THE AIR STILLED AS four pairs of eyes stared at me.
The gas station angel stared at me.
I was no stranger to death. A hunter kills. But family was sacred, and now I had none. “What happened to her?”
Theodore’s hand rubbed over his head as if he were nervous. “Why don’t you come in and we can talk about it.”
I did not move. “What is there to tell?” Death was death.
And my angel was my father’s stepdaughter.
Ted slowly nodded. “Your sister was born with a heart defect. There was nothing me or your mother could do. Not even surgery could fix what she had. Sometimes that happens with twins, one is just… stronger.” He looked at me with pain in his eyes. “Your sister wasn’t long for this world, every doctor we saw told us that. But your mother didn’t want to give up, and when River Stephens promised her a miracle if she came out to the compound, she went.” He stopped abruptly and inhaled.
I knew of River’s supposed miracles, but I had no sympathy for this man. He was not my family. I may have had his blood in my veins, but he relinquished his responsibilities before I ever had one memory to keep of him. That was not a father.
My gaze cut to her. My gas station angel. Or fate’s cruel joke. I no longer knew which. Anger infused with shock, and I waited for her smile, but all I got was a waiting stare in return.
Theodore shifted uncomfortably. “Stephens said doctors couldn’t fix her, but that God could. So your mother took you and your sister and moved to the River Ranch compound. A month later, I got word that your sister had passed.”
Looking away from my angel, I focused back on the man who’d given up his offspring. “And you did nothing.”
“Son, you don’t understand. I wasn’t even allowed on the property for the funeral because I wasn’t a member. There was nothing—”
“I understand perfectly,” I cut him off. “My biological mother passed when I was three, and you left me in the hands of a cult leader.” An insane cult leader who made me kill my first deer at age four with a hunting knife.
The man standing in front of me who gave up all claim to his son gripped the doorframe for support as his face lost all color. “Your mother’s dead?”
I did not have time for this. Not for him, not for the angel, none of it. I turned to leave.
“Callan,” Theodore barked, finally infusing the authority of a man into his tone. “You wait right there a second. I’m not done talking to you. You need to hear me out.”
He was too late to hold any influence over me. “I owe you nothing.”
“Damn it,” he swore before anguish choked his voice. “I didn’t know your mother passed. I should’ve come for you, but I didn’t know… I didn’t know.”
It took me until my eleventh year to realize River Stephens was insane.
It took me seconds to know Theodore Anders was worse.
But when a small hand grabbed my wrist, it took only a fraction of a single breath to know I was sunk.
I halted midstep, my muscles froze, and every molecule of my being tuned in to her single touch. Featherlight, her small fingers held me hostage more than the compound life had kept me prisoner. My body didn’t just react to her touch, my soul reached for her.
A gas station angel.
I turned and met brown eyes I had been dreaming about for months.
Just like last time, I had no words.
And same as last time, it did not matter.
She gifted me a small smile. “My mom makes great food. Please, stay.”
I did not belong here. If it were not for the gas station angel being here, I would have been gone already.
“Wait.” The sister looked between us. “Do you know him, Emily?”
It was not a question. It was an accusation.
Heat colored the angel’s face. “We, um, we….”
“You what?” Theodore demanded.
“Ted.” His wife’s hand went to his arm.
The angel inhaled.
And I waited. Waited to hear what exactly she was going to say.
The angel’s shoulders straightened and she nodded. “Yes, we’ve met. A year ago.” With more boldness than I had ever seen in a female, she pivoted and put her hand on Theodore’s chest, giving him a small shove. “You need to give us a minute.”
Shocked into stunned silence, Theodore, his wife and her daughter stared as the angel stepped out of the house and pulled the door closed behind her.
Taking my wrist again, she led us to a hanging swing at the end of the wide porch. “Sit,” she ordered before softening her voice. “Please.”
Offended, I stood.
“Okay.” She glanced around the porch as she nodded to herself. “I totally get it. You’re more comfortable standing.” She sucked in a breath and looked up at me. “Look, we don’t know each other, but I do know what it’s like to have a father abandon you.” She pointed toward the house. “But that man in there has never been anything but a saint to my mom. I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but people do change. I am so, so incredibly sorry about your sister. I can’t even process that kind of grief.” She shook her head. “But maybe, just maybe, you can come inside and have something to eat?”
If I was not standing there, I would not believe the words I had just heard. “You are defending him.” It was not a question.
“Yes.” She did not hesitate.
“You want me to break bread with him.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
A female. Defending a man. “What do you gain by this?”
She sank to the swing, and her breasts rose with an inhale as she stared at her hands in her lap. “When we met…” Her voice got quiet. “You were living at River Ranch then, weren’t you?” She did not look up.
I said nothing.
She lifted her head. “You grew up in River Ranch?”
I nodded once.
Her hands twisted. “Do you… still live there?”
I did not answer her question. Instead, I gave her another truth. “I think of you.”
Her throat moved with a swallow. “Oh.”
“I went back.” I held her gaze. “Every month.”
Her eyes widened. “To the gas station?”
I lifted my chin.
She frowned. “Why?”
She had been direct with me. I gave her the same respect. “To see you.”
Heat flushed her cheeks. “I, um…” She bit her lip. “I wasn’t there.”
“I know.” Disappointment was the seed of contempt. There was no room in life for circumstances you could not change. I had allowed myself a moment of disappointment once a month for the past year, but now I was gifted another opportunity, and I did not want to waste it. “I wanted to kiss you. At the gas station,” I clarified.
Her cheeks bloomed, and she sucked in a sharp breath as the front door opened.
The wife looked at first her daughter, then me. “Please.” She smiled kindly. “Won’t you join us for dinner?” She opened the door wide. “We have plenty, and we were just about to sit down.” She stepped back as if to let me pass.
Using his wife as a shield, Theodore stood behind her. “Nobody cooks a roast like Marie.”
The blonde sister glanced at her sibling then settled her gaze on me, staring like she wanted my seed. The wife looked at me like she wanted to mother me, and Theodore waited like an eager canine.
They all disgusted me.
Except the gas station angel.
She gave me none of those looks. For the second time in my twenty-seven trips around the sun, a woman did not look at me with need. The need for protection, the need to breed, the need to mother, the need to eat—none of it shown in her expression. Instead, just as she had at the gas station, she looked at me with innocence and purity. Her expression said she believed in a better life, and the combination, just like last time, made possessive desire stir.
This was not a meal about reconciliation.
This was about twelve months of hoping against hope.
This was about fate.
This was about taking an opportunity when one was presented.
I tipped my chin at my gas station angel. “I will stay.”
Her answering smile was as exactly as I had remembered.