Her Kind of Hero (27 page)

She was shivering again. Her hands clenched beside her head as she watched him touch her, like an observer, like in a dream.

He smiled with faint mockery when he saw her expression. “Haven't you done this before?”

“No,” she said, and she actually sounded serious.

He discounted that at once. She was far too calm and submissive for an inexperienced woman.

One dark eyebrow lifted. “Twenty-three and still a virgin?”

How had he known that? “Well…yes.” Technically she certainly was. Emotionally, too. Despite what had been done to her, she'd been spared rape, if only by seconds, when her mother came home unexpectedly.

Matt was absorbed in touching her body. His forefinger traced around the hard nipple, and he watched her body lift to follow it when he lifted his hand.

“Do you like it?” he asked softly.

She was watching him intensely. “Yes.” She sounded as if it surprised her that she liked what he was doing.

With easy self-confidence, he pulled her up just a little and pushed the other strap down her arm, baring her completely to his eyes. She was perfect, like a warm statue in beautifully smooth marble. He'd never seen breasts like hers. She aroused him profoundly.

He held her by the upper part of her rib cage, his thumbs edging onto her breasts to caress them tenderly while he watched the expressions chase each other across her face. The silence in the bedroom was broken only by the sound of cars far in the distance and the sound of some mournful night bird outside the window. Closer was the rasp of her own breathing and her heart beating in her ears. She should be fighting for her life, screaming, running, escaping. She'd avoided this sort of situation successfully for six years. Why didn't she want to avoid Matt's hands?

Matt touched her almost reverently, his eyes on her hard nipples. With a faint groan, he bent his dark head and his mouth touched the soft curve of her breast.

She gasped and stiffened. His head lifted immediately. He looked at her and realized that she wasn't trying to get away. Her eyes were full of shocked pleasure and curiosity.

“Another first?” he asked with faint arrogance and a calculating smile that didn't really register in her whirling mind.

She nodded, swallowing. Her body, as if it was ignoring her brain, moved sensuously on the bed. She'd never dreamed that she could let a man touch her like this, that she could enjoy letting him touch her, after her one horrible experience with intimacy.

He put his mouth over her nipple and suckled her so insistently that she cried out, drowning in a veritable flood of shocked pleasure.

The little cry aroused Matt unexpectedly, and he was rougher with her than he meant to be, his mouth suddenly demanding on her soft flesh. He tasted her hungrily for several long seconds until he forced his mind to remember why he shouldn't let himself go in headfirst. He wanted her almost beyond bearing, but he wasn't going to let her make a fool of him.

He lifted his head and studied her flushed face clinically. She was enjoying it, but she needn't think he was going to let her take possession of him with that pretty body. He knew now that he could have her. She was willing to give in. For a price, he added.

She opened her eyes and lay there watching him with wide, soft, curious eyes. She thought she had him in her pocket, he mused. But she was all too acquiescent. That, he thought amusedly, was a gross miscalculation on her part. It was her nervous retreat that challenged him, not the sort of easy conquest with which he was already too familiar.

Abruptly he sat up, pulling her with him, and slid the straps of her evening dress back up onto her shoulders.

She watched him silently, still shocked by his ardor and puzzled at her unexpected response to it.

He got to his feet and rebuttoned his shirt, reaching for his snap-on tie and then his jacket. He studied her there, sitting dazed on the edge of his bed, and his dark eyes narrowed. He smiled, but it wasn't a pleasant smile.

“You're not bad,” he murmured lazily. “But the fascinated virgin bit turns me right off. I like experience.”

She blinked. She was still trying to make her mind work again.

“I assume that your other would-be lovers liked that wide-eyed, first-time look?”

Other lovers. Had he guessed about her past? Her eyes registered the fear.

He saw it. He was vaguely sorry that she wasn't what she pretended to be. He was all but jaded when it came to pursuing women. He hated the coy behavior, the teasing, the manipulation that eventually ended in his bedroom. He was considered a great catch by single women, rich and handsome and experienced in sensual techniques. But he always made his position clear at the outset. He didn't want marriage. That didn't really matter to most of the women in his life. A diamond here, an exotic vacation there, and they seemed satisfied for as long as it lasted. Not that there were many affairs. He was tired of the game. In fact, he'd never been more tired of it than he was right now. His whole expression was one of disgust.

Leslie saw it in his eyes and wished she could curl up into a ball and hide under the bed. His cold scrutiny made her feel cheap, just as that doctor had, just as the media had, just as her mother had…

He couldn't have explained why that expression on her face made him feel guilty. But it did.

He turned away from her. “Come on,” he said, picking up her wrap and purse and tossing them to her. “I'll run you home.”

She didn't look at him as she followed him down the length of the hall. It was longer than she realized, and even before they got to the front door, her leg was throbbing. Dancing had been damaging enough, without the jerk of his hand as they left the
ballroom. But she ground her teeth together and didn't let her growing discomfort show in her face. He wasn't going to make her feel any worse than she already did by accusing her of putting on an act for sympathy. She went past him out the door he was holding open, avoiding his eyes. She wondered how things could have gone so terribly wrong.

 

The spacious garage was full of cars. He got out the silver Mercedes and opened the door to let her climb inside, onto the leather-covered passenger seat. He closed her door with something of a snap. Her fingers fumbled the seat belt into its catch and she hoped he wouldn't want to elaborate on what he'd already said.

She stared out the window at the dark silhouettes of buildings and trees as he drove along the back roads that eventually led into Jacobsville. She was sick about the way she'd acted. He probably thought she was the easiest woman alive. The only thing she didn't understand was why he didn't take advantage of it. The obvious reason made her even more uncomfortable. Didn't they say that some men didn't want what came easily? It was probably true. He'd been in pursuit as long as she was backing away from him. What irony, to spend years being afraid of men, running crazily from even the most platonic involvement, to find herself capable of torrid desire with the one man in the world who didn't want her!

He felt her tension. It was all too apparent that she was disappointed that he hadn't played the game to its finish.

“Is that what Ed gets when he takes you home?” he drawled.

Her nails bit into her small evening bag. Her teeth clenched. She wasn't going to dignify that remark with a reply.

He shrugged and paused to turn onto the main highway. “Don't take it so hard,” he said lazily. “I'm a little too sophisticated to fall for it, but there are a few rich single ranchers around Jacobsville. Cy Parks comes to mind. He's hell on the nerves, but he is a widower.” He glanced at her averted face. “On second thought, he's had enough tragedy in his life. I wouldn't wish you on him.”

She couldn't even manage to speak, she was so choked up with hurt. Why, she wondered, did everything she wanted in life turn on her and tear her to pieces? It was like tracking cougars with a toy gun. Just when she seemed to find peace and purpose, her life became nothing but torment. As if her tattered pride wasn't enough, she was in terrible pain. She shifted in the seat, hoping that a change of position would help. It didn't.

“How did that bone get shattered?” he asked conversationally.

“Don't you know?” she asked on a harsh laugh. If he'd seen the story about her, as she suspected, he was only playing a cruel game—the sort of game he'd already accused her of playing!

He glanced at her with a scowl. “And how would I know?” he wondered aloud.

She frowned. Maybe he hadn't read anything at all! He might be fishing for answers.

She swallowed, gripping her purse tightly.

He swung the Mercedes into the driveway of her boardinghouse and pulled up at the steps, with the engine still running. He turned to her. “How
would
I know?” he asked again, his voice determined.

“You seem to think you're an expert on everything else about me,” she replied evasively.

His chin lifted as he studied her through narrowed eyes. “There are several ways a bone can be shattered,” he said quietly. “One way is from a bullet.”

She didn't feel as if she were still breathing. She sat like a statue, watching him deliberate.

“What do you know about bullets?” she asked shortly.

“My unit was called up during Operation Desert Storm,” he told her. “I served with an infantry unit. I know quite a lot about bullets. And what they do to bone,” he added. “Which brings me to the obvious question. Who shot you?”

“I didn't say…I was shot,” she managed.

His intense gaze held her like invisible ropes. “But you were, weren't you?” he asked with shrewd scrutiny. His lips tugged into a cold smile. “As to who did it, I'd bet on one of your former lovers. Did he catch you with somebody else, or did you tease him the way you teased me tonight and then refuse him?” He gave her another contemptuous look. “Not that you refused. You didn't exactly play hard to get.”

Her ego went right down to her shoes. He was painting her over with evil colors. She bit her lower lip. It was unpleasant enough to have her memories, but to have this man making her out to be some sort of nymphomaniac was painful beyond words. Her first real taste of tender intimacy had been with him, tonight, and he made it sound dirty and cheap.

She unfastened her seat belt and got out of the car with as much dignity as she could muster. Her leg was incredibly painful. All she wanted was her bed, her heating pad and some more aspirins. And to get away from her tormenter.

Matt switched off the engine and moved around the car, irritated by the way she limped.

“I'll take you to the door…!”

She flinched when he came close. She backed away from him, actually shivering when she remembered shamefully what she'd let him do to her. Her eyes clouded with unshed angry tears, with outraged virtue.

“More games?” he asked tersely. He hadn't liked having her back away again after the way she'd been in his bedroom.

“I don't…play games,” she replied, hating the hiccup of a sob that revealed how upset she really was. She clutched her wrap and her purse to her chest, accusing eyes glaring at him. “And you can go to hell!”

He scowled at the way she looked, barely hearing the words. She was white in the face and her whole body seemed rigid, as if she really was upset.

She turned and walked away, wincing inwardly with every excruciating step, to the front porch. But her face didn't show one trace of her discomfort. She held her head high. She still had her pride, she thought through a wave of pain.

Matt watched her go into the boarding house with more mixed, confused emotions than he'd ever felt. He remembered vividly that curious “Don't you know?” when he'd asked who shot her.

He got back into the Mercedes and sat staring through the windshield for a long moment before he started it. Miss Murry was one puzzle he intended to solve, and if it cost him a fortune in detective fees, he was going to do it.

L
eslie cried for what seemed hours. The aspirin didn't help the leg pain at all. There was no medicine known to man that she could take for her wounded ego. Matt had swept the floor with her, played with her, laughed at her naiveté and made her out to be little better than a prostitute. He was like that emergency room doctor so long ago who'd made her ashamed of her body. It was a pity that her first real desire for a man's touch had made her an object of contempt to the man himself.

Well, she told herself as she wiped angrily at the tears, she'd never make that mistake again. Matt Caldwell could go right where she'd told him to!

The phone rang and she hesitated to answer it. But it might be Ed. She picked up the receiver.

“We had a good laugh about you,” Carolyn told her outright. “I guess you'll think twice before you throw yourself at him again! He said you were so easy that you disgusted him…!”

Almost shaking with humiliation, she put the receiver down with a slam and then unplugged the phone. It was so close to
what Matt had already said that there was no reason not to believe her. Carolyn's harsh arrogance was just what she needed to make the miserable evening complete.

 

The pain, combined with the humiliation, kept her awake until almost daylight. She missed breakfast, not to mention church, and when she did finally open her eyes, it was to a kind of pain she hadn't experienced since the night she was shot.

She shifted, wincing, and then moaned as the movement caused another searing wave of discomfort up her leg. The knock on her door barely got through to her. “Come in,” she said in a husky, exhausted tone.

The door opened and there was Matt Caldwell, unshaven and with dark circles under his eyes.

Carolyn's words came back to haunt her. She grabbed the first thing that came to hand, a plastic bottle of spring water she kept by the bed, and flung it furiously across the room at him. It missed his head, and Ed's, by a quarter of an inch.

“No, thanks,” Ed said, moving in front of Matt. “I don't want any water.”

Her face was lined with pain, white with it. She glared at Matt's hard, angry face with eyes that would have looked perfectly natural over a cocked pistol.

“I couldn't get you on the phone, and I was worried,” Ed said gently, approaching her side of the double bed she occupied. He noticed the unplugged telephone on her bedside table. “Now I know why I couldn't get you on the phone.” He studied her drawn face. “How bad is it?”

She could barely breathe. “Bad,” she said huskily, thinking what an understatement that word was.

He took her thick white chenille bathrobe from the chair beside the bed. “Come on. We're going to drive you to the emergency room. Matt can phone Lou Coltrain and have her meet us there.”

It was an indication of the pain that she didn't argue. She got out of bed, aware of the picture she must make in the thick flannel pajamas that covered every inch of her up to her chin. Matt was probably shocked, she thought as she let Ed stuff her into the robe. He probably expected her to be naked under the covers, conforming to the image he had of her nymphomania!

He hadn't said a word. He just stood there, by the door, grimly watching Ed get her ready—until she tried to walk, and folded up.

Ed swung her up in his arms, stopping Matt's instinctive quick movement toward her. Ed knew for a fact that she'd scream the house down if his cousin so much as touched her. He didn't know what had gone on the night before, but judging by the way Matt and Leslie looked, it had been both humiliating and embarrassing.

“I can carry her,” he told Matt. “Let's go.”

Matt glimpsed her contorted features and didn't hesitate. He led the way down the hall and right out the front door.

“My purse,” she said huskily. “My insurance card…”

“That can be taken care of later,” Matt said stiffly. He opened the back door of the Mercedes and waited while Ed slid her onto the seat.

She leaned back with her eyes closed, almost sick from the pain.

“She should never have gotten on the dance floor,” Matt said
through his teeth as they started toward town. “And then I jerked her up out of her chair. It's my fault.”

Ed didn't reply. He glanced over the seat at Leslie with concern in his whole expression. He hoped she hadn't done any major damage to herself with that exhibition the night before.

 

Lou Coltrain was waiting in the emergency room as Ed carried Leslie inside the building. She motioned him down the hall to a room and closed the door behind Matt as soon as he entered.

She examined the leg carefully, asking questions that Leslie was barely able to answer. “I want X-rays,” she said. “But I'll give you something for pain first.”

“Thank you,” Leslie choked, fighting tears.

Lou smoothed her wild hair. “You poor little thing,” she said softly. “Cry if you want to. It must hurt like hell.”

She went out to get the injection, and tears poured down Leslie's face because of that tender concern. She hardly ever cried. She was tough. She could take anything—near-rape, bullet wounds, notoriety, her mother's trial, the refusal of her parent to even speak to her…

“There, there,” Ed said. He produced a handkerchief and blotted the tears, smiling down at her. “Dr. Lou is going to make it all better.”

“For God's sake…!” Matt bit off angry words and walked out of the room. It was unbearable that he'd hurt her like that. Unbearable! And then to have to watch Ed comforting her…!

“I hate him,” Leslie choked when he was gone. She actually shivered. “He laughed about it,” she whispered, blind to Ed's curious scowl. “She said they both laughed about it, that he was disgusted.”

“She?”

“Carolyn.” The tears were hot in her eyes, cold on her cheeks. “I hate him!”

Lou came back with the injection and gave it, waiting for it to take effect. She glanced at Ed. “You might want to wait outside. I'm taking her down to X-ray myself. I'll come and get you when we've done some tests.”

“Okay.”

He went out and joined Matt in the waiting room. The older man's face was drawn, tormented. He barely glanced at Ed before he turned his attention to the trees outside the window. It was a dismal gray day, with rain threatening. It matched his mood.

Ed leaned against the wall beside him with a frown. “She said Carolyn phoned her last night,” he began. “I suppose that's why the phone was unplugged.”

It was Matt's turn to look puzzled. “What?”

“Leslie said Carolyn told her the two of you were laughing at her,” he murmured. “She didn't say what about.”

Matt's face hardened visibly. He rammed his hands into his pockets and his eyes were terrible to look into.

“Don't hurt Leslie,” Ed said suddenly, his voice quiet but full of venom. “She hasn't had an easy life. Don't make things hard on her. She has no place else to go.”

Matt glanced at him, disliking the implied threat as much as the fact that Ed knew far more about Leslie than he did. Were they lovers? Old lovers, perhaps?

“She keeps secrets,” he said. “She was shot. Who did it?”

Ed lifted both eyebrows. “Who said she was shot?” he asked innocently, doing it so well that he actually fooled his cousin.

Matt hesitated. “Nobody. I assumed…well, how else does a bone get shattered?”

“By a blow, by a bad fall, in a car wreck…” Ed trailed off, leaving Matt with something to think about.

“Yes. Of course.” The older man sighed. “Dancing put her in this shape. I didn't realize just how fragile she was. She doesn't exactly shout her problems to the world.”

“She was always like that,” Ed replied.

Matt turned to face him. “How did you meet her?”

“She and I were in college together,” Ed told him. “We used to date occasionally. She trusts me,” he added.

Matt was turning what he knew about Leslie over in his mind. If the pieces had been part of a puzzle, none of them would fit. When they first met, she avoided his touch like the plague. Last night, she'd enjoyed his advances. She'd been nervous and shy at their first meeting. Later, at the office, she'd been gregarious, almost playful. Last night, she'd been a completely different woman on the dance floor. Then, when he'd taken her home with him, she'd been hungry, sensuous, tender. Nothing about her made any sense.

“Don't trust her too far,” Matt advised the other man. “She's too secretive to suit me. I thinks she's hiding something…maybe something pretty bad.”

Ed didn't dare react. He pursed his lips and smiled. “Leslie's never hurt anyone in her life,” he remarked. “And before you get the wrong idea about her, you'd better know that she has a real fear of men.”

Matt laughed. “Oh, that's a good one,” he said mockingly. “You should have seen her last night when we were alone.”

Ed's eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean she's easy,” Matt said with a contemptuous smile.

Ed's eyes began to glitter. He called his cousin a name that made Matt's eyebrows arch.

“Easy. My God!” Ed ground out.

Matt was puzzled by the other man's inexplicable behavior. Probably he was jealous. His cell phone began to trill, diverting him. He answered it. He recognized Carolyn's voice immediately and moved away, so that Ed couldn't hear what he said. Ed was certainly acting strange lately.

“I thought you were coming over to ride with me this afternoon,” Carolyn said cheerfully. “Where are you?”

“At the hospital,” he said absently, his eyes on Ed's retreating back going through the emergency room doors. “What did you say to Leslie last night?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you phoned her!” Matt prompted.

Carolyn sounded vague. “Well, I wanted to see if she was better,” she replied. “She seemed to be in a lot of pain after the dance.”

“What else did you say?”

Carolyn laughed. “Oh, I see. I'm being accused of something underhanded, is that it? Really, Matt, I thought you could see through that phony vulnerability of hers. What did she tell you I said?”

He shrugged. “Never mind. I must have misunderstood.”

“You certainly did,” she assured him firmly. “I wouldn't call someone in pain to upset them. I thought you knew me better than that.”

“I do.” He was seething. So now it seemed that Miss Murry was making up lies about Carolyn. Had it been to get even with
him, for not giving in to her wiles? Or was she trying to turn his cousin against him?

“What about that horseback ride? And what are you doing at the hospital?” she added suddenly.

“I'm with Ed, visiting one of his friends,” he said. “Better put the horseback ride off until next weekend. I'll phone you.”

He hung up. His eyes darkened with anger. He wanted the Murry woman out of his company, out of his life. She was going to be nothing but trouble.

He repocketed the phone and went outside to wait for Ed and Leslie.

 

A good half hour later, Ed came out of the emergency room with his hands in his pockets, looking worried.

“They're keeping her overnight,” he said curtly.

“For a sore leg?” Matt asked with mild sarcasm.

Ed scowled. “One of the bones shifted and it's pressing on a nerve,” he replied. “Lou says it won't get any better until it's fixed. They're sending for an orthopedic man from Houston. He'll be in this afternoon.”

“Who's going to pay for that?” Matt asked coldly.

“Since you ask, I am,” Ed returned, not intimidated even by those glittery eyes.

“It's your money,” the older man replied. He let out a breath. “What caused the bone to separate?”

“Why ask a question when you already know the answer?” Ed wanted to know. “I'm going to stay with her. She's frightened.”

He was fairly certain that even if Leslie could fake pain, she couldn't fake an X-ray. Somewhere in the back of his mind he
found guilt lurking. If he hadn't pulled her onto the dance floor, and if he hadn't jerked her to her feet…

He turned away and walked out of the building without another word. Leslie was Ed's business. He kept telling himself that. But all the way home, his conscience stabbed at him. She couldn't help being what she was. Even so, he hadn't meant to hurt her. He remembered the tears, genuine tears, boiling out of her eyes when Lou had touched her hair so gently. She acted as if she'd never had tenderness in her life.

He drove himself home and tried to concentrate on briefing himself for a director's meeting the next day. But long before bedtime, he gave it up and drank himself into uneasy sleep.