Читать книгу Confessions of the Heart - Amanda Stevens - Страница 10

Anna felt deeply unsettled as she headed up Travis Street toward her apartment in the old Cullen Bank Building on Main. The weather didn’t help. It was after four and the late-afternoon traffic was starting to stack up on the streets, but she was only one of a handful of pedestrians on the sidewalks. The rain had driven everyone else down into the tunnels. Even the terrace at Cabo’s, a trendy Mexican restaurant and bar, looked damply forlorn in the drizzle.

Crossing the intersection at Preston, Anna began to experience a strange sensation of being watched. She glanced over her shoulder, saw no one behind her, and continued on toward Congress. She waited for the light, and then crossed the street. As she hurried toward her building, her gaze was inexplicably drawn to the covered bus stop at the corner.

A man stood inside, staring at the slow-moving traffic on Congress. He had his back to Anna, but something about him looked familiar. He was tall, with closely cropped dark hair and broad shoulders beneath a black shirt.

Her stomach fluttered as she stood watching him. For a moment, she thought he was the man from the elevator, and something told her to run—not walk—away from him. To hurry inside her building, rush up to her ninth-floor apartment and lock the door behind her.

But she couldn’t seem to move. And then, as if sensing her scrutiny, he turned slowly to stare at her. Anna caught her breath, realizing at once why he’d seemed familiar to her.

Her ex-husband smiled as he left the shelter of the bus stop and started toward her.

“Hello, Anna.”

“Hays,” she said in surprise. Her hand had gone automatically to her heart, and now she self-consciously dropped her arm to her side. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.” Moisture glinted in his dark hair. “I saw you getting on the elevator in the Chase Tower, and I tried to catch you, but you didn’t go up to your office.” He shrugged. “I figured you had to come this way sooner or later.”

His excuse sounded a bit convenient to Anna although plausible, she supposed. Hays worked for an oil and gas exploration company headquartered in the Chase Tower, which was how they’d first met.

She decided to play the meeting by ear. “So why did you want to see me?”

“I’ve been working out of the Dallas office for the past several months, and I just got back in town a few days ago. I heard what happened.” His gaze dropped very briefly to her chest. “I guess I needed to see for myself that you were okay.”

Anna wanted to accept his concern at face value, but there was something in his eyes that made her say warily, “You didn’t have to go to so much trouble. You could have just called.”

“Like I said, I needed to see for myself.” He stared down at her. “Can I ask you something?”

Anna shrugged. “Sure.”

“How does it feel to have someone else’s heart beating inside your chest?”

How was she supposed to answer that? Should she tell him she felt an appreciation bordering on reverence for her new heart? That she was deeply humbled by a second chance she’d done nothing to deserve? That she felt an almost spiritual connection with the woman who’d given her the ultimate gift?

She could tell him all those things, but she could never make Hays or anyone else understand if they’d never walked in her shoes.

“It feels just like my own,” she said, but that wasn’t altogether true.

He cocked his head. “I heard about this guy once. He got a new heart just like you, and he suddenly developed a strange affinity for pasta. Spaghetti, fettuccini, you name it. He never could stand the stuff before, but suddenly he couldn’t get enough of it. Turned out his donor had loved Italian food.” Hays arched an eyebrow. “How about it, Anna? Had any strange cravings since your surgery?”

“Not that I’ve noticed.”

“What, no new abilities or talents?”

“No.” She shivered a bit in the light rain. “But…I have changed.”

One brow shot up again. “How so?”

She hesitated, unsure how to phrase what she wanted to say, but more important, not certain how he would take it. “I’m glad you came here to wait for me, Hays, because there’s something I’ve wanted to say to you for a long time.” She adjusted the collar of her raincoat, buying herself a moment of time. “I regret the way things ended between us. I still think divorce was the only answer for us, but I’m sorry you were hurt by it.”

His eyes widened, as if he were stunned by the apology, then he gave a low, bitter laugh. “God, Anna, who are you trying to kid?”

“I’m serious,” she said, a little wounded by his reaction. “I’m deeply sorry that I hurt you.”

He took a quick step toward her and put a hand underneath her chin, tilting her face up to his. He wasn’t a tall man, but he’d always worked out, always kept his physique lean and muscular. At five-six, Anna had never felt threatened or intimidated by his physical superiority, but now, gazing up at him, she saw something in his eyes she’d never seen before. The bitterness and the resentment were the same, the anger hadn’t changed, but now there was another, darker emotion she couldn’t quite name.

She wanted to move away from him, away from his touch, but something of the old Anna wouldn’t let her cower away. She remained still, gazing up at him with what she hoped was a nonprovoking expression.

His gaze took on a mocking glint, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “Why, Anna,” he said softly. “If I didn’t know better, I might think they’d given you a soul along with that new heart. But the problem is…” His features hardened almost imperceptibly. “I do know you.”

He was still holding her face up to his, his dark eyes now burning into hers. Something smoldered in those black depths, something not quite sane, Anna feared.

Dear God, what had happened to him since their divorce? He’d been bitter and angry over the breakup, but she’d never considered him dangerous.

But now…the way he was looking at her…

Anna suddenly wondered if Hays was behind the phone calls. If he had a deeper, darker motive for his visit.

And she remembered just as suddenly the bouts of moodiness during their marriage. The bursts of temper. The way he would sometimes disappear for days at a time. He’d always blamed their marriage difficulties on her career, and Anna hadn’t bothered to dispute him because she knew her ambition was a big part of their problem. But now she realized that their incompatibility went deeper than that. Much deeper.

“I once thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. That blond hair.” He tucked a strand behind her ear. “Those dark eyes. And a body any man would kill to possess. But look at you now.” His gaze roamed over her, taking in her pale complexion, her frail frame. “Do you know what you’ve become, Anna? You’re a freak, a modern-day Frankenstein.”

She tried to move away, but his grip tightened on her chin. “It would be wrong to blame you, though, wouldn’t it? The real monsters are the surgeons who patch together pathetic, soulless creatures like you from the dead and the dying.”

Anna said angrily, “Let go of me, Hays.”

His hand slipped to her chest, and with one finger, he uncannily traced the outline of her scar through her blouse. “Tell me something, Anna. What man is going to want to see that in bed?”

HAYS’S TAUNT followed Anna into her building, into the elevator, all the way up to the ninth floor. She’d experienced his animosity before, but nothing like this. He’d seemed so cold and cruel, and that strange glint in his eyes…

Anna shuddered, trying to put the confrontation out of her mind, but as she got off the elevator and walked down the hall to her apartment, she couldn’t get his words out of her mind. Tell me something, Anna. What man is going to want to see that in bed?

It wasn’t like she hadn’t thought of that herself. It wasn’t like she hadn’t stared at that scar in the mirror, trying to picture a man’s reaction the first time he saw it.

Luckily, she supposed, she had no one serious in her life these days. After her divorce, she’d avoided complicated entanglements and had pursued only the companionship of men who shared a similar philosophy to hers, namely, that she neither wanted nor expected an exclusive commitment, and her career would always come first.

She’d convinced herself it was an outlook that would serve her well, but looking back after her surgery, when she’d had plenty of time to dissect her life, Anna had come to realize that the like-minded men whose company she’d sought were as shallow as she, their personal lives as empty and vapid as hers. Looking at them was like looking in a mirror, and the reflection was not pretty.

Anna could well imagine their reactions on seeing her scar. Naturally, they’d try to put a good face on it, but inside they’d recoil in horror and wouldn’t be able to get away fast enough. She was flawed now and—even worse—high-maintenance. A double whammy for the commitment-challenged.

And the one of substance, that nameless, faceless man whom Anna had now started to fantasize about? The man who could look at her, scar and all, and still want her? Was he out there somewhere?

Unaccountably, her thoughts went back to the man in the elevator, and as Anna inserted her key into the lock and opened the door, she wondered why he’d had such a strong impact on her. He was a total stranger. She’d probably never see him again. No reason for her to feel this strange fascination for him.

Except, of course, for the obvious reason. They were both flawed.

Had women shunned him because of his appearance?

Somehow Anna couldn’t imagine that.

Closing the door behind her, she took off her soggy raincoat and tossed it into the powder room just off the foyer, an action that once would have been unthinkable to her.

“Laurel, I’m home!” She brushed fingers through her damp hair as she walked into the living room.

When there was no response, Anna decided she must have beat her stepmother home. Then she heard voices coming from the den, and she hurried down the hallway toward the sound.

“Laurel!”

As Anna entered the room, the first thing she saw was her stepmother’s pale face, and she knew immediately something had happened. Something terrible.

Laurel stood in front of the television, so engrossed in whatever was on that she hadn’t bothered to sit. She didn’t appear to hear Anna’s approach, either, but then she glanced up. “Anna! Oh, I’m so glad you’re home. I’ve been so worried—”

She actually swayed on her feet, and Anna rushed to her side, clutching her arm. “Laurel, what is it? What’s wrong?”

“I still can’t believe it,” she murmured, one hand to her throat.

“What?” Anna’s gaze was drawn to the television screen then and to the news alert that had interrupted an afternoon talk show Laurel loved. A female reporter stood on the street in front of a large home in an older, upscale neighborhood.

But Anna caught only a word or two of the woman’s report because her stepmother started to babble. “He must have left the hospital right after we did. The police think he was lured home and the killer was waiting for him—”

Anna gripped Laurel’s shoulders. “What are you talking about? Waiting for whom?”

All Laurel could manage was to point weakly at the TV where the reporter’s calm, clear tone was a surreal contradiction to her agitation.

Anna turned once again to stare at the screen. The reporter was in the middle of her recap. “…on the scene live in the Museum District where a prominent Houston heart surgeon was found brutally murdered in his home a short while ago. This has been a Channel Eleven exclusive report. Stay tuned for all the late-breaking developments….”

Anna spun to face Laurel. “No,” she whispered.

Laurel nodded, her eyes brimming with tears. “It was Michael, Anna. He’s dead.”

And suddenly all Anna could think about was what her ex-husband had said to her not ten minutes earlier. It would be wrong to blame you, though, wouldn’t it? The real monsters are the surgeons who patch together pathetic, soulless creatures like you from the dead and the dying.

HUDDLED INSIDE the apartment, Anna and Laurel remained glued to the TV that evening, watching several local news broadcasts for the latest developments in Michael’s murder. But the details remained sketchy. He’d been shot to death in the breezeway between his garage and house. None of the neighbors had heard gunfire, nor had anyone seen anything suspicious. His body had been discovered when a woman walking her dog had gone to investigate her pet’s frantic barking and strange behavior. No suspects were in custody, and though the police spokesperson didn’t come right out and say so, it appeared there were no concrete leads.

After Anna went to bed that night, she lay awake for a long time thinking about everything Michael had done to save her life. And now he was dead. Who could have done such a thing?

Deep down, she didn’t really believe Hays had anything to do with the murder, but his words continued to haunt her. When she finally fell into an exhausted sleep, however, she didn’t dream about Michael or her ex-husband. She dreamed about the stranger with the scar.

He was lying naked in bed, watching her undress. His eyes were dark and smoldering, and as she slowly approached him, he reached up, snaking a hand around the back of her neck to draw her down for a long, deep, soul-shattering kiss that robbed her of breath and sanity.

For the longest time, they kissed. His tongue was deep inside her mouth, tangling with hers, mating with hers, making her yearn for an even deeper intimacy.

When they finally broke apart, she traced the scar on his face with her fingertip, and he let her for a moment. Then he grabbed her hand, pulling her on top of him, and she came willingly. Eagerly. She moved over him, and their bodies joined so frantically, she cried out. The stranger’s hands slid downward, grazing her breasts, tracing her waist, grasping her hips as he set a powerful rhythm. Anna’s head fell back. She could feel herself losing control. In another moment…

She woke up, gasping for breath. Her skin was on fire. For a moment, she thought it was the aftermath of the dream, but then she realized her elevated temperature and heart palpitations signified something far more dangerous.

Her body was rejecting her new heart….