The Price of Passion (Texas Cattleman's Club: Rags to Riches 1)

Cam grinned. “I know. Okay, we have a deal.”

“The whole thing,” she qualified. “The donation, the staying away from each other...”

“And the membership in the TCC,” he put in.

“Agreed.” She held out one hand and his right hand enveloped hers.

Three

Instantly, Beth knew she’d made a mistake in touching him. Heat erupted, shooting up her arm to her chest, where it settled and burned with an intensity she hadn’t known in fifteen years. Shaking hands with Cam had obviously been a bad idea—yet she couldn’t regret feeling that burn again.

She’d been with other men since they had broken up, of course. Most recently, Justin McCoy. But it was only Cam who could make her feel like this. Only Cam who could make her blood sizzle with a look. Make her yearn with a mere touch.

When she tried to pull away, he tightened his grip, holding on to her hand as he locked his gaze with hers. Electricity seemed to dart back and forth between them, forging a link that blistered and burned.

“Stay away from each other?” he asked, and his voice was so deep it rumbled in the still air.

She swallowed hard. “Yes. Definitely, yes.”

He let her go and she curled her fingers into her palm in a futile attempt to somehow keep that heat close.

“All right.” He nodded. “We’ll do it your way. Again.”

Well, that had her head snapping up and her eyes firing into his. The fresh memory of heat and hunger disappeared in the rush of fury. “Again? What are you saying? Somehow this is all my fault?”

“You’re the one who broke up with me, remember? Who the hell else’s fault could it be?”

Beth laughed as she stared at him, dumbfounded. “I didn’t break up with you. That’s only what you heard. All I said was we had to slow down.”

“Right.” Cam snorted. “Slow down. Female code for ‘see ya.’”

Stunned, she gaped at him. “Wow. That is so sexist.”

“I’m not a sexist.”

“So you just say stupid things.”

“Not stupid, either,” Cam retorted, his gaze drilling into hers.

“And I don’t speak in code.”

He laughed shortly again and she thought the sound was so damn annoying it grated on her every nerve.

“All women speak in code.”

“Just because men don’t understand anything that doesn’t begin with their zippers...”

“Ah, sure”

“And lumping me in with my entire gender is insulting.”

“Too bad. You just lumped me in with mine.” Shaking his head slowly, he kept his gaze fixed on hers. “You might not like the memory, Beth, but that doesn’t change a damn thing. You were the one who set this all in motion. Just you.”

“No, you don’t.” She took a step closer and kept her gaze fixed on his so he wouldn’t miss the outrage glimmering in her eyes. “If you want to rewrite history, do it with someone who didn’t live it with you. I’m not the one who turned away and married the first person they saw and then left the damn state.”

“If that’s the way you’re looking at it, you’re wrong. You walked away, Beth,” he said tightly. “I just walked farther than you did.”

Her head snapped back as if she’d been slapped. Did he really look back and see that he was the good guy? The innocent? How long had it taken for him to absolve himself? Until his wedding night with Julie? Is that when Beth had been shoved neatly into a drawer and forgotten about?