Part of the Bargain

by Linda Lael Miller

  But she wasn’t in love with Stace, Libby told herself firmly. She had always looked up to him, that was all—like an older brother. Maybe she’d become a little too dependent on him in the bargain, but that didn’t mean she cared for him in a romantic way, did it?

  She sighed, and Cathy turned to look at her pensively, almost as though she had heard the sound. That was impossible, of course, but Cathy was as perceptive as anyone Libby had ever known, and she often felt sounds.

  “Glad to be home?” the deaf woman inquired, gesturing gently.

  Libby didn’t miss the tremor in her cousin’s hands, but she forced a weary smile to her face and nodded in answer to the question.

  Suddenly Cathy’s eyes were sparkling again, and she caught Libby’s hand in her own and tugged her through an archway and into the glassed-in sunporch that overlooked the pond.

  Libby drew in a swift, delighted breath. There was indeed a skylight in the roof—a big one. A drawing table had been set up in the best light the room offered, along with a lamp for night work, and there were flowering plants hanging from the exposed beams in the ceiling. The old wicker furniture that had been stored in the attic for as long as Libby could remember had been painted a dazzling white and bedecked with gay floral-print cushions. Small rugs in complementary shades of pink and green had been scattered about randomly, and there was even a shelving unit built into the wall behind the art table.

  “Wow!” cried Libby, overwhelmed, her arms spread out wide in a gesture of wonder. “Cathy, you missed your calling! You should have been an interior decorator.”

  Though Libby hadn’t signed the words, her cousin had read them from her lips. Cathy’s green eyes shifted quickly from Libby’s face, and she lowered her head. “Instead of what?” she motioned sadly. “Instead of Stacey’s wife?”

  Libby felt as though she’d been slapped, but she recovered quickly enough to catch one hand under Cathy’s chin and force her head up. “Exactly what do you mean by that?” she demanded, and she was never certain afterward whether she had signed the words, shouted them, or simply thought them.

  Cathy shrugged in a miserable attempt at nonchalance, and one tear slid down her cheek. “He went to see you in New York,” she challenged, her hands moving quickly now, almost angrily. “You wrote to him.”

  “Cathy, it wasn’t what you think—”

  “Wasn’t it?”

  Libby was furious and wounded, and she stomped one foot in frustration. “Of course it wasn’t! Do you really think I would do a thing like that? Do you think Stacey would? He loves you!” And so does Jess, she lamented in silence, without knowing why that should matter.

  Stubbornly Cathy averted her eyes again and shoved her hands into the pockets of her lightweight cotton jacket—a sure signal that as far as she was concerned, the conversation was over.

  In desperation, Libby reached out and caught her cousin’s shoulders in her hands, only to be swiftly rebuffed by an eloquent shrug. She watched, stricken to silence, as Cathy turned and hurried out of the sunporch-turned-studio and into the kitchen beyond. Just a moment later the back door slammed with a finality that made Libby ache through and through.

  She ducked her head and bit her lower lip to keep the tears back. That, too, was something she had learned during Jonathan’s final confinement in a children’s hospital.

  Just then, Jess Barlowe filled the studio doorway. Libby was aware of him in all her strained senses.

  He set down her suitcases and drawing board with an unsympathetic thump. “I see you’re spreading joy and good cheer as usual,” he drawled in acid tones. “What, pray tell, was that all about?”

  Libby was infuriated, and she glared at him, her hands resting on her trim rounded hips. “As if you didn’t know, you heartless bastard! How could you be so mean…so thoughtless…”

  The fiery green eyes raked Libby’s travel-rumpled form with scorn. Ignoring her aborted question, he offered one of his own. “Did you think your affair with my brother was a secret, princess?”

  Libby was fairly choking on her rage and her pain. “What affair, dammit?” she shouted. “We didn’t have an affair!”

  “That isn’t what Stacey says,” replied Jess with impervious savagery.

  Libby felt the high color that had been pounding in her face seep away. “What?”

  “Stace is wildly in love with you, to hear him tell it. You need him and he needs you, and to hell with minor stumbling blocks like his wife!”

  Libby’s knees weakened and she groped blindly for the stool at her art table and then sank onto it. “My God…”

  Jess’s jawline was tight with brutal annoyance. “Spare me the theatrics, princess— I know why you came back here. Dammit, don’t you have a soul?”

  Libby’s throat worked painfully, but her mind simply refused to form words for her to utter.

  Jess crossed the room like a mountain panther, terrifying in his grace and prowess, and caught both her wrists in a furious, inescapable grasp. With his other hand he captured Libby’s chin.

  “Listen to me, you predatory little witch, and listen well,” he hissed, his jade eyes hard, his flesh pale beneath his deep rancher’s tan. “Cathy is good and decent and she loves my brother, though I can’t for the life of me think why she condescends to do so. And I’ll be damned if I’ll stand by and watch you and Stacey turn her inside out! Do you understand me?”

  Tears of helpless fury and outraged honor burned like fire in Libby’s eyes, but she could neither speak nor move. She could only stare into the frightening face looming only inches from her own. It was a devil’s face.

  When Jess’s tightening grasp on her chin made it clear that he would have an answer of some sort, no matter what, Libby managed a small, frantic nod.

  Apparently satisfied, Jess released her with such suddenness that she nearly lost her balance and slipped off the stool.

  Then he whirled away from her, his broad back taut, one powerful hand running through his obsidian hair in a typical gesture of frustration. “Damn you for ever coming back here,” he said in a voice no less vicious for its softness.

  “No problem,” Libby said with great effort. “I’ll leave.”

  Jess turned toward her again, this time with an ominous leisure, and his eyes scalded Libby’s face, the hollow of her throat, the firm roundness of her high breasts. “It’s too late,” he said.

  Still dazed, Libby sank back against the edge of the drawing table, sighed and covered her eyes with one hand. “Okay,” she began with hard-won, shaky reason, “why is that?”

  Jess had stalked to the windows; his back was a barrier between them again, and he was looking out at the pond. Libby longed to sprout claws and tear him to quivering shreds.

  “Stacey has the bit in his teeth,” he said at length, his voice low, speculative. “Wherever you went, he’d follow.”

  Since Libby didn’t believe that Stacey had declared himself to be in love with her, she didn’t believe that there was any danger of his following her away from the Circle Bar B, either. “You’re crazy,” she said.

  Jess faced her quickly, some scathing retort brewing in his eyes, but whatever he had meant to say was lost as Ken strode into the room and demanded, “What the hell’s going on in here? I just found Cathy running up the road in tears!”

  “Ask your daughter!” Jess bit out. “Thanks to her, Cathy has just gotten started shedding tears!”

  Libby could bear no more; she was like a wild creature goaded to madness, and she flung herself bodily at Jess Barlowe, just as she had in her childhood, fists flying. She would have attacked him gladly if her father hadn’t caught hold of her around the waist and forcibly restrained her.

  Jess raked her with one last contemptuous look and moved calmly in the direction of the door. “You ought to tame that little spitfire, Ken,” he commented in passing. “One of these days she’s going to hurt somebody.”

  Libby trembled in her father’s hold, stung by his double meaning, and
gave one senseless shriek of fury. This brought a mocking chuckle from a disappearing Jess and caused Ken to turn her firmly to face him.

  “Good Lord, Libby, what’s the matter with you?”

  Libby drew a deep, steadying breath and tried to quiet the raging ten-year-old within her, the child that Jess had always been able to infuriate. “I hate Jess Barlow,” she said flatly. “I hate him.”

  “Why?” Ken broke in, and he didn’t look angry anymore. Just honestly puzzled.

  “If you knew what he’s been saying about me—”

  “If it’s the same as what Stacey’s been mouthing off about, I reckon I do.”

  Libby stepped back, stunned. “What?”

  Ken Kincaid sighed, and suddenly all his fifty-two years showed clearly in his face. “Stacey and Cathy have been having trouble the last year or so. Now he’s telling everybody who’ll listen that it’s over between him and Cathy and he wants you.”

  “I don’t believe it! I—”

  “I wanted to warn you, Lib, but you’d been through so much, between losing the boy and then falling out with your husband after that. I thought you needed to be home, but I knew you wouldn’t come near the place if you had any idea what was going on.”

  Libby’s chin trembled, and she searched her father’s honest, weathered face anxiously. “I…I haven’t been fooling around with C-Cathy’s husband, Dad.”

  He smiled gently. “I know that, Lib—knew it all along. Just never mind Jess and all the rest of them—if you don’t run away, this thing’ll blow over.”

  Libby swallowed, thinking of Cathy and the pain she had to be feeling. The betrayal. “I can’t stay here if Cathy is going to be hurt.”

  Ken touched her cheek with a work-worn finger. “Cathy doesn’t really believe the rumors, Libby—think about it. Why would she work so hard to fix a studio up for you if she did? Why would she be waiting here to see you again?”

  “But she was crying just now, Dad! And she as much as accused me of carrying on with her husband!”

  “She’s been hurt by what’s been said, and Stacey’s been acting like a spoiled kid. Honey, Cathy’s just testing the waters, trying to find out where you stand. You can’t leave her now, because except for Stace, there’s nobody she needs more.”

  Despite the fact that all her instincts warned her to put the Circle Bar B behind her as soon as humanly possible, Libby saw the sense in her father’s words. As incredible as it seemed, Cathy would need her—if for nothing else than to lay those wretched rumors to rest once and for all.

  “These things Stacey’s been saying—surely he didn’t unload them on Cathy?”

  Ken sighed. “I don’t think he’d be that low, Libby. But you know how it is with Cathy, how she always knows the score.”

  Libby shook her head distractedly. “Somebody told her, Dad—and I think I know who it was.”

  There was disbelief in Ken’s discerning blue eyes, and in his voice, too. “Jess? Now, wait a minute…”

  Jess.

  Libby couldn’t remember a time when she had gotten along well with him, but she’d been sure that he cared deeply for Cathy. Hadn’t he been the one to insist that Stace and Libby learn signing, as he had, so that everyone could talk to the frightened, confused little girl who couldn’t hear? Hadn’t he gifted Cathy with cherished bullfrogs and clumsily made valentines and even taken her to the high-school prom?

  How could Jess, of all people, be the one to hurt Cathy, when he knew as well as anyone how badly she’d been hurt by her handicap and the rejection of her own parents? How?

  Libby had no answer for any of these questions. She knew only that she had separate scores to settle with both the Barlowe brothers.

  And settle them she would.

  Chapter 2

  Libby sat at the end of the rickety swimming dock, bare feet dangling, shoulders slumped, her gaze fixed on the shimmering waters of the pond. The lines of her long, slender legs were accentuated, rather than disguised, by the old blue jeans she wore. A white eyelet suntop sheltered shapely breasts and a trim stomach and left the rest of her upper body bare.

  Jess Barlowe studied her in silence, feeling things that were at wide variance with his personal opinion of the woman. He was certain that he hated Libby, but something inside him wanted, nonetheless, to touch her, to comfort her, to know the scent and texture of her skin.

  A reluctant grin tilted one corner of his mouth. One tug at the top of that white eyelet and…

  Jess caught his skittering thoughts, marshaled them back into stern order. As innocent and vulnerable as Libby Kincaid looked at the moment, she was a viper, willing to betray her own cousin to get what she wanted.

  Jess imagined Libby naked, her glorious breasts free and welcoming. But the man in his mental scenario was not himself—it was Stacey. The thought lay sour in Jess’s mind.

  “Did you come to apologize, by any chance?”

  The question so startled Jess that he flinched; he had not noticed that Libby had turned around and seen him, so caught up had he been in the vision of her giving herself to his brother.

  He scowled, as much to recover his wits as to oppose her. It was and always had been his nature to oppose Libby Kincaid, the way electricity opposes water, and it annoyed him that, for all his travels and his education, he didn’t know why.

  “Why would I want to do that?” he shot back, more ruffled by her presence than he ever would have admitted.

  “Maybe because you were a complete ass,” she replied in tones as sunny as the big sky stretched out above them.

  Jess lifted his hands to his hips and stood fast against whatever it was that was pulling him toward her. I want to make love to you, he thought, and the truth of that ground in his spirit as well as in his loins.

  There was pain in Libby’s navy blue eyes, as well as a cautious mischief. “Well?” she prodded.

  Jess found that while he could keep himself from going to her, he could not turn away. Maybe her net reached farther than he’d thought. Maybe, like Stacey and that idiot in New York, he was already caught in it.

  “I’m not here to apologize,” he said coldly.

  “Then why?” she asked with chiming sweetness.

  He wondered if she knew what that shoulderless blouse of hers was doing to him. Damn. He hadn’t been this tongue-tied since the night of his fifteenth birthday, when Ginny Hillerman had announced that she would show him hers if he would show her his.

  Libby’s eyes were laughing at him. “Jess?”

  “Is your dad here?” he threw out in gruff desperation.

  One shapely, gossamer eyebrow arched. “You know perfectly well that he isn’t. If Dad were home, his pickup truck would be parked in the driveway.”

  Against his will, Jess grinned. His taut shoulders rose in a shrug. The shadows of cottonwood leaves moved on the old wooden dock, forming a mystical path—a path that led to Libby Kincaid.

  She patted the sun-warmed wood beside her. “Come and sit down.”

  Before Jess could stop himself, he was striding along that small wharf, sinking down to sit beside Libby and dangle his booted feet over the sparkling water. He was never entirely certain what sorcery made him ask what he did.

  “What happened to your marriage, Libby?”

  The pain he had glimpsed before leapt in her eyes and then faded away again, subdued. “Are you trying to start another fight?”

  Jess shook his head. “No,” he answered quietly, “I really want to know.”

  She looked away from him, gnawing at her lower lip with her front teeth. All around them were ranch sounds—birds conferring in the trees, leaves rustling in the wind, the clear pond water lapping at the mossy pilings of the dock. But no sound came from Libby.

  On an impulse, Jess touched her mouth with the tip of one index finger. Water and electricity—the analogy came back to him with a numbing jolt.

  “Stop that,” he barked, to cover his reactions.

  Libby ceased chewing at h
er lip and stared at him with wide eyes. Again he saw the shadow of that nameless, shifting ache inside her. “Stop what?” she wanted to know.

  Stop making me want to hold you, he thought. Stop making me want to tuck your hair back behind your ears and tell you that everything will be all right. “Stop biting your lip!” he snapped aloud.

  “I’m sorry!” Libby snapped back, her eyes shooting indigo sparks.

  Jess sighed and again spoke involuntarily. “Why did you leave your husband, Libby?”

  The question jarred them both: Libby paled a little and tried to scramble to her feet; Jess caught her elbow in one hand and pulled her down again.

  “Was it because of Stacey?”

  She was livid. “No!”

  “Someone else?”

  Tears sprang up in Libby’s dark lashes and made then spiky. She wrenched free of his hand but made no move to rise again and run away. “Sure!” she gasped. “‘If it feels good, do it’—that’s my motto! By God, I live by those words!”

  “Shut up,” Jess said in a gentle voice.

  Incredibly, she fell against him, wept into the shoulder of his blue cotton workshirt. And it was not a delicate, calculating sort of weeping—it was a noisy grief.

  Jess drew her close and held her, broken on the shoals of what she was feeling even though he did not know its name. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely.

  Libby trembled beneath his arm and wailed like a wounded calf. The sound solidified into a word usually reserved for stubborn horses and income-tax audits.

  Jess laughed and, for a reason he would never understand, kissed her forehead. “I love it when you flatter me,” he teased.

  Miraculously, Libby laughed, too. But when she tilted her head back to look up at him, and he saw the tear streaks on her beautiful, defiant face, something within him, something that had always been disjointed, was wrenched painfully back into place.

  He bent his head and touched his lips to hers, gently, in question. She stiffened, but then, at the cautious bidding of his tongue, her lips parted slightly and her body relaxed against his.