Part of the Bargain

The spacious sun-filled kitchen seemed to buckle and shift around Jess. “Why didn’t she tell Ken, at least?”

“What would have been the point in that, Jess? He couldn’t have made the boy well again or transformed Aaron Strand into a devoted husband.”

The things Libby must have endured—the shame, the loneliness, the humiliation and grief, washed over Jess in a dismal, crushing wave. No wonder she had reached out to Stacey the way she had. No wonder. “Thanks,” he said gruffly, standing up to leave.

“Jess?”

He paused in the kitchen doorway, his hands clasping the woodwork, his shoulders aching with tension. “What?”

“Don’t worry about Libby. I’ll take care of her.”

Jess felt a despairing sort of anger course through him. “What about Cathy?” he asked, without turning around. “Who is going to take care of her?”

“You’ve always—”

Jess whirled suddenly, staring at his brother, almost hating him. “I’ve always what?”

“Cared for her.” Stacey shrugged, looking only mildly unsettled. “Protected her…”

“Are you suggesting that I sweep up the pieces after you shatter her?” demanded Jess in a dangerous rasp.

Stacey only shrugged again.

Because he feared that he would do his brother lasting harm if he stayed another moment, Jess stormed out of the house. Cathy, dressed in old jeans, boots and a cotton blouse, was waiting beside the truck. The pallor in her face told Jess that she knew much more about the state of her marriage than he would have hoped.

Her hands trembled a little as she spoke with them. “I’m scared, Jess.”

He drew her into his arms, held her. “I know, baby,” he said, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him or see his lips. “I know.”

Libby opened her eyes, yawned and stretched. The smells of sunshine and fresh air swept into her bedroom through the open window, ruffling pink eyelet curtains and reminding her that she was home again. She tossed back the covers on the bed and got up, sleepily making her way into the bathroom and starting the water for a shower.

As she took off her short cotton nightshirt, she looked down at herself and remembered the raging sensations Jess Barlowe had ignited in her the day before. She had been stupid and self-indulgent to let that happen, but after several years of celibacy, she supposed it was natural that her passions had been stirred so easily—especially by a man like Jess.

As Libby showered, she felt renewed. Aaron’s flagrant infidelities had been painful for her, and they had seriously damaged her self-esteem in the bargain.

Now, even though she had made a fool of herself by being wanton with a man who could barely tolerate her, many of Libby’s doubts about herself as a woman had been eased, if not routed. She was not as useless and undesirable as Aaron had made her feel. She had caused Jess Barlowe to want her, hadn’t she?

Big deal, she told the image in her mirror as she brushed her teeth. How do you know Jess wasn’t out to prove that his original opinion of you was on target?

Deflated by this very real possibility, Libby combed her hair, applied the customary lip gloss and light touch of mascara and went back to her room to dress. From her suitcases she selected a short-sleeved turquoise pullover shirt and a pair of trim jeans. Remembering her intention to find Cathy and persuade her to go riding, she ferreted through her closet until she found the worn boots she’d left behind before moving to New York, pulling them on over a pair of thick socks.

Looking down at those disreputable old boots, Libby imagined the scorn they would engender in Aaron’s jet-set crowd and laughed. Problems or no problems, Jess or no Jess, it was good to be home.

Not surprisingly, the kitchen was empty. Ken had probably left the house before dawn, but there was coffee on the stove and fruit in the refrigerator, so Libby helped herself to a pear and sat down to eat.

The telephone rang just as she was finishing her second cup of coffee, and Libby answered cheerfully, thinking that the caller would be Ken or the housekeeper at the main house, relaying some message for Cathy.

She was back at the table, the receiver pressed to her ear, before Aaron spoke.

“When are you coming home?”

“Home?” echoed Libby stupidly, off-balance, unable to believe that he’d actually asked such a question. “I am home, Aaron.”

“Enough,” he replied. “You’ve made your point, exhibited your righteous indignation. Now you’ve got to get back here because I need you.”

Libby wanted to hang up, but it seemed a very long way from her chair to the wall, where the rest of the telephone was. “Aaron, we are divorced,” she reminded him calmly, “and I am never coming back.”

“You have to,” he answered, without missing a beat. “It’s crucial.”

“Why? What happened to all your…friends?”

Aaron sighed. “You remember Betty, don’t you? Miss November? Well, Betty and I had a small disagreement, as it happens, and she went to my family. I am, shall we say, exposed as something less than an ideal spouse.

“In any case, my grandmother believes that a man who cannot run his family—she was in Paris when we divorced, darling—cannot run a company, either. I have six months to bring you back into the fold and start an heir, or the whole shooting match goes to my cousin.”

Libby was too stunned to speak or even move; she simply stood in the middle of her father’s kitchen, trying to absorb what Aaron was saying.

“That,” Aaron went on blithely, “is where you come in, sweetheart. You come back, we smile a lot and make a baby, my grandmother’s ruffled feathers are smoothed. It’s as simple as that.”

Sickness boiled into Libby’s throat. “I don’t believe this!” she whispered.

“You don’t believe what, darling? That I can make a baby? May I point out that I sired Jonathan, of whom you were so cloyingly fond?”

Libby swallowed. “Get Miss November pregnant,” she managed to suggest. And then she added distractedly, more to herself than Aaron, “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Don’t tell me that I’ve been beaten to the proverbial draw,” Aaron remarked in that brutally smooth, caustic way of his. “Did the steak-house king already do the deed?”

“You are disgusting!”

“Yes, but very practical. If I don’t hand my grandmother an heir, whether it’s mine or the issue of that softheaded cowboy, I stand to lose millions of dollars.”

Libby managed to stand up. A few steps, just a few, and she could hang up the telephone, shut out Aaron’s voice and his ugly suggestions. “Do you really think that I would turn any child of mine over to someone like you?”

“There is a child, then,” he retorted smoothly.

“No!” Five steps to the wall, six at most.

“Be reasonable, sweetness. We’re discussing an empire here. If you don’t come back and attend to your wifely duties, I’ll have to visit that godforsaken ranch and try to persuade you.”

“I am not your wife!” screamed Libby. One step. One step and a reach.

“Dear heart, I don’t find the idea any more appealing than you do, but there isn’t any other way, is there? My grandmother likes you—sees you as sturdy peasant stock—and she wants the baby to be yours.”

At last. The wall was close and Libby slammed the receiver into place. Then, dazed, she stumbled back to her chair and fell into it, lowering her head to her arms. She cried hard, for herself, for Jonathan.

“Libby?”

It was the last voice she would have wanted to hear, except for Aaron’s. “Go away, Stacey!” she hissed.