Lacy. Diana Palmer

stop? She knew he didn’t love her, but she’d thought the experience with him would be profound, reverent. And it had only been sex. Very pleasurable, very nice. But without his love, it was only physical. She wondered if she’d always remember it with the same degree of bitterness.

      She pulled the chemise over her head and then pulled on her dress. Behind her, she heard him putting his own clothes back on and tried not to remember the beauty of his body without them. Hard muscles covered with dark blond hair, strength and beauty in every sinew. She’d never forget this. He would, of course. There would be other women. Her eyes closed; she didn’t want to know about them. She was only one in a line, and that’s all she would ever be. Now she wouldn’t even have the dignity of being the one that got away. And when it was too late, she finally understood why he’d kept his distance. He’d wanted her to keep her illusions. Now she had none left.

      With her hand on the last button, she stepped into her wide-heeled shoes and turned to face him with her chin proudly lifted.

      “Thanks for the lesson,” she said quietly.

      He actually winced. “No,” he said under his breath, searching her dark, wounded green eyes. “No, don’t make it into something cheap. It wasn’t.”

      Her lower lip trembled, threatening to leave her defenseless. She forced herself to smile. “Okay.”

      He moved forward, catching her arms as she tried to get away, to run.

      “Don’t go,” he said. “Don’t let that man make you into a plaything. He’ll use you and throw you out.”

      She looked up, loving him with her eyes. “So long, cowboy.” She smiled faintly, sadly. “I loved you, Turk,” she whispered. She touched his hard face, feeling the muscles harden. “I always will, until I die. I may have other men, but I’ll never give all of myself again.”

      “He’ll hurt you!” he ground out, hating this, hating the pain. He hadn’t expected that it would hurt when she left, that he wouldn’t be able to take her in his stride and walk away.

      She touched her fingers to his firm mouth. “No. You’ve seen to that,” she said, her voice exquisitely tender. “No one could possibly have made it as perfect as you did. He won’t hurt me.” Her eyes searched his one last time, sad and resigned. “I’ll love you until I die, Turk.”

      She turned and moved quickly away, so that he wouldn’t see the tears. It was good-bye. They both knew it.

      Long after she’d left, Turk sat on the steps of the barn loft, smoking a cigarette, his eyes blank and sad. After Lorene, he’d never wanted anyone else, not permanently. He’d wanted to have Katy; he couldn’t deny that. He’d only kept his distance so long because he’d promised Cole. But now…

      His body ached. Despite the feverish fulfillment he’d had with her, a completion he’d never known with another woman, ever, he was hungry all over again. He remembered her small, taut breasts under his chest, the nipples arousing him as they rubbed against his muscles….

      He got up abruptly and took the cigarette outside to grind it out under the heel of his boot. His face set into harsh lines, he went back toward the house. He owed Cole so much, but there had to be a way out of this. Maybe he could talk to her, maybe they could work something out.

      It had only been thirty minutes or so since she’d left the barn, long enough to smoke three cigarettes. So it came as a shock when he got to the house and found it empty.

      Cassie came back into the kitchen from the pantry to find him staring toward the staircase.

      “If you looking for Miss Katy,” she said shortly, “she ain’t here. She done gone, luggage and all, with that Chicago gangster.”

      He felt his heart sinking. He turned, his eyes dark, quiet. “When?”

      “Not five minutes ago.” She sighed. “Mr. Cole going to be like a wild man. And how is I going to tell Miss Marion?” Her tired, lined eyes misted. “My baby, gone off with that—that man! How come you let her go, Mr. Turk?” she demanded.

      “She’s of age,” he said harshly, when all his fighting instincts were screaming for him to go after the man and kill him. But what could he offer her? He didn’t want to get married. And after what had happened, it would be impossible all the way around if she stayed here. His friendship with Cole would be at risk; Katy would grow to hate him. And that Chicago man did seem sincere enough, explaining patiently to Turk the night before that their late arrival had been innocent. He cared about Katy, he’d told Turk. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. Perhaps he’d marry her…

      Why should that hurt so much? He turned on his heels and stalked out of the house. Cassie was crying softly as he went out the door.

      The shock was almost too much for Marion Whitehall. She came home to a tearful Cassie and was hit with the news just as she put her purse down on the hall table.

      Her elegant features contorted; her dark eyes filled with tears under their frame of curling, silvery hair. “Gone?” she exclaimed. “My Katy, gone? To—to live with a man? Why didn’t someone stop her?”

      “Mr. Turk got here too late, and Mr. Cole ain’t come home yet, that’s why,” Cassie moaned. “And I was out in the garden. Nobody was here to stop her. Mr. Turk said she was of age—and he just stomped off somewhere in a temper. Mr. Cole going to be so mad!”

      Marion sat down. She felt sick all the way to her shoes. Katy. Her baby. How could she do this? “Has Ben come home?” she asked.

      “I doesn’t think so,” Cassie said, sobbing. “He didn’t come down for breakfast, so I looks in his room, and he ain’t been in it. So I reckon he ain’t here. Oh, Lord! What a terrible day this is! What a terrible homecoming for Mr. Cole!”

      Marion felt the tears running down her cheeks. “Did she leave a message? A note? Anything?”

      “I’ll go look,” Cassie said, ambling toward the staircase.

      Just then, the front door flew open, and Ben Whitehall came rushing through it, his dark eyes wild, his dark hair disheveled like his once-immaculate gray suit. “I got it!” he burst out, “I got it! I got it! He hired me!”

      He grabbed Cassie and spun her around in an impromptu dance, too exuberant to notice that nobody was smiling. “I’m going to work for a brand spanking new San Antonio newspaper.” He laughed. “They hired me to write news. I’ve been out with the owner and his daughter, and I have to go back—” He stopped, frowning as the somber faces of his mother and housekeeper penetrated his enthusiasm. He let go of Cassie. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

      “Your sister just left for Chicago,” Marion said miserably, her face a study in desperation and shame. “To live with the owner of a speakeasy!”

      Chapter

       Four

      Ben’s face froze. He straightened, running an idle hand through his thick, dark hair. He stared at his mother. “She left with that gangster?” he asked, as if he could hardly believe what he’d heard. “Why didn’t somebody stop her?”

      “Turk apparently didn’t get here in time,” Marion said quietly, her eyes wet with tears. “My little girl…in that terrible place! Oh, Ben! What will become of her?”

      “Now, Mama,” Ben said awkwardly. He knelt before her, rubbing her hands in his. “Mama, she’s a big girl. Are you sure they aren’t getting married?”

      “I don’t know,” she said. “Cassie’s looking for a note or something. Why did she do it?” she asked, lifting eyes as dark as his own to question him. “She’s been so wild lately, but I never expected her to do anything like this. Ben—” she leaned forward urgently “—Coleman will kill him.”

      “Yes, I know,” he said. It was the truth, too. Cole had a hell of a temper, and he doted on Katy. He wouldn’t put