LITMIR.BIZ

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when she got back to the kitchen, her new leather coat tight around her body, she found Callaghan in the kitchen and the remains of her cake, her beautiful cake, on the floor below a huge chocolate spot on the kitchen wall.

      He turned, outraged beyond all proportion, looking broader than usual in his shepherd’s coat. His black eyes glittered at her from under his wide-brimmed Stetson. “I don’t need reminding that I’m thirty-eight,” he said in a soft, dangerous tone. “And I don’t want a cake, or a party, or presents. I want nothing from you! Do you understand?”

      The very softness of his voice was frightening. She noticed that, of all the brothers, he was the one who never yelled or shouted. But his eyes were even more intimidating than his cold tone.

      “Sorry,” she said in a choked whisper.

      “You can’t find a damned jar of apple butter for the biscuits, but you’ve got time to waste on things like…that!” he snapped, jerking his head toward the ruin of her cake lying shattered on the pale yellow linoleum.

      She bit her lower lip and stood just looking at him, her blue eyes huge in her white face, where freckles stood out like flecks of butter in churned milk.

      “What the hell possessed you? Didn’t they tell you I hate birthdays, damn it?”

      His voice cut her like a whip. His eyes alone were enough to make her knees wobble, burning into her like black flames. She swallowed. Her mouth was so dry she wondered why her tongue didn’t stick to the roof of it. “Sorry,” she said again.

      Her lack of response made him wild. He glared at her as if he hated her.

      He took a step toward her, a violent, quick movement, and she backed up at once, getting behind the chopping block near the wall.

      Her whole posture was one of fear. He stopped in his tracks and stared at her, scowling.

      Her hands gripped the edge of the block and she looked young and hunted. She bit her lower lip, waiting for the rest of the explosion that she knew was coming. She’d only wanted to do something nice for him. Maybe she’d also wanted to make friends. It had been a horrible mistake. It was blatantly obvious that he didn’t want her for a friend.

      “Hey, Cag, could you—” Rey stopped dead in his tracks as he opened the kitchen door and took in the scene with a glance. Tess, white-faced, all but shivering and not from the cold. Cag, with his big hands curled into fists at his side, his black eyes blazing. The cake, shattered against a wall.

      Cag seemed to jerk as if his brother’s appearance had jolted him out of the frozen rage that had held him captive.

      “Here, now,” Rey said, talking quietly, because he knew his brother in these flash-fire tempers. “Don’t do this. Cag, look at her. Come on, look at her, Cag.”

      He seemed to come to his senses when he caught the bright glimmer of unshed tears in those blue, blue eyes. She was shaking, visibly frightened.

      He let out a breath and his fists unclenched. Tess was swallowing, as if to keep her fear hidden, and her hands were pushed deep into the pockets of her coat. She was shaking and she could barely get a breath of air.

      “We have to get those culls ready to ship.” Rey was still speaking softly. “Cag, are you coming? We can’t find the manifest and the trucks are here for the cattle.”

      “The manifest.” Cag took a long breath. “It’s in the second drawer of the desk, in the folder. I forgot to put it back in the file. Go ahead. I’ll be right with you.”

      Rey didn’t budge. Couldn’t Cag see that the girl was terrified of him?

      He eased around his brother and went to the chopping block, getting between the two of them.

      “You need to get out of that coat. It’s hot in here!” Rey said, forcing a laugh that he didn’t feel. “Come on, pilgrim, shed the coat.”

      He untied it and she let him remove it, her eyes going to his chest and resting there, as if she’d found refuge.

      Cag hesitated, but only for an instant. He said something filthy in elegant Spanish, turned on his heel and went out, slamming the door behind him.

      Tess slumped, a convulsive shudder leaving her sick. She wiped unobtrusively at her eyes.

      “Thanks for saving me,” she said huskily.

      “He’s funny about birthdays,” he said quietly. “I don’t guess we made it clear enough for you, but at least he didn’t throw the cake at you,” he added with a grin. “Old Charlie Greer used to bake for us before we found Mrs. Culbertson, whom you replaced. Charlie made a cake for Cag’s birthday and ended up wearing it.”

      “Why?” she asked curiously.

      “Nobody knows. Except maybe Simon,” he amended. “They were older than the rest of us. I guess it goes back a long way. We don’t talk about it, but I’m sure you’ve heard some of the gossip about our mother.”

      She nodded jerkily.

      “Simon and Corrigan got past the bad memories and made good marriages. Cag…” He shook his head. “He was like this even when he got engaged. And we all thought that it was more a physical infatuation than a need to marry. She was, if you’ll pardon the expression, the world’s best tease. A totally warped woman. Thank God she had enough rope to hang herself before he ended up with her around his neck like an albatross.”

      She was still getting her breath back. She took the coat that Rey was holding. “I’ll put it up. Thanks.”

      “He’ll apologize eventually,” he said slowly.

      “It won’t help.” She smoothed over the surface of the leather coat. She looked up, anger beginning to replace fear and hurt. “I’m leaving. I’m sorry, but I can’t stay here and worry about any other little quirks like that. He’s scary.”

      He looked shocked. “He wouldn’t have hit you,” he said softly, grimacing when he saw quick tears film her eyes. “Tess, he’d never! He has rages. None of us really understand them, because he won’t talk about what’s happened to him, ever. But he’s not a maniac.”

      “No, of course not. He just doesn’t like me.”

      Rey wished he could dispute that. It was true, Cag was overtly antagonistic toward her, for reasons that none of the brothers understood.

      “I hope you can find someone to replace me,” she said with shaky pride. “Because I’m going as soon as I get packed.”

      “Tess, not like this. Give it a few days.”

      “No.” She went to hang up her coat. She’d had enough of Callaghan Hart. She wouldn’t ever get over what he’d said, the way he’d looked at her. He’d frightened her badly and she wasn’t going to work for with a man who could go berserk over a cake.

       Chapter Two

       R ey went out to the corral where the culls—the nonproducing second-year heifers and cows—were being held, along with the young steers fattened and ready for market. Both groups were ready to be loaded into trucks and taken away to their various buyers. A few more steers than usual had been sold because drought had limited the size of the summer corn and hay crop. Buying feed for the winter was not cost-productive. Not even an operation the size of the Harts’s could afford deadweight in these hard economic times.

      Cag was staring at the milling cattle absently, his heavy brows drawn down in thought, his whole posture stiff and unapproachable.

      Rey came up beside him, half a head shorter, lither and more rawboned than the bigger man.

      “Well, she’s packing,” he said bluntly.

      Cag’s eyes glanced off his brother’s and went back to the corral. His jaw clenched. “I hate birthdays! I know she was told.”

      “Sure she

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