Heather's Song

Her breath caught on a sob. “Not anymore,” she got out. “Please let me go.”

He hesitated an instant before he shoved himself away from her and stepped back. His eyes surveyed the damage, the tears shining beneath her eyelashes, the sudden pallor of her face. Then she darted out the door into the storm, oblivious to the driving rain that drenched her before she reached the safety of the house. She was equally oblivious to the narrowed gray eyes that watched her every step of the way.

Chapter Four

Heather pleaded a headache and avoided going to the supper table, thankful that Emma didn’t pursue her with tablets or questions. She didn’t know that the older woman had immediately spotted the heightened color of her face and the shocked confusion in her eyes.

She went straight up to her own room to lock herself in and stare dumbfounded at the image in her mirror. Her face was a stranger’s, with its wide, blue eyes and wildly flushed cheeks. Her mouth had a suddenly passionate look about it, and even now she could taste the smoky warmth of Cole’s mouth with her tongue.

Her eyes closed against the image. Her body could still feel the powerful crush of his. She’d never realized before just how strong he really was. No amount of effort on her part would have freed her—despite the fact that she’d been too shocked to struggle. And he’d had the audacity to say she’d tempted him!

Tempted him, indeed! As if she would have dared to measure her inexperience against his expertise. Not even a novice could have come out of those powerful arms ignorant of the fact that he’d had women. Despite his anger, he had been devastatingly expert. She was grateful that he hadn’t been persuasive as well, because she’d never have been able to resist him.

She folded her arms around her shivering body and went to the window to watch the rain come down. Had she tempted him? If looking at him or touching him was temptation, why hadn’t this happened years ago? She sighed, shaking her tousled head. He’d always known that she put him on a pedestal in her mind. Why had he suddenly decided to come tumbling down from it?

The questions nagged at her far into the night. She wanted to run, like a calf faced with a branding iron. She was afraid of Cole in a new and exciting way. She’d seen him as a lover, and it frightened her to be vulnerable to him.

She thought about leaving Big Spur to go back to Houston. She could call one of her many contacts in the entertainment world and try to line up a job. But was that what she really wanted? She hadn’t yet tested her singing voice and she knew that her hesitancy came from a reluctance to make any hard and fast decisions about her career. It was her singing that had caused the breach between her and Cole—should she continue to pursue it despite his objections?

She had already begun to question herself about her career before the accident. Now those doubts returned to haunt her.

In her weakened state, how would she adjust to the exhausting pace of an engagement schedule? Two shows a night, every night, six days a week, and constant rehearsals. And how would she fight the overwhelming loneliness that assailed her every time she ran away from Big Spur and Cole?

* * *

She went down the stairs reluctantly the next morning, dressed in jeans and a soft yellow V-necked sweater, her hair in a sophisticated French twist at the back of her long, graceful neck. She was hoping against hope that Cole would be off on another trip, or downtown at his business office in Branntville.

But he was still at the breakfast table, alone and brooding. His fingers toyed with a coffee cup that was obviously empty. His dark hair was unruly over his jutting brow, his burgundy shirt open at the throat and straining across the powerful muscles of his chest. He looked forbidding, and Heather paused uncertainly in the doorway, her mind urging retreat.

As if he sensed her presence, he looked up, and something flashed in his silver eyes like summer lightning.

The events of the day before stood between them, the memory of them coming alive as her eyes went involuntarily to his hard mouth. She vividly remembered the crush of his lips against hers. She even remembered the scent of him, the clean warmth of his face, the feel of his body….

“You might as well come in,” he said in a curt, angry tone. “It won’t go away.”

She lifted her face proudly and refused to be drawn into asking him what he meant. She sat down two chairs away from him and reached for the coffeepot. Her fingers trembled slightly as she filled a cup. “Where’s Emma?” she asked, trying to make idle conversation.

“Gone into town to see the doctor,” he replied curtly.

She frowned. “Is there something wrong?” she asked in concern.

Cole shook his head. “It’s just that indigestion she’s been complaining of lately—I finally convinced her to see the doctor about it.” His eyes shot to her face, cutting and hard. “Now, are there any other topics you’d like to cover before we discuss what’s really on both our minds?”

She stared at the reflection of the chandelier in her black coffee. “I don’t want to talk about it, Cole,” she said in a low voice.

He drew a short breath and lit a cigarette with quick jerky movements. He took a draw from it before he looked up, and his gaze didn’t miss the dark circles under her eyes. “Did I hurt you, Heather?” he asked in a tone that she’d never heard him use before.

Her cheeks went dusky pink, and she could only manage to shake her head.

He murmured something harsh under his breath before he leaned back in the chair with a violent motion, throwing one muscular arm over the back of it so that his shirt was stretched taut over his broad, hair-shadowed chest. His eyes narrowed as he took another draw from the cigarette and expelled it forcefully. “Will you look at me, damn it?”

Her eyes jerked up apprehensively. Everything she felt, the confusion and the hurt, showed in her face.

“Didn’t you realize,” he said quietly, “that every look you’ve given me lately has been an open invitation? We’ve lived like brother and sister for the past seven years, but the fact remains that there isn’t a drop of blood between us. We don’t even share a mutual cousin. There’s nothing to stop me, Heather.”

She averted her eyes to the colorful arrangement of mums on the table and she swallowed hard. “I…wasn’t trying to…to tempt you,” she said. “I’ve looked at you…like I always have.”

“No,” he said.

Her eyes flashed at him. “I’ll wear blinders from now on, that’s for sure,” she threw back.

“Afraid of me?” he asked with a slow, sensual smile.

“Terrified!” she replied.

He finished the cigarette and crushed it out in the ashtray beside his plate. “Why, because I hurt you?”

“You weren’t gentle,” she said in a subdued tone.

His eyes caught hers. “I’m not a gentle man. I’m hot-blooded and I like my women the same way. I’ve never made love to an adolescent before. I was rough with you because I’m used to women who know the rules. You don’t.”

Her face was the color of a boiled beet when he got through. Her pride was in shreds as she glared at him. “I’m not an adolescent!”

“You kiss like one.”

Her eyes flashed blue sparks at him, and he smiled lazily at the indignation in them.

“That wasn’t a kiss,” she returned furiously. “It was an assault!”

He threw back his head and laughed, the sound of it deep and pleasant and maddening.

“Well, it was!” she grumbled, toying with her coffee cup.

“Have you ever been made love to properly?” he asked with a gleam in his eye.

She avoided his patient stare. “What’s that got to do with it?” she asked uneasily.

“A lot. Apparently you’re used to men who’ll settle for light pecks on the lips and an occasional embrace.” His eyes dropped to her mouth. “I like my kisses hard and rough and deep. I like to feel a woman’s body against every inch of mine.”

“So I noticed,” she said, trying to ignore the wave of embarrassment that swept over her.

“Did you? You were standing there so rigid you felt like stone. If you’d let that soft young body relax against mine, it wouldn’t have hurt.” One corner of his chiseled mouth went up in a wicked smile. “You might even have enjoyed it.”

“Cole!” she gasped, outraged.

He chuckled, pushing back his chair. “We’ll try it again when you grow up a little,” he said, lifting an arrogant eyebrow at her as he started out of the room. “I don’t like making love to children.”

“You…egomaniacal beast!” she ground out.