by Linda Howard
“I’m sorry,” she heard herself say in swift apology, and she scrambled off the bed, abandoning the flimsy barrier of the sheet in favor of dressing as quickly as she could. Without looking at him, she grabbed up her panties and stepped into them. “I didn’t mean to push you. I realize that having sex doesn’t mean anything—”
“Whoa, lady!” Scowling, he dropped his jeans to the floor and grabbed her arm, pulling her upright as she bent to retrieve her dress, then drawing her into the circle of his arms. Her soft breasts flattened against his chest, and she quivered with enjoyment, her thoughts instantly distracted. How could she want him again? Her legs were distinctly wobbly after the day’s activities anyway, and she was already feeling achy in various places, but she knew that if he wanted to tumble her back on the bed again, she would tumble gladly and worry about her aches tomorrow.
He frowned down at her. “Don’t try feeding me that free-and-easy hogwash, because that isn’t you, and I know it. I’m just feeling uneasy. Things are getting complicated all of a sudden.” He stopped without explaining any further and cupped her face in his warm fingers. “Are you sorry it happened?”
She put her hand over his, rubbing her cheek against his palm. “No, I’m not sorry. How could I be? I…I wanted it, too.” She’d started to say, “I love you,” but at the last moment she’d choked the words back and substituted others that were true, but lacked the depth of what she felt. He didn’t want the words, didn’t want to be burdened with her emotions, and she knew it. As long as she didn’t say the words aloud, he’d be able to ignore the true depth of her feeling, even though he had to know how she felt after these past hours spent in his arms, when she had given herself to him completely in a way that only a woman in love could give. He had to know, yet until the words were spoken, the knowledge didn’t exist.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he muttered.
She leaned against him, wrapping her arms around him. He was warning her, letting her know that she shouldn’t expect anything permanent from him. Pierced by a stiletto pain at the thought of one day watching his back as he walked away, she was also grateful for his honesty. He wasn’t going to hit her with a blow from behind. And maybe, just maybe, she could change his mind. He wasn’t used to being loved, and it was obvious that, even unwillingly, he felt more for her than he was comfortable with. She had a chance, and she would risk everything on that.
“Everyone gets hurt,” she murmured against his warm skin. “I’m not going to worry about what might or might not happen someday in the future. I’ll worry about someday when it gets here.”
Someday she might have to do without him, a little bit of her dying every day of emotional starvation. But that was someday, and she had today. Today she was in his arms, and that was enough.
Later that night, facing Imogene across the width of the kitchen, she tried desperately to hold on to the memory of what she’d shared with him. Imogene’s first words to her had been of concern, but that had quickly faded when Susan told her flatly that she wasn’t going to play spy. “I told him what your plan was,” she confessed remotely. “Then I told him to make certain he didn’t tell me anything, so he couldn’t think I was with him just to whore for information.”
Imogene whitened with fury. She drew herself up to her full height, her anger making her seem six feet tall, Imogene in a rage was a formidable sight, but Susan stood her ground, her soft mouth set in a grim line, giving back stare for stare.
“Susan, my God, are you a fool?” Imogene shouted. “Haven’t you realized yet that we stand to lose everything?”
“No, I haven’t realized it! Cord hasn’t made any move at all, other than threatening to press charges if the ridges aren’t leased to him. I’ve agreed to that, and he’s waiting for the geological surveys. Stop painting him as the devil, Imogene!”
“You don’t know him like I do!” Suddenly Imogene realized that she was yelling, and she drew a deep breath, visibly forcing herself back under control. “You’re making a big mistake if you take him at face value. He’s planning something; I know it. If I just had some inkling, so I’d know what to protect! You could have found out,” she said bitterly. “But instead you’ve let him turn your head and make you forget about where your loyalty lies.”
“I love him,” Susan said quietly.
Imogene gaped at her, her eyes going wide. “You…what? But what about Preston? I thought—”
“I do love Preston, as a friend, as Vance’s brother.” Susan groped for the words that could explain. “But Cord…makes me feel alive again. He gives me something to live for.”
“I hope you’re not banking too much on that! Susan, where’s your common sense? He’ll willingly take you to bed, but if you expect more from him than that, you’re a fool. When he gets tired of you, he’ll drop you without thinking twice about it, and you’ll be left to face everyone you know. You’ll always be Cord’s leftovers.”
“If I’d gone along with your plan, I would have been, anyway,” Susan pointed out. “I won’t stab him in the back, even if it means I lose everything I own, but I don’t think he means to do anything else at all. I think all he wanted was the oil leases.”
“You’re not the only one who’s involved here! You’re not the only one who’s at risk. Preston and I also stand to lose everything. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“It means a great deal to me. I simply don’t think he’s a threat to you.”
Imogene shook her head, closing her eyes as if in disbelief at Susan’s blindness. “I can’t believe you’re so blind where he’s concerned. You love him? Well, that’s just fine! Love him if you have to, but don’t be fool enough to trust him!”
Susan went white. “I have to trust him. I love him too much not to. I’d trust him with my life.”
“That’s your decision, I suppose,” Imogene snapped sarcastically. “But you’re also trusting him with ours, and I don’t like that at all. He must really be something in bed, to make you so willing to turn your back on the people who love you, knowing that all he’ll every offer you is sex.”
Susan felt as if she were staring at Imogene from a great distance, and a faint buzzing sound in her head warned her that she might faint. Dizzily, she groped for one of the kitchen chairs and almost fell into it. They were tearing her apart! The awful thing was that she could see Imogene’s side of it. Imogene fully expected Cord to take some sort of revenge against her, and she was frightened, as well she should be. Imogene was lashing out, reacting to a driving need to protect her own, and in her desperation she was willing to hurt people if they got in her way.
Imogene hesitated for a moment, staring at Susan’s pale, damp face as she slumped in the chair; then her face twisted, and for a moment tears brimmed in her pale gray eyes. She blinked them back fiercely, because Imogene Blackstone never wept, and moved swiftly to the sink, dampening several paper towels and taking them to Susan. She slid her arm around the young woman and gently blotted her face with the cool, wet towels. “Susan, I’m sorry,” she said, her voice steady at first, then wobbling dangerously. Imogene never apologized. “My God, he’s got us fighting among ourselves.”
The damp coolness of the paper towels banished Susan’s momentary dizziness, but it couldn’t banish the ache in her heart. She wanted to run to Cord, to throw herself into his arms and let his kisses make her forget that there was an outside world. But despite the hours she’d spent in his bed, she wasn’t entitled to dump all her worries on his shoulders, even though all her worries centered around him.
She clasped her hands on the table, entwining her fingers so tightly that they turned white. “I haven’t turned my back on you or Preston,” she said with hard-won steadiness. “I simply can’t do something that’s so completely against the things I believe in. Please don’t try to make me take sides, because I can’t. I love all of you; I can’t stab any of you in the back.”
Imogene touched Susan’s bent head briefly, then let her hand
drop. “I only hope Cord has the same reluctance to hurt you, but I can’t believe it. I don’t want you to be caught in the middle, but it seems that you’ll have to be, if you won’t take sides. He’ll smash anything that gets in his way.”
“That’s a chance I’ll have to take,” Susan whispered. She’d already accepted the risk she had to face in loving Cord; what else could she do?
The next morning she went to church as usual, but she couldn’t keep her mind on the sermon. Imogene, sitting beside her, was quiet and withdrawn, not entering into conversation before the services began, her gaze fixed on the minister, but Susan felt that Imogene wasn’t really concentrating on the sermon either. Preston had shadows under his eyes, and to Susan’s concerned eye he seemed to have lost a little weight, though she’d seen him only two days before. The strain was telling on him, but he managed to smile and greet everyone as normal. Susan wondered if Imogene had told him anything that had been said the night before, then decided that it wasn’t likely. Imogene was too reserved to cry on anyone’s shoulder, even her own son’s.
Susan declined Imogene’s invitation to Sunday dinner and went home to prepare a light meal of a crisp salad and potato soup. The spring day was too beautiful to sit inside, so she took her needlepoint out on the patio and worked on it for a couple of hours. She was outwardly serene, but she was aware of the coiling tension inside her as she sat and listened for the sound of a car coming up her long driveway. Would Cord drive over today? The thought made her breath catch. He would take her upstairs to her bedroom, to the bed where no man had ever slept, and on the cool, pristine sheets he would blend his body with hers.
She closed her eyes as desire built in her, making her lower body feel heavy and tight, and painfully empty. Surely he would come; surely he could hear her silent call for him.
Stately, towering thunderheads began to march in from the west, and the wind developed a brisk chill, but still she sat there until the first fat raindrops began to splatter on the patio tiles. Gathering her needlework, she ran for the sliding doors and slipped inside just as the weather broke and the rain became a downpour, filling her ears with a dull roar. A sharp crack of thunder made her jump, and she hastily pulled the curtains over the glass doors, then moved around and turned on lights to dispel the fast, early dusk.
It was after eight o’clock that night before she admitted that he wasn’t going to come, so she locked up the house and readied herself for bed. The storm had passed, but the rain continued to fall, and she lay awake for hours listening to the hypnotic patter, wishing that he was in bed beside her, warm and virile. The big house was silent and empty around her, emptier even than it had been after Vance’s death, and that was strange, because Vance had lived here, and she had memories of him in every room. But Vance was gone, and Cord’s personality was too strong to fight.
Because the day was so muted and gray when she woke up in the morning, and because she felt so depressed at not having seen Cord, Susan made a determined effort to cheer herself up. She chose a dark red silk sheath for work, and belted it with a snazzy wide black belt that she’d never worn before. A short black jacket pulled the outfit together, and Susan arched an inquiring eyebrow at her own reflection in the mirror as she leaned forward to put on her earrings. The sharply stylish woman in the mirror didn’t quite look like Susan Blackstone, who usually preferred more conservative garments. But then, the Susan Blackstone who had looked in that mirror the Friday before had never spent the day making love with Cord Blackstone. She was gambling for the first time in her life, and the stakes were higher than she could afford. A woman who would risk her heart, knowing from the outset that the odds in her favor weren’t too good, couldn’t be as staid and conventional as Susan had always thought herself to be.
She kept her cheerful demeanor in place all day long, but after she got home and had eaten the dinner Emily prepared, after Emily had gone to her own house, she waited hopefully until long after dark, but still she didn’t hear anything from Cord. A chill began to tighten her muscles. If the day they had spent together had meant anything to him at all, why hadn’t he made any effort to see her again? Had it just been a…a convenience for him? A casual sexual encounter that he wouldn’t think of again?
She thought of driving out to Jubilee Creek, but the lateness of the hour and the steady rain dissuaded her. Surely tomorrow she’d hear from him.
But she didn’t, and the hours dragged past. She called Information to see if he’d had a phone installed, but they had no listing in his name. She could no longer even keep up the pretense of being cheerful, and her face was tight with strain, an expression that was duplicated on Preston’s face. Susan knew that he had extended himself to the limit, liquidating assets to replace the money in Cord’s account, and she wanted to ask him if he needed help, but an intimate knowledge of Blackstone pride kept her from making the offer. He’d refuse, and even if he later changed his mind, if things became desperate enough that he would want to accept her help, he wouldn’t mention it to her.
Thursday afternoon she drove out to Jubilee Creek, but there was no sign of Cord. She looked in the windows and could see no lights, no dirty dishes, no clothing strewn about. She tried both the front and back doors, and found them securely locked. The thought that he might have gone permanently made her sag against the door, and bitter tears of regret seared her lids before she forced them back; not regret for what had happened, but regret that she’d had only that one day in his arms. She should have had more! It wasn’t fair to give someone a brief glimpse of heaven, then draw heavy curtains over the scene! Where Cord was concerned, she wanted it all: all of his smiles, his kisses, his company every day. She wanted to be the one to calm his anger or incite his passion. She wanted to wake up beside him every morning and look at his sleepy, beard-stubbled face, and at night she wanted to lie close against his tall, hard body.
Of course, she could just be borrowing heartache; the cabin hadn’t been emptied, so she had to assume that he would be returning. It was just… Why couldn’t he have let her know that he was leaving, or when he would be back? Would a phone call have been so difficult for him to make?
But those were the conditions she’d set: He wasn’t to tell her anything. Her eyes widened in realization. What if his absence had something to do with Imogene and Preston? They were convinced that he was scheming against them, and though she had defended him, suddenly she was unsure. What did she know about him, other than that he was so exciting and dangerous that he made her heartbeat lurch out of rhythm every time she saw him? He was a hungry, demanding lover, but considerate in controlling his strength and handling her carefully. He danced with wild grace, and his body was laced with the scars that a warrior collected over the years. She loved him, but she was painfully aware that he kept most of himself hidden away. If he had lived by the law of fang and claw, could she expect him to do anything other than strike back at people who had wronged him? Was she a fool to trust him? She’d always thought that a trainer who walked unarmed into a cage with a snarling tiger was extremely foolish, but she had been just as foolish. Suddenly she knew that Cord was more than capable of taking revenge; he could raise it to the level of fine art.
The next day Preston came into her office and dropped tiredly into the comfortable chair next to her desk. “Well, I’ve done it,” he said in a voice hollow with exhaustion. “I’ve stretched myself to the limit, but Cord has been repaid in full.”
She was overcome with sympathy for him, looking at the dark shadows under his blue eyes. “I wish you would let me help—”
“No, thanks, sugar.” He managed a slow smile for her. “It wasn’t your doing, so you shouldn’t have to pay. Now that the debt is covered, if you don’t want to lease the ridges to him, you don’t have to. I’ve pretty well blocked any move he can make to cause trouble about the money; I’ve even paid him interest.”
“I wish you could talk with him and settle your differences,” she said wistfully. “It’s not rig
ht for a family to tear itself apart like this. All of that happened so long ago; why can’t you put it in the past?”
“There’s too much resentment, on both sides,” Preston replied. He stretched his long legs out in front of him and crossed them elegantly at the ankle. “We never got along, for one reason or another. That thing with Judith Keller just topped it off, as far as he was concerned. And as far as I’m concerned…” He gave her a direct look. “As long as you’re interested in him, I have to hate his guts.”
Susan blushed, distressed at causing him any pain. “Don’t feel like that, please. Don’t add to the trouble. I can’t stand the thought of being a bone of contention between the two of you.”
“But such a sweet, lovely bone,” he teased, his blue eyes lightening momentarily. He really was an extraordinarily good-looking man, she realized with some surprise, slim and elegant, with a smooth style that sometimes made him seem misplaced in this century. But Preston wasn’t out of place; he was supremely suited for his occupation. He was cool, level-headed, and fair in his practices. He was also completely out of his league in fighting Cord, because he lacked the ruthlessness that had kept Cord alive in a lot of dim back alleys.
The light had already faded out of Preston’s eyes. “Do you see him often?” he finally asked, his tone gruff as he struggled to hide his emotions.
It was only the painful truth when Susan replied, “No, not often at all.” In moments of mental detachment she was astonished at the way she had given herself to a man whom she didn’t know that well, hadn’t seen that often, and who was a direct threat to her way of life. Then the memory of the heat of his kisses would banish her detachment, and she would no longer wonder at the way she had lost herself in his arms. He wasn’t a man who inspired a sedate love; he evoked the deepest, wildest passions a woman’s heart was capable of feeling.
Preston sat there, a frown puckering his brow as he thought. After a moment he said, “I’d like for him to know that the money has been repaid. Will you tell him for me?”
