Bride of the Tiger

by Heather Graham

  “I only came back to it recently.”

  “And that is...?”

  “Various things. Shipping, jewels, trade.” He shrugged, as though it wasn’t important.

  Their salads arrived, but even as she thanked the waiter and bent her head over hers, she thought that he was being purposely evasive. Why?

  Or was she imagining things?

  “What other languages do you speak?” she asked.

  He seemed to hesitate, then shrugged again. “Spanish. A little Italian. Some German.”

  “Quite accomplished.”

  He laughed. “No, just well traveled. I always liked to see distant places.”

  “The life of an adventurer.”

  “No, the life of a laborer. I worked my way around the world. It was good experience.”

  “But you’re back on terra firma now.”

  “Basically. A lot of the wanderlust is out of my system. I still travel, though.”

  “Business?”

  “And pleasure.”

  “You grew up with a silver spoon in your mouth and went off to labor anyway. Very commendable.”

  “And you grew up in coal dust and went on to enchant the world.”

  He always managed to turn the conversation back to her!

  But the wine was good, and the veal cordon-bleu delicious. The service was impeccable, the atmosphere intimate and private. She slipped off her heels somewhere along the line and relaxed. She studied him again and again, and could find no flaw. Not in his manner, not in his looks. And the more the night waned, the more she wanted everything about him to be just as it seemed. She would find herself staring at his hands and remembering their touch. Watching his mouth and remember how it had commanded hers, fierce and gentle all in one, practiced—unique in her experience.

  “Pennsylvania, right?”

  “You do read the papers,” she responded dryly.

  “Tell me about it,” he said.

  And to her amazement, she did. She tried to make him see it. The weary struggle on the miners’ faces, the wives who strove so hard to make better lives for their children. The children who did grow up to a better life—and came back to demand that safety measures be taken as far as they could go, that doctors be sent in early so that fewer men died of the black rot that formed in their lungs.

  “It seems amazing for this day and age,” Rafe commented.

  “Well, it exists,” Tara murmured. “My parents...”

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “They’re—they’re both dead. But they were wonderful people. The best. My mother...”

  “What, Tara? Go on.”

  “I just—” Now it was her turn to shrug. “Tine Elliott always liked to pretend they didn’t exist. They were on and off welfare all their lives. Perpetually broke. But whatever they had, they shared. My mother took in orphans and the elderly—anyone who was down knew they could come to our house. She never had a decent dress, a nice haircut—and I think my father was able to take her out to dinner twice in her life. She was still the greatest lady I ever knew.”

  His hand closed over hers. “I’m sure she was, Tara. Greatness is always in the heart.”

  She was suddenly embarrassed by the ferocity of her defense. Idly she moved her food around on her plate and sought desperately for a means to change the conversation. “You have a stepmother, you said. What about your family?”

  “Myrna? She’s a sweetheart. My mother died when I was about five. All I remember is a gentle smile and a beautiful scent. Myrna married my dad ten years later. We’re very good friends.”

  “And your father?”

  He paused and sipped his wine. “Gone now, too.”

  “I’m sorry. Recently?”

  “Fairly.”

  “That’s why you’re back—taking over the business?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  He seemed to hesitate a long time.

  “Just one. A stepbrother. Younger. Have you looked at the dessert menu? How about a coffee liqueur?”

  They had marvelous napoleons and brandied coffees. Somehow the conversation turned back to her early years in the small mining town in Pennsylvania, and she discovered herself answering questions she normally avoided.

  “You’ve sent a lot of money back into that town,” he said without her having told him. “Is that why you’ve decided to come back to work now?”

  She hesitated a second. The warmth of the brandy filled her veins, and she really couldn’t see any harm in telling him things. After all, he knew almost everything about her anyway.

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t run home two years ago.”

  “No, I, uh, bought a little house in northern Michigan.”

  “Why?”

  She sipped her coffee again. “I don’t know. Yes, I do. I moved to a very small farming town. No one knew me. It was quiet, and nice. I learned how to grow marvelous vegetables.”

  He smiled. “I guess I’d better get you home.”

  He paid the bill and led her from the restaurant. Once again, his hand was on the small of her back. She leaned against him, inhaling deeply.

  And though warnings screamed within her mind, she thought that she was all right. It was fun to dine with him, fun to lean on his arm.

  Fun to imagine that they might get involved. That she would feel his kiss again, his hands upon her—

  Slow down!

  And then, of course, she was nervous. She wondered if he would take her to her door and insist that she owed him a nightcap. If he would stare at her with those tiger eyes on fire. Then she would be in his arms, and before she was aware of what was happening, their clothing would be gone and...

  He stepped into the street and hailed a cab.

  On the way to her apartment he talked to the cabby about the traffic.

  Once there, he walked her through the lobby and to the elevator. And when they left the elevator behind, he walked her to her door.

  Fire brushed her fingers when he took her keys from her.

  He didn’t step inside. He took her cheeks between his palms and stared into her eyes, searing golden magic in his.

  His lips brushed hers, barely touching them.

  “You are beautiful,” he murmured. “Stunning. I don’t believe that even Webster would have the perfect word for you.”

  She felt that she couldn’t breathe. She longed for him to release her, before she could sigh and throw herself against him.

  But she was no one’s fool, she insisted. “Why were you really following me?” she demanded.

  “I told you.”

  “I think you’re lying.”

  He started to laugh, and for just a second his arms swept fiercely around her, crushing her against him. Letting her feel all the vibrant and electric heat of his body, all the muscled tension.

  All the desire.

  “If you don’t believe that I want you, Miss Hill,” he whispered softly, “you are not in the least observant!”

  Now, he would come in now....

  “You are beautiful,” he said simply, and added in a curious tone, “I think I’m falling in love with you. Do I have half a chance?”

  “I—”

  “Don’t answer. Wait. See you tomorrow night.”

  He released her, stepping back. “Get in. Close and lock your door.”

  He wasn’t going to budge until she did, but she wasn’t certain that she could move.

  Eventually she did. She smiled and stepped into her apartment, and obediently closed and locked the door, and only then did she hear his light footfall down the hallway.

  See you tomorrow night.

  She hadn’t agreed. He hadn’t said when or where.

  But she knew it would happen.

  CHAPTER 6

  Rafe stood by his bedroom window, staring out at the fountain, not seeing it, yet seeing it completely. In a different way. In his mind’s eye, sh
e stood there. The perfect Galliard girl, soft and flowing, shimmering blond, subtly smiling, the silver light of the moon dazzling in her eyes.

  He saw her everywhere he looked. At his dining-room table, in the foyer, before the fire. Seated at the piano, walking through the garden. In his kitchen, in his bedroom.

  He had told her that she was beautiful. Any fool could see that; the harshest cynic would not deny it. He had said it; he had meant it.

  He had told her that he was falling in love with her.

  And that, too, had been the truth.

  Fool! he raged against himself, and he turned from the window and padded naked back to his bed, throwing himself on it, twisting to stare up at the ceiling.

  She had to be real. The real thing. He could not sweep her from his mind.

  Well...she was supposed to be on his mind.

  Ah, yes! He was supposed to be the great detective. Dispassionate, ruthless in this quest. God knows, such things happened. It had happened in Caracas. The day she had met Jimmy, Jimmy had disappeared. What had she done to him? What had she embroiled him in that he hadn’t been prepared to handle?

  Rafe remembered Jimmy’s last communication—a postcard from Caracas. A postcard of the glass factory. Brief, in Jimmy’s scrawl, telling him that “things” were under control, but he had just met the most beautiful woman in the world and would stay to see her clear.

  See her clear. Of what?

  Had she been smuggling? Part of some larger scheme? That was Jimmy’s business. Locating lost and stolen treasures. Had Jimmy latched on to her because he knew something about her? Or had he been watching Tine Elliott—while Tine Elliott watched him?

  Rafe sighed and gave up on sleep. He rose and slipped into a robe and walked out through his balcony window. He could see the fountain again from here, catching and reflecting the moonlight. He could see her there.

  It was better than imagining her in his bed—beside him.

  Fool! She was yours for the asking. Things could have been cemented in one night. An intimate relationship to bring you closer and closer, to win her confidence...

  It hadn’t mattered. He’d forgotten his stepbrother; he’d forgotten half of what he’d set out to do that night at her apartment. She had smiled so wistfully during dinner, had kept her eyes on him so warily. And she’d sat before him in that lovely flowing gown, devoid of makeup, silver eyes huge and innocent, angel trails of hair spun upon her shoulders. And when she had been in his arms, he had felt the most urgent need to protect her.

  And the most urgent need.

  He groaned out loud again and murmured incredulously, “It’s as if I’d die if I thought I couldn’t have her in the end....”

  He’d been in the most exquisite pain when he’d left her, he thought dryly, remembering her arms around his neck, her laughter, like a melody that crept under the skin, like a siren’s song that played throughout his entire body.

  Jimmy! he reminded himself.

  Had that same innocence captivated and swayed his brother? Young and idealistic, Jimmy might have touched her—and fallen for anything.

  Just like I’m doing...

  He stiffened, thoroughly aggravated with himself. The police had arrested her. The media had harpooned her. For God’s sake, she had been Tine Elliott’s protégée for seven years; she had lived with him for nearly four of those years. How could she be innocent?

  Rafe leaned against the coolness of the wall. Jimmy had disappeared; Tine Elliott had disappeared. Had they died on the mountaintop? He couldn’t believe that Jimmy could be dead.

  But he had to be. Otherwise he would have contacted them by now. And if he was dead, that death rested upon her elegant blond head. And here he was, falling in love with her, too....

  He pushed himself away from the wall and gripped the wrought iron railing, staring out into the night, his face ravaged. She could be innocent. When she spoke to him, he believed every word she said. He wanted to promise that he was no Tine Elliott....

  After two years, she was going back. Maybe it had all been planned. Maybe the rest had all been a charade. Tine Elliott might well have been on to Jimmy. He had used Tara to beguile and entice him. He had found Jimmy and found the mask. He had disappeared—Tara had faced the police and the press—and then he’d gone into hiding.

  And now, two years later, maybe she was going back to him.

  But maybe she was innocent.

  He gritted his teeth harshly. He knew that he wanted her to be innocent.

  It didn’t matter, he reminded himself. Nothing could change his actions at the moment. He had to stay with her; he had to earn her confidence.

  Damn it! He slammed his fist against the railing in sudden fury. He was thirty-seven years old, he’d been around the world and back a dozen times—and he was no high school kid, falling in love.

  He could have been with her.

  Should have been with her. Finding her, wooing her, seducing her—winning her complete trust. The golden opportunity had been there. And he had been so in awe of her smile, of her laugh, of her silver eyes, that he had felt like any anxious lover, determined not to mar everything beautiful between them. And ego had been there, too. Total scorn for anything less than her totally conscious and eager anticipation of the night.

  He sighed again and left the balcony. He showered and dressed and went downstairs at five. The newspaper had come. Thank God; he could read and escape his own thoughts.

  And wait...for the night to come. He would meet her at the salon again. Dinner and then a show.

  Dinner and the show and then...

  Slowly! Take it slowly, fool! You’re supposed to be the hard one; you’ve been given a warning that Jimmy never had.

  He set the paper down suddenly, feeling slightly ill.

  What if she was innocent? The thought brought a harsh, bitter laugh from him, because if she was, she would never forgive him once she discovered why he had been following her.

  To hang her, if he could. To use her, if he couldn’t. No, she would never forgive him.

  But he couldn’t stop. God, he couldn’t stop. He had to know if Jimmy was alive and needed help....

  Or if he was dead, beyond all help.

  * * *

  “I think he sounds marvelous,” Mary said bluntly. “I don’t know what you’re worried about. You practically attack the man, and he leaves—he takes you to dinner and doesn’t expect a thing. Most unusual, in this day and age.”

  “I didn’t ‘practically attack’!” Tara protested, changing from a sequined ball dress to her linen sheath. “And he barged in when I didn’t intend to let him.”

  “Yes,” Cassandra interjected, “but trust me! Half the oafs out there think that dinner at a French restaurant is a ticket straight into the bedroom—and they actually get hostile when you say no!”

  “And you still think that he’s after something?” Mary queried.

  “Of course he’s after something! Her body!” Ashley said cheerfully. “What on earth is so unusual about that?”

  “Well, nothing, really,” Mary replied. “Except that according to what Tara said, he could have had that already.”

  “Now, wait a minute—” Tara protested again.

  “Well, you said that you were feeling perfectly comfortable. And you’d have to be an idiot not to appreciate the man’s...his, uh—”

  “Body,” Ashley said bluntly. “God knows, the man definitely has one!”

  “No, no, no, it’s not just size and muscles,” Cassandra said dreamily, flouncing about on the plain corduroy-covered sofa in the lounge area of their dressing room. “It’s—it’s—”

  “Sex appeal?” Mary queried. “Some men have it and some men don’t. And—” she glanced at Tara curiously “—he’s a have.”

  “And he’s definitely infatuated with you,” Cassandra said. “So just what is your problem?”

  Tara shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “I do,” Mary told her. “Tine Elliott
was a striking man. You knew it the minute he walked into a room. Are you afraid that you’re becoming involved with another Tine?”

  Tara shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. He knows everything about me—”

  “Your sordid past,” Ashley said cheerfully.

  “Ashley!”

  “Well?” she asked innocently. “That’s just my point. What are you worried about? If he thought you were an easy mark because of all that stuff about you and Tine and the mystery man—”

  “Jimmy,” Tara said stubbornly.

  “Whoever.” Ashley waved a hand in the air. “You’re missing the point. Obviously he’s a very well-behaved gentleman.”

  “He’s more than that,” Mary suggested seriously.

  “What do you mean?”

  Mary smiled and tossed her rich mass of hair over her shoulder. “Children, children, while you gibber and speculate, I take things into hand. I checked up on the man.”

  There was a stunned silence in the room. Mary, enjoying her moment, walked regally toward the sofa. Ashley was quick to sit up and give her room. Cassandra and Tara glanced at each other and hurried over to her.

  Tara planted her hands on her hips and stared down at Mary squarely. “Well?”

  “His name is Rafael Tyler—”

  “Mary!” Ashley snapped. “We all know that!”

  “Aha! But do you know what that means?”

  “No, what?” Tara demanded.

  “Well...” Leisurely, Mary stretched out, setting her long legs on the coffee table, studying her blood-red nail polish.

  “Mary, get to it!” Tara persisted.

  Mary drew her legs up and smiled excitedly. “He can’t be after your money, Tara. He’s incredibly wealthy. He inherited one of the largest fleets of privately owned ships in the world. He also owns at least a dozen fine jewelry stores—somebody in his family learned early that the Caribbean ports could legally supply wonderful gems that could be sold in the States. Oh, and of course, the stores are all over the Caribbean, and South America, too. They’re called Tyler and Tyler. Not terribly original, perhaps, but I doubt that he named them. His father was a sailor out of Glasgow who found the American Dream.”

  Tara lifted her eyebrows. “Sounds all right so far,” she murmured. Mary still looked excited.