Desperado Read Online Free PDF Page B

simply. “I’m twenty-six, Cord. If I don’t do something, I’ll dry up andblow away. I don’t want to spend the best years of my life commuting to downtown Houston to play with numbers. I’m not a baby anymore. If I have to work, at least I can choose something in an exotic location. Preferably something adventurous, and exciting,” she said as an afterthought.
    He frowned. “Why do you have to work?” he asked suddenly. “Amy left us both a little money. Besides, Bart Evans had an extensive stock portfolio and you were his widow.”
    Her face hardened. “I didn’t take one penny of his money. Not property, not stocks, not savings. Nothing!”
    That was surprising. “Why not?”
    She lowered her eyes to the coverlet and closed them briefly under a wave of pain she didn’t want him to see. “He cost me the most precious thing in my life,” she said in a husky, throbbing tone.
    That was an enigmatic statement. He didn’t understand it. “Nobody forced you to marry him,” he pointed out, and with more bitterness than he realized.
    That’s what you think, she thought to herself, but she didn’t say it aloud. She crumpled the coverlet under her bright pink fingernails and looked up at him bravely. “I had his estate divided between his two ex-wives.”
    He laughed shortly in surprise. “You did what?”
    “You heard me,” she remarked with a shrug. She let go of her grip on the bedspread. “I thought they deserved the money more than I did. They lived with him longer than I did. He had no living relatives.”
    His dark eyes narrowed. He’d been curious about her marriage for a long time. He’d never mentioned it to her, because she closed up like a clam when her husband’s name came up. She never discussed it. But it had left scars on her emotions that were obvious to anyone with a grain of sensitivity.
    “Not a happy marriage, Maggie?” he asked quietly.
    “No.” She met his eyes evenly. “And that’s the only thing I’ll ever say about it,” she added firmly. “Digging up the past solves nothing.”
    He studied her wan face. “I used to think that way, too. But the past shapes the future. I never got over Patricia’s death.”
    “I know.”
    She said it in an odd sort of way. “What do you mean?” he asked.
    “You aren’t exactly Don Juan these days,” she pointed out.
    He bristled with stung pride. It was true that he didn’t have affairs, or spend a lot of time living the life of a playboy, but he didn’t like her knowing it. His dark eyes flashed. “You know nothing about that side of my life,” he said coldly. “And you never will.”
    There was a brief, incredulous look on her face, and he could have bitten his tongue. They’d slept together, once, even if it wasn’t a memory she liked. She knew him in a way few women ever had. It was a thoughtless remark.
    “On second thought,” he began abruptly.
    She held up a hand. “You said it yourself, digging up the past doesn’t solve anything.”
    He drew in a long, slow breath. “I hurt you.”
    Her face flamed. She wasn’t going to get trapped into that conversation. “Let it go, Cord. It all happened a long time ago. Now I have to get up and start job-hunting. If you don’t mind going out of here so I can get dressed…?”
    But he wouldn’t leave it alone. “You’re twenty-six and a widow,” he said shortly, irritated by her embarrassment. “And I know every inch of you. So stop acting coy.”
    Her teeth clenched so hard she thought she might chip them. Her eyes were furious. “You have no idea how much I hate the memory of that night,” she said spitefully.
    The words stung, as she meant them to. He got to his feet abruptly and noticed how she dragged the covers up to her chin, as if she couldn’t bear him to look at her body at all.
    “You must have noticed that I was drunk,” he said curtly. “If I hadn’t been, I’d never have touched you!”
    “I drank too much myself,” she shot back. “Or I’d