LITMIR.BIZ

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steady fingers. “The way I live is no one’s concern except my own.” She stood up. “Abby, Justin would come down on your head like Judgment. He isn’t the man he was. I’d hate to see you caught in the cross fire.”

      “I’m not afraid of him, Shelby,” Abby said gently. “Not much, anyway. I’m trying to get out from under Calhoun’s thumb. Tyler and I would kind of be helping each other.”

      “You see,” Tyler told his sister. “And here you were thinking I was just doing it to irritate your ex-fiancé.”

      “Well, aren’t you?” Shelby said challengingly.

      He lifted his chin arrogantly. “Maybe.”

      “Sometimes I wonder if Mom and Dad didn’t find you under a cabbage leaf,” Shelby muttered.

      “Not a chance,” Misty mused, looking him up and down. “He’s much too big.”

      “Tease,” he said, flirting lazily with Misty as he did with most women. But Tyler was deep, like Shelby, and if there was a special woman, nobody knew except himself. He was discreet about his love life.

      “Justin used to laugh, you know,” Shelby told Abby as they walked out together, with Misty and Tyler talking together ahead of them. “He wasn’t always cold and hard and unyielding. Not until I gave him back his ring and made him bitter.” She clutched her purse against her breasts. “Abby, don’t hurt him,” she pleaded, her eyes soft and gentle. “Don’t let Tyler hurt him. He hides it, but he’s so vulnerable….”

      “I know that,” Abby said gently. She touched the taller woman’s arm, stung by the look in Shelby’s eyes. Yes, she was vulnerable, too, and Abby sensed that Shelby was still in love with Justin, even now…. “I’m sorry that things have gone so badly for both of you. Justin doesn’t have women, you know. If you live like a nun, he lives like a monk. There isn’t anyone.”

      Shelby’s lower lip trembled. She looked away, her head tilting to stop a tear from escaping. “Thank you,” she managed huskily.

      Abby wanted to say more, but the others were waiting impatiently. “Ready to go?” she called brightly to Misty. “Okay. Can you keep it under ninety going home? Honest to goodness, I don’t think that car knows any legal speeds!”

      “I’m a good driver,” Misty informed her haughtily. “You just come with me and I’ll prove it. So long, Tyler. Shelby.”

      “I’ll pick you up at six on Friday,” Tyler told Abby. “Wear something sexy.”

      She curtsied. “You’d better bring a baseball bat when you come to the door. And pray that Justin doesn’t have a long cord for his chain saw.”

      “Dangerous games, my friend,” Misty told Abby as they drove away. “Justin won’t like it, and he’s pretty frightening when he loses his temper.”

      “So is Tyler. But they won’t come to blows. I’ll make sure of it.”

      “And what will Calhoun say?” Misty added with a quick glance at Abby.

      Abby felt herself going pale. She could feel all over again the terrible crush of his mouth, the shattering intimacy of his body. She swallowed. “He won’t care,” she said coldly.

      “Why do it? You’re moving out. Isn’t that enough of a show of independence for you?”

      “No.” Abby leaned back against the leather seat and closed her eyes. “But going out with Tyler will be.”

      Misty sighed and shook her head. “Well, I’ll remember you in my prayers. Hang on.” She pressed her foot down on the accelerator, and Abby wondered what the Guinness book of world records listed as the top land speed by a wild blonde in a little sports car. Whatever the record was, she thought as she held on for dear life, she’d bet that Misty could break it.

       Chapter Six

      Calhoun was gone when Abby got home, and she spent a quiet afternoon watching television. Justin was around long enough to ask about the apartment and to approve Abby’s choice of lodgings. But then he left to deal with some problem at the feedlot.

      Abby dreaded the moment when Calhoun would return, because of what had happened that morning. She couldn’t reconcile the man she knew with the stranger who’d been so rough with her. Boys had kissed her before, but lightly and carefully. Calhoun hadn’t been careful, and he’d frightened her with his experience. She’d never experienced adult passion before, and she didn’t know what it was. But surely a man like Calhoun, with his love life, couldn’t have been thrown off balance so completely by a twenty-year-old virgin.

      He’d already said he didn’t want her making eyes at him, so maybe he was showing her what she’d be inviting if she let him see her interest. She shivered. What a deft and accurate way he’d picked, if that were the case.

      Supper was on the table and she and Justin were about to start serving themselves when Calhoun came in. He sat down, looking worn and rumpled, and poured himself a cup of coffee. He didn’t speak to Abby, and she kept her head down so that he wouldn’t notice her scarlet flush. It wasn’t necessary, anyway, because he didn’t even look at her. He started talking to Justin about a prospective new feedlot customer he’d found, and he kept the conversation going until they were having a second cup of coffee. Abby felt shut out and ignored. When Calhoun finally got up to leave and looked at her, she felt worse than she had in her life.

      There was barely controlled anger in his eyes, mingled with something darker, something she didn’t understand. She dropped her eyes and felt her heart race under his cold scrutiny. He acted as if she were the guilty one. Didn’t he realize how he’d hurt her? That his treatment of her had been frightening?

      “Hey,” Justin said softly as the outside door opened and closed.

      She looked up, her eyes faintly misty. “He didn’t even speak to me,” she whispered.

      Justin leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette, exhaling smoke as he watched her. “He’s been like that all day,” he said. “While you were gone he stared out the window whenever I tried to talk to him. He didn’t even hear me. Finally he lit a cigarette and went outside and just walked.”

      She stared at him. “Calhoun stopped smoking years ago.”

      He shrugged. “He’s gone through a pack already. You keep telling me that there’s nothing wrong, but my brother goes from bad to worse. Now either you tell me or I’ll beat it out of him. I love him, but I’ve had enough silence.”

      Abby swallowed hard. Justin’s tone was unnerving. But she couldn’t tell him what Calhoun had done. Justin was unpredictable, and she didn’t want him to rake Calhoun over the coals for something that in all honesty she’d helped to provoke.

      Then she remembered what she’d said to Calhoun, and suddenly all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. She must have hurt Calhoun’s pride with what she’d said and done after he’d kissed her so intimately. The more she thought about it, the worse she felt. For months she’d dreamed of having him kiss her. Then he had, and she’d been too frightened by his experienced bulldozer technique to even respond. She’d behaved like a child.

      Justin lifted an eyebrow and waited expectantly. When she didn’t say anything, he prodded, “Well?”

      “I said some terrible things to him,” she confessed finally. “I was jealous.”

      “And hurt,” he said perceptively.

      “And hurt,” she sighed. Her blue-gray eyes met his dark ones. “Oh, Justin, he hates me. And I can’t even blame him. I hurt his pride so badly that I don’t imagine he’ll ever talk to me again.”

      “Incredible, isn’t it, that you could hurt him,” he mused. “When women have been trying for years to get through that

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