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.Had her betrayal and his years in prison erased any kindness, any compassion from Luke’s heart? If so, she was responsible for his turning into a hard, cold, ruthless loner.Was it possible that she and she alone had the power to help Luke reclaim his soul and find peace within himself?Deanna closed the door to her bedroom and sighed with relief.She had thought someone—more than likely her mother, if not her mother and brother—would meet her at the front door, demanding to know where she’d been.She was thankful for even this short reprieve before she had to face her family.It was only a matter of time before they found out that she’d spent the night in a motel with Luke.She dreaded facing them, and on top of that she had to tell them she was moving to Montrose.Deanna stripped off her clothes, taking care to stuff her tattered blouse into her suitcase.She didn’t want anyone to see that torn piece of material.What had happened between Luke and her last night was nobody’s business except theirs.She knew that despite his desire for the whole county to know they had spent the night at the motel together, Luke would never tell a soul what had transpired between them, behind closed doors.After turning on the shower, Deanna stepped into the glass cubicle and allowed the warm water to cascade over her.She could still smell Luke on her body—that strong, unique scent that was his and his alone.At the thought of him, her body tightened and released, sending a tingling sensation upward from her feminine core.Luke had taken her, found his own release and deliberately left her unsatisfied last night.Her body ached with need, craving Luke.She closed her eyes and imagined what it would have been like if he had made love to her with the wild, sweet abandon that had given them both so much pleasure all those years ago.Deanna leaned her head back against the glass wall and sucked in a long, low cry of anguish and longing.After all this time, she still wanted Luke McClendon.Luke and no one else.It had always been that way and she was afraid it always would be.Luke didn’t bother going home.Even though there was a good chance Kizzie would be up and making coffee, he parked his truck and went straight to the stables.He saddled Cherokee and rode the big dun stud away from the main house and up into the nearby hills.He needed to be alone, needed to escape from civilization and find some peace of mind.But Luke knew he could never have any real peace, that contentment eluded him and happiness was an impossibility.He tried to fight the wildness in him and sometimes he won—other times the wildness won.But there was an emotional deadness inside him that he feared the most.Nothing would bring to life that dead spot deep within him.Deanna had killed something in him fifteen years ago, something that nothing and no one could resurrect.Five years in Huntsville’s brutal prison, following Deanna’s betrayal, had destroyed what little gentleness or compassion there had been in him.And even now, as the head of the McClendon family, ruling Montrose as his father and grandfather had done, Luke still felt unworthy.There was a part of him that knew he didn’t deserve love and happiness, that he didn’t deserve a good woman and children of his own.He was a hard, mean son of a bitch.A good woman wouldn’t want him, and certainly wouldn’t want his children.Oh, Luke I wanted your baby more than anything on earth.Damn Deanna! And damn his stupidity for believing her.And that was the problem—he did believe her.He believed she had wanted his child.And if that was true, then there was a possibility that everything else she’d said was true, too.Maybe she had loved him.Maybe her mother had threatened her.Maybe she honestly couldn’t remember what had happened the night Rayburn Atchley was murdered.Was it possible that he’d hated Deanna so much for testifying against him that he hadn’t allowed himself to even consider that she might have been telling the truth?Luke guided Cherokee deeper and deeper into the hills, not even aware of where he was going until he came upon the burned-out ruins of the cabin.He dismounted, dropped the reins and walked over to a nearby live oak tree, its crooked limbs reaching toward the sky.He remembered the day he had set fire to the place and stood at a distance, watching it burn.The day after he had been released from prison.Baxter hadn’t said a word to him.But it wouldn’t have mattered if his father had cursed him for destroying the old cabin.Luke had done what his soul demanded, no matter how dark and warped that soul had become.All his anger and hatred had been centered on that pile of old logs, that ramshackle, one-room cabin, where he and Deanna had made love the first time and numerous times afterward.He had tended the fire, keeping it confined and not allowing it to spread.All he’d wanted was to wipe their meeting place from the face of the earth.But now, ten years later, the rock chimney still standing, the remains were as vivid a reminder of what he’d lost as the cabin itself had been
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