Wyoming Strong

She sat down in her seat near the front of the concert hall, smiling as she looked at the program. The prima ballerina was an acquaintance of hers, a sweet girl who loved her job and didn’t mind the long hours and sacrifice that went along with it. Lisette was pretty, too, blonde and tall as a beanpole, with eyes as big and dark as chestnuts.

The ballet was Swan Lake, one of her absolute favorites. The costumes were eye-catching, the performers exquisite, the music almost enchanted. She smiled, her heart swelling as she anticipated the delightful performance.

She heard movement nearby and almost had a coronary when she saw Wolf Patterson and yet another beautiful blonde moving into the seats beside hers. She actually groaned.

The woman stopped to speak to someone she knew. Wolf dropped down into the seat next to Sara’s and gave her conservative black dress and leather coat a brief scrutiny. His glare could have stopped a charging bull. “Are you following me around?” he asked.

She counted to ten. In her hand, the program was twisting into large confetti.

“I mean, just a couple of weeks ago, there you were at the opera in Houston, and here you are tonight at the ballet in San Antonio, with seats right next to mine,” he mused. “If I were a conceited man...” he added in a deep, slow drawl.

She turned her black eyes up to his and made a comment in Farsi that made his hair stand on end. He snapped back at her in the same language, his eyes biting into her face.

“What in the world sort of language is that?” his blonde companion asked with a laugh.

Wolf clenched down on more words as Sara turned her head and tried to concentrate on the stage curtain. The orchestra began tuning up.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” the blonde woman persisted, glancing at Sara’s discomfort with an honestly worried expression.

“I am not,” Wolf said, enunciating every word. “Curtain’s going up,” he added shortly.

* * *

SARA WANTED TO get up and walk out. She almost did. But she couldn’t bear to give him the satisfaction. So she lost herself in the color and beauty of Swan Lake, her heart in her throat as the preliminary dancers gave way to the title role, and Lisette came on stage.

Her friend’s exquisite beauty was apparent even at a distance. She twirled and pirouetted, making the leaps with precision and grace. Sara envied her that talent. Once upon a time, she’d seen herself on the stage in a costume like that beautiful confection Lisette was wearing.

Of course, reality had put paid to that sad dream. She couldn’t imagine standing in front of a lot of people, having them all look at her, without flinching. Not after the trial.

Her face grew taut as she remembered the trial, the taunting of the defense attorney, the fury in her stepfather’s face, the anguish in her mother’s.

She didn’t realize that she’d crumbled the program in her slender fingers, or that the tragic look on her face was drawing all too much reluctant interest from her acquaintance in the next seat.

Wolf Patterson had seen that look before, many times, in combat zones. It was akin to what was called the “thousand-yard stare,” familiar to combat veterans, a blank expression with terrible eyes that recalled things no mortal should ever have to witness. But Sara Brandon was pampered and rich and beautiful. What reason would a woman like that have to act tormented?

He laughed silently to himself, faint contempt on his hard features. Pretty little Sara, tempting men, ridiculing them in passion, making them plead for satisfaction and then laughing when they achieved it. Laughing with contempt and disgust. Saying things...

A soft hand touched his. The mature blonde woman beside him was frowning.

He shook himself mentally and dragged his eyes away from Sara. He managed a reassuring smile at his companion, but it was a lie. Sara unsettled him. She reminded him of things past, things deadly, things unbearable. She was everything he hated in a woman.

But he wanted her. The sight of her lithe, elegant body made him ache. It had been a long time. He hadn’t been able to trust another woman after Ysera, want another woman.

In the back of his mind was the ridicule and the laughter. He hadn’t been able to control his desire, and Ysera thought it was funny. She loved manipulating him, tormenting him. And when she’d had her fill of humiliating him in bed, she’d sent him off on a chore of personal vengeance with a lie.

He closed his eyes. A shudder ran through his powerful frame. He couldn’t escape the past. It tormented him still. There had been no consequences, but there should have been. Ysera at least should have been held accountable, but she was out of the country before she could be arrested. For over a year there had been no word of her. He’d thought she’d finally gotten what she deserved—that she was dead. Now she was back, still alive, still haunting him. He would never know peace for the rest of his life.

“Wolf,” the blonde woman whispered urgently. She wrapped her hand around his clenched fist. “Wolf!”

Sara realized, belatedly, that something was going on beside her. She turned her head in time to see an expression of such anguish on the tall man’s hard face that concern replaced her usual resentment.

His fist was clenched on his chair arm. The blonde woman was trying to calm him. He looked like a drawn cord.

“Mr. Patterson,” Sara said, her voice very soft so that it didn’t carry. “Are you all right?”

He looked down at her, coming out of the past with the pain still in his eyes. They narrowed, and he looked at her as if he hated her. “What the hell do you care?” he gritted.

She bit her lower lip almost through. He looked coiled, ready to strike, dangerous. She forced her attention back to the stage, a deathly pallor in her cheeks. More fool me, for caring, she thought.

He was trying to cope with memories that were killing him. Sara reminded him too much of things he only wanted to forget. He cursed under his breath in Farsi, got to his feet and walked out of the theater. The blonde woman looked at Sara with a grimace, as if she wanted to explain, to apologize. Then she just smiled sadly and followed him out.

* * *

THAT TORMENTED LOOK on Wolf Patterson’s face haunted Sara for the rest of the week. She couldn’t get it out of her mind. He’d stared at her as if he hated her in those few seconds. She began to realize that it wasn’t necessarily her whom he hated. Perhaps it was someone she reminded him of. She smiled sadly to herself. Just her luck, to feel the stirrings of attraction to a man for the first time in her life, and have him turn out to be someone who hated her because she reminded him of another woman. An old flame, perhaps, someone he’d loved and lost.

Well, it was hopeless to look in that direction anyway, she consoled herself. She’d only really been alone with him once, and look how she’d embarrassed herself when he came too close. She still flushed, remembering how she’d run from him after her flat tire. He wouldn’t understand why she’d reacted that way. And she couldn’t tell him.

* * *

SHE CLIMBED INTO her pajamas late that night and pulled up her game on the computer, setting the laptop on a board across her lap as she propped up in bed.

Her friend was on. Hi, she whispered.

Hi, he whispered back.

He was usually more wordy than that. In the middle of something? she queried.

No. Bad memories, he said after a minute.

I know all about that, she wrote sadly.

There was a brief pause. Want to talk about it? he asked.

She smiled to herself. Talking doesn’t help. How about a battleground?

He wrote lol on the screen, invited her to a group and queued them for a battleground.

Why does life have to be so hard? she wrote while they waited.

I don’t know.

I can’t get away from the past, she wrote. She couldn’t tell him everything, but she could talk a little. He was the only real friend she had. Lisette was kind and sweet, but she had so little free time just to talk.

Neither can I, he wrote after a minute. Do you have nightmares? he asked suddenly.

She grimaced and wrote, All the time.

Me, too. There was a hesitation. Damaged people, he wrote.