The Men of Medicine Ridge - Diana Palmer [25]
His face hardened with the words, and she knew he was remembering the bad times he’d had with his father.
“Mack, do you really think you’re like him?” she asked softly.
“They say abused kids become abusive parents,” he replied without thinking, and then could have bitten his tongue right through for the slip.
She only nodded, as if she’d expected that answer. “So they say. But there are exceptions to every rule. If you were going to be abusive, Vivian and Bob and Charles would have been sitting in the school counselor’s office years ago. They could have asked to go into foster care any time they wanted to.”
“Vivian would never have given up shopping sprees,” he pointed out.
She swiped gently at his sleeve. “Stop that. You know she loves you. So do the boys. You’re the kindest human being I’ve ever known.”
A ruddy color ran up his high cheekbones. He didn’t look at her. “Flattery?”
“Fact,” she countered. Her fingers smoothed over his sleeve lazily. “You’re one of a kind.”
He moved his shoulder abruptly. “Don’t do that.”
She pulled her fingers back. “Okay. Sorry.” She laughed it off, but her face flushed.
“Don’t get your feelings hurt,” he said irritably, glancing at her. “I want you. Don’t push your luck.”
Her eyes widened.
“You still haven’t got the least damned notion of what it does to me when you touch me, do you?” he asked impatiently. “This stoic exterior is a pose. Every time I look at you, I see you in that velvet dress, and I want to stop the truck and…” He ground his teeth together. “It’s been a long dry spell. Don’t make it worse.”
“What about Glenna?” she chided.
He hesitated for a minute and then glanced at her with a what-the-hell sort of smile and said, “She can’t fix what she didn’t break.”
Her eyebrows reached for the ceiling. “You don’t look broken to me.”
“You know what I mean. She’s pretty and responsive, but she isn’t you.”
Her face brightened. “Poor Glenna.”
“Poor Dave What’s-his-name,” he countered with a mocking smile. “Apparently he doesn’t get any further with you than she does with me.”
“Everyone says he’s very handsome.”
“Everyone says she’s very pretty.”
She shook her head and stared out the window, folding her arms. “Vivian is barely speaking to me,” she said, desperate to change the subject. “I know she’s jealous of the way Whit flirts with me. I just don’t know how to stop him. It almost seems as if he’s doing it deliberately.”
“He is,” he said, his expression changing. “It’s an old ploy, but it’s pretty effective.”
“I don’t understand.”
He pulled up at a stop sign a few miles outside Medicine Ridge and looked at her. “He makes her think he isn’t interested so that she’ll work harder to attract his attention. By that time, she’s so desperate that she’ll do anything he wants her to do.” His eye narrowed angrily. “She’s rich, Nat. He isn’t. He makes a good salary, for a teacher, but I had him investigated. He spends heavily at the gambling parlors.”
She bit her lower lip. “Poor Viv.”
“She’d be poor if she married him,” he agreed. “That’s why I object to him. He did get a girl in trouble, but that’s not why I don’t want him hanging around Viv. He’s a compulsive gambler and he doesn’t think he has a problem.” He looked genuinely worried. “I haven’t told her.”
She whistled softly. “And if you do tell her…”
“She won’t believe me. She’ll think I’m being contrary and dig in her heels. She might marry him out of spite.” He shrugged. “I’m between a rock and a hard place.”
“Maybe I should encourage him,” she began.
“No.”
“But I could—”
“I said no,” he repeated, his tone full of authority. “Let me handle it my way.”
“All right,” she said, giving in.
“I know what I’m doing,” he told her as he pulled the truck onto the highway. “You just be ready at five.”
“Okay, boss,” she drawled, and grinned at his quick glare.
Natalie was on pins and needles waiting for five o’clock. She was dressed by four. She’d topped her short hair with a glittery green rhinestone hair clip that brought out the emerald of her eyes and made the green velvet dress look even more elegant.