his sensual lips. “Because of the holidays.”
Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s had been hard in the two years since Percy had died. Made even worse by the fact she had no other family left, on either side.
It was just her and the ranch-equipment dealership she had inherited from the Lowells. Stuck in a place that reminded her of all she had lost and would never have again. At least if she stayed in the small but thriving West Texas town of Laramie.
Which was why she had finally come to her senses and decided to stop delaying the inevitable and move on with her life, once and for all. No matter how hard it was going to be initially, she had to do it.
Ignoring the softness of Holden’s gaze, Libby scrolled through the text messages on her BlackBerry until she found the one she wanted. It was from Jeff Johnston and said, Tomorrow evening at seven-thirty all right?
Libby typed in: Perfect. Meet me at the dealership. We’ll go to dinner from there.
Aware of Holden reading over her shoulder, she flashed him another insincere smile, turned off her phone and slipped it back into the pocket of her black cashmere blazer.
“You’re really going to pursue this?” His low, sexy voice rang with disbelief.
Was she? When just agreeing to meet with Jeff Johnston made her feel extremely disloyal? Libby pretended a cool she couldn’t begin to really feel. “This is my decision, Holden.”
It didn’t matter what Percy or his family would have wanted, she reminded herself purposefully. None of them were here any longer….
Holden clamped a gentle hand around her elbow, the action sending ribbons of sensation flowing beneath her skin. “No one is saying otherwise.”
Libby stepped back, pushing aside the sudden onslaught of sexual feeling. For years, she had been devoid of physical yearning. Only to have it all come rushing back now, with the aching desire to be touched, held … loved.
Which was something else that could not happen in this small town, where everyone still saw her as the late Percy Lowell’s wife.
Fighting off her increasing feelings of disloyalty, she said, “They just want me to keep everything status quo.”
“They want you to be happy,” Holden corrected, looking as if he and he alone had the solution to that, too. “We all do.”
Libby looked at him stubbornly, aware of the restlessness inside her. She was thirty-two now, and overwhelmed with the sense that life was passing her by. How would she feel at thirty-four, thirty-five, if she didn’t act …?
“Then forget how you and everyone else feels. And give me room to pursue a possible agreement with Jeff Johnston in my own time and in my own way.”
“I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE thinking, Holden, but Libby is not your responsibility.”
He turned to Libby’s best friend, Paige. The pediatric surgeon, and wife of his cousin Kurt, had made her way to Holden’s side the minute Libby stormed off in a huff.
Not wanting their conversation to be overheard, he ducked into the empty storeroom where the banquet tables were usually stored. “I promised Percy I’d look after her and make sure no one took advantage of her,” he reminded Paige.
“And you have—for over two years now. But Libby is a grown woman, fully capable of making her own decisions.”
“In certain regards,” he conceded. In others, she was still way too giving—and unconsciously sexy—for her own good.
Paige lifted a brow in quiet dissent.
Which prodded Holden to argue, “I don’t have to remind you how emotional and overwrought she was after Percy’s death.” So deliriously “happy” she was practically walking on air one moment then completely devastated the next….
The look on Paige’s face told him she recalled the same tumultuous swings in Libby’s moods. “That was grief and hormones.”
And guilt on his part. Terrible, haunting guilt.
“Beyond all that …” Paige paused. “She made a mistake—an understandable one.”
One, Holden acknowledged painfully, that he and Libby had recklessly gone on to make even worse, and were both still trying to get over.
But Paige didn’t know about that. And hopefully never would.
He scowled. “The point is, none of it would have happened had Percy been alive.”
Libby wouldn’t have trusted him with her secrets and thrown herself joyously into his arms … or called him just hours later, sobbing hysterically, begging him to take her to the emergency room. Only to find out that the terrible malady she’d thought she was experiencing didn’t exist after all.
It had been a horrible, embarrassing mess. One they still hadn’t figured out how to handle.
Oblivious to the complicated nature of his thoughts, Paige sighed. “You’re right. If Percy had been here, she probably wouldn’t have gone off the deep end like that.”
And, Holden thought, he would not have been the one to take a distraught Libby home from the hospital in the wee hours of the morning, or been pressed into staying until dawn until Paige was finally off duty and could be with her….
Paige continued with the matter-of-factness of a physician. “The point is, that time has passed. Libby’s pulled herself together and made a success of the family business she inherited from the Lowells.”
“To the point,” Kurt McCabe stated as he strolled up to them, “that a rival businessman wants to purchase it.”
Not surprisingly, the gravity of the situation had the rest of Holden’s family joining them, too.
“And that,” his brother Hank interjected with the expertise of a cattle rancher, “could spell trouble for all of us.”
“Or not,” Holden’s other brother, Jeb, concluded, with the ease of a man used to taking life as it came. “From what I understand, there’s nothing thus far to indicate Jeff Johnston is a shyster.”
“And nothing that tells us he is not,” their dad, Shane McCabe, warned in a brisk, businesslike tone. “The only thing we do know for certain is that we all need heavy farm equipment to run our ranches. And if anything happens to the tractor dealership here, we’ll have to go a hundred miles to get sales or service.”
“That would definitely be a pain,” Holden’s brother-in-law, Dylan Reeves, said, “but I think we can all agree it’s not the main worry for any of us.”
Holden’s mother nodded emphatically. “Our main concern is Libby,” Greta said with feeling. “None of us want to see her hurt. And, sad to say, the sale of the Lowell family business could be a lot more devastating to her than she thinks.”
AT THE BEHEST OF HIS FAMILY, Holden decided to give it one more try. Unfortunately, by the time he emerged from the storeroom, Libby had already left for home. Holden stopped by the dessert table, picked up some sweets to go and
