Lone Star Winter (26 page)

He averted his face, as if the question had wounded him.

“Please leave,” she said through her teeth.

He rammed his hands into his pockets and moved a step closer, looking past her to Bailey. “That horse is useless for ranch work. He's all of twenty.”

“He's my horse,” she replied. “I'm not getting rid of him, whatever happens.”

She felt his lean, powerful body at her back. “Libby,” he began. “About that bank loan…”

“Curt and I are managing just fine, thanks,” she said without turning.

His big, strong hands came down heavily on her shoulders, making her jump. “The bank president is a good friend of the Merrills.”

She pulled away from him and looked up, her unspoken fears in her green eyes. “They can't do anything to us without Janet,” she told him. “She has legal power of attorney.”

“Damn it, I know that!” he muttered. “But it's not
going to stop the bank from foreclosing, don't you see? You can't make the loan payment!”

“What business is that of yours?” she asked bitterly.

He drew in a slow breath. “I can talk to the president of the Jacobsville Merchant Bank for you,” he said. “He might be willing to work out something for the land. You and Curt can't work it, anyway, and you don't have the capital to invest in it. The best you could do is sell off your remaining cattle and give it up.”

She couldn't even manage words. She had no options at all and he had to know it. She could almost hate him.

“We can't sell anything,” she said harshly. “I told you, Janet has power of attorney. And she was named in Daddy's will as the sole holder of the property. We can't even sell a stick of furniture. We're going to have to watch the bank foreclose, Jordan, because Janet has our hands tied. We're going to lose everything Daddy worked for, all his life…”

Her lower lip trembled. She couldn't even finish the sentence.

Jordan stepped forward and wrapped her up tight in his arms, holding her while she cried. “Damn, what a mess!”

She beat a small fist against his massive chest. “Why?” she moaned. “Why?”

His arms tightened. “I don't know, baby,” he whispered at her ear, his voice deep and soothing. “I wish I did.”

She nuzzled closer, drowning in the pleasure of being close to him. It had been so long since he'd held her.

His chest rose and fell heavily. “Kemp's detective hasn't tracked her down yet?”

“Not yet. But she didn't…kill Daddy. The autopsy showed that he died of a heart attack.”

“That's something, I guess,” he murmured.

“But Violet's daddy was poisoned,” she added quietly, her eyes open as they stared past Jordan's broad chest toward his truck parked at the front of the barn. “So they'll still get her for murder, if they can ever find her.”

“Poor Violet,” he said.

“Yes.”

His hand smoothed her hair. It tangled in the wavy soft strands. “You smell of roses, Libby,” he murmured deeply, and the pressure of his arms changed in some subtle way.

She could feel the sudden tautness of his lean body against her, the increasing warmth of his embrace.
But he'd taken Julie's side against her and she wasn't comfortable being in his arms anymore.

She tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let her.

“Don't fight me,” he said gruffly. “You know you don't want to.”

“I don't?”

He lifted his head and looked down into her misty and wet green eyes. His voice was deep with feeling. “You haven't stopped wanting me.”

“I want hot chocolate, too, Jordan, but it still gives me migraine, so I don't drink it,” she said emphatically.

His dark eyebrows lifted. “That's cute. You think you convinced me?”

“Sure,” she lied.

He laughed mirthlessly, letting his dark eyes fall to her lips. “Let's see.”

He bent, drawing his lips slowly, tenderly, across her mouth in a teasing impression of a kiss. He was lazy and gentle and after a few seconds of imitating a plank of wood, her traitorous body betrayed her.

She relaxed into the heat of his body with a shaky little sigh and found herself enveloped in his arms. He kissed her again, hungrily this time, without the tenderness of that first brief exchange.

She moaned and tried to protest the sudden crush of his lean hand at the base of her spine, rubbing her
body against him. But he didn't give her enough breath or strength to protest and the next thing she knew, she was on her back in a stall of fresh hay and his body was completely covering hers.

“No, Jordan,” she protested weakly.

“Yes,” he groaned. His long leg slid lazily against hers, and between them, while his big, warm hands smoothed blatantly over her rib cage, his thumbs sliding boldly right over her breasts. “Don't think,” he whispered against her parted lips. “Just give in. I won't hurt you.”

“I know that,” she whispered. “But…”

He nibbled on her lower lip. His thumbs edged out gently and found her nipples. They moved lazily, back and forth, coaxing the tips into hard little nubs. She shivered with unexpected pleasure.

He lifted his head and looked into her eyes while he did it again. If she was used to this sort of love play, it certainly didn't show. She was pliable, yielded, absolutely fascinated with what he was doing to her body. She liked it.

That was all he needed to know. His leg became insistent between hers, coaxing them to move apart, to admit the slow, exquisite imprint of his hips between her long legs. It was like that day in the alley beyond her office, when she hadn't cared if all of
Jacobsville walked by while he was pressing her aching body against the brick wall. She was drowning in pleasure.

Surely, she thought blindly, it couldn't be wrong to give in to something so sweet! His hands on her body were producing undreamed of sensations. He was giving her pleasure in hot, sweeping waves. He touched her and she ached for more. He kissed her and she lifted against him to find his mouth and coax it into ardor. One of her legs curled helplessly around his powerful thigh and she moaned when he accepted the silent invitation and moved into near intimacy with her.

He was aroused. He was powerful. She felt the hard thrust of him against her body and she wanted to rip off her clothes and invite his hands, his eyes, his body, into complete surrender with her. She wanted to feel the ecstasy she knew he could give her. He was skilled, masterful. He knew what she needed, what she wanted. He could give her pleasure beyond bearing, she knew it.

His lean hands moved under her blouse, searching for closeness, unfastening buttons, invading lace. She felt his fingers brush tenderly, lovingly, over her bare breasts in an intimacy she'd never shared with anyone.

Her dreams of him had been this explicit, but she'd never thought she would live them in such urgent passion. As he touched her, she arched to help him, moved to encourage him. Her mouth opened wide under his. She felt his tongue suddenly thrust into it with violent need.

She moaned loudly, her fingertips gripping the hard muscle of his upper arms as he thrust her blouse and bra up to her throat and bent at once to put his mouth on her breasts.

The warm, moist contact was shattering. She stiffened with the shock of pleasure it produced. He tasted her in a hot, feverish silence, broken only by his urgent breathing and the rough sigh of her own voice in his ear.

“Yes,” he groaned, opening his mouth. “Yes, Libby. Here. Right here. You and me. I can give you more pleasure than damned Harley ever dreamed of giving you!”

Harley. Harley. She felt her body growing cold. “Harley?” she whispered.

He lifted his head and looked down at her breasts with grinding urgency. “He's had you.”

“He has not!” she exclaimed, shocked.

He scowled, in limbo, caught between his insane
need to possess her and his jealousy of the other man.

She took advantage of his indecision by jerking out of his arms and pulling her blouse down as she dragged herself out of the stall. She groped for fastenings while she flushed with embarrassment at what she'd just let him do to her.

She looked devastated. Her hair was full of straw, like her clothes. Her green eyes were wild, her face flushed, her mouth swollen.

He got to his feet, still in the grip of passion, and started toward her. His hat was off. His hair was wild, from her searching fingers, and his shirt was half-open over hair-matted muscle.

“Come back here,” he said huskily, moving forward.

“No!” she said firmly, shivering. “I'm not standing in for Julie Merrill!”

The words stopped him in his tracks. He hesitated, his brows meeting over turbulent dark eyes.

“Remember Julie? Your girlfriend?” she persisted shakily. Throwing his lover in his face was a way to cover her hurt for the insinuation he'd made about her and Harley. “What in the world would she think if she could see you now?”

He straightened, but with an effort. His body was
raging. He wanted Libby. He'd never wanted anyone, anything, as much as he wanted her.

“Julie has nothing to do with this,” he ground out. “I want you!”

“For how long, Jordan?” she asked bitingly. “Ten minutes? Thirty?”

He blinked. His mind wasn't working.

“I am nobody's one-night stand,” she flashed at him. “Not even yours!”

He took a deep breath, then another one. He stared at her blankly while he tried to stop thinking about how sweet it was to feel her body under his hands.

“I want you to leave, now,” she repeated, folding her arms over her loose bra. She could feel the swollen contours of her breasts and remembered with pure shame how it felt to have him touching and kissing them.

“That isn't what you wanted five minutes ago,” he reminded her flatly.

She closed her eyes. “I'm grass-green and stupid,” she said curtly. “It wouldn't be the first time an experienced man seduced an innocent girl.”

“Don't make stupid jokes,” he said icily. “You're no innocent.”

“You believe what you like about me, Jordan, it
doesn't matter anymore,” she interrupted him. “I've got work to do. Why don't you go home?”

He glared at her, frustrated desire riding him hard. He cursed himself for ruining everything by bringing up Harley Fowler. “You're a hard woman, Libby,” he said. “Harder than I ever realized.”

“Goodbye, Jordan,” she said, and she turned away to pick up the curry comb she'd dropped.

He gave her a furious glare and stormed out of the barn to his truck. Bailey jumped as Jordan slammed the door and left skid marks getting out of the driveway. She relaxed then, grateful that she'd managed to save herself from that masterful seduction. She'd had a close call. She had to make sure that Jordan never got so close to her again. She couldn't trust him. Not now.

J
anet was still in hiding before the primary election and probate hadn't begun. But plenty had changed in Jacobsville. Libby and Curt had been forced to move out of the farmhouse where they'd grown up, because the bank had foreclosed.

They hadn't said a word to Jordan about it. Curt moved into the bunkhouse at the Wright ranch where he worked. Libby moved into a boardinghouse where two other Jacobsville career women lived.

Bailey would have had to be boarded and Libby didn't have the money. But she worked out a deal with a dude ranch nearby. Bailey would be used for trail rides for people who were nervous of horses and Libby would
help on the weekends. It wasn't the ideal solution, but it was the only one she had. It was a wrench to give up Bailey, even though it wasn't going to be forever.

Jordan and Julie Merrill were apparently engaged. Or so Julie was saying, and she was wearing a huge diamond on her ring finger. Her father was using every dirty trick in the book to gain his party's candidacy.

Julie Merrill was vehemently outspoken about some unnamed dirty tactics being used against her father in the primary election campaign, and she went on television to make accusations against Calhoun Ballenger.

The next morning, Blake Kemp had her served as the defendant in a defamation lawsuit.

 

“They're not going to win this case,” Julie raged at Jordan. “I want you to get me the best attorney in Austin! We're going to put Calhoun Ballenger right in the gutter where he belongs, along with all these jump-up nouveau riche that think they own our county!”

Jordan, who was one of those jump-ups, gave her a curious look. “Excuse me?” he asked coolly.

“Well, I'm not standing by while Ballenger talks my father's constituents into deserting him!”

“You're the one who's been making allegations, Julie,” Jordan said quietly. “To anyone who was willing to listen.”

She waved that away. “You have to do that to win elections.”

“I'm not going to be party to anything dishonest,” Jordan said through his teeth.

Julie backed down. She curled against him and sighed. “Okay. I'll tone it down, for your sake. But you aren't going to let Calhoun Ballenger sue me, are you?”

Jordan didn't know what he was going to do. He felt uneasy at Julie's temperament and her tactics. He'd taken her side against Kemp when she told him that one of the boys at her graduation party had put something in the Culbertson girl's drink and she couldn't turn him in. She'd cried about Libby Collins making horrible statements against her. But Libby had never done such a thing before.

He'd liked being Julie's escort, being accepted by the social crowd she ran around with. But it was getting old and he was beginning to believe that Julie was only playing up to him for money to put into her father's campaign. Libby had tried to warn him and he'd jumped down her throat. He felt guilty about that, too. He felt guilty about a lot of things lately.

“Listen,” he said. “I think you need to step back and take a good look at what you're doing. Calhoun Ballenger isn't some minor citizen. He and his brother own
a feedlot that's nationally known. Besides that, he has the support of most of the people in Jacobsville with money.”

“My father has the support of the social set,” she began.

“Yes, but Julie, they're the old elite. The demographics have changed in Jacobs County in the past ten years. Look around you. The Harts are a political family from the roots up. Their brother is the state attorney general and he's already casting a serious eye on what's going on in the Jacobsville city council, about those police officers the mayor's trying to suspend.”

“They can't do anything about that,” she argued.

“Julie, the Harts are related to Chief Grier,” he said shortly.

She hesitated. For the first time, she looked uncertain.

“Not only that, they're related to the governor and the vice president. And while it isn't well-known locally, Grier's people are very wealthy.”

She sat down. She ran a hand through her blond hair. “Why didn't you say this before?”

“I tried to,” he pointed out. “You refused to listen.”

“But Daddy can't possibly lose the election,” she said with a child's understanding of things. “He's been state senator from this district for years and years.”

“And now the voters are looking for some new blood,” he told her. “Not only in local government, but in state and national government. You and your father don't really move with the times, Julie.”

“Surely, you don't think Calhoun can beat Daddy?” she asked huskily.

“I think he's going to,” he replied honestly, ramming his hands into his pockets. “He's way ahead of your father in the polls. You know that. You and your father have made some bad enemies trying to have those police officers fired. You've gotten on the wrong side of not only Cash Grier, but the Harts, as well. There will be repercussions. I've already heard talk of a complete recall of the mayor and the city council.”

“But the mayor is Daddy's nephew. How could they…?”

“Don't you know anything about small towns?” he ground out. “Julie, you've spent too much time in Austin with your father and not enough around here where the elections are decided.”

“This is just a hick town,” she said, surprised. “Why should I care what goes on here?”

Jordan's face hardened. “Because Jacobs County is the biggest county in your father's district. He can't get reelected without it. You've damaged his campaign by the way you've behaved to Libby Collins.”

“That nobody?” she scoffed.

“Her father is a direct descendant of old John Jacobs,” he pointed out. “They may not have money and they may not be socially acceptable to you and your father, but the Collinses are highly respected here. The reason Calhoun's got such support is because you've tried to hurt Libby.”

“But that's absurd!”

“She's a good person,” he said, averting his eyes as he recalled his unworthy treatment of her—and of Curt—on Julie's behalf. “She's had some hard knocks recently.”

“So have I,” Julie said hotly. “Most notably, having a lawsuit filed against me for defamation of character by that lawyer Kemp!” She turned to him. “Are you going to get me a lawyer, or do I have to find my own?”

Jordan was cutting his losses while there was still time. He felt like ten kinds of fool for the way he'd behaved in the past few weeks. “I think you'd better do that yourself,” he replied. “I'm not going against Calhoun Ballenger.”

She scoffed. “You'll never get that Collins woman to like you again, no matter what you do,” she said haughtily. “Or didn't you know that she and her brother have forfeited the ranch to the bank?”

He was speechless. “They've what?”

“Nobody would loan them the money they needed to save it,” she said with a cold smile. “So the bank president foreclosed. Daddy had a long talk with him.”

He looked furious. His big fists clenched at his hips. “That was low, Julie.”

“When you want to win, sometimes you have to fight dirty,” she said simply. “You belong to me. I'm not letting some nobody of a little dirt rancher take you away from me. We need you.”

“I don't belong to you,” he returned, scooping up his hat. “In fact, I've never felt dirtier than I do right now.”

She gaped at him. “I beg your pardon! You can't talk to me like that!”

“I just did.” He started toward the door.

“You're no loss, Jordan,” she yelled after him. “We needed your money, but I never wanted you! You're one of those jump-ups with no decent background. I'm sorry I ever invited you here the first time. I'm ashamed that I told my friends I liked you!”

“That makes two of us,” he murmured icily, and he went out the door without a backward glance.

 

Kemp was going over some notes with Libby when Jordan Powell walked into the office without bothering to knock.

“I'd like to talk to Libby for a minute,” he said solemnly, hat in hand.

Libby stared at him blankly. “I can't think what you have to say,” she replied. “I'm very busy.”

“She is,” Kemp replied. “I'm due in court in thirty minutes.”

“Then I'll come back in thirty minutes,” Jordan replied.

“Feel free, but I won't be here. I have nothing to say to you, Jordan,” she told him bluntly. “You turned your back on me when I needed you the most. I don't need you now. I never will again.”

“Listen,” he began impatiently.

“No.” She turned back to Kemp. “What were you saying, boss?”

Kemp hesitated. He could see the pain in Jordan's face and he had some idea that Jordan had just found out the truth about Julie Merrill. He checked his watch. “Listen, I can read your writing. Just give me the pad and I'll get to the courthouse. It's okay,” he added when she looked as if he were deserting her to the enemy. “Really.”

She bit her lower lip hard. “Okay.”

“Thanks,” Jordan said stiffly, as Kemp got up from the desk.

“You owe me one,” he replied, as he passed the taciturn rancher on the way out the door.

 

Minutes later, Mabel went into Kemp's office to put some notes on his desk, leaving Jordan and Libby alone.

“I've made some bad mistakes,” he began stiffly. He hated apologies. Usually, he found ways not to make them. But he'd hurt Libby too badly not to try.

She was staring at her keyboard, trying not to listen.

“You have to understand what it's been like for me,” he said hesitantly. He sat down in a chair next to her desk, with his wide-brimmed hat in his hands. “My people were like yours, poor. My mother had money, but her people disinherited her when she married my dad. I never had two nickels to rub together. I was that Powell kid, whose father worked for wages, whose mother was reduced to working as a housekeeper.” He stared at the floor with his pride aching. “I wanted to be somebody, Libby. That's all I ever wanted. Just to have respect from the people who mattered in this town.” He shrugged. “I thought going around with Julie would give me that.”

“I don't suppose you noticed that her father belongs
to a group of respectable people who no longer have any power around here,” she said stiffly.

He sighed. “No, I didn't. I had my head turned. She was beautiful and rich and cultured, and she came at me like a hurricane. I was in over my head before I knew it.”

Libby, who wasn't beautiful or rich or cultured, felt her heart breaking. She knew all this, but it hurt to hear him admit it. Because it meant that those hungry, sweet kisses she'd shared with him meant nothing at all. He wanted Julie.

“I've broken it off with her,” he said bluntly.

Libby didn't say anything.

“Did you hear me?” he asked impatiently.

She looked up at him with disillusioned eyes. “You believed her. She said I was shacking up with Harley Fowler. She said I attacked her in this office and hurt her feelings. You believed all that, even though you knew me. And when she attacked me in Barbara's Café and on the courthouse steps, you didn't say a thing.”

He winced.

“Words don't mean anything, Powell,” she said bitterly. “You can sit there and apologize and try to smooth over what you did for the rest of your life, but I won't listen. When I needed you, you turned your back on me.”

He drew in a long breath. “I guess I did.”

“I can understand that you were flattered by her attention,” she said. “But Curt and I have lost everything we had. Our father is dead and we don't even have a home anymore.”

He moved his hat in his hands. “You could move in with me.”

She laughed bitterly. “Thanks.”

“No, listen,” he said earnestly, leaning forward.

She held up a hand. “Don't. I've had all the hard knocks I can handle. I don't want anything from you, Jordan. Not anything at all.”

He wanted to bite something. He felt furious at his own stupidity, at his blind allegiance to Julie Merrill and her father, at his naivete in letting them use him. He felt even worse about the way he'd turned on Libby. But he was afraid of what he'd felt for her, afraid of her youth, her changeability. Now he only felt like a fool.

“Thanks for the offer and the apology,” she added heavily. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to work.”

She turned on the computer, brought up her work screen and shut Jordan out of her sight and mind.

He got up slowly and moved toward the door. He hesitated at it, glancing back at her. “What about the autopsy?” he asked suddenly.

She swallowed hard. “Daddy died of a heart attack, just like the doctors said,” she replied.

He sighed. “And Violet's father?”

“Was poisoned,” she replied.

“Riddle had a lucky escape,” he commented. “So did you and Curt.”

She didn't look at him. “I just hope they can find her, before she kills some other poor old man.”

He nodded. After a minute, he gave her one last soulful glance and went out the door.

 

Life went on as usual. Calhoun's campaign staff cranked up the heat. Libby spent her free time helping to make up flyers and make telephone calls, offering to drive voters to the polls during the primary election if they didn't have a way to get to the polls.

“You know, I really think Calhoun's going to win,” Curt told Libby while they were having a quick lunch together on Saturday, after she got off from work.

She smiled. “So do I. He's got all kinds of support.”

He picked at his potato chips. “Heard from Jordan?”

She stiffened. “He came by the office to apologize a few days ago.”

He drew in a long breath. “Rumor is that Julie Merrill's courting Duke Wright now.”