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  Flushing, embarrassed, she turned her attention to the coffee pot and began to fill the cups with streaming black liquid. Why had she done that, why had she attacked the other woman’s existence with such venom? She didn’t know the answer herself.

  “Who told you about her?” he asked tautly, his voice slicing like a razor in its controlled quietness.

  She shook her head. “Something I…overheard. It’s none of my business, I’m sorry….”

  “You’re always sorry,” he growled from just behind her. “Not that you made some damned childish remark like that, just that it fired my temper.”

  She kept her eyes on the steam rising from the full cups, and her fingers touched the tray lightly. “Randall’s home,” she said, trying to divert him.

  “And you sent Mattie home early. Little Saint Joan, out to save the whole damned world!” he taunted.

  Tears pricked at her eyes at the harsh, bitter whip in his deep voice. “Please don’t,” she whispered unsteadily.

  His big hands shot out, catching her roughly around the waist with such deliberate pressure that she flinched. “Don’t what?” he growled at her ear. He was so unnervingly close that she could feel his breath on her cheek. “My God, I’ve fought this until my nerves are raw, do you know that? I saw you sitting there so proud and defiant at the supper table, until you looked up into my eyes, and then I could see the melting start, I could feel the pain. Don’t you think I know how much I hurt you? I did it deliberately, I had to…Oh, God, Tish, I want you the way I want air to breathe…turn around!”

  He whipped her up against his hard body as his mouth found hers in one smooth, perfect motion. The hard, smoky warmth of his kiss drugged her and the close contact of their bodies and the strength of the big, powerful arms that held her, caused her senses to swim. He forced her stunned, bruised lips apart with a gruff murmur. His hand, tangling in her long hair, pulled her head back against his shoulder while he tasted her mouth slowly, roughly, hungrily….

  “Poison,” he whispered against her lips, “damn you, like poison in my bloodstream until I can’t breathe! Eyes like November rain, and I see them in my sleep….” He nipped at her mouth, soft, smoky, biting kisses that made her moan in token protest as he tormented her. He drew back to look into her misty eyes. “My God, I could make you give me anything I wanted, and I’m not even trying. Madness, all of it, almost fourteen years between us and you’ll never catch up. No, don’t talk,” he said when she tried to speak, to ask him what he was saying because her mind was too cloudy to comprehend. “Don’t say anything, just stand still and let me taste that sweet, soft mouth. Kiss me, sweet…kiss me.”

  She obeyed him blindly, her arms reaching up under his jacket and around his waist, her blood surging at the closeness, her breath gasping as it mingled with his, her mouth hurting from his ardor.

  The floor seemed to drop out from under her, and she realized suddenly that it had. He was holding her clear off the floor in his hard arms, carrying her.

  “W…where?” she managed in a shaky whisper.

  “My God, where do you think?” he growled huskily, heading straight for the back stairs.

  “No,” she protested weakly. “Oh, Russ, no…” she murmured just as another voice merged with hers.

  “Tish, where are you?” Eileen came in the door laughing, and suddenly froze at the sight that met her widening, unbelieving eyes. Tish’s legs felt like rubber as Russell set her back down, and she could only imagine how she looked with her mouth swollen, her hair tangled by Russell’s hard fingers, her whole look wild and frightened…

  “I…uh…that is…” Eileen stumbled as curiosity turned to puzzled certainty in her round face. “Have you…seen Frank?” she added weakly, with a smile that trembled.

  “Where are you, Tish?” Belle called in a honeyed voice.

  “Uh…Grand Central, isn’t it?” Eileen cleared her throat and made a beeline for the door, intercepting Belle before she could get to it. “Hi, Belle, she’s outside, I’ll show you,” she said gaily and half dragged the woman away.

  “Tish…” Russell began, his deep voice edged with regret.

  “It’s…it’s all right,” she whispered, avoiding his dark, steady gaze. “I didn’t mean to push you…”

  “You didn’t do anything. I did,” he replied. “Eileen’s not blind, little one,” he added softly. “I bruised your mouth enough so that it shows, and it was obvious even to a novice that it wasn’t one affectionate kiss we were sharing.”

  “Haven’t you shamed me enough?” she whispered shakenly.

  “There was nothing shameful in it,” he told her, pausing to light a cigarette. “There wouldn’t have been anything shameful if I’d made it up those stairs with you, for all that you knew I was taking you to my bedroom. In fact,” he said as he lit the cigarette, “that’s precisely where I was taking you. But not,” he added, meeting her shocked eyes levelly, “for the reason you thought.”

  “I don’t want to know!”

  “Why not?”

  She flushed, lowering her eyes. “I can’t…handle that kind of relationship, not with any man, but especially not with you. It’s too new…Russell, it’s…it’s…Oh, God, you scare me to death!” she whispered tearfully, her emotions raw and uncertain and lacerated. “You make me feel things I never knew I could feel, you…”

  “Say it!” he shot at her.

  “All right, all right! I can’t…I can’t…it’s comfortable with Frank, it’s easy…but you burn me alive! I’m afraid of you, Russell!”

  “Good God, what is there to be afraid of?” he asked shortly.

  But she couldn’t answer him. Trembling, burning with frustration and embarrassment, she turned away. Myself, she wanted to tell him. I’m afraid that I’ll offer you everything I have, and that you’ll take it.

  “It’s Lisa, isn’t it, Tish?” he asked tightly. His voice was deep and slow and harsh in the silence of the spacious kitchen. “You can’t cope with it, can you?”

  To her shame, she hadn’t even thought about his mysterious woman until now. Those burning minutes in his arms had brought a magic that drowned out the world. Now she remembered, and her eyes closed, as she realized miserably what he was telling her; that Lisa was a part of his life he wouldn’t give up.

  “No, Russell,” she said, keeping her eyes on the counter as she went back to pick up the tray. “I’ll never be able to cope with it. And you…you wouldn’t give her up…”

  “No way, honey,” he said curtly. “Not even for you. And that says it all, doesn’t it? So we’ll forget what just happened.”

  She nodded. Somewhere the sound of laughter came filtering through the walls, but she wanted only to cry. Her mouth hurt from his powerful kisses; her body hurt where it had been bruised against the hardness of his, where his fingers had bit into her waist. But that was nothing compared to the pain in her heart. Rejection was one thing, but to have that…that tramp mean so much to him that he couldn’t give her up…to ask her to share him with Lisa…She hated him. Hated him! She turned around to tell him so, but the room was empty.

  Eileen came through the door just as she was wondering what to do about her ravaged appearance.

  “I, uh, brought you a comb and lipstick from your purse,” the younger girl said, mildly embarrassed. “I didn’t think you’d want to go back out there until you…regrouped.”

  Tish managed a shaky smile as she took the items from the girl’s outstretched hand. “Thanks, Lena. Where…where are they?”

  “You mean, where’s he gone. That’s anyone’s guess,” she said, reading the question in Tish’s darkened eyes. “He took off down the driveway like a bat out of you-know-where, without a word to any of us. I left our guests in the living room frowning. Better hurry, Frank looks pretty suspicious.”

  “Suspicious about what?” Tish asked innocently as she ran the comb through her tangled hair.

  “About why you and Russell stayed gone for so long and why Russel
l came out looking like a madman. Gosh, Tish,” she admitted hesitantly, “I didn’t know what to do when I walked in….”

  Tish managed a smile at that confession. “Thank you for distracting Belle. I think I’d have gone through the floor if it had been her instead of you.”

  Eileen watched her replace the lipstick on her still-swollen lips. “You know what I’m dying to ask, don’t you?”

  Tish kept her eyes lowered, but the color came into her cheeks despite her best efforts. “It…it was just a kiss, Lena, and the only time…”

  “You don’t have to defend yourself to me, Tish,” she said gently. “But we both know Russell doesn’t play games. He’s my brother, and I love him, and I don’t think he’d ever do anything to hurt you. But be careful just the same.”

  “He said we’d forget it,” she said, still quietly smoldering when she remembered the cutting words, “because of Lisa. There isn’t anything to be careful about. Will you help me carry the coffee out?”

  “Sure.” She picked up the tray.

  “Do I…do I look all right?” Tish asked.

  Eileen smiled. “It doesn’t show anymore.”

  “Then let’s forge ahead, shall we,” she said with a short laugh.

  There were dark circles under her eyes the next morning, and there was a haunted look in their gray depths. She pulled on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved blue print blouse and ran a comb through her hair. She didn’t bother with makeup. Somehow impressing Frank wasn’t important anymore. And he—he’d have gone to the fields by now, she was sure.

  But when she got to the dining room, Russell was sitting at the table with Frank, lingering over a cup of coffee. Her heart began to run away just at the sight of him, the pale blue denim shirt straining against the muscles of his chest, his crisp dark hair burning black in the filtered light from the window.

  “Oh, there you are,” Frank said, rising with a smile as she joined them and looking relieved. “I’m going up to get Belle, if I can roll her out of bed. Russell’s taking us all riding. Be back in a minute, sweetheart.”

  He leaned down and kissed her lightly on the mouth, as if setting his seal of possession on her in front of Russell, and winked as he left. She sat stiffly in her chair, wondering where the devil Eileen was, trying not to be affected by the heat of Russell’s intense gaze.

  “What the hell was that all about?” he asked curtly. “To remind me that you’re his property?”

  She swallowed hard. “Where’s Eileen?” she asked instead of giving him an answer.

  “She left early for school.”

  “Oh.”

  Mattie brought in the coffee, and with a murmur of thanks, Lutecia started loading it with sugar and cream.

  “You didn’t sleep,” Russell said quietly.

  “I…I slept very well, thanks.”

  “Look at me, Tish.”

  She obeyed the deep caress in his voice, her heart skipping a beat when she met the patient darkness in his eyes.

  “Why are you afraid of me?” he asked softly.

  Her lips trembled, and she dragged her eyes back down to her cup. Infuriatingly, her fingers trembled as she gripped the hot ceramic in her cold hands.

  “You’re so very young, little one,” he said quietly. “A child-woman, like a blossom just beginning to open. I was too rough and far too intimate with you last night. I told you once I wasn’t used to limits. All that silky innocence threw me.”

  She darted a look at him and found a slow, tender smile on his chiseled lips. “I…I was afraid to come down this morning,” she admitted hesitantly. “Oh, Russell, what’s happening? I don’t want it like this, I don’t want to always be fighting you, I want things to be like they used to be when we were best friends…” she said in a burst of emotion.

  “Turn the clock back, you mean?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “After the way we kissed last night, Tish?”

  She blushed to the roots of her hair. “You said…we’d forget it,” she reminded him with downcast eyes.

  “How can I when my blood burns every time I look at you?” he growled. “I want to tell you about Lisa. I want you to understand….”

  “I don’t want to hear it!” she cried, jumping up from the table. “Frank!” she called as he came back into the room, “let’s go on down to the stables, and Russell and Belle can come later, all right?”

  Frank looked from Russell’s stony face to Tish’s flushed one with a hint of suspicion and more than a hint of jealousy. “All right,” he agreed, and let her tug him out the door.

  “What, exactly, is your relationship with him?” Frank asked while they waited with their saddled horses for Russell and Belle to join them.

  “Russell’s like a brother to me,” she hedged, her eyes on a car coming up the driveway. “That looks like Nan’s Sprite,” she murmured.

  “A brother, or something more?” Frank persisted. “I don’t like the way he looks at you. His eyes look like they could devour you when he knows you’re not watching him.”

  She blushed. “You’re imagining things, Frank.”

  “No, I’m not. If he made you marry him, he’d get all this, wouldn’t he?” he asked pointedly, gesturing at the estate.

  The shock was in her whole look. “He’d what?” She rebelled at his arrogance, at his attack on Russell. “I’m the outsider here, not Russell,” she began shortly. “He told you my father was killed in an accident, but not the whole truth. I’ll tell you the rest. My father was a sharecropper, a farmer who works on shares and lives, more often than not, in houses with bare wood floors, leaking roofs, and cracks in the walls! My father had nothing! The clothes I’m wearing now are worth more than anything he ever owned. If it hadn’t been for Russell, I’d be living in an orphanage somewhere, and I’d have nothing!”

  Frank’s face had gone white, absolutely white. “You…you do inherit, don’t you?”

  “A share,” she said harshly. “The house and land my father worked and probably a small allowance. That’s all I agreed to take.”

  He looked at her with eyes that were suddenly cool. “You might have told me.”

  “Why?” she asked, raising her eyebrows as she struggled with hurt pride. “Was it the inheritance you thought I’d receive that attracted you, Frank, dear?”

  Nan Coleman’s little red sports car pulled up at the stables before he could find an answer. She got out, her dark hair unruly, her green eyes sparkling, and joined Tish and Frank.

  “Hi, I thought I’d come over and meet your company while I was in the neighborhood,” she said with an impish grin. “You must be Frank, I’ve heard so much about you!”

  He shook her hand with a polite smile. “And you’re Nan…Coleman, is that right?”

  “Nan and her father own the estate next door to you,” Tish said deliberately. “That amounts to about a third of the county.”

  “Russell’s got just short of the other two-thirds,” Nan laughed. “Frank, you and your sister will have to come for coffee one morning if Tish can spare you.”

  “We’ll be moving into Bright Meadows tomorrow,” Frank said stiffly. “And I’m sure my sister and I would be delighted to accept.”

  Nan looked puzzled, and her green eyes questioned Tish’s silently.

  “Frank and I are friends,” Tish said pointedly. “Right, Frank? Nothing more?”

  He straightened. “Exactly,” he said formally.

  Nan’s eyebrows went up, but Tish mounted her horse before she could ask any more questions.

  “Come riding with us,” Tish said. “Russell will get you a mount if you ask him. I’m going on ahead.”

  “Thanks,” Nan said with a speculative glance at Frank. “I think I will.”

  Tish turned the spicy little pinto gelding she was riding and started toward the bridle path. As she passed the stable, she noticed that Russell and Belle were still inside. The blonde was standing very close to him, her arms linked around his neck. Even as she watched, Belle went on tipt
oe….

  Tish put her heels to the pinto’s flanks and leaned low over his withers as the wind hit her face like tiny switches.

  Tears misted her eyes, and a pain like nothing she’d ever known began to ache deep inside her. Russell, Russell, always Russell, and thinking of him brought a frustrated longing that made her soul mourn. How long, she wondered incredulously, had she been in love with him? Love….

  “No!” she whispered huskily. Her eyes closed over the gray anguish that burned in them. “No, it can’t be, it can’t be! I’ve lived with him most of my life, and I love him, but oh, God, I can’t be in love with him…can I?”

  But she was. She was deeply, hungrily, mindlessly in love. Suddenly all she could think about was Russell, with his hair burning black in the sunlight, his eyes laughing darkly down at her; Russell, holding her in his big arms, teaching her mouth that a kiss was so much more than two pairs of lips touching; Russell, who belonged to Lisa, who could never, never belong to her….

  With a hard sob, she turned the pinto. She was so blinded by tears that she didn’t notice how close to the road the bridle path was. She urged the horse faster, and it jumped the ditch right in front of a speeding pickup truck and the sound of squealing brakes and a horse’s piercing cry were the last things she heard as she went down….

  Six

  There was an uncomfortable tightness in her chest. She tried to breathe, but even that simple action was almost too much. Vaguely, she felt pain, dull but quite noticeable, all over her body.

  Her heavy-lidded eyes opened. A whiteness blurred in them. After a time, a chair came into focus. A small, nervous figure was huddled down in it. She recognized the pale, round face.

  “Eileen?” she whispered weakly.

  The young girl’s head flew up. “Tish!” She jumped out of the chair and hurried to the bedside, resting her hands on the railing. One reached down to catch Tish’s and held fast to it. There were tears in the brown eyes.