Wyatt stiffened as the pressure of her lips deepened. He felt…nothing. Nothing but anger. He tried to push her away, but she was stronger than he remembered and he didn’t want to hurt her. So he stood there, letting her kiss him, his eyes wide open and staring at her, letting her know, in no uncertain terms, that whatever he’d felt for her at one time was gone. And still, she persisted, moving her lips over his, trying, it seemed, to get some sort of reaction from him.
After a moment, she broke the kiss and stepped back, her dark eyes spitting fire, as both anger and disappointment flickered in their depths. “You really do love her.” She tilted her head to the side, giving him the same coquettish look she always did. “Why?”
“Because she’s a good woman and she loves me.”
She shrugged and walked away from him to stand in front of the fire. “Apparently, she doesn’t love you that much,” she practically purred.
He never realized before how much he hated when she did that, like talking sweetly would entice him to do whatever she wanted him to do. She hadn’t been wrong. He always did, but not now. “What do you mean? What are you saying?”
She turned and stared at him, the look of innocence she had perfected over the years on her face, but there was nothing innocent about Katie Brooks. There was purpose in everything she did. “She didn’t fight for you, Wyatt.”
Suspicion and anger—yes, anger—flared in his gut. And something else, too. Fear. “Sheridan was here?”
“She was.”
“What did you say to her?”
She ran her finger across the top of the sofa but didn’t answer him. She didn’t look at him for the longest time either, but when she did, there was a smugness and a meanness to her smile he’d never seen before, which made his gut twist.
He never in his life hurt a woman, never raised his hand to one, but he wanted, at this moment, to slap the smug smile from her face. His hands clenched and unclenched, but he didn’t move, didn’t take a step toward her, despite the anger raging through him.
“What did you say to her, Katie?” he demanded, his tone harsh, so harsh he hardly recognized it as his own.
“I told her you were still in love with me,” she confessed finally. And for once, instead of her eyes glittering with avarice and machinations, he saw fear.
Though stunned by her confession, Wyatt didn’t let his anger get the better of him, as he so easily could have. He didn’t curse. He didn’t shout. He didn’t say a word.
Instead, he approached her, lifted her in his arms, and deposited her, none-to-gently on his front porch, clad only in her underclothes. “Do not, I repeat, do not ever darken my doorstep again.” He glared at her. “In fact, if I were you, Katie, I’d leave town and never come back.”
“But…but Wyatt,” she stammered as tears filled her eyes.
“Enough,” he shouted, knowing they were fake. He took one last look at her, then untied Brigadier’s reins from the porch railing, and climbed into the saddle. “You’d better not be here when I get back.”
He kicked Brigadier’s sides and raced out of the barnyard, hoping that he wasn’t too late.
CHAPTER 18
“Sherry?” Wyatt called out as soon as he let himself in the parlor house, his heart in his throat. This love between he and Sheridan was still new, still tender, and knowing how her family treated her, he could only imagine her heartbreak when Katie lied to her.
Lily looked up from the book she’d been reading, tossed it aside and rose from her chair. She strode toward him, her hands on her hips, a scowl on her face. She looked like she had a few things to say to him, but she simply said, “She’s gone, Wyatt.”
“Gone? Gone where?” He ran his fingers through his hair, more exasperated than ever. If only Sheridan had given him a chance, he could have explained—everything.
Lily shrugged. “She got on the afternoon stage for Santa Fe. Where she’s going after that, I don’t know. She didn’t say.”
“Back to New Orleans?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because I love her.”
“And that’s why Katie was at your house?” Lily advanced on him, her hands still on her hips, anger in each step. “How could you have done that to her? How could you break Sheridan’s heart like that?”
“Katie just showed up. I wasn’t even home. I was working the ranch. I didn’t invite her. I don’t want anything to do with her. I love Sheridan. I have from the moment I saw her.”
Lily studied him and he grew a bit uncomfortable beneath her stare, but then she smiled. “You do love her. I can see it in your eyes.”
“I wouldn’t lie about that, Lily. She has my heart.”
