Free Lacy by Diana Palmer Page A

them; the
train was remarkably uncrowded for that time of day. She looked back at him.
"You knew you'd hurt me, and you couldn't get out fast enough. Of course I
cried."
    "What could I have said or done then?"
he asked, eyes narrow and dark. "I thought you wanted me. You seemed to,
that morning."
    Her lips parted at the memory of it: his mouth
warm and searching, his body hard and hungry against her own. It had been so
sweet, so heady. "Yes, I wanted you," she whispered. "I thought
it would be the way it was that morning. But afterward, it was like being..
.used,"she said falteringly. "You wouldn't even let me touch you.
    His jaw clenched as he stared down at her, his
chest rising and falling unevenly. He did want, so desperately, to tell her why
he'd hurt her. But he wondered if she'd believe him even if he could make his
pride bend that far. "That's past history, anyway, Lacy," he said
curtly. He lifted the cigarette to his parted lips and took a long draw.
"We'll have to make the best of things, if we can."
    She looked out the window, to the low horizon
and acres of flat, unfenced land outside it. "I don't suppose it's
occurred to you that we could get a divorce?"
    "No. So it looks as if you're stuck,
doesn't it, kiddo?"he asked, with a cold smile.
    "Or you are," she replied sweetly, and
smiled back.
    He glanced down at the neat dark suit she was
wearing and the pretty little hat on her dark head. "I'm glad you aren't
wearing any of those outrageous new dresses like what you had on last night
"he commented. "I have a hell of a time keeping my cowhands working
as it is, without you women driving them crazy. They've been hanging around the
house for weeks now, trying to get a glimpse of Katy's legs. I finally burned
two of her more revealing dresses."
    "Just your style, cattle king," she
taunted. "If you can't reason with people, run over them. You were always
like that, even when you were younger."
    "Don't expect me to change, Lacy. I'm too
old."
    She shook her head, staring at the rugged
features, the straight nose and chiseled, wide mouth, the square jaw. It wasn't
the nicest face she'd ever seen on a man, but it suited him, and she loved
every hard line of it. Bronzed skin, deep-set dark eyes, heavy brows, thick
straight hair that fell into an unruly heap on his broad forehead. He was
sensuous. Yes, he really was, she thought suddenly, even in the way he moved. But
it was only an illusion, because he was more repressed than any man she'd ever
known and he hated the very idea of sex. She'd wondered a time or two how many
women he'd had in his life. Oddly, enough, she sometimes thought there had
hardly been any.
    "You're staring, honey,"he chided,
watching her intense scrutiny.
    "You're a very sensuous man," she said
quietly, watching the impact of that statement freeze his hard features.
    He turned his face away from her and leaned back
to smoke his cigarette in a frigid silence.
    "I'm sorry if I offended you," she
said after a minute, settling down into her own comfortable seat as the train
gathered speed.
    "No. It wasn't that," he replied, his
voice even, quiet.
    Well, whatever it was, he didn't volunteer
anything more. He sat with his hat down over his eyes, the cigarette smoking
between his lean, dark fingers, and he didn't say another word.
    Still, her eyes continued to study him, running
like hands down his long, lean body with its rippling play of muscle as he
shifted.
    "Why do they call Jude Turk?" she
asked unexpectedly.
    His thin lips actually smiled, but he didn't
open his eyes. "Because there aren't any fiercer fighters than the Turks.
He's a force to behold when he's mad, kiddo. A mean man."
    "As mean as you?" she teased softly,
her blue eyes twinkling in their frame of soft, forward-curving hair.
    He glanced down at her with one eye. "About
half,"he said. That eye went down to her full breasts and lingered, then
went back up again to catch her blush. "Embarrassed?"
    "You're the one who won't talk about
sex,"