Diana Palmer Texan Lovers

There were two full ashtrays in front of Justin, and one half-empty whisky glass. The older man drank on occasion, but usually not when he was angry. If he did, he limited himself to one drink. The glass was what told Calhoun how angry his older brother was.

Calhoun sat down across from him, leaning back to study the older man. “She was lonely,” he told Justin.

Justin drained his glass and rose, his eyes blacker than Calhoun had seen them in a long time. “Then I’ll see what I can do about it.”

While Calhoun was catching his breath, Justin walked to Shelby’s table. He didn’t say a word. He looked at the woman until her face colored, then simply held out his hand. She put hers into it. He pulled her onto the dance floor, and they melted into each other to a slow, dreamy tune.

Abby sighed as she watched them. They were stiff, as if there were more than just space between them, but the look on Shelby’s face was hauntingly beautiful. His expression was less easily read, hard and rigid. But Abby would have bet that he was as close to heaven as he’d been in six years.

“How about that for a surprise?” Tyler murmured over her head, watching. “My God, look at them. They’re like two halves of a whole.”

“Why did they ever split up?” she asked him.

“I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “I think my father was mixed up in it somehow, and one of his friends. But Shelby never talks about it. All I know is that she gave him back his ring and he’s been bitter ever since.”

As the music ended, the couple stopped dancing. Justin released Shelby very slowly and abruptly turned and walked out of the dance hall. After a minute, Shelby went back and sat down. Calhoun returned to the table.

Abby, turning to watch Calhoun bend toward Shelby, felt even sicker when she saw Shelby get up and leave the building, holding Calhoun’s arm.

She toughed it out for several more dances, but when Calhoun didn’t come back, she finally realized that he’d more than likely taken Shelby home. And was still there…

“Can we go home, Ty?” she asked huskily.

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” Ty asked, his voice full of sympathy.

“I’m tired,” Abby replied, and it was no lie. She really was. She was tired of watching Calhoun in action. First the blonde, now Shelby, and all in one week. But plain little Abby didn’t figure in his world. She didn’t even matter. She looked up at Ty, her eyes misty with unshed tears. “Do you mind?”

“Of course I mind,” he said gently. “But if that’s what you want, we’ll go.”

Abby didn’t speak all the way home. It was unlike Calhoun to deliberately start trouble. It was almost as if he were getting back at Justin for something, but for what? Justin hadn’t done anything to him.

Tyler walked her up the steps onto the long front porch with its graceful arches and porch furniture.

“Sorry the evening ended so abruptly,” Tyler said. “But I hope you had fun.”

“I did, honestly,” she said, smiling up at him.

He took a deep breath and bent toward her hesitantly. When she didn’t resist, he brushed his mouth gently against hers. There was no response, and after a minute he lifted his dark head.

His green eyes searched hers, and he wasn’t smiling. “You don’t have a clue, do you, honey?” he asked gently. “And I think it’s lack of interest more than just lack of experience.”

“You think I’m green as grass, too, I guess,” she sighed miserably.

He cocked an eyebrow and tweaked her chin with his lean fingers. “So that’s how it is.” He pursed his lips. “Well, little Abby, with some cooperation from you I could take care of the green part in about five minutes. But I think that’s a lesson the man you’re mooning over should teach you.” He touched his lips to her forehead. “I hope he appreciates his good luck. You’re a special girl.”

“He doesn’t think so, but I’m glad you do.” She looked up at him with a faint smile. “I wish it could be you.”

His expression hardened for just an instant before the old mocking humor came back. “So do I. Want to go to dinner one night? Just a friendly dinner. I know when a door’s being closed, so you won’t have any worries on that score.”

Her smile grew brighter. “You’re a nice man.”

“Not always.” He touched her cheek gently. “Good night.”

“Good night, Tyler. I had a good time.”

“So did I.”

He took the steps two at a time, and Abby stood quietly, watching him drive off. It was a long time before she turned and went into the house.

She closed the front door and started toward the staircase, only to be stopped in her tracks by an off-key rendition of a Mexican drinking song. Somewhere in the back of her mind she recognized it as one Justin sang on the very rare occasions when he had had too many glasses of whiskey.

Chapter Seven

Abby went all the way inside the house and closed the door. Then she slipped down the hall to the study and peeked in.

Justin was holding a square whiskey glass. It was empty. He was sprawled on the leather sofa with his dark hair in his eyes and his shirt rumpled, one big boot propped on the spotless leather seat, singing for all he was worth. On the coffee table beside him were a smokeless ashtray, a crumpled cigarette pack, a fresh cigarette pack, and half a bottle of whiskey.

“No puedo hacer…” He stopped at the sound of her footsteps and looked up at her with bloodshot eyes.

“Oh, Justin,” she moaned.

“Hello, Abby. Want a snort?”

She grimaced at the glass he held up. “It’s empty,” she told him.

He stared at it. “Damn. I guess it is. Well, I’ll fill it up, then.”

He threw his leg off the sofa, almost ending up on the floor in the process.

Abby put down her purse and coat and helped him onto the sofa. “Justin, this won’t help,” she said. “You know it won’t.”

“She cried,” Justin murmured. “Damn it, she cried. And he took her home. I want to kill him, Abby,” he said, his eyes blazing, his voice harsh. “My own brother, and I want to kill him because he went off with her!”

She bit her lower lip. She didn’t know what to say, what to do. Justin never drank, and he never complained. But he looked as if he were dying, and Abby could sympathize. She’d felt that way, too, when Calhoun had left with Shelby.

“I saw them go,” he ground out. He put his face in his lean hands and sighed heavily. “She’s part of me. Still part of me after all the years, all the pain. Calhoun knew it, Abby, he did it deliberately….”

“Calhoun loves you,” she defended him. “He wouldn’t hurt you on purpose.”

“Any man could fall in love with her,” he kept on. “Shelby’s beautiful. A dream walking.”

Abby knew how attractive Shelby was. The knowledge didn’t help her own sense of failure, her own lack of confidence or her breaking heart.

“Drinking isn’t the answer,” she said softly. She touched his arm. “Justin, get some sleep.”

“How can I sleep when he’s with her?”

“He won’t be for long. Tyler just went home,” she said tautly.

He took a deep breath, letting it out in jerks. His hands came away from his eyes. “I don’t know much about women, Abby,” he said absently. “I don’t have Calhoun’s charm, or his experience, or his looks.”

She felt a sense of kinship with him then, because she had the same problem. Justin had always seemed so self-assured that she’d never thought of him having the same doubts and fears that she did.

“And I don’t have Shelby’s assets,” Abby confessed. She sat down beside him. “I guess we’d both lose a beauty contest. I wish I was blond, Justin.”

“I wish I had a black book.” Justin sighed.

She grinned at him, and he grinned back. He poured whiskey into the glass, getting half again as much on the heavy coffee table. “Here,” he offered it to her. “To hell with both of them. Have a shot of ego salve.”

“Thanks, masked man,” she sighed, taking it. “Don’t mind if I do.”

It tasted horrible. “Can you really drink this stuff and live?” she wondered. “It smells like what you put in the gas tank.”

“It’s Scotch whiskey,” he returned. “Cutty Sark.”

“It would cutty a shark all right,” she mused, sipping it.

“Not cutty a shark. Cutty Shark. Sark. Hell.” He took the glass and finished what little whiskey she’d left. “Now, if you’re going to drink Cutty Sark, Abby, you have to learn to sing properly. I’ll teach you this song I learned down in Mexico, okay?”

And he proceeded to do just that. When Calhoun walked in the front door about thirty minutes later, there was a very loud off-key chorus coming from the study.

He stared in the door incredulously. Justin was lying back on the sofa, his hair in his eyes, one knee lifted, a whiskey bottle in his hand. Abby was lying against his uplifted knee, her legs thrown over the coffee table, sipping from a whiskey glass. She looked as disreputable as his brother did, and both of them looked soaked to the back teeth.

“What in hell is going on?” Calhoun asked as he leaned against the doorjamb.

“We hate you,” Abby informed him, lifting her glass in a toast.

“Amen.” Justin grinned.

“And just as soon as we get through drinking and singing, we’re going to go down to the feedlot and open all the gates, and you can spend the rest of the night chasing cows.” She smiled drunkenly. “Justin and I figure that’s what you do best, anyway. Chasing females, that is. So it doesn’t matter what species, does it, old buddy?” she asked Justin, twisting her head back against his knee.

“Nope,” Justin agreed. He lifted the whiskey bottle to his lips, rolling backward a little as he sipped it.

“We were going to lock you out,” Abby added, blinking, “but we couldn’t get up to put on the chain latches.”

“My God.” Calhoun shook his head at the spectacle they made. “I wish I had a camera.”

“What for?” Justin asked pleasantly.

“Never mind.” Calhoun unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves. “I’ll make some black coffee.”

“Don’t want any,” Abby murmured drowsily. “It would mess up our systems.”

“That’s right,” Justin agreed.

“You’ll see messed-up systems by morning, all right.” Calhoun grimaced and moved off toward the kitchen.

“We should check his collar for lipstick!” Abby told Justin in a stage whisper.

“Good idea,” Justin frowned. He started to sit up, then fell back against the arm of the sofa, cradling the bottle. “In a minute. I have to rest first.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “I’ll do it.” She yawned. “When he gets back.” Her eyes closed.

By the time Calhoun got back, they were both snoring. The whiskey bottle was lying on the floor, with the neck in Justin’s lean hand. Calhoun righted it and put it on the table along with Abby’s empty glass. The sight of them was as puzzling as it was amusing. Both Justin and Abby were usually the teetotalers at any gathering, and here they were soused. He wondered if his leaving with Shelby had set them off and realized that it probably had. In Justin’s case it was understandable. But Abby’s state was less easily understood, after the way she’d treated him since he’d kissed her. Unless…

He frowned, his dark eyes quiet and curious as he watched her flushed, sleeping face. Unless she’d finally realized why he’d been rough with her and was regretting her hot words. Was that possible? She’d seemed jealous of the time he’d spent with Shelby at the dance, and here she was three sheets to the wind. Well, well. Miracles did happen, it seemed.

He still wasn’t sure about Tyler Jacobs’s feelings toward Abby, but at least now he didn’t have to worry about Justin’s. If just seeing his brother with Shelby had this effect on Justin, he was still crazy about Shelby.

Calhoun lifted Abby and sat her crookedly in a chair while he laid Justin down on the sofa, pulled the older man’s big boots off and covered him with one of the colorful serapes that were draped on chairs all over the room. Then he swung Abby up in his arms, balanced her on his knee while he turned off the overhead light, and closed the study door. Justin was going to hate himself in the morning.

Abby stirred as he carried her up the staircase. Her eyes flickered open, and she stared up drunkenly at the hard, quiet face above hers.

“You’re with Shelby,” she muttered drowsily. “We know you are. We know what you’re doing, too.” She laughed bitterly, then sighed and broke into the Mexican song Justin had taught her.

“Stop that.” Calhoun scowled at her. “My God, you shouldn’t use language like that.”

“What language?”

“That song Justin taught you,” he muttered, topping the staircase and heading down the hall toward her room. “It’s vulgar as all hell.”

“He didn’t say it was.”

“Of course he didn’t. He wouldn’t have taught it to you if he’d been sober. He’ll have a heart attack if he hears you singing it when he’s back on his feet.”

“Want me to teach it to you?” she asked.

“I already know it.”

“That isn’t surprising,” she sighed. She closed her eyes as he walked through the open door into her room and kicked it shut behind him. There were memories in this room, he thought angrily as he headed toward the bed. Abby, half-naked on that pink coverlet. Abby’s soft body under his against that far wall—where she’d put a bookcase. He frowned at it. The new furniture arrangement was fairly revealing. Why would she shift the bookcase there unless it bothered her to remember?

He laid her down on the bed and watched her curl up. “No, you don’t,” he murmured. “You can’t go to sleep like that.”

She yawned. “Yes, I can.”

He pulled off her shoes, and after a moment’s hesitation his hard fingers went to her skirt. He removed it and about a hundred layers of full underskirts, and then her panty hose and blouse. Under it all, she was wearing dainty pink lace briefs and a matching bra that was no cover at all over her full, firm breasts.

This, he thought as he looked at her, was a hell of a mistake. But she was the most delicious little morsel. Her body was perfect, the most beautiful he’d seen in his life. And when he realized just how innocent she was, how untouched, his body rippled with pleasure mingled with need.

She sighed then, and her eyes opened. She searched his face, watching where his gaze had fallen. “You undressed me,” she said.

“You couldn’t sleep in that rig,” he replied tautly.

“I guess not.” She knew it should bother her that he was seeing her like this, in those wispy pink things she’d been crazy enough to buy at Misty’s insistence. But if the way he was staring at her was any indication, he seemed to like what he saw.

“Do you have pajamas or a gown?” he asked after a minute.

“A gown. Under my pillow.”

He managed to make his legs move and took out a bit of material that would cover no more of her than her underwear. “You’ll freeze to death in this thing,” he muttered.

“Misty said it was a sexy outfit,” she said drowsily. She moved, her long hair framing her oval face with its delicate flush, her pale blue-gray eyes enormous as they searched the faintly blurred outline of his body. “I thought I’d seduce Ty,” she added. “He likes me.”

His face hardened. “Like hell you will,” he said shortly.

“You did that to Shelby,” she accused. “Shame on you, when Justin loves her.”

“I didn’t touch Shelby,” he returned. “I left her at her front door and went back to the dance hall looking for you.”

“I wasn’t there,” she murmured.

“Obviously.” He didn’t mention that he’d had to fight the urge to go looking for Tyler’s car in case he and Abby were parked somewhere. The thought of her with Ty made him want to do something violent.

“Justin is going to beat you up when he can stand up again,” she told him gaily.

“I guess he’s entitled.” Calhoun sighed. “I sure as hell made a mess of things.” He sat down beside her, his eyes reluctantly leaving the long, sweet line of her legs and hips and the open seductiveness of her almost-bare breasts. “Do you know how perfect you are?” he said absently.

She was suddenly cold sober. Her eyes opened wide, searching his. “Me?”

“You,” he said harshly. “From your legs to your hips to those sweet, pretty brea—” He stopped, hating his own vulnerability. “Come here.” He put the gown in her lap and drew her into a sitting position, watching the tips of her firm breasts suddenly harden. He caught his breath.

She looked up at him curiously. “What’s wrong?”

“This.” He touched her delicately, only the back of his knuckles rubbing softly against her nipples. She pulled away, her breath audible, and he lifted his head to search her shocked eyes.

She looked back at him, relaxed from the alcohol, all her deeply buried longings surfacing without the restraint of a usually protective mind. She touched the back of his hand and intertwined her fingers with his. And then she pulled gently, watching as she drew his hand across her breasts.

“Abby…” he ground out.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “About what I said that morning. About how I…reacted.” She swallowed, searching for courage. She opened his fingers and pressed them hesitantly just underneath her breast, lifting them so that he could feel the swell against his skin.

“Don’t, for God’s sake,” he groaned.

She moved his hand against her, drowning in the sweetness of his touch, arching toward it. Both her hands went there, pushing his fingers completely over her. “Calhoun,” she moaned. She felt so weak that she thought she’d have to lie down again, but she couldn’t let go of his hand.

“You aren’t sober enough,” he whispered roughly, although the feel of her was doing terrible things to his self-control. He was already going rigid with need as he followed her down.

“I’m not sober enough to be afraid,” she whispered. Her eyes searched his glittering eyes. “Teach me.”

He actually shuddered. “I can’t.”

“Why?” she asked. “Because I’m plain and unsophisticated, because I’m not blond—” Her voice broke.

So did his control. He leaned down, his smoky breath mingling with hers as his hand cupped her. “Because you’re a virgin,” he breathed into her mouth as he took it.

She moaned. It was sweet, so sweet. Nothing like that other time, when he’d been rough and hadn’t given her enough room to respond. He’d been impatient and demanding, but now he was gentle. His fingers stroked her body from her breasts to her waist to her flat stomach. His mouth teased at hers, probed it, traced it in a silence that was thick with sensual pleasure. Abby felt warm all over, safe and cared-about. She let her lips admit the probing of his tongue, admit him into the sweet darkness of her mouth. She didn’t even protest when the kiss grew much deeper, much slower, or when she felt his hand slide under her to find the catch at her back.

The air was cool on her body. He removed the lacy covering that was no covering at all, and his hands were heaven on her hot skin. She moaned, helping him, pressing his fingers against her, drawing them over her hungry body.

“Abby,” he groaned against her mouth, half-crazy with the hunger to make love to her completely, to salve the ache that was throbbing through his body.

She opened her eyes, letting her gaze fall lazily to his chest. Her hands went to his shirt, and she worked at the buttons, feeling him tense. But he didn’t protest, even though his heartbeat was shaking his big body as it lay beside hers.

“There,” she whispered when she could see and touch the thick wedge of hair that ran down to his belt. “I’ll bet women love to touch you there,” she murmured as she pressed her fingers hungrily against him.

“I’ve never let a woman touch me like this before,” he said huskily. “I didn’t like it until now.”

Her eyes searched his, and she shifted restlessly on the coverlet, hungry, aching for something without a name, without an image.

“What do you want?” he asked gruffly, searching her eyes. “Tell me. I’ll do anything you want me to.”

She swallowed, and her lips parted unsteadily. She took his head in her hands and tugged at it, lifting her body. And he understood without her having to put it into words.

“Here?” he whispered tenderly, and put his open mouth completely over the swollen tip of her breast.

She moaned helplessly. It was beyond her wildest imaginings of what passion would feel like. Her body was in control. Her mind could only watch, it couldn’t slow down what was happening. She twisted the cool, thick strands of his blond hair while he smoothed his warm mouth over her breasts and stomach, her faint cries encouraging him, her body welcoming him.

His mouth slid back up to meet hers. And as she opened her own lips to welcome him, she felt his body slowly cover her.

Her eyes opened then as his mouth lifted fractionally, and she watched his face, hard with passion, as his body fit itself perfectly to her slenderness.

She barely breathed, her eyes wide and full of new knowledge as she felt him intimately and knew without words how badly he wanted her.

“Are you afraid this time?” he whispered quietly.

“I should be,” she replied. She reached up and touched his face as he drew his chest slowly, teasingly over her breasts. Her breath caught, but she traced his eyebrows, his cheeks, his mouth with fingers that trembled and adored him.

His big, callused hands slid under her back, lifting her up into the curve of his body. “I want you, Abby,” he whispered, bending to her mouth as his body shuddered over hers. “I want you so much….”

She curled her arms around his head and held his mouth against her eager one. “I want you, too, Calhoun,” she whispered into his mouth.

He almost lost control completely then. He kissed her until he had to stop for breath, his body shuddering rhythmically, his knee between her long, soft legs, his hand low on her hips. He felt her trembling and heard her whimper. Oddly, it brought him to his senses.

Slowly, so slowly, he rolled onto his side, bringing her with him, cradling her against his damp body. He slid his hands to her head, holding her forehead to his throbbing chest.

“Lie still, honey,” he whispered raggedly when she began to move again. He caught her hips and stilled them. “Just lie against me and breathe. It will be all right in a minute. Lie still, baby.”

Her hands were flat against his chest, trembling there in the thick mat of hair, and she felt his unsteady breathing against her hair. He was as shaken as she was, but why had he stopped? She didn’t understand. If he wanted her, then why had he stopped?

“Sweet thing,” he breathed when the tremor was almost out of his big arms. “Sweet, precious thing, another few seconds and nothing on earth would have stopped me, did you know?”

She nuzzled her head against him. “Why did you stop?” she asked dazedly.

He tilted her head back on the pillow and smiled into her drowsy eyes. “Don’t you know?”

“Because I’m not blond, I guess,” she sighed, almost weeping with frustration and disappointment.

“Because you’re not lucid,” he corrected. He brushed the long, soft hair away from her face. “Abby, you’re half lit.”

“I want you,” she moaned.

“I know. I can see it. Feel it.” He hugged her close for a minute, because he was almost in control now. Then he let go and quickly and efficiently slid her into her gown. “Sit up, honey.”

She did, and he eased back the covers and helped her get under them. She lay quietly beneath two layers of fabric and blinked at him sleepily. “Calhoun, stay with me,” she whispered.

He smiled gently, his dark eyes possessive on her flushed face. “Justin would love finding us in your bed together. He’d probably make me marry you.”

“And I guess that would be the end of your world,” she replied.

His expression hardened. He drew in a slow breath and touched her cheek gently, thoughtfully. “I’ve been alone a long time. I like being my own boss, answering to no one. I’ve been a rounder, and in some ways I still am. I’m a bad marriage risk.”

“One woman wouldn’t satisfy you, I guess,” she murmured, hiding her eyes from him. All her dreams were dead now. Every last one. He wanted her, but not enough for marriage. He was telling her so.

He shrugged, confused and feeling faintly hunted. “One woman never has,” he said curtly. “I don’t want to be tied.”

“God forbid that I should try,” Abby said, forcing a smile. “Don’t worry, Calhoun, I was just…experimenting. I wondered why you were so rough with me the other morning, and I wanted to see if passion made people rough. I guess it does, because that’s how I felt tonight. Thanks for the…the lesson.”

He frowned slightly, searching her eyes. “Is that all it felt like. An experiment? A lesson in making love?”

“Tyler said I needed teaching,” she said with a yawn, missing the flash of fury in his face. “But I don’t anymore.” She closed her eyes and turned her face against the pillow. “I’m sleepy.”

Calhoun sat watching her, his eyes stormy. She’d used him. That was all she’d wanted. She’d been experimenting, seeing how it felt to be touched. Damn her!

He got up, glaring at the lacy bra he’d removed from her soft breasts just before she’d let him touch them. Let him! God, she’d helped him! His blood ran hot at the memory of how uninhibited she’d been with him tonight. Had she been competing with Shelby, or had it been curiosity alone? Could she care about him and be hiding it? And how did he feel? Did he just want her physically, or was it more than that? Could he bear the loss of his freedom? Because it would come to that if he took her. Marriage. Trap.

He tossed the bra onto the chair beside her bed and took a long last look at her sleeping face. She didn’t need to be blond. She was exquisite. Her long hair was spread out around her, her lashes were feathering her flushed cheek, and her parted lips were pink and faintly swollen because he’d been hungry. She was delicious. Virginal and sweet-tasting and exquisitely beautiful without her clothes. He wondered if he’d ever get over the taste of her—if he’d be able to forget. Hell, would he ever be able to have another woman, or would the memory of Abby always stand in the way?

He opened the door and went out, closing it quietly behind him. He should never have touched her in the first place, he thought furiously.

He had to get away for a while. Far away, so that he could think things through. Now that he’d touched Abby, it was going to be the purest kind of hell keeping his hands off her. And Justin wouldn’t like having that sort of loveplay going on, not if it threatened Abby. Calhoun knew that if he took Abby into his arms again, it wasn’t going to end with a few kisses. He wanted her too badly, and she was too responsive. He aroused her as no man ever had. That meant she’d give herself to him with hardly any coaxing. Calhoun was terrified that he might lose his head and take her.

He didn’t want marriage. He didn’t want ties. Abby wouldn’t understand that. In her world, lovemaking meant marriage. Maybe in his, too, when the woman was a virgin. He didn’t like the noose she was tying around his neck, but he hated the thought of never touching her again almost as much.

She was heaven to love. Her mouth was young and sweet and so eager to learn. Her body was nectar. Just the sight of it made him drunk, not to mention the exquisite feel of it between his hands, under his skin.

Abby, he groaned inwardly as he made his way to his own room. He couldn’t have her and he couldn’t give her up. He didn’t know what in hell he was going to do. Maybe when he got back from wherever he wound up he would have reached a decision.

He sat down at the small desk in a corner of his room and wrote Justin a note telling him he was going away for a few days to check on some stockers in Montana. Justin might think it strange, but Abby wouldn’t. He wondered how she was going to feel when she woke up and found him gone. He hoped she wouldn’t even remember what they’d done in her bed together. But even if she did, that was going to be one private memory. Abby wouldn’t share it any more than he would.