Cattleman's Choice by Diana Palmer

Author:Diana Palmer [Palmer, Diana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781460375501
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 1985-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

“Your fiancé?” He spoke as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard her in the first place, and his eyes were riveted to the photograph.

The lovely, sultry sweetness between them had been dissipated by the stark light, and she fumbled with the coverlet, drawing it quickly over her body.

“You were engaged?” he persisted. “When?”

“Before I came out here,” she faltered.

He stood up, replacing the photograph. His hand ran roughly through his disheveled hair, and she stared up at him helplessly. His shirt was still open and his mouth was faintly swollen from the pressure of the kisses they’d given each other. His eyes still bore traces of frustrated passion when they burned down into hers.

“Why didn’t you tell me about him before?” he demanded. “When I asked if you’d ever wanted a man before….”

She shivered at the accusation in his tone.

“It was when I was eighteen, Carson,” she said, tugging the coverlet closer.

“Stop that,” he growled. “I know every inch of you now, so stop behaving like a little prude. Was that a lie, too, are you really a virgin?”

“I haven’t lied to you!”

“By omission!” he returned. “You never said anything about a fiancé! So where is he now? Did he throw you over? Are you still hung up on him, is that it?”

“Will you calm down?”

“Calm down, hell!” he ground out, glaring at her as he fumbled to light a cigarette. “I hurt all over. How could you let me make love to you with the image of another man sitting right here beside the bed…!”

She dropped her eyes, clutching the coverlet, embarrassed. “I was out of my head,” she said miserably.

“So was I. I’ve never in my life wanted a woman so much. And if I hadn’t turned on that damned light, we wouldn’t be talking now. I’d be loving you.”

The way he said it caused shimmers of sensation all over her bare body. “Yes, I know,” she whispered.

“You’d have hated me for it,” he added curtly.

“Would I?” she murmured.

His face hardened and he turned away from her to smoke the cigarette. “Where is he, this ex-fiancé?”

She sighed and stared down at her hands, unconsciously letting the coverlet slide a little. “He’s dead.”

That seemed to startle him. He turned around and came back to her, sitting down on the bed beside her. “Dead?”

She drew in a slow breath. “He was killed in a plane crash, on his way to a banker’s convention in Washington, D.C. It was a small plane and it crashed into a hillside. You see, they…picked him up in pieces….”

He caught her hand reluctantly, and held it firmly in his. “I’m sorry. That would have made it worse.”

She nodded. Her hand clung to his. “He was twenty-three, and I loved him with all my heart.” Her eyes went past him to the photograph, and Ben looked very young to her now, with his blond hair tousled and his green eyes wicked and mischievous. “He came from a very old Charleston family. We had the same background and our families were friendly.

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