A Tradition of Pride (14 page)

The silence was beginning to build in the room. Rans walked leisurely to the fireplace, resting a foot on the raised hearth and leaning an arm against the mantel. He appeared relaxed while Lara was as taut as a violin string.

"There was something else I forgot to mention this morning." She tried to sound nonchalant as she wandered to a chair near the fireplace, standing behind it as if it offered protection.

"What's that?" He slid her a lazy glance.

Lara had difficulty meeting it, feeling guilty because her reasons for being in the room were less than honorable. "My father's birthday is a week from Saturday. We are having a small dinner party for him in town to celebrate. I know he would like you to be there if you're free that evening."

"I have nothing planned."

"Good I'll count on you to be there, then," Lara replied with stiff politeness. "Of course, you are welcome to bring a friend." It was an attempt to deny that Rans had the power to attract her. "You do have a girlfriend?"

"I have someone I can invite if you are sure you don't mind." His dark head was tipped to the side in inquiry.

The words stabbed. "Why should I mind?" She forced a careless shrug. "It's perfectly all right with me if you bring someone." She took a bolstering sip of her drink and looked away. "I wasn't certain if you were seeing anyone, but I thought I should suggest that you were free to bring a partner for the evening."

"You are not the only one with a private life, Mrs. Cochran," Rans mocked.

Lara flinched at his cutting tone but refused to let the conversation turn into an exchange of insults. "Is she from Hattiesburg?"

"Yes."

"Have you known her long…or is that too personal?"

A faint bitterness crept into her voice.

"It is personal, but I don't mind answering it," he replied evenly. "I met her shortly after I came to work here."

"Really. Obviously you like her or you wouldn't still be seeing her." Lara stared at the pink liquid of her drink, fighting the constriction that gripped her throat. She tossed her head back in a gesture of uncaring pride.

"That's right."

"What does she do…for a living, I mean?" she faltered.

"She has a respectable profession, if that's what you're asking." Sardonic dimples appeared in his tanned cheeks. "She's a nurse."

"I didn't mean to imply anything of the kind," she laughed hollowly trying to make a joke out of his sarcastic remark.

The liquor didn't seem to be able to settle her quivering nerves. Lara reached for a cigarette case on the round table beside the chair. Her shaking fingers couldn't make the cigarette lighter work properly. Rans was there, taking it out of her hand and snapping the flame to the tip of her cigarette.

"Ann is twenty-six, divorced and has a four-year-old boy," Rans continued. "She's taller than you with blond hair and blue eyes, attractive in a quiet, gentle way. Would you like her vital statistics?"

"No." Hurt flashed in her eyes, and Lara quickly veiled it with her lashes.

She inhaled nervously on the cigarette, studying the red imprint of her lipstick on the filtered tip. He was standing much too close. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the dark hairs on his chest curling above the unbuttoned collar of his shirt.

"Where is Trevor tonight?" He reversed the roles and became the inquisitor.

"I don't know." The red gold curls danced between her shoulder blades as she shook her head.

"Did you ask where he was going?" he mocked.

"Yes, I did but he didn't tell me." She lifted her chin proudly. "If he had, it would probably have been a lie anyway."

"Why do you say that?" The hard brown eyes subjected her to a measured look.

"Because Trevor doesn't know how to tell the truth." A resigned, bitterly amused sigh accompanied the exhaled smoke. "'Men are deceivers, ever,'" Lara quoted a line she had once heard, the author forgotten.

"That's a cynical remark from one so young and beautiful," Rans observed dryly.

"It's the truth." Her eyes challenged him to deny it. "I know you will find this hard to believe, but I was once a very happy bride. Of course the happiness barely lasted past the honeymoon. Prince Charming turned out to be Prince Chaser."

An eyebrow was raised in preoccupied thought as Rans studied the ice in his glass. Then his narrowed gaze swept to the marble facade of her expression with disconcerting appraisal.

"So you've sworn off all men," he said quietly.

A tiredness rushed through her. She was tired of being alone, of constantly holding herself aloof. She wanted to be touched, to be caressed, to be the object of someone's affections. She wanted to be needed and cared for and to lean on someone else instead of always being apart. She wanted to share her joy and her sorrow with someone. Before she could give in to that tide of weakness, Lara walked slowly to the fireplace.

"At least, I won't be disillusioned anymore," she returned.

"You haven't stopped being disillusioned, Mrs. Cochran."

"There isn't any point in being formal considering how personal our conversation has become." She smiled wryly, glancing at him. "Please call me Lara."

His compelling gaze refused to let her look away. "I think not." Rans drained his glass, a grimness in the line of his mouth.

"Why?" Lara breathed, her heart pounding almost louder than her voice.

"Because I prefer to remind myself that you are married." Rans slid her another raking glance.

A paralysis seemed to claim her limbs, making movement of any kind impossible. She wanted to read more into his words and knew she didn't dare. The air was suddenly crackling with high-voltage tension. Rans snapped the connection by walking to the bar and setting his glass on the counter.

"When Martin returns, explain that I wasn't able to stay any longer," he said curtly. "Good night, Mrs. Cochran."

His exit from the study left Lara with the sensation that he had taken some part of her with him. It frightened her. Everything that had happened that night frightened her with its implications. She had arranged to see him. She had arranged that he notice her. She had directed the conversation to a personal level. Now Lara wanted to elude the knowledge of what that meant.

As the hour of her father's birthday dinner drew closer, Lara wished she could cancel it. Of course it was impossible. All the arrangements had been made, and the guests on their way.

Lara pressed a hand to her throbbing temple, knowing an excuse of a headache would be true. There were two reasons why she couldn't use it. A glance at the dark-haired man behind the wheel of the car found one of the reasons. If Trevor attended the dinner without her, the gossip about their marriage would increase to the point where it would become difficult to hold her head up among their friends and acquaintances.

The second reason was that she had to conquer her physical emotions where Rans was concerned. She couldn't spend the rest of her life cowardly avoiding him. No matter how much pain it caused, it was best that she attend the dinner tonight and see him with another woman. That's all it had taken to kill her feelings for Trevor.

"Do you suppose there is anything going on between Martin and Charlotte Thompson?" Trevor mused absently, breaking the silence as they entered the city limits of Hattiesburg.

Charlotte Thompson was the widow of Clayton Thompson, who had been one of her father's oldest and dearest friends. He had decided to escort her to the dinner tonight rather than have her come alone.

"I doubt if it was more than a friendly gesture," Lara replied indifferently.

Trevor chuckled softly. "My dear, your father isn't so old that he wouldn't enjoy some feminine companionship."

"Is that all you ever think about?" Lara accused in a flash of irritation.

"Don't you
ever
think about it?" Trevor returned with biting quietness.

Yes, she could have told him, much too often lately. And the desires were aroused by the wrong man. Instead Lara let his question slide past unanswered.

The other couples had just begun to arrive when Lara and Trevor reached the private dining hall that they had reserved for the evening. Lara didn't see Rans and his date arrive. She turned and he was standing near the portable bar with a drink already in his hand, and one in the blonde's.

Her breath caught in her throat at the way Rans was smiling at the woman, his eyes crinkling at the corners and lean grooves dimpling the tanned cheeks. Lara had to admit the girl was attractive in a freshly scrubbed, vitally animated way. Her ash blond hair was short, cut in a boyish style that was appealing. Her lips seemed permanently curved in a friendly smile.

A few seconds later, Rans looked up and met Lara's gaze. His expression seemed to harden without a perceptible change showing in his smile. Then his hand was gripping the woman's elbow, and he was guiding her across the room to where Lara stood with Trevor and a few other guests.

In a haze of pain, Lara survived the introduction, saying all the right things at the right times. Using Trevor as a shield, Lara directed as much attention as she could to him. She knew her husband well enough to recognize the symptoms of a budding interest in Rans's companion, Ann Koffman.

Gratefully, another couple approached to divert them from Rans and his blond nurse. Afterward Lara took care to avoid the area of the large room where he was, and Trevor, portraying the model husband, stayed at her side. It was impossible to ignore Rans's presence. He was the only one in the room who was alive to her. The rest of the guests could have been robots instead of people.

At the announcement of dinner, Trevor directed the seating arrangements, splitting up the couples—to keep the conversation lively at the table, he said. As hostess, Lara took the chair at the opposite end of the table from her father, relieved to see Rans seated beside him, although still very much within her line of vision.

Trevor was making a show of seating Mrs. Thompson on his right, closer to the middle of the table. The reasoning behind his seating arrangements became apparent when Lara noticed Ann Koffman sitting in the chair to Trevor's left. The fact was noted by Rans, whose keen glance strayed to Lara. She avoided it quickly.

The food tasted like chalky paste to Lara. She ate mechanically, adding a token comment now and then to the conversation around her. Silently she observed Trevor's discreet maneuverings, knowing she wasn't the only one interested in what was happening.

It was a subtle charm Trevor used, asking a few polite questions of the blonde without appearing to devote all of his attention to her. By the time the meal was over, Ann Koffman was talking to him quite animatedly, a victim of his magnetic spell even if she wasn't consciously aware of it. But Lara was and Rans had to be.

The tables were cleared swiftly of the dishes by efficient waiters. Just as quickly the tables were removed from the room, almost without the guests being aware of it. A small dance combo slipped into the room, played a few testing notes, then offered a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday.

Trevor was at her side to claim the waltz that followed, leading her onto the small dance floor after her father and Mrs. Thompson had made the initial circle. At least in his arms, Lara didn't have to keep up the pretense of conversation.

Which was a good thing, because when she saw Rans dancing with Ann pain gripped her throat in a stranglehold. The knowledge that she had no right to be jealous only increased her abject misery. Afraid she might have revealed some of her inner feelings in her expression, Lara glanced hesitantly at Trevor. His gaze thoughtfully on the same couple.

"Did MacQuade tell you much about Miss Koffman?" he inquired absently.

Her lips mouthed the word "no" as she shook her head briefly. Her smarting green eyes studied the seam of Trevor's sleeve. Lara was too engulfed by her own agony to truly be aware that her husband was questioning her about another woman.

"He didn't mention whether they were serious?"

"He only said he had been seeing her for sometime." She forced her answer out. "You'll have to do, your own investigating to find out more than that."

The sharpness of her tone drew his darkened gaze. "I was merely expressing a curiosity," Trevor smiled.

"Why do you bother to lie?" Lara sighed with cynical bitterness. "You know very well that you have marked her out for your next conquest, regardless of whatever is between her and Rans McQuade."

"Are you giving me your blessing?" There was definite amusement in his voice.

"Trevor, you may jump into a bottomless pit, for all I care what you do," she returned caustically.

"Always the solicitous wife," he mocked, "aren't you, Lara, my love?"

"Just as you are the devoted husband."

"Why do you stay married to me?" His dark gaze roved curiously over her strained features.

"Don't ask that question," Lara answered with taut control, "or I might find that I don't have any reason anymore." Her green eyes flashed astutely at him. "And you don't want a divorce, do you? It's so much more convenient to be married and have your affairs on the side. I make a convenient scapegoat, don't I? Especially when the girl begins to pall." She laughed bitterly. "I even provide you with an excellent opening. The poor misunderstood husband with a frigid wife at home. Oh, God, you make me sick, Trevor."