from her baking. As for makeup, her face had been bare and natural but for mascara and lip gloss.
Yeah, the lady’s really after you, Jones, a voice in his head sneered. She was decked out like a real Jezebel. It’s a wonder you were able to control yourself.
The truth hit him then like a slap in the face. Janey McBride was, in all likelihood, everything she’d appeared to be—considerate, caring, generous. The only reason she’d brought him a cake was because Dan really had asked her to be nice to him. It was something his partner would have done. And how had he responded to her kindness? By mocking her efforts and accusing her of coming on to him.
“Son of a bitch!” he groaned. How could he have been so stupid? He would have liked to use the excuse that he’d just met her and didn’t know what kind of woman she was, but anyone with eyes could see that she just wasn’t the type to blatantly chase a man. With her prim-and-proper manner, she was too old-fashioned for that. She’d wait for a man to approach her, not the other way around.
Cursing softly, he wanted to kick himself. He was an intelligent man who knew women—he should have seen the kind of woman she was from her appearance alone. Instead, he’d jumped to all the wrong conclusions and acted like a general all-round jerk—after she’d spent hours slaving over a hot stove, baking not one cake, but two for him! No wonder she’d stormed off like an insulted queen. He didn’t blame her. Just thinking about the way he’d spoken to her disgusted him. He’d been raised better than that.
There was no question that he would apologize the next time he saw her, he promised himself. He’d been wrong, and he owed her that, at the very least. He didn’t, however, regret making it clear to her that he wasn’t interested in having a relationship with anyone. The only woman he wanted was dead, and he didn’t expect to ever love anyone else again. The sooner the women of Liberty Hill knew and accepted that, the happier he’d be.
Sinking down onto the couch, he picked up the medical journal he’d been trying to read all evening, but with a will of their own his eyes kept drifting to the picture of Victoria that sat right next to him on the end table. Young and beautiful, her blond hair flowing loose around her shoulders and her green eyes impish with laughter, she smiled at him with a love that lit up her whole face.
It had been eight months since he’d seen that smile, eight months since the warmth of her love had made him feel whole. Everyone had told him that the hurt would fade with time, that the wound to his heart would scar over and eventually heal, but it hadn’t. Every time he saw her picture, every time he thought of her, he ached so badly, his very soul hurt.
Tears glinting in his eyes, he reached for her picture, just as he did every night. Because he couldn’t reach for her. He wanted to touch her, to feel her, to love her, but this was all he had left. Pictures. Things, dammit! And memories. And that wasn’t nearly enough.
Fuming all the way home, Janey wasn’t surprised to see Dan’s Suburban parked in the circular drive in front of the house. He usually dropped in several nights a week to visit with her mother, especially when Janey was out. He claimed he didn’t like the idea of Sara being alone at night, but Janey suspected he really wanted a chance to have her mother all to himself. And her mother didn’t seem to have a clue.
Another time Janey might have smiled at that. Everyone seemed to know that Dan was crazy about Sara—everyone except Sara, herself. But Janey could find no humor in the situation tonight. Not when all she could think of was Reilly Jones and how she’d like to string him up by his thumbs. Damn the man, what kind of woman did he think she was?
“Don’t answer that,” she snapped to herself as she stormed inside and slammed the door behind her. “You already know the answer to that one.”
And that was what hurt the most. She wasn’t some loose floozy who made a play for every good-looking cowboy who came along with a fat wallet. The very idea was ludicrous! Didn’t he look at her? Couldn’t he see that she was just an ordinary—
“Janey? Is that you?”
Wincing, Janey wanted to kick herself for not slipping quietly inside and making her way upstairs without anyone being the wiser. Her mother would want to know how Reilly had reacted to the cake, of course, and she didn’t want to talk about it. Not now. She wouldn’t be able to hide her anger, and that would just lead to more questions, and she really didn’t want to repeat Reilly’s outrageous accusations.
But her mother wasn’t going to let her escape upstairs without some kind of explanation, so there was no hope for it but to go in and try to put the best spin on the situation as possible. Forcing a grimace of a smile, she called back, “Yeah, Mom. I’ll be right there.”
She wasn’t much of an actress, but she thought she hid her anger well. She should have known, however, that she couldn’t fool Sara. The second she stepped into the great room and greeted her mother and Dan, who were watching their favorite detective show on TV, Sara took one look at her and immediately frowned. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said easily, hanging on to her smile for all she was worth. “I’d like to stay and talk, but it’s been a long day and I’m worn out. I think I’ll go to bed.”
She would have rushed up the stairs, but Sara stopped her before she could take a single step. “How was Reilly? Did he like the cake? What did he say?”
Another time Janey would have found a diplomatic way to answer. After all, Reilly was Dan’s partner, and she didn’t want to put Dan in the position of having to defend him. But she was still so steamed, the words just popped out. “Trust me, you don’t want to know. He was horrible.”
“What?”
“Oh, Janey!”
“I know you wanted me to be nice to him, Dan,” she told the older man, “but I just can’t. He’s rude and conceited and I wish you’d never taken him into your practice. God knows how I’m going to work with him. As far as I’m concerned, I never want to lay eyes on him again!”
“But what happened?” her mother asked, stunned by her daughter’s vehemence since she rarely lost her temper. “From what Dan said about him, he was nice but reserved. What did he do? You just took him a cake. Why would he be rude about something like that? Most men would have been thrilled to have someone cook for them.”
Janey would have preferred not to discuss it—now or ever. Just thinking about the things Reilly had said to her brought the painful sting of a blush to her cheeks. But she knew her mother and Dan. They were both as protective as mother hens, and they wouldn’t let the subject die until they had some answers.
Left with no choice, she blurted out, “He thinks I had an ulterior motive.”
“Good Lord, how? You just baked him a cake.”
“He accused me of setting my sights on him and told me I was wasting my time. He wasn’t interested.”
For a long moment there was nothing but stunned silence. Embarrassed to death, Janey couldn’t bring herself to look either her mother or Dan in the eye, so she didn’t see the surprise that flared in their eyes—or the sudden smiles they quickly bit back.
“He didn’t want to help with the decorating committee for the Christmas festival, either,” she added stiffly. “When I offered to introduce him around some other time, he made it clear that wasn’t going to happen. He was busy.”
Dan
