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she had. She turned back to her chores. Judd wasn't going to like this.
CHAPTER THREE
Judd drove up in the yard Friday afternoon in his big black SUV, just an hour before Christabel was
expecting Grier to pick her up. She was nervous. Worse, she was dressed to the teeth, and Judd
noticed.
She'd left her blond hair undone, and it flowed like golden silk down to her waist in back. She didn't
wear a lot of makeup, just powder and a light lipstick, but her eyes looked larger, a liq-uid brown that
dominated her face and soft little chin. She was wearing a slinky black skirt with black high heels
fastened around the ankle, displaying the sexy arch of her little feet. The black vee-necked blouse she
had on was unusually tight, emphasizing her small, firm, rounded breasts in a way that made Judd
ache in all the wrong places. A wide fringed black Span-ish mantilla completed the outfit. It wasn't
expensive, and it was old, but it was sexy. He wasn't used to seeing Christabel dressed like that. And
suddenly he wondered why she was, and why she wouldn't look him in the eye. He knew from long
experience that she was hiding something.
He propped a big booted foot on the bottom step of the porch and his narrow eyes fixed on her face.
"All right, spill it," he said tersely. "Why are you dressed like that, and why did you come running out
the minute you heard me drive up? Are we going on a date, and you forgot to tell me?" he added.
She lifted her eyes and glared at him. The sarcasm hurt. "Wouldn't that be the day?" she asked with
equal sarcasm. "As it happens, I'm going out dancing."
He didn't react for several seconds. Then sudden anger hardened his lean face. "Dancing? With a
man?"
She straightened. "Yes. With a man." Her smile was provok-ing in the extreme. "Go ahead, Judd, tell
me you haven't touched another woman since we married. Tell me you don't date "
The expression on his face was impossible to read. He moved up the steps, towering over her. "Who
is he?
Some boy from school?"
She realized with a start that what had seemed harmless and fun was becoming shameful and
embarrassing. Her face colored.
"Not a boy from school," he guessed. His eyes narrowed again. "Are we going to play twenty
questions? Tell me!" he said abruptly.
"It's Cash Grier," she blurted out, disconcerted by the authority in his tone.
Now he looked menacing as well as angry. "Grier is even older than I am, and he's got a past I
wouldn't wish on my worst enemy's sister, much less you! You're not leaving the house with a man
like that!"
Her self-confidence was wilting. She clutched her small purse to her chest. "I'm not running away with
him,"
she began, try-ing to recapture lost ground. "We're going out for pizza and beer..."
"You're underage."
"I know that! I'm not drinking the beer, he is," she muttered. "We're going to dance and eat pizza!'
His eyes slid over her very slowly. She felt as if he were stroking her bare skin and she felt wobbly on
the unaccustomed high heels.
"Where did you meet Grier?" he persisted.
She threw up her hands and walked back into the house, leaving him to follow. Obviously, he wasn't
going to stop until he knew everything. She wondered what he meant about Cash's past. Cash himself
had hinted at something unpleasant.
She tossed her purse and mantilla onto the big easy chair and perched herself on its wide arm,
crossing her legs at the ankles. Odd, how intent his eyes were on them for a few seconds.
"He came out here to talk to you about providing on-site security for the movie people," she said.
"You weren't here, so I gave him coffee and pie and he asked me out."
He leaned against the doorjamb and stared at her from under the low-angled brim of his creamy
Stetson. He looked elegant like that, and so sexy that she ached just looking at him. He had powerful
long legs in nice-fitting jeans that did nothing to dis-guise the muscles in them. The .45 automatic he
usually carried was in its new holster, replacing the revolver he'd used in the cowboy club shooting
match. It sported the new maple handle and the Texas Ranger logo. His white shirt was taut against a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]