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you," he growled, watching her mouth. "Not this time, at least. I'm curious about you. I want to know
why you're so damned cold with me." "You make my life miserable," she said jerkily, "you carry me
off from my home and force me into a marriage I don't want, you insult me...and then you have the
audacity to wonder why I back away when you come toward me!'' His eyebrows lifted. "You were
backing away from me long before I brought you here. Two summers ago. The summer before that."
Her eyes fell to his chiseled mouth and she tried not to want it. "I've only tried to defend myself."
"After you attacked and set me off," he agreed. He sighed quietly. "I guess I am pretty hard on you
sometimes." That admission was startling, because he'd never admitted any such thing before. She
glanced up, curious.
"You don't know why, do you?" he asked, searching her eyes. She nodded. "Because you dislike me."
He laughed shortly. "God, you're green," he murmured. "Grass green and as out of place here as
hothouse orchids." He caught her chin and tilted it. "That reminds me. I want you to stop putting those
damned flowers in my study. Bandy made a remark about it this morning--and about the damned tree
you put in the living room. Said you were softening me up." She gave him her most belligerent glare.
"And what's wrong with that, Rawhide Man? You're so hard you can't enjoy the simple pleasures of
life." That made him angry. "We don't need all that," he said gruffly. "Christmas trees and wreaths on
the damned door.. .next, I'll find lace sewn on the edges of my damned underwear!" The thought of it
made her giggle. She put up a hand to muffle her laughter, but he caught it savagely and pressed it
against his chest.
er fingers felt the heavy rise and fall of his breathing. The hand at her back involuntarily drew her
closer, and with a shock she realized that the closeness of her body was beginning to have a
noticeable effect on him. Apparently he wasn't anxious to have her know that, because he immediately
loosened his hold so that several inches separated them. His eyes went down to the slender hand
resting on his white shirtfront. His own hand touched it lightly, tracing the pale blue veins on its back,
running over her long fingers. "You play something, don't you?" he asked in a deep, slow drawl. "The
piano?" "Yes," she whispered. "You have...lovely hands," he murmured. His breathing was growing
more ragged by the second. Slowly, almost absently, he flicked open two of the top buttons of his
open-necked shirt and drew her fingers inside. She went rigid at the feel of him, at the hair-roughened
warmth and strength of the hard muscles of his chest, just below his collarbone. His lips parted as he
watched her hand against his body. He opened another button and guided her hand from one side of
his chest to the other, letting her fingers rest finally on one rigid male nipple. She hadn't realized that
it happened to men the way it happened to women, and she looked up with the discovery in her eyes.
His eyes held hers for a long, static moment. He bent his head just enough for her lips to come within
reach of his, and she could feel the banked-down fire in him like an imminent explosion. ' 'Open your
mouth, and fit it to mine,'' he whispered in a deep tone that hypnotized her. She obeyed him in silence,
a thick silence that throbbed with new emotions, new knowledge. She stood up on her tiptoes, staring
at his mouth, and opened hers very slowly.
Holding her breath, she fitted her lips exactly to his hard, open mouth, and a gasp caught in her throat
at the exquisite sensations that rippled through her body. His breath mingled with hers, coming quick
and harsh. Both his hands moved to her waist and lifted her gently up against his hard body while his
mouth slowly increased its intimate pressure. Her hands, both of them exploring his hard chest now,
tangled in the thick mat of hair over the warm muscles and pulled, like a kitten kneading a soft cover
in pure pleasure. He moaned sharply, and his mouth was suddenly demanding, hungry and relentless,
forcing hers into a deeper union that drew a moan from her own mouth. She slid her hands up around
his neck and pressed her breasts hard against his chest. She felt as though she were drowning in new
and exquisite pleasures. All at once he set her back down on her feet and stood glaring at her, his face
showing mingled anger and reluctant satisfaction. She drew away from him, surprised that he let her,
and turned back to the table. "Katy... and I are going to services in a few minutes," she said, shaken.
"Would you like to go with us?" "No, I would not." If she hadn't been so shaken, she might have
noticed the rasping sound of his voice, the quickness of his breath, which betrayed how moved he'd
been. But she didn't, and he turned away. "I'm going out for dinner," he said coldly. "You can gush
over Katy all by yourself!" "She's your daughter, Jude," she said, her voice soft and hurt and shaking.
He stopped, his back to her, and said something rough. "I can't stay here with you," he ground out
after a minute. That was deliberately cruel, but she didn't react. "Don't worry, Katy and I will be out of
the house for at least two hours," she retorted. "I'd still rather go to town. I've had about all the high
society I can stand," he added before he slammed out the door. She turned her back and went toward
the kitchen to see how Aggie was coming with supper. But she hesitated outside the door and dried the
tears that insisted on falling, no matter how hard she tried to stop them. She put on a happy face for
Katy, making some excuse about an unexpected business meeting that Jude had to attend. It pacified
the little girl, but her disappointment showed. She had her long hair brushed around her shoulders,
and she was wearing the ruffled pink dress Bess had bought for her. She looked so lovely. And Jude
didn't even care enough to stay and see her. Bess could have shaken him. Later, when it was bedtime,
Katy came into Bess's room and they sat in their nightgowns on Bess's bed while the older woman
told her about Christmases at the Georgia estate where she grew up. "Do you miss your mother a
lot?" Katy asked. "Yes," she said. "I miss her terribly. But she was very sick and she's so much better
off." "She's in heaven," Katy said, understanding. She held Bess's hand. "You aren't sorry you came
here, are you? You aren't sorry you married Daddy?" "No, I'm not sorry," Bess said softly, and
smiled. "Look what a beautiful daughter I got."
Katy blushed and grinned. "Bess, did you have parties at Christmas when you were a little girl?" "Not
a lot of them," Bess said, sighing. "But when my stepsister got big enough, her father insisted that she
have them. She had lots of boyfriends." "Did you?" Bess shook her head. "No, darling. I'm very plain,
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