Reckless Passion

by Stephanie James

  "A perverted thinker who didn't know our sterling characters might have come to that conclusion, yes," Yale said patiently. "Eat your eggs, they're getting cold."

  "I'm not hungry," Dara said absently, her mind churning with the unexpected news. "You meant that creep might come after us?"

  "A lot of folks heard about you on the air last night," Sam put in kindly. "Frankly, we don't figure it's very likely the guy will bother chasing you down. In the first place, the cargo wasn't that, er, large. And in the second place, if he's still listening to the CB he knows he's being hunted. If he's got any sense he'll fade into the sunset."

  "I'll keep an eye on her until we know for sure the guy's been found," Yale announced casually, dig­ging into his sausage.

  "I'll keep an eye on myself," Dara snapped, and then another thought struck her. “Do the police know we were with Hank last night, Sam?"

  "Don't believe he saw any point in mentioning you two," Sam assured her smilingly.

  "Good!" Dara heaved a sigh of relief. A lot of people knew she'd left that party in the company of Yale Ransom. A lot of other people knew she'd been out joyriding on the Interstate and had wound up at a cheap truck-stop motel. If somehow the first group found out what the second group knew via a news­paper story... She winced, it didn't bear thinking about. Eugene was a small town and she wasn't sure how much a stockbroker's reputation could stand. Or an accountant's, for that matter! People didn't tike trusting their hard-earned money to wild and reckless types!

  As if he'd been following her thoughts, Yale smiled cryptically.

  "Worrying about your reputation, or mine?"

  "You take care of yourself and I'll look after my­self!" she told him morosely.

  Something wicked glinted in the hazel eyes behind the lenses of Yale's glasses. "The police haven't been told about us, but an enterprising newsperson looking to beef up a tale of interstate smuggling might do a little more research than is absolutely necessary."

  Dara stared at him, stricken.

  "Eat your breakfast, honey," Yale growled, ap­pearing almost contrite at having added to her fears.

  "I think I'm going to be sick," she informed him grandly.

  Five

  Are you going to sulk for the rest of the week­end?” Yale inquired with apparently detached interest as he opened the door of the Alfa Romeo two hours later and stuffed Dara inside.

  "Why do you care? I'm not going to be spending the weekend with you anyway!"

  He slammed the door shut with a narrow-eyed glance and walked around the hood. In the distance Sam Tyler's truck lumbered up the empty street in search of the Interstate entrance. In a short while Dara would be home. She was extraordinarily grateful for the knowledge.

  "How long do you usually stay in this sort of mood?" Yale asked as he slid behind the wheel.

  "Shut up and take me home."

  "I can't. I don't know where you live."

  Gritting her teeth, Dara gave him directions. As he pulled away from the curb she glanced back down the street at the now silent bar. As long as she lived in Eugene it was going to remain the landmark of her debacle, she decided sadly.

  "I just wish Hank had gone to the cops before we ran into him." She sighed. "And if that wish could be granted, I'd go on to wish that we'd never run into Hank!"

  "Don't blame him for what happened last night. That was strictly between you and me," Yale growled, guiding the car through the quiet morning.

  "But why did he wait until the guy came looking for the stuff before going to the cops?" she persisted. That point bothered her.

  "It wouldn't have been convenient for Hank to go to the police at the time he found the extra cargo,'' Yale said patiently.

  "Why not?"

  "Your curiosity is beginning to return, isn't it?" he noted in a cheerier tone.

  "As you have already pointed out, I'm not in the best of moods this morning. Are you going to answer me or not?''

  Yale sighed. "Hank wasn't anxious to drag the cops into this because he was carrying a hot load."

  "What?" Dara swung around to stare at him in astonishment. "Hank was carrying stolen goods?"

  "No, 'hot goods' means that he was just carrying an unauthorized load. Trucking regulations specify what kinds of goods drivers are allowed to transport. Hank was hoping he could take care of the guy him­self and that would be the end of it. But when he and his pal missed snagging the man last night they de­cided it would be better to haul in the cops. So Hank probably got rid of his cargo—which, incidentally, was a shipment of T.V. sets—and then went to the police with his story."

  "You and he certainly got chummy up there in the front seat while I was dozing in that sleeper!"

  "We had...things in common, I suppose you'd say," Yale admitted.

  "How much in common?" Dara glanced at him suspiciously. "Don't tell me you try to take the law into your own hands, too? Not a proper, upstanding accountant like you!" She didn't bother to keep the scathing tone out of her last words.

  "No," he said, a strange smile coming easily to the hard mouth. A reminiscent sort of smile. "But I know what it's like to avoid the police. Remember, there are a lot of illegal stills up in those blue hills where I come from."

  "Illegal stills?" Dara drew in her breath as reali­zation dawned. "Yale! You didn't! You weren't a...a..." She broke off suddenly enthralled. "How did you work your way through college?" she de­manded.

  He flicked her a derisive glance and then brought bis attention back to his driving. "I did what paid the most," he told her laconically.

  "You ran moonshine? Illegal whiskey?" She was fascinated.

  He nodded once, not looking at her.

  "They still do that back there?" she pressed, in­trigued.

  "The business is bigger than ever. The Feds will never kill it. You folks on the Coast have your mil­lion-dollar drug busts, and back in the hill country we had our million-dollar illegal liquor busts."

  "It seems different somehow, though. I mean, I've never really thought of moonshine whiskey as being in the same category as imported drugs like heroin."

  "You don't think white lightning's taken its share of victims?" he asked coolly. "It's a hell of a lot more dangerous than a lot of drugs!"

  "Well, I suppose it's as dangerous as any alco­hol..." she agreed slowly.

  "Alcoholism isn't the only problem associated with it," Yale snapped. "Anyone buying it runs the same risk of getting contaminated stuff as someone scoring any other drug on the street. Some of it really will cause blindness. Not to mention the possibility of lead poisoning. There are a lot of 'shine addicts back in the states around the Appalachian Moun­tains."

  "One thinks of it as a kind of folk tradition or something," Dara said, lifting a hand in a small, help­less gesture.

  "Oh, it's a tradition, all right," Yale conceded bit­terly. "Passed down from father to son. The kids grow up in families where being an adult male means being able to drink the stuff. They can't wait. And it goes on from one generation to the next"

  "And the women?" she asked softly, curiously.

  "They have to live with the men who are addicted. Most of the violence the stuff produces comes out in the home. You can use your imagination."

  Dara sat silently for a moment, thinking of the memories she had stirred awake in Yale's mind by her rashness the previous evening.

  "Did you know how bad the stuff was when you were running it?'' she asked tentatively.

  He just threw her a pitying glance. "Do I look like the naive type?"

  "Er, no."

  "It was the only game in town when I was growing up. About the only viable industry in the area. It sure as hell was where the money was at, and I knew from the start I was going to need two things to get out of those mountains: money and an education. I needed the first to buy the second."

  "And you got it." It was a statement of fact.

  "I got part of the education and then I got married to a high-school acquaintance wh
o saw me as her ticket out of the mountains." His mouth twisted with astonishing bitterness. Dara felt a cold chill down her spine.

  "Then what happened?" She knew she ought to stop asking questions, but something drove her on, demanding to know the whole story.

  "Then I needed more money and a more legal way to get it." Yale shrugged. "I got a job driving trucks for a couple of years. It worked. We got out of the mountains."

  "And...?"

  He slanted a glance across the seat, taking in Dara's intent expression. "And she found someone who could take her farther than just out of the mountains."

  "She left you?"

  "Yes. Best for all concerned, as it turned out," he went on with a philosophical inflection. "She married someone who could give her a lot more than I could, and I had another chance to go back to school. Which I did."

  "Emerging a proper, dignified accountant at last, hmm?" Dara smiled, relaxing finally now that she had the whole story.

  "Satisfied?" he asked sardonically.

  "Just think," she retorted, "if you'd given me all those answers last night we would never have wound up in that awful situation!"

  "So it was all my fault again?"

  "It's been your fault from the beginning!"

  "The argument is academic at this point," he told her evenly, slowing as they approached the street on which her apartment was located. A jogger passed the Alfa Romeo, headed in the opposite direction along one of the many paths the town had established for cyclists and joggers.

  "Meaning?" she challenged.

  "Meaning you're mine. Regardless of how it all happened, the ultimate result is the same."

  "Damn it! Don't talk like that!" she suddenly yelped as he parked the car in front of her apartment.

  "Like what?" Yale asked innocently, turning in the seat to face her.

  "As if...as if you own me or something because of what happened last night!" Her temporary satis­faction at having her questions about him answered evap-orated in the presence of his continued threat.

  "But I do," he explained gently, hazel eyes gleam­ing. He moved, uncoiling with astonishing speed to forestall her effort to dive out of the car.

  "Don't run away from me, honey," he soothed, his hand manacling her wrist with a grip that would only hurt if she struggled too hard. "I've told you I'm sorry about the way everything happened. It wasn't the hearts and flowers and romance you de­serve, I admit that. Let me show you I can do better than a truck-stop motel...."

  "You're out of your head if you think I'm going to let you hang around for...for more of what hap­pened last night!" Dara gasped, appalled at the inten­sity in him. Dear God in heaven! Why did he have to look so sincere? But maybe he was sincere, she corrected herself grimly. Maybe he had decided he was in the market for an affair and she had practically invited him into one!

  "Last night was good and you know it," he told her firmly, voice deepening with husky meaning. "Stop fighting it, Dara. It's happened and we're in­volved now. Nothing's going to change that."

  "The hell it isn't! You may have decided you're content with the 'transaction,' but I've had a lot of second and third thoughts! I'm withdrawing from the bargain. Give your damn account to someone else!'

  "I apologize for that remark..." he began, his fin­gers tightening on her wrist. "Let me explain!"

  "Explain! Explain that you're accustomed to bar­gaining for...for love? I don't want to hear your ex­planations!"

  "Love?" he questioned softly, mouth curving. "Was that what I was going, to get out of the deal? Your love?"

  "You'll never know, will you?" she charged vio­lently, horribly afraid he might feel the trembling an­ger and pain in her. Desperately she tried to keep her voice cold and callous, "Because the deal is off!"

  "How can it be when it was so perfectly consum­mated?" he murmured, pulling her forward until she fell lightly against his chest. "And you are quite per­fect, you know," he went on whimsically, ignoring her struggles while he used his free hand to smooth the curve of her hair. His finger trailed from the burnt-russet wave to the edge of her angry mouth.

  "Can't you at least try to resurrect some of those fine Southern manners you were showing off last night before you reverted to a...a trucker?" she man­aged breathlessly, aware of the heat and strength of him as he held her close. "I don't like being mauled on a Saturday morning in front of the entire neigh­borhood!"

  "It wasn't my fine Southern manners you wanted last night," he reminded her, bending his head down until the hard mouth hovered an inch above her lips. "What you got was the real me, and don't try telling me you didn't like it. You were all softness and warmth and sweet, feminine demand in my arms last night. I'll never forget it, honey, even if the surround­ings weren't what they should have been for the oc­casion...."

  "No!" But the protest was issued as a small squeak of dismay which died beneath the onslaught of Yale's kiss.

  Almost instantly, it seemed, his caress re-created the seductive aura of the dream-filled state in which he had made love to her last night. His mouth was firm and moved invitingly, coaxingly on hers. She heard his stifled groan of need as he urged her tips apart with his tongue, and when her mouth opened to him of its own volition her senses were throbbing.

  It was hopeless, Dara thought dazedly. In his arms, she was too vulnerable and her love was far too ex­posed. Did he know the effect he had on her? How she longed to unbutton his shirt and lace her fingers through the amber hair of his chest? How her body pulsed with memories of the pleasure it had known last night and with the need to satisfy the man who had given rise to that strange pleasure? Did he know how very much in love she was?

  When at last he lifted his head to smile crookedly down into her bemused eyes, Dara wanted to beg him to continue his lovemaking. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he was reading her state of mind in her wide, gray-green eyes. The crooked smile broadened.

  "I'll take you out to dinner tonight," he promised caressingly, his hand stroking the length of her back to the base of her spine. "We'll do it properly this time, I swear..."

  "That's...that's impossible," she finally got out with some semblance of haughtiness. She was not go­ing to let this man treat her so shabbily again! Re­gardless of what her heart was willing to forgive, her mind still functioned and was in control! "I have a date this evening."

  "Break it," he ordered gently.

  “Why should I? His account might be even larger than yours!" That hadn't been particularly wise, but Dara was feeling driven. Nevertheless, as his hands tightened with sudden warning on her, she wished she'd found another insult.

  “Dara, you ought to have learned something from last night," Yale growled thickly. "If nothing else, you should know by now that it's not wise to push me too far. Either break your date for this evening or take the consequences!"

  "What consequences?"

  "Honey, if you flaunt someone else in my face now that you're mine, I swear I'll take him apart," he gritted in such a flat, deadly voice she believed him.

  "Another example of your good manners?" she scoffed, trying to hide her shock. "Is this the kind of behavior I can expect now that you've announced your intention to treat me as I deserve?"

  The amber lashes flickered closed for an instant and Dara could feel Yale putting a rein on his temper. It was more than a little unnerving to be so close to the source of a potential explosion. When he opened his eyes again, the lenses of the horn-rimmed glasses couldn't hide the degree of control he was exercising.

  "I'm doing my best to be patient with you, Dara," he said stiffly. "I know you've been through a lot in the past several hours. Much more than you bargained for...."

  "You can say that again! I wasn't even planning on transacting business when I went to that party last night. Goes to show how life is just full of little sur­prises!"

  "You know, I could cheerfully take a belt to you this morning!"

  "Really? Is that how you treat your women?"

 
; "You seem bent on finding out for yourself!" he rasped, shaking his head in quick exasperation. "And if you aren't waiting very meekly at the door for me this evening, I may treat you to a firsthand demon­stration of my techniques! In you go, Dara. I'll pick you up at six. And don't wear your jeans. We're not going to any of your favorite nightclubs!"

  Several hours later, after a lot of furious heart-searching and grim lectures to herself, Dara paced the floor of her apartment, for all the world like a restless cat. A tabby cat. She knew she was waiting for the sophisticated roar of the Alfa Romeo.

  She couldn't deny it, she thought gloomily. She was in love. She had fallen in love last night, and nothing was going to change that fact that quickly. She was a woman who prided herself on a pragmatic approach to life. She would deal with the reality of the situation and not pretend she was merely tempo­rarily infatuated. She knew what infatuation was. It was what she had felt for her ex-husband. And now she knew what love was.

  There were cures for being in love, just as there were cures for infatuation, she told herself firmly. But the remedies for love were likely to have some severe side effects. And they didn't work quickly, as far as she knew. Time was one of them. Time and throwing oneself into work and perhaps finding another man... She would try them all. As soon as she could free herself from Yale Ransom!

  Chewing absently on her lower lip, she came to a brief halt in front of a hall mirror and ran a quick, assessing eye over herself. There had been no date to cancel for this evening. Jeff Conroy, the research an­alyst from the office, was out of town on business and she hadn't felt like seeing any of her other assorted escorts. She almost hadn't gone to her manager's party last night, in fact. Too bad she hadn't followed her inclinations!

  The curving bell of her deep red hair was brushed and polished-looking in the glow of the lamp. The floating material of the exotically printed yellow and green dress fell flatteringly over her rounded breasts and softly flaring hips. She had chosen her highest-heeled sandals in an effort to be on more equal foot­ing with Yale, but she was very much afraid that wouldn't be a lot of help. He tended to dominate everyone in his vicinity.