by Diana Palmer
As he’d promised, he hadn’t called or come visiting. She hadn’t seen him or heard from him since that night. It had been hard going, too. She’d stopped by Misty’s a time or two, pretending to be happy so that her friend wouldn’t ask too many questions. Tyler had asked Abby out again, but she’d refused without really understanding why. She wanted only the memory of Calhoun. If it was all she could ever have of him, it would be more than a lot of lonely women had.
She enjoyed her work at the insurance office, and her bosses were good to her. She settled in without any problem, but she went home to a lonely room, and as the days went by she was almost frantic with the need to see Calhoun.
She’d gone to the Ballenger house to talk to Maria about the party, and she’d left a list of guests for Justin, but to her disappointment both the brothers had been away at the time. She’d managed to get nothing out of Maria, either, except for a careless remark that everything was fine at home and the brothers seemed to be very happy. Which did nothing for Abby’s self-esteem, especially since she missed Maria’s wicked, conspiratorial smile.
The night of the party, Abby drove herself to the Ballenger house. She felt starved for the sight of Calhoun. All her memories and all her fantasies only made it worse.
She was wearing a long electric-blue gown that enhanced her blue-gray eyes and emphasized her exquisite figure. It had soft fabric straps and a crisscross bodice, a fitted waist and a long, narrow skirt. She wore her hair up in a braided coiffure with wispy little curls hanging beside her ears and curling on her forehead. She looked mature and sophisticated. She might not be beautiful, but she felt it tonight, and her face radiated with a glow that only the anticipation of seeing Calhoun could give her.
Maria opened the door and hugged her impulsively. “So lovely,” the older woman sighed. “Everything has worked out so nicely, even the band was on time. Your guests have started arriving. The Jacobses are in the living room with Justin.”
Abby winced, but Maria shook her head.
“No, it is all right,” she said quickly. “Señor Justin and Señor Tyler have been talking cattle, and Señorita Shelby—” Maria smiled sadly. “Her soft eyes feed on Señor Justin like dry flowers welcoming rainfall. It breaks my heart.”
“And mine,” Abby said gently. “I’ll go and keep her company.”
She walked into the living room and smiled at Shelby, who was wearing a long green velvet skirt with a simple chemise top in white silk. She looked exquisitely lovely. Justin and Tyler, in dark suits, rose as she entered the room, both pairs of masculine eyes gazing appreciatively at her dress.
“Happy birthday, honey,” Justin said gently, and went forward to brush his hard mouth against her cheek. “And at least a hundred more.”
“I’ll second that,” Tyler grinned, his green eyes dancing as he bent and kissed her softly on the mouth. “You look delicious.”
“Thank you both,” she replied.
“I remember my own twenty-first birthday,” Shelby sighed after she’d hugged Abby and congratulated her. “It was very special.” Her eyes went helplessly to Justin, who stood very still and looked at her, his dark eyes full of emotion.
Abby could have cried. She hadn’t understood before, but now she knew how devastating it could be to want someone that much. She looked around the room. There were several other people there, friends from school, who waved and lifted their glasses in her direction. She smiled back, but her heart was getting heavier by the second.
“Justin, where’s Calhoun?” she asked finally.
Justin took a draw from his cigarette and dragged his gaze away from Shelby. Abby had asked the question he’d dreaded ever since she’d walked in the door. “I don’t know if he’s going to make it, honey,” he hedged, because he didn’t know where in hell Calhoun was either. She looked devastated, so he improvised. “He said to tell you happy birthday and—Abby!”
She couldn’t help it. She burst into tears, shaking with the disappointment. “I’m sorry…” she sobbed.
“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, sh
ow 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. I like it very much. We stay busy. And—”
“Stop it,” he said softly.
Her eyes closed, tears burning them. Her hands at her sides tautened into fists and she fought for control. “I’m sorry.”
“Come here, Abby,” he said in a tone that she remembered, deep with tenderness, soft with sensuality.
She opened her eyes. “I don’t want pity,” she whispered.
His chin lifted. “What do you want?”
She lowered her gaze to his highly polished shoes. “The moon,” she said wearily.
He moved forward abruptly. One big, lean hand caught hers and pried it open. He placed something in it and curled her fingers around it. She frowned. Something small and thin and metallic…
She opened her hand. It was a ring, a very simple circle of gold without any flourishes or frills. It was a wedding ring.
He bent, lifting her. He carried her to the burgundy sofa and put her down on it. Then he knelt on the carpet beside her, his lean hands on her waist, his blond hair gleaming like the golden ring in the soft light from the ceiling.
“I love you,” he said softly, holding her gaze as he said it.
Her eyes searched his, getting lost in their dark, unblinking intensity. “W-what?”
“I love you,” he repeated. “I didn’t know it until the night I almost made love to you, and even then I wasn’t sure that I could settle down.” He laughed faintly, watching her with eyes that adored her. “But I’m sure now. These past few weeks have been the purest hell I’ve ever known. A dozen times I’ve almost stormed over to your apartment at three in the morning to get into bed with you. I’ve thought about kidnapping you from work and carrying you off into the mountains. But I promised to give you time, and I have. Now I’ve run out of it. If you don’t marry me, so help me, I’ll ravish you where you sit.”
“I’ll marry you,” she whispered. “But—”
“But what?” he whispered back.
Her lips parted as she let her shoulders droop, so that the silky fabric of her dress fell and revealed all of her breasts except the hard tips. “But wouldn’t you ravish me anyway?”
His breath caught. “As if I needed asking…”
His hands finished the job, stripping the fabric to her waist. He sat looking at the soft, pretty swell of her breasts, watching her breathe for a long moment before he drew her toward him and bent his head.
She began to tremble when she felt his mouth on her soft, heated skin. Her hands cradled his head and she wept softly, kissing his hair, whispering to him. “I love you,” she murmured. “I’m sorry I…made a fuss. I thought you were out with some woman, that you didn’t want me…. Oh, Calhoun!”
His mouth had opened, taking almost all of one perfect breast inside to taste, to caress with his tongue. His lean hand was at her back, searching for a zipper, and in the next instant she was on the carpet under him, her body bare from the neck down except for her briefs and her stockings.
“I was in Houston buying a ring. Buying two rings. Your engagement ring had to be sized. It’s a yellow diamond.” He kissed her hungrily. “I got caught in traffic, and since I knew I was going to be late, I rushed back…too fast. But it’s all right now, isn’t it, sweetheart?” He eased his hands down her body, feeling her tremble. “Abby, suppose we make love right here?” he murmured, stroking her gently with his warm, hard fingers.
“Someone might come in,” she whispered breathlessly.
He smiled as he bent. “I locked the door,” he breathed into her open mouth. “I’m hungry.”
“I’m hungry, too.”
His nose nuzzled hers. “Or we could go up to my bedroom,” he murmured huskily. “And lock the door. Even Justin wouldn’t disturb us there.”
“The guests…”
“They’ll never miss us. They’re too busy enjoying themselves. I want you, Abby. I want you for the rest of my life, until I die. And if I get you pregnant…” He lifted his head, searching her warm, soft eyes. “Would you mind having my child?”
She touched his mouth with aching tenderness. “I love you,” she said. “I want to have lots of babies with you.”
He actually shuddered. “You’re very young.”
She smiled. “All the better.” She traced his heavy eyebrows with her finger. “I can play with them.”
He smoothed back her hair, his eyes full of wonder. “Abby…I never dreamed how sweet it would be to belong to someone. To have someone of my own. And a family.” He touched her breasts tenderly. “Ever since the first time I touched you, I’ve felt as if there’d never been a woman for me. You make it all new and exciting. You make me feel whole.”
“You make me feel the same way.” She reached up to find his mouth with hers, kissing him slowly, tenderly. “Justin won’t like it if we go upstairs together.”
“He won’t see us,” he whispered and smiled wickedly. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“I’m nervous—”
“We’ll be married by tomorrow afternoon. I’ve already got the license. All we need is a blood test, and we can have that in the morning.
“You rake,” she said accusingly.
“Reformed rake.”
“All right,” she breathed.
He searched her eyes quietly. “I need you badly. But I can wait if you want me to.”
“You don’t want to,” she said.
He smiled. “I’ve felt married to you since that night in my apartment, Abby. A piece of paper and a few solemn words aren’t going to tie me to you any more firmly than I am right now. I love you, honey,” he said softly. “That’s the beginning and the end of my life, wrapped up in those words.”
She pressed against him. “I love you so.”
He helped her into her dress and led her out the back door, around through the guest bedroom and to the rear staircase. Then he picked her up, laughing softly, and carried her upstairs. He’d just made it to the landing and was turning the corner toward his own room when they ran headfirst into Justin and almost went down on the floor with the impact.
Abby gasped. Calhoun actually turned blood red. Justin’s eyebrows went up expressively. Then they just stared at each other.
“Tired of dancing?” Justin asked after a minute, his lips pursed mischievously.
Calhoun cleared his throat. “We were going to…”
“…talk,” Abby improvised.
Justin’s dark eyes went over Abby’s face, reading all the telltale signs there. Then he glanced toward Calhoun and stared him down.
“Oh, what the hell,” Calhoun muttered darkly. “You know damned good and well where we were going and why. But there’s something you don’t know. I love Abby. We’re getting married tomorrow. The license is in my pocket.”
