It was easy to understand why she'd taken the relationship for more than it had been.
The pain of her disillusionment was a distant memory now, but the lesson she'd learned remained an integral part of her. She would never again confuse sex with love. She would never again base life's more important decisions on either. And she would never again get too close to the dangerous, mesmerizing fire that was Cort Dimitri.
From a few stairs below her, Tamika tossed a glance back at Laura, then halted on the small landing between flights of stairs. “Laura, are you okay?”
“Me?” She stopped beside her in surprise. “Iâ²m fine. Why?”
Concern glinted in Tamika's gaze. “I mean, with Cort being here.”
Laura felt her face warming. Had her anxiety been that obvious? Everyone would think she was holding a grudge. Or, worse yet, that she hadn't gotten over him. Good Lord, what if
he
thought that? “Of course I'm okay with Cort being here!” she exclaimed. “Why wouldn't I be?”
Tamika frowned. “Oh, I don't know.”
Laura forced a laugh and swatted her friend across the shoulder. “Don't be silly. It's nice to see him again.”
Tamika narrowed her gaze, looking doubtful. After a moment, though, she shrugged and led the way down the last turn of stairs.
Laura uttered a silent prayer of thanks that Tamika had brought her to her senses. Why had she let Cort's presence shake her? No matter how attractive he might be or what he'd meant to her in the past, he certainly posed no danger to her now. She was a strong, mature woman who was very happy in the life she'd made for herself. She'd learned how to control her own destiny; chart her own course.
Cort Dimitri posed absolutely no threat to her.
And, by God, she would prove it. Steffie had been trying for years to get Cort involved with the group again and was obviously thrilled with his visit. Laura would not throw a damper on that visit by holding herself aloof.
Perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, this was a test to see if she really had grown enough to handle the next step she planned to take in lifeâthe most important step of her entire future. If this
was
a test of her worthiness, she would pass it with flying colors.
She would extend her cordial friendship to Cort Dimitri.
If only her legs would stop shaking long enough to get her down these damn stairs.
“Be sure to have Steffie take you on a tour of the house,” Tamika was saying as they neared the bottom of the stairway. “Four bedrooms, three luxurious bathsâbigger than my
bedrooms,
you understandâa billiard room, a solarium with a hot tub that overlooks the most gorgeous mountain view....”
“I'll take you on the grand tour later, Laur,” Steffie cut in, meeting them in the great room. “We don't have time for it now. Everyone's in my office, by the computer. Rory
and B.J. have a surprise for us. They've been collaborating on this project all year.”
“Project?” Tamika said. “What kind of project?”
“A collection of old photographs that they transferred to compact disc.” Steffie ushered them past a spacious, granite-floored kitchen and other rooms that Laura barely had a chance to glimpse. “If you'll remember, B.J. was always sneaking up on us with a camera.”
Tamika groaned at the memory. “How can we forget? We never knew what stellar moments of our lives would be immortalized.”
“I believe we're about to view those stellar moments
now,
” Steffie predicted.
Laura barely gave the matter a thought. She focused her thoughts instead on the task that lay ahead of herâinteracting on a friendly, casual basis with Cort Dimitri. She would prove to everyone, including him, that she had long ago forgiven and forgotten everything that had gone on between them. As far as she was concerned, he was now just one of the gang.
Steffie gestured her into an office crammed with oak filing cabinets, bookshelves, a desk and a computer hooked up to a large television screen. Rory sat at the computer with B.J. on his lap, her arm negligently draped over his shoulder. Cort and Hossâboth tall, muscular men who took up an extraordinary amount of space in the small roomâlounged in executive leather chairs, talking football.
“Come in, come in, the show's about to start,” urged B.J. “Pull up a lap.”
Pull up a lap.
They'd said those words to each other often enough. For years the Hay Street gang had been casually sprawling across each other's laps, looping arms about each other's shoulders, celebrating in their own way the
platonic closeness they had nurtured over the years.
Pull up a lap.
Tamika draped herself across her husband. B.J. had already claimed Rory. Laura stood in dismay near the doorway.
Only one lap was left unoccupied.
Cort raised an affable gaze to Laura and Steffie, then held up his hand in a welcoming gesture, indicating his willingness to be sat upon by either of them.
“Go ahead and sit down, Laura,” Steffie urged as she squeezed by her to answer a question Rory was asking about the computer.
Laura swallowed against a suddenly dry throat Surely there had to be another chair? Or a stool. Or even a crate.
But she found nothing in the cluttered little office that she could possibly sit on. Not even floor space. “Maybe we should wait for Fletcher,” she suggested. “I'm sure he'll be here soon. He wouldn't want to miss the show.”
“He can watch it later,” B.J. replied in her gruff, decisive voice. “We made copies of the CD for everyone. Besides, most of the photos were taken before he moved in.”
Laura reluctantly digested this information, thought about the prospect of actually
sitting on Cort Dimitri's lap
and considered claiming that she preferred to stand. It
had
been a long flight. Her legs
were
somewhat cramped from sitting.
But if she were to say so, others might take her refusal to sit on his lap as a sign that she was holding a grudge against him. Or, worse yet, that she was
afraid
to sit on his lap. Afraid of the prolonged, undeniably intimate contact.
Cort's gaze lingered on her face. Beyond his pleasant nonchalance glimmered a disturbing awareness. He knew of her reluctance to sit on his lap. His gaze penetrated hers, as if searching for the reason.
“Here,” he said, rising slowly without breaking eye contact. “Take the chair. I'd just as soonâ”
“No, no, don't be silly!” Mortified for causing the awkwardness she'd sworn to avoid, Laura caught his shoulders before he'd fully risen and pressed him back down, her smile desperately friendly. “There's no need for you to stand, Cort.” She hastily withdrew her hands from his wide, solid shoulders, conscious of the thrill coursing up her arms from the brawny hardness of him. Heat lingered in her face, and she was aware that the others had cast casual glances their way. “I don't mind sitting on your lap,” Laura assured him. At a sudden thought, she added, “Oh! Unless
you
would mind. Or if Steffie would rather sit here.”
“No, no, I'll clear off a space at my desk and perch there,” Steffie announced, appearing beside her. “Park yourself, girlfriend.” Grabbing Laura by the arms, she pushed her down, down, down onto Cort's warm, hard lap. “You don't mind,” Stef asked him. “Do you, Cort?”
“Not at all.”
The polite utterance rushed against Laura's jaw with the fragrance of fine brandy. His suddenly overwhelming nearness sent frissons of sensation racing across her skin, beneath her sweater, front and back. But most distracting was the heat radiating through her from the contact with his sinewy thighs.
Forcing herself to breathe evenly, she directed her gaze toward the television screen and concentrated fiercely on controlling her heart rate.
Nonchalance. She had to strive for friendly nonchalance.
But seated as she wasâdiagonally across his lapâshe couldn't help but see his dark, rugged face only inches from hers. He seemed to be studying her.
His gaze slowly swept over her hair. Her face. Her mouth.
Irrational heat shimmered through her, and she nearly groaned. He was only
looking,
for God's sake! And yet she
felt
his gaze, like a feather-light caress. Like a shot of potent brandy, warming her all the way through.
The lights clicked off, cloaking them in yet a deeper feeling of intimacy. Rory's rock music blared from the speakers and colors flashed across the screen.
Cort-shifted his large, solid body in the chair, leaning Laura into a more comfortable position against his tautly muscled chest and shoulder.
She resisted. She didn't
want
a more comfortable position. She was already far too aware of every muscle he moved, every breath he took. Of his strong, steady heartbeat. His body heat engulfing her like a warm bath. The musky, masculine fragrance of that heat, so instrinsically familiar.
She had to calm down! She remained rigid and tense, not allowing her back to rest against him.
The show, she realized, had already begun. A slide show. She'd somehow missed the opening.
A photo of the Hays Street houseâthe shabby, threadbare Victorian manor where they'd all livedâfinally distracted her enough to engage her attention. She'd loved that house. She'd been happy there. At least, for a while.
Next came a smiling group photo of them on the front porch. The Hays Street gang, in all their youthful splendor.
Rory had added comments to the computerized slide show in a dramatic voice-over. “The start of a new era, my friends. The Year of the Cat.” The photo showed Mangy, the tabby stray they'd adopted as their own. The next showed Steffie in a sexy Halloween costume, dressed as a cat.
Rory had recorded a long, suggestive “
Mee-ee-ooww!
”
Everyone laughed. Cort, Laura noticed from the corner of her eye, smiled.
Photos flashed by of their first Halloween party, when they'd decorated the place as a haunted house with so much zest that neighbors stopped in to take pictures of it. Someone had persuaded a husky, muscle-bound Hoss to dress up in a huge diaper and baby bonnet for the party. He'd regretted it and sulked in a corner.
“Blackmail material, Coach,” Cort remarked, his voice low and wry and very close to Laura's ear.
Tamika let out a delighted squeal from beside them. “Wouldn't the team get a kick out of that?”
The next photo showed Christmastime, when Laura had badgered them all into stringing popcorn around a scraggly tree. Rory had supplied them with microwave buttered popcorn, though, which kept slipping out of their fingers.
“Hey, you can never have enough butter, I always says,” said Rory.
Laura smiled while the others volleyed teasing comments and shared hilarious anecdotes about every photo displayed: Tamika teaching B.J. how to dance; Rory catching on fire while grilling hamburgers; Cort smirking as he doused him with a garden hose.
And then came a photo that made Laura's smile wobble and her heart lurch. It was a close-up of Cort and her, entwined in an embrace on the sofa, deeply involved in a kiss His dark, large hand was splayed at the small of her back, the other entangled in her hair. Their eyes were closed and their faces flushed with passion.
“And here we have Cort and Laura once again proving the superlative bestowed upon them by lower and upper classmen alike, âThe Couple Most Likely To.”' Rory
paused in his droll commentary for an audible “Whew!,” as if he were shaking off a sweat. “Someone stop â²em. Where's that garden hose when you really need it?”
Chuckles, groans and protests rose in a chorus around her, but Laura sat in stricken silence, struggling to draw a breath past her thundering heart, which seemed to have lodged in her throat.
The screen changed to Tamika and Hoss dressed up for a dance, Steffie caught in an old nightshirt with rollers in her hair, Rory and his band rehearsing in the unfurnished dining room.
But Laura could no longer focus on the slide show. The sight of herself in Cort's arms had reminded her too vividly of what had gone on between them...and of the deep, chaotic feelings he hadn't reciprocated.
He, too, seemed suddenly subdued. Although he'd been relaxed and uttering dry witticisms that sent the others into whoops of laughter, he'd since fallen silent, his body still, his muscles clenched.
She didn't dare look at him. She couldn't bear it. How could she possibly sit through even one more photo of them together?
“And that, my friends,” Rory announced, “brings us to the action segment of our presentation.”
With a dramatic drumroll, the still photographs gave way to the lifelike sound and action of videotape.