Authors: Anne Stuart
Cathy stared after her elegant, well-dressed back until her sister disappeared into the house, the all-too-familiar waves of guilt washing over her.
“Damn it, Georgia,” she whispered, “I won’t let you do that to me anymore. It wasn’t my fault.”
“What wasn’t your fault, darling?” Travis’s slightly husky voice startled her into another polite curse. Reluctantly she turned to
face him, wondering for not the first time how someone so endowed with physical charms and financial well-being could be so unpleasant. Her brother was
just above medium height, with the same dark, wavy hair that Meg had, warm brown eyes, a beautiful nose and well-modeled lips. Unfortunately those lips
were permanently carved in a sneer, and the brown eyes frequently glittered with malice.
“None of your business, Travis,” she replied pleasantly enough.
“You should be used to your sister by now, Cathy,” Travis purred. “She still hasn’t recovered from the fact that Father
couldn’t care less whether she lived or died, and he thinks the sun rises and sets with you. Added to that the fact that you’re far lovelier
than she could ever hope to be, along with being seventeen years younger, and I think you can understand her irritable mood. She’s usually much
better when she’s warned you’re coming.”
“I’m hardly lovelier than Georgia, Travis, and if you’ve been telling her so I wish you’d stop. Everyone knows that Georgia is the
beauty of the family, and will be when she’s eighty.”
“All those people don’t know my hermitlike youngest sister,” Travis said smoothly. “What brings you down here?”
“I wanted to see how Pops was doing.”
A frown creased his brow. “Don’t you think we’re capable of taking decent care of him, Cathy? Or are you expecting—”
“Travis, I just wanted to visit with him.” Cathy interrupted him with a patience that was rapidly wearing thin. It was no wonder she avoided
this place like the plague. “How is he?”
“Up to his ears in intrigue,” Travis snapped, obviously nettled.
“By the way, who was that driving away as I arrived? In the green BMW?” she inquired casually, following him into the house toward her
father’s library, the only place he could still call his own in a house filled with visiting children.
“No one you know, little sister. Some business acquaintance of his, part of his hush-hush plan. Don’t bother asking—even you won’t
get any further with him on this one.”
“I have no intention of cross-examining him about his business. I doubt it would be all that exciting once I found out, anyway,” she replied,
stopping outside the paneled door to the library.
“Will we be seeing you at dinner, Cathy mine?”
A bitter smile lit her pale face. “Not likely. For some reason my family destroys my appetite.”
“You don’t look as if you’ve had much appetite recently, anyway,” her brother observed sweetly.
“You know what they say, darling,” she shot back. “A woman can’t be too thin or too rich.”
“And you know, from your experience with Greg Danville, that both of those things aren’t true.”
Cathy recoiled as if from a physical blow. “How do you know about Greg Danville?” she demanded hoarsely.
“You should know by now, dear Cathy, that nothing stays a secret in this family.” Travis was unmoved by the reaction he had caused.
“Does Pops know about it?”
“Who do you think told me?” he purred. “Have you forgotten that Father employs a veritable army of private investigators?”
Slowly Cathy withdrew her hand from the antique brass doorknob, noticing with absent fascination that her slender, ringless hand was trembling slightly.
“Good-bye, Travis,” she said coolly, and turning on her heel, she strode out of the house without a backward glance. Travis’s light,
malicious voice floated to her.
“What shall I tell your dear Pops?”
She paused for only a moment at the front door. “I’m certain you’ll think of something,” she replied without bothering to turn
around. A moment later she was in her car, speeding down the driveway, away from the house, away from her hateful family. And away from her insensitive,
prying, controlling father. Damn them all.
The insistent ringing of her doorbell finally penetrated Cathy’s heavy, drugged sleep. Without bothering to check her digital clock glowing
malevolently in the darkened bedroom, she buried her head under the feather pillow with a groan. Still the buzz of the doorbell intruded. She pressed the
pillow closer over her head, swearing beneath her breath.
Someone was leaning on the doorbell now, the shrill noise penetrating the pillow, Cathy’s hands, and her aching head with a sadistic vengeance. With
a groan she threw the pillow across the room and struggled out of bed, moving in a fogged stupor toward the front door.
It had been four in the morning before she had slept. The thought of her father’s betrayal had been the crudest blow of all, with her siblings’
customary malice a mere frosting on the cake. From the moment she arrived back in her apartment, just after dark, the phone had begun to ring, and ring,
and ring, until she took it off the hook in desperation. For the first time in her life she wished she hadn’t been so adamant in turning down the
sleeping pills and tranquilizers her family practitioner had offered her. After all, every-one else took them, why shouldn’t she? If she only had
some, maybe she’d be able to sleep. Or at least stay awake calmly.
Even her most faithful friend, the television set, had failed her in her moment of need. The only thing on late night TV had been a turgid romance, far too
well suited to her morose mood. The only alcohol in the house had been the imported German brew. It had taken two and a half beers to make her pleasantly
tipsy, tipsy enough so that when she scrambled into her now customary sleeping apparel of shorty pajamas and Sin’s Irish sweater, she fell asleep
with only a few maudlin tears. To dream once more of Greg Danville, his blue eyes narrowed in rage as he stalked her, until she woke up with a muffled
scream of terror in the predawn light.
It had taken another hour for her to sleep again. For two weeks Greg had been absent from her dreams, only to turn up now, when she least needed him. She
had hugged her sweating body tightly, willing the panic to subside. She was safe, the door was locked, there was no way he could get to her.
The buzzer was still ringing in her head as she stumbled across the darkened living room, tripping over the pillows she had thrown, knocking over the
stale, half-empty beer bottle in front of the television. Reaching the door with its damnable buzzer, she pounded furiously against the thick paneling.
“Shut up, damn you!” she shrieked. “I’ll open the blasted door if you just give me a moment.”
The buzzing stopped, leaving a silence even more deafening in her pounding head. Peering through the peephole, all she could see was a broad chest. She
knew only one man that tall. She didn’t even hesitate. With fumbling fingers she undid the three locks and flung open the door into the hallway. And
there, leaning against the door-jamb, lounged Sin MacDonald, looking, if that was possible, even more overpoweringly handsome than he had two weeks ago.
The faded denims encased his long, long legs, though this time he wore old cowboy boots in place of the sneakers. His lean, powerful torso was shown to
advantage by a chambray western shirt, and the green sweater he had worn as a sop to the chilly weather brought out his hazel eyes. On his lean, tanned
face was a tolerant half-smile, in one hand he twirled her missing sunglasses.
Cathy stood there, staring, her mouth agape, unaware of how completely appealing she looked, her silver-blond hair tousled around a sleep-smudged face, the
long legs bare beneath the enveloping sweater. At the sight of her his smile broadened, and he stood upright and strolled past her into the apartment, for
all the world as if he belonged there, she thought wrathfully.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying my sweater,” he said mildly enough. “Isn’t it pretty scratchy to sleep in, though? Or are you
wearing something underneath it?”
Color flooded her face as she realized just how little she was wearing. She stood there, torn as to whether to order him from the house, or dash to the
bedroom to put on something a bit more enveloping. Sin must have had the uncanny ability to read her mind, for he walked back past her dumbstruck body,
closed the door, and turned to her, that lazy smile still playing about his mouth but not quite reaching the eyes.
“Don’t you think you’d better put something else on?” he inquired gently. “Not that you don’t look absolutely lovely,
but the sight of all that delicious female flesh is a bit unsettling for a red-blooded American male.”
“I—I—” She gave it up and fled to her bedroom, banging the door shut behind her.
She was in no hurry to put in an appearance after her embarrassing encounter. The clock by her bed read the unbelievable hour of 2:00 P.M., and she had
obviously still been in bed. How did he know she was alone? She should have pretended there was someone waiting for her in the bedroom, someone who kept
her in bed the better part of the day. Maybe that would wipe that amused smile off his face, she thought viciously, ripping off her clothes and turning on
the shower, full blast. Maybe she could still pretend there was someone in here—after all, he was hardly likely to-
She had underestimated him. She had barely put her head under the heavy stream when his voice came horrendously close. “Do you like your coffee
black?” he inquired casually.
Cathy let out a shriek of outrage as she saw his tall, strong figure through the rising steam of the shower. “Get out!”
“Do you like your coffee black?” he repeated, obviously unmoved by her outrage.
“Leave this room!”
“Not until you tell me how you like your coffee,” he said easily, leaning against the sink, his eyes hooded in the hot steam. Cathy knew
perfectly well the smoky glass of the shower made an adequate protection for those knowing hazel eyes, but at that point she wouldn’t have put it
past him to open the shower door to get her attention.
“I like it black and in private,” she ground out.
He straightened to his full height, a good twelve inches over the top of the shower enclosure. She could see him towering over her, like Godzilla over a
Japanese village, she thought furiously.
“Would you like me to wash your back?” he inquired sweetly. She took the wet washcloth and flung it over the door, watching it land with a
satisfyingly wet smack full in his face.
There was an ominous silence, with nothing but the sound of the shower in the small bathroom. Sin dropped the washcloth back over the shower stall, wiped
his streaming face on the thick blue towel she’d left out, and let himself out of the bathroom without another word. As Cathy quickly finished her
shower, she tried to rid herself of the ridiculous feeling of guilt that Sin’s silent exit had instilled in her. Perhaps she should have laughed it
off, invited him to join her in the shower. After all, it wasn’t as if she was still an innocent.
She dressed quickly in jeans and an oversized shirt before padding into the living room on bare feet. The room was transformed. Sin had pulled the drapes,
picked up her spilled beer and the pillows and articles of clothing that she’d tossed about in a rage, and was now sitting on the sofa, his boot-clad
feet up on the coffee table, casually drinking his coffee. Another cup was on the table in front of him, obviously meant for her. Cathy could see faint
traces of water in his thick brown hair, but the hazel eyes that looked up at her were lacking anything other than polite interest.
“I decided you’d rather have your coffee out here than have me bring it to you,” he said, his slow voice warming her. “I’ve
already had one shower today.”
With what grace she could muster she entered the room, picked up the coffee, and took a seat as far away from him as possible. “I have a
temper,” she allowed, taking a sip of the coffee.
“Apology accepted,” he replied.
“There was none offered!” she snapped.
“No? That’s what it sounded like,” he said, unmoved by her wrath. “Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”
“You tried to call me?” she questioned, her feelings warming somewhat. Maybe it hadn’t been his fault that two weeks had gone by without
a word.
“All last night and this morning,” he confirmed, ruining her temporary mellowing.
“I didn’t feel like talking to anyone,” she replied coldly, taking another sip of coffee. It was extraordinarily good coffee; thick and
black and strong, and she found herself leaning back in her chair.
“I gathered as much. I was hoping I could persuade you to have dinner with me tonight.”
“I don’t think-”
He overrode her objections. “We’re leaving for St. Alphonse in a matter of days, with you and Meg following a week later. I thought it would be
a good idea if I filled you in on the details. Where we’ll be staying, what we’ll be doing, what sort of stuff you’ll need to
bring.”
“I’ve been to the Caribbean before,” she said haughtily. “Besides, Meg could tell me all that.”
“Meg and Charles have gone to visit his parents in Connecticut. Come on, Cathy, don’t be difficult. There’s no reason why we can’t
be friends.”
Yes, there is, she thought silently, taking in the long, lean beauty of him. “Of course we can be friends,” she said abruptly.
“It’s just...”
“You don’t have anything planned, do you?” As she shook her head he rose to his full height. “Well, then, that’s settled.
I’ll be back here around seven. Have you ever eaten at Champetre?”
Politeness forced her to rise and follow him to the door, politeness she wished she’d ignored as he towered over her, dwarfing her slender height. He
was so close she could feel the heat emanating from his body, smell the faint, male smell of him, his bittersweet aftershave that had clung to the sweater.
Keeping her face averted, she opened the door for him. One strong hand reached out and caught her willful chin, forcing her rebellious green eyes upward to
meet his rueful hazel ones.