Cattleman's Choice by Diana Palmer

with him, isn’t that it!”
    She got up, dragging the cover with her, and went to stand in front of him, her eyes wide, her heart aching. He was hurting, and she’d done that to him. All because of a past she couldn’t let go of.
    â€œCarson,” she said softly, reaching out to touch his hard arm.
    The muscles contracted. “Don’t do it, honey,” he cautioned in a dangerously soft voice. “I’m feeling pretty raw right now.”
    â€œWell, so am I,” she burst out. “I didn’t want you to start pushing your way into my life, to back me into a corner! I didn’t start kissing
you…!
”
    â€œAs if you ever would have,” he said quietly. His eyes were bleak, his face pale and hard. “I guess I’ve been dreaming. You’re as far out of my league as I am out of yours. It’s just as well that you aren’t civilizing me for yourself, isn’t it?”
    Her smooth shoulders lifted and fell. “I guess so.” She stared down at his boots.
    â€œWe’d better forget the dancing lessons,” he said coldly. “And before you start getting the wrong idea about what happened tonight, I told you once that I’ve been without a woman for a while. You went to my head, that’s all.”
    That hurt. She had to fight down a flood of tears. Her eyes lifted proudly to his. “Same here,” she said curtly.
    â€œYes, I know that,” he said with a mocking smile. He nodded toward the photograph. “Why don’t you take that to bed with you, and see if it makes you burn the way I did.”
    She lifted her hand, but he caught her wrist and held it easily, letting her feel his strength.
    It brought her to her senses like a cold shower of rain. “You can let go,” she said defeatedly. “I won’t try to hit you.”
    He dropped her wrist as if it had scorched him. “Hadn’t you better put your clothes on? You might catch cold—if ice can.”
    Her eyes flashed at him. “I wasn’t cold with you,” she said fiercely.
    The hasty words seemed to kindle something in him. His eyes narrowed and glittered. He reached out and caught the back of her head and before she could turn her mouth, his lips crushed down on it. He twisted her mouth under his, hurting her for an instant, before he lifted it again and glared into her eyes.
    â€œFirecracker,” he said heavily, “if you weren’t worshipping a damned ghost, I’d throw you down on that bed and make you beg for my body. But as things stand, I’d say we both had a lucky escape.”
    He let her go and strode out of the room. Seconds later, the door slammed, and she heard his car start and roar away. The house was so still that she could hear the clock in the living room, like a bomb. Tick. Tick. Tick.
    She hardly slept at all that night. Her eyes had been well and truly opened by Carson’s cutting remarks. She hadn’t realized just how much she’d been living in the past until he’d accused her of making a shrine for Ben. Of trying to climb into the grave with him.
    With a cup of coffee in her hand the next morning, she sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the photograph. Ben looked impossibly young. And as she gazed at his picture, she remembered how things had been all those years ago. It hadn’t been a great love affair. He’d been a handsome, eligible bachelor with a magnetic personality, and she’d been young and shy and flattered by his attention. But over the years, she had built his image into something unrealistic. It had taken Carson’s feverish lovemaking to teach her that.
    She flushed remembering how it had been between them the night before. He’d been so tender, so achingly tender and patient. And if he hadn’t seen that photograph…
    She got to her feet, frowning, and paced the floor. Her eyes went involuntarily to the bed and her mind traced,