Part of the Bargain

On the other hand, she wasn’t certain that she’d been wise to come back. Jess obviously intended to make her feel less than welcome, and although she had certainly never been intimately involved with Stacey Barlowe, Cathy’s husband, sometimes her feelings toward him weren’t all that clearly defined.

Unlike his younger brother, Stace was a warm, outgoing person, and through the shattering events of the past year and a half, he had been a tender and steadfast friend. Adrift in waters of confusion and grief, Libby had told Stacey things that she had never breathed to another living soul, and it was true that, as Jess had so bitterly pointed out, she had written to the man when she couldn’t bring herself to contact her own father.

But she wasn’t in love with Stace, Libby told herself firmly. She had always looked up to him, that was all—like an older brother. Maybe she’d become a little too dependent on him in the bargain, but that didn’t mean she cared for him in a romantic way, did it?

She sighed, and Cathy turned to look at her pensively, almost as though she had heard the sound. That was impossible, of course, but Cathy was as perceptive as anyone Libby had ever known, and she often felt sounds.

“Glad to be home?” the deaf woman inquired, gesturing gently.

Libby didn’t miss the tremor in her cousin’s hands, but she forced a weary smile to her face and nodded in answer to the question.

Suddenly Cathy’s eyes were sparkling again, and she caught Libby’s hand in her own and tugged her through an archway and into the glassed-in sunporch that overlooked the pond.

Libby drew in a swift, delighted breath. There was indeed a skylight in the roof—a big one. A drawing table had been set up in the best light the room offered, along with a lamp for night work, and there were flowering plants hanging from the exposed beams in the ceiling. The old wicker furniture that had been stored in the attic for as long as Libby could remember had been painted a dazzling white and bedecked with gay floral-print cushions. Small rugs in complementary shades of pink and green had been scattered about randomly, and there was even a shelving unit built into the wall behind the art table.

“Wow!” cried Libby, overwhelmed, her arms spread out wide in a gesture of wonder. “Cathy, you missed your calling! You should have been an interior decorator.”

Though Libby hadn’t signed the words, her cousin had read them from her lips. Cathy’s green eyes shifted quickly from Libby’s face, and she lowered her head. “Instead of what?” she motioned sadly. “Instead of Stacey’s wife?”

Libby felt as though she’d been slapped, but she recovered quickly enough to catch one hand under Cathy’s chin and force her head up. “Exactly what do you mean by that?” she demanded, and she was never certain afterward whether she had signed the words, shouted them, or simply thought them.

Cathy shrugged in a miserable attempt at nonchalance, and one tear slid down her cheek. “He went to see you in New York,” she challenged, her hands moving quickly now, almost angrily. “You wrote to him.”

“Cathy, it wasn’t what you think—”

“Wasn’t it?”

Libby was furious and wounded, and she stomped one foot in frustration. “Of course it wasn’t! Do you really think I would do a thing like that? Do you think Stacey would? He loves you!” And so does Jess, she lamented in silence, without knowing why that should matter.

Stubbornly Cathy averted her eyes again and shoved her hands into the pockets of her lightweight cotton jacket—a sure signal that as far as she was concerned, the conversation was over.

In desperation, Libby reached out and caught her cousin’s shoulders in her hands, only to be swiftly rebuffed by an eloquent shrug. She watched, stricken to silence, as Cathy turned and hurried out of the sunporch-turned-studio and into the kitchen beyond. Just a moment later the back door slammed with a finality that made Libby ache through and through.

She ducked her head and bit her lower lip to keep the tears back. That, too, was something she had learned during Jonathan’s final confinement in a children’s hospital.

Just then, Jess Barlowe filled the studio doorway. Libby was aware of him in all her strained senses.

He set down her suitcases and drawing board with an unsympathetic thump. “I see you’re spreading joy and good cheer as usual,” he drawled in acid tones. “What, pray tell, was that all about?”

Libby was infuriated, and she glared at him, her hands resting on her trim rounded hips. “As if you didn’t know, you heartless bastard! How could you be so mean…so thoughtless…”

The fiery green eyes raked Libby’s travel-rumpled form with scorn. Ignoring her aborted question, he offered one of his own. “Did you think your affair with my brother was a secret, princess?”

Libby was fairly choking on her rage and her pain. “What affair, dammit?” she shouted. “We didn’t have an affair!”

“That isn’t what Stacey says,” replied Jess with impervious savagery.

Libby felt the high color that had been pounding in her face seep away. “What?”

“Stace is wildly in love with you, to hear him tell it. You need him and he needs you, and to hell with minor stumbling blocks like his wife!”

Libby’s knees weakened and she groped blindly for the stool at her art table and then sank onto it. “My God…”

Jess’s jawline was tight with brutal annoyance. “Spare me the theatrics, princess— I know why you came back here. Dammit, don’t you have a soul?”

Libby’s throat worked painfully, but her mind simply refused to form words for her to utter.

Jess crossed the room like a mountain panther, terrifying in his grace and prowess, and caught both her wrists in a furious, inescapable grasp. With his other hand he captured Libby’s chin.

“Listen to me, you predatory little witch, and listen well,” he hissed, his jade eyes hard, his flesh pale beneath his deep rancher’s tan. “Cathy is good and decent and she loves my brother, though I can’t for the life of me think why she condescends to do so. And I’ll be damned if I’ll stand by and watch you and Stacey turn her inside out! Do you understand me?”

Tears of helpless fury and outraged honor burned like fire in Libby’s eyes, but she could neither speak nor move. She could only stare into the frightening face looming only inches from her own. It was a devil’s face.

When Jess’s tightening grasp on her chin made it clear that he would have an answer of some sort, no matter what, Libby managed a small, frantic nod.

Apparently satisfied, Jess released her with such suddenness that she nearly lost her balance and slipped off the stool.

Then he whirled away from her, his broad back taut, one powerful hand running through his obsidian hair in a typical gesture of frustration. “Damn you for ever coming back here,” he said in a voice no less vicious for its softness.

“No problem,” Libby said with great effort. “I’ll leave.”

Jess turned toward her again, this time with an ominous leisure, and his eyes scalded Libby’s face, the hollow of her throat, the firm roundness of her high breasts. “It’s too late,” he said.

Still dazed, Libby sank back against the edge of the drawing table, sighed and covered her eyes with one hand. “Okay,” she began with hard-won, shaky reason, “why is that?”

Jess had stalked to the windows; his back was a barrier between them again, and he was looking out at the pond. Libby longed to sprout claws and tear him to quivering shreds.

“Stacey has the bit in his teeth,” he said at length, his voice low, speculative. “Wherever you went, he’d follow.”

Since Libby didn’t believe that Stacey had declared himself to be in love with her, she didn’t believe that there was any danger of his following her away from the Circle Bar B, either. “You’re crazy,” she said.

Jess faced her quickly, some scathing retort brewing in his eyes, but whatever he had meant to say was lost as Ken strode into the room and demanded, “What the hell’s going on in here? I just found Cathy running up the road in tears!”

“Ask your daughter!” Jess bit out. “Thanks to her, Cathy has just gotten started shedding tears!”

Libby could bear no more; she was like a wild creature goaded to madness, and she flung herself bodily at Jess Barlowe, just as she had in her childhood, fists flying. She would have attacked him gladly if her father hadn’t caught hold of her around the waist and forcibly restrained her.

Jess raked her with one last contemptuous look and moved calmly in the direction of the door. “You ought to tame that little spitfire, Ken,” he commented in passing. “One of these days she’s going to hurt somebody.”

Libby trembled in her father’s hold, stung by his double meaning, and gave one senseless shriek of fury. This brought a mocking chuckle from a disappearing Jess and caused Ken to turn her firmly to face him.

“Good Lord, Libby, what’s the matter with you?”

Libby drew a deep, steadying breath and tried to quiet the raging ten-year-old within her, the child that Jess had always been able to infuriate. “I hate Jess Barlow,” she said flatly. “I hate him.”

“Why?” Ken broke in, and he didn’t look angry anymore. Just honestly puzzled.

“If you knew what he’s been saying about me—”