And One Rode West by Heather Graham Page B

man and she felt again the disadvantage of looking up to him. His hair was still slightly askew beneath the brim of his hat, falling rakishly over his forehead. Her heart took a hard thud. He was a handsome man, but a very hard and unapproachable one at the moment. He leaned against the banister and casually studied her. “They’re your brothers, Christa,” he reminded her. “What’s the matter with the truth?”
    “I just don’t want them to …” she began, but her voice trailed away.
    “What?” he demanded sharply. She didn’t have an answer for him—at least not one that she wanted to give. It didn’t matter, Jeremy had the answer.
    “Let me see, maybe I can answer this myself. You don’t want them to know that you did something so desperate as to marry a man you despised to save a house. That you sold yourself for a pile of bricks.”
    She was itching to slap him, but he must have known it because he caught her wrist before she had barely made a move. “No, Christa,” he warned her huskily.
    She didn’t want him as close to her as he was. She didn’t want to feel the husky tenor of his voice, nor the heat of his body. She was very disturbed to realize that there were things about him that fascinated her. The size of him, the feel of him, the strength of him, the look of his bronzed hands with his long fingers and blunt cut nails against the pale ivory of her flesh. Something inside of her responded to him, whether she liked it or not.
    She looked up into his eyes. They were steel gray with warning. His jaw was set at a hard-edged angle.
    “Then quit being so horrible!” she charged him.
    “All right.” To her great unease, she was closer to him once again. He drew her very close, and whispered to her with his mouth just inches above her own. “We tell them that, yes, it was a matter of expediency. But the more we thought about it, the more wonderful it was. We’re not really enemies at all, not now that the war is over. And of course, they’re both home now. You don’t need to guard the place anymore. You have your own life to lead. You’re coming west with me.”
    She gasped. “I can’t come west!”
    “Whether you do or don’t doesn’t really matter at the moment, it’s just something to say.”
    She stared at him. She wanted to wrench away from him, and she wanted to tell him that she’d never, never come west with him. But he was right—it didn’t matter at the moment. She just had to get through today.
    “Are you ready?” he said impatiently.
    She moistened her lips. No, she wasn’t ready. But he took her hand and started down the stairway, dragging her along with him.
    The others were in the parlor to the right side of the entryway. Christa could hear their hushed voices as they came down the stairs. She bit her lower lip. She could hear Callie’s voice. Though she couldn’t hear her sister-in-law’s words, she knew that Callie would be defending Jeremy. Then she heard Daniel, and she knew that he was concerned.
    Then she heard Jesse. And though she couldn’t make out a single word he was saying, she sensed that he was damning himself a thousand times over, certain that it was his fault that she had felt so forced to do something desperate.
    “Well?” Jeremy arched a russet brow to her at the double doors to the parlor.
    “Go on,” she said.
    “Oh, no, my love! After you.”
    She cast him a scathing glare and pushed open the double doors.
    Four pairs of eyes turned to them instantly—and very guiltily.
    Jeremy paused at the doors, closing them behind him, then leaning against them and watching Christa.
    She was a wonderful performer, he determined.
    She walked into the room with a beautiful smile—a Madonna’s smile—on her lips. “It’s so wonderful! I can’t believe that you’re all home—together. Where are the children?” She kissed both her sisters-in-law on the cheek, then gave Jesse a big hug and turned to Daniel.
    Daniel accepted the hug stiffly.