Chapter 1
The tall, silver-haired man stood quietly apart from the rest of the mourners, his eyes narrowed and
contemptuous on the slender, black-clad
figure beside his sister. His cousin Barry was dead, and that woman was responsible. Not only had she
tormented her husband of two years into
alcoholism, but she'd allowed him to get behind the wheel of a car when he was drunk and he'd gone off a
bridge to his death. And there she
stood, four million dollars richer, without a single tear in her eyes. She looked completely untouchable--
and
Ted Regan knew that she had been,
as far as her husband had been concerned.
His sister noticed his cold stare and left the widow's side to join him.
"Stop glaring at her. How can you be so unfeeling?" Sandy asked angrily. His sister had dark hair. At
forty, he
was fifteen years older than
she, and prematurely gray. They shared the same pale blue eyes, though, and the same temper.
"Am I being unfeeling?" he asked with a careless smile, and raised his smoking cigarette to his mouth.
"You promised you were going to give that up," she reminded him.
He lifted a dark eyebrow. "I did. I only smoke when I'm under a lot of stress, and only outdoors."
"I wasn't worried about secondhand smoke. You're my brother, and I care about you," she said simply.
He smiled, and his hand touched her face briefly. "I'll try to quit. Again," he said wryly. He glanced at the
widow with cold eyes. "She's a
case, isn't she? I haven't seen a single tear. They were married for two years."
"Nobody knows what goes on inside a marriage, Ted," she reminded him quietly.
"I suppose not," he mused. "I've never wanted to marry anybody, but it seems to work out for a few
people."
"Like the Ballengers here in Jacobsville," she agreed with a smile. "They go on forever. I envy them."
Ted wasn't going to touch that line with a pole. He drew on the cigarette, and his harsh gaze went back to
the heavily veiled woman by the
black limousine.
"Why the veil?" he asked coldly. "Is she afraid Barry's mother may wonder why there aren't any tears in
her
big blue eyes?"
"You're so cynical and harsh, Ted, it's no wonder to me that you've never married," she said with
resignation.
"I've heard people say that
no woman in south Texas would be brave enough to take you on!"
"There's no woman in south Texas that I'd have," he countered.
"Least of all, Coreen Tarleton," she added for him, because the way he was looking at her best friend
spoke
volumes.
"She's even younger than you," he said curtly. "Twenty-four to my forty," he added quietly. "Years too
