LITMIR.BIZ

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down.” She’d already chewed the lipstick off her lower lip. Now she started on the upper one. He made her feel much younger than her twenty-three years.

      “How are you?” He was watching her still, with that dark appraisal that disturbed her so.

      “I’ll do. Thank you for all you’ve done,” she said. “Mother was grateful, too.”

      “Was she? My mother and some of the other neighbors are bringing dinner and supper over for you tomorrow,” he added. “No arguments. It’s the way things are done. The fact that you’ve got money doesn’t set you that far apart.”

      “But we don’t have money,” she said, smiling ruefully. “Not anymore.”

      “Yes, I know.”

      She looked up, defeated. “I guess you know, too, that we’re going to lose everything we have. I only hope we’ll have enough money to repay you and the other investors.”

      “I didn’t come here to talk business,” he said quietly. “I came to see if I could do anything else to help.”

      She had to fight tears. “No,” she said. “Heaven knows, you’ve already done more than your share, Cade.”

      “You look tired,” he said, his dark eyes sweeping over her creamy skin now pale with fatigue. She had big brown eyes, a peaches-and-cream complexion and a body that made him ache every time he looked at it. She wasn’t pretty. Without makeup she was fairly plain. But Cade saw her with eyes that had known her most of her life, and they found her lovely. She didn’t know that. He’d made sure she didn’t know it. He had to.

      He removed his hat, unloading snow onto the faded Oriental rug, onto his worn boots. “Mother and the boys send their condolences, too,” he added, and his eyes darkened as he looked down at her.

      Bess misunderstood that dark appraisal. He looked at her as if he despised her. Probably he did, too, she thought miserably. She was her father’s daughter, and her father’s risky venture might have cost him his ranch. She knew he’d had to borrow heavily to scrape up the money to invest in her father’s venture. Why had he done it? she wondered. But, then, who could ever figure Cade?

      “That’s very kind of them, considering what my father cost you all,” she replied.

      A corner of his mouth curled up, and it wasn’t a kind smile. “We lost our shirts,” he said. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette and without bothering to ask if she minded, lit it. He let out a thick cloud of smoke, his eyes taking in her thinness, the unhealthy whiteness of her face. “But you know that already. Your mother is going to have a hell of a time adjusting.”

      That was true. “She isn’t strong,” she said absently, lowering her eyes to his broad chest. Muscles rippled there when he breathed. He was powerfully built, for all his slimness. She’d seen him without a shirt, working in the fields in the summer, and the memory of it made her feel warm all over. With his shirt off, he was devastating. Bronzed muscle, covered with a thick, sexy wedge of hair that ran from his chest down to his lean stomach, into the belt at his jeans...

      “She smothers you,” he returned, cutting into her shocking thoughts. “She always has. You’re twenty-three, but you act sixteen. She’ll never let you grow up. She needs somebody to lean on. Now that your father’s gone, you’ll be her prop. She’ll wear you down and bring you down, just as she did him.”

      Her dark eyes flinched. “What do you know about my mother?” she demanded. “You hate her, God knows why...”

      “Yes, I do,” he said without hesitation, and his black eyes pierced hers, glittering like flaming coals. “And God does know why. You don’t know what she really is, but you’ll find out someday. But it will be too late.”

      “What can I do, Cade, walk out on her?” she cried. “How could I, when she’s just lost everything! I’m all she’s got.”

      “And she’s all you’ll ever have,” he returned coldly. “Cold comfort in your old age. She’s a selfish, cruel little opportunist with an eye to the main chance and her own comfort. Given a choice between you and a luxurious lifestyle, she’d dump you like yesterday’s garbage.”

      She wanted to hit him. He aroused the most violent sensations in her. He always had. She hated that cold look on his face, the devastating masculinity of him that put her back up even at a distance. But she kept her feelings to herself, especially her temper. “You don’t know either of us,” she said.

      He moved a little closer, threatening her now with just the warmth of his body, his superior height. He looked down at her with an expression in his eyes that made her toes curl inside her shoes.

      “I know what I need to know,” he said. He studied her face in the silence of the hall. “You’re very pale, little one,” he said then, his voice so soft that it didn’t even sound like Cade’s. “I’m sorry about your father. He was a good man. Just misguided and gullible. He didn’t force any of us to invest, you know. He was as badly fooled by the deal as we were.”

      “Thank you,” she said huskily, fighting tears. “That’s a very tolerant attitude to take.” Her eyes searched his. “But it won’t save Lariat,” she said sadly, remembering Cade’s dreams for his family ranch. “Will it?”

      “I’ll save Lariat,” he said, and at that moment he looked as if he could do anything. One eye narrowed as he studied her. “Don’t let Gussie own you,” he said suddenly. “You’re a woman, not her little girl. Start acting your age.”

      Her eyebrows shot up. “How?”

      “My God,” he said heavily. “Don’t you even know?”

      His eyes dropped to her soft mouth. He stared at it intently, and he was standing so close to her that she could smell the leather of his vest, feel the warmth of him as his finger gently caressed her parted lips. The acrid smoke from his cigarette drifted past her nostrils, but it didn’t even register. His dark eyes were on hers, and she’d never seen them so close. He had lashes as thick as her own, and tiny lines beside his eyes. His nose had a small crook in it that was only visible this close, as if it had been broken. His mouth...oh, his mouth! she thought achingly, looking at its chiseled lines, already feeling the hardness of it. She’d wondered for years how it would feel to kiss him, to be close to him. But Cade was like the moon. This was the closest he’d ever come to her, except for that one time when he’d only meant to frighten her, and she didn’t even move for fear that he might move away. He might kiss her...!

      But a tiny sigh worked its way out of her tight throat, and it seemed to break the spell. His head lifted, and there wasn’t a trace of expression on his dark face. He moved away from her, without a word. But he kept his back to her for a long moment, quietly smoking his cigarette. That long, intense scrutiny had his heart turning cartwheels, and it would never do to let Bess see how vulnerable she made him.

      “We’ll pay you back somehow,” she said after a minute.

      He turned, as if the statement made him angry. “Will you? How?”

      “I’ll find a way. I’m not helpless, even if I am a mere woman in your eyes,” she added with a faint smile.

      He looked as formidable as a cold marble statue. “Challenging me?” he asked in a softly dangerous tone. His dark eyes mocked her. “That’s been tried before, but go ahead if you feel lucky.”

      She almost did. But those nearly black eyes had made men back down, and she was just a grieving shadow of a woman.

      “Please thank your mother for her concern,” she said quietly. “I’m sure you have better things to do than bother with us.”

      “Your father was my friend,” he said shortly. “I valued him, regardless of what happened.”

      He turned toward the door without glancing at her.

      “I’ll be in touch,” he said as he

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