Diana Palmer Texan Lovers: Calhoun / Justin / Tyler / Sutton's Way / Ethan / Connal

“Stop it,” he said softly.

Her eyes closed, tears burning them. Her hands at her sides tautened into fists and she fought for control. “I’m sorry.”

“Come here, Abby,” he said in a tone that she remembered, deep with tenderness, soft with sensuality.

She opened her eyes. “I don’t want pity,” she whispered.

His chin lifted. “What do you want?”

She lowered her gaze to his highly polished shoes. “The moon,” she said wearily.

He moved forward abruptly. One big, lean hand caught hers and pried it open. He placed something in it and curled her fingers around it. She frowned. Something small and thin and metallic…

She opened her hand. It was a ring, a very simple circle of gold without any flourishes or frills. It was a wedding ring.

He bent, lifting her. He carried her to the burgundy sofa and put her down on it. Then he knelt on the carpet beside her, his lean hands on her waist, his blond hair gleaming like the golden ring in the soft light from the ceiling.

“I love you,” he said softly, holding her gaze as he said it.

Her eyes searched his, getting lost in their dark, unblinking intensity. “W-what?”

“I love you,” he repeated. “I didn’t know it until the night I almost made love to you, and even then I wasn’t sure that I could settle down.” He laughed faintly, watching her with eyes that adored her. “But I’m sure now. These past few weeks have been the purest hell I’ve ever known. A dozen times I’ve almost stormed over to your apartment at three in the morning to get into bed with you. I’ve thought about kidnapping you from work and carrying you off into the mountains. But I promised to give you time, and I have. Now I’ve run out of it. If you don’t marry me, so help me, I’ll ravish you where you sit.”

“I’ll marry you,” she whispered. “But—”

“But what?” he whispered back.

Her lips parted as she let her shoulders droop, so that the silky fabric of her dress fell and revealed all of her breasts except the hard tips. “But wouldn’t you ravish me anyway?”

His breath caught. “As if I needed asking…”

His hands finished the job, stripping the fabric to her waist. He sat looking at the soft, pretty swell of her breasts, watching her breathe for a long moment before he drew her toward him and bent his head.

She began to tremble when she felt his mouth on her soft, heated skin. Her hands cradled his head and she wept softly, kissing his hair, whispering to him. “I love you,” she murmured. “I’m sorry I…made a fuss. I thought you were out with some woman, that you didn’t want me…. Oh, Calhoun!”

His mouth had opened, taking almost all of one perfect breast inside to taste, to caress with his tongue. His lean hand was at her back, searching for a zipper, and in the next instant she was on the carpet under him, her body bare from the neck down except for her briefs and her stockings.

“I was in Houston buying a ring. Buying two rings. Your engagement ring had to be sized. It’s a yellow diamond.” He kissed her hungrily. “I got caught in traffic, and since I knew I was going to be late, I rushed back…too fast. But it’s all right now, isn’t it, sweetheart?” He eased his hands down her body, feeling her tremble. “Abby, suppose we make love right here?” he murmured, stroking her gently with his warm, hard fingers.

“Someone might come in,” she whispered breathlessly.

He smiled as he bent. “I locked the door,” he breathed into her open mouth. “I’m hungry.”

“I’m hungry, too.”

His nose nuzzled hers. “Or we could go up to my bedroom,” he murmured huskily. “And lock the door. Even Justin wouldn’t disturb us there.”

“The guests…”

“They’ll never miss us. They’re too busy enjoying themselves. I want you, Abby. I want you for the rest of my life, until I die. And if I get you pregnant…” He lifted his head, searching her warm, soft eyes. “Would you mind having my child?”

She touched his mouth with aching tenderness. “I love you,” she said. “I want to have lots of babies with you.”

He actually shuddered. “You’re very young.”

She smiled. “All the better.” She traced his heavy eyebrows with her finger. “I can play with them.”

He smoothed back her hair, his eyes full of wonder. “Abby…I never dreamed how sweet it would be to belong to someone. To have someone of my own. And a family.” He touched her breasts tenderly. “Ever since the first time I touched you, I’ve felt as if there’d never been a woman for me. You make it all new and exciting. You make me feel whole.”

“You make me feel the same way.” She reached up to find his mouth with hers, kissing him slowly, tenderly. “Justin won’t like it if we go upstairs together.”

“He won’t see us,” he whispered and smiled wickedly. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“I’m nervous—”

“We’ll be married by tomorrow afternoon. I’ve already got the license. All we need is a blood test, and we can have that in the morning.

“You rake,” she said accusingly.

“Reformed rake.”

“All right,” she breathed.

He searched her eyes quietly. “I need you badly. But I can wait if you want me to.”

“You don’t want to,” she said.

He smiled. “I’ve felt married to you since that night in my apartment, Abby. A piece of paper and a few solemn words aren’t going to tie me to you any more firmly than I am right now. I love you, honey,” he said softly. “That’s the beginning and the end of my life, wrapped up in those words.”

She pressed against him. “I love you so.”

He helped her into her dress and led her out the back door, around through the guest bedroom and to the rear staircase. Then he picked her up, laughing softly, and carried her upstairs. He’d just made it to the landing and was turning the corner toward his own room when they ran headfirst into Justin and almost went down on the floor with the impact.

Abby gasped. Calhoun actually turned blood red. Justin’s eyebrows went up expressively. Then they just stared at each other.

“Tired of dancing?” Justin asked after a minute, his lips pursed mischievously.

Calhoun cleared his throat. “We were going to…”

“…talk,” Abby improvised.

Justin’s dark eyes went over Abby’s face, reading all the telltale signs there. Then he glanced toward Calhoun and stared him down.

“Oh, what the hell,” Calhoun muttered darkly. “You know damned good and well where we were going and why. But there’s something you don’t know. I love Abby. We’re getting married tomorrow. The license is in my pocket.”

“And the ring,” Abby added, faintly embarrassed at being caught in such a compromising situation.

“Congratulations,” Justin said pleasantly. “I couldn’t be happier for both of you. And if I might just add, it’s about time.”

Calhoun shifted Abby. “Thank you.”

“You’ll be a lovely brother-in-law,” Abby agreed.

“The very best,” Calhoun added.

Justin smiled. “It won’t work. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.”

“Damn it, Justin!” Calhoun ground out.

“Twenty-four hours is just overnight,” Justin continued. “Then you can both go to Houston and have a honeymoon in that penthouse apartment you bought.”

“Listen here…” Calhoun began.

“Abby, you tell him how you really feel about this,” Justin said, staring at her.

She grimaced, her hands linked around Calhoun’s neck. She sighed. “Well, I love him,” she said finally.

“I thought you wanted to,” Calhoun said softly, searching her embarrassed face. “I’d never have forced you.”

“Oh, I know that,” she said, her eyes worshipful. “But I couldn’t refuse you.”

He smiled ruefully. “You’re one of a kind,” he said gently. “And I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she whispered, smiling.

He kissed her softly. “I guess we’d better wait, since Justin is going to stand there until he takes root.”

“I guess we had,” Abby murmured.

Calhoun put Abby on her feet. “Well, let’s go downstairs and dance, Abby,” he said. “Then we can sing that terrific drinking song that Justin taught you.”

Justin glared at him, looking uncomfortable. “You started that.”

Calhoun’s eyebrows lanced upward. “All I did was dance with Shelby.”

Justin stared at him coldly. “And if you hadn’t been my brother, I’d have broken your jaw for it.”

There was a faint sound behind them, and Justin turned to find Shelby standing two steps behind him.

“Go ahead, Shelby, get an earful,” Justin said icily. “Does it please you that after six years I still feel murderous when another man touches you?”

“That works both ways, Justin,” Shelby said quietly. “Or didn’t you know that it would kill me to see you with another woman?”

She turned and stormed off downstairs. Justin stared after her, shocked.

“Why don’t you carry her upstairs?” Calhoun asked his brother with pursed lips. “Then Abby and I could stand on the landing and block your way.”

Justin said something in Spanish that Abby was glad she didn’t understand and stomped off downstairs.

Calhoun glanced at Abby’s questioning face and grinned. “I’ll tell you after we’re married,” he whispered in her ear.

* * *

And he did tell her two days later as they lay together in the big soft bed at his penthouse, sated and close in each other’s arms as the sun drifted lazily through the blinds.

“What did Justin say to you the night you started to carry me upstairs?” she asked drowsily.

“He said that if he ever took Shelby to bed it would be on a desert island with mines on the beach.” he chuckled. “Poor Justin,” he added quietly. “To love like that and not even have a memory to live on.”

She lifted her eyes to his, her hand lazily stroking his thick, hair-matted chest. “What do you mean?”

“Justin never slept with Shelby,” Calhoun said softly. “And since the engagement broke off, he’s never slept with anyone else.”

She caught her breath.

“It isn’t so incredible, Abby,” he mused, rolling over to look down into her soft eyes. The covers had long since been thrown off, and his dark gaze slid over her nudity with possession and exquisite memories of the night before. “I couldn’t touch anyone else after I kissed you.”

“That’s very profound,” she whispered, trembling as his lean hand stroked gently over her taut breasts and down over her belly to the silken softness of her thighs.

“It’s that,” he agreed, bending to brush his lips across her mouth. “Have I hurt you too badly, or is it all right if we make love again?”

She flushed, remembering their first time, the softness of his voice whispering to her to lie still after he’d realized how difficult it was going to be. And then he’d bridled his own needs so that he could rouse her all over again. The pain had been minimal, because the savage hunger he’d kindled in her had surpassed pain or fear or even thought. She’d given everything he’d asked in the end, her body so completely his that he could have done anything to her.

“I’m all right now,” she whispered, adoring his hard face with her eyes. “You made it all right.”

“You were very much a virgin, Mrs. Ballenger,” he said with faint traces of satisfied delight. “And it wasn’t the easiest initiation.”

She traced his chin. “I love you. And any way you loved me would have been all right.”

He kissed her softly. “You make me feel humble.”

“You make me feel wild,” she gasped, arching as his hand moved. Her eyes widened as it moved again. “Yes…do…that…”

He smiled through his own excitement as she responded to him. He enjoyed her innocence as he’d never imagined he could. He held back this time, drawing out his possession until she was crying with her arousal, until she was almost in torment from the need. And then he eased down, tenderly, coaxing her to bank down her own fires and settle into a new and achingly sweet rhythm that brought with it a fulfillment beyond her wildest dreams, beyond even his experience.

Afterward, he cradled her against his hard, damp body, trembling as he held her, stroked her. She’d gone with him every step of the way, and she was exhausted. So was he. She made an adventure of lovemaking, an exquisite expression of shared love. It was something he’d never known in a woman’s arms. Whispering softly, he told her that.

She smiled as she lay nestled against him. “I don’t have anyone to compare you with,” she whispered. “But on a scale of ten, I’d give you a twenty.”

Calhoun laughed softly, closing his eyes and sighing contentedly as he felt her snuggle close to him, her body fitting perfectly against his.

“Abby, how would you feel about living in the old Dempsey place?” he asked unexpectedly.

She opened her eyes. “That big Victorian house that you and Justin bought last year? It’s been remodeled and furnished, hasn’t it? I thought you were going to use it for offices.”

“I’d thought about it,” he told her. “But I want to live there with you.”

“There, and not with Justin?” she asked softly.

He touched her hair. “It will make life hell for him if we’re under the same roof.”

“Yes, I know. To see how happy we are will only point out what he’s lost.” She smiled. “I’ll live with you wherever you say.”

He searched her eyes gently. Then he folded her up against him and drew the sheet over their damp bodies. “I love you, Abby,” he said drowsily.

“I love you, too.” She slid her arm across his broad chest and sighed contentedly. It was spring, and soon the pastures would be dotted with wildflowers and seed would begin sprouting everywhere. She closed her eyes, thinking about the long horizons and lazy summers and the promise of children playing around her skirts while she sat in the circle of Calhoun’s arm and watched the cattle graze. It sounded like the most exciting kind of future to share—with a long, tall Texan at her side.

* * * * *

Justin

Diana Palmer

SWEET DREAMS...

Sweet dreams had been all that lovely Shelby Jacobs had ever given Justin Ballenger. He’d loved her, wanted to marry her....and his sweet dreams had blown away. A Ballenger wasn’t good enough for Shelby...she’d broken their engagement and flaunted her rich society lover in Justin’s face. He vowed never again to be vulnerable to his beautiful Texas rose.

Shelby had never stopped loving dark, intense Justin, and seeing him only deepened her feelings. She was sure he despised her, but she knew he needed to hear the truth about the past. She was risking everything, but the heart of her lonesome cowboy was more than worth it...

Chapter One

It was a warm morning, and the weatherman had already promised temperatures into the eighties for the afternoon. But the weather didn’t seem to slow down the bidders, and the auctioneer standing on the elegant porch of the tall white mansion kept his monotone steady even though he had to periodically wipe streams of sweat from his heavily jowled face.

As he watched the estate auction, Justin Ballenger’s black eyes narrowed under the brim of his expensive creamy Stetson. He wasn’t buying. Not today. But he had a personal interest in this particular auction. The Jacobs’s home was being sold, lock, stock and barrel, and he should have felt a sense of triumph at seeing old Bass Jacobs’s legacy go down the drain. Oddly enough, he didn’t. He felt vaguely disturbed by the whole proceeding. It was like watching predators pick a helpless victim to the bone.

He kept searching the crowd for Shelby Jacobs, but she was nowhere in sight. Possibly she and her brother, Tyler, were in the house, helping to sort the furniture and other antique offerings.

A movement to his left caught his eye. Abby Ballenger, his sister-in-law of six weeks, stood beside him.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she remarked, smiling up at him. She’d lived with him and Calhoun, her

almost-stepbrothers, since the tragic deaths of their father and her mother. Their parents were to have been married, so the brothers took Abby in and looked after her. And just weeks before, she and Calhoun had married.

“I never miss an auction,” he replied. He looked toward the auctioneer. “I haven’t seen the Jacobses.”

“Ty’s in Arizona.” Abby sighed, and she didn’t miss the sudden glare of Justin’s dark eyes. “He didn’t go without a fight, either, but there was some kind of emergency on that ranch he’s helping to manage.”

“Shelby’s alone?” The words were almost wrenched from him.

“Afraid so.” Abby glanced up at him and away, barely suppressing a smile. “She’s at the apartment she’s rented in town.” Abby smoothed a fold of her gray skirt. “It’s above the law office where she works…”

Justin’s hard, dark face went even tauter. The smoking cigarette in his hand was forgotten as he turned to Abby, his whipcord-lean body towering over her. “That isn’t an apartment, for God’s sake, it’s an old storeroom!”

“Barry Holman is letting her convert it,” Abby said, her guileless pale eyes the picture of innocence under her dark hair. “She doesn’t have much choice, Justin. With the house being sold, where else can she afford to live on what she makes? Everything had to go, you know. Tyler and Shelby thought they could at least hold onto the house and property, but it took every last dime to meet their father’s debts.”

Justin muttered something under his breath, glaring toward the big, elegant house that somehow embodied everything he’d hated about the Jacobs family for the past six years, since Shelby had broken their engagement and betrayed him.

“Aren’t you glad?” Abby baited him gently. “You hate her, after all. It should please you to see her brought to her knees in public.”

He didn’t say another word. He turned abruptly, his expression as uncompromising as stone, and strode to where his black Thunderbird was parked. Abby smiled secretively. She’d thought that he’d react, if she could make him see how badly this was going to hurt Shelby. All these long years he’d avoided any contact with the Jacobs family, any mention of them at home. But in recent months, the strain was beginning to tell on him. Abby knew almost certainly that he still felt something for the woman who’d jilted him, and she knew Shelby felt something for Justin, too. Abby, deliriously happy in her own marriage, wanted the rest of the world to be as happy as she was. Perhaps by nudging Justin in the right direction, she might make two miserable people happy.

Justin had only found out about the estate sale that morning, when Calhoun mentioned it at the office at their joint feedlot operation. It had been in the papers, but Justin had been out of town looking at cattle and he hadn’t seen the notice.

He wasn’t surprised that Shelby was staying away from the auction. She’d been born in that house. She’d lived in it all her life. Shelby’s grandfather, in fact, had founded the small Texas town of Jacobsville. They were old money, and the ragged little Ballenger boys from the run-down cattle ranch down the road weren’t the kind of friends Mrs. Bass Jacobs had wanted for her children, Tyler and Shelby. But she’d died, and Mr. Jacobs had been friendly toward the Ballengers, especially when Justin and Calhoun had opened their feedlot. And when the old man found out that Shelby intended to marry Justin Ballenger, he’d told Justin he couldn’t be more pleased.

Justin tried never to think about the night Bass Jacobs and young Tom Wheelor had come to see him. Now it all came back. Bass Jacobs had been upset. He told Justin outright that Shelby was in love with Tom and not only in love, the couple had been sleeping together all through the farce of Shelby’s “engagement” to Justin. He was ashamed of her, Bass lamented. The engagement was Shelby’s way of bringing her reluctant suitor into line, and now that Justin had served his purpose, Shelby didn’t need him anymore. Sadly, he handed Justin Shelby’s engagement ring and Tom Wheelor had mumbled a red-faced apology. Bass had even cried. Perhaps his shame had prompted his next move, because he’d promised on the spot to give Justin the financial backing he needed to make the new feedlot a success. There was only one condition—that Shelby never know where the money came from. Then he’d left.

Never one to believe ill of anyone without hard evidence, Justin phoned Shelby while Bass was still starting his car. But she didn’t deny what Justin had been told. In fact, she confirmed all of it, even the part about having slept with Wheelor. She’d only wanted to make Tom jealous so he’d propose, she told Justin. She hoped he hadn’t been too upset with her, but then, she’d always had everything she wanted, and Justin wasn’t rich enough to cater to her tastes just yet. But Tom was…

Justin had believed her. And because she’d pushed him away the one time he’d tried to make love to her, her confession rang with the truth. He’d gone on a legendary bender afterward. And for the past six years, no other woman had ever gotten close enough to make a dent in his heart. He’d been impervious to all the offers, and there had been some. He wasn’t a handsome man. His dark face was too craggy, his features too irregular, his unsmiling countenance too forbidding. But he had wealth and power, and that drew women to him. He was too bitter, though, to accept that kind of attention. Shelby had hurt him as no one else in his life ever had, and for years all he’d lived for was the thought of vengeance.

But now that he saw her brought to her knees financially, it was unsatisfying. All he could think of was that she was going to be hurt and she had no family, no friends to comfort her.

The apartment above the law office where she worked was tiny, and it didn’t sit well with him that it was in such proximity to her bachelor boss. He knew Holman by reputation, and rumor had it that he liked pretty women. Shelby, with her long black hair, slender figure and green, sparkling eyes, would more than qualify. She was twenty-seven now, hardly a girl, but she didn’t look much older than she had when she and Justin became engaged. She had an innocence about her, still, that made Justin grind his teeth. It was false; she’d even admitted it.

He paused at the door to the apartment, his hand raised to knock. There was a muffled noise from inside. Not laughter. Tears?

His jaw tautened and he knocked roughly.

The noise ceased abruptly. There was a scraping sound, like a chair being moved, and soft footsteps that echoed the quick, hard beat of his heart.

The door opened. Shelby stood there, in clinging faded jeans and a blue checked shirt, her long dark hair disheveled and curling down her back, her green eyes red-rimmed and wet.

“Did you come to gloat, Justin?” she asked with quiet bitterness.

“It gives me no pleasure to see you humbled,” he replied, his chin lifted, his black eyes narrow. “Abby said you were alone.”

She sighed, dropping her eyes to his dusty, worn boots. “I’ve been alone for a long time. I’ve learned to live with it.” She shifted restlessly. “Are there a lot of people at the auction?”

“The yard’s full,” he said. He took off his hat and held it in one hand while the other raked his thick, straight black hair.

She looked up, her eyes lingering helplessly on the hard lines of his craggy face, on the chiseled mouth she’d kissed so hungrily six years ago. She’d been so desperately in love with him then. But he’d become something out of her slight experience the night they became engaged, and his ardor had frightened her. She’d fought away from him, and the memory of how it had been with him, just before the fear became tangible, was formidable. She’d wanted so much more than they’d shared, but she had more reason than most women to fear intimacy. But Justin didn’t know that and she’d been too shy to explain her actions.

She turned away with a groan of anguish. “If you can bear my company, I’ll fix you a glass of iced tea.”

He hesitated, but only for an instant. “I could use that,” he said quietly. “It’s hot as hell out there.”

He followed her inside, absently closing the door behind him. But he stopped dead when he saw what she was having to contend with. He stiffened and almost cursed out loud.