LITMIR.BIZ

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over there to live. Just as well,” Matt added coldly. “If he’s lucky, he might make it to the airport tomorrow before I catch up with him.”

      The threat of violence lay over him like an invisible mantle. Leslie shivered. Of the four people in that car, she knew firsthand how vicious and brutal physical violence could be. Her memories were hazy, confused, but in the nightmares she had constantly, they were all too vivid.

      “Do calm down, darling,” Carolyn told Matt gently. “You’re upsetting Ms. Marley.”

      “Murry,” Ed corrected before Leslie could. “Strange, Carolyn, I don’t remember your memory being so poor.”

      Carolyn cleared her throat. “It’s a lovely night, at least,” she said, changing the subject. “No rain and a beautiful moon.”

      “So it is,” Ed drawled.

      Matt gave him a cool look, which Ed met with a vacant smile. Leslie was amused by the way Ed could look so innocent. She knew him far too well to be fooled.

      Matt, meanwhile, was drinking in the sight of Leslie in that formfitting dress that just matched her eyes. She had skin like marble, and he wondered if it was as soft to the touch as it seemed. She wasn’t conventionally pretty, but there was a quality about her that made him weak in the knees. He was driven to protect her, without knowing why he felt that way about a stranger. It irritated him as much as the phone call he’d fielded earlier.

      “Where are you from, Ms. Murbery?” Carolyn asked.

      “Miss Murry,” Leslie corrected, beating Ed to the punch. “I’m from a little town north of Houston.”

      “A true Texan,” Ed agreed with a grin in her direction.

      “What town?” Matt asked.

      “I’m sure you won’t have heard of it,” Leslie said confidently. “Our only claim to fame was a radio station in a building shaped like a ten-gallon hat. Very much off the beaten path.”

      “Did your parents own a ranch?” he persisted.

      She shook her head. “My father was a crop duster.”

      “A what?” Carolyn asked with a blank face.

      “A pilot who sprays pesticides from the air in a small airplane,” Leslie replied. “He was killed…on the job.”

      “Pesticides,” Matt muttered darkly. “Just what the groundwater table needs to—”

      “Matt, can we forget politics for just one night?” Ed asked. “I’d like to enjoy my evening.”

      Matt gave him a measured glare with one eye narrowed menacingly. But he relaxed all at once and leaned back in his seat, to put a lazy arm around Carolyn and let her snuggle close to him. His dark eyes seemed to mock Leslie as if comparing her revulsion to Carolyn’s frank delight in his physical presence.

      She let him win this round with an amused smile. Once, she might have enjoyed his presence just as much as his date was reveling in now. But she had more reason than most to fear men.

      The country club, in its sprawling clubhouse on a man-made lake, was a beautiful building with graceful arches and fountains. It did Jacobsville proud. But, as Ed had intimated, there wasn’t a single parking spot available. Matt had the pager number of the driver and could summon the limousine whenever it was needed. He herded his charges out of the car and into the building, where the reception committee made them welcome.

      There was a live band, a very good one, playing assorted tunes, most of which resembled bossa nova rhythms. The only time that Leslie really felt alive was when she could close her eyes and listen to music; any sort of music—classical, opera, country-western or gospel. Music had been her escape as a child from a world too bitter sometimes to stomach. She couldn’t play an instrument, but she could dance. That was the one thing she and her mother had shared, a love of dancing. In fact, Marie had taught her every dance step she knew, and she knew a lot. Marie had taught dancing for a year or so and had shared her expertise with her daughter. How ironic it was that Leslie’s love of dance had been stifled forever by the events of her seventeenth year.

      “Fill a plate,” Ed coaxed, motioning her to the small china dishes on the buffet table. “You could use a little more meat on those bird bones.”

      She grinned at him. “I’m not skinny.”

      “Yes, you are,” he replied, and he wasn’t kidding. “Come on, forget your troubles and enjoy yourself. Tonight, there is no tomorrow. Eat, drink and be merry.”

      For tomorrow, you die, came the finish to that admonishing verse, she recalled darkly. But she didn’t say it. She put some cheese straws and finger sandwiches on a plate and opted for soda water instead of a drink.

      Ed found them two chairs on the rim of the dance floor, where they could hear the band and watch the dancing.

      The band had a lovely dark-haired singer with a hauntingly beautiful voice. She was playing a guitar and singing songs from the sixties, with a rhythm that made Leslie’s heart jump. The smile on her face, the sparkle in her gray eyes as she listened to the talented performer, made her come alive.

      From across the room, Matt noted the abrupt change in Leslie. She loved music. She loved dancing, too, he could tell. His strong fingers contracted around his own plate.

      “Shall we sit with the Devores, darling?” Carolyn asked, indicating a well-dressed couple on the opposite side of the ballroom.

      “I thought we’d stick with my cousin,” he said carelessly. “He’s not used to this sort of thing.”

      “He seems very much at home,” Carolyn corrected, reluctantly following in Matt’s wake. “It’s his date who looks out of place. Good heavens, she’s tapping her toe! How gauche!”

      “Weren’t you ever twenty-three?” he asked with a bite in his voice. “Or were you born so damned sophisticated that nothing touched you?”

      She actually gasped. Matt had never spoken to her that way.

      “Excuse me,” he said gruffly, having realized his mistake. “I’m still upset by Boles.”

      “So…so I noticed,” she stammered, and almost dropped her plate. This was a Matt Caldwell she’d never seen before. His usual smile and easygoing attitude were conspicuous for their absence tonight. Boles must really have upset him!

      Matt sat down on the other side of Leslie, his eyes darkening as he saw the life abruptly drain out of her. Her body tensed. Her fingers on her plate went white.

      “Here, Carolyn, trade places with me,” Matt said suddenly, and with a forced smile. “This chair’s too low for me.”

      “I don’t think mine’s much higher, darling, but I’ll do it,” Carolyn said in a docile tone.

      Leslie relaxed. She smiled shyly at the other woman and then turned her attention back to the woman on the stage.

      “Isn’t she marvelous?” Carolyn asked. “She’s from the Yucatán.”

      “Not only talented, but pretty as well,” Ed agreed. “I love that beat.”

      “Oh, so do I,” Leslie said breathlessly, nibbling a finger sandwich but with her whole attention on the band and the singer.

      Matt found himself watching her, amused and touched by her uninhibited joy in the music. It had occurred to him that not much affected her in the office. Here, she was unsure of herself and nervous. Perhaps she even felt out of place. But when the band was playing and the vocalist was singing, she was a different person. He got a glimpse of the way she had been, perhaps, before whatever blows of fate had made her so uneasy around him. He was intrigued by her, and not solely because she wounded his ego. She was a complex person.

      Ed noticed Matt’s steady gaze on Leslie, and he wanted to drag his cousin aside and tell him the whole miserable story. Matt was curious

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