LITMIR.BIZ

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You were off building things, and I was here. I didn’t know what to tell people. You never answered my letter.”

      “I’m here, aren’t I?”

      “Jack.” She sounded exasperated. “I’m not talking about that note I scribbled two weeks ago. I’m talking about the four-page letter I wrote after you left.”

      “I answered that, too.” She’d written him four pages, all right—four pages about how confused she was, how she cared about him, but she didn’t want to leave everything she knew unless he could make a real commitment to her. Which had made about as much sense as skinny-dipping in January. He’d married her. How much more committed could a man get?

      “A one-way plane ticket is not what I’d call an honest effort at communication,” she said dryly.

      “You knew what that ticket meant. I wanted you to join me. But you were too busy hiding here in Highpoint, fixing people’s roofs and plumbing, to live up to your promises.” He moved closer. “Did you keep our marriage a secret because the marriage wasn’t real to you? So you would be free to date? I hear Toby Randall has been sniffing around lately.” Ida had mentioned that last night.

      She rolled her eyes. “Get real. Toby Randall? He’s a nice guy, I suppose, but for heaven’s sake! His mother still irons his Jockey shorts.”

      “She does, huh?” A smile tugged at his mouth in spite of his mood. Jack couldn’t believe Annie knew about the condition of the man’s underwear for the obvious reason. “How would you know that?”

      “He told me. He wanted my advice on how to get her to quit. Honestly, Jack, you’re being ridiculous. I’ve always had a lot of guy friends, you know that. I can’t believe you thought I took my ring off because I wanted to fool around on you.” She turned away, getting very busy with unpacking the last of the groceries. “I thought you knew me better than that.”

      He sighed. “Hell, Annie, I’m sorry. This is all new territory for me.” Brand-new. Until this morning, he would have sworn he’d never been jealous of a woman—not since the seventh grade, anyway, when Charlie tried to cut him out with Mary Wolfstedder. He wasn’t even sure what he was feeling was jealousy. Whatever it was, he didn’t like it.

      Dammit. Annie kept making him feel things he didn’t want to feel. “So where’s your ring?”

      “Upstairs, in my jewelry box.” Apparently putting the groceries away was more important than talking to him, since she didn’t glance his way again as she bustled around the kitchen. “Why are you making such a big deal about it? You didn’t want to wear a ring yourself. You said you’d probably lose it, since you’d have to take it off whenever you were working. And it’s not like it was a real marriage, so—”

      “Don’t.” His voice came out edgy. “Maybe you didn’t think our marriage was real, but I did.”

      She froze, a can of beans clutched in one hand, her other hand reaching for the door to the pantry—then falling to her side. “I’m sorry. I was going to tell my brothers, at least, but I wanted to wait until I knew what you were going to do. With the way things were between us when you left… You just took off, leaving me that stupid note. ‘When you come to your senses, you can join me.’ Geez.”

      She shook her head and vanished into the pantry. “You’re supposed to be so good with women, Jack. Did you really think that note was going to make me decide to fly off to the ends of the earth to be with you?”

      “You’re not like other women. You’re Annie.” Annie, his friend, who had stood beside him in a gaudy little wedding chapel and promised to be with him forever…but forever had only lasted two hours. Long enough for him to be called out of the country on an emergency. Long enough for Annie to change her mind about him. “I was angry when I wrote that note. You refused to go with me.”

      She came out of the pantry. “I wasn’t expecting to leave the country practically the minute I got married! Good grief, I wasn’t expecting to get married at all. I thought there would be time to adjust…but then you got that call. Everything happened so fast. Too fast. I’m not proud of the way I reacted, but if you hadn’t—oh, damn. I’m doing it again.” She grimaced. “I promised myself I wasn’t going to pick up our argument where we left off. We did each other enough damage that night.”

      He remembered. More clearly than he wanted to, he remembered the ugly words he’d said as their argument had taken on a life of its own, and the words she had flung back at him. Words that had shocked her into silence and sent him down to the casino that night and halfway around the world the next morning. Words like liar and selfish and for God’s sake, grow up.

      And the ones that had stuck to him for two months and seven days, a scab that refused to heal and peel away. “Marrying you was the biggest mistake of my life.”

      “Is that why you didn’t tell anyone, Annie? Because you didn’t want to admit what a terrible mistake you’d made?”

      “I’ve been a coward, all right? Is that what you wanted to hear? I didn’t want to face everyone’s questions because I didn’t have any answers. At first I was waiting until you answered my letter, but you never did. The more time that passed, the harder it was to say anything.”

      Jack rubbed his face. She was the one who hadn’t answered, not him. He’d sent her that ticket and she’d ignored it. “Let’s not argue about whether I answered your first letter or not. I’m here because of your second letter.”

      She stared at him. “My second letter? You ignored the four-page letter I wrote you and came tearing back because I got mad about what some idiotic ex-girlfriend of yours did when she stopped taking her medication?”

      He grabbed her shoulders to keep her from moving away. “You said you got an anonymous letter. That it threatened you. What did it say, exactly?”

      “A bunch of nonsense about how I’d be sorry that I’d married you. For goodness’ sake, Jack, it wasn’t important.”

      “Did you keep it?”

      “Of course not.” She tried to shrug his hands off. “I can’t believe this. Is that letter the reason you’re here?”

      “It’s one of the reasons. Look, Annie, we’ve got to get some things settled, and I’d just as soon do that before your brothers get home.”

      The freckles that were scattered across that cute little nose stood out in stark contrast to her sudden pallor. “All right. All right, I know what you mean. You want a divorce. I won’t protest. I just hope we can handle it…quietly.”

      “Divorce?” Anger rose, quick and hard, a thick snake wrapping its coils around him and squeezing. “I’m not here to ask you for a divorce, Annie. I’m here to claim the wedding night we never had.”

      Chapter 2

      Annie fell back a step. “I can’t believe you said that.”

      “What’s so hard to understand? You keep saying our marriage wasn’t real. A wedding night ought to change your mind. And you owe me that much. You didn’t keep your other promises.”

      Annie stared at the man she’d thought she knew as well as she knew anyone in this world. She didn’t recognize him.

      Oh, she knew the face. Jack had one of those charmingly irregular faces made for crooked smiles and wicked suggestions, a collection of roughly matched features that somehow added up to be a whole that’s more appealing than the static gloss of standard good looks. But the look in his dark chocolate eyes turned that familiar landscape foreign and frightening. She’d never seen them so hard. Even on the terrible night when they’d hurled words at each other like grenades, his eyes had been hot with temper.

      Now that anger seemed to have aged and hardened, twisting his thoughts into alien shapes.

      “Oh, Jack,” she said sadly. “Is this what

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