There was the game in it. He’d taken her, and now he was accountable for it. There was no forgetting what happened or turning aside from the consequences. When the hunger came to him, he’d want her again, and he knew it. Like a dog, he’d always return to the stoop where he’d last been fed.
The fact that she had come to him should have made a difference in her thinking. It had been as much her desire as it had been his. The blame should have been shared. But it was never that way with women—not women like Tara Lee Dyson.
This hadn’t been a casual act. She’d laid her hold on his conscience. He had bedded her; now he was expected to wed her.
He let the thought settle into him. It was what he had wanted all along. Tara was the prize, the success—and she had come to him.
“I suppose you’ll want the biggest, fanciest damned wedding Texas has ever seen,” he said dryly.
She laughed in her throat. “You guessed it, honey.” She leaned up to kiss him.
15
No amount of twisting enabled Jessy to reach the hook at the back of her dress. Frustration merely added to the irritability that she blamed on the early-morning August heat. It accumulated quickly in the upstairs bedrooms of the log home. She left her room and headed down the stairs. A whirring fan created a blessed stir of air in the living room, where her two teenaged brothers, Ben and Mike, were lounging in crisp new jeans and pearl-buttoned western shirts. Ben was painstakingly smoothing the creases in the crown of his good western hat. At the sound of her footsteps on the stairs, he looked up, then hit his brother.
“Would you look at Jessy?” His square face was split with a grin. “She’s got legs!”
“Is that what those two white things are?” Mike quickly picked up on the oddity of seeing their older sister in a dress, siding as always with his brother to rib her.
“They look a sight better than those hairy things you two have,” Jessy retorted.
“Wait’ll the boys get a load of Jessy,” Ben persisted with a wicked gleam.
“Wait’ll they get a load of that fuzz on your face that you call a beard,” she countered, accustomed to trading sibling insults.
Ben rubbed his chin defensively. “It’s filling out and starting to look pretty good.” But the new beard was sandy-colored and soft, which gave it a sparse appearance.
“Where’s Mom?” Jessy glanced toward the kitchen.
“I think she’s still getting ready,” Mike replied.
The bedroom downstairs belonged to her parents. Jessy went to it and knocked on the door. “It’s me. Can I come in?” Permission followed and Jessy entered, shutting the door behind her. Her mother was seated at an old-fashioned vanity table, wearing only a cotton slip trimmed with lace. The traces of gray in her hair only made its sandy color seem lighter. She leaned close to the mirror to apply her makeup and eyed Jessy’s reflection in it.
“I can’t fasten the top hook on my dress.” Jessy crossed to the vanity table.
“I like that dress on you.” Judy Niles looked at her daughter approvingly and returned her attention to the mirror. “I’m glad you decided to buy a new one for the party.”
“A party for the new Calder bride is a special occasion.” There was a faint edge to her voice.
“I wonder what she’s like.” She used a tissue to blot her lipstick.
“I wouldn’t ask a man to tell you. They can’t see past a pretty face.”
“Jessy, don’t you like her?” Her mother turned, surprised to hear that cynical note in Jessy’s voice.
“I don’t even know her. What does it matter anyway?” She sighed, trying to repress the impatience and irritation that pushed at her. She hurt inside. She didn’t want to go to this party and meet Ty’s incredibly beautiful bride face to face. All her life she’d been taught to stand up to unpleasant things, and pride wouldn’t permit her to run from this.
“You’ll never enjoy the party in that kind of mood,” her mother declared and rose to her feet, standing as tall as Jessy. Placing her hands on Jessy’s shoulders, she pushed her onto the bench. “Sit down and I’ll brush your hair.”
It had been a nightly routine
when she was a small child—her mother brushing and brushing her hair until it glistened and shone—and Jessy could feel as beautiful as a fairy princess for a little while. She closed her eyes and let the rhythmic strokes of the hairbrush soothe her troubled spirits.
After a few minutes her mother began smoothing and arranging, pushing her hair this way and that. “I always thought when I had a little girl that I’d be doing things like this for her, but I had you instead,” her mother joked. “You have nice eyes. You really should use some shadow.”
“I’d look painted,” Jessy replied, her eyes still closed. “Besides, I put on mascara.”
“Let me try something.” There was the rattle of her mother pawing through her makeup case. “Now keep your eyes closed.”