and she would have done it. But Chelsea had said no, and Angel wasn’t going to push her on it.

“Okay,” she said.

“We’ll probably go eat with my brother and his family,” Chelsea said. “His daughter’s in town so that she can introduce her boyfriend to all of us.”

“Oh, that’s great,” Angel said. “Is this Libby, the woman whose clothes I’m wearing?”

Chelsea grinned and nodded. “That’s right.” She glanced down at Angel’s purple pajamas. “I’m glad they fit.”

“Me too,” Angel said. “Is it just Libby and her boyfriend?”

Chelsea took her first sip of coffee. “No, Finn and Edith will probably come. They want to meet Libby’s boyfriend too. Sammy lives here on the ranch. Mike’s away, and he didn’t come home. So there’ll be a small crowd. We’ll just wander over to the homestead and eat over there after church sometime. Kelly’s a real good cook.”

“That’s great,” Angel said, not sure she wanted to join that crowd.

“My mom owns the bakery in town,” Chelsea said. “So she’ll come out with her husband.” She flashed a tight smile and let her eyes dance away. “They’ll bring pastries and desserts. It’ll be fun.”

“Okay,” Angel said. “It does sound fun.” She glanced down the hall. “I guess I’ll go get dressed.”

Chelsea nodded her out of the room, and Angel quickly put on Libby’s jeans and a green floral tank top that was a little bit too bulky for her smaller chest.

Then she spied her wig lying discarded on her nightstand. Pure horror snaked through her as she realized she’d just had an entire face-to-face conversation with Henry’s mom without her hair.

She reached up with both hands and planted them on her scalp. She had so little hair, but a lot of it was on the top. Maybe Chelsea hadn’t noticed. Angel scoffed at her ridiculous thought.

“How could she not have noticed?” she asked out loud. Chelsea hadn’t said anything, but she’d definitely noticed. Angel snatched up the wig and moved over to the full-length mirror to put it into place.

At least Henry hadn’t seen her.

Angel hated her hair, and she hated how easily it went under the wig cap and how little of it she could see beneath the nylon. She fitted the wig over it and clipped the clasp in place. It pinched for one moment, and her head got hot for two seconds, and then it went back to normal.

This was her normal. She wore a wig every day. She wore it up in a ponytail when she worked outside in the hot Texas heat and down when she went to church.

She looked at the dress she’d worn here, folded neatly on the bed that she’d already made. She slipped her feet into the boots that Chelsea had provided for her. They fit pretty well. She went down the hall where she heard the sound of male voices.

That meant Henry and his daddy had returned. The hummingbird wings in Angel’s pulse picked up. She took a deep breath just before she exited the hallway and saw Henry with his parents, both of them standing at the counter, their backs to her as they faced him. He stirred something into his coffee.

“She’s just a friend, Momma.”

“Is she?” his mom challenged. “She’s really pretty, Henry.”

“Yeah, she is,” he said. “That doesn’t mean she’s my girlfriend.” He glanced up to his mother but didn’t look over to the mouth of the hallway.

Angel faded against the wall, pressing her back into the drywall behind her.

“Are you dating her?” his daddy asked.

“I just answered that question,” Henry said. “I told you in the stables as well. I’m not dating her. She’s not my girlfriend.” He heaved a heavy sigh, and Angel wished she stood beside him andcould hold his hand and squeeze it to give him strength. “She needed help.”

Angel didn’t want to hear this. She did not want to hear what Henry thought of her. She did not want to know what he saw when she broke down in front of him. She didn’t want to know his opinion of her family, of her parents, of her brother. She thought it might break her further if it wasn’t exactly what she hoped to hear. And to be honest, she didn’t evenknowwhat she hoped to hear.

“What do you mean, help?” Chelsea asked.

“She carries a lot for Lone Star,” Henry said slowly, thoughtfully. Angel had heard him speak like this to other cowboys too, about horses and the schedule of their shoeing, and the different ways that they could take care of the equines that lived at Lone Star.

“I don’t know exact specifics,” he said. “I told her we didn’t have to talk about it this weekend, and we haven’t talked about it. But I knew she needed help. God told me she needed help, and so I invited her to come with me. I thought maybe a couple of days away from all of her heavy responsibilities would help her.”

Angel’s heart melted at his words, and she stepped back down the hall, making her steps really loud, then turned around and came back. She entered the kitchen, and all three of them looked at her.

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