Touched by Angels (Angels Everywhere #3)(45)

“Roberto.” She reached out to him, but he ignored her. “Stop talking like that. Nothing you say is going to convince me to leave.”

He rubbed his hands clean on a pink flannel rag and then burrowed his splayed fingers through his thick hair, leaving deep indentations.

“If I’d known this would upset you, I wouldn’t have come.” Brynn felt bad about that now. “I’m fine, really. There’s nothing you can do except . . .”

“Yes?” he prodded.

She hesitated and held her arms open to him. “Could you please kiss me?” The world felt right when Roberto held her and loved her.

The beginnings of a smile edged up the fringes of his mouth. He walked over to where she sat and captured her upturned face between his callused hands. Her own hands found the curves of his shoulders. He felt stable and strong, and she needed that security. Someone to hold on to while trapped in one of life’s storms.

“Roberto.” His name came as soft as mist across a Scottish moor.

He closed his eyes as if struggling against her. She felt his breath against her face and touched his lip with the pad of her index finger. His mouth was moist and warm.

The simple action was all he seemed to need. Roberto bent forward and claimed her mouth in a long, leisurely kiss. Since the night of the dance, he’d kissed her any number of times. Each episode taught her something more about this man. He’d enthralled her from the first. He felt strongly about his younger brother, accepting responsibility for Emilio’s welfare. At the same time, Roberto cared deeply about the neighborhood, confronting injustice, prejudice, and hatred. Every time she met Father Grady, the priest sang Roberto’s praises. Already she was half in love with him herself.

She knew a part of Roberto wanted her to quit teaching at Manhattan High. He didn’t want her to deal with the squalor and misery he confronted day in and day out. He’d rather she returned to teaching at the prim and proper girls’ school. Yet at the same time, he was learning, just as she was, that they had a good deal in common. The barriers that had kept them apart seemed to shrink a bit more each time they were together.

“I hope you’ll listen to reason this time.” His lips were less than an inch from her own.

Brynn linked her arms around his neck and bounced her mouth against his. “Just being with you makes everything seem better. Thank you.”

His face tightened. “Brynn, for the love of—”

She stopped him cold with a long, lingering kiss. When she regained her voice, she whispered, “I’m falling in love with you, Roberto Alcantara.”

He reacted as if she’d pulled out a gun and fired at him. He groaned and rubbed his hand down his face. “That’s the last thing I wanted to happen.” He edged away from her until his backside collided with the side panel of the car on which he’d been working moments earlier.

“Roberto . . .”

“Don’t you know not to tell a man that?” he asked gruffly. Then he whirled around and walked out of the shop as if she’d deeply insulted him.

* * *

The fever felt as if it were about to take the top of her head off as Jenny struggled out of her clothes and into her pajamas. The fever or the bitter pill of disappointment, she didn’t know which.

Someone knocked against the apartment door.

“Michelle, can you get that?” Jenny called out before she remembered that her roommate was still at the audition with John Peterman and company.

Struggling out of bed, Jenny reached for her robe. She’d never looked or felt worse in her life and was in no mood to deal with a door-to-door salesman.

The knock came a second time, sharp and impatient.

Grumbling under her breath, she tied the sash loosely around her waist and then unlatched the door lock without checking the peephole first. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.”

The words left her mouth and collided with a solid male chest. Jenny frowned and slowly looked up.

If she hadn’t been feeling lightheaded earlier, she felt that way now.

“Trey,” she whispered, so shocked there was no sound in her voice. He stood bold as life directly in front of her, all six feet four of him. With his Stetson adding another couple of inches to his height, he made for an intimidating figure.

“Jenny?”

Another woman might have fainted then and there, but by this point Jenny had endured so much that another shock barely fazed her.

“I’ve been sick.”

“It certainly looks that way. Can I come inside?”

She nodded, too numb and too confused to find an excuse to refuse him. Not that she wanted to. He was a hundred times more compelling than she remembered. A hundred times more devastating. He didn’t seem to realize that in New York a man this good-looking generally appeared in fashion magazines.

“You should be in bed,” he commented as he walked inside the tiny apartment. He glanced around, and his gaze narrowed as if to say he found it impossible to understand why anyone would choose to live in a place this small. A man who rode the wide-open range would have to feel claustrophobic in New York City, Jenny reflected.

Despite her shock at seeing him, she maintained her wits. It would serve him right if she told him that she had been in bed and had been forced out of it in order to answer the door.

“What are you doing in town?” she asked. She gestured toward the sofa.