Part of the Bargain

“If it’s the same as what Stacey’s been mouthing off about, I reckon I do.”

Libby stepped back, stunned. “What?”

Ken Kincaid sighed, and suddenly all his fifty-two years showed clearly in his face. “Stacey and Cathy have been having trouble the last year or so. Now he’s telling everybody who’ll listen that it’s over between him and Cathy and he wants you.”

“I don’t believe it! I—”

“I wanted to warn you, Lib, but you’d been through so much, between losing the boy and then falling out with your husband after that. I thought you needed to be home, but I knew you wouldn’t come near the place if you had any idea what was going on.”

Libby’s chin trembled, and she searched her father’s honest, weathered face anxiously. “I…I haven’t been fooling around with C-Cathy’s husband, Dad.”

He smiled gently. “I know that, Lib—knew it all along. Just never mind Jess and all the rest of them—if you don’t run away, this thing’ll blow over.”

Libby swallowed, thinking of Cathy and the pain she had to be feeling. The betrayal. “I can’t stay here if Cathy is going to be hurt.”

Ken touched her cheek with a work-worn finger. “Cathy doesn’t really believe the rumors, Libby—think about it. Why would she work so hard to fix a studio up for you if she did? Why would she be waiting here to see you again?”

“But she was crying just now, Dad! And she as much as accused me of carrying on with her husband!”

“She’s been hurt by what’s been said, and Stacey’s been acting like a spoiled kid. Honey, Cathy’s just testing the waters, trying to find out where you stand. You can’t leave her now, because except for Stace, there’s nobody she needs more.”

Despite the fact that all her instincts warned her to put the Circle Bar B behind her as soon as humanly possible, Libby saw the sense in her father’s words. As incredible as it seemed, Cathy would need her—if for nothing else than to lay those wretched rumors to rest once and for all.

“These things Stacey’s been saying—surely he didn’t unload them on Cathy?”

Ken sighed. “I don’t think he’d be that low, Libby. But you know how it is with Cathy, how she always knows the score.”

Libby shook her head distractedly. “Somebody told her, Dad—and I think I know who it was.”

There was disbelief in Ken’s discerning blue eyes, and in his voice, too. “Jess? Now, wait a minute…”

Jess.

Libby couldn’t remember a time when she had gotten along well with him, but she’d been sure that he cared deeply for Cathy. Hadn’t he been the one to insist that Stace and Libby learn signing, as he had, so that everyone could talk to the frightened, confused little girl who couldn’t hear? Hadn’t he gifted Cathy with cherished bullfrogs and clumsily made valentines and even taken her to the high-school prom?

How could Jess, of all people, be the one to hurt Cathy, when he knew as well as anyone how badly she’d been hurt by her handicap and the rejection of her own parents? How?

Libby had no answer for any of these questions. She knew only that she had separate scores to settle with both the Barlowe brothers.

And settle them she would.

Chapter 2

Libby sat at the end of the rickety swimming dock, bare feet dangling, shoulders slumped, her gaze fixed on the shimmering waters of the pond. The lines of her long, slender legs were accentuated, rather than disguised, by the old blue jeans she wore. A white eyelet suntop sheltered shapely breasts and a trim stomach and left the rest of her upper body bare.

Jess Barlowe studied her in silence, feeling things that were at wide variance with his personal opinion of the woman. He was certain that he hated Libby, but something inside him wanted, nonetheless, to touch her, to comfort her, to know the scent and texture of her skin.

A reluctant grin tilted one corner of his mouth. One tug at the top of that white eyelet and…

Jess caught his skittering thoughts, marshaled them back into stern order. As innocent and vulnerable as Libby Kincaid looked at the moment, she was a viper, willing to betray her own cousin to get what she wanted.

Jess imagined Libby naked, her glorious breasts free and welcoming. But the man in his mental scenario was not himself—it was Stacey. The thought lay sour in Jess’s mind.

“Did you come to apologize, by any chance?”

The question so startled Jess that he flinched; he had not noticed that Libby had turned around and seen him, so caught up had he been in the vision of her giving herself to his brother.

He scowled, as much to recover his wits as to oppose her. It was and always had been his nature to oppose Libby Kincaid, the way electricity opposes water, and it annoyed him that, for all his travels and his education, he didn’t know why.

“Why would I want to do that?” he shot back, more ruffled by her presence than he ever would have admitted.

“Maybe because you were a complete ass,” she replied in tones as sunny as the big sky stretched out above them.

Jess lifted his hands to his hips and stood fast against whatever it was that was pulling him toward her. I want to make love to you, he thought, and the truth of that ground in his spirit as well as in his loins.

There was pain in Libby’s navy blue eyes, as well as a cautious mischief. “Well?” she prodded.

Jess found that while he could keep himself from going to her, he could not turn away. Maybe her net reached farther than he’d thought. Maybe, like Stacey and that idiot in New York, he was already caught in it.

“I’m not here to apologize,” he said coldly.

“Then why?” she asked with chiming sweetness.

He wondered if she knew what that shoulderless blouse of hers was doing to him. Damn. He hadn’t been this tongue-tied since the night of his fifteenth birthday, when Ginny Hillerman had announced that she would show him hers if he would show her his.

Libby’s eyes were laughing at him. “Jess?”

“Is your dad here?” he threw out in gruff desperation.

One shapely, gossamer eyebrow arched. “You know perfectly well that he isn’t. If Dad were home, his pickup truck would be parked in the driveway.”

Against his will, Jess grinned. His taut shoulders rose in a shrug. The shadows of cottonwood leaves moved on the old wooden dock, forming a mystical path—a path that led to Libby Kincaid.

She patted the sun-warmed wood beside her. “Come and sit down.”

Before Jess could stop himself, he was striding along that small wharf, sinking down to sit beside Libby and dangle his booted feet over the sparkling water. He was never entirely certain what sorcery made him ask what he did.

“What happened to your marriage, Libby?”

The pain he had glimpsed before leapt in her eyes and then faded away again, subdued. “Are you trying to start another fight?”

Jess shook his head. “No,” he answered quietly, “I really want to know.”

She looked away from him, gnawing at her lower lip with her front teeth. All around them were ranch sounds—birds conferring in the trees, leaves rustling in the wind, the clear pond water lapping at the mossy pilings of the dock. But no sound came from Libby.

On an impulse, Jess touched her mouth with the tip of one index finger. Water and electricity—the analogy came back to him with a numbing jolt.

“Stop that,” he barked, to cover his reactions.