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.He had accepted the fact that he would always be alone, always be unloved.He didn’t need Deanna Atchley coming back into his life and messing around with his mind and his emotions.He hadn’t thought himself capable of hurting a woman the way he’d hurt Deanna last night.He hadn’t harmed her physically.Even in his foulest moods, he wasn’t enough of a bastard to do that.But he had humiliated her by using her the way he had.He had thought if he could make her feel as helpless and degraded as he had felt when he first went to Huntsville, it would ease the raw pain eating away at his guts.But afterward, he’d felt ashamed that his brutal soul had urged him to take his revenge on Deanna in such a way.Hell, he shouldn’t regret what he’d done.He should be feeling in control and loving the power he had over her now.Instead, he felt out of control, on the verge of losing his sanity.He had spent fifteen years hating Deanna, wanting her to burn in hell for what she’d done to him, and now here he was preparing to help her and making plans to have sex with her as often as possible.That’s where he’d made a fatal error—thinking he could have sex with Deanna without it meaning anything to him.He could lie to her.He could lie to the whole damn world.But he wouldn’t lie to himself.He had slept with his share of women in the past fifteen years, had scratched an itch and kept his emotions totally uninvolved.But Deanna was different.Even now.And he should have known she would be.He had loved her once, loved her with a passion that overruled every other aspect of his life.He would willingly have laid down his life for her.A man—any man, even Luke McClendon—couldn’t love a woman that deeply and think even hatred and an unquenchable thirst for revenge could make him immune to her.Luke turned from the cabin ruins and sought out the clearing that overlooked a large section of Montrose, from the hills to the pastures and beyond to the horizon.Sitting down on a rock ledge, Luke watched the morning come alive.The fog lifting from the hilltops.The sunlight dappling the green with gold.The breeze ruffling through the wildflowers.The sky bursting with various shades of blue, tinged with pale pink and cream.Even at this distance he heard the rippling waters of the stream that ran through the north section of Montrose.This was his—all of this—as far as the eye could see.Ruling Montrose should be enough for any man—more than enough for a quarter-breed bastard son.So why wasn’t it enough for him? Why did he feel so empty inside, so in need of something that was missing?“Don’t be a fool,” he said aloud, but only Cherokee and the birds in the trees heard him.“Don’t you dare trust Deanna Atchley again.”Deanna placed the last garment in her suitcase and closed the lid.She hadn’t brought much with her when she’d come from Jackson.Just the basics.It would be easy enough to take her one case downstairs and put it in the car before anyone saw her.If there was some way she could get around having a confrontation with her family, she’d take that route.But that wasn’t possible.She hadn’t come home to run away from the truth—not any longer.She had come home to find the truth and face it.Deanna lifted her makeup case off the bed and set it on the floor beside her suitcase.A soft knocking at the door alerted her that someone other than she was awake in the Atchley household.Nerves quivered in her stomach.“Deanna, may I speak to you, please.” Phyllis’s voice held that slightly superior, slightly aggravated tone that she had perfected over the years.“Yes, Mother.” Deanna sighed, dreading the thought of facing her mother.“The door’s unlocked.Come in.”Phyllis, her blond hair perfectly coiffured, her long mauve nails an exact match for the mauve silk pantsuit she wore, stood in the doorway thoroughly surveying her daughter.Deanna suddenly felt as if she were on the auction block.“What do you think you’ll see by staring at me that way?” Deanna asked.“I was looking for the bruises that Luke McClendon no doubt left on your body.” Phyllis’s nose wrinkled as if she’d smelled something unpleasant.A lead weight dropped to the bottom of Deanna’s stomach.So, her mother already knew that she’d spent the night with Luke.“I can assure you that I have no bruises on my body.” No bruises.But a badly battered heart.And her pride that had been severely damaged.“How could you?” Stepping into the bedroom, Phyllis slammed the door behind her.“Home only a few days and you’ve already run to him like some bitch dog in heat! My God, Deanna, what sort of hold does that man have over you?”“How did you find out?” Deanna asked.“What difference does it make?” Phyllis clenched her jaw, then breathed deeply through her nose and exhaled in a disgruntled huff.“I received an anonymous phone call, if you must know.How do you think that made me feel, having some voice over the phone tell me that my daughter had spent the night at the Stone Creek Motel with Luke McClendon!”“Obviously, it made you angry.”“Angry? Yes, I’m angry.But I’m ashamed of you and for you
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