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

“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 (#ulink_40921456-899f-5bad-87d0-970362c691ee)

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 (#ulink_3d0a4e8c-6147-5ab3-b643-48105b21e979)

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.