LITMIR.BIZ

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jealousy. Somehow she’d managed to cheat Heather out of any time alone with Cole during the hectic three-day stopover between singing engagements.

      Tessa was envious of the younger girl’s career, her clothes, her beauty. She took every opportunity to throw catty remarks at her—remarks that went over Cole’s head and far right of Emma’s forgiving nature. It was like being clawed to death by an invisible enemy with everyone watching. Tessa had always been Heather’s worst enemy. Now, at least, the younger girl knew how to protect herself. In the past, when Heather’s mother was alive, she’d been more vulnerable.

      Tessa had six years’ advantage on the gangly child Heather had been, and in her late teens, she was unusually sophisticated for her age, just the kind of girl to appeal to a woman like Deidre Shaw. Tessa had spent more time at Big Spur than she had in her own home, and Heather had received nothing but the leftover crumbs of her mother’s affection. When Deidre Shaw succumbed to pneumonia, it was Tessa she called for to nurse her. And at the funeral a few short weeks later, Heather felt as distant from her mother in death as she had in life.

      Two years later Emma Everett, recently widowed herself, agreed to marry Jed Shaw and take Heather under her wing. Their families had always been close because of Jed’s friendship with Big Jace Everett. With both Emma and Jed suffering the loneliness of bereavement, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for them to turn to each other. Emma and Cole were a part of Big Spur from the moment they moved in, and for the first time in her life Heather was surrounded by the warmth and affection she’d always longed for.

      Cole! A tremor swept over her slender body. She’d always thought of him as her big brother. What if he did kiss her? That thought was new, and faintly shocking, as if it were forbidden to even consider any intimacy with him. But they weren’t blood kin; they weren’t related at all, even distantly. That made her vulnerable. It meant Cole could kiss her, touch her, and there was no reason for him to restrain himself. He could even make love to her….

      Her face went scarlet. Surely her innocence would protect her—or would it? Despite the affection Cole had always felt for her, he was a man. And something she’d seen in his eyes today for the first time had convinced her that his attitude toward her had changed. Cole was the kind of man who wouldn’t accept limits. He was far too experienced to revert to adolescence for the sake of a woman, and Heather didn’t know how she was going to protect herself if he decided he wanted her.

      With a sigh, she pulled herself up straight. All she had to go on was a new look in Cole’s eyes, and she might have misread the situation entirely. Perhaps he’d only been teasing, and here she was going wild at an imagined intimacy.

      She jerked her mind back to Emma’s running commentary on the ranch, and her efforts to set up a day-care center for children of working mothers in the area. That was it, she’d only imagined Cole’s interest. But in the back of her mind, she could still hear his male voice, quiet and dangerous, awakening dormant longings deep inside her.

      Three days later, Heather was convinced that she’d imagined it all. Cole was pleasant but distant with her; there was nothing romantic in his attitude. He didn’t go out of his way to find her, but he didn’t avoid her either. He was his old self, on the surface at least, and Heather began to relax as her voice and her confidence slowly returned. But sometimes she caught his silver eyes flashing toward her, and once she met a look from them that held a strange anger, almost hatred, and the intensity of it unnerved her. What had she done to make Cole dislike her so? Perhaps, she mused, he was regretting that remark he’d made and hoping she would be adult enough not to take it seriously.

      * * *

      Tessa swept in like a conquering army the next day, all false smiles and sweetness. She was playing up to Cole as usual while Heather sat and watched with a new emptiness in her heart.

      “I was so sorry to hear about your accident.” Tessa sighed, waving a perfectly manicured hand toward Heather. “You never were much of a driver, were you, darling? I remember the day you ran Cole’s Ferrari through the corral fence.” She laughed cuttingly, her black eyes snapping at the taller woman. “What a mess! And Cole was simply furious, weren’t you, darling?” She laughed huskily, worshiping the man beside her on the couch with her eyes.

      Cole smoked his cigarette silently, and his eyes narrowed, moving deliberately over Heather’s slender body. She was wearing a silky beige pantsuit that hugged her slim curves like a caress.

      Heather looked at his brown leather boots instead of his face, and she was alarmed at her own reaction to his blatant stare. He was only doing it to needle her, she told herself. He wasn’t really interested.

      Tessa continued her monologue. “We had a lovely time in San Antonio,” she told the younger girl. “It was a Bach concert, so pleasant on the ears. Nothing like this vulgar modern stuff,” she added with distaste. “I don’t like pop music.”

      And that, Heather thought, was a nice dig. Just the right touch of backhanded courtesy. Tessa knew full well that Heather sang pops. Or had, until the accident.

      “Have you tried singing since the accident?” Tessa asked with feigned concern. “Cole told me you’re pretty nervous about how your voice will be—I guess this could mean the end of your career, couldn’t it?”

      Heather got up from her seat and left the room without a look or a backward glance. She was hurting too much to fight back, even if she’d had a voice to fight with.

      “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that, should I?” Tessa murmured, a good imitation of regret in her silky voice. “Poor little thing…”

      Heather kept right on walking.

      * * *

      She lay awake late that night, the harsh words haunting her. Would she sing again? Did she have the courage to go back to Houston and pick up the pieces of her career? Memories of the emptiness, the loneliness, the long hours of singing in dark, smoky clubs filled her mind.

      The door opened in the middle of her deep thoughts, and Cole came in, closing it behind him. He was in evening clothes, devastating in his elegant dark suit and spotless white silk shirt. His tie was off and his shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest, where bronzed skin and curling black hair made a dark wedge against the whiteness of the silk. He looked sublimely masculine, sensual, and Heather felt vulnerable in her frothy pink nightgown, even with the quilted coverlet pulled up over her waist. She had to fight to keep from pulling it up to her throat, especially when Cole’s glittering eyes narrowed on the curves of her small, high breasts exposed by its plunging neckline.

      “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked quietly.

      She swallowed hard and shook her tousled blond head.

      He paused beside the bed, his hands on his slim hips, and stared boldly down at her.

      “Nervous, honey?” he asked with amusement when she jerkily pulled up the covers.

      She flushed and glared up at him.

      He chuckled softly. “Little saint,” he chided. “I probably know more about a woman’s body than you do.”

      I don’t doubt that for a minute, she thought furiously, and knew he could read the thought in her mind.

      He reached down and touched her tousled hair tenderly. “What’s the matter?” he asked quietly. “Did Tessa upset you?”

      She chewed on her lower lip and averted her gaze. “Yes,” she said softly.

      “She doesn’t understand,” he reminded her. “Tessa never wanted a career. She’d rather work at being a woman.”

      Her eyes darted up to his curiously, searching them in the silence that followed.

      His eyes narrowed at the scrutiny. “No, I don’t sleep with her,” he said harshly.

      Her lips parted slightly as she gasped. She hadn’t been wondering about that at all.

      “And even if I did,” he added ominously, “it wouldn’t be any

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