Lacy. Diana Palmer

anywhere?” she asked curiously.

      That shouldn’t have set him off, but it did. Sometimes Katy irritated him with her constant probing into his life. He didn’t like it. He didn’t want her any closer than she was right now. In that, he and Cole were almost too much alike. Okay. If she wanted the truth, she could have it. He stared harshly down at her. “I had a wife. She died one winter, while I was away selling cattle. She froze to death sitting up in a chair. She’d gotten sick and couldn’t build a fire. She was pregnant.”

      Katy felt her body go rigid with the words. She looked up into a face like stone…and suddenly understood so much. A wounded man. A badly wounded man, heart dead, and he wanted no more of love or commitment. And now it all made sense. The way he’d avoided her, the way he went through women as if they were no more than toys with which to amuse himself. Of course. There was safety in numbers. If he had a lot of women, he didn’t have to worry about the risk of involvement.

      Her face went white. She stared at him helplessly, all her dreams dying slowly in the green eyes that went quietly dead in her face.

      He saw that, and his conscience stung. “Yes,” he said curtly. “Yes, I thought so. Bringing that Northern hoodlum down here, running wild, all of that was because of me, wasn’t it? Because I wasn’t dancing attendance on you!”

      It hurt to hear it put into words. It stung her eyes and made them water.

      He saw the tears and felt vaguely guilty. She was just a kid, after all. And even if he wanted her as much as she wanted him, there was no way it could work. He wasn’t sure he had anything to give. Like Cole said, Katy was too vulnerable for a quick affair.

      “Katy, I’m sorry if that hurts. But, girl, I’ve got nothing left to give,” he said softly. “I don’t want your young heart, Katy. I can’t give you mine. I lost mine when I lost Lorene. If it weren’t for Cole, I wouldn’t even be alive. Don’t you understand? I loved her,” he said roughly. “I can’t ever love anyone else!”

      “I haven’t asked you to love me! I don’t feel like that…” she burst out, hurt pride and frustrated passion making her wild.

      “I’m not blind!” he tossed back, his gray eyes stormy. “You’ve followed me around, sighed over me, made love to me with your eyes for the past few months! You’ve done everything to make me notice you except strip naked!”

      She drew back her hand and slapped him across the cheek as hard as she could. Her face was wet, and she didn’t even realize that it was soaking with spilled tears. She sobbed as she looked at the redness her fingers had made. “Damn you! Damn you! I don’t care about you. I never could!”

      “Oh, for God’s sake,” he growled. It was all getting out of hand. He started to reach for her, to try and explain.

      But she shrugged off his hands and ran, blind, uncertain of the direction she was taking. She ran past the corral where the remuda was kept, through the spread of mesquite trees with their feathery, thorned fronds blowing softly in the wind, down the trail into the hay barn. Sobbing, she fought her way through the bales to a dark, quiet corner and lay in the yellow, sweet-smelling hay, her body shaking from the force of her pain.

      Her heart had fed for years on the hope of someday having Turk for her very own. She went to sleep dreaming of how it would be if he kissed her, if he loved her. She planned a future that was based on loving him, that included marriage and children. And now, none of it would ever happen. He had nothing to give. She didn’t know how she was going to stay alive….

      Footsteps sounded behind her, but she wouldn’t look up. She knew she was in disgrace. Shame washed her in blushes. She couldn’t face him.

      “You little fool,” Turk muttered. He knelt beside her, forcing her onto her back with hands that had no gentleness. He glared down at her, feeling impotent, hating the indignity of her behavior for both of them. “This won’t help, Katy.”

      “Leave me alone,” she whispered, shaking. She rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Go away and let me be by myself.”

      He caught her wrists and pulled her up, holding her in front of him, his gray eyes fierce as they held her tear-soaked green ones. “Listen to me, young lady. I came out of the war alive—when more than any damned thing, I wanted to die. Your brother forced me to go on; he got me off the bottle and gave me a job and I owe him for that. He said hands-off where you’re concerned, and by God, hands-off it’s going to be. Do you understand me?”

      “You don’t need that for an excuse,” she shot back. “We both know you don’t want me!”

      “Do we?” he asked under his breath.

      The way she looked was tearing him apart. Loyalty to Cole stopped him only for a second. He’d watched her, too, although he hated admitting it. He’d watched her and wanted her for a long time, and only his conscience had kept him from running screaming to her room in the darkness. He wanted her. God, he did! And she wanted him, too. He could see it, almost taste it. Would it be so wrong, just one time, just once to hold her and touch her and end the exquisite torment of desire she aroused in him? Afterward, would she hate him? He tried to think of afterward, but the scent of her—the vulnerable tenderness in those big green eyes—made him reckless. Oh, to hell with it! She was going to give in to somebody, maybe that lousy gangster. So why should he hold back? At least, he wouldn’t hurt her….

      His hands went out to her hips. In his kneeling position, he drew her roughly to his body and pressed her belly into his. He watched the shock in her eyes dilate the pupils until they were black, and he laughed bitterly as he felt her body stiffen in the blatantly intimate embrace.

      “Do you feel that, Katy? Has your Chicago gangster taught you what it means?” he asked suggestively, dragging her hips slowly against the hard thrust of his to let her feel graphically the tangible proof of his desire.

      Her nails bit into the hard round muscles of his arms through his brown-patterned shirt and she trembled. Her eyes were on his mouth now, because what he was showing her embarrassed her.

      “I’ve seen you in your room at night,” he said his lips against her forehead, his voice husky and rough, “standing in front of the curtains to undress, your arms lifted, your breasts straining against those thin gowns you wear. And I’ve gone running into town to have a woman, to forget, to get rid of what you’ve done to me.”

      “I didn’t…know,” she whispered, her voice as unsteady as his. She could feel her breasts swelling against him, even through the two thin layers of fabric. His chest was warm and hard, and she felt the cushy springiness of hair that must cover it.

      “Does he make love to you, that slick gangster?” he whispered.

      “Not—not yet.”

      “Are you going to let him, Katy?” he asked under his breath.

      “Yes!” she said recklessly. “Yes, because you won’t!”

      “Oh, but I will, tidbit,” he breathed, bending. His hands slid down her hips to her waist, then up still farther to her unbound breasts. He cupped their small softness, taking their warm weight, his thumbs teasing the nipples hard. She bit back a cry, and he slid his mouth down to hers to take it into the warm darkness past his lips.

      It was the first kiss, the very first one she’d ever shared with him. Her eyes closed, her head went back to give him full access. Her mouth opened hungrily, eagerly, letting his tongue probe inside, letting it tangle with her own in the hot, still darkness of the barn.

      His fingers had a faint tremor now. She felt them on the buttons of her dress. She stiffened, but she didn’t stop him. This was all she’d have of him when she left with Danny. Because she was going. After this, after what she’d told him, after what she was going to do with him in this dark barn, she’d have to leave.

      “You know what this is going to lead to?” he asked, his mouth poised just above her own as he found the last button at her waist.

      “Yes,”