AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I can have?” he asked, turning. She was still seated at the table, her eyes cool and distant, her face more beautiful than he’d remembered.
“It was John’s room.”
“I know whose room it was. I used to live here. Remember?”
She let out a little strangled sound, then cleared her throat. “Unfortunately, I could never forget.”
To his disgust, he felt his guts wrenching, that same horrid pain that he’d felt when Colton had convinced him that Tessa was involved with her father in Curtis’s scheme to fleece the ranch. To hide his weakness he leaned his hips against the counter and curled his fingers around the sharp edge. “What about my parents’ room?”
“I’m using it.”
“You?” he repeated. “You live here?”
“Yes.” Standing, she shoved her fingers into the pockets of her jeans. “You can have any room you want, Denver. Just let me know, so I can move my things.”
“Hold on a minute. Why are you living here?” he demanded, hot, fresh anger searing deep inside. Tessa had lived under the same roof as John before his death?
“It was more convenient.”
“I’ll bet,” he muttered, imagining her with his uncle. A bachelor for life, John McLean had gained a reputation with the local women. But Tessa? Denver’s insides knotted. Repulsed at the image of John and Tessa making love, he closed his mind and gritted his teeth. He wanted to discard the ugly idea, and yet he couldn’t. He didn’t really know Tessa, not anymore. Maybe he never had.
“What do you mean?” she asked before she caught the message in Denver’s stormy eyes. “You’re kidding, right?” she whispered, lips twitching. “You don’t really think I was John’s—”
“Were you?”
Laughter died in Tessa’s throat. Denver was serious. Dead serious. And there was a possessive streak of jealousy lighting his eyes. “Think about it, Denver,” she taunted, wounded once again. “You tell me.” Her back so stiff it ached, she strode out of the room and ran up the stairs to her room.
How could he think that she would sleep with his uncle? The ugly thought made her sick! She threw open the closet and began stripping her clothes off hangers, hurling them onto the bed and kicking shoes into the center of the room.
One thing was certain, she thought furiously, she couldn’t stay here at the house with Denver. She yanked her suitcase and an old Army duffel bag from the shelf and heaved both onto the bed. Cheeks burning, she began attacking the drawers of her dresser with fervor.
She slammed the top drawer. It banged hard against its casing, rattling the mirror. “Argumentative, insensitive beast!” she muttered through clenched teeth just as she caught sight of Denver’s image, staring at her from the mirror over the dresser.
He surveyed her scattered clothes expressionlessly. “Don’t let me stop you,” he drawled.
“You won’t!” She threw her clothes haphazardly into the suitcase and stuffed the remainder into the duffel bag. “Believe me.”
Not everything fit. Corners of blouses and sweater sleeves poked out of the bag and she had trouble closing the lid of the suitcase. Finally it snapped shut. Lifting her head high, she said, “I’ll be back for the rest in the morning.”
With the suitcase swinging from one arm and the duffel bag tucked under the other, she strode across the bedroom and waited, the toe of one boot tapping impatiently, for him to move. “If you’ll excuse me,” she mocked.
“No way.”
“Move, Denver.”
“Not until you explain what you were doing in this room.”
Her hazel eyes snapped. “I don’t have to explain anything to you, do I? You left me without a word—not one damn word! I don’t owe you anything.”
His mouth tightened, but he was wedged in the doorjamb and she couldn’t get around him.
“This is stupid, Denver.”
“Maybe.”
“Let me by.”
“As soon as you tell me why your father lives down at the ranch foreman’s house and you live here.”
