Garrett. Rather like buying a mare without first checking her teeth."
"Katy stop it. You're talking nonsense. Just settle down and listen to me. I've spent all my life learning that you can't trust fancy words. My father trusted the words of the banker who let him put his ranch so deep in debt he never could get back out. The bank wound up with the ranch. My mother believed my father when he told her he was going to get rich raising cattle. My father trusted my mother to stick by him when the going got tough. They were both disappointed. Katy, pretty words don't mean anything. It's what people do that counts."
"You're wrong, Garrett. Some words are important."
"I'll give you the important ones. But I won't give you or any other woman the meaningless ones."
Katy's eyes blazed. "You're just making excuses. Maybe you're so damned macho you're afraid to let yourself fall in love. Maybe you're the kind of man who thinks he makes himself vulnerable if he tells a woman he loves her. That's not like proving yourself against a bull or a saddle bronc, is it? Falling in love means taking a real risk—the kind of risk I took by marrying you yesterday."
"Honey, this is crazy. You're my wife. You belong to me now. We've got a future together. It's a future we both want. Why are you trying to rip everything to shreds just because I'm not romantic enough to suit your feminine notions of how a husband is supposed to act?"
Garrett's hands tightened around her arms, and Katy suddenly sensed the physical change in him. Instinctively she glanced down. She nearly choked with fury and another equally dangerous emotion when she realized Garrett was fully, heavily aroused. It was the last straw. Hastily she turned her head to one side and stared fixedly at a picture on the wall.
"Will you please get dressed, for heaven's sake?"
"What's the matter, Katy? Don't you like knowing you have this effect on me?" There was an amused, taunting quality in his words now.
"Not particularly."
Garrett's mouth crooked slightly and he pulled her closer. His voice softened. "I don't believe you. You've been through a lot during the past few days getting ready for the wedding. You're feeling emotional and you're not thinking clearly. Let's go back to bed and start this morning out the way we should have started it in the first place."
Katy stood stiffly in his grasp, appallingly aware of the hard feel of him as he held her close. "Please, Garrett. You said you're not interested in love, well, I'm not interested in sex without it. I married you under a… a misapprehension. It's been a terrible misunderstanding. A horrible mistake. I'm not blaming you. You've never lied to me. I deceived myself. But the deception is over. I know where I stand now."
"Don't look so martyred. You stand with me, dammit. You made a commitment yesterday, and last night you gave yourself to me."
"Well, I'm taking myself back," she retorted, struggling to free herself from his hold.
He didn't release her. "Just what do you think you're going to do?"
"I thought it all out last night after you went to sleep. Since it's too late for an annulment, I'll have to file for divorce. It shouldn't be too complicated. I won't be making any claims on you."
"Divorce! Katy, are you out of your mind? We've got our whole future ahead of us."
"No, you've got your whole future ahead of you. I'm going to find a different future."
"The hell you are. You want everything I want. That's one of the reasons I married you."
"I married you because I loved you, not because I wanted a similar future!" she protested.
"I don't believe you. Don't tell me you aren't interested in the kind of future I intend to build."
"I had a perfectly good future at my father's stud farm. Let go of me. It's obvious I'm wasting my time trying to explain anything to you." She lifted her flaring eyes to his grim face. "I said, let go of me."
Garrett shook his head slowly, his jaw set. "There's something different about you
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