by Diana Palmer
“What was there to listen to?” Justin asked impatiently. “She’d already told me the truth, in the beginning.”
“I never believed it,” Calhoun replied. “And neither would you have, if you hadn’t been in love for the first time in your life and so damned uncertain about your own ability to keep Shelby. You were always worried about losing her to another man. Even to me. Remember?”
It was hard to argue with the truth. Justin knew he’d been possessive about Shelby. Hell, he still was. But how could he help it? She was a beautiful woman, and he was a plain, unworldly man. He’d never been able to understand why Shelby had stayed with him as long as she had.
“Even now,” Calhoun continued quietly, “it seems to me that you’re trying your best to make her leave you.”
Justin smiled mockingly. “What do you expect me to do, tie her in the cellar?” he asked reasonably. “I can’t make her stay if she doesn’t want to. Hell—” he laughed coldly “—I can’t even touch her. She flinched away from me the one time I tried to make love to her,” he said bluntly, remembering. His eyes went blacker and he looked away. “I can’t get near her. She’s afraid of me that way.”
“How interesting,” Calhoun said, choosing his words, “that such an experienced woman of the world could be afraid of sex. Isn’t it?”
Justin frowned. “What do you mean?”
Calhoun didn’t answer him. He was smiling a little when he started out the door, but Justin couldn’t see the smile. “I’ve got to get home. See you, big brother.” And before Justin could reply, he was gone.
Justin took a minute to get his temper under control. He went out the door behind Calhoun without a word to his secretary, his eyes narrow with concern. Calhoun had delayed him too long. Suppose Shelby wrecked that little car?
He went up and down the road, but he didn’t see any sign of the sports car. Later, he went to the house, and almost went down on his knees with relief when he found it parked at the steps.
He had to force himself to behave normally when his hands were almost shaking from fear that he might find her in a ditch somewhere. He walked into the house, tossing his hat onto the hat rack, and went into the dining room, where Shelby was sitting in a chair halfway down the long cherry-wood table, talking to Maria about some new recipe.
She looked toward the doorway, but when she saw him, all the laughter and animation went out of her like a light that was suddenly turned off. She was wearing a red and white dress and her hair was down around her shoulders in a pretty, dark, waving tangle. The wind, he thought absently, tearing through her hair in the convertible.
“I’ve traded cars,” she said defiantly. “How do you like it? It was Abby’s. You don’t even have to cosign with me, I can make the payments from my salary.”
Justin glanced at Maria, who knew the look and made herself scarce. He sat down at the head of the table, lit a cigarette and leaned back in the chair to stare intently at Shelby. “The last thing in the world you need is a sports car. You already drive too damned fast.”
She searched his dark eyes, reading the thinly veiled concern. “Somebody saw me in the car this afternoon,” she guessed.
He nodded. “Calhoun.”
“I thought it was him.” She studied her hands in her lap, turning the thin gold band on her wedding finger. “I like speed,” she said hotly.
“I don’t like funerals,” he shot back. “I don’t intend having to go to yours. You’ll take that sports car back tomorrow or I’ll take it back for you.”
“It’s mine!” she cried. Her green eyes flashed angrily. “And I won’t take it back!”
He took a long draw from his cigarette. In his reclining position, his white silk shirt was drawn taut over tanned muscles. His chest was thick with hair that peeked out through the unfastened top buttons of his shirt. His jacket was off, his sleeves rolled up. He looked devastatingly masculine, from his disheveled black hair to his sensuous mouth.
“I’m not going to argue about it, honey,” he replied. Through a veil of smoke, his black eyes searched hers. “Calhoun told me you wrecked a car overseas.”
She flushed. “That was an accident.”
“You aren’t going to have any accidents here,” he said. “I won’t let you kill yourself.”
“For heaven’s sake, Justin, I’m not suicidal!” she protested. She lifted her coffee cup to her lips and took a fortifying sip of the black liquid.
“I didn’t say you were,” he agreed. He moved his ashtray on the tablecloth, watching it spin around. “But you need a firmer hand than you’ve been getting.”
“I’m not Abby,” she said. Her finely etched features grew hard as she looked at him. “I don’t need a guardian.”
He looked back, black eyes searching, quiet. “And while we’re on the subject, I don’t like you working for Barry Holman.”
She blinked. She felt suddenly as if control of her own life was being taken away from her. “Justin, I didn’t ask how you liked it,” she reminded him. “I told you before we married that I wanted to keep on working.”
“There’s more than enough to do around here,” he said. He tapped an ash into the ashtray. “You can manage the house.”
“Maria and Lopez do that very nicely, thank you,” she replied. She stiffened. “I don’t want to stay home and swirl around the house in silk lounge pajamas and throw parties, Justin, in case you wondered. I’ve had my fill of charity work and flower arranging and social warfare.”
He was looking at the cigarette, not at her. “I thought you might miss those things. In the old days, you never had to lift a finger.”
She studied her neat hands in her lap, pleating the thin silky fabric of the red and white dress. “My father saw me as a parlor decoration,” she said tautly. “He would have been outraged if I’d tried to change my image.”
He frowned slightly. “Were you afraid of him?”
“I was owned by him,” she replied. She sighed, raising her eyes to Justin’s. The curiosity there puzzled her, but at least they were talking for a change instead of arguing. “He wasn’t the easiest man to live with, and he had terrible ways of getting even when Ty and I disobeyed.”
“He kept you pretty close to home,” he recalled. “Although he trusted you with me.”
“Did he really?” she laughed hollowly. “Justin, you were the second man I ever dated and the first I ever went out with alone. You look shocked. Did you think my father let me live the life of a playgirl? He was terrified that some fortune hunter might seduce me. I lived like a recluse while he was alive.”
Justin wasn’t sure he understood what he was hearing. His head tilted a little and his eyes narrowed. “Would you like to run that by me again?” he asked. “You hadn’t been out with a man alone until you went with me?”
“That’s it,” she agreed. “I didn’t get out of my father’s sight until after I broke the engagement and went to Switzerland.” She smiled sadly. “I guess the freedom was too much, because I ran wild. The sports car was just an outlet, a way of celebrating. I never meant to wreck it.”
“How badly were you hurt?” he asked.
“I broke my leg and cracked two ribs,” she said. “They said I was lucky.”
He finished his cigarette and crushed it out. “I didn’t realize you were that sheltered,” he said quietly. He was only beginning to understand how innocent she’d been in those days. If she’d only dated one other man, then very likely her first taste of intimacy had been with him. He thought about that, and felt himself go taut. He’d expected her to have a little experience, even though he’d known she was virginal. But if she’d had none, it was easy to understand why his ardor would have frightened her so.
“I couldn’t talk about things like that with you,” she confessed. “I was young and hopelessly naive.”
He stared at her narrowly, his black eyes glittering. “I frightened you the night we got engaged, didn’t I?” he asked suddenly. “That was why you pulled bac
k—not because I disgusted you.”
She caught her breath audibly. “You never disgusted me!” she burst out, hurting for him. “Oh, Justin, no! You didn’t think that?”
“We didn’t know very much about each other, Shelby,” he said, his voice deep and measured. “I suppose we both had false ideas. I saw you as a sophisticated, elegant society woman. And while I knew you were innocent, I thought you’d had some experience with men. If I’d had any idea of what you’ve just told me, I damned sure wouldn’t have been that demanding with you.”
She went red and averted her eyes. She couldn’t find the right words. Amazing, that they were married and she was twenty-seven years old, and this kind of talk could still embarrass her.
“I was afraid you couldn’t stop,” she murmured evasively.
He sighed heavily and lifted his coffee cup to his lips, draining it. “So was I,” he said unexpectedly. “It was touch and go for a few seconds, at that. I’d gone hungry for a long time.”
“I didn’t think men had to, these days,” she said softly. “I mean, society is so permissive and all.”
“Society may be permissive. I’m not,” he said flatly. His black eyes flashed at her. “I never was, in the way you mean. A gentleman doesn’t seduce virgins—or take advantage of women who don’t know the score. That leaves party girls.” He held the cup in his big, lean hands, smoothing over it with his thumb. “And just to be frank, honey, the type never appealed very much to me.”
Her soft eyes searched over his hard features, lingering on his chiseled mouth.
“I guess you never lacked offers, all the same,” she said, letting her gaze fall to her lap again.
“I’m rich.” There was cool cynicism in the words. “Sure, I get offers.” He studied her face calculatingly. “In fact, Shelby, I had one while I was in New Mexico last week, wedding ring and all.”
Her teeth clenched. She didn’t want him to see that it bothered her, but it was hard to hide. “Did you?”
He put the cup down. “You’re as possessive about me as I am about you,” he said then, surprising her gaze up to lock with his in a slow, electric exchange. “You don’t like the thought of other women making eyes at me, do you, Shelby?”
She crossed her legs. “No,” she said honestly.
He smiled mockingly as he lit another cigarette. “Well, if it’s any comfort, I froze her out. I won’t cheat on you, honey.”
“I never thought you would,” she replied. “Any more than I’d cheat on you.”
“That would be the eighth wonder of the world,” he remarked with deceptive softness, “considering your hang-ups. We’ve been married for almost two weeks, and you still look like a sacrificial lamb every time I come near you.”
She drew in a slow, steadying breath. “Yes, I know,” she said miserably. She smiled bitterly. “I’m aware of my own failings, Justin. I guess you won’t believe it, but you can’t possibly blame me any more than I blame myself for what I am.”
He scowled. He hadn’t meant to put her on the defensive. His pride was stung and he was striking out. But he didn’t want to hurt her anymore. He’d done enough of that already.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said on a weary breath. “It’s the way things happened, that’s all.” He looked his age for a minute, his expression bleak, his dark eyes haunted. “You savaged my pride, Shelby. It’s taken a long time to put it behind me. I guess I haven’t, just yet.”
“I didn’t get off scot-free, either,” she murmured. Her thin shoulders slumped. “I’ve had my share of grief over what I did.”
“Why?” he asked shortly.
She closed her eyes and winced. “I did it for your sake,” she whispered.
He let out an angry breath. “Well, that’s a new tack, at least.” He ground out the half-finished cigarette and got to his feet. “I’ve got some paperwork to do before Maria gets supper on the table.” He paused beside her chair, watching the way she stiffened as he got close to her. He reached down and caught a handful of her long hair, dragging her head back so that he could see her eyes. “Fear,” he ground out, searching them. “That’s all I ever see in your eyes when I come near you. Well, don’t sweat it, honey. You won’t be called on to make the supreme sacrifice. I’m not desperate!”
He let her go and moved past her with anger in every line of his powerful body, without another word or a backward glance.
Shelby felt the tears come and she didn’t stop them. He didn’t know why she was afraid, and she couldn’t tell him. He just assumed that she withdrew because she didn’t want him. Nothing was further from the truth. She did, desperately. But she wanted him controlled and gentle, and she remembered how it had been when he wasn’t.
She got up from the table and went up to her room to spend a few quiet minutes before they ate getting herself back together again. It was so hard to talk to him, to get around his growing impatience. Her rejection was doing terrible things to him, and even now she felt protective. She wanted to give him what he wanted, to erase those hard lines from his face. But she was so frightened of the demands he might make on her.
If only she could tell him. But her sheltered background made it too embarrassing to explain why she was the way she was. Until she could find a way to make him understand, it was going to put an even worse strain on their marriage.
Chapter Five
If Shelby had hoped to find Justin less angry over dinner, she was doomed to disappointment. He sat at the head of the table like a stone man, barely speaking through the meal. She couldn’t talk to him. She didn’t know what to say.
Afterward, he went out the door without a word and Shelby felt a sense of utter desperation. If only she could go to him and put her arms around him, explain how she felt, why she was the way she was. But would he believe her, with their past?
Misery wrapped around her like a blanket. She got her purse and went out to her car. If Justin thought she was going to sit around by herself for what was left of the evening, he could just think again.
She started the sports car, revved the engine, backed out and roared away. The wonderful thing about the little car was the delicious feel of its controlled speed. She loved the straight road, the sense of freedom she felt with the wind in her long hair, the exhilaration of being alone with her thoughts.
Justin hated her, but that was nothing new. He always had. She’d hurt him and he was never going to forgive her. She didn’t know why she’d agreed to marry him; it was never going to work out. She’d been a fool to go through with it in the first place, so she had only herself to blame for her present misery.
She was so deep in thought that she didn’t notice the stop sign until she was on it, and the loud baritone of a truck’s horn made her blood freeze.
A huge transfer-trailer truck was barreling down the highway. Shelby’s little car wasn’t going to be fast enough to beat that mammoth vehicle across the intersection, and it was touch and go if she’d be able to stop at all.
With her heart in her throat, and the numb certainty of death stiffening her body, she hit the brake. The car went into a spin, the squeal of tires terrible in the later afternoon stillness, her face frozen with terror as she lost control and the sky went around and around and around…
The car spun into the deep ditch and leaned drunkenly sideways, but amazingly it didn’t turn over. Shelby sat, shaken but unhurt, nausea bitter in her throat and the world spinning around her. There was the sound of another car screeching to a halt. A door opened. There was the sound of running feet and then, suddenly, a man’s anguished shout.
“Shelby!” The man’s face was familiar, but somehow unfamiliar. It was hoarse and choked and blackly furious. “Answer me, damn it, are you all right?”
She felt her seat belt being forced away from her with hands that were lean and brown and shaking. She felt those same hands running over her body, searching for blood or broken bones, exquisitely gentle.
“Are you all right?” Justi
n asked huskily. “Do you hurt anywhere? For God’s sake, sweetheart, answer me!”
“I…I’m fine,” she whispered numbly. “The door…?”
“It won’t open, the frame’s sprung. Easy does it, now.” He carefully reached down to get her under the armpits and with formidable strength he lifted her clear of the car. When she was on the ground, swaying, he picked her up with exquisite tenderness and carried her up from the ditch. The truck driver had stopped down the road and was coming toward them, but Justin didn’t seem to see him. His expression was rigid with control, but he couldn’t stop his arms from trembling under her slender body.
That fact finally registered in Shelby’s dazed mind. She looked up then and saw his face, and her breath fluttered. He was flour-white, only his eyes alive and glittering blackly in that set, haunted face. He looked down at her, his arms convulsively dragging her against his chest.
“You little fool…!” he choked.
As long as she lived, she knew she’d never forget the horror she saw in his eyes. She reached up to hold him, her only thought to remove that look from his eyes.
“It’s all right, Justin,” she murmured softly. His reaction fascinated her. She’d never seen him shaken before. It made her feel protective, that tiny chink in his cool armor.
“I’m fine, Justin,” she whispered. Her eyes searched his, amazed at the vulnerability there. She touched his mouth, her soft fingers caressing as they slid up into his thick, dark hair. “Darling, I’m all right, really I am!” She pulled his mouth down and put hers softly against it, loving the way he let her kiss him, even if it was only out of shock—which, in fact, it was. For several seconds she savored the newness of it, then something stirred in her slender body, and her mouth pushed upward, hungry for a harder, deeper contact than this. It had been years since they’d kissed, since they’d really kissed. She moaned softly and he seemed to come out of his trance. His arm contracted, and his hard mouth opened hungrily against hers on a wild, shattered groan.
