Read Online The Marrying Kind by Sharon Ihle - Free Book Online

believed you," she lifted her foot and tore at the buttons on her shoe, "it wouldn't matter because I never asked for your help. Not once."
    Tired of trying to defend himself—especially where his behavior was largely indefensible—Donovan strolled over to the bay window and propped himself against the scalloped molding near the frame. This is what helping folks got him, he thought sourly: scolded, like he was some kind of irresponsible kid. And by whom? A pretender to Calamity Jane's throne, that's who.
    As Libby struggled with her footgear, he couldn't help but notice that she'd hiked her skirt and petticoats up to her knees, revealing a wide expanse of leg between her plain flannel drawers and drab woolen stockings. The woman didn't even know how to behave out of her buckskins, much less realize what the sight of those creamy legs could do to a man—even a man like himself, who would never, under normal circumstances, be drawn to a woman like her.
    But drawn he was, Donovan acknowledged, and this situation was about as bizarre as any he'd been in. He wondered if Libby knew she was flashing him glimpses of her very shapely legs, or if she realized the state she'd worked herself into between her anger and the struggle she was having with her footgear. She looked positively untamed. A few tendrils of mahogany hair had escaped her carefully prepared coif, and now clung to her lightly perspiring cheeks and neck. She was also out of breath, her bosom straining against the ribbed bodice of her somber black dress, and her lips were parted, making room for the tip of her tongue at the edge of her mouth. Hell, he thought, a tug of desire working into a steady, pounding ache, even the real Andrew—a dead man—would sit up and take notice of Libby under these conditions.
    "I think there's a buttonhook in the kitchen," he said, looking for a way to distract himself. "I'll just go get it for you."
    "Don't bother. I don't want anything from you," she snapped. "Damnation, if I don't hate these stupid shoes, and I hate you, too. Nothing's gone right for me since I laid eyes on you. Everything has gone wrong, and it's all because of you—everything."
    Though he was pretty well argued out, Donovan recognized her challenge as the distraction he sought. "I beg to differ with you... Lippy. If you could have kept your big mouth shut long enough for a man to get a word in edgewise, none of this would have happened in the first place. I tried to tell you more than once that I was not Andrew Savage, but you wouldn't give me a chance."
    "You had plenty of chances to tell the truth—and all of this is your fault, including the fact that I rushed out and bought these miserable boots." The buttons unhooked at last, Libby strained, tugging on the shoe. When it finally popped off of her foot, she reared back and threw it at Donovan, hurling one last accusation along with it. "This is all your fault, Willy."
    Not a moment too soon, he ducked, leaving the boot to crash against the glass behind him. "Hey—hey. There's no cause to get violent. You damn near broke my window. And stop calling me, Willy!"
    "I wanted to break your big fat head, you double-dealing snake in the grass, and I'll call you Willy any time I take a notion to." She leaped to her feet and stormed across the room, steam-piston style, one boot on, one boot off. Raising her fist when she reached him, she shook it in his face. "As for violence, you lousy flim-flammer, when I think about the things you said to me in Laramie and the way you had me groveling at your feet, doing something violent is the kindest thing I can think of."
    "Now, Libb—"
    "Don't 'now Libby' me. Not while I can still hear you saying, 'You want a camera, little lady?'"— shemimicked his voice, slaughtering it by adding a countrified accent. "'Shore 'nuff, ma'am—you kin have anything you want. Juss ask, and it's all yours.' Why I ought to punch you right in the mouth for leading me on that way."
    He'd been