Regan's Pride Read Free

noticing how drawn she looked. He knew that she hadn’t loved Barry; she certainly wasn’t mourning him.
    â€œDon’t expect much,” he said with a cold smile.
    The accusation in his eyes hurt. “I didn’t kill Barry,” she said.
    He stood up, too, slowly. “You let him get into a car and drive when he’d had five neat whiskeys.” He nodded at her look of surprise. “I grew up in Jacobsville. I’m acquainted with most people who live here, and you know that Sandy and I have just moved back into the old homestead. Everybody’s been talking about Barry’s death. You were at a party and he wanted you to drive him home. You refused. So he went alone, and shot right off a bridge.”
    So that was how the gossips had twisted it. She stared at Ted without speaking. Sandy hadn’t mentioned that they were coming home to Jacobsville. How was she going to survive living in the same town with Ted?
    â€œNo defense?” he challenged mockingly. “No excuses?”
    â€œWhy bother?” she returned wearily. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
    â€œThat’s a fact.” He stuck his hands into his pockets, aware of loud noises in the kitchen. Sandy, reminding him that she was still around.
    Coreen folded her hands in front of her to keep them from trembling. Did he have to look at her with such cold accusation?
    â€œBarry wrote to me two weeks ago. He said that he’d changed his will and that I was mentioned in it.” He stared at her mockingly. “Didn’t you know?”
    She didn’t. She only knew that Barry had changed the will. She knew nothing of what was in it.
    â€œTina’s in it, too, I imagine,” he continued with a smile so smug that it made her hands curl.
    She was tired. Tired of the aftermath of the nightmare she’d been living, tired of his endless prodding. She pushed back her short hair with a heavy sigh. “Go away, Ted,” she said miserably. “Please…”
    She was dead on her feet. The ordeal had crushed her spirit. She felt tears threatening and she turned away to hide them, just as their betraying glitter began to show. She caught her toe in the rug and stumbled as she wheeled around. She gasped as she saw the floor coming up to meet her.
    Incredibly he moved forward and caught her by the shoulders. He pulled her around and looked into her pale, drawn face. Then without a word, he slid his arms around her and stood holding her, gently, without passion.
    â€œHow did you manage that?” he asked, as if he thought she’d done it deliberately.
    She hadn’t. She was always tripping over her own feet these days. Tears stung her eyes as she stood rigidly in his hold, her heart breaking. He didn’t know, couldn’t know, how it had been.
    â€œI didn’t manage it,” she whispered in a raw tone. “I tripped, and not because I couldn’t wait to get your arms around me! I don’t need anything from you!”
    Her tone made him bristle with bad temper. “Not even my love?” he asked mockingly, at her ear. “You begged for it, once,” he reminded her coldly.
    She shivered. The memory, like most others of the past two years, wasn’t that pleasant. She started to stepback but his big hands flattened on her shoulder blades and held her against him. She was aware, too aware, of the clean scent of his whipcord lean body, of the rough sigh of his breath, the movement of his broad chest so close that the tips of her breasts almost touched it. Ted, she thought achingly. Ted!
    Her hands were clenched against his chest, to keep them honest. She closed her eyes and ground her teeth together.
    The hands on her back had become reluctantly caressing, and she felt his warm breath at the hair above her temple. He was so tall that she barely came up to his nose.
    Under the warmth of his shirtfront, she could feel hard muscle and thick hair. He was offering