Chapter 1

“Oh Angel, quit sulking.” Priscilla scolded

Angel plopped herself on the taupe suede sofa in the study while tucking a brunette strand of hair behind her ear that escaped her tight bun, and looked up at her sister who was pacing impatiently in the room while her slinky black calf length dress swirled about her elegant legs. Her eyes narrowed. All Priscilla ever thought of was herself, and although she loved her older sister, it got tiring after awhile. “I really didn’t want to come. I have a paper due next week.” Normally Priscilla’s antics didn’t affect her but she was irritated because she dragged her along to the gala at Bea Harrison’s ranch. Actually she told a little lie. It had nothing to do with her paper. It wasn’t because of Priscilla or because of their hostess. It was the hostess’s son that made her leery and she knew he had to come tonight because his brother was coming home after a long absence.

Her sister straightened the bust of her dress drawing her disproving gaze back to her. “How are you supposed to meet a man if you never go anywhere besides work and have your nose in a book?”

Meet a man? That was easy for her to say. Priscilla was beautiful, blonde and blue eyed. She was very popular in school and still was since she graduated four years ago, whereas, Angela who was two years younger may have had the same eyes, but her hair was mousy brown and she was shorter by at least six inches and was a little chubbier compared to her sister who had a figure fit for a runway model. It worked very well for her too. She could bat her eyelashes and have practically any man fall at her feet, except Seth Harrison, and it was driving her crazy. It seemed to give her sister that obsessive streak where he was concerned and it was no secret among her friends and probably most of the townspeople that she was crazy about him. Priscilla was quite open about things she wanted and he was one of them. Angel on the other hand had a problem controlling her heart rate around the other one.

Alex Harrison.

Alex and Seth Harrison were their neighbors and along with their mother Bea, owned one of the biggest ranches in North Carolina with a stunning view of the Blue Ridge Mountains and raised Santa Gertrudis cattle. Their parents were good friends with the Harrisons even before Angel was born. It may not have been a secret that Priscilla wanted Seth, but Angel never told anyone how she felt about Alex. She couldn’t. She wasn’t much to talk about her feelings with anyone even her sister.

Angel always felt in her sister’s shadow and tonight was a good example in the way they were dressed. Priscilla had on a designer label low neckline dress which showed off her best attributes whereas; she wore a drab blouse and an ankle length skirt. Again she would be invisible next to her. Not that she really cared, she was not as outgoing as her sister and preferred to remain invisible, and most times was quite clumsy. “I don’t want a man.” She finally mumbled.

Priscilla ignored her sister’s comment and walked to the big bay window that overlooked the party on the back terrace around the pool while sweeping her fair hair off her shoulders, “It’s exciting that Seth is coming home,” she said flashing her sister a stunning smile, “I can’t wait to see him. It seems like he’s been gone forever”.

Actually he has, thought Angel studying her sister’s anxiousness. The man had left home when he was twenty to go to med school and specialize in a field. It had been eight years, except during the summer when he came home to visit. Unlike his older brother Alex, who never came home as often when he was away at Princeton which Angel found odd because she knew he loved the ranch.

However she remembered one summer when she was sixteen, they both ended up being home, and it was one of those days she came over to use the pool during a hot spell. Bea, their mother always let the girls come visit for that purpose. She said she never had any girls of her own and doted on the both of them. Angel didn’t realize that they were home or she wouldn’t have been swimming in their pool, and more importantly, she wouldn’t have been wearing what she was wearing.

She wore a bikini and had spent the hour swimming. When she decided she had enough she got out of the pool and there stood Alex, tall dark and sinfully gorgeous. Her mouth suddenly went dry. The sun was glistening off his bronzed skin. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, just khaki shorts. He never said a word and just stared at her. She began to feel more insecure with each passing second under that potent gaze of his. For all she knew he was there the whole time watching her and she didn’t know it. Even though she was slightly red from being in the sun, she was sure that the full body blush she felt was completely visible to him.

She probably would have drooled if her mouth wasn’t so dry or if she didn’t feel so ashamed at being caught in the slinky garment. At the time she was pulling herself out of the shallow end by use of the ladder and had one foot on the poolside slate when she stopped and froze like a stone statue when she saw him.

Normally she’d wear her once piece suit, but it was dirty from swimming in the creek the day before, so she borrowed her sister’s white bikini. There was no way on God’s green earth she would have done such a thing if she knew Alex was going to be there. She felt as though she was a little “chunky’ compared to Priscilla and she didn’t care if Bea or Prissy saw her wearing her sisters bikini, however Alex was the last person she’d want to expose her body too. Almost as if God was punishing her for some unknown reason, there he was. His body was dark from the sun and every inch of him was covered in thick sinewy muscle. She was so stunned, that she couldn’t even lift her arms to cover herself.

Neither one of them said anything. She couldn’t because her tongue suddenly became inanimate, and he just chose not to. But it didn’t stop his eyes from slowly going down over her body and then back up again as if he didn’t find his blatant stare the least but shameful. If felt as if all the water just evaporated off her skin and she began to heat up all over again. This time it had nothing to do with the sun or her embarrassment. He could affect her so easily even with a stare. She could no longer hold his gaze and guided her eyes to his naked chest covered with thick black hair. It was then she finally was able to move again. At least her jaw did because it fell. The man had a body built like a Greek warrior. Thick chest covered with a healthy spray of dark hair down to a flat, narrow hips and washboard abs dissected by another line of dark hair reaching below the belt of his shorts that loosely hung on his hips leaving no thought to the imagination of what it led to.

It was no wonder he carried himself with such arrogance. He was perfect! Years later, Margo, a woman she knew from work pegged him well once. She referred to Adam Harrison as a “walking hunk of sex’. At the time she wouldn’t have understood what that meant, but now that she was older, it perfectly made sense. He was that, in spades.

That day by the pool stuck in her mind because she was so embarrassed at him finding her so scantily clad and then to make things worse she heard her name while she was looking down his body and flicked her eyes back up to his gorgeous face. He was smiling! Oh God she’d been ogling him and he knew it! Quickly she found her strength to jump out of the pool and rush to get her towel to wrap around herself while dashing by him murmuring and apology. After she changed she found Prissy who was watching Seth lunge a horse with a dreamy look on her face, and insisted that she take her home. It wasn’t hard to forget that day, not just because of the shocking glimpse of masculine perfection, but Prissy didn’t speak to her for almost a week. They didn’t live to far away, so the drive home was short and Angel remembered locking herself in her room for the rest of the day, too embarrassed to come out. She never told anyone about that incident, and doubted she ever would.

Her family had a wealthy spread too, but not as nice as the Harrisons. On top of the ranch, Alex had other businesses that made him rich. Although, the man was over six feet and built like he wrestled steers just for a living, you would never know when looking at him that he had some sort of degree in physics from Princeton. He retired at thirty of all things after he developed some patens in oil refinery or something like that and rumor was it had set him for life. Yet, he certainly didn’t portray the geeky type because he was tall, masculine and thick with muscle from physically working the ranch as she found out first hand four years ago by the pool. However, he seemed at home here and she heard him tell her boss Jason Garrett, one of Reidsville’s lawyers besides being Alex’s best friend that it was where his roots were. Even though he had more money than he knew what to do with, he still got neck deep into hard work. Angel knew from living next to them for the past twenty years that he never asked any of his employees to do something he wouldn’t do himself and he had the scars to prove it. Little did he know that she really respected that about him. Actually a lot of people in Reidsville respected that about him if you hear the talk around town.

His brother Seth was younger than Alex by about six years, and that was who Priscilla was waiting for tonight. He’d just finished his specialization in Pediatrics and was planning on setting up a practice in town with another physician who was overwhelmed with his client load. She had been chasing the man as long as she could remember and as far as she knew, hadn’t caught him yet, despite how beautiful she was.