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"Love me back."
"You made a fool of me!"
"I made a woman of you!" He spun away from her, making an effort to control his temper. "If you'd stop sifting everything through your filter of propriety and conscience and guilt, you'd see things clearly. That night was the best thing that had ever happened to either of us. It freed us both."
"Free?" she cried. "Free? I'll have to bear the burden of that night the rest of my life."
"Are you referring to my baby as a burden?"
"No, not the baby," she ground out. "The guilt. Of making love to one brother while being engaged to another."
"Oh…" He blistered the walls with his expletive. "Are we back to that again?"
"Yes. And I'm weary of it. Take me home."
"Not a chance. Not until we've thrashed this thing out."
"Take me home," she said adamantly. "If you don't, I'll steal the keys to on
e of your automobiles and drive myself."
"You're staying here or I'll—"
"Don't threaten me. I'm not afraid of you anymore. Your threats are empty anyway. What could you possibly do to me that would be worse than what you've already done?"
His jaw bunched with fury. She watched his eyes fill with hot rage, then just as quickly harden coldly. Abruptly he turned away from her. Going to the closet, he ripped a shirt from a hanger and picked up a pair of boots. "Get dressed," he said tersely through barely moving lips. "I'll come back for you in five minutes."
When he did, she was ready. She preceded him downstairs and through the front door. It was dark as they crossed the yard to the garage. He opened the door of the Lincoln and she got inside.
They were silent during the entire trip into town. His hands gripped the steering wheel as though he'd like to tear it from its mounting. He drove fast. When he braked outside her apartment, she rocked forward with the impact. Leaning across her, he opened the door and shoved it open. She stepped out.
"Jenny?" He was leaning across the seat. "I've done some terrible things. Mostly out of pure meanness. But this is one time I tried to do the right thing. I wanted to do right by my folks, you, and my baby." He laughed mirthlessly. "Even when I try to do what's right, it gets shot to hell. Maybe it's true what people have always said about Cage Hendren. He's just no damn good." He reached for the door and slammed it closed.
Then with a grinding of gears and a shower of gravel, the car shot forward and out of the parking lot.
Jenny let herself into the apartment. She felt drained, listless. Had it only been last night that she and Cage had shared the candlelight dinner? Yes, there were their ice-cream bowls and coffee cups still on the coffee table, forgotten there when they had left to drive Roxy and Gary to El Paso. It could have happened in another lifetime.
She left the lamps unlit as she went through the apartment toward her bedroom. It seemed dark, cold, empty, unlike the bedroom at Cage's house.
No, she wouldn't think of that.
But she did and there was no stopping the memories that rushed to her mind. Every touch, every kiss, every word.
She remembered the bleak expression in his eyes just before he had left. Had he been trying to do the right thing by holding his silence?
He certainly hadn't acted smug the morning Hal left. She remembered the attention he had paid her. He had been tense and watchful, but not cocky or obnoxious as he could have been. If it had only been a cruel trick he'd played, he certainly hadn't gloated over it afterward.
Did he love her? He had been willing to forfeit claiming his child. Wasn't such a sacrifice the ultimate testimony of love?
And if he loved her, what was she really upset about?
Cage had been her only lover. Didn't that give her a warm, glowing feeling inside? The enchantment of that night had been hers and Cage's. She should have known! She had never felt that way in her life before or since … until last night.
When he was inside her, hadn't his body felt familiar, like an extension of hers? Both times, hadn't she felt complete? Hadn't the addition of his body to hers brought together all the pieces of the complex puzzle that was Jenny Fletcher and made it whole?
Was she accusing Cage of deceit only to alleviate her own conscience? Because for years she had been deceitful to Hal, to the Hendrens, to the town. She had gone along with their marriage plans, knowing full well that the love she bore Hal wasn't the kind to base a marriage on.
There had been no sympathetic cord struck between them as there was with her and Cage. Hal hadn't satisfied the restless hunger of her spirit. With him she would have gone on suppressing that spirit and living under constant restraints. Cage dared her to be herself.
