Читать книгу Tears of the Renegade - Линда Ховард, Linda Howard, Линда Ховард - Страница 8

She didn’t remember driving home. She’d walked out, not even pausing to get her coat, but hadn’t felt the cold in her detachment. The house was empty, when she got home, without any welcoming smells emanating from the kitchen, because Sunday was Emily’s day off. Susan knew that she’d find something in the refrigerator already prepared, if she was hungry, but she didn’t think she’d be able to eat again that day.

She changed clothes, carefully hanging the garments in the closet, then immediately took off the casual clothing she’d just put on. She needed a hot bath, something to take away the coldness that had nothing to do with her skin, but was rather a great lump inside her chest. She threw some sweet herbs into the hot water and eased into the tub, feeling the heat begin to soothe away her stress.

Why did she feel so stunned? Preston had warned her that Cord was ruthless; why hadn’t she believed him? It wasn’t even what he had done, as much as the way he had done it. He had a right to punish Preston and Imogene for taking what was, essentially, his birthright. If he had wanted to trade that for the leases to the ridges, that was also his right. But he had played with them, leading them step-by-step to the point where they would feel the shock the worst, and he had enjoyed the effect his words had had on them. There was obviously no love lost between them, but Susan didn’t believe in inflicting unnecessary pain. Cord had wanted them to squirm.

When the water had cooled, she let it out and dried herself, sighing as she dressed again in the dark brown slacks and white shirt she’d chosen. The bath had helped, but she still felt that inner chill. She checked the thermostat and found that it was set at a comfortable level, but she didn’t feel comfortable. She lit a fire under the logs that had already been placed in the fireplace in the den, then wandered into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee.

The fire was catching when she went back into the den, and she sat for long, increasingly peaceful moments, staring at the licking blue and orange flames. There was nothing as calming as a fire on a cold day. She thought about the needlepoint she was doing, but discarded the idea of working on it. She didn’t want to sew; sewing left her mind free to wander, and she wanted to wipe the day from her mind, occupy her thoughts with something else. She got up and went over to the bookshelves, then began to run her finger across the spines of the books, considering and rejecting as she read the titles. Before she could choose a book, the doorbell chimed, then was followed promptly by a hard knock that rattled the door.

She knew instinctively who it was, but her steps didn’t falter as she went to the door and opened it.

He was leaning against the door frame, his breath misting in the cold air. His blue eyes were leaping with a strange anger. “I didn’t want you involved in this,” he snapped.

Susan stepped back and waved him into the house. He had made some concession to the weather, after all, she noted, as he shrugged out of the lightweight jacket he wore. She took it from him and hung it neatly in the coat closet. She was calm, as if the shock of seeing his cruelty had freed her from the dizzying spell of his sensuality. Her heartbeat was slow and steady, her breathing regular.

“I’ve just put on a pot of coffee. Would you like some?”

His mouth thinned into a hard line. “Aren’t you going to offer me whiskey, try to get me drunk so it’ll be easier to handle me?”

Did he think that was why Imogene had offered him something to drink? She started to ask him, then shut her mouth, because it was possible that he was right. Imogene could have offered coffee, because there was always a fresh pot made after every meal. And neither Imogene nor Preston drank very much, beyond what was required socially.

Instead she treated his question literally. “I don’t have any whiskey in the house, because I don’t drink it. If you want something alcoholic, you’ll have to settle for wine. Not only that, I think it would be difficult to get you drunk, and that being drunk would make you harder to handle, rather than easier.”

“You’re right about that; I make a mean drunk. Coffee will do fine,” he said tersely, and followed her as she went into the kitchen. Without looking, she knew that he was examining her home, seeing the warmth and comfort of it, so different from the formal perfection of Blackstone House. Her rooms were large and airy, with a lot of windows; the floors were natural wood, polished to a high gloss. A profusion of plants, happy in the warmth and light, gave the rooms both color and coziness.

He watched as she took two brown earthenware mugs from the cabinet and poured the strong, hot coffee into them. “Cream or sugar?” she asked, and he shook his head, taking the cup from her.

“There’s a fire lit in the den; let’s go in there. I was cold when I got home,” she said by way of explanation, leading the way into the other room.

She curled up in her favorite position, in a corner of the love seat that sat directly before the fire, but he propped himself against the mantel as he drank his coffee. Again he looked at his surroundings, taking in her books, the needlepoint she’d been working on, the television and stereo system perched in place on the built-in shelves. He didn’t say anything, and she wondered if he used silence as a weapon, forcing others to make the first move. But she wasn’t uncomfortable, and she felt safe in her own home. She drank her coffee and watched the fire, content to wait.

He placed the mug on the mantel with a thud, and Susan looked up. “Would you like more coffee?” she offered.

“No.”

The flat refusal, untempered by the added “thank you” that politeness demanded, signaled that he was ready for the silence to end. Susan mentally braced herself, then set her cup aside and said evenly, “I suppose you want to talk about leasing the ridges.”

He uttered an explicit Anglo-Saxon phrase that brought her to her feet, her cheeks flaming, ready to show him the door. He reached out and caught her arm, swinging her around and hauling her up against his body in a single movement that stunned her with its swiftness. He wrapped his left arm around her waist, anchoring her to him, while he cupped her chin in his right hand. He turned her face up, and she saw the male intent in his eyes, making her shiver.

She wasn’t afraid of him, yet the excitement that was racing along her body was very like fear. The false calm she’d been enjoying had shattered at the first move he’d made, and now her heart was shifting into double time, reacting immediately to his touch. He wouldn’t hurt her; she wasn’t afraid of that. It was her own unwilling but powerful attraction to him that made her uneasy, that brought her hands up to press against his chest as he bent closer to her.

“Stop,” she whispered, turning her head aside just in time, making his lips graze her soft cheek. His grip on her chin tightened, and he brought her mouth back around, holding her firmly, but instead of taking her lips he let his mouth wander to her ear, where his teeth nibbled sharply on the lobe. Susan caught her breath, then forgot to let it out as the warm slide of his lips went down the column of her throat and nuzzled her open collar aside, to find and press the soft, tender hollow just below her collarbone. She felt his tongue lick out and taste her flesh, and her breath rushed from her lungs.

“Cord, no,” she protested frantically, alarmed by the tingling warmth that coursed through her body, spreading like wildfire from the touch of his mouth on her. Her pushing hands couldn’t budge him. All she succeeded in doing was making herself deeply aware of the powerful muscles that layered his chest and shoulders, of the wild animal strength of him.

“Susan, honey, don’t tell me no,” he murmured insistently into the fragrant softness of her shoulder, before licking and kissing his way up her throat. Her fingers dug into his shoulder as every tiny flick of his tongue sent her nerves into twitching ecstasy. He finally lifted his head and hovered over her, their lips barely separated, their breaths mingling. “Kiss me,” he demanded, his voice harsh, his eyes narrowed and intent.

Her body was quaking in his arms, her flesh fevered and aching for greater closeness with him, but her alarm equaled her physical need. The look in his pale eyes was somehow both cold and fiery, as if his body were responding to her but his actions were deliberately planned. Horrified, she realized that he knew exactly what his touch did to her, and if she didn’t stop him soon, she would be beyond stopping him. He’d actually done so little, only kissing her shoulder, but she could feel the hardened readiness of his body and the tension that coiled in his muscles. He was a fire waiting to consume her, and she was afraid that she didn’t know how to fight him.

“No, I can’t—” she began, and that was all the chance he needed. His mouth closed on hers, and Susan melted almost instantaneously, her body telegraphing its need for him even though her mind rebelled. Her lips and teeth parted to allow the intrusion of his tongue; her hands slid up to lock around his neck, her fingers clenching in the thickness of his hair. As a first kiss, it was devastating. She was already at such a high level of awareness of him that the growing heat of the kiss was inevitable. She gave in without protest to the increasing pressure of his arms as he gathered her even closer to the heated need of his body.

The warning voice of caution was fragmented into a thousand helpless little pieces, useless against the overwhelming maleness of him. Too many sensations were attacking a body that had been innocent of sensuality for five long years, turning her thoughts into chaos, her body into a dizzying maelstrom of need.

She’d never before been so aware of a man’s kiss as a forerunner to and an imitation of the act of sexual possession, but the slow penetration and withdrawal of his tongue sent shudders of pure desire reverberating through her. Mindlessly she rose on tiptoe, and he reacted to the provocation of her movement, his hands sliding down her back to curve over and cup the roundness of her buttocks, his fingers kneading her soft flesh as he lifted her still more, molding her to him so precisely that they might as well have been naked for all the protection their clothing afforded her from the secrets of his body. A moan, so low that it was almost a vibration rather than a sound, trembled in the air, and after a moment Susan realized with shock that it was coming from her throat.

No.

The denial was, at first, only a forlorn whisper in her own mind, without force, but some portion of her brain heard and understood, accepted that she couldn’t allow herself to sample the lustful delights this man offered her. With the age-old wisdom of women, she knew that she couldn’t offer herself casually, though he would take her casually. It would be nothing to him; a moment of pleasure, good but unimportant and swiftly forgotten. Susan, being the woman she was, would have to offer her heart before she could offer her body, and though she was dangerously attracted to him, she was still heart whole.

No! The word echoed in her mind again, stronger this time, and she tensed in his arms, oblivious now to the seduction of his mouth. The protest still hadn’t been voiced aloud, she realized, and with an effort she pulled her mouth free of his. She was suspended in his arms, her toes dangling above the floor while he cupped her hips to his in a position of intimacy, but her stiffened arms held her head and shoulders slightly away from him. She met his glittering diamond eyes evenly. “No.”

His lips were red and sensuously swollen from their kiss, and she knew that hers must look the same. His dark beard had been so soft that she hadn’t been aware of any prickles, and a rebellious tingle of desire made her want to nuzzle her face against that softness. To deny herself, she said again, “No.”

His mouth quirked, amusement shining like a ray of sunshine across his face. “If people learn through repetition, then I have that word engraved on my brain.”

Under any other circumstances she would have laughed, but her nerves were too raw to permit humor. She increased the pressure of her hands against his heavy shoulders, desperately trying to ignore the heat of his flesh searing her through the thin silk of his shirt. “Put me down. Please.”

He obeyed, slowly, and his obedience was almost as provocative as his sensual attack. He let her slide with excruciating slowness down the hard length of his body, turning her release into an extended caress that touched her from her knees to her shoulders. She almost faltered, almost let her hands leave his shoulders to slide up and clasp around his neck again. Alarmed, determined, she stepped back as soon as her feet touched the floor, and with a wry smile, he let her go.

“You weren’t so wary of me last night,” he teased, but he watched sharply as she carefully placed herself out of his reach.

That was nothing less than the truth, so she agreed. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Do I look more dangerous in daylight?”

Yes, infinitely so, because now she’d seen a ruthlessness in him that she hadn’t realized was there. Susan regarded him seriously, not even tempted to smile. She could try to put him off with vague excuses, but they wouldn’t work with this man. He was still watching her with the deceptive laziness of a cat watching a mouse, letting it go just so far before lashing out with a paw and snatching it back. She sighed, the sound gentle in the room. “I don’t think I could trust anyone who did what you did today.”

He straightened from his negligent stance, his eyes narrowing. “I only went as far as I had to go. If they’d agreed to lease the ridges, the threat wouldn’t have been made.”

She shook her head, sending her dark hair swirling in a soft, fragrant cloud around her face. “It was more than that. You set it up, deliberately antagonized both Imogene and Preston from the moment you walked in the door, pushing them so hard that you knew they wouldn’t lease the ridges to you, knew you were going to hit them with your threats. You led them to it, and you gloated every inch of the way.”

She stopped there, not voicing the other suspicion that was clouding her mind. Even without really knowing him, she felt as if she knew enough about him to realize that he seldom made mistakes; he was simply too smart, too cunning. But he had either made a mistake in not completely investigating the ownership of the ridges, or he had known all along that she was the owner, and hoped to use his threat against Imogene and Preston as a means of forcing her to sign the leases. It was common knowledge in the area how close she was to her in-laws; even an outsider could have discovered that. Cord might not have the means of threatening her personally, but he would see right away that she was vulnerable through her regard for her husband’s family. And even worse than that, she had another suspicion: Was he bent on seducing her for some murky plan of revenge, or as a less than honorable means of securing the lease on the ridges? Either way, his attention to her was suddenly open to question, and she shrank from the thought.

He was still watching her with that unsettling stare. “Guilty as charged. I enjoyed every minute of making the slimy little bastard squirm.”

Shaken by the relish in his tone, she winced. “It was cruel and unnecessary.”

“Cruel, maybe,” he drawled. “But it was damned necessary!”

“In what way? To feed your need for revenge?”

It had been a shot in the dark, but she saw immediately that it had been dead on target. The look he gave her was almost violent; then he turned and took the poker in his hand, bending down to rearrange the burning logs in the fireplace, expending his flare of anger on them. Straightening, he returned the poker to its place and stood with his head down, staring into the hypnotically dancing fire.

“I have my reasons,” he said harshly.

She waited, but the moments stretched out and she saw that he wasn’t going to explain himself. He saw no need to justify himself to her; the time had long passed when he needed anyone’s approval of his actions.

The question had to be asked, so she braced herself and asked it. “What are you going to do about the money Preston owes you, now that you know he doesn’t control the ridges?”

He gave her a hard, glinting look. “I haven’t decided.”

Chilled by the speculation in his eyes, Susan resumed her seat, an indefinable sadness overwhelming her. Had she really expected him to trust her? He probably trusted no one, keeping his thoughts locked behind iron barricades.

It had to be due to a streak of hidden perversity inside her that, even though she’d rejected the idea of having an affair with him, now she was hurt because she thought he might have an ulterior motive for pursuing her. If she had any brains at all, she’d not only keep the mental distance between them, she’d widen it. He’d made a pass at her, but she couldn’t attach any importance to it; he probably made passes at a lot of women. If his kisses were anything, they were a subtle means of revenge. She was a Blackstone by name, and automatically included in his target area. Besmirching the reputation of Vance Blackstone’s widow would be a scheme likely to appeal to Cord, if he wanted the Blackstones to squirm.

Because she couldn’t stand the horror of the thought, her tone was abrupt when she spoke again. “I can’t give you an answer about the ridges. I won’t say no, but I can’t say yes, either. I’ll have an independent geological survey made, as well as gather several opinions about the ecological damage to the area, before I can reach a decision. And the decision I make will be based on the results of the surveys, not on any blackmail you may try to use.”

“I don’t remember asking you about the ridges,” he murmured, smiling coldly.

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Is it?”

“Oh, please.” She waved her hand tiredly. “I don’t feel up to playing word games. I know the ridges are what you’re after.”

His eyes sharpened, and a certain tension invaded him, giving him a stillness that reminded her of an animal poised to attack. “I’ve never prostituted myself for an oil lease yet,” he drawled, yet anger lay beneath his lazy tone like a dark shadow.

Susan darted a glance up at him. “We both know I’m not your usual type.”

“Hell, no, you’re not! I’ll agree to that!” He glared at her, his lips compressed into a grim white line. “You sit there as cool as a cucumber and accuse me of something pretty low, but you never even raise your voice, do you? Tell me, lady, is there anything that gets a rise out of you? Do you have feelings, or are you just a china doll, useless but nice to look at?”

She almost recoiled in shock, feeling the force and heat of his anger. “Yes, I feel,” she whispered. “I don’t want to be hurt. I don’t want you to use me.”

Suddenly he crouched down until his eyes were on a level with hers, and he leaned forward, so close that she pressed herself back into the cushions to relieve the sensation of being swamped by him. “I don’t think you feel anything at all,” he rasped. “Or rather, you’re afraid of what feelings you do have. You want me, but you’re too afraid of what people will say to reach out and take me, aren’t you? You’re too tied to the security of your network of leeches, all of you pretty, useless people who live off the work of others. You’re pretty, sweetheart, but you’re nothing but a bloodsucker.”

His words hit her like blows, but she lifted her chin proudly. “You don’t know anything about me,” was all she said.

“I know enough to know that trying to get passion from you is a hopeless cause,” he returned caustically. “Look, I’ll be in touch about the leases, but don’t save any dances for me.”

She sat there for a long time after he left, wishing he would come back so she could spill out her fears and uncertainties to him, but knowing that it was for the best that he’d gone. He was right; she did want him, and she was afraid that if he knew just how weak she was, he’d play on those weaknesses and use her in any way he wanted, even as a means of revenge. If nothing else, she couldn’t let that happen.

How quickly he had destroyed the peace, the even tenor of her days! She spent another night lying awake, twisting under a mantle of unhappiness. When dawn finally came, revealing a low gray sky, she wanted to do nothing more than lie in bed all day as a refuge from the thoughts that whirled around in her tired mind. But with her usual determination she forced herself out of bed; she would maintain her regular schedule if it killed her! She wasn’t going to let Cord Blackstone tear her life to pieces.

She went to the offices in Biloxi every day; Preston ran everything, but since Vance’s death she had become more immersed in the daily details of running a corporation with a myriad of interests, and Preston had long ago gotten in the habit of talking everything over with her. He had the training, but she was quick and knowledgeable, and had good instincts about business. After Vance’s death, taking over his office had been a means of keeping her sanity, but before long she’d found herself enjoying the work, enjoying the flood of information on which decisions were based.

She arrived early, but Preston was even earlier. Having seen his car in the parking lot, she went straight to his office, knocking softly on his door. Their mutual secretary hadn’t arrived yet, and the building echoed with sounds not usually heard during the busy days.

He looked up at the interruption, and a welcoming smile eased the shadow of worry that had darkened his face. “Come on in. I’ve already put the coffee on.”

“I could do with an extra jolt of caffeine,” Susan sighed, heading straight for the coffeepot.

They sipped the hot brew in companionable silence for several minutes, then Susan put her cup down. “What are we going to do?”

He made no pretense of misunderstanding. “I went over the old books last night, trying to nail down exactly how much we owe him. It’s a lot, Susan.” He rubbed his forehead wearily.

“You’re going to try to replace the money, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “What else can I do? The hell of it is, we don’t have that much ready cash right now. We’ve invested heavily in research that won’t pay off for another couple of years, but you know that as well as I do. I’m not going to touch anything that you have an interest in; Mother and I agreed on that last night. We’re going to liquidate some of our personal assets—”

“Preston Blackstone!” she scolded gently. “Did you think I wouldn’t be willing to help you?”

“Of course not, honey, but it wouldn’t be fair to you. Mother and I did this, and we knew that we were taking a chance. We gambled that Cord wouldn’t come back until we’d been able to replace the money, and we lost.” He shrugged, his blue eyes full of wry acceptance of his own mistake. “It didn’t seem so wrong at the time. We didn’t use the money for anything personal; every cent of it was invested back into the corporation, but I don’t suppose that would make any difference in a court of law. I still forged his signature on some papers.”

“Will you be able to raise enough?” He might protest, but if they couldn’t cover the amount they owed Cord, then she would insist on helping them. She didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the corporation, so she agreed that its assets shouldn’t be touched, but Vance had left her a lot of personal assets that could easily be liquidated, including some highly valuable property. She also had the ridges, she realized with a sudden start. How badly did Cord want them? Badly enough to take the land in exchange for not pressing charges against Imogene and Preston? Two could play his game!

“I have an idea,” she said slowly, not giving Preston time enough to answer her question. “I have something he wants; perhaps we could make a trade.”

Preston was a smart man, and he knew her well; he leaned back in his chair, his blue eyes narrowing as he stared at her and sorted out the options and details in his mind. He didn’t waste time on unnecessary questions. “You’re talking about the ridges. You know that even if you lease the ridges to him, he can still file charges, don’t you? He might swear that he wouldn’t, but I don’t think his word of honor is worth much. Not only that, you’d be giving in to his blackmail.”