Part of the Bargain. Linda Miller Lael

the first time, Cathy looked ashamed. But there was uncertainty in her expression, too, along with a great deal of pain. “It’s no secret that Stacey wants you, Libby. I’ve been holding my breath ever since you decided to come back, waiting for him to leave me.”

      “Whatever problems you and Stacey have, Cathy, I didn’t start them.”

      “What about all his visits to New York?”

      Libby’s shoulders slumped, and she allowed herself to sink to the fragrant spring-scented ground, where she sat cross-legged, her head down. With her hands she said, “You knew about the divorce, and about Jonathan. Stacey was only trying to help me through—we weren’t lovers.”

      The lush grass moved as Cathy sat down too, facing Libby. There were tears shining in her large green eyes, and her lower lip trembled. Nervously she plied a blade of grass between her fingers.

      “I’m sorry about your little boy,” she said aloud.

      Libby reached out, calmer now, and squeezed Cathy’s hands with her own. “Thanks.”

      A lonely, haunted look rose in Cathy’s eyes. “Stacey wanted us to have a baby,” she confided.

      “Why didn’t you?”

      Sudden color stained Cathy’s lovely cheeks. “I’m deaf!” she cried defensively.

      Libby released her cousin’s hands to sign, “So what? Lots of deaf people have babies.”

      “Not me!” Cathy signaled back with spirited despair. “I wouldn’t know when it cried!”

      Libby spoke slowly, her hands falling back to her lap. “Cathy, there are solutions for that sort of problem. There are trained dogs, electronic devices—”

      “Trained dogs!” scoffed Cathy, but there was more anguish in her face than anger. “What kind of woman needs a dog to help her raise her own baby?”

      “A deaf woman,” Libby answered firmly. “Besides, if you don’t want a dog around, you could hire a nurse.”

      “No!”

      Libby was taken aback. “Why not?” she signed after a few moments.

      Cathy clearly had no intention of answering. She bolted to her feet and was back in the palomino’s saddle before Libby could even rise from the ground.

      After that, they rode without communicating at all. Knowing that things were far from settled between herself and her cousin, Libby tried to concentrate on the scenery. A shadow moved across the sun, however, and a feeling of impending disaster unfolded inside her.

      Jess glared at the screen of the small computer his father placed so much store in and resisted a caveman urge to strike its side with his fist.

      “Here,” purred a soft feminine voice, and Monica Summers, the senator’s curvaceous assistant, reached down to move the mouse and tap the keyboard in a few strategic places.

      Instantly the profit-and-loss statement Jess had been trying to call up was prominently displayed on the screen.

      “How did you do that?”

      Monica smiled her sultry smile and pulled up a chair to sit down beside Jess. “It’s a simple matter of command,” she said, and somehow the words sounded wildly suggestive.

      Jess’s collar seemed to tighten around his throat, but he grinned, appreciating Monica’s lithe, inviting body, her profusion of gleaming brown hair, her impudent mouth and soft gray eyes. Her visits to the ranch were usually brief, but the senator’s term of office was almost over, and he planned to write a long book—with which Monica was slated to help. Until that project was completed, she would be around a lot.

      The fact that the senior senator did not intend to campaign for reelection didn’t seem to faze her—it was common knowledge that she had a campaign of her own in mind.

      Monica had made it clear, time and time again, that she was available to Jess for more than an occasional dinner date and subsequent sexual skirmish. And before Libby’s return, Jess had seriously considered settling down with Monica.

      He didn’t love her, but she was undeniably beautiful, and the promises she made with her skillfully made-up eyes were not idle ones. In addition to that, they had a lot of ordinary things in common—similar political views, a love of the outdoors, like tastes in music and books.

      Now, even with Monica sitting so close to him, her perfume calling up some rather heated memories, Jess Barlowe was patently unmoved.

      A shower of anger sifted through him. He wanted to be moved, dammit—he wanted everything to be the way it was before Libby’s return. Return? It was an invasion! He thought about the little hellion day and night, whether he wanted to or not.

      “What’s wrong, Jess?” Monica asked softly, perceptively, her hand resting on his shoulder. “It’s more than just this computer, isn’t it?”

      He looked away. The sensible thing to do would be to take Monica by the hand, lead her off somewhere private and make slow, ferocious love to her. Maybe that would exorcise Libby Kincaid from his mind.

      He remembered passion-weighted breasts, bared to him on a swimming dock, remembered their nipples blossoming sweetly in his mouth. Libby’s breasts.