Secrets in the Sand - Carolyn Brown Page 0,13
been in love with you, Clancy. I was in love with the boy I thought you were. Don’t worry about this baby. Don’t let the thought of it ever cross your mind again. It’s not yours… It’s mine, and I’ll take care of it. Just go on home.”
“Oh hell, Angela, use your brain. You’re smart even if you are—”
“What?” She had scowled at him. “Poor? Well, that didn’t stop you from kissing me and making love with me all summer, did it? I’ve been a complete fool about you, Clancy. Someday you’re going to look back and think about tonight, though. And I hope your heart hurts when you do. I hope it aches just like mine is aching right now. But between now and then, don’t ever think about this baby we made again.” Angela walked away from him without looking back.
“Don’t worry, honey,” Granny had told her that night when she’d gone home crying. “He’s a rich kid and he’s not about to do right by you. He’ll marry some stuck-up girl when he’s had his fun and gets ready to settle down. We’ll take care of ourselves. We’ll be movin’ tomorrow just like we planned, and you’re goin’ to college this fall on that grant money you got. Things look tough tonight, but it’ll work out, Angela. Stop your weepin’ and learn your lessons.”
“But I love him, Granny,” she had sobbed.
“I hope you do,” her grandmother snorted. “Be a terrible thing if you didn’t. But cryin’ ain’t goin’ to make anything different. We’ll manage and nobody will ever know.”
Angel shook her head, clearing the memories, and threw back the covers. She crawled out of bed, threw the covers over the pillows, and picked out an old pair of jeans from the closet. She wiggled down into them and jerked a T-shirt over her head. She pulled her curls up into a ponytail, put on a pair of sneakers, and was ready.
“Got a guest,” Hilda said when she reached the kitchen. The housekeeper smiled in an odd way, and Angel wondered what had happened while she’d been sleeping.
“Where?” Angel asked.
“Out there on the swing. Asleep. Lot of man to be curled up like that. I told him to get out of here when I come in to work, but he said you knew he was there, and he wasn’t leavin’ until you talked to him. So I just ignored him. He’s been asleep about two hours. Just sat there swinging most of the mornin’. He’s been out there for hours,” Hilda said.
“Clancy is a determined man, all right.” Angel smiled.
“Oh,” Hilda said. “So that’s Clancy Morgan out there, is it? You should kick him off that swing and tell him to go to hell. I wouldn’t give that man the sweat from my brow if he was dyin’ of thirst.” Hilda fumed as she picked up her broom and started toward the fireplace to sweep the flagstone in front of it.
“See you later. I’m headed to work. When he wakes up, tell him that I changed my mind. I don’t want to talk,” Angel whispered and eased out the back door.
***
Hilda counted to ten slowly, then went out to the front porch where Clancy was snoring loudly on the porch swing. So, this was the sorry bastard who’d caused her Angel to be single at the age of twenty-eight…who’d made her cry when she was younger, and who’d upset her today. He wasn’t a bad-looking fellow—tall, well-built, dark hair, dark stubble starting to show on his face where he needed to shave.
Hilda loved Angel like a daughter, and it broke her heart to see her upset, especially on Sunday afternoons when she came home from her precious baby son’s grave. She hooked the broom handle in the back of the swing and shoved with all her might.
One minute Clancy was dreaming of having the sweet angel he used to know in his arms beside the creek bank, and the next he was flying across the porch, grabbing at the air for something to hold on to. Then his eyes sprang open just in time to see the wooden floor as he landed facedown.
“Why did you do that?” he sputtered as he sat up.
“Me?” Hilda looked shocked.
The old green pickup he remembered from high school roared around the end of the house and out onto the dirt road headed west. “Where’s she going?” He sat up, checking his nose to see if it was bleeding.
“I wouldn’t know, you dirty