Free The Rawhide Man by Diana Palmer

with supper. But she hesitated outside the door and dried the tears that insisted on falling, no matter how hard she tried to stop them.
    She put on a happy face for Katy, making some excuse about an unexpected business meeting that Jude had to attend. It pacified the little girl, but her disappointment showed. She had her long hair brushed around her shoulders, and she was wearing the ruffled pink dress Bess had bought for her. She looked so lovely. And Jude didn’t even care enough to stay and see her. Bess could have shaken him.
    Later, when it was bedtime, Katy came into Bess’s room and they sat in their nightgowns on Bess’s bed while the older woman told her about Christmases at the Georgia estate where she grew up.
    “Do you miss your mother a lot?” Katy asked.
    “Yes,” she said. “I miss her terribly. But she was very sick and she’s so much better off.”
    “She’s in heaven,” Katy said, understanding. She held Bess’s hand. “You aren’t sorry you came here, are you? You aren’t sorry you married Daddy?”
    “No, I’m not sorry,” Bess said softly, and smiled. “Look what a beautiful daughter I got.”
    Katy blushed and grinned. “Bess, did you have parties at Christmas when you were a little girl?”
    “Not a lot of them,” Bess said, sighing. “But when my stepsister got big enough, her father insisted that she have them. She had lots of boyfriends.”
    “Did you?”
    Bess shook her head. “No, darling. I’m very plain, you know.”
    “Daddy doesn’t think so,” Katy said. “I heard him tell Mr. Teague that you were a vision. Doesn’t that mean pretty?”
    “There are different kinds of vision,” Bess said sadly, thinking Jude probably meant she was a nightmare. Remembering the way he’d kissed her downstairs, she went hot all over. Why had he done that?
    She stretched, bringing the elasticized bodice of her nightgown precariously low, but she didn’t notice. “Darling, I’m tired, and tomorrow is Christmas. Let’s get some sleep,” she told Katy. “Tomorrow we’ll make some roasted pecans to snack on, all right?”
    “All right,” Katy said, getting up. “Bess, I’m so glad you came to live with us.”
    “So am I,” Bess said, and was about to elaborate when Jude walked in.
    He hadn’t even bothered to knock, and he looked a little wild. His black hair was hanging untidily down on his forehead and his green eyes were hard and glittering.
    “Have a party?” he asked, his voice slightly slurred.
    “Just saying good night to each other,” Bess said, sitting up straighter even though the action brought her bodice still lower. She felt a sense of power at the expression that went over his hard features, and she didn’t follow her first impulse, which had been to pull up the slipping fabric.
    “Good night, Daddy,” Katy said, standing on tiptoe as he lowered his cheek so she could kiss him. “You should have come to church with us, it was lovely. The minister said I looked pretty,” she added, grinning. “‘Night, Bess.”
    “‘Night, darling,” Bess said, cringing inside when Katy went out with a wicked smile and deliberately closed the door behind her.
    “Church,” Jude growled. “And Christmas trees and turkeys and turning my damn house and my life upside down.” He was breathing roughly, and Bess suddenly realized that he’d been drinking.
    Her lips parted on a rush of breath. “The service was very nice,” she said after a minute. “And Katy did…look lovely.”
    “So did you,” he ground out, staring pointedly at her bodice. “All lace and ruffles…did you wear that thing deliberately?”
    She swallowed nervously. “What thing?”
    “That gown,” he said, moving closer to the bed with a little less than his usual elegance of movement. He sat down heavily beside her, still staring at the gown.
    “I…couldn’t have known…you’d come in here,” she managed through tight lips.
    “Oh, of course not,” he muttered, glaring at