The Last Honest Woman Read Free Page B

there was a fire in a brick fireplace, and the scent of coffee.
    If he wasn't going to bother to speak to her, they wouldn't get far, Abby mused. She turned for another look. No, his face wasn't kind, but it was intriguing, with its untidy night's growth of beard. His brows were as dark as his hair, and thick over eyes that were a pale green. Intense eyes. She recognized that. Hadn't she been fatally attracted to intensity before? Chuck's eyes had been brown, but the message had been the same. I get what I want because I don't give a damn what I have to do to win.
    He hadn't. Abby was very much afraid she'd just opened her life to the same kind of man. But she was older now, she reminded herself. Infinitely wiser. And this time she wasn't in love.
    "I'll take your coat." She held out her hands and waited until he shrugged out of it. For the first time in years she found herself noticing and reacting to a male body. His was tall and rangy, and a response trickled into her slowly. Abby felt it, recognized it, then put a stop to it. Turning, she hung his coat on a peg by the door. "What do you take in your coffee?"
    "Nothing. Just black."
    It had always been true for Abby that to keep occupied was to keep calm. She chose an oversize mug for him and a smaller one for herself. "How long have you been on the road?"
    "I drove through the night."
    "Through the night?" She glanced over her shoulder as he settled at the bar. "You must be exhausted." But he didn't look it. Though he was unkempt, he seemed to be completely alert.
    "I got my second wind." He accepted the mug and noticed that her long, narrow hands were ringless. Not even a gold band. When he lifted his eyes, they were cynical. "I'd guess you know how that is."
    Lifting a brow, she sat across from him. As a mother, she knew what it was to lose a night's sleep and will herself through the next day. "I guess I do." Since he didn't seem interested in polite conversation, she'd get right down to business. "I've read your work, Mr. Crosby. Your book on Millicent Driscoll was tough, but accurate."
    "Accurate's the key word."
    She sipped coffee as she watched him. "I can respect that. And I suppose there was enough pity for her from other sources. Did you know her personally?"
    "Not until after her suicide." He warmed his hands on the mug as the fire crackled beside him. "I had to get to know her afterward in order to write the book."
    "She was a sensational actress, a sensational woman. But her life wasn't an easy one. I knew her slightly through my sister."
    "Chantel O'Hurley, another sensational actress."
    Abby smiled and softened. "Yes, she is. You met her, didn't you, when you were researching Millicent?"
    "Briefly." And there'd been no love lost there. "All three of the O'Hurley triplets seemed to have made their mark… one way or the other."
    Her eyes met his, calm, accepting. "One way or the other."
    "How does it feel having sisters causing ripples on both coasts?"
    "I'm very proud of them." The answer came immediately, without any extra shades of meaning.
    "No plans to break back into show business yourself?"
    She would have laughed if she hadn't detected the cynicism in his voice. "No. I have other priorities. Have you ever seen Maddy on Broadway?"
    "Couple of times." He sipped. The coffee was making up for those last few filthy miles of road. "You don't look like her. You don't look like either one of them."
    She was used to that, the inevitable comparisons. "No. My father always thought we'd have been a sensation if we'd been identical. More coffee, Mr. Crosby?"
    "No, I'm fine. The story goes that Chuck Rockwell walked into that little club where you and your family were playing on a whim, and that he never looked twice at either of your sisters. Only you."
    "Is that how the story goes?" Abby pushed her coffee aside and rose.
    "Yeah. People generally lean toward the romantic."
    "But you don't." She began to busy herself at the stove.
    "What are you doing?"
    "I'm