LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Shelby, take her into the study, please,” Justin said.

      “Of course.” Shelby put a gentle arm around her. “Abby, please don’t cry. I know Calhoun would have been here if he could have.”

      “I’ll be all right in a minute,” Abby told Justin as they passed him and a quietly curious Tyler. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long week,” she added with a faint smile.

      “I’ll knock him through a wall for this,” Justin said coldly. “I swear to God I will.”

      “No, you won’t,” Abby sniffed. “As Shelby said, I’m sure he had a good reason.” She laughed coldly. “Probably a blond one…” Tears fell hotly again, and Shelby quickly got her out of the room, across the hall and into the study.

      “Now sit down.” Shelby helped her to the burgundy leather sofa. “I’ll get you a brandy. Is that all right?”

      “I hate him,” Abby said, burying her face in her hands. “I hate him so much!”

      “Yes, I know.” Shelby smiled wryly and poured brandy into a snifter. She gave the glass to Abby, and watched her take a sip and grimace at the harsh taste.

      Her blue-gray eyes lifted to Shelby’s green ones. “I haven’t even seen him in weeks,” she said brokenly. “He hasn’t called or come to see me. I didn’t know why then, but now I do. He was letting me down easy. He knows how I feel, and he doesn’t want to hurt me….”

      “If it means anything, I know how you feel, too,” Shelby said gently, her eyes soft and sad.

      “Yes, I’m sure you do.” Abby touched the older woman’s hand. “Justin never looks at anyone else. Calhoun said once that he supposed Justin would die loving you.”

      “And hating me, all at once,” Shelby sighed. “Justin thinks I slept with someone else. He believed my father and a crony of his, and I’ve never been able to make him listen. As if I could have let any other man touch me, ever!”

      Abby stared at her, momentarily distracted. “Oh, Shelby,” she whispered.

      Shelby grimaced. “Stubborn, proud, hardheaded man.” Her eyes lifted. “I’d die for him.”

      “I hope it works out someday.”

      The older woman sighed. “Miracles still happen occasionally.” She searched Abby’s eyes. “Will you be all right now?”

      Abby finished the brandy. “Of course I will. I don’t care if Calhoun misses my party. I can have a perfectly good time without him. After all, I was only his ward and now I’m not anymore. He’s just another man.” She got up, smoothing her hair. “I’d better fix my makeup.”

      She went to the mirror and repaired her lipstick and powder, but there was very little she could do about her red eyes. Then she followed Shelby out the door.

      The band was good. They played a succession of dreamy waltzes and country-and-western songs, which their lead singer belted out in a smooth baritone. Abby danced every dance, some with Justin, some with Tyler, and a lot with old school friends. But still Calhoun didn’t make an appearance. Abby grew more vivacious by the minute to cover up her misery.

      She was dancing much too close to Tyler in a lazy two-step, when she felt eyes on her back. Without looking, she knew Calhoun had arrived. He’d spoiled her party by not showing up until it was almost over, and she hated him. Having settled that in her mind, she kept her eyes closed and kept dancing.

      “Calhoun’s here,” Tyler murmured into her hair.

      “So what?” she said icily.

      His eyebrows arched. He glanced at Calhoun, who was thunderously angry, and then at Justin, who was heading toward his younger brother with an expression that would have made a lesser man than Calhoun back off.

      “Abby, Justin’s going toward Calhoun with blood in his eye.”

      “Good,” she muttered. “I hope he kills him.”

      “Abby!”

      She bit her lower lip. “I don’t care.”

      “You don’t care like hell,” Tyler replied curtly. He stopped dancing and held her by the arms. “Stop it. If you want him, for God’s sake, show him that you do. Don’t pout and hem and haw until you lose him.”

      “You don’t understand,” she began.

      “Abby, look at Shelby and Justin,” he said quietly. “Is that how you want to end up?’

      She searched Tyler’s face and then looked over to the doorway, where Justin and Calhoun were talking in terse monosyllables. “All right,” she said wearily.

      He smiled. “Good girl. Go on.”

      She hesitated, but then she walked away. Tyler watched her go, a faint sadness in his own eyes. That was quickly erased when Misty Davies wandered over in a frothy gold party dress and asked him to dance.

      Justin stopped talking when Abby came near. He glared at Calhoun. “Tell it to Abby,” he said shortly. “She’s been having a hell of a good time, though, all by herself.”

      Justin smiled faintly at them and wandered off to talk to another of the guests, leaving a cold-eyed Calhoun and a fuming Abby staring at one another.

      “Thank you for coming,” she said with faint hauteur. “I’m having a lovely time.”

      “How could you think I’d willingly treat you like that?” he asked quietly. “Turn my back on you, deliberately arrive late, embarrass you with your guests…Oh, God, don’t you know me better than that?”

      He disconcerted her. She looked up at him helplessly. “What happened?”

      “I ran the Jaguar into a ditch and damned near wrecked it,” he said with a mocking smile. “I was going too fast, and I took a curve where there’d been an oil spill that I didn’t know about.”

      Her face went white. She saw a graphic mental picture of him lying in a ditch, dead. It erased all her stupid suspicions and left her shaking.

      Without a word, she pressed hard against him. She held him, trembling, oblivious to her surroundings, to everything but Calhoun.

      “You’re trembling,” he said, faintly surprised. His big hands went to her back, where it was bare over the deep plunge of her dress. “I’m all right, honey.”

      She held him tighter, fighting tears. The trembling grew worse, and she couldn’t seem to stop.

      “For God’s sake…!”

      He drew her out of the room, one big arm supporting her, and into the study. He locked the door behind them, shutting out the music and muffled conversation and other party sounds. His dark eyes looked down into her wild, pale ones.

      “I wouldn’t have missed your party on purpose, little one,” he said gently.

      That was the old Calhoun, she thought wildly. Her guardian. Her protector. The kind, caring older man who looked after her and kept her safe. But he didn’t look or sound like a lover, and she supposed that he’d used those weeks to good advantage, getting her out of his system. She felt sick and shaken, and she wanted nothing more than to go home and cry herself to sleep.

      “No, I’m…I’m sure you wouldn’t have,” she said, her voice husky. She forced a smile. “It was kind of you and Justin to let me have the party here.”

      His dark eyes narrowed. He leaned back against the door, elegant in his evening clothes, the white silk of his shirt emphasizing his high cheekbones, his blond hair and dark skin, his powerful build. “You sound strange,” he said. “You look strange.”

      “I’ve had a long week, that’s all.” She was beginning to sound like a broken record. “I’m enjoying my new job.

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