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She thought her heart would break. Though she’d told herself he could never hurt her again, she’d been wrong. Struggling against the old wounds, she whispered, “I never lied to you, Colton.”
“Ha!”
As she tilted her chin up defiantly, her gaze collided with the naked cynicism in his. “Believe what you want, but I swear by everything I believe in, that I never lied to you.”
A muscle worked in his jaw, and for a second, indecision flashed in his eyes. His expression became gentler as he ga
zed down on her, and Cassie sensed he was wrestling an inner battle. “Maybe you just twisted the truth.”
“And maybe you did,” she whispered as his breath, warm and familiar, filled the air between them. Her throat went dry at the nearness of him.
If only she could forget how much she had loved him, how much she had cared....
Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, his uncertainty vanished. His jaw slid to the side, and he surveyed her through narrowed eyes. “I played the fool for you once, Cassie,” he admitted, his lips thin as he tossed her arm away in disgust. “Believe me, it won’t happen again.”
“You arrogant bastard,” she cried, stepping away from him. “You’ve got a lot of nerve. . . .” Knowing she was fighting the inevitable anyway, she led him to the barn across the yard. She barely felt the rain and mud as she marched into the tall building and switched on the lights. A few white-faced Herefords lowed and shoved their heads through the manger, hoping that she would toss some more feed in the trough.
Colton followed her inside. He noticed the challenge in her eyes and the pride that stiffened her slim shoulders as she waved her arm in a wide arc. “Be my guest,” she invited caustically.
“I will.” He strode through the building, searching it from one end to the other and found nothing, not one bloody trace of Black Magic. Swearing under his breath, he wended his way through the bins of feed, oats and loose bales of hay to the door where Cassie leaned insolently against the dusty frame. Her arms were folded under her breasts, and her generous mouth was curved into a fair imitation of a smirk. “Find him?” she asked, pretending interest in her nails.
“No.”
“You’re sure?” she drawled.
“Positive.”
She cocked her head to one side and glanced toward the ceiling. “Better check the hayloft,” she suggested sweetly, savoring her revenge. “Dad could have used the grain elevator to lift your precious horse up there.”
Unexpectedly Colton grinned. He eyed the loft, a platform built some ten feet above the wooden floor. Tightly stacked bales were piled to the apex of the roof, where a small round window reflected the beam of Cassie’s flashlight. “You’ve made your point, Miss Aldridge.”
“About time.” Shoving open the door, she shined her flashlight on his dented Jeep. “Now, if you’re done accusing my family and searching this place from stem to stern, I think I’ll go into the house. It’s been a long day.”
“It’s not over yet.”
“Oh, yes it is!” she said succinctly. “At least for me.” Her eyes blazed. “The next time you go around accusing innocent people of crimes they didn’t commit, you’d better get your facts straight.”
“You’re a good one to start talking about the truth, Cass.”
The words cut deep, stinging like the bite of a whip. “As I said, Colton, I never lied to you. You just weren’t man enough to trust me!”
“Trust you?”
“Yes. You didn’t even have the guts to let me explain!”
“Explain what? That you were trying to trap me into marriage by imagining a baby that didn’t exist?”
“No!”
“Don’t, Cassie,” he whispered, his voice low, his eyes dark.
“Get the hell off my land, McLean!” she ordered. Spinning on her heel, she took off for the house.
Colton watched her sprint across the yard. Her black hair streamed behind her; her hips moved gracefully as she hurried up the back steps and slammed the door in her wake.
Seething, his jaw clenched so hard it ached, Colton strode to his pickup and climbed inside. What was it about her? She was a liar—a woman who at seventeen had tried to trick him into marriage—and yet there was something captivating about her tantalizing smile and wide hazel eyes.
He jammed the old truck into gear and stomped on the throttle. He’d known women before and since his brief affair with Cassie, but none had been able to get under his skin the way she had.
