Chapter One
It was a warm morning, and the weatherman had already promised temperatures into the eighties for the afternoon. But the weather didn't seem to slow down the bidders, and the auctioneer standing on the elegant porch of the tall white man¬sion kept his monotone steady even though he had to period¬ically wipe streams of sweat from his heavily jowled face.
As he watched the estate auction, Justin Ballenger's black eyes narrowed under the brim of his expensive creamy Stetson. He wasn't buying. Not today. But he had a personal interest in this particular auction. The Jacobs's home was being sold, lock, stock, and barrel, and he should have felt a sense of triumph at seeing old Bass Jacobs's legacy go down the drain. Oddly enough, he didn't. He felt vaguely disturbed by the whole pro¬ceeding. It was like watching predators pick a helpless victim to the bone.
He kept searching the crowd for Shelby Jacobs, but she was nowhere in sight. Possibly she and her brother, Tyler, were in the house, helping to sort the furniture and other antique of¬ferings.
A movement to his left caught his eye. Abby Ballenger, his sister-in-law of six weeks, stood beside him.
"I didn't expect to see you here," she remarked, smiling up at him. She'd lived with him and Calhoun, her almost-stepbrothers, since the tragic deaths of their father and her mother. Their parents were to have been married, so the broth¬ers took Abby in and looked after her. And just weeks before, she and Calhoun had married.
"I never miss an auction," he replied. He looked toward the auctioneer. "I haven't seen the Jacobses."
"Ty's in Arizona." Abby sighed, and she didn't miss the sudden glare of Justin's dark eyes. "He didn't go without a fight, either, but there was some kind of emergency on that ranch he's helping to manage."
"Shelby's alone?" The words were almost wrenched from him.
"Afraid so." Abby glanced up at him and away, barely sup¬pressing a smile. "She's at the apartment she's rented in town." Abby smoothed a fold of her gray skirt. "It's above the law office where she works..."
Justin's hard, dark face went even tauter. The smoking cig¬arette in his hand was forgotten as he turned to Abby, his whip¬cord-lean body towering over her. "That isn't an apartment, for God's sake, it's an old storeroom!"
"Barry Holman is letting her convert it," Abby said, her guileless pale eyes the picture of innocence under her dark hair. "She doesn't have much choice, Justin. With the house being sold, where else can she afford to live on what she makes? Everything had to go, you know. Tyler and Shelby thought they could at least hold onto the house and property, but it took every last dime to meet their father's debts."
Justin muttered something under his breath, glaring toward the big, elegant house that somehow embodied everything he'd hated about the Jacobs family for the past six years, since Shelby had broken their engagement and betrayed him.
"Aren't you glad?" Abby baited him gently. "You hate her, after all. It should please you to see her brought to her knees in public."
He didn't say another word. He turned abruptly, his expres¬sion as uncompromising as stone, and strode to where his black
Thunderbird was parked. Abby smiled secretively. She'd thought that he'd react, if she could make him see how badly this was going to hurt Shelby. All these long years he'd avoided any contact with the Jacobs family, any mention of them at home. But in recent months, the strain was beginning to tell on him. Abby knew almost certainly that he still felt something for the woman who'd jilted him, and she knew Shelby felt something for Justin, too. Abby, deliriously happy in her own marriage, wanted the rest of the world to be as happy as she was. Perhaps by nudging Justin in the right di¬rection, she might make two miserable people happy.
