Part of the Bargain. Linda Miller Lael

taste was reminiscent of scorched rubber, but since the liquor seemed to quiet the raging demons in his mind, he finished the drink and poured another.

      He fully intended to get drunk. It was something he hadn’t done since high school, but it suddenly seemed appealing. Maybe he would stop hardening every time he thought of Libby, stop craving her.

      Too, after the things he’d said to her that afternoon by the pond, he didn’t want to remain sober any longer than necessary. “What did you mean,” he ventured, after downing his fourth drink, “when you said Libby had to watch her stepson die?”

      Papers rustled at the big desk behind him. “Stacey says the child had leukemia.”

      Jess poured another drink and closed his eyes. Oh, Libby, he thought, I’m sorry. My God, I’m sorry. “I guess Stacey would know,” he said aloud, with bitterness.

      There was a short, thunderous silence. Jess expected his father to explode into one of his famous tirades, was genuinely surprised when the man sighed instead. Still, his words dropped on Jess’s mind like a bomb.

      “The firewater isn’t going to change the fact that you love Libby Kincaid, Jess,” he said reasonably. “Making her life and your own miserable isn’t going to change it, either.”

      Love Libby Kincaid? Impossible. The strange needs possessing him now were rooted in his libido, not his heart. Once he’d had her—and have her he would, or go crazy—her hold on him would be broken. “I’ve never loved a woman in my life,” he said.

      “Fool. You’ve loved one woman—Libby—since you were seven years old. Exactly seven years old, in fact.”

      Jess turned, studying his father quizzically. “What the hell are you talking about?”

      “Your seventh birthday,” recalled Cleave, his eyes far away. “Your mother and I gave you a pony. First time you saw Libby Kincaid, you were out of that saddle and helping her into it.”

      The memory burst, full-blown, into Jess’s mind. A pinto pony. The new foreman arriving. The little girl with dark blue eyes and hair the color of winter moonlight.

      He’d spent the whole afternoon squiring Libby around the yard, content to walk while she rode.

      “What do you suppose Ken would say if I went over there and asked to see his daughter?” Jess asked.

      “I imagine he’d shoot you, after today.”

      “I imagine he would. But I think I’ll risk it.”

      “You’ve made enough trouble for one day,” argued Cleave, taking obvious note of his son’s inebriated state. “Libby needs time, Jess. She needs to be close to Ken. If you’re smart, you’ll leave her alone until she has a chance to get her emotional bearings again.”

      Jess didn’t want his father to be right, not in this instance, anyway, but he knew that he was. Much as he wanted to go to Libby and try to make things right, the fact was that he was the last person in the world she needed or wanted to see.

      “Better?”

      Libby smiled at Ken as she came into the kitchen, freshly showered and wrapped in the cozy, familiar chenille robe she’d found in the back of her closet. “Lots better,” she answered softly.

      Her father was standing at the kitchen stove stirring something in the blackened cast-iron skillet.

      Libby scuffled to the table and sat down. It was good to be home, so good. Why hadn’t she come sooner? “Whatever you’re cooking there smells good,” she said.

      Ken beamed. In his jeans and his western shirt, he looked out of place at that stove. He should, Libby decided fancifully, have been crouching at some campfire on the range, stirring beans in a blue enamel pot. “This here’s my world-famous red-devil sauce,” he grinned, “for which I am known and respected.”

      Libby laughed, and tears of homecoming filled her eyes. She went to her father and hugged him, needing to be a little girl again, just for a moment.

      Chapter 3

      Libby nearly choked on her first taste of Ken’s taco sauce. “Did you say you were known and respected for this stuff, or known and feared?”

      Ken chuckled roguishly at her tear-polished eyes and flaming face. “My calling it ‘red devil’ should have been a clue, dumplin’.”

      Libby muttered an exclamation and perversely took another bite from her bulging taco. “From now on,” she said, chewing, “I’ll do the cooking around this spread.”

      Her father laughed again and tapped one temple with a calloused index finger, his pale blue eyes twinkling.

      “You deliberately tricked me!” cried Libby.

      He grinned and shrugged. “Code of the West, sweetheart. Grouse about the chow, and presto—you’re the cook!”

      “Actually,” ventured Libby with cultivated innocence, “this sauce isn’t too bad.”

      “Too late,” laughed Ken. “You already broke the code.”

      Libby lowered her taco to her plate and lifted both hands in a gesture of concession. “All right, all right—but have a little pity on me, will you? I’ve been living among dudes!”

      “That’s no excuse.”

      Libby shrugged and took up her taco again. “I tried. Have you been doing your own cooking and cleaning all this time?”

      Ken shook his head and sat back in his chair, his thumbs hooked behind his belt buckle. “Nope. The Barlowes’ housekeeper sends her crew down here once in a while.”

      “What about the food?”

      “I eat with the boys most of the time, over at the cook shack.” He rose, went to fill two mugs from the coffeepot on the stove. When he turned around again, his face was serious. “Libby, what happened today? What upset you like that?”

      Libby averted her eyes. “I don’t know,” she lied lamely.

      “Dammit, you do know. You fainted, Libby. When Jess carried you in here, I—”

      “I know,” Libby broke in gently. “You were scared. I’m sorry.”

      Carefully, as though he feared he might drop them, Ken set the cups of steaming coffee on the table. “What happened?” he persisted as he sat down in his chair again.

      Libby swallowed hard, but the lump that had risen in her throat wouldn’t go down. Knowing that this conversation couldn’t be avoided forever, she managed to reply, “It’s complicated. Basically, it comes down to the fact that Stacey’s been telling those lies.”

      “And?”

      “And Jess believes him. He said…he said some things to me and…well, it must have created some kind of emotional overload. I just gave out.”

      Ken turned his mug idly between his thumb and index finger, causing the liquid to spill over and make a coffee stain on the tablecloth. “Tell me about Jonathan, Libby,” he said in a low, gentle voice.

      The tears that sprang into Libby’s eyes were not related to the tang of her father’s red-devil taco sauce. “He died,” she choked miserably.

      “I know that. You called me the night it happened, remember? I guess what I’m really asking you is why you didn’t want me to fly back there and help you sort things out.”

      Libby lowered her head. Jonathan hadn’t been her son, he’d been Aaron’s, by a previous marriage. But the loss of the child was a raw void within her, even though months had passed. “I didn’t want you to get a firsthand look at my marriage,” she admitted with great difficulty—and the shame she couldn’t seem to shake.

      “Why not, Libby?”