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  She smiled. “That sounds very nice.”

  He winked. “I’ll see you in the morning, honey.”

  She nodded, smiled again, and closed the door.

  * * *

  BLAIR LOOKED UP expectantly as Todd came back into the dining room. He wasn’t really surprised that Niki didn’t come with him.

  “Headache,” Todd said easily, sitting down. “She has a few issues at the office with...” he said, cutting off the remark he’d almost let slip. “Some of the equipment is new to her, that’s all,” he added.

  “I see.”

  Edna started bringing in food, and the men fell into a discussion of new oil exploration venues.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  NIKI DRESSED FOR work before she went downstairs to breakfast. She’d expected that Blair would be long gone. But he was sitting at the table with a cup of black coffee; her father was nowhere in sight.

  She stopped in the doorway, steeling herself not to do anything stupid.

  “Good morning,” she said formally.

  He looked up. His face was heavily lined. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked as if he hadn’t had a minute’s sleep. He drew in a breath.

  “My pilot got a late start,” he said.

  “I see. Well, have a good trip home.”

  “You’re leaving without breakfast?” he asked curtly.

  “I never eat breakfast,” she lied. “Well, not anymore, at least. I get coffee at the office.”

  He didn’t answer her. He just sipped coffee.

  She stuck her head in the kitchen. “Edna, I’ll see you tonight.”

  “You be careful out there,” Edna fussed. “Lots of pollen.”

  “It’s spring,” Niki said with a faint grin.

  She started toward the front door, pausing just to grab her purse and lightweight sweater from the rack in the corner.

  Blair was behind her. She could feel the heat of his big body.

  She couldn’t bear to look at him. She opened the door and went out.

  He followed, closing the door behind him.

  She stopped and turned, resigned, miserable. She couldn’t force her eyes any higher than his paisley tie. “Was there something else?”

  His hands, in his pockets, were clenched. “Yes. I wanted to make a point. What you feel is infatuation, Niki. It’s flattering. But it isn’t real.”

  Her fingers curled into the soft leather of her purse. She knew her cheeks were flaming red. She couldn’t find the words to rebut him.

  His jaw tautened. “For God’s sake, don’t make some great romantic interlude out of a few hot kisses! It was just lust, if you want to label it. Lust! It’s demeaning to try to construe it into romance.”

  Demeaning. She could feel the blood draining out of her face. Demeaning. The sweetest few minutes of her life. Demeaning.

  “Damn naive women!” he ground out. “Damn juvenile infatuation. And damn you for playing me like a trout, with come-hither bathing suits and Elise’s tactics!”

  That shocked her into meeting his eyes. “Elise’s...?”

  “Didn’t you realize?” he asked sarcastically. “She got me so hot I didn’t know my name and then drew back, every damned time. She left me doubled over, hurting like a teenage boy. Eventually, I married her just to satisfy the hunger.”

  She didn’t know what to say.

  His black eyes narrowed. “Janet said that you planned to use the same tactics on me,” he added coldly, “to force me into marriage. Nice try. But it won’t work. I’ve taken the cure.”

  Nice one, Janet, Niki thought furiously. It had been Janet’s tactic, but she was blaming it on Niki. Afraid of the competition, maybe, and that was a joke.

  She lifted her chin and stared him down. Her heart was breaking, but he’d never know.

  “I’m meeting Janet in New York later in the week,” he said. “I should have had better sense when I was younger. She’s twice the woman Elise ever was.”

  At least Janet was going to come out on top. The backstabbing turncoat.

  “Well, at least if anyone ever attacks you, Janet can Tae Kwon Do them for you,” she said with a vacant smile.

  His face tautened to steel.

  She turned while he was absorbing that final blow and headed toward her car. The driveway was a little blurry as she pulled out, but she smiled in Blair’s general direction and even waved.

  * * *

  DAN BRADY WAS concerned about Niki when they had coffee together at break time.

  “You’re not yourself today,” he said.

  “I had a really bad night,” she replied. “On top of a really bad trip to Cancun. I’m glad to be home.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Coleman went with you and your father, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. He was meeting an old flame there in the hotel, during the trade talks. She’s very nice,” she said, lying through her teeth. “Apparently, they were almost engaged some years back. She’s still crazy about him.”

  “I see.”

  His expression was unguarded, and she laughed. “Surely you don’t think I have a secret yearning for him?” she teased. “My gosh, he’s almost forty years old!”

  The last worry Dan had left his handsome face. He grinned. “No, of course that’s not what I thought!”

  Now they were both lying. But she just smiled and changed the subject.

  * * *

  BLAIR WAS FINISHING his second whiskey highball on the corporate jet. He hadn’t said a single word to the crew or the flight attendant. He refused food, buried himself in his computer and put Niki in the back of his mind.

  He hadn’t meant to hurt her. But it had been necessary. He couldn’t let her sink into a relationship with him, give up hopes of a young and energetic husband who could give her a home and children.

  He was more suited to brief affairs. After Elise, he was certain that he could never stomach the thought of marriage again. Certainly not with Niki.

  She’d turn to that young man at work, the one Jacobs had told him about. Dan Brady. The health nut. His teeth clenched. Well, he and Niki seemed to get along very well, and the man was young and intelligent and ambitious. It would be a good match.

  He stared at the laptop screen without really seeing it. He was reliving those last few painful minutes with Niki, lying to her about what he’d felt, taunting her for being infatuated with him, for trying Elise’s seductive tactics on him. Infatuation. That was all it was. Of course. She was far too young to feel anything permanent for a man. He’d introduced her to passion and now she was curious.

  He flushed, remembering how it had felt to have her in his arms, to feel her mouth so hungry and eager under his own. He’d wanted her so desperately that he’d have done anything to get her.

  Janet had warned him that she might try that trick. She’d been bragging about it on the beach, she’d said at the dinner she’d shared with him and Todd in Cancun. According to Janet, Niki had told Janet that she wanted Blair and she could get him. It would be easy because he was older and already drawn to her physically. It would be fun to make a man like that, a worldly, sophisticated man, fall at her feet. It would amuse her to try. He was vulnerable, and she wanted to see how fast she could make him fall for her.

  Odd, it didn’t really sound like Niki. She was shy and withdrawn with most people. Even with him, at first. But the more he thought about it, the more he believed it. She’d bought the bathing suit on purpose, to tempt him. She’d as much as admitted it.

  He hated the way he behaved when she was close to him. He hated being vulnerable. Niki was fickle, like all young women. She was only testing her feminine powers, and he was handy. Probably she hadn’t thought that Janet would tell him what she’d said.

  He grieved for the way thi
ngs had been with Niki. For almost two years, she’d been his confidante, his friend, comforting him, nurturing him, making him laugh. In so many ways, she’d helped make up for the hell Elise had made of his life.

  And what had he given her in return? Shame, for responding to his ardor, for wanting him, for caring about him.

  He emptied the whiskey glass and groaned inwardly. That beautiful bathing suit, in the trash where she’d thrown it because he’d made her ashamed of wearing it for him. She was untried, innocent, kind, and he’d lacerated her emotions, her pride.

  He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anyone in his life. He wanted to take care of her, cherish her, have children with her, comfort her...

  He laughed to himself. Janet had said that Niki wanted to tempt him into marriage. But he knew that wasn’t Niki. She was too honest. He’d known that, at some level. He’d used Janet’s insinuations to justify pushing Niki away before she got any closer, before he caved in to his own need and pushed hers aside.

  She needed a kind, gentle young man who’d love her and make her happy. Blair was going to make sure she had the chance to find one, by removing himself from the equation. She’d been hiding from the world, from men, by clinging to Blair. But that had blinded her to their differences. They had no chance of happiness together. He hoped he’d made her see that.

  He thought about the health nut that she was having meals with, and his heart ached. He was a hard worker, Jacobs had said, curious at the questions Blair had asked about the employee. It was for Niki’s father, he’d lied. Todd had been concerned about some things Brady had said to her.

  Jacobs had confessed that Brady was aggressive with both him and Niki about the ability of herbs and exercise and diet to cure any disease.

  If only life were that simple, Blair thought angrily. He just hoped that Niki wouldn’t rush into a relationship just to make Blair think she wasn’t missing him. Of course, how could she miss him, after the things he’d said to her? He wished he could take back some of the things he’d said, especially what he’d told her about their interludes being nothing but lustful and demeaning. He’d seen the pain in her young face. But he’d told her he’d be seeing Janet, and he might have to do that for just a little while, just to make her believe he was turning away.

  Janet. He laughed to himself. She was a self-contained, ambitious woman who loved the high life and would do almost anything to land herself a millionaire. It had been that way years ago. He’d known it even before his mother had come to her senses and realized that Janet was less desirable as a daughter-in-law than she’d first thought.

  But he could handle Janet. He didn’t love her, but she would make a good cover for him while he tried to get over slicing and dicing Niki’s poor heart. He’d make sure Janet had some diamonds to comfort her when he broke it off.

  That brought back the unwanted memory of Niki’s utter delight with a rawhide and deer antler bracelet. He lifted his empty glass and had the flight attendant bring him another drink.

  * * *

  TWO WEEKS LATER he was almost crazy as he tried to adjust to a life that didn’t contain Niki in it. He’d phoned her often just to talk. He’d sent her text messages. There had been constant contact.

  Now there was nothing. It was more painful than he’d dreamed it would be. All he had was the memory of her in his arms, holding him, wanting him. He knew her now as he hadn’t before, knew the surge of joy it gave him to feel her soft mouth opening under the crush of his lips, to feel her body lifting, pleading, for his arms to hold her even closer.

  His good intentions were making him miserable. He groaned out loud as he recalled that sweet interlude in the rental car with her. Niki in his arms, dying for him. Then he’d pushed her away and told her it was only lust.

  He’d taken Janet out a time or two, but she’d realized that he was only doing it for show. In fact, he deliberately maneuvered her in front of a tabloid photographer and put an arm around her.

  Janet still had hopes that she could hold his interest. She felt a twinge of regret at the lie she’d told about Niki planning to trap him, and she was fairly certain that he felt more than he’d admit for Niki. She held on doggedly, phoning him when she didn’t hear from him, leaving him text messages, pursuing him as hard as she could. He responded, but only in a pleasant way. He felt nothing for her. He never had. She’d been someone to eat with occasionally, an ear to listen, nothing more than that. He hadn’t even slept with her. Perhaps, he thought, that was why she couldn’t give him up. She was trying to recapture the past. She was, after all, still a struggling filmmaker, and he was filthy rich.

  He’d bought her a dinner ring at their last meeting, just a trinket to make her happy. But while she enthused over the most expensive one in the jewelry case, he remembered again Niki rapt with joy over a rawhide bracelet with a medallion made of deer antler. The comparison was actually painful.

  * * *

  NIKI’S BIRTHDAY CAME, and he couldn’t consider ignoring it, despite all the pain he’d caused her. He sent her a huge bouquet of roses in all sorts of colors, laced with orchids. He enclosed a card, just greetings and his name.

  He phoned Edna a few days later to see if the bouquet had arrived, because he hadn’t gotten even a text message of thanks. He hadn’t expected one. The tabloid had hit the stands the same day he sent the bouquet, with a caption noting Blair’s attentions to the up-and-coming filmmaker from his past.

  “Oh, hello, Mr. Coleman,” Edna said pleasantly. “Mr. Ashton isn’t here right now...”

  “She gave the flowers to the church, and tore the card into a dozen pieces and threw it into the trash, didn’t she?” he asked with a sigh of resignation.

  Edna was too shocked even to reply. Just before the bouquet arrived, Niki had tossed the tabloid onto the kitchen counter and pointed out that Blair was making sure Niki knew he was off-limits for good.

  He laughed softly, but it had a hollow sound. “I thought as much.”

  “She said you’d posed for that picture in the magazine on purpose,” she blurted out.

  He hesitated. “I suppose Niki and I know each other very well, don’t we, Edna?”

  “I suppose you do,” she confessed.

  “I hope it was a happy birthday for her, just the same.”

  “Her father took her to a movie,” she told him.

  He was relieved. At least she wasn’t going out with other men. Which shouldn’t have made him feel so smug.

  “And that Mr. Brady at work took her out to a club in Billings to celebrate her birthday,” she added a few seconds later.

  Thunderclouds rolled over him. He felt the words like a knife in his heart.

  “He told me she needs to do her own housework, and that me and Mr. Ashton need to stop pampering her,” she said icily. “What a piece of work that young man is!”

  He held on to his temper. Barely. “It’s her life, Edna.”

  “Some life she’ll have with him,” she replied quietly. “Well, it’s none of my business.”

  “Nor mine. Tell Todd I called.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He hung up. He had no right to interfere. But Niki was making a mistake. The younger man would bring her nothing except heartache. Then he recalled that he’d pushed her into Brady’s arms, and put the phone down.

  He got on a plane for Frankfurt and didn’t remember the plane ride there. He’d never been so miserable in his whole life.

  * * *

  NIKI HAD ACCEPTED the hiking invitation from Dan Brady with reservations.

  “We’re not going to gallop along in a race, Niki,” Dan laughed as she checked her shoelaces at the beginning of the hiking trail. “And we all have cell phones. We won’t abandon you to die on the side of the road!”

  She made a face at him.

  “All rig
ht, everyone, make sure you have plenty of bottled water, and let’s not get separated on the path. Look out for snakes.”

  It wasn’t snakes that Niki was worried about. It was something more. Something that she’d only just learned.

  “You’re very quiet,” Dan commented.

  She managed a wan smile. “Didn’t sleep much last night,” she said.

  “Oh, you should try herbal tea,” Dan told her. “Chamomile, with just a drop of honey, before bedtime. It works like a charm!”

  It wouldn’t work if they’d found a spot on his lung X-ray, she thought bitterly. Especially with her family history. Her mother’s cancer had started just like that. A spot on her lung on an X-ray. Two years later, gasping and cyanotic, lying on the couch with only twenty percent lung capacity, just trying to suck in enough air to breathe, her mother’s heart had finally given out.

  Niki had been there. She’d seen it. Her father had tried to kill himself afterward. It had been Edna and one of the older cowboys who’d found him in time and stopped him. Todd had watched his beloved wife go through surgery, followed by treatment, only to have the spot return four months later and the process start all over again. Twice they’d operated. Twice they’d assured him that they got it all, that she’d be fine. And the third time it had spread to both lungs and they’d abandoned hope.

  She knew what it was like to have lung cancer. Despite Doctor Fred’s assertions that it might not be anything to worry about, that a CT scan could easily rule out cancer, Niki wouldn’t be moved. She knew what would happen if it was cancer.

  All her life, she’d dreamed of having a child of her own. She browsed baby boutiques. She loved holidays because the ranch hands would bring their children up to the big house for all the celebrations.

  Now there would be no children. She’d thought, once, that Blair might turn to her after his divorce. She knew he wanted a child, too. She’d hoped that he might want one with her. But that dream was dead. Dead, like the future, like Niki’s future.

  She would never hold her child in her arms. She would never have a husband, a home, a life beyond what she had right now.