by Linda Howard
“I can’t do that now.” The look she gave him was worried. “I can’t leave you not knowing if…if…”
“I know.” He covered her hand with his, briefly applying pressure before removing his touch. “I’m handling it, so don’t worry so much. In another week to ten days, I’ll have the money repaid into Cord’s account.”
She bit her lip. She knew that he would have had to liquidate a lot of assets to raise that much money so quickly, and she felt guilty that he hadn’t allowed her to help. Perhaps she hadn’t known anything about it, but she had profited by the use of the money because it had made the company stronger.
By sheer willpower, she kept her gaze from straying too often to Cord as the minutes crawled past, but still she somehow always knew where he was. He’d stopped dancing with Cheryl, and she was surprised by the number of people who engaged him in conversation, despite how wary most of them still were of him. Why was he here? She couldn’t imagine that Audrey Gregg had invited him, so he had to have come with someone else, probably Cheryl. Was he seeing Cheryl often?
For a while he stood alone, off to one side, slowly sipping a glass of amber liquid, his dark face blank of any expression, his eyes hooded. He was always alone, she thought painfully. Even when someone was talking with him, he had a quality about him that set him apart, as if he were surrounded by an invisible barrier. He’d probably had to become hard and aloof to survive, but now that very protection kept him from being close to another human being.
It was too stressful to watch him. To divert herself, she began talking to Preston, and resolutely kept her gaze away from Cord. Good friend that Preston was, he talked easily of many things, keeping her occupied. She knew that he had to be under a strain himself, even more so than she was, but he was handling it well, and his concern was all for her.
Suddenly Preston looked past her, his blue gaze sharpened and alert. “It’s in the fan now,” he muttered. “Grant Keller is about to tie into Cord.”
Susan whirled, and gasped at the hostility of the scene. Grant Keller was a picture of aggressive, bitter hatred, standing directly in front of Cord, his fists knotted and his jaw thrust out as he spat some indistinguishable words at the younger man. His handsome, aristocratic face was twisted with hate and fury. Cord, on the other hand, looked cool and bored, but there was an iciness in his eyes that warned Susan that he was on the verge of losing his temper. His stance was relaxed, and that too was a signal. He was perfectly balanced, ready to move in any direction.
Her breath caught in her chest. He’d never before seemed so aloof, so unutterably alone, with only his natural pride and arrogance to stand with him. Her heart was stabbed with pain, and she felt as if she were choking. He was a warrior who would die rather than run, standing by his own code, loyal to his own ideals. Oh, God, couldn’t they see that only pain could force a man into such isolation? He’d been hurt enough! Then, out of the corner of her eye, Susan saw Mary Keller watching her husband, with distress and a wounded look evident on her quiet face.
Suddenly Susan was angry, with a fierce swell of emotion that drove away her depression, her tiredness. That old scandal had already caused enough trouble and pain, and now another woman was about to be hurt by it. Mary Keller had to sit there and watch her husband try to start a fight over another woman, something that couldn’t be pleasant. And Cord…what about Cord? His youthful love affair had caused him to be driven away from his family, and the hard life that he’d lived since then had only isolated him more. Grant Keller was the wronged husband, true, but he wasn’t the only one who had suffered. It was time for it to end, and she was going to see that it did!
People who had never seen Susan Blackstone angry were startled by the look on her face as she headed across the room, and a path was cleared for her. Her eyes were a stormy indigo, her cheeks hot with color, as she marched up to the two men and put her slender body gracefully between them. She was dwarfed by their size, but no one had any doubt that the situation had been swiftly defused. She was practically sparking with heat.
“Grant,” she said with a sweetness that couldn’t begin to disguise the fire in her eyes, “I’d like to talk to you, please. Alone. Now.”
Surprised, he looked down at her. “What?” His tone indicated that he hadn’t quite registered her presence.
Cord’s hard hands clamped about her waist, and he started to move her to one side. She looked up, smiling at him over her shoulder. “Don’t…you…dare,” she said, still sweetly. She looked back at Grant. “Grant. Outside.” To make certain that he obeyed her, she took his arm and forcefully led him out of the room, hearing the buzz of gossip begin behind her like angry bees swarming.
“Are you crazy?” she demanded in a fierce whisper when they were out of earshot, dropping the older man’s arm and whirling on him in a fury. “Haven’t enough people already been hurt by that old scandal? It’s over! It can’t be undone, and everyone has paid for it. Let it die!”
“I can’t,” he returned just as fiercely. “It’s burned into my head! I walked into my own home and found my wife in bed with him. Do you think he was ashamed? He just glared at me, as if she were his wife, as if I had no right to be there!”
Yes, that sounded like Cord, able to stare down the devil himself. But she brushed all of that aside. “Maybe you have bad memories, but you’re just going to have to handle them. Are you still in love with your first wife? Is that it? Do you want her back? You have Mary now, remember! Have you given her a thought? Have you thought of how she must feel right now, watching you start a fight over another woman? Why don’t you just walk up and slap her in the face? I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt her any worse than she’s hurting right now.”
He blanched, staring down at her. Perspiration broke out on his face, and he wiped his brow with a nervous hand. “My God, I hadn’t thought,” he stammered.
Susan poked him in the chest with her forefinger. “It’s a dead issue,” she said flatly. “I don’t want to hear about it again. If anyone…anyone…wants to fight Cord over something that happened fourteen years ago, they’re going to have to go over me first. Now, go back in there to your wife and try to make it up to her for what you’ve done!”
“Susan—” He broke off, staring at her pale, furious face as if he’d never seen her before. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know,” she said, relenting. “Go on now.” She gave him a gentle push, and he sucked in a deep breath, obviously preparing himself to face a wife who had every right to be hurt, humiliated and angry. Susan stood where she was for a moment after he’d gone, drawing in her own deep breaths until she felt calm seep back into her body, replacing the furious rush of adrenaline that had sent her storming across the room to step between two angry men.
“That’s a bad habit you’ve got.” The deep drawl came from behind her, and she whirled, her breath catching, as Cord sauntered out of the shadows. Abruptly she shivered, no longer protected by her anger, as the cooling night air finally penetrated her consciousness. Quickly she cast a glance at the crowd of people visible through the patio doors, some of them dancing again, going about their own concerns. She had stepped in too soon for anything exciting to happen, so there wouldn’t even be much gossip.
“They all know we’re out here, but no one is going to intrude,” he said cynically. “Not even Preston, the Boy Wonder.” He touched the soft curve of her cheek with one finger, trailing it down to the graceful length of her throat. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that it’s dangerous to get between two fighting animals?”
She shivered again, and when she tried to speak she found that her voice wouldn’t work right; it was husky, strained. “I knew you wouldn’t hurt me.”
Again his finger moved, sliding with excruciating slowness over her collarbone, then stroking lightly over the sensitive hollow of her shoulder. Susan found that the touch of his finger, the hypnotic motion of it, somehow interfered with her breathing; the rhythm of her lungs was thrown off, and she was almost hyperventil
ating one moment, then holding her breath the next. She stared up at him, seeing his lips move as he spoke, but her attention was focused on his touch, and the words didn’t make sense. She swallowed, licked her suddenly dry lips, and croaked, “I’m sorry. What—”
One corner of his mouth lifted in a strange almost-smile. “I said, you’d be a lot safer if you didn’t trust me. Then you’d stay away from me, and you wouldn’t get burned. I can’t decide about you, honey.”
“What do you mean?” Why couldn’t her voice be stronger? Why couldn’t she manage more than that husky whisper?
His finger moved again, making a slow trek over to her other shoulder, touching her in a way that made her heart slam excitedly. She’d never noticed her shoulders being so sensitive, but he was doing things to her that were rocketing her into desire. “I can’t decide whose side you’re on,” he murmured, watching both his finger and the way her breasts were heaving as she struggled to regulate her breathing. “You’re either the best actress I’ve ever seen, or you’re so innocent you should be locked up to keep you safe.” Suddenly his pale eyes slashed upward, his gaze colliding with hers with a force that stunned her. “Don’t step in front of me again. If Grant had accidentally hit you, I’d have killed him.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but whatever was in her mind was forever lost when he trailed his finger downward to her breasts, stroking her cleavage, then exploring beneath the cloth of her bodice to flick over a velvet nipple. She caught a moan before it surfaced, gasping in air. With a slow, sure touch he put his hand inside her dress, cupping her in his palm with a bold caress, as sure of himself as if they weren’t standing on the patio where any of fifty people could interrupt them at anytime. He looked at her face, soft, drowning in sensuality, and suddenly he wondered if she looked the same whenever Preston touched her. She was either the most sensual woman he’d ever seen, or she was fantastic at faking it. At the thought of Preston, he removed his hand, leaving her dazed and floundering. “You’d better get back inside,” he muttered; then he turned and walked away, disappearing into the night shadows, leaving her more alone than she’d felt since Vance’s death.
Her body burned from his touch, yet she was shaking with something like a chill. It was like a fever, she thought dimly, burning hot and cold at the same time. He was a fever, consuming her, and she reached the horrified realization that the way she felt about him was no longer under her control. Without wanting to, she cared too much about him. She was playing Russian roulette with her emotions, but it was far too late to stop.
She stood there in the cool night for several minutes longer, then slipped quietly inside to rejoin the party. Preston came over and touched her arm gently. “Are you all right?” he asked with tender concern, and in his eyes she saw the love that he couldn’t quite hide.
She was calm enough now to give him her most reassuring smile, one that made most people feel that everything was right with the world. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“Grant and Mary have gone home. What’d you say to him? He looked like he was in shock when he came in, and he went straight to Mary.”
She shook her head, still smiling. “Nothing, really. I just calmed him down.”
His look said he didn’t quite believe her, but he kissed her forehead lightly in tribute. It was inevitable that when Susan glanced around she saw Cord standing across the room, staring at her with cold, unreadable eyes, and a sad pain bloomed in her heart. He’d never trust her, she thought, and wished that it didn’t mean so much to her.
Audrey Gregg found the opportunity to thank her for averting a scene, and after that Susan made her excuses and drove herself home where she fell into bed in mental exhaustion, then got up ten minutes later to restlessly pace the house. Finally she turned on the television to watch an old Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin comedy, letting their antics clear her mind. She was engrossed in the movie, chuckling to herself, when the doorbell rang. Frowning, she glanced at the clock. It was almost midnight, the witching hour.
“Who is it?” she called through the door, tying the sash of her robe tighter.
“Cord.”
She unlocked the dead bolt and opened the door to him. He straightened from his slouch against the door frame and walked inside. Her eyes dropped to the whiskey bottle he carried in his hand. A half-empty whiskey bottle.
“Are you drunk?” she asked warily.
“On my way.” He smiled at her and took a drink from the bottle. “It’s hard for me to get drunk, but champagne does it to me every time. Something about my chemistry. I’m just trying to finish it off with this.”
“Why do you want to get drunk?” He was walking toward the den, and she followed him automatically. If he was drunk, or even high, he was certainly handling it well. His walk was steady, his speech clear. He sat down on the couch and stretched his long legs out before him, sighing as his muscles relaxed. Susan went over to the television and switched it off in the middle of a Jerry Lewis pratfall.
She repeated her question. “Why do you want to get drunk?”
“It just seems like the thing to do. A sort of tribute to the past.”
“So you lift a glass…excuse me, a bottle…to auld lang syne.”
“That’s right.” He drank again, then set the bottle down with a thud and pinned her with his glittering eyes. “Why did you have to get between us? I wanted to hit him. My God, how I wanted to hit him!”
“Another tribute to the past?” she asked sharply.
“To Judith,” he corrected, smiling a little. “Do you know what he said? He came up to me and said, ‘So the little whore didn’t stay with you, either.’ I should’ve broken his neck on the spot.”
Susan hadn’t heard the name before, but she knew that Judith had been Grant’s first wife, the woman caught in bed with Cord. She sat down beside him and folded her robe around her legs, waiting. Her attitude was calm, her entire attention focused on him. People often talked to her, telling her things that they’d never tell anyone else, without really understanding what it was about her that inspired such trust. Susan didn’t understand it herself, unless it was that she truly listened.
He leaned his head back, and his eyelids drooped to half-mast. “She was pure fire,” he said softly. “A total mismatch for Grant Keller. She had red hair and slanted green eyes, just like a cat’s. She sparkled. She liked to laugh and dance and have a good time, do all of the things that Grant was too stodgy to enjoy. He wasn’t the type to go skinny-dipping at night, or dance in the streets during Mardi Gras. But, as far as I know, she was entirely faithful to him.” He fell silent, staring into the past.
When several moments had passed, Susan prompted him. “Until you.”
He glanced up and gave her a wry look that held a curious overtone of pain and guilt. “Until she met me,” he agreed harshly. With a deft movement he seized the bottle and tipped it to his mouth. She watched in amazed fascination as his strong throat worked, and when he set the bottle down it was empty. He looked at it savagely. “There wasn’t enough.”
Warily, she wondered if he would still be able to say that when his body began to absorb the alcohol he’d just consumed, if he would be able to say anything at all.
A fine sheen of perspiration had broken out on his face, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. “We’d been having an affair for almost a year before we were caught.” His voice was gruff, strained. “I’d asked her over and over to divorce Grant, leave with me, but beneath all of that flash, Judith was strongly conventional. Her reputation meant a lot to her, and she adored her kids. She just couldn’t break all her ties. She didn’t have any choice after Grant found us together.”
Susan swallowed, trying not to imagine the scene. What would it do to any of the three people involved in a triangle for a husband to walk in while his wife was in bed with her lover?
“She was crucified.” He heaved himself off the couch and walked restlessly around the room, and what she saw on his face frighten
ed her. “She didn’t have a friend left; her own children wouldn’t speak to her after Grant threw her out of the house. My dear aunt Imogene was the leader in ostracizing her. Preston doesn’t know that I know what he did, because he made certain he wasn’t in the group, but he organized a sort of mob scene; a group of teenage toughs danced around Judith one afternoon in the parking lot of a grocery store and called her ‘Blackstone’s Whore.’ It sounds almost Victorian, doesn’t it? I caught one of the kids that night and…ah, persuaded him to tell me who’d set it up. I hunted for Preston, but he flew the coop, and I couldn’t find where he’d gone.”
So that was why he hated Preston so fiercely! She could understand his bitterness, but still she stared at him, troubled. Couldn’t he see that revenge so often has a backlash, punishing the avenger as cruelly as his victim?
His fists were knotted whitely at his sides, his lips drawn back over his teeth. Alarmed, Susan got up and went to him, putting her soft hands over his fists. He’d removed his tie, and his shirt was open at the throat, revealing the beginning curls of hair on his chest; her eyes were on a level with those curls, and for a moment she stared at them, entranced, before she jerked her thoughts away from the dangerous direction they were taking and looked upward.
“Where is she now?” she asked, having a vision of Judith in some sleazy bar somewhere, middle-aged and despairing.
“She’s dead.” His voice was soft now, almost gentle, as if he had to put some distance between himself and his memories. “My wife is dead, and that bastard called her a whore!”
Susan sucked in a quiet breath, shocked at what he’d just told her. His wife! “What happened?”
“They broke her spirit.” He was breathing deeply, almost desperately, but his hands had unknotted, and now his fingers were twined with hers, holding her so tightly that he hurt her. His face was pulled into a grimace of pain. “We were married as soon as her divorce was final. But she was never Judith again, never the laughing, dancing woman I’d wanted so much. I wasn’t enough to replace her children, her friends, and she just faded away from me.”
