Free Any Thursday (Donovans of the Delta) by Peggy Webb Page B

been in charge and the next she’d been lost. All it had taken was one look, one touch from Jim.
    She drew a shaky breath. The game she was playing had taken a dangerous turn. With great certainty she realized that Jim’s bed would never be a proving ground of her independence. She didn’t want to think about what it would have been: She merely wanted to hang on to the few shreds of control she still possessed.
    Without taking her eyes off his, she reached out and loosened the knot that held his makeshift toga in place.
    “Not hot enough.”
    When she peeled the tablecloth from his body, she managed to look both cool and wickedly desirable. She’d have been pleased if she had known what a struggle Jim had to keep his hands off her.
    “Not nearly hot enough,” she added as she ran her hands over his chest.
    A shaft of moonlight caught the flames that sprang into his eyes as her hands moved downward. With her index finger she lightly traced across the front of this briefs.
    His sharp intake of breath made her smile. “Do you like that?” she asked softly.
    “Be careful how you play with fire. You might get burned.”
    “I’m a big girl now, Jim. I know what I’m doing.”
    “Do you, Hannah?”
    Something in his voice made her hesitate. Her hands stilled as she looked into his face. It was tight with an emotion that looked almost like anger.
    “Do you?” he repeated.
    She tossed back her hair and jutted out her chin. “Yes. I know that you want me.”
    His silence thundered around the room. Hannah’s breath caught in her throat as she looked at him.
    “I’ve made you want me,” she whispered.
    “Yes.”
    That was all she had, that one word, but it was satisfaction enough. It was time to end the game while she still could.
    “You said I’d come to you, and I did . . .” She took a step back. “What you didn’t know was that I would walk away—untouched.”
    Willing herself not to run, she turned and walked slowly to the door. She expected some challenge from him, or at least mocking laughter, but there was nothing except a screaming silence.
    Keep going , she told herself. Don’t turn around.
    She made it to her bedroom before she looked back. And then all she could see was the darkness that separated them.
     o0o
    Jacob arrived with the morning.
    Hannah was the first to see him. Unable to sleep, she’d risen with the sun, put on her jogging shorts, and started outside for a good, hard run. Just as she reached the front porch, Graves Johnson’s station wagon stopped in the driveway and out stepped her youngest brother.
    She raced toward him, “Jacob!”
    He grabbed her with one arm and waved goodbye to their longtime neighbor with the other. “Thanks for the lift, Johnson.”
    “Glad to do it, Jacob.”
    Hannah caught Jacob’s face between her hands. “Let me look at you.” Jacob was smaller than the rest of the Donovan men, but he managed to look every bit as big. He was compact and powerful, with the red hair of his mother’s Scottish ancestors, Hannah’s vivid blue eyes, and a rakish grin all his own.
    Hannah tenderly brushed a lock of hair off his forehead. “You’ve no right to look so wonderful. It’s been almost a year.”
    “There’s a big world out there to see.” Jacob turned his face toward the city and got a faraway look in his eyes. “How is she?”
    “Rachel?” Hannah need not have asked. She knew Jacob was inquiring about the woman who had jilted him. “Happy, according to the Greenville grapevine. She and her husband are living in Seattle now, I believe.”
    “Seattle. So far away.” The fleeting look that crossed his face might have been pain, but with Jacob, Hannah was never sure. He’d always been a great pretender. The family prankster, the vagabond, the one who made the rest of them laugh.
    He made her laugh now. Affecting a frown, he lifted a strand of her hair. “Is that gray I see? Thirty and not married. What will Aunt Agnes say?”
    “Plenty. Just wait