Diana Palmer Texan Lovers

But when the wedding march struck up, the minister and Justin were waiting for her at the altar. She had to bite her lower lip hard and grip her bouquet of daisies to keep from shaking as she walked down the aisle.

She and Justin had decided not to have a best man or a matron of honor, or much ceremony except for the actual service. There were plenty of flowers around the altar, and a candelabra with three unlit white candles. The minister was in his robes, and Justin was in a formal black suit, very elegant as he waited for his bride to join him.

When she reached him, and took her place at his side, she looked up. Her green eyes caught his black ones and her expression invited him to do what he’d threatened, to walk out of the church.

It was a tense moment and for one horrible second, he looked as if he were thinking about it. But the moment passed. He lifted his cold eyes to the minister and he repeated what he was told to say without a trace of expression in his deep voice.

He placed a thin gold band on her hand. There had been no engagement ring, and he hadn’t mentioned buying one. He’d bought her ring himself, on a trip to town, and he hadn’t asked if she wanted him to wear one. Probably he didn’t want to.

They replied to the final questions and lit two candles, each holding a flame to the third candle, signifying the unity of two people into one. The minister pronounced them man and wife. He invited Justin to kiss his bride.

Justin turned to Shelby with an expression she couldn’t read. He looked down at her for a long moment before he bent his head and brushed a light, cool kiss across her lips. Then he took her arm and propelled her down the aisle and outside into the hall, where they were surrounded seconds later by well-wishers.

There was no time to talk. The reception was held in the fellowship hall of the church, and punch, cake and canapés were consumed while Shelby and Justin were each occupied with guests.

Someone had a camera and asked them to pose for a photograph. They hadn’t hired anyone to take pictures of the wedding, an oversight that Shelby was secretly disappointed at. She’d hoped for at least a photograph of them together, but perhaps this one would do.

She stood beside Justin and smiled, feeling his arm draw her to his side. Her eyes lifted to his, but it was hard to hold the smile as those black eyes cut into hers.

The instant the camera was gone, he glared at her. “I said any color except white.”

“Yes, Justin, I know you did,” she said calmly. “And think how you’d have felt if I’d insisted that you wear a blue dress instead of a black suit to be married in.”

He blinked, as if he wasn’t quite sure he’d heard right. “A white dress means—” he began indignantly.

“—a first wedding,” she finished for him. “This is mine.”

His eyes kindled. “You and I both know there’s an implied second reason for wearing white, and you aren’t entitled to it.” He noticed something darken her eyes and his own narrowed. “You told me you could prove it, though, didn’t you, Shelby?” He smiled coldly. “I just might let you do that before we’re through.”

She blushed and averted her eyes. For an instant, she felt cowardly, thinking about how difficult it was going to be if he wasn’t gentle, if he treated her like the scarlet woman he thought she was. It didn’t bear consideration, and she shivered. “I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

He laughed, the sound of it like ice shattering. “You can’t, can you? It was all bravado, to keep me guessing until we were married.”

Her eyes lifted to his. “Justin…”

“Never mind.” He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “I told you, we won’t be sharing a bed. I don’t care about your chastity.”

She felt an aching sadness for what might have been between them and she looked at him, her eyes soft and quietly adoring on his craggy features. He was so beautiful. Not handsome, but beautifully made, for a man, from his lithe, powerful build to his black eyes and thick black hair and olive complexion. He looked exactly the way a man should, she decided.

He glanced down at her, caught in that warm appraisal. His cigarette hovered in midair while he searched her eyes, holding them for so long that her heart went wild in her chest. She let her eyes fall to his chiseled mouth, and she wanted it suddenly with barely contained passion. If only she could be the uninhibited woman she wanted to be, and not such a frightened innocent. Justin intimidated her. He had to be at least as worldly as Calhoun. She’d disappoint him, anyway, but if only she could tell him the truth and ask him to be gentle. She shivered at the thought of telling him something so intimate.

It was a blessing that Ty chose that moment to say his goodbyes, sparing Shelby the embarrassment of having Justin mock her for her weakness.

“I’ve got to catch a plane back to Arizona,” he told his sister as he bent his head to brush her cheek with his lips. “My temporary lady boss is scared stiff of men.”

Shelby’s eyes brightened. “She’s what?”

Ty looked frankly uncomfortable. “She’s nervous around men,” he said reluctantly. “Damn it, she hides behind me at dances, at meetings…it’s embarrassing.”

Shelby had to fight down laughter. Her very independent brother didn’t like clinging women, but this one seemed to be affecting him very strangely. His temporary boss was the niece of his permanent boss. She lived in Arizona, where she was trying to cope with an indebted dude ranch. Ty’s boss in Jacobsville had sent him out to help. He’d hated it at the beginning, and he still seemed to, but maybe the mysterious Arizona lady was getting to him.

“Maybe she feels safe with you?” Shelby asked.

He glowered at her. “Well, it’s got to stop. It’s like having poison ivy wrap itself around you.”

“Is she ugly?” Shelby persisted.

“Kind of plain and unsophisticated,” he murmured. “Not too bad, I guess, if you like tomboys. I don’t,” he added doggedly.

“Why don’t you quit?” Justin asked. “You can work for Calhoun and me, we’ve already offered you a job.”

“Yes, I know. I appreciated it, too, considering how strained things were between our families,” Ty said honestly. “But this job is kind of a challenge and that part I like.”

Justin smiled. “Come and stay when you get homesick.”

Ty shook his outstretched hand. “I might, one day. I like kids,” he added. “A few nieces and nephews wouldn’t bother me.”

Justin looked murderous and Shelby went scarlet. Ty frowned, and Justin thanked God that Calhoun and Abby joined them in time to ward off trouble. He didn’t want to think about kids. Shelby sure wouldn’t want his, not if the way she’d reacted to him the one time he’d been ardent with her was any indication. She was repulsed by him.

“Isn’t this a nice wedding?” Calhoun asked Ty, joining the small group with his arm around a laughing Abby. “Doesn’t it give you any ideas?”

Ty smiled at Abby. “It does that, all right. It makes me want to get an inoculation, quick,” he murmured drily.

“You’ll outgrow that attitude one day,” Calhoun assured him. “We all get chopped down at the ankles eventually,” he added, and ducked when Abby hit his chest. “Sorry, honey.” He chuckled, brushing a lazy kiss against her forehead. “You know I didn’t mean it.”

“Can we give you a lift to the airport, or did you rent a car?” Abby asked Ty.

“I rented a car, but thanks all the same. Why don’t you two walk me out to it?” He kissed Shelby again. “Be happy,” he said gently.

“I expect to,” she said, and smiled in Justin’s direction.

Ty nodded, but he didn’t look convinced. When he followed Abby and Calhoun out of the fellowship hall, he was preoccupied and frowning thoughtfully.

The reception seemed to go on forever, and Shelby was grateful when it was finally time to go home. Justin had sent Lopez to fetch Shelby’s things from Mrs. Simpson’s house early that morning. The guest room had been prepared for Shelby. Maria had questioned that, but only once, because Justin’s cold eyes had silenced her. Maria understood more than he realized, anyway. She, like everyone else on the property, knew that despite his bitterness, Justin still had a soft spot for Shelby. She was alone and impoverished, and it didn’t surprise anybody that Justin had married her. If he felt the need for a little vengeance in the process, that wasn’t unexpected, either.

“Thank God that’s over,” Justin said wearily when they were alone in the house. He’d tugged off his tie and jacket and unbuttoned the neck of his shirt and rolled up the sleeves. He looked ten years older than he was.

Shelby put her purse on the hall table and took off her high heels, smoothing her stockinged feet on the soft pile of the carpet. It felt good not to be two inches taller.

Justin glanced at her and smiled to himself, but he turned away before she could see it. “Do you want to go out for supper or have it here?”

“I don’t care.”

“I suppose it would look odd if we went to a restaurant on our wedding night, wouldn’t it?” he added, turning to give her a mocking smile.

She glared at him. “Go ahead,” she invited. “Spoil the rest of it, too. God forbid that I should enjoy my own wedding day.”

He frowned as she turned and started up the staircase. “What the hell are you talking about?”

She didn’t look at him. She held onto the railing and stared up at the landing. “You couldn’t have made your feelings plainer if you’d worn a sign with all your grievances painted on it in blood. I know you hate me, Justin. You married me out of pity, but part of you still wants to make me pay for what I did to you.”

He’d lit a cigarette and he was smoking it, propped against the doorjamb, his face quiet, his black eyes curious. “Dreams die hard, honey, didn’t you know?” he asked coldly.

She turned around, her green eyes steady on his. “You weren’t the only one who dreamed, Justin,” she said. “I cared about you!”

His jaw tautened. “Sure you did. That’s why you sold me out for that boy millionaire.”

She stroked the banister absently. “Odd that I didn’t marry him, isn’t it?” she asked casually. “Very odd, wouldn’t you say, when I wanted his money badly enough to jilt you.”

He lifted the cigarette to his mouth. “He threw you over, I guess, when he found out you wanted the money more than you wanted him.”

“I never wanted him, or his money,” she said honestly. “I had enough of my own.”

He smiled at her. “Did you?” Surely she didn’t expect him to believe she was unaware of how much financial trouble her father had been in.

“You won’t listen,” she muttered. “You never would. I tried to tell you why I broke off the engagement—”

“You told me, all right! You couldn’t stand for me to touch you, but I knew that already.” His eyes glittered dangerously. “You pushed me away the night we got engaged,” he added huskily. “You were shaking like a leaf and your eyes were as big as saucers. You couldn’t get away from me quick enough.”

Her lips parted on a slow breath. “And you thought it was revulsion, of course?” she asked miserably.

“What else could it have been?” he shot back, his eyes glaring. “I didn’t come down in the last rain shower.” He turned. “Change your clothes and we’ll have supper. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”

She wished she could tell him the truth. She wanted to, but he was so remote and his detached attitude intimidated her. With a sigh, she turned and went up the staircase numbly, wondering how she was going to live with a man she couldn’t even talk to about intimacy.

They had a quiet wedding supper. Maria put everything on the table and she and Lopez went out for the evening, offering quiet congratulations before they left.

Justin leaned back in his chair when he’d finished his steak and salad, watching Shelby pick at hers.

He felt vaguely guilty about their wedding day. But in a way, he was hiding from her. Hiding his real feelings, hiding his apprehension about losing her a second time. It had wrung him out emotionally six years before. He didn’t think he could bear it a second time, so he was trying to protect himself from becoming too vulnerable. But her sad little face was getting to him.

“Damn it, Shelby,” he ground out, “don’t look like that.”

She lifted her eyes. There was no life in them anymore. “I’m tired,” she said softly. “Do you mind if I go to bed after we eat?”

“Yes, I mind.” He threw down his napkin and lit a cigarette. “It’s our wedding night.”

She laughed bitterly. “So it is. What did you have in mind, some more comments on my scarlet past?”

He frowned slightly. She didn’t sound like Shelby. That edge to her voice was disturbing. His eyes narrowed. She’d lost her father, her home, her entire way of life, even her brother. She’d lost everything in recent weeks, and married him because she needed a little security. He’d given her hell, and now she looked as if today was the last straw on the camel’s back. He hadn’t meant for it to be that way. He didn’t want to hurt her. But he couldn’t seem to keep quiet; there were so many wounds.

He sighed heavily. His black eyes searched her wan face, remembering better times, happier times, when he could look at her and get drunk on just the sight of her smile.

“Are you sure you want to keep on working?” he asked quietly, just to change the subject, to get the conversation on an easier level.

She stared down at her plate. “Yes, I’d like to,” she said. “I’ve never really done any work before, except society functions and volunteer work. I like my job.”

“And Barry Holman?” he asked, his smile a challenge.

She got up. She was still wearing her white skirt with a pale pink blouse, and she looked feminine and elegant and very desirable. Her long hair waved down to her shoulders, and Justin wanted to get up and catch two handfuls of it and kiss her until she couldn’t stand up.

“Mr. Holman is my boss,” she said. “Not my lover. I don’t have a lover.”

He got up, too, moving closer, his eyes narrow and calculating, his body tense with years of frustrated desire. “You’re going to have one,” he said curtly.

She wouldn’t back away. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of watching her run. She lifted her face proudly, even though her knees felt weak and her heart was racing madly. She was afraid of him because of their past, because he wanted revenge. She was afraid because he thought she was experienced, and even with that minor surgery, she knew that it wasn’t going to be the easiest time of her life. Justin was deceptively strong. She knew the power in that lean, hard body, and to be overwhelmed by it in passion was a little scary.

He watched the fear flicker in her eyes, and understood it instantly. “You’re off base, honey,” he said quietly. “Way off base. I’d never hurt you in bed, not for revenge or any other reason.”

Her lower lip trembled on a stifled sob and tears welled in her eyes. She lowered her gaze to his broad chest, missing the faint shock in his face at her reaction. “Maybe you wouldn’t be able to help it,” she whispered.

“Shelby, are you really afraid of me?” he asked

huskily.

Her thin shoulders shifted. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

“Were you afraid with him?” he asked. “With Wheelor?”

She opened her mouth to speak and just gave up. What was the use? He wasn’t going to listen. She turned away and went toward the staircase.

“Running won’t solve anything,” he said shortly, watching her go with mingled feelings, the foremost of which was anger.

“Neither will trying to talk to you,” she replied. She turned at the bottom of the staircase, her green eyes bright with unshed tears and returning spirit. “Do your worst. Make me pay. I’m fresh out of things I care about. I’ve got absolutely nothing left to lose, so look out, Justin. I’m not going to live up to your idea of a society wife. I’m going to be myself, and I’m sorry if it destroys any of your old illusions.”

He eyed her quietly. “Meaning what?”

“No affairs,” she replied, picking the thought out of his mind. “Despite what you think of me, I’m not starved for a man.”

“That much I’d believe,” he said shortly. “My God, I get more warmth out of an ice cube than I ever got from you!”

She felt the impact of those words like daggers against her bare skin. She should have realized that he thought her frigid, but it had never really registered before.

“Maybe Tom Wheelor got more!” she threw at him.

His black eyes splintered with rage. He actually started toward her before he checked himself with the iron control that he kept on his temper.

Shelby saw that movement, and thanked God that he stopped when he did. She lifted her chin. “Good night, Justin. Thank you for a roof over my head and a place to live.”

His eyelids flickered as she started up the staircase. Looking at her he recalled years of dreams, of remembered delight in just being with her, frustration at having to hold back only to lose her anyway. He still cared. He’d lied to protect his pride, but he cared so much. And he was losing her, all over again.

He wanted to tell her that he hadn’t meant to accuse her of being frigid. He’d wanted her to distraction, and she hadn’t wanted him. That had hurt far more than having her break their engagement, especially when he’d found out that Tom Wheelor was her lover. It had damned near killed him. And here she was throwing it in his teeth, hitting him in his most vulnerable spot. He’d always wondered if she found him revolting physically. That was what made him believe that she’d meant what she told him about not wanting him, about wanting Tom Wheelor instead—that reluctance in her to let him get close to her.

And she was different now. She wasn’t the shy, introverted young woman he’d known six years ago. She was oddly reckless; high-spirited and uninhibited when she forgot herself. But he couldn’t bend. He couldn’t make himself bend enough to tell her what was in his heart, how much he still wanted her, because he didn’t dare trust her again. She’d hurt him too badly. He watched her go up the staircase, his eyes black and soft and full of hunger. He didn’t move until she was out of sight.

Chapter Four

Shelby had hoped beyond hope that Justin might still love her. That he might have married her not so much out of pity as out of love. But her wedding day had convinced her that what little emotion had been left in him after years of bitterness was all gone. He still blamed her for what he thought she’d done with Tom Wheelor, and he thought she was frigid.

She didn’t know how to deal with her own fears and his anger. Her marriage was going to be as empty as her life had been. There would be no black-headed little babies to nurse, no soft, sweet loving in the darkness, no shared delight in making a life together. There would be only separate bedrooms and separate lives and Justin’s hunger for vengeance.

The black depression that she’d taken to bed on her wedding night got worse. Justin tolerated her presence, but he was away more often than not. At meals, he spoke to her only when it was necessary, and he never touched her. He was like a polite host instead of a husband. And day by miserable day, Shelby began to feel a new recklessness. While Justin was away one weekend, she went on a white-water rafting race with Abby’s friend Misty Davies. She tried her hand at skydiving. She joined a fencing class. She went back to the old, more reckless days of her adolescence. Justin had never really known her, she thought sometimes. He seemed surprised by the things she enjoyed and a time or two he acted as if her lifestyle bothered him. Well, what had he expected her to do, she fumed, stay at home and arrange flowers? Perhaps that was the image he had of her, that she was a pretty socialite with beauty and no brains.

She’d kept working after the wedding, but Barry Holman insisted that she take a few days off. It wasn’t right, he said, for her to work through her honeymoon. She wanted to laugh at that, and tell him that her husband didn’t want a honeymoon. Justin had come home from his latest trip and had gone straight to the feedlot office with an abrupt and coolly polite greeting. After a few bored hours, Shelby phoned the office, just to see how things were going. She liked her job. She missed working terribly. It was something to do; it helped keep her mind off her marriage and her own inadequacies.

When she called, the poor temporary secretary, Tammy Lester, answered the phone, obviously half out of her mind trying to cope with an impatient, frustrated Barry Holman. So Shelby dressed in a cool white and red summery dress and white high heels and went to work.

The old sedan she drove broke down halfway there and she had to have it towed in to the dealer car lot where she had her mechanical work done.

Once Shelby was at the dealership, as fate would have it, she noticed Abby’s little sports car was there and up for sale. The sight of the car brought back memories. Shelby had driven one like it during six of the blackest months in her life, the time she’d spent in Switzerland after she’d given back Justin’s ring. She’d loved that car, but she’d wrecked it accidentally. The wreck hadn’t dampened her enthusiasm for fast cars, though. Now she wanted one—it appealed to the wild streak in her that had never totally disappeared. It wasn’t a suicidal streak; she just loved a challenge. She liked sports cars and the exhilaration of driving in the fast lane.

Justin didn’t know that Shelby had a wild streak, because he’d accepted the illusion of what she appeared to be rather than wondering what was beneath the surface. Well, he was in for a few shocks, she decided, starting now.

Because the dealer knew that Shelby had just married Justin, he didn’t even ask for a cosigner on the note. He sold her the car outright, with payments she could afford on her own salary.

She parked the vehicle right outside the office, delighting in its new paint job. Abby had had it painted red with white racing stripes just before she traded it for something more sedate. The new colors suited Shelby very well. She sighed over it, delighted that she could afford it and even manage the payments by herself. All her life she’d depended on her father’s money. There was something challenging and very satisfying about taking care of herself financially. She was sorry now that she’d panicked at being on her own and rushed into marrying Justin. She’d hoped for something more than a roof over her head, but that wasn’t going to happen. Justin was taking care of her, just as he’d taken care of Abby, and if he had any lingering desire for her, it didn’t show. After he’d accused her of being frigid, she’d kept out of his way altogether. If only she wasn’t so repressed, she could have told him what the problem was and how frightened she was of intimacy. But it was hopeless. Justin would probably be as embarrassed as she was to talk about it, anyway. So things would just have to rock along as they had been, until one of them broke the silence.

When she got to the office, Barry Holman was pacing the floor while the temporary secretary cried. They both turned as Shelby put her purse in the top drawer of the desk and smiled.

“Can I help?” she asked.

The woman at her desk cried even harder. “He yells,” she wailed, pointing at Barry Holman, who looked furiously angry from his blond head to his big feet.

“Only at incompetents!” he flashed back.

“Now, now,” Shelby soothed. “I’m here. I’ll take care of everything. Tammy, why don’t you make Mr. Holman a cup of coffee while I straighten out whatever’s fouled up, then I’ll show you how to update the files and you can keep busy with that. Okay?”

Tammy smiled, her soft brown eyes quiet. “Okay.”

She got up and Shelby sat down. Her dark brows lifted as Barry Holman glanced at her uncomfortably.

“It’s your vacation,” he said. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Why not? Justin is working, why shouldn’t I?”

He frowned. “Well…”