arranged for her to go away to college as soon as she graduated from high school, just two weeks after their disastrous encounter. It had been traumatic. Her mother had died that same year, and Chayce had been determined that she needed the change of scene—and to get away from him. What had happened, he told her grimly, couldn’t be allowed to happen again.
So Abby had gone to college at California State University, taking her degree in business, and Troy Jackson had come to her campus to do some work on his teacher certification. They’d started dating and very soon Troy had proposed. They lived in the same town, he pointed out, and he’d inherit his father’s ranch one day. What could be more natural than to marry Abby and have kids to inherit it when he himself passed on?
It had seemed logical. Abby’s encounter with Chayce had put a wall between them that hadn’t ever come down. He was a fiery and independent man who’d had a devastating love affair when he was little older than Abby was now at twenty-one. He’d never gotten over the loss of his fiancée, and he’d never let another woman close enough to wound him. He’d made it crystal clear that Abby didn’t have a chance, despite his headlong ardor that night so long ago.
Abby had just graduated the first week of June, with only Troy and her college roommate, Felicity Evans, to watch her accept her diploma. Chayce hadn’t come near the campus, although he’d sent a telegram of congratulations.
He wasn’t home, now, either, of course. He found reasons to go on long business trips the minute Abby announced any plans to stay at the ranch. She’d written him about her engagement to Troy and asked him to give her away at their August wedding in Whitehorn. He hadn’t replied. She wondered if he would.
She tried not to talk about Chayce, but he was so much a part of her life that it was inevitable that she did. Troy made his distaste for her guardian quite clear, although he promised to tolerate Chayce once he and Abby were married. He only hoped, he told her firmly, that Chayce would be a little more discreet in future about his love affairs. Chayce was handsome and rich and eligible and he was dating a well-known Hollywood starlet. Therefore, it was inevitable that he was photographed with her and the pictures ended up in the tabloids. The publicity nauseated Troy, who was even more old-fashioned than Becky, Chayce’s housekeeper.
Because Troy made so many tart comments about Chayce, Abby made sure that she didn’t let her own feelings for him show.
She stared at the ring on her finger, wondering what on earth had possessed her to agree. Despite his glacial treatment of her, she loved Chayce. She was never going to be able to give her heart or her body to anyone else. After four long years, that was painfully apparent. But Troy was kind and sweet and after one ardent kiss that Abby hadn’t been able to respond to, he’d confined his affection to handholding and lazy smiles. Perhaps he hoped that his reticence would succeed where his ardor hadn’t.
What he didn’t realize was that Abby was incapable of feeling physical desire for him. It was a problem that she hoped they could work out after they were married, but she didn’t dwell on it. She couldn’t go around forever mooning over a man who didn’t want her and who had made it perfectly clear.
Becky was working in the kitchen when Abby joined her there, smiling as she took down a glass and poured iced tea into it.
“Thirsty, are you?” The gray-haired woman smiled affectionately at the younger woman in tight jeans and a pretty pink tank top. “And so you ought to be after all that cleaning. You’ve been in the attic almost since daybreak.”
“I’ve been in hiding,” Abby confided with a grin. Her gray eyes sparkled and around her face, wavy but untidy dark hair curled. She had a lovely figure and she wore clothes these days that emphasized it. Troy didn’t like that, either. In fact, Troy didn’t like a lot about her, she realized worriedly.
“What are you hiding from?” Becky wanted to know, interrupting her thoughts.
Abby sighed, sipping her tea. “I’m hiding from Troy. He’s miffed with me again.”
“What did you do this time?”
“Not much,” Abby defended herself. “I just decorated his new vet’s car for him.”
Becky put her face in her hands. “Oh, no.”
“It wasn’t bad! Listen, I didn’t even write a dirty word on it! I just drew pictures of cows and calves and silos and things with cans of that pretty colored children’s bath foam…come back here. I’m not through!”
“Troy’s father is a deacon in the Baptist church!” Becky choked. “Troy teaches school, for heaven’s sake! And the new veterinarian is his best friend from grammar school!”
Abby put her hands on her full hips. “I know that,” she said. “The vet has a wonderful sense of humor. He thought it was hilarious! But Troy didn’t. He was so angry that he wouldn’t even speak to me when I left.” She threw up her hands. “He’s so somber, Becky! Like a judge. He needs to lighten up. I was just giving him a nudge in the right direction.”
“What sort of nudge?”
Abby shrugged. “Well, I sort of hinted that he did the writing on Dan Harbin’s truck.”
Becky stared at her. “Hinted, how?”
“I sort of signed his name to it,” Abby said pertly. She held up a hand when Becky turned red. “It was very discreet. I signed his name in a dignified black script.”
Becky put her face in her hands again. “He’ll shoot you. His father will shoot you, too.”
“His father approves of me,” she said pointedly. “Why, he said that Troy takes himself much too seriously and that anyone should be able to take a little joke.”
“Yes, and I remember when he said it. He only did it to keep Sheriff Hensley from arresting you when you pulled that last crazy stunt!”
“It wasn’t crazy,” Abby defended herself stoically. “And Judd wouldn’t have arrested me.”
“You could have gone to jail!”
“Nobody got hurt.”
“By the grace of God!” Becky was all but waving her arms now. “You turned one of Sid Jackson’s best young bulls loose on the streets of Whitehorn! It chased the pharmacist at BobCo right into the Hip-Hop Café!”
“It didn’t get inside,” Abby stated. “It stopped at the door and trotted right back to the 4-H corral for its dinner! Anyway, it was a tame little bull that followed people around like a dog. It only wanted the pharmacist to pet it.” She looked indignant. “What sort of pharmacist runs from an itty-bitty bull, anyway?”
“Of all the crazy stunts…!”
“Now, Becky, Troy had just been talking about how exciting it would have been to be at the running of the bulls in Spain, like Hemingway wrote about. I was only helping him to experience it firsthand.”
“The bull ripped off Miss Ellison’s skirt,” Becky snorted. “And her a maiden lady of sixty-five!”
“It was only because she’d petted it, and it was trying to get her to do it again. She laughed,” Abby reminded her.
“Chayce wouldn’t have.”
Abby
