[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

the middle of a bridle path that half the riders in the neighborhood use, in broad
daylight. . . . You see what you do to me? I touch you and my common sense goes on
vacation."
She laughed, too, glorying in the tight clasp of his arms. It was nice to know she
affected him that way, even if it was only desire that caused it.
"Nicky and Collette would have gotten an eyeful, all right, and we'd never have been
able to face your mother again."
He drew away and looked down at her with calm, watchful eyes. "I seem to pick the
worst possible times and places to make love to you. In the apartment with Dalton
due, in the car, here." He shook his head wistfully. His eyes narrowed, clouded.
"Abby, after last night . . . how do you feel about Dalton?"
She started to speak, to tell him that Robert Dalton meant nothing to her now, that
she loved Greyson McCallum, that last night had been heaven for her. But she
hesitated trying to find the right words, and his face closed up to her. He let her
go abruptly as Nick and Collette rode into view a few yards away.
"Isn't it a great morning for a ride?" Nicky laughed, his dry gaze going from Abby's
flushed face to McCallum's hard one. "Did we interrupt something?"
"Nothing that didn't need interrupting," McCallum said coolly.
Abby felt a sudden emptiness at the curtness in his tone, but she disguised it with
a smile. "Hi, Collette," she said, "I wish I looked that good in jodphurs and a hacking
jacket." The young French woman smiled shyly at that.
"You don't look all that bad in my jeans and sweater," Nick teased with a broad
wink. "Talk about a good fit . . ."
"When you get your ideas together on that campaign," McCallum told his brother,
"give me a call and I'll arrange a meeting with Dalton. Abby and I have to get to the
office."
"Sure, Grey. See you, Abby," he added.
McCallum, taciturn and unapproachable, helped Abby mount before he threw his leg
over his own horse's back and led the way to the house.
McCallum lit a cigarette, ignoring Abby, once they were on the way to the city again.
"What have I done?" she asked quietly when she couldn't stand his silence a minute
longer.
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "What could you have done?" He laughed shortly.
"You're so quiet . . ." she murmured.
He took a draw from the cigarette and blew it out, controlling the powerful sports
car with the same deft hands he'd used to control Abby last night. "I'm working
out that White case in my mind, honey," he said after a minute.
"Are you sure?" Her eyes were more revealing than she knew, wide and green and
faintly apprehensive as they met his across the short distance that separated
them.
"I'm sure." He winked at her, and she relaxed a little. She settled down in her seat
with a long sigh. Everything would be all right, now.
The morning was hectic, and Abby felt as if she were being torn in two by the
pressure of clients and a phone that wouldn't stop ringing, and by McCallum's
growing impatience.
She eased into his office with a file he'd demanded ten minutes earlier, to find him
glaring down at a scatter of notes and documents on his desk. His jacket was off,
his tie loosened, his sleeves rolled up over muscular tanned forearms sprinkled with
dark hairs. Abby stood there for a long minute just looking at the broad, hard face
she'd begun to love so dearly.
He looked up, anger glittering in his unblinking silver gaze. "I asked for that over
fifteen minutes ago," he said shortly.
"And you'd have gotten it if the phone hadn't decided to ring off the hook, and
that woman whose divorce you handled for a favor hadn't called to wail out her
problems to me, and Jerry hadn't asked for the file on his divorce case . . ."
"I don't pay you for excuses," he replied.
He hadn't spoken to her that way since she started to work for him. Perhaps the
rough morning had made her sensitive, or their delicate new relationship had left
her unprepared for such a flat statement to remind her of her real status in his
life. Whatever the reason, tears began to slip hotly down her cheeks.
"Abby!" He threw down the pencil he was jotting notes with and went around the
desk.
She tried to back away, but his arms caught her and brought her close to his big,
warm body.
"No, don't fight me," he said in a tone that was worlds away from the sharp, hurting
one he'd used seconds before.
"I don't understand you," she managed brokenly. She leaned her sodden cheek
against his shirt and sighed.
"I don't understand myself when it comes to you," he admitted dryly. He folded her
closer, until she felt as if they were joined, every inch of the way, up and down.
"Oh, Abby, it's been a rough morning, hasn't it?" he murmured as he rocked her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]