Clark brightened. His brother sounded almost friendly. “Sure!”
He grinned at Keely and moved quickly down the aisle of the barn toward the tack room, leaving Keely stranded with Boone, who looked oddly like a lion confronted by a thick, juicy steak.
“Tell Clark you don’t want to go riding, Keely,” he said slowly. “And ask him to take you home. Right now.”
First her mother, now Boone. She was so tired of people telling her what to do. She looked up at him with wide, dark green eyes. “Why do you care if I go riding with Clark?” she asked quietly. “I go riding with Winnie all the time.”
“There’s a difference.”
She felt threatened. Then she felt insulted. She met his dark, piercing stare with resignation. “It’s because my people aren’t rich or socially important, isn’t it?” she asked. “It’s because I’m poor.”
“And uneducated,” he added tauntingly.
Her face colored. “I have a diploma for the work I do,” she stammered.
“You’re a glorified groomer, Keely,” he said flatly. “You hold dogs and cats while the vet treats them.”
Her whole body tautened. “That isn’t true. I give anesthesia and shots…”
He held up a hand. “Spare me the minute details,” he said, sounding bored.
“We can’t all go to Harvard, you know,” she muttered.
“And some of us can’t even face community college,” he shot back. “You had a scholarship and you threw it away.”
She felt sick. “A scholarship that paid just for textbooks,” she corrected. “And only half of that. How in the world do you think I could afford to pay tuition and go to classes and hold down a full-time job, all at once?”
“You could give up the job.”
She laughed hollowly. “My mother would love that. Then she wouldn’t even have groceries.”
His dark eyes narrowed. “Do you pay rent?”
Her big, soft green eyes met his. “I do all the housework and all the cooking and cleaning and shopping. That’s my rent.”
“Who buys her liquor?” he asked with a cold smile. “And her see-through negligees?”
Keely’s face went scarlet. He was insinuating something. Her stare asked the question without words.
He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans, pulling the thick fabric taut over the hard, powerful muscles of his legs. “I dropped by your house to thank you, belatedly, for getting Bailey to the vet in time to save him,” he said curtly. “You weren’t home, but she was. She answered the door in a see-through negligee and invited me inside.”
The shame was overpowering. She averted her face.
“Embarrassed?” he scoffed. “Why? Like mother, like daughter. I’m sure you wear similar things for Bentley,” he added with honey-dripping sarcasm.
She couldn’t manage a reply. His opinion of her was painful. She’d loved him secretly for years, and he could treat her like this. He wouldn’t even give her the benefit of the doubt.
Her lack of response made him angry. Why it should also make him feel guilty was a question he couldn’t answer. “You keep away from Clark,” he said shortly. “I don’t want you going out with him. Do you hear me, Keely?”
“It’s just for a ride… .”
“I don’t give a damn what it’s for!” he snapped, watching her body tense, her eyes grow frightened. That made him even angrier. He stepped toward her and was infuriated when she backed up. “Get out of Clark’s life. Today!” he told her in a goaded undertone.
She felt her knees go weak. He was intimidating. She couldn’t even force her eyes back up to his. She was so tired of being afraid of everybody; especially of Boone.
Before he could say anything else, Clark came up with a blanket. He was grinning. “Billy’s got the horses saddled. He’s bringing them right up!”
Boone glared down at Keely. “I think Keely wants to go home,” he said.
