Ethan

“I couldn’t!” she gasped, flushing.

“I want to look at you while I touch you,” he said. “I want to show you how intimate it is to lie against a man’s body with no fabric in the way to blunt the sweetness of touching.”

“But, I’ve never…” she protested weakly.

His voice, when he spoke, was slow and soft and solemn. “Bella, is there another man you want this first time to be with?”

That put it all in perspective. “No,” she said finally. “I couldn’t let anyone else look at me. Only you.”

His chest rose and fell heavily. “Only me,” he breathed. “Do it.”

She did, amazed at her own abandon. She pulled the straps gingerly down her arms and loosened the fabric from her breasts. His eyes slid down with the progress of the bathing suit and when she was nude from the waist up, he hung there above her, just looking at the delicate rise of her hard-tipped breasts, drinking in their beauty.

She gasped and his eyes lifted to hers, as they shared the impact of the first intimate thing they’d ever done together.

“I didn’t think it would be you, the first time,” she whispered shakily.

“That makes us even,” he replied. His hand moved, tracing around her breast. His hips shifted, and she felt his pulsating need with awe as she registered his blatant masculinity.

His hand abruptly covered her breast, his palm taking in the hard nipple, and she moaned as his mouth ground down into hers.

Her body was alive. It wanted him, needed him. She felt her hips twist instinctively upward, seeking an even closer contact. He groaned, and one long, powerful leg insinuated itself between hers, giving her the contact she wanted. But it wasn’t enough. It was fever, burning, blistering, and she felt her hands go to his hips, digging in, her voice breaking under the furious crush of his mouth. His hands slid under her, his hair-roughened chest dragged over her soft breasts while his hips thrust down rhythmically against hers and she felt him in a contact that made her cry out.

The cry was what stopped him. He had to drag his mouth away. She saw the effort it took, and he stared down at her with eyes that were frankly frightening. He was barely able to breathe. He groaned out loud. Then he’d arched away from her and gotten jerkily to his feet, to dive headfirst into the swimming hole, leaving a dazed, shocked Arabella on the bank with her bathing suit down around her hips.

She’d only just managed to pull it up when he finally climbed out of the water and stood over her. She was at a definite disadvantage, but she let him pull her to her feet.

He didn’t let go of her hand. His fingers lifted it to his mouth, and he put his lips to its soft palm. “I envy the man who gets you, Bella,” he said solemnly. “You’re very special.”

“Why did you do that?” she asked hesitantly.

He averted his eyes. “Maybe I wanted a taste of you,” he said with a cynical smile before he turned away from her to get his towel. “I’ve never had a virgin.”

“Oh.”

He watched her gather up her own things and slip into her shoes as they went back to the pickup truck. “You didn’t take that little interlude seriously, I hope?” he asked abruptly as he held the door open for her.

She had, but the look on his face was warning her not to. She cleared her throat. “No, I didn’t take it seriously,” she said.

“I’m glad. I don’t mind furthering your education, but I love my freedom.”

That stung. Probably it was meant to. He’d come very close to losing control, and he didn’t like it. His anger had been written all over his face.

“I didn’t ask you to further my education,” she’d snapped.

And he’d smiled, mockingly. “No? It seemed to me that you’d done everything but wear a sign. Or maybe I just read you too well. You wanted me, honey, and I was glad to oblige. But only to a certain point. Virgins are exciting to kiss, but I like an experienced woman under me in bed.”

She’d slapped him. It hadn’t been something she meant to do, but the remark had stung viciously. He hadn’t tried to slap her back. He hadn’t said anything. He’d smiled that cold, mocking, arrogant smile that meant he’d scored and nothing else mattered. Then he’d put her in the truck and driven her home.

The next week he’d been seen everywhere with Miriam, and Arabella overheard Miriam telling the other model about her plans for Ethan. Arabella had gone straight to Ethan, despite their strained relationship, to tell him what Miriam had said before it was too late. But he’d laughed at her, accused her of being jealous. And then he’d sent her out of his life with a scorching account of her inadequacies.

Four years ago, and she could still hear every word. She closed her eyes. She wondered if his memories were as bitter and as painful as her own. She doubted it. Surely Miriam had left him with some happy ones.

Finally, worn out and with her wounds reopened, she slept.

Chapter Three (#ulink_45f00afc-a067-5461-a3d2-61119714ad38)

The house Ethan and his family called home was a huge two-story Victorian. Set against the softly rolling land of south Texas, with cattle grazing in pastures that seemed to stretch forever, it was the very picture of an old-time Western movie set. Except that the cattle in their fenced pastures were very real, and the fences were sturdy and purposeful, not picture-perfect and overly neat. Jacobsville was within an easy drive of Houston, and Victoria was even closer. It had a small-town atmosphere that Arabella had always loved, and she’d known the people who lived there most of her life. Like the Ballenger brothers, who ran the biggest feedlot in the territory, and the Jacobs—Tyler and Shelby Jacobs Ballenger—whose ancestor the town was named for.

The elegant old mansion with its bone-white walls and turret and gingerbread latticework was beautiful enough to have been featured in lifestyle magazines from time to time. It contained some priceless antiques both from early Texas and from England, because the first Hardeman had come over from London. The Hardemans were old money. Their fortune dated to an early cattle baron who made his fortune in the latter part of the nineteenth century during a blizzard that wiped out half the cattle ranches in the West. Actually, in the beginning, the family name had been Hartmond, but owing to the lack of formal education of their ancestor, the name was hopelessly misspelled on various documents until it became Hardeman.

Ethan looked like the portrait of that earlier Hardeman that graced the living-room mantel. They were probably much the same personality type, too, Arabella thought as she studied Ethan over the coffee he’d brought to the guest room for her. He was a forbidding-looking man with a cool, very formal manner that kept most people at arms’ length.

“Thank you for letting me come here,” she said.

He shrugged. “We’ve got plenty of room.” He looked around the high ceiling of the room she’d been given. “This was my grandmother’s bedroom,” he mused. “Remember hearing Mother talk about her? She lived to be eighty and was something of a hell-raiser. She was a vamp or some such thing back during the twenties, and her mother was a died-in-the-wool suffragette. One of the bloomer girls, out campaigning for the vote for women.”

“Good for her,” Arabella laughed.

“She’d have liked you,” he said, glancing down at her. “She had spirit, too.”

She sipped her coffee. “Do I have spirit?” she mused. “I let my father lead me around by the nose my whole life, and I guess I’d still be doing it if it hadn’t been for the accident.” She glanced at the cast on her wrist, sighing as she juggled the coffee mug in one hand. “Ethan, what am I going to do? I won’t even have a job, and Daddy always took care of the money.”

“This is no time to start worrying about the future,” he said firmly. “Concentrate on getting well.”

“But—”

“I’ll take care of everything,” he interrupted. “Your father included.”

She put the coffee mug down and lay back against the pillows. Her wrist was still uncomfortable and she was taking pain capsules fairly regularly. She felt slightly out of focus, and it was so nice to just lie there and let Ethan make all the decisions.

“Thank you, Ethan,” she said and smiled up at him.

He didn’t smile back. His eyes slid over her face in an exploration that set all her nerves tingling. “How long has it been since you’ve had any real rest?” he asked after a minute.

She shifted on the pillows. “I don’t know. It seems like forever.” She sighed. “There was never any time.” Her stomach muscles clenched as she remembered the constant pressure, the practice that never stopped, the planes and motel rooms and concert halls and recording dates and expectant audiences. She felt her body going rigid with remembered stress as she recalled how she’d had to force herself more and more to go out on the stage, to keep her nerve from shattering at the sight of all those people.

“I suppose you’ll miss the glamour,” Ethan murmured.

“I suppose,” she said absently and closed her eyes, missing the odd look that passed over his dark face.

“You’d better get some sleep. I’ll check on you later.”

The bed rose as he got up and left the room. She didn’t even open her eyes. She was safe here. Safe from the specter of failure, safe from her father’s long, disapproving face, safe from the cold whip of his eyes. She wondered if he was ever going to forgive her for failing him, and decided that he probably wouldn’t. Tears slid down her cheeks. If only he could have loved her, just a bit, for what she was underneath her talent. He’d never seemed to love her.

* * *

Coreen sat with her for most of the day. Ethan’s little mother was a holy terror when she was upset, but everyone loved her. She was the first person in the door when someone was sick or needed help, and the last to leave. She gave generously of her time and money, and none of her children had a bad word to say about her, even in adulthood. Well, except Ethan, and sometimes Arabella thought he did that just for amusement because he loved to watch his mother throw things in a temper.