Read Online Texas Woman by Joan Johnston - Free Book Online Page B

coward. She took another step.
    Coward!
    Sloan gripped the polished oak banister with a strength that left her hand aching. Then she turned and walked back down to Rip’s office, pushed the door open and entered the room. When she did, Luke Summers rose and turned to face her.
    He stiffened as soon as he saw her face. “Where’d you get that bruise?”
    “None of your business!” she snapped.
    Rip flushed as Luke’s steely gaze shifted to him. But Sloan offered no further explanation, nor did Luke ask for one.
    Somehow Luke looked even taller, Sloan thought, even more intimidating, in Rip’s masculine office. This man was her father’s son, her half-brother. Yet she noticed Luke and Rip were not much alike, physically.
    Luke was whipcord lean, while Rip was a massive, barrel-chested man. She looked for traces of Rip in Luke’s features but found little of her father. Only the strong, square jaw was the same. Luke must have taken after his mother. Sloan had to concede she must have been a beautiful woman.
    Because she and Luke were of a similar age, Sloan had figured out that her mother must have been pregnant with her at about the same time Luke’s mother had been pregnant with him. It appeared Rip had not been a faithful husband. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
    She had never thought about it much, but in all these years she had never seen her father with a woman. Oh, she knew he must have sought out women for his needs, away from the plantation.
    But suddenly she wondered why he had never married again—especially if once upon a time there had been another woman besides Amelia in his life.
    Sloan nodded briefly to Luke. His eyes seemed to reach out to her, to ask her to take his side. She couldn’t afford to do that. She hardened her expression and turned away, afraid she would succumb to whatever it was about her half-brother that had caused her to befriend and confide in him. She paled at the thought that he might not keep her secret as he had promised.
    “Sit down and join us,” Rip commanded.
    Sloan headed for the other vacant chair across from her father. She met Luke’s eyes briefly as the two of them sat down and saw a measure of distress that surprised her. She leaned back in the rawhide chair and rested one ankle against the opposite knee, giving a casual appearance at odds with the tension rippling inside her.
    Rip took a sip of brandy from the crystal snifter he had been rolling with uncharacteristic nervousness between his palms. “I’ve been telling Luke that I’d like him to think about staying on at Three Oaks for a while.”
    “And what did he have to say to that?” Sloan asked.
    “I said I’d think about it.”
    Sloan realized that Luke wasn’t about to let her pretend he wasn’t there. Yet she directed her next comment to Rip alone. “Just what, exactly, did you have in mind for Luke to do here at Three Oaks?”
    “Whatever needs doing. The harvest is backbreaking work for anyone, and you’ve had more than your share of problems this year.”
    “I haven’t complained,” Sloan replied, carefully controlling her voice to keep out the irritation she felt.
    Rip flashed a look at Sloan’s pale, bruised face and grimaced. “Of course you haven’t. That doesn’t mean you haven’t had problems.”
    “Nothing I can’t handle,” she persisted.
    “I don’t want to take Sloan’s place at Three Oaks,” Luke said. “I don’t have the experience—”
    Rip cleared his throat, interrupting Luke’s speech. “What you don’t know, you’ll learn. I’ll teach you myself.”
    “That’s a generous offer,” Luke said. “But when I came here this morning, it wasn’t what I had in mind.”
    “What did you have in mind?” Sloan asked, her voice sharp with accusation.
    Luke met Sloan’s stare without wavering. For an instant he let down his guard and she saw confusion and—? Bitterness? Hate?
    Luke’s voice when he spoke was bare of the volatile emotions she had