Page 93 of Backlash

“Why don’t you start over,” he suggested, “and tell me what this”—he motioned to her bag—“is all about?”

“It’s simple. This place is yours, Denver,” she replied coldly. “All of it. The horses, the machinery, the house and even the ridge! I don’t want any part of it.” Holding her chin rock solid, swallowing back hot, tormented tears, she tried to breeze past him, but he blocked the door.

“Wait a minute—where’re you going?”

“Singapore or Brazil, wasn’t it?” Curtis interjected, standing, trying to place himself squarely between his daughter and the man in the door.

Tessa said firmly, “I can handle this on my own, Dad.”

“Just tryin’ to help out.”

“Thanks, but this is my problem.”

“What problem?” Denver demanded, scowling savagely. “What the hell’s going on here?”

“Move, McLean,” Curtis said.

Denver refused to budge. His hard gaze landed on Tessa. “You and I have to talk.”

“Too late.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m leaving, Denver. There’s not much to chat about!” She tried to squeeze past him.

He caught her wrist in his hard fingers, stepped quickly out of the door and met Curtis’s gaze. “I’d like to speak to Tessa. Alone.”

“Whatever it is you have to say, McLean, you can say to me.”

“This is private.”

Tessa’s heart somersaulted. Denver’s fingers tightened possessively over her wrist. “I can handle this, Dad,” she said, her eyes as bright and furious as Denver’s.

Curtis hesitated at the door, eyeing them both and shifting restlessly from one foot to the other. “I don’t think—”

“I’ll be fine,” Tessa insisted. Now was her chance to tell Denver what a bastard he was, and she might not get another.

“All right,” Curtis said reluctantly, his old face grim. “But I’ll be in the kitchen.” His lips pressed together until they showed white and he jabbed a gnarled finger at Denver’s chest. “You’ve got fifteen minutes, McLean. Then I’m back up here and you’re through with my daughter for good.”

He pulled himself to his full five foot eight and glared up at Denver. “Fifteen minutes.” Scrabbling in his breast pocket for his cigarettes, he turned and left the room.

“Okay, Denver, what is it?”

“You tell me. Why the hell are you leaving?”

“Why the hell do you care?”

“You’re the most infuriating woman I’ve ever met.”

; “Good!”

With a growl, Denver kicked the door closed. It banged shut. Windows rattled in their casings and the whole house jarred. Tessa jumped. He clicked the lock into place. “I don’t want to be disturbed,” he said, when she started to protest.

His face muscles were tight, strained with leashed fury that sparked like blue flames in his eyes. Wrenching her arm, he nearly threw her into a chair and stood only inches in front of it, his arms crossed over his chest, his shirt stretched so tight at the shoulders the seams threatened to split. “Now, Tessa, you tell me just what’s going on here.”

“What does it look like?”