True Colors

“In your vast experience at judging my moods, you mean.”

“I don’t know . . .” Vivi Ann said. “Luke might be there.”

Dallas took her in his arms. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

The softness of his voice surprised Winona. No wonder he’d sucked her sister in. Especially Vivi Ann, who saw the best in everyone.

“You can’t avoid him forever,” Aurora pointed out.

At last, Vivi Ann nodded. “Give us a minute,” she said, taking Dallas’s hand. When they disappeared into the bedroom, Winona said, “If I hear sex, I’m out of here.”

“You would be,” Aurora said with a laugh.

Fifteen minutes later, the Grey sisters and Dallas pulled up to the Outlaw and parked.

They went in one after another. When Dallas came in—last—there was a noticeable ripple in the room. People looked up, drinks paused in midair, conversations halted. Even the drummer missed a beat.

Winona noticed that their friends couldn’t look away from Vivi Ann and Dallas. They came together by the bar, ordering drinks. Once they were served, the four of them turned in unison to face the crowd. In the background, “The Dance” played on the jukebox.

The first person to approach them was Luke.

“Here he comes,” Aurora muttered. “Ex-fiancé at one o’clock.”

“He knows how it’s done, too,” Winona said, forcing herself not to move toward him.

Dallas moved in closer to Vivi Ann, took her hand in his.

“Hey, Vivi,” Luke said.

The bar fell quiet. The only sounds came from the back of the room, where one ball hit another on the pool table.

“I heard you got married,” Luke said woodenly. “Congratulations.”

“I should have been honest with you,” Vivi Ann said to him.

“I wish you had been.”

Winona studied every detail of his face, the way he closed his eyes for just a second before he spoke, the frowning around his mouth. She expected him to say something else, something cutting and cruel—the kind of thing Vivi Ann deserved for what she’d done—but the longer she stared, the deeper she saw. Luke wasn’t angry with Vivi Ann.

He still loved her. Even after all of it.

“I’m truly sorry,” Vivi Ann said.

Her sister kept talking, piling meaningless words on top of each other, while everyone else listened and smiled and accepted. It turned to a roar of white noise in Winona’s head, so loud she couldn’t hear anything beyond the beating of her own heart. She was so caught up in her own thoughts, her own bitter disappointment (what about karma? what about paying for your sins?), that she hardly noticed when it was over.

The music came back on. People moved onto the dance floor.

She blinked and looked around for Luke.

Dallas was watching her and something in those eerie pale gray eyes made her uncomfortable. He let go of Vivi Ann’s hand and moved toward her. Winona noticed the sexy, loose-hipped way he walked and recognized the motive behind it. Not that it would ever work on her.

“Poor Luke,” Dallas said in a silky voice that made her nervous. “I’ll bet he needs a shoulder to cry on.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know you,” he answered, smiling now.

Winona thought then: He’s dangerous. And Vivi Ann had brought him into their family. It proved to Winona that she’d been right to try to protect Vivi Ann from this man. “You’d better not hurt her,” she said. “I’ll be watching you.”