Diana Palmer - Lone Star Winter

She moved back a step. He looked as if she’d done something outrageous, when she’d only meant to be kind. It irritated her that he had to be antagonistic about it. “Oh, I see,” she said, staring up at him. “Is this how it goes? ‘Men are tough, little woman,’” she drawled, deepening her voice and her drawl, “‘we can eat live snakes and chew through barbed wire. We don’t want women fussin’ over us!’” She grinned up at him deliberately.

He glared at her, his eyes glittering.

She raised her eyebrows. “Want me to apologize? Okay. I’m very sorry,” she added.

His broad chest rose and fell heavily. “I want you to quit while you’re ahead,” he said in a tight voice.

She stared at him without guile. “I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?” His smile was full of mockery and he was seeing a succession of women from his wild days who liked to tease and run away, but not too far away. His lean hands tightened on her shoulders as his eyes slid down her body. “Your husband didn’t tell you what teasing does to a man?”

“Teasing…?” Her eyes widened. “Was I?” she asked, and seemed not to know.

That fascinated expression was real. He did scowl then. “What you were doing…it arouses me,” he said bluntly.

“You’re kidding!”

He wanted to be angry. He couldn’t manage it. She did look so surprised…. He dropped his hands, laughing in wholesale defeat. “Get in the damned truck.”

He half lifted her in and closed the door on her barely formed question.

She was strapped in when he pulled himself up under the steering wheel, closed the door and reached for his seat belt.

“You were kidding,” she persisted.

He looked right into her eyes. “I wasn’t.” He frowned quizzically. “Don’t you know anything about men?”

“I was married for two months,” she pointed out.

“To a eunuch, apparently,” he said bluntly as he cranked the vehicle and pulled out of the parking lot and into traffic. “I am pregnant,” she stated haughtily.

He spared her an amused glance. “Pregnant and practically untouched,” he replied.

She sighed, turning her attention to the city lights as he wound south through Houston to the long highway that would take them home to Jacobsville. “I guess it shows, huh?” she asked.

He didn’t say anything for half a block or so. “Did you want him?”

“At first,” she said. Her eyes sought his. “But not like I wanted you in the parking lot,” she said honestly. “Not ever like that.”

A flash of ruddy color touched his cheekbones. He was shocked at her honesty.

“Sorry, again,” she murmured, looking away. “I guess I haven’t learned restraint, either,” she added.

He let out a long breath. “You take some getting used to,” he remarked.

“Why?”

His eyes met hers briefly before they went back to the highway. Rain was beginning to mist the windshield. He turned on the wipers. “I don’t expect honesty from a woman,” he said curtly.

She frowned. “But surely your wife was honest.”

“Why do you think so?”

“It’s obvious that you loved your little boy,” she began.

His laugh had the coldest ring to it that she’d ever heard. “She wanted an abortion. I threatened to take away her credit cards and she gave in and had him.”

“That must have been a difficult time for you,” she said softly.

“It was.” His jaw clenched. “She was surprised that I wanted her baby.”

“Hers, and not yours?” she ventured.

“Hers by one of her lovers,” he said bitterly. “She didn’t really know which one.”

There was an abrupt silence on the other side of the truck. He glanced at her frozen features with curiosity. “What sort of marriage do you think I had? I was a mercenary. The women you meet in that profession aren’t the sort who sing in church choirs.”

“How did you know I sang in the choir?” she asked, diverted.

He laughed, shaking his head. “I didn’t, but it figures. You’re her exact opposite.”

She was still trying to understand what he was saying. “You didn’t love her?”

“No, I didn’t love her,” he replied. “We were good together in bed and I was tired of living alone. So, I married her. I never expected it to last, but I wanted a child. God knows why, I assumed it was mine.”

“Why did she marry you if it wasn’t?”

“She liked having ten credit cards and driving a Jaguar,” he said.

That produced another frown.

“I was rich, Lisa,” he told her. “I still am.”

She pulled her coat tighter around her and stared out the window, not speaking. She was shocked and more uncertain about him than ever. He was such a complex person, so multifaceted that just when she thought she was getting to know him, he became a stranger all over again.

“Now what is it?” he asked impatiently.

“I hope you don’t think I agreed to come out with you…that I was eager to let you buy the ranch because…” She flushed and closed her mouth. She was so embarrassed that she wanted to go through the floor.

“If I’m rich, it’s because I know pure gold when I see it,” he said, casting her an amused glance. “Do you think I’ll assume that you’re a gold digger because you came out with me?”

“I kissed you back, too,” she said worriedly.

He sighed with pure pleasure and relaxed into the seat, smiling to himself. “Yes, you did.”

“But it was an accident,” she persisted. “I didn’t plan it…”

“That makes two of us.” He pulled up at the last streetlight before they left the city behind and turned to her. His eyes were narrow and very intent. “There are things in my past that are better left there. You’d never begin to understand the relationship I had with my wife, because you don’t think in terms of material gain. When I was your age, you were the sort of woman I’d run from.”

“Really? Why?” she asked.

He cocked an eyebrow and let his eyes run over her. “Because you told me once that you hadn’t slept with Walt before you married him, Lisa,” he drawled.

She glared at him. “I would have if I’d wanted to,” she said mutinously.

“But you didn’t.”

She threw up her hands, almost making a basketball of her small purse. She retrieved it from the dash and plopped it back into her lap.

“You’re the kind of woman that men marry,” he continued, unabashed. “You like children and small animals and it would never occur to you to be cruel to anyone. If you’d gotten involved with me while I was still in my former line of work, you wouldn’t have lasted a day with me.”

“I don’t suppose I would have,” she had to agree. She looked through the windshield, wondering why it hurt so much to have him tell her that. Surely she hadn’t been thinking in terms of the future just because of one passionate kiss? Of course, her whole body tensed remembering the pleasure of it, the exciting things he’d said…

“And you weren’t Walt’s usual date, either,” he said surprisingly. “He liked experience.”

She grimaced. “I found that out pretty quick. He said I was the most boring woman he’d ever gone to bed with. Except for our wedding night, and the night be fore he was killed, he slept in a separate bedroom.”

No wonder she was the way she was, he mused as the light changed and he sent the big vehicle speeding forward. She probably felt like a total failure as a woman. The child must have been some sort of consolation, because she certainly wanted it.

“I’ll bet you hate admitting that,” he said.

“Yes, I do. I felt inadequate, dull, boring,” she muttered. “He liked blondes, but not me.”

“He liked that parcel service driver plenty,” he recalled, his eyes narrowing. “You were pitching hay over the fence to the cows and he was flirting with her, right under your nose. I never wanted to hit a man more.”