That bastard, Willingham. He’d never deserved Stephanie. Whatever he’d done to her… No. He couldn’t think about it. It was just a good thing the man was dead because if he wasn’t—if he wasn’t…
“Bacon and eggs?”
David blinked. Stephanie was looking at him inquiringly. She had a skillet in one hand and a package of bacon in the other, and he knew she wanted him to tell her what he wanted for breakfast, but God, all he really wanted to tell her was that he loved her, that he’d always loved her, that fate or kismet or whatever you wanted to call it had brought them together at that wedding…
“David?”
He took a deep breath. “Fine,” he said calmly. “Sounds great. I’ll do the toast and coffee.”
And work on regaining his equilibrium, along with his sanity. This wasn’t love, it was lust.
“Let me just get down this bowl,” Stephanie said, and reached high to the top shelf.
David kicked back his chair. “To hell with breakfast,” he said.
The skillet, and the bacon, fell from her hands. “Yes,” she said, and then she was in his arms again, where he knew she had always belonged.
* * *
He broke the news to Jack over lunch on Monday.
“You’re nuts,” Jack said flatly.
“Maybe,” David said, smiling.
Jack lifted his martini. “Wonderful. I tell the groom he’s crazy and the groom says, ‘Maybe.’”
“I’m also happy.”
“Even better. My ol’ granpappy used to say—he used to say…” Jack gulped half his martini. “Who knows what the old so-and-so used to say? What I say is that you’re loco. The lady gets a bank account. What do you get?”
“A wife. Ask Mary. She’ll tell you it’s an equitable trade.”
“Did you check her out? Did you check out the sick brother?”
“No.” David said tightly. “I told you, this all happened very suddenly.”
“Think about the lady’s past, David. She married for money once before. Now, she’s doing it again. For all you know, the brother could be a gambling habit. He could be drugs.”
“She’s not on drugs, Jack. And she’s not a gambler.”
“Well, then, he could be a lover with expensive tastes.”
“Watch what you say,” David said coldly. “This time next week, Stephanie will be my wife.”
Jack refused to back down. “Look, phone Dan Nolan. Let him do a little research. I’m surprised you haven’t already done it.”
David’s eyes narrowed. Stephanie, supporting a lover? He’d never even thought…
He rose quickly, slapped a few bills on the table. “I’ve got a meeting,” he said when Jack started to protest, “and I’m running late.”
“What kind of groom says ‘maybe’ when you tell him he’s crazy?” Jack Russell demanded of his wife, late that night.
Mary patted her husband’s hand. “The kind who’s not ready to admit he’s in love.”
Jack snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s infatuated.”
“He’s in love,” Mary said. “All we can do now is hope he doesn’t get hurt.”
* * *
That evening, before she left the office, Stephanie phoned Rest Haven. Paul’s nurse took the call. Paul didn’t want to speak to her. He was depressed. Stephanie almost laughed. Paul was always depressed, but she understood. This was worse than usual. It was not a good sign.
“Call me, if anything happens,” she said. Then she hung up the phone and stared blindly at the wall.
Paul had been doing so well. Was he going to have a relapse? It didn’t matter. She still had to tell David more about him. Soon, David would be her husband. He’d be paying for Paul’s care. And she wanted no secrets between her and the man she—the man she…
“Ready?”
She looked up. David was standing in the doorway. His smile had an edge that unnerved her.
“David? What is it? Is something wrong?”
David hesitated. Yes, he wanted to say, something was wrong. He’d spent the afternoon pacing his office and finally, half an hour ago, he’d put in a call to Dan Nolan, asked him to check on Stephanie and find out what he could about her brother. If she had a brother. If Jack hadn’t put his finger on the truth…
Enough!
“No,” he said. “It’s just been a long day. Let’s go home.”
* * *
An uneasy silence lay between them through dinner and on into the evening. Finally, David put aside the papers he’d been trying to read and looked at Stephanie.
“Scarlett?”
She looked up from her book. There was a strained look on her face.
“Yes?”
David thought of the call he’d made to Dan Nolan. He regretted it, now. He had questions, yes, but he should have asked them of Stephanie. This was supposed to be an honest relationship.
“What, David?”
Ask her, he told himself. Tell her you need to know more about her brother, that you want to meet him…
“Nothing,” he said after a minute. “Just…” He took her hand. “It’s late,” he said. “Let’s go up.”
He undressed her slowly in the darkness of the bedroom, loving the sounds she made as he touched her, the scent of desire that rose from her skin. His concerns fell away from him as they went into each other’s arms. This was right. She was right. This could work…
The phone rang.
“David? The telephone…”
“Let it ring,” he said, but he sighed, kissed her gently, turned on the bedside lamp and lifted the receiver.
Stephanie sat up against the pillows, the blanket to her chin. David was turned away from her, the blanket at his waist. His naked shoulders and back were pale gold in the faint gleam of the light. The call couldn’t be for her, yet she knew it was. Paul, she thought, it’s Paul.
David turned and looked at her. He held out the telephone.
“It’s a man,” he said. His face was expressionless. “He won’t give his name. He wants to talk to you.”
Stephanie took the phone. “Hello?”
It was Paul. His voice was calm, controlled. He said the nurse had given him Stephanie’s new phone number.
“Where are you?” Stephanie said.
He told her. He’d slipped out of Rest Haven. He was in a motel.
Stephanie nodded. Rest Haven was a care facility, not a prison.
“I need you, Sis,” Paul said.
She looked at David. There was still no expression on his face.
“I’ll come in the morning,” she said. “Meanwhile, you should—”
“I need you now.”
She looked at David again. Then she reached for the pad and pencil on the nightstand.
“Tell me where you are,” she said, and wrote it down. She licked her dry lips. “I’ll come.” The phone went dead, and she handed it to David, who hung it up.
“David? I—I have to go to my brother.”
David’s eyes were as flat and dull as the sea before a storm. “At this hour?”
“Yes.”
“Why? What’s the problem?”
“He’s ill. Look, I know you have questions, but I can’t explain now.” She started to rise, remembered she was naked under the blanket, and knew she couldn’t endure the feel of his cool gaze on her skin. “Could you—would you turn around, please?”
David’s jaw clenched. “Such modesty, Scarlett,” he said with a hard smile, but he turned his back and she rose quickly and began pulling on her clothes.
She heard a noise behind her. David had flung back the blanket. He was dressing.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” He yanked a sweatshirt from a drawer and tugged it over his head. “I’m getting dressed.”
“No, David. It isn’t necessary.”
He looked at her. “I’m not going to let you go out, alone, in the middle of the night”
“I�
�ll be fine. I’ll call a cab.”
“I can drive you wherever it is you’re going.”
“No!” She thought of Paul, as he would be now, knowing how much worse things could get if he were to be upset. “No, David, really. You don’t have to.”
“I know that. I want to go with you.”
“But I don’t want you with me!” The words fell between them like stones. Stephanie caught her breath. “David. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“You’ll find the number of a cab company programmed into the phone downstairs,” he said coldly. Then he walked into the bathroom, and shut the door.
* * *
The motel looked like a set from a cheap movie.
Paul was in the last room. He lay in bed, under the covers, with his arm over his eyes, and he was as bad as she’d ever seen him. His clothing lay discarded on the floor.
“Paul?” she said softly.
He didn’t respond. She sighed, shut the door behind her, and went to him. She knew what to do. She’d sit beside him, cradle him in her arms, tell him how much she loved him and hope against hope that her words would sink in…and that, when she explained, David would understand. She thought of how he’d looked at her and a shudder racked her body.
She would not lose David. She could not lose him, and it hadn’t a damn thing to do with needing money, or what he’d miraculously made her feel in bed.
It was time to admit the truth. She was in love with David, and she could only hope that he might love her, too, someday.
* * *
David paced up and down his living room.
What in hell did Stephanie think she was doing? Going off in the middle of the night to see her sick brother? Telling him, hell, shrieking at him, that she didn’t want him to go with her?
If it was a brother, he thought grimly.
For all he knew, Jack was right. There was no brother. There was a man, yeah, but not one related to her. It would explain so much. So much. The reason she needed money, that she’d tolerated Willingham’s abuse…
That she was so good, so incredibly good, in bed.
David stopped pacing. He felt cold, as if the marrow of his bones were turning to ice. Women lied. Krissie had taught him that. They were faithless. Krissie had taught him that, too.
But Krissie, at least, hadn’t married a man for money.
Why hadn’t he asked Nolan to check on Stephanie before this? He needed something to go on…
And then he remembered. She had scrawled something on the notepad.
He ran up the stairs, snatched up the pad. The impression left by the pencil was deep and clear. David read it, and the coldness seeped away. Rage, white-hot and glowing, replaced it.
“Damn you, Stephanie,” he whispered.
And then he was out of the house, in his Porsche, roaring toward the Elmsview Motel.
* * *
“Paul,” Stephanie said. “Paul, please, can you hear me?”
She shifted closer to her brother, lifted his head and cradled it against her shoulder. “Please, Paul. Talk to me.”
Paul made a strangled sound. He rolled over, clutched her tightly and buried his face in her breast.
“Oh, Paul,” she said softly. She bent her head, kissed his hair. “Darling, I love you. You know I do. No matter what happens, I’ll always be here for you. I love you, Paul. I love…”
The door slammed against the wall, and the stink of the highway suddenly filled the room. Stephanie turned quickly and saw David standing in the doorway.
“David? David, what are you doing here?”
His gaze swept over the room, taking in the discarded clothing, the rumpled bed, the man in her arms. Something hot and dark twisted inside him.
“Such a trite question, Scarlett. At least I don’t have to ask it of you. We both know what you’re doing here.”
“No. Whatever you’re thinking…”
David’s hands knotted into fists. The man, the scurvy bastard, had barely moved. The urge to stride across the room, drag Stephanie from the bed by the scruff of her lying neck, beat the crap out of her lover, roared through him like a tidal wave. But, if he did, he’d never stop. He’d beat her lover until he was a bloody pulp, and then he’d turn on Stephanie and he’—he’d…
God, oh, God. what did you do when the woman you loved tore out your heart?
He blinked hard, forcing the red haze to clear from his eyes.
“Not to worry, Scarlett.” From somewhere, he dredged up a smile. “We were both playing games. You just got careless before I did, that’s all.”
Her face, her lovely face, became even paler than it already was.
“What games?”
He laughed. “You didn’t really think I was going to marry you, did you? Hey, a man will do a lot of things to get a woman into his bed, but marry her? Not me, baby. I’m not a fool like Willingham.”
She recoiled, as if she’d been struck. He turned on his heel, victorious, and strode from the sleazy little room, telling himself he’d forever remember this moment.
But it wasn’t true. He got into his car, shut the door and pounded his fists against the steering wheel while the tears coursed down his face, knowing that what he’d always remember was the agony of Stephanie’s betrayal.
It would be with him for the rest of his life.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THERE was no place on earth as beautiful as Wyoming in June. David had always thought so, even when he was a kid growing up in a clapboard shack in a cowtown slum.
He’d come a long way since then, a hell of a long way. The thought brought a smile to his face for the first time in days, but then, he’d almost always found something to make him smile, when he was up here, on the ridge that overlooked the Bar C Ranch.
Night was coming. Purple shadows were already stretching their long fingers over the mountains. A red-tailed hawk, still seeking his dinner, drifted on silent wings across the canyon.
David’s horse snorted and danced sideways with impatience. He reached forward and patted the velvet-soft neck.
“Easy, boy,” he said softly.
The horse had had enough of sunsets. And so had he. It was getting him nowhere, sitting on this damned bluff every evening, watching the mountains and the hawk…and imagining.
He frowned, tugged at the reins, and turned for the trail that led down to the valley, and home.
“Stupid.” he muttered.
Stupid was the word. What else could you call a man who’d been lucky enough to avoid disaster by the thinnest margin, who’d come within a whisper of tying himself to a woman who lied and cheated as easily as some people breathed? What was such a man, if not stupid, when he ended up thinking about her, remembering each detail of her face, instead of being forever grateful he’d gotten away with his skin intact?
There was no reason to think about Stephanie anymore. She was out of his life, and he was thankful for it.
“Thank heavens you came to your senses,” Jack had said when David had brusquely informed him that the wedding was off, and he hadn’t argued. Jack was right.
Then, why couldn’t he get her out of his head?
It was almost dark now. His horse knew the trail well but still, the animal’s ears were pricked forward and he made his way with care. That was fine. David was in no rush to get back to the house. His housekeeper would have supper waiting, he’d go through the charade of telling her how fine the meal was, move the stuff around on his plate a little so it looked as if he’d done more than pick at it, and then he’d go sit in the parlor, build a fire to ward off the chill that still settled on the mountains, even in June. He’d read, or work on some legal stuff he’d brought with him…pretend to read, or work, to be accurate. And then he’d look at the clock, tell himself it was time for bed, and go upstairs, alone, to toss and turn in the big canopied bed where he’d once imagined himself lying with Stephanie in his arms.
David frowned. Where in hell had that bit of nonsense
come from? He’d never even thought of bringing her here. She wasn’t the outdoors type—was she? He really didn’t know. And, dammit, he really didn’t care.
Why didn’t he stop thinking about her?
His horse whinnied and David realized they’d come out of the trees. Dusk had settled over the valley. The house, nestled against the spectacular mountain backdrop, looked cozy and warm. It had the look and feel he’d always thought a home should have, even years ago, when he’d only been able to dream about living in a place like this.
He couldn’t recall much about the house where he’d been born. His folks had been poor, they’d died when he was just a little kid and he’d gone to live in a foster home where the man he was ordered to address as “Dad” thought beatings and poverty were necessary for the good of the soul. That house he could remember with utmost clarity. The rooms had been uniformly gray, but neither the surroundings nor the people had been able to ruin the view.
The view had been David’s salvation.
If you scrambled up the drainpipe to the flat roof, you could see past the streets and the clutter to the mountains. He’d spent a lot of time on that roof, looking at the mountains, telling himself that someday he’d live up there, in a place where you could almost reach up and touch the sky. It had seemed an impossible dream but he was living proof that dreams could, indeed, come true. Everything here was his. The valley, the house, the mountains—all of it.
Luck, hard work, a combination of things had secured him this existence. The football scholarship had come first, then an academic scholarship to Yale Law, and, at last, a career he loved. So he’d had a failed marriage along the way. Those things happened to lots of people. He’d been bitter, but he’d survived. And, until a couple of weeks ago, he’d figured he had everything a man could possibly want in life.
Now, he knew better.
What he needed was someone to share all this with. No. Not someone.
Stephanie.
David’s jaw tightened. That was crazy. He didn’t need her. Why would he?
It infuriated him, that he should even think of her. What a time she must have had, not to have collapsed with laughter when he’d asked her if she had any acting experience. Experience? She had enough to open her own drama school. She’d spent her years with Willingham at stage center. As for the short time she’d spent with him…damn, but she’d outdone any performance he’d ever watched on the Broadway stage.
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