LITMIR.BIZ

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      He nodded. His hands went into his pockets and his broad shoulders shifted. “It was a long time ago,” he said stiffly. “I have other interests now. So do you. All I want is for you to run interference for me until I can get my hands on that property. Which is to your benefit, as well,” he added pointedly. “You inherited half the Bighorn property when George died. If we lose the water rights, the land is worthless. That means you inherit nothing. You’ll have to depend on your job until you retire.”

      She knew that. The dividend she received from her share of cattle on the Bighorn ranch helped pay the bills.

      “Oh, there you are, Dawson, dear!” a honied voice drawled behind him. “I’ve been looking just everywhere for you!” A slinky brunette, a good few years younger than Barrie, with a smile the size of a dinner plate latched onto Dawson’s big arm and pressed her ample, pretty chest against it. “I’d just love to dance with you!” she gushed, her eyes flirting outrageously with his.

      Dawson went rigid. If Barrie hadn’t seen it for herself, she wouldn’t have believed it. With a face that might have been carved from stone, he released himself from the woman’s grasp and moved pointedly back from her.

      “Excuse me. I’m talking to my stepsister,” he said curtly.

      The woman was shocked at being snubbed. She was beautiful and quite obviously used to trapping men with that coquettish manner, and the handsomest man here looked at her as if she smelled bad.

      She laughed a little nervously. “Of course. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. Later, perhaps, then?”

      She turned and went quickly back into the living room.

      Barrie was standing where she’d been throughout the terse exchange, leaning against the banister. Now she moved away from it and down the steps to stand just in front of Dawson. Her green eyes searched his quietly.

      His jaw clenched. “I told you. I’m not in the market for a woman—not you or anyone else.”

      Her teeth settled into her lower lip, an old habit that he’d once chided her about.

      He apparently hadn’t forgotten. His forefinger tapped sharply at her upper lip. “Stop that. You’ll draw blood,” he accused.

      She released the stinging flesh. “I didn’t realize,” she murmured. She sighed as she searched his hard face. “You loved women, in the old days,” she said with more bitterness than she knew. “They followed you around like bees on a honey trail.”

      His face was hard. “I lost my taste for them.”

      “But, why?”

      “You don’t have the right to invade my privacy,” he said curtly.

      She smiled sadly. “I never did. You were always so mysterious, so private. You never shared anything with me when I was younger. You were always impatient to get away from me.”

      “Except once,” he replied shortly. “And see where that got us.”

      She took a step toward the living room. “Yes.”

      There was a silence, filled by merry voices and the clink of ice in glasses.

      “If I ask you something, point-blank, will you answer me?” he asked abruptly.

      She turned, her eyes wide, questioning. “That depends on what it is. If you won’t answer personal questions, I don’t see why I should.”

      His eyes narrowed. “Perhaps not.”

      She grimaced. “All right. What do you want to know?”

      “I want to know,” he said quietly, “how many men you’ve really had since me.”

      She almost gasped at the audacity of the question.

      His eyes slid down her body and back up again, and they were still calculating, the way they’d been all evening. “You dress like a femme fatale. I can’t remember the last time I saw you so uncovered. You flirt and tease, but it’s all show, it’s all on the surface.” He scowled. “Barrie…”

      She flushed. “Stop looking into my mind! I hated it when I was in my teens and I hate it now!”

      He nodded slowly. “It was always like that. I even knew what you were thinking. It was a rare kind of rapport. Somewhere along the way, we lost it.”

      “You smothered it,” she said correcting. He smiled coolly. “I didn’t like having you inside my head.”

      “Which works both ways,” she agreed.

      He reached out and touched her cheek lightly, his fingers lingering against the silky soft skin. She didn’t move away. That was a first.

      “Come here, Barrie,” he invited, and this time he didn’t smile. His eyes held hers, hypnotized her, beckoned her.

      She felt her legs moving when she hadn’t meant to let them. She looked up at him with an expression that wasn’t even recognizable.

      “Now,” he said softly, touching her mouth. “Tell me the truth.”

      She started to clamp down on her lower lip, and his thumb prevented her. It smoothed over her soft lower lip, exploring under the surface, inside where the flesh was moist and vulnerable. She jerked back from him.

      “Tell me.” His eyes were relentless. She couldn’t escape. He was too close.

      “I…couldn’t, with anyone else,” she whispered huskily. “I was afraid.”

      The years of bitterness, of blaming her for what he thought he’d made of her were based on a lie. All the guilt and shame when he heard about her followers, when he saw her with other men—he knew the truth now. He’d destroyed her as a woman. He’d crippled her sexually. And just because, like his father, he’d lost control of himself. He hadn’t known what she’d suffered until a week ago.

      He couldn’t tell her that he’d wrangled this invitation from John because he needed an excuse to see her. He hadn’t realized in all the long years how badly he’d damaged her. Her camouflage had been so good. Now that he did know, it was unbelievably painful.

      “Dear God,” he said under his breath.

      His hand fell away from her cheek. He looked older, suddenly, and there was no mockery in his face now.

      “Surprised?” she taunted unsteadily. “Shocked? You’ve always wanted to think the worst of me. Even that afternoon at the beach, before it…before it happened, you thought I just wanted to show off my body.”

      He didn’t blink. His eyes searched hers. “The only eyes you wanted on your body were mine,” he said in a dead voice. “I knew it. I wouldn’t admit it, that’s all.”

      She laughed coldly. “You said plenty,” she reminded him. “That I was a tramp, that I was so hot I couldn’t—”

      His thumb stopped the words and his eyes closed briefly. “You might not realize it, but you aren’t the only one who paid dearly for what happened that night,” he said after a minute.

      “Don’t tell me you were sorry, or that you felt guilty,” she chided. “You don’t have a heart, Dawson. I don’t think you’re even human!”

      He laughed faintly. “I have doubts about that myself these days,” he said evenly.

      She was shaking with fury, the past impinging on the present as she struggled with wounding memories. “I loved you!” she said brokenly.

      “Dear God, don’t you think I know?!” he demanded, and his eyes, for that instant, were terrible to look into.

      She went white, paper white. Beside her skirt, her hands clenched. She wanted to throw herself at him and hit him and kick him, to hurt him as he’d hurt her.

      But slowly, as she remembered

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