Heather's Song

Cole wasn’t amused. He glared at the younger man, his powerful body held in rigid control.

Gil cleared his throat, disconcerted by that level stare. “I’m Gil Austin,” he said, breaking the silence. “I cover the entertainment beat for the News Herald—and Heather’s my girl.” He glanced possessively at the slender young woman under the white sheets.

Cole’s eyes seemed to explode. His jaw went even tauter in his dark face. “A reporter,” he said, making an insult of the word. His eyes swept contemptuously over the shorter man before he turned back to Heather. “I’ll come by for you first thing in the morning,” he told her curtly. “Is there anything you want from your apartment? You’ll be at the ranch for a few weeks, at least.”

Heather scribbled “my coat.” She grimaced at the faint amusement in Cole’s eyes. She was superstitious about the ankle-length ermine coat Cole had given her for her eighteenth birthday. She never traveled without it.

“I’ll bring it,” he promised. “Anything else?”

“My purse,” she scribbled, “my old one—in the closet.”

He frowned.

“I keep my important papers in it,” she wrote, “and my money.”

His eyes narrowed. “You won’t need a bankroll to come home with.”

She sighed with irritation. If only she could talk. She wanted to tell him she didn’t need his handouts…but he read the emotion in her eyes and lifted his head in that arrogant way he had. She could have hit him.

“Can I do anything?” Gil asked, feeling left out.

“We can manage,” Cole said abruptly, sparing the man a glance.

“I’d like to visit Heather while she’s recuperating,” he persisted.

Cole turned around and stared right through him. “The last thing she’s going to need right now are visitors,” he said without even pretending courtesy.

Heather gaped at him. Cole had always been possessive, but now he was acting as though he owned her. Why couldn’t she have visitors?

“Heather needs peace and quiet to get over the trauma of the accident. She’ll heal quicker with family,” Cole added, “and I’m going to take them to Nassau for a week or so, anyway. She can call you when she’s back on her feet.”

Gil hesitated. It was the first time Heather had known him to be without a comeback.

“Get some rest, baby,” Cole told her, bending to brush his hard lips against her hair. “I’ll be here early, so don’t stay up too late with your boyfriend,” he added pointedly. “Good night, Austin,” he said, pinning the other man with his narrowed eyes.

Gil cleared his throat. “You’re right, she does look tired. Good night, little one,” he said, resisting the urge to kiss her before he left. Everett looked frankly dangerous. “Nice to have met you,” he added, pausing to smile at Heather. “I’ll be in touch.”

“Over my dead body,” Cole muttered when he’d gone, and Heather noticed that one lean hand had all but crushed the crown of his Stetson.

“Why don’t you like him?” she wrote on the pad, holding it up with a frown.

“He’s too old for you,” he shot right back.

“I like him,” she scribbled angrily.

But he didn’t even answer her. “Emma’s cooking your favorite dishes,” he said pleasantly enough. “She ran Mrs. Jones out of the kitchen to start getting everything ready. Mothers!”

She smiled involuntarily. Emma might only be her stepmother, but she was as dear to Heather as if there’d been a blood tie between them. She sighed and closed her eyes. Maybe she did need to be alone for a while. Maybe it would do her good to get away from everyone who might remind her of her career and the strangely unsatisfying life she’d made for herself in Houston.

She opened her eyes suddenly to find Cole watching her. She dropped her gaze quickly to the bedclothes, wondering at the way her pulse was misbehaving.

“Good night, baby,” he said curtly and was gone before she could get her pulse under control.

Chapter Two

The flight to Branntville took hardly any time at all, and Heather watched the flat barren landscape with eyes that remembered it in spring, when the bluebonnets were blooming along with the black-eyed Susans and the trees were a hundred different soft shades of green. She smiled at the memory, and Cole took his eyes away from the controls long enough to read the expression on her flushed face.

“And you were willing to give it all up to sing in a nightclub,” he scoffed. “Still think it was a good trade—clean air for smoky rooms?”

She tossed her hair impatiently and glared up at him.

A slow, lazy smile touched his chiseled mouth. “All right, Sunflower.” He chuckled, using his childhood nickname for her. “I get the message.”

She tore her gaze away from his. Cole had a dark charm that must be devastating when he wanted something from a woman, she mused, letting her eyes focus on the beautifully masculine hands at the controls of the twin-engine Cessna. They were long-fingered and dark, and they held the promise of great strength. His mouth, too, was strong, with a sensuality she was only now beginning to notice. The thought brought a slight frown to her face. Would he be a gentle lover? She flushed, vividly remembering the night last year when she saw him kiss Tessa at her birthday party, his mouth rough, not an inch of space between his hard-muscled body and Tessa’s…. The sight had been disturbing to Heather, although she didn’t know why. She carried the picture in her mind for days afterward: Tessa had been clinging to Cole like ivy, as if his kiss was everything she needed from life. No, she thought uneasily, Cole wouldn’t be gentle. He was a man of extremes, and she sensed that his passions were strong ones. He wouldn’t be satisfied with the brief, cool kisses she bestowed on Gil Austin.

She shook herself mentally. Her own thoughts were shocking her, so she turned her attention out the window and watched for the familiar white fences that marked the outlying boundaries of Big Spur.

Minutes later, the house came into view below, surrounded by tall pecan and oak trees. It was brick, its architecture reminiscent of an English manor house. A long driveway circled in front of the entrance, lined with dogwoods that bloomed in white profusion each spring and a myriad of flowering shrubs. In her mind’s eye, Heather could see the interior of the towering mansion, the main reception rooms all opening off the center hall with its delightful winding staircase and massive crystal chandelier. The interior rooms were spacious, and the den where Cole did his paperwork had a huge stone fireplace and a very striking Belgian area rug done in deep wine. There was a three-car garage, a tennis court, a swimming pool and a patio with masses of rose bushes. It was like something out of a storybook, or the Old South—which wasn’t at all surprising, since the Shaws had emigrated to East Texas from Georgia. Heather’s great-grandfather had built the house, back in the days of the great cattle drives, and it had had its share of famous and infamous guests. In fact, Branntville itself was located on the old Chisholm Trail, a fact that had always excited Heather as a child.

The house was technically Emma’s now, willed to her by Heather’s late father. Heather never begrudged her stepmother that bequeathal. Emma had loved her stepdaughter like her own child, and that love had been returned full measure. It hurt to remember that Heather’s own mother had been a rather cool person, all elegance and high fashion and very little emotion.

They were coming down now, Cole’s brown hands firm and confident on the controls as he eased the Cessna onto the family airstrip, nestled in the midst of thousands of acres of prime cattle land. Cole and her father had built the ranch up slowly over the years, investing their initially modest profits in new stock to improve their herd. Now, Cole had one of the finest ranches in Texas, a ranch that was famous for its blooded stock and champion bulls. Heather felt a sense of pride in her stepbrother. He had a keen business head, and he radiated power. He could make or break a politician in this part of the state, and he was an avid conservationist.

The plane touched down lightly on the runway and Cole taxied it to a stop near the silver side of the hangar and cut the engine. “Home,” he told her with a flash of pride in his silver eyes.

She smiled at him, the emotion she felt evident in her eyes, in the parting of her soft mouth. His gaze whipped down to her pink lips with a suddenness that was devastating in its effect on her pulse. She almost gasped at the newness of the look, and the surprise was in her eyes when his gaze shot back up to meet hers.

She turned quickly and tried to open the door, fumbling with it nervously.

“Something wrong, honey?” Cole asked in a strange tone. He leaned across her, his hard-muscled arm pressing against her breasts for an instant, his warm breath in her hair as he opened the door.

She scrambled out as if mad dogs were chasing her, and she thought she heard soft, amused laughter behind her as she reached the pavement.

One of the ranch hands had driven down to get them in the station wagon, and Heather was careful to get in the backseat before Cole could herd her into the front with him. Nothing showed on that impassive face, but she had the strangest feeling that he was amused by her. She could still see that unfamiliar look in his eyes, the darkness making them slate gray, the totally adult glitter something she’d never experienced. Cole had never treated her as anything except his younger sister. But there was nothing remotely filial about that look, and she remembered without wanting to that there was no blood relationship to protect her from Cole. Her innocence would be no match for his obvious experience, and if he could upset her like this just by looking at her, Heaven only knew what would happen if he touched her….

That thought sent a burst of wild excitement singing through her slender young body, and her face blushed as dusky as an autumn sunset. She kept her eyes down so that Cole wouldn’t notice—even though he was talking business with the ranch hand.

She’d never considered Cole in this light before. It was a little frightening. She’d watched him charm women with a sense of pride, feeling safe because she was his stepsister. She’d always been shielded from his devastating masculinity. But now she’d stepped out from behind that shield, and she was vulnerable for the first time. She felt like a fawn taking its first steps into a meadow, wondering what dangers lay beyond the quiet, dark glade.

She bit her lower lip hard. She wanted to crawl back into her cocoon and forget what she’d been thinking. Cole was far too dangerous for a novice.

They were driving near the river now, and Heather remembered almost drowning there the first summer Cole and Emma lived at Big Spur. Cole had plucked her out of the water, a shivering little thirteen-year-old with big blue eyes. She’d been his possession since that day, and he’d treated her like one. He’d always had a hand in the major decisions of her life. Her parties, her friends, her travels had all been dictated by Cole, even before her father’s death. Her education at an exclusive Swiss girls’ school—which she’d hated—had been his idea, too. But when it came to singing, she’d managed to get her own way. Emma had stood by her, especially after a well-known promoter named Pete Howell had raved about her talent. Her first appearance at a local nightclub had led to several other offers, and engagement after engagement followed until the big break finally came—the two-week engagement, that she’d just been starting the night of the accident.

“…otherwise, it’s been going smoothly,” the ranch hand was saying. “Bill said to tell you he sure was sorry he didn’t get word to you about Miss Shaw. He got busy….”

“Which is no damned excuse at all,” Cole shot back, his silver eyes blazing. “By God, I’ll tear a strip off him for that!”

His hard, chiseled mouth made a thin line, and Heather was glad she couldn’t see his eyes from the backseat. There was a white-hot anger in his otherwise controlled voice. But then, everything about Cole was controlled. Mr. Cool, she used to call him behind his back. No matter how she tried, she never could rattle him. Her worst tempers only amused him. She’d worn herself out against the rock of his will without accomplishing anything. Her young adulthood had been full of rages. And Cole took them in stride, either ignoring her antics or putting an end to them with a well-placed look and a firm command. She’d never stood up to him until she wanted a career enough to throw caution to the winds. But without Emma’s careful pleading, she’d never have won. She’d never seen anyone match Cole. And she never expected to. She felt sorry for Bill, whoever he was. Cole could be utterly cruel.