Part of the Bargain. Linda Lael Miller

well with him, but she’d been sure that he cared deeply for Cathy. Hadn’t he been the one to insist that Stace and Libby learn signing, as he had, so that everyone could talk to the frightened, confused little girl who couldn’t hear? Hadn’t he gifted Cathy with cherished bullfrogs and clumsily made valentines and even taken her to the high-school prom?

      How could Jess, of all people, be the one to hurt Cathy, when he knew as well as anyone how badly she’d been hurt by her handicap and the rejection of her own parents? How?

      Libby had no answer for any of these questions. She knew only that she had separate scores to settle with both the Barlowe brothers.

      And settle them she would.

      Chapter 2

      Libby sat at the end of the rickety swimming dock, bare feet dangling, shoulders slumped, her gaze fixed on the shimmering waters of the pond. The lines of her long, slender legs were accentuated, rather than disguised, by the old blue jeans she wore. A white eyelet suntop sheltered shapely breasts and a trim stomach and left the rest of her upper body bare.

      Jess Barlowe studied her in silence, feeling things that were at wide variance with his personal opinion of the woman. He was certain that he hated Libby, but something inside him wanted, nonetheless, to touch her, to comfort her, to know the scent and texture of her skin.

      A reluctant grin tilted one corner of his mouth. One tug at the top of that white eyelet and…

      Jess caught his skittering thoughts, marshaled them back into stern order. As innocent and vulnerable as Libby Kincaid looked at the moment, she was a viper, willing to betray her own cousin to get what she wanted.

      Jess imagined Libby naked, her glorious breasts free and welcoming. But the man in his mental scenario was not himself—it was Stacey. The thought lay sour in Jess’s mind.

      “Did you come to apologize, by any chance?”

      The question so startled Jess that he flinched; he had not noticed that Libby had turned around and seen him, so caught up had he been in the vision of her giving herself to his brother.

      He scowled, as much to recover his wits as to oppose her. It was and always had been his nature to oppose Libby Kincaid, the way electricity opposes water, and it annoyed him that, for all his travels and his education, he didn’t know why.

      “Why would I want to do that?” he shot back, more ruffled by her presence than he ever would have admitted.

      “Maybe because you were a complete ass,” she replied in tones as sunny as the big sky stretched out above them.

      Jess lifted his hands to his hips and stood fast against whatever it was that was pulling him toward her. I want to make love to you, he thought, and the truth of that ground in his spirit as well as in his loins.

      There was pain in Libby’s navy blue eyes, as well as a cautious mischief. “Well?” she prodded.

      Jess found that while he could keep himself from going to her, he could not turn away. Maybe her net reached farther than he’d thought. Maybe, like Stacey and that idiot in New York, he was already caught in it.

      “I’m not here to apologize,” he said coldly.

      “Then why?” she asked with chiming sweetness.

      He wondered if she knew what that shoulderless blouse of hers was doing to him. Damn. He hadn’t been this tongue-tied since the night of his fifteenth birthday, when Ginny Hillerman had announced that she would show him hers if he would show her his.

      Libby’s eyes were laughing at him. “Jess?”

      “Is your dad here?” he threw out in gruff desperation.

      One shapely, gossamer eyebrow arched. “You know perfectly well that he isn’t. If Dad were home, his pickup truck would be parked in the driveway.”

      Against his will, Jess grinned. His taut shoulders rose in a shrug. The shadows of cottonwood leaves moved on the old wooden dock, forming a mystical path—a path that led to Libby Kincaid.

      She patted the sun-warmed wood beside her. “Come and sit down.”

      Before Jess could stop himself, he was striding along that small wharf, sinking down to sit beside Libby and dangle his booted feet over the sparkling water. He was never entirely certain what sorcery made him ask what he did.

      “What happened to your marriage, Libby?”

      The pain he had glimpsed before leapt in her eyes and then faded away again, subdued. “Are you trying to start another fight?”

      Jess shook his head. “No,” he answered quietly, “I really want to know.”

      She looked away from him, gnawing at her lower lip with her front teeth. All around them were ranch sounds—birds conferring in the trees, leaves rustling in the wind, the clear pond water lapping at the mossy pilings of the dock. But no sound came from Libby.

      On an impulse, Jess touched her mouth with the tip of one index finger. Water and electricity—the analogy came back to him with a numbing jolt.

      “Stop that,” he barked, to cover his reactions.

      Libby ceased chewing at her lip and stared at him with wide eyes. Again he saw the shadow of that nameless, shifting ache inside her. “Stop what?” she wanted to know.

      Stop making me want to hold you, he thought. Stop making me want to tuck your hair back behind your ears and tell you that everything will be all right. “Stop biting your lip!” he snapped aloud.

      “I’m sorry!” Libby snapped back, her eyes shooting indigo sparks.

      Jess sighed and again spoke involuntarily. “Why did you leave your husband, Libby?”

      The question jarred them both: Libby paled a little and tried to scramble to her feet; Jess caught her elbow in one hand and pulled her down again.

      “Was it because of Stacey?”

      She was livid. “No!”

      “Someone else?”

      Tears sprang up in Libby’s dark lashes and made then spiky. She wrenched free of his hand but made no move to rise again and run away. “Sure!” she gasped. “‘If it feels good, do it’—that’s my motto! By God, I live by those words!”

      “Shut up,” Jess said in a gentle voice.

      Incredibly, she fell against him, wept into the shoulder of his blue cotton workshirt. And it was not a delicate, calculating sort of weeping—it was a noisy grief.

      Jess drew her close and held her, broken on the shoals of what she was feeling even though he did not know its name. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely.

      Libby trembled beneath his arm and wailed like a wounded calf. The sound solidified into a word usually reserved for stubborn horses and income-tax audits.

      Jess laughed and, for a reason he would never understand, kissed her forehead. “I love it when you flatter me,” he teased.

      Miraculously, Libby laughed, too. But when she tilted her head back to look up at him, and he saw the tear streaks on her beautiful, defiant face, something within him, something that had always been disjointed, was wrenched painfully back into place.

      He bent his head and touched his lips to hers, gently, in question. She stiffened, but then, at the cautious bidding of his tongue, her lips parted slightly and her body relaxed against his.

      Jess pressed Libby backward until she lay prone on the shifting dock, the kiss unbroken. As she responded to that kiss, it seemed that the sparkling water-light of the pond danced around them both in huge, shimmering chips, that they were floating inside some cosmic prism.

      His hand went to the full roundness of her left breast. Beneath his palm and the thin layer of white eyelet, he felt the nipple grow taut