The Heartbreaker

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “So Colby was right. You just want to get me into bed.”

  The desire in his eyes hardened into anger and his grip tightened. “No, Colby is not right. I do care about giving you the chance to make the most of your invention. I also care about giving my father the peace of mind to recover. And as for using the opportunity to get you into bed, that crude phrase is an insult to the way I feel about you.”

  The urges coursing through her body threatened to destroy her reason. She pulled her hand forcefully from his, grabbed her purse and bolted, thinking only of getting away from him before she fell completely under his spell and did something she’d regret for the rest of her life. He called her name as she dodged through the tables, but she didn’t pause even a second.

  Once she gained the sidewalk she began to run, but he caught her before she’d gone ten yards. The force of his fingers clamping suddenly over her arm caused her to spin around to face him. Before she could protest, his mouth came down on hers.

  She struggled briefly, but the hard, insistent pressure of his kiss soon blotted out everything but raw desire. His tongue thrust deep, and she whimpered as an avalanche of hot passion engulfed her. He plundered her mouth as he held her in an iron grip. Without the strength of his arms holding her upright she would have crumpled to the pavement as her world spun out of control. She’d never encountered such forceful need.

  Gasping, he lifted his lips a fraction away from hers. His voice was a hoarse murmur meant only for her ears. “That’s what you’re giving up, Beth. It’s not the tender scene hanging in your studio window that we’re talking about. We’re beyond that now.” Then slowly he released her and stepped back. There was a drop of blood on his mouth.

  “Your lip...”

  He touched it again, as he had the night before, and took his hand away to look at the smear of blood. Then he glanced at her. “I guess we shouldn’t be afraid of a little blood. After all these years, when we finally do come together, we’ll probably have to scratch, and claw, and bite each other just to work everything out between us.”

  She shook her head. “No,” she murmured.

  “Yes. But don’t worry. It’ll be worth a little bloodshed.”

  “I...I’m going home.”

  “I’ll walk with you.”

  “No.” She backed away as panic set in. “Let me go alone. I have to think.”

  “This isn’t about thinking.”

  “For me it is.” She turned and started back up the street.

  “I’ll have them send your dinner over,” he called softly after her.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “It can wait until you are hungry.” He paused. “And so can I.”

  6

  MIKE NEEDED EVERY OUNCE of self-control he possessed to let Beth walk up the street alone. But he had to do it, just as he’d had to follow her from the restaurant and show her the shattering emotions they could generate before letting her go. Incredible passion lurked in the depths of her soul, and he’d known it, on some level, from the time they were children. Arrogant fool that he was, he considered himself the only man capable of unleashing that passion. He had no right to make love to her, yet in some ways it seemed he was the only one who had that right.

  He watched until she turned the corner. They’d put on a show for the people strolling down Main Street on this summer night, he thought as he headed back toward the restaurant. He didn’t much care, but Beth might. She had to continue living here, doing business here. The saving grace was the character of Bisbee, which tolerated unusual behavior, and sometimes even seemed to encourage it.

  Inside the restaurant he ignored curious stares from other diners as he made his way back to the table where their two glasses and the bottle of merlot remained. He was sorry that he’d spoiled their meal together, but not that he’d kissed her that way. It was time she knew.

  Their waitress hurried up to him. “Should I serve your dinners now? I noticed you weren’t here, so I held them back.”

  “You can serve mine. Beth had to leave suddenly. I’d appreciate it if you’d box hers and have someone take it up to her studio.”

  “I’m sorry, but we don’t usually—”

  “I’ll be happy to pay for the service.”

  Her glance was assessing. “Okay. I’ll see if I can find someone to deliver the meal to Beth. So you’ll be dining alone, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be right out with your dinner.” She paused and turned back to him. “You’re Mike Tremayne, aren’t you?”

  “Yep.”

  “Is it true that you were almost gobbled up by a crocodile? No, not exactly a crocodile, a black something or other.”

  A reminder of the incident still made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. But he wasn’t about to explain the terror of the moment to the waitress. “A black caiman, which is a type of crocodile. A very old black caiman,” he said with a wink. “If he’d been in his prime, and my friends hadn’t been on the ball, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Where’d you hear that, by the way?”

  “From your dad. He comes in once in awhile, and he always tells me stories about you. I was sure sorry about him getting sick. How’s he doing?”

  “Better.”

  “That’s good. Tell him Cindy says hi.”

  “I’ll do that. Thanks.” After he sat down, Mike retrieved his wallet from his hip pocket and took out the slip of paper with the hospital phone number on it. Using a stub of a pencil he kept in another pocket, he wrote Cindy on the slip of paper. With worrying about his dad and obsessing about Beth, his memory wasn’t great these days, but he didn’t want to forget the greeting from Cindy. Anything positive that would make Ernie smile was a plus.

  He stared at the hospital phone number and longed for the day he wouldn’t have to carry it around. If he could just get his dad home again, if he could just see him tending his beloved rose garden or watching a ball game on TV, then perhaps this oppressive feeling of dread would lift.

  As Mike put the slip of paper away, he glanced at the circled impression the condom had made on the leather. Not just that particular condom, of course—the groove had been edged by many over the life of the wallet. His travels weren’t always in the vicinity of a drugstore, and he had no desire to father a child in the middle of the jungle. He grimaced. Beth had probably noticed it when he’d given her the hospital phone number and concluded that he planned to seduce her tonight.

  He’d had no such plan. He’d hoped they might take a walk up the winding narrow streets to enjoy the warmth of the night breeze. A few stolen kisses would have been nice, but that’s as far as he’d intended to take things. But he hadn’t been able to play it cool when she started in about Colby Huxford. One hint that the jerk was interested in Beth, and Mike felt the possessive snarl of a jaguar ripple his throat. Maybe he’d internalized more of the jungle’s primitive laws than he thought.

  Cindy arrived with his dinner and he thanked her.

  “I’ve found a kid to deliver Beth’s dinner,” she said. “It’ll cost you five dollars, though.”

  “Just put it on my bill.”

  “Ernie told me about the time you swam through a school of piranhas, too.”

  Mike smiled at her. “You know how it is. You try to make the stories interesting when you write home.”

  “So you didn’t really do that?”

  “Well, I did, but the natives do it all the time. The trick to swimming near piranhas is not to be bleeding anywhere.”

  Cindy’s eyes were wide. “I guess Bisbee must seem pretty dull by comparison, huh?”

  Mike thought about the past twenty-four hours visiting his father and navigating his relationship with Beth. Funny how his death-defying adventures faded in importance. “Not so far.”

  “Well, I’ve lived here all my life, and I sure think it’s dull.”

  “So did I when I was your age. But it’s a nice town. You’re lucky to have grown up here.”

&nb
sp; She rolled her eyes. “That’s what my parents say.” Then she surveyed the table. “Do you need anything else? More water? Another bottle of wine?”

  Although getting smashed had some appeal under the circumstances, Mike decided against it. “This’ll be fine.”

  “Okay. If you need anything more, just let me know.”

  “Thanks.”

  She left the table and returned to the kitchen.

  As Mike poured himself another glass of wine and began to eat, he thought about the waitress, who seemed so very young to him. It was a shock to realize she wasn’t much younger than he’d been when he left Bisbee, and he’d imagined himself to be a real man back then.

  “I’m surprised to see you eating alone.”

  Mike glanced up to the unwelcome sight of Colby Huxford standing beside the table, snappy blazer and all. The guy had to be sweating buckets under that jacket, Mike thought.

  “Mind if I sit down?” Huxford asked.

  Mike minded a whole lot, but decided not to make an issue of it. He’d already caused enough commotion in this restaurant for one evening. Still, he didn’t have to be overly gracious. “Suit yourself.”

  “Thanks.” Huxford lowered himself to the seat and glanced at the half-full wineglass left by Beth. “Looks as if you had some company at one time.”

  Mike put down his fork. “What do you want, Huxford?”

  “Dinner, eventually. I asked around and the consensus seemed to be that this was a good spot. I had planned to have Beth choose the place tonight, but unfortunately she’d made other plans and couldn’t have dinner with me.”

  “Too bad.”

  Huxford shrugged, causing the shoulder pads in his jacket to slide a little. “No matter. I’ll be here all week. There’ll be another time.”

  “Don’t count on it.”

  Huxford turned the wineglass by its stern. “Are you warning me off, Tremayne? Because if you are, save your breath. In addition to asking about places to eat, I asked about you. Seems you’re some sort of thrill-seeker who would much rather paddle a dugout down the Amazon than hang around Bisbee, Arizona.”

  Mike’s jaw clenched. “Well, I happen to be here now.” “So what?”

  “So stay away from Beth.”

  “I don’t think you’re in a position to tell me that. Once you’ve failed to produce the cutters in sufficient quantity, I’m quite sure you’ll take off for Brazil, leaving Beth’s dream in pieces. I intend to be around to put it back together.”

  “If I believed for one minute that you’re capable of that, I’d be happy for her. But I don’t believe you’d put her dream back together, Huxford. I believe you’d take advantage of her vulnerability to make money for your company, all the while trying to convince Beth that you’re a swell guy. Fortunately she’s a smart lady. She might be forced to accept your offer, but she’ll never accept you, my friend.”

  “I think you’re wrong.”

  “And I think you’ve overstayed your visit to my table. Go find your own.”

  Huxford pushed the wineglass away and stood. “I’d love to know why she didn’t stay for dinner.”

  The guy was just itching to get punched, but Mike wasn’t going to oblige him. Not tonight, anyway. He stared at Huxford until the other man finally shrugged again and walked away.

  “Who was that?” Cindy asked as she approached with a coffeepot in one hand.

  “Nobody important,” Mike said.

  THE BELL HANGING over the front door of Nightingale’s Daughter jingled at eleven-thirty the next morning. Beth took off her safety glasses and put down the piece of emerald glass she’d been grinding on her wheel. If the bell signaled customers, it would only be the second batch that day. Business had been really slow.

  Dusting off her hands, she walked into the gift shop to find Colby standing there with a sack filled with what smelled like sandwiches. At least she wouldn’t starve in the next week, she thought, with two men insisting on feeding her every time she turned around.

  “Lunchtime,” Colby said with a grin. Apparently the casual atmosphere of Bisbee had influenced him. He wore slacks and a polo shirt, which might have been chosen because the horizontal stripes of the shirt minimized the fact that he had a narrow chest and shoulders, as she’d suspected all along.

  “You really didn’t have to do this,” she said.

  “I know, but you said you’d be too busy to show me around town, so I extrapolated from that and decided you might be too busy to grab some lunch for yourself. So, I brought sandwiches.” He glanced around. “Is there somewhere we can eat these?”

  That settled the question of whether he planned to drop the sandwiches off, Beth realized. But then she hadn’t really expected him to miss an opportunity to hang around. “I have a table in the back we can use,” she said.

  “Great.” He followed her through the louvered double doors behind the counter.

  Inviting him into her work area didn’t thrill her, but she couldn’t have him spread out the sandwiches on one of her display tables or on the counter. The workroom, however, was the place she didn’t allow negative feelings to intrude. Colby had a knack for producing negative feelings in her.

  “So this is where the magic happens,” he said, glancing around as he placed the sandwich bag on the small table she indicated.

  “I guess you could say that” She moved to a compact refrigerator in a corner and opened the door. “I have mineral water, several kinds of soft drinks and beer,” she said.

  “A beer sounds good.” He walked over to her light table and began studying the current project taking shape there, a Southwestern-themed window for a dentist’s office in Tucson.

  She restrained an impulse to throw a sheet over it. Instead she pulled a beer and a cola from the refrigerator and handed the beer to Colby.

  “This is very intricate,” he said, gazing at the design of a desert landscape containing several different types of cactus in bloom.

  “You sound surprised.” There it was, his ability to create negative emotions with the inflection in one simple statement. Beth worked to diffuse her irritation. She had a full afternoon ahead of her, and she didn’t want Colby to screw it up.

  “I’m really not surprised. You’re a very talented lady.” He walked over and pulled out one of the two chairs at the small oak table.

  When he did, Beth understood more fully why she didn’t want him sitting there. That was the chair her father had used, and she’d always sat in the other one when they’d taken a break. When she’d become of legal age. to drink, they’d occasionally celebrated a particularly successful project with a beer. But she couldn’t very well toss Colby out of the chair. He still might be the one who’d save her if Mike didn’t come through.

  “Pastrami on whole wheat and corned beef on rye,” Colby said, taking out the sandwiches. “Take your pick.”

  “I’ll—” Beth paused as the bell over her front door jingled again. “Let me see if that’s a customer.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll just wait here for you.”

  “Go ahead and start eating,” she said as she headed out of the room. She wanted this little lunch over as soon as possible.

  “I’ll wait,” Colby said.

  As a reflex Beth closed the double doors behind her as she walked into the gift shop.

  Mike stood there, boxes of cutters stacked in his arms and a sack that looked similar to Colby’s sitting on top.

  Her heart slammed into high gear at the sight of him. As his knowing gaze moved over her, she quivered as if he’d actually taken her in his arms. She ran her tongue over her lips, and the heat in his glance intensified.

  “I heard voices,” he said, his voice husky in the stillness. “Do you have company back there?”

  “Colby brought over sandwiches.”

  Irritation flickered in his eyes. “Funniest thing. So did L” He walked over to the counter and deposited his burden.

  As he did, Beth noticed he’d shifted to typical Bi
sbee dress—shorts and a T-shirt. The leather thong attached to the jaguar tooth was tucked inside the neck of the shirt. She found herself admiring the way the shirt fit and gazing at the strong, tanned length of his calves before catching herself and returning her scrutiny to the cutter boxes stacked on the counter. “You’ve had a busy morning.”

  “Got up early. Couldn’t sleep.”

  She glanced away from his penetrating stare. She hadn’t slept much, either, and she’d been working on the dentist’s window since six. “Any problems?” she asked.

  “With the cutters? No. With my concentration? A few. But I toughed it out.”

  “I’ll call UPS and have these shipped out today,” she said.

  “Don’t you want to check them over?”

  She looked into his eyes. “Are they okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I don’t have to check them over. Thanks, Mike.”

  “I may not get quite as many done this afternoon. I’m interviewing a guy from Sierra Vista who’s a good candidate to train as an assistant. It means lost time now, but better production in the long run.”

  “My God, you’re sounding like a businessman.”

  He grinned, easing the tension between them. “Scary, isn’t it?”

  “Really scary.” For a moment, as they exchanged glances, it was like being back in high school again, teasing each other in the hallways between classes. Beth felt a tug of nostalgia. Then she remembered Colby sitting in her workroom. “Listen, about the sandwiches—”

  “I take it you have a good supply already.”

  She regretted Colby’s arrival more than she could say. Mike sitting in her workroom would have been a pleasure. A temptation, but a pleasure, nevertheless. “Well, I—”

  “Never mind.” He took the sandwiches from the stack of boxes. “I need to get back, anyway.”

  “Thanks for bringing over the cutters.”

  “No problem.” He lowered his voice. “Tell me something. Is he wearing a damned sport coat today?”