LITMIR.BIZ

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words struck sweetly for a few seconds, but then turned bitter. What would have happened if she’d accepted his crazy proposal months ago? She wasn’t clearheaded enough to catalog all the horrors and disasters she might have been spared, but she knew if she’d married him then, at least the loss of her fortune wouldn’t have caused a fraction of the shame she was in for now. At least she wouldn’t be six days away from homelessness.

      “Oh, why?” It came out sounding forlorn because it was the start of the questions that were suddenly revolving in her mind: Oh, why didn’t I marry you? And, Oh, why was I such a fool?

      “I had to see if things had changed for you.”

      His words made her heart give a sickening lurch and her head was suddenly heavy. She let her chin go down and her gaze fixed on the snowy white between the facings of his jacket. Her eyes were stinging and she bit her lips together to hold back the emotion that was coming up like sea swells.

      He went on speaking as if he hadn’t noticed her reaction.

      “I thought I might spend a few days, take you out, see what you think now. Unless your answer is still no.”

      Stacey realized she’d placed her hands on his chest and that they’d slowly stopped dancing. It felt for all the world as if they were still moving, because the room was moving.

      “I think I’m not feeling well,” she got out. She couldn’t get her brain to come up with anything else. Mostly because it was the truth, but partly because she should have told him “no.” No, I haven’t changed my mind, or No, because I’m no better suited to a life with you than I was before.

      Either would have let him off the hook. It would have been kinder to disappoint him for the second time now, rather than later. But she’d felt too desperate for some kind of reprieve or deliverance for too long to automatically reject this potential lifeline.

      That was the moment, despite all the fuzziness from the wine, that she began to feel guilty. Her guilt wasn’t immediately acute, but it promised to be. Particularly since some survival instinct had kicked in and she suddenly realized that she might agree to almost anything to be spared financial disgrace.

      The cowboy had said he was rich. That he had a big ranch and oil wells, plenty to keep her in jewels and designer duds…

      Oh God, she remembered suddenly that he’d said that. He’d called them “duds.” That had touched her then, and the memory touched her now. Touched her so much that she wanted to cry over the artless simplicity of a big, rough, macho man who’d seemed to be sincerely smitten and had made such a sweet, homespun offer to provide whatever it took to make her happy and choose him.

      Jewels and designer duds…as if he was offering his best to a woman he revered like a queen, but a woman who was so far above him socially that he’d never understand that a pretentious snob like her wouldn’t be caught dead in a dud of any kind. Or married to a cowboy.

      She couldn’t seem to keep from remembering that he’d treated her delicately and deferentially, as if she was worthy of respect and pampering and perhaps even worship. She hadn’t deserved a speck of those things from him then, and she certainly didn’t now. He was too good-hearted and sincere for her, too sweet and artless. He was too honorable and too deserving of better than to be stuck with a useless ninny like her.

      As tempting—sorely tempting—as it was to grab for this lifeline and let him think she might change her mind about accepting his marriage proposal, Stacey realized she hadn’t sunk quite low enough to do that to him. She couldn’t use an honestly decent man like him to save her own skin. She’d be the lowest of the low if she did that. Particularly now, when she had even less to offer him in return.

      “Oh, Oren, I’m s-sor…” The room had taken a hard turn that time. Her choked, “Not feeling weell,” was little more than a jerky whisper, but he heard it as if she’d spoken in his ear.

      The room continued to spin dangerously and she found herself clinging to him and pressed against his side as he led her along the edge of the crowd. Her knees barely held her up, but his strong hand at her waist kept her anchored safely to him, so no one paid much attention. At least, she didn’t think they had.

      They’d just reached the relative quiet of the foyer when he stopped. “Are you gonna be sick?”

      It took her several moments to decide, but her belated, “No,” was belated enough that he’d already ushered her into the private elevator by the time she got it out.

      The moment the doors closed, he had her in his arms. He spared a moment to take her tiny evening bag off her wrist and tuck it in his cummerbund, but then his arms went back around her and she was pressed comfortably against him.

      “Am I gonna have to carry you, or can you make it to a cab?”

      Stacey leaned her cheek against his hard, warm chest because her eyelids were amazingly heavy. She was distantly aware when the elevator stopped, and that she remained on her feet only because he turned so she could cling to his waist. He held her up enough to foster the illusion that she was able to walk under her own power.

      She wasn’t particularly drunk but she was dizzy and sleepy and slow, yet even so, she didn’t want to be carried out. She didn’t want everyone’s last sight of Stacey Amhearst to be of her being carried out of a building because she’d had too much to drink. It was bad enough that they’d find out in a few more days that she was almost penniless.

      At least leaving the party with a tall, rugged stranger would be a plus in their eyes. Until they found out where he was from and what he did for a living.

      The warm city night cleared her head a little. McClain led her along the row of cabs waiting at the curb. She was becoming steadier with each step, but when they reached the cab at the head of the line, they walked on past.

      Stacey searched ahead for some other cab he must have been aiming for, but there were no other vehicles in the line, so then she looked for a limousine. After several more steps it dawned on her that there were no limos ahead either. She slowed, perplexed.

      “Where are we going?”

      “The walk’ll be good for you,” he said, and she glanced up at him, dismayed.

      “But it’s six blocks. And it must be after midnight.”

      “It’s a nice night.”

      His naiveté was a shock. “We could be mugged.”

      Now he smiled a little, blatant evidence that he was far too macho to give a thought to the perils of big city crime. And maybe he was right. McClain was a big man, and he looked rugged and harsh, the quintessential tough-guy, even in an elegant tuxedo. And there was a “don’t mess with me” aura about him that most muggers would choose to pass up. There were easier targets.

      “But it’s six blocks,” she reminded him, then felt heat flash into her cheeks. She’d sounded whiney and a little put upon, and she had just enough sense left to be a little ashamed of that in front of a man like him.

      It’s what she would have said to anyone else and not thought a thing about it, but she’d said it to Oren McClain. A man whose fit, work-hardened body would see a paltry six blocks as laughably light exercise.

      “You outta walk off some of that wine,” he said gruffly. She heard the hint of disapproval and was embarrassed that she’d been drinking like a fish. He’d caught her at a bad time, and what pride had survived everything else was under sound assault.

      “Maybe you’re right,” she said, then submitted as he again slid his arm around her waist. Her arm went hesitantly around his, and they started. Hopefully, the effects of the wine would numb a little of the ache of walking six blocks on concrete in her heels.

      They’d only gone two blocks before her head cleared more and her feet began to hurt enough that she reconsidered her pride in favor of trying to hail a taxi. But because she wanted to behave well while McClain was still around to witness it, she refrained from complaining. Or begging.

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