twinkling. “I think you might do better to find a room in somebody’s house. But that’s your decision,” he added quietly. “I’m not going to tell you what to do. You’re old enough to decide alone.”
“Thanks, Justin,” she said gently. She smiled. “You’ll make some lucky girl a nice husband one day.”
His expression hardened, and the humor went out of his dark eyes. “That’s a mistake I won’t make,” he said. “I’ve had my fill of involvement.”
“You never asked about Shelby’s side of it,” Abby reminded him. “You wouldn’t even listen, Calhoun said.”
“She said it all when she gave me back the ring. And I don’t want to discuss it, Abby,” he cautioned, his eyes flashing warning signals as he rose. “I talk to no one about Shelby. Not even you.”
She backed down. “Okay,” she said gently. “I won’t pry.”
“Let’s go,” he said, reaching for the check. “We’ll take two hours getting home, and I hope Calhoun has kittens when we get there.”
“I doubt he’ll notice,” Abby said miserably. “She was very pretty.”
“Looks don’t count in the long run,” he replied. He looked at Abby. “Odd, isn’t it, how embarrassed he was when you saw him with her?”
She turned away. “I’m tired. But it was a lovely dinner. Thank you.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t thank me. I had a good time. It beats watching movies at home, anyway.” He chuckled gently.
Abby wanted to ask him why he never dated anyone and whether he was still carrying a torch for Shelby Jacobs after six years. Calhoun had said he was, but Justin was a clam when it came to his private life. And Abby wasn’t about to pry any further. She wasn’t that brave, not even with a piña colada inside her.
Abby was miserable by the time they got home. She’d done nothing but think of Calhoun and the model. Justin had been kind, talking as if she were really listening to him. But she was reliving those few tempestuous minutes in Calhoun’s Jaguar, when he’d come so close to kissing her and then had insulted her so terribly. She didn’t understand his hot-and-cold attitude or his irritability. She didn’t understand anything anymore.
Justin parked his elegant black Thunderbird in the garage, and Abby was surprised to find Calhoun’s Jaguar already there.
“Well, well, look who’s home,” Justin murmured, glancing at Abby. “I guess he felt like an early night.”
“Maybe he was exhausted,” Abby said coldly.
Justin didn’t comment, but he seemed highly amused and smug about something.
Calhoun was in the living room with the brandy bottle when they got home. He was down to his white shirtsleeves, which he’d rolled up to his elbows. His shirt was almost completely open in front, and Abby had to bite her lip to keep from staring helplessly at the broad expanse of his muscular chest. He was the most sensuous man she’d ever known, so powerful and tall and huge. Just the sight of him made her body tingle.
“So you finally brought her home,” Calhoun shot at his brother. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Sure,” Justin said imperturbably. “It’s two o’clock in the morning.”
“What were you doing?”
Justin cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, riding around. And things. Night, Abby,” he said, and winked at her before he turned and went up the staircase.
Abby felt as if she’d been poleaxed. Now why had Justin said that? It had made Calhoun look frankly murderous. She cleared her throat.
“I think I’ll go up, too.” She started to turn, only to have her arm caught in a viselike grip by huge warm fingers and be pulled into the living room.
Calhoun slammed the door behind her, his chest heaving with rough breaths. His dark eyes were really black now, glittering, dangerous, and his sensuous mouth was a thin, grim line.
“Where were you?” he demanded. “And doing what? Justin’s thirty-seven, and he’s no boy.”
She stared at him blankly. The sudden attack had knocked the wind out of her for a minute, but then her temper came to the rescue.
“That blonde you were out with was no schoolgirl, either,” she replied as calmly as she could, even though her knees were shaking under her. She leaned back against the door for support.
His heavy brows drew together. “My private life is none of your business,” he said defensively.
“Of course not,” she agreed. “You’ve already said that you didn’t want me hanging around you like a lovesick calf, and I’m doing my best not to,” she added, although it hurt terribly to try to make light of that hurtful remark.
His heavy shoulders made a jerky movement as he looked at her and away again, as if her answer made him uncomfortable. “Justin’s too old for you.”
“Bullfeathers,” she replied, lifting her chin. “You’ve objected to every other man I’ve ever gone out with, but you can’t object to your own brother. Justin would never hurt me, and you know it.”
He did know it, but that didn’t help. He was dying at the thought of Abby and Justin together.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” he burst out, lost for words.
She took a steadying breath, though her heart was still doing a tango in her chest. “Why should it matter to you what I do?” she challenged him. “And you’re a fine one to sit in judgment on other people! My gosh, Calhoun, everybody in the world knows what a playboy you are!”
He glared at her, trying to keep his temper. “I’m not a playboy,” he said tersely. “I may date women occasionally—”
“Every night,” she returned. Even though she knew her assertion wasn’t completely true, she was too angry to split hairs. “Not that I mind,” she added with a cold smile. “I don’t care who you go out with, as long as you stop poking your nose into my business. I’ll date whom I please, Calhoun, and if you don’t like it, you know what you can do!”
He started to tell her what she could do, but before he could get the words out she’d jerked the door open and gone out and up the staircase.
“If you stay out until two o’clock in the morning again, with or without Justin, I’ll take a tree limb to you!” Calhoun yelled up the stairs.
Abby made a sound that almost drove him crazy. He muttered something obscene and went back into the living room, slamming the door so hard it shook the room.
Damn women! He could have screamed at the effect she was having on him lately. She was ruining his love life, ruining his business life. All he did was think about her damned pretty breasts….
Abby
