Rebel Waltz (12 page)

Of course, once she could be sure that the Hall would be hers, she could still suspect him of wanting them both. But no matter what he did, that possibility existed—unless he walked away, and then she still could lose her home. Rory would have willingly given up the Hall for Banner, but not at the cost of hurting her. She needed the Hall and he needed her.

He wondered, then, which she needed more— him or the plantation. He wondered if she had asked herself that. He didn't know the answer. He knew that he loved Banner, and wanted her no matter what the price. And he knew that if she agreed to marry him, it would be because she loved him. Nothing else mattered.

Rory sighed, then sat up abruptly as he sneezed. He realized then that the scent of jasmine had grown heavy in the room, so heavy that he was forced to breathe through his mouth
or be racked by sneezes. Frowning, he gazed around the darkened room. His eyes followed the shaft of moonlight as it cut a bright path from window to door, then he caught his breath, absently swallowing another sneeze.

The door was open.

He distinctly remembered closing it, and knew from experience that it had a good, strong catch.

“Sarah?” he ventured uncertainly. Instantly, he sensed movement, agitated movement, and the scent of jasmine grew even stronger.

Startled, Rory swung his legs over the side of the bed. Clearly, his visitor wanted something of him, but he didn't know what it was. “I'm not a mind reader,” he told the visually- empty room, then almost laughed when he distinctly sensed irritation and impatience. “I hate to say it, but give me a sign.” He told himself he'd laugh about this in the morning.

The curtains at one window fluttered.

A bit hesitantly, he left his bed and moved to the window. Since the house was centrally air-conditioned,
the sash was down, but Rory didn't let himself think about that; he just parted the curtains and gazed out and down on an empty moonlit garden. After a moment, he turned back to face the room.

“There's nothing there,” he complained.

More impatience, and then the door swung slowly, until it was almost closed, before swinging open again.

“You want me to go somewhere?”

Instant approval.

Rory obediently left his room. In the hall, he hardly knew which way to go, but then he saw what he immediately took to be his guide at the top of the stairs. The blond man. Shadowy and indistinct, he was nonetheless there, and Rory started for him, unable to ignore his own curiosity.

His blond guide led him down the stairs and out into the garden, always staying just far enough ahead that Rory had to strain to see him. He wondered absently why he could see this
ghost but only feel Sarah, then wondered irritably why he was wondering.

He was obviously dreaming the whole damned thing.

Just as he realized they were heading for Banner's studio, he saw that lights were shining within and the door was open. He forgot his guide and hurried forward, uneasy because two ghosts had roused him in the middle of the night and both had clearly been upset.

He stepped into a cottage that seemed curiously bare, with only blank canvases leaning against the walls. Two completed paintings—the blond man and one Rory hadn't seen—reposed side by side on twin easels. The new painting was of Jasmine Hall, and he stood staring at it, feeling the raw emotion that had gone into the work.

Before he could do more than absorb the subject and the sadness it aroused, he heard the sound of thudding hooves, and made it back outside just in time to see El Cid's black form sharply etched in the moonlight as he galloped
away from the stables and across the field, a small, familiar figure hunched on his back.

Without thinking, Rory ran for the stables.

Banner heard a shout behind her, heard the sound of pursuing hooves. For an instant she nearly reined in her mount. But then she leaned forward even more, her fingers tangled in Cid's thick mane and her knees pressed tightly to his sides. She didn't know why she was courting danger with this wild ride across fields and over fences, but she urged her horse on. El Cid, with the blood of wind- racing Arab ancestors in his aristocratic veins, lengthened his stride until he seemed to barely skim the ground, and took wing over every jump.

It was, in a sense, a release of tensions and cares, a flirting with danger, that helped to satisfy her body's craving for another kind of release. Or so it seemed to Banner. She felt free and stingingly alive, breathless with the excitement of her dangerous night ride.

The pounding hooves behind her pursued, but she had no fear of their catching her. El Cid and Shadow were half- brothers, both sired by a racing Thoroughbred, but the Cid was just a touch faster, and he had the advantage of a lighter rider. And the racing fever was in his blood, just as it was in his rider's; born to fight any restraints or restrictions, the Cid was running wild.

Banner didn't realize she had lost control over her mount until she automatically tried to turn him away from a looming obstacle she never would have attempted even during daylight: a wicked four-rail fence bordering a sheer drop of several feet, at the bottom of which was the wide stream that ran through the plantation. Heart in her throat, sobered at last by sure disaster for herself and her beloved horse, Banner tried desperately to turn her racing mount away from that impossible jump. But the Cid had the bit between his teeth and was hell-bent on the impossible, refusing to heed even the commands of the only person he had ever obeyed.

Realizing the futility of trying to stop the horse, Banner swiftly considered and discarded the option of jumping off him. She wasn't overly worried about her ability to land safely; she'd taken too many tumbles in her life not to know how to land with the least risk to herself. What did worry her was the Cid. He was going to take that jump with her or without her; at least with her on his back, she might be able to keep him balanced enough to give him that vital extra chance of making it.

With only seconds to prepare, she hastily loosened the reins and grasped his mane as firmly as possible, leaning all her weight forward and using all the strength in her knees to hold her seat firm. Then she urged him on aloud, knowing that he would need every ounce of speed and determination to jump high enough and far enough to land on the far bank.

Like any incredible feat, it was over almost before it began. El Cid cleared the fence with a foot to spare, his powerful hind legs launching him with driving determination. Banner saw the
flash of water passing far beneath them, felt the horse's forward velocity slow and his body stretch catlike in midair as he reached for the opposite bank of the stream. They were dropping, flying, falling.

Incredibly, impossibly, the Cid's front hooves touched the bank and dug in. He stumbled as his speed caused him to lurch forward, but Banner's quick hands on the reins held his head up until his hind legs were under him and he was balanced again. It was the last thing she was able to do before her own slipping balance and the horse's second lurch forward unseated her.

Deliberately disobeying the first rule of riding, she dropped the reins, then let herself fall. Like an expert tumbler, she rolled as she touched the ground, cushioned by the thick meadow grass, unhurt. And she sat up instantly, her heart in her throat for a second time as she remembered the pounding hooves only strides behind.

Shadow was little more than his name as he hurtled over the fence; the moonlight that had etched the Cid's black form only turned the gray
horse indistinct and eerily unreal. But however dissimilar they were in color, the blood they shared, told that night. Rory's mount took wing just as Banner's had, stretching in midair and then clawing for that vital bank. And he made it.

Rory was slowing the gray and sliding off in the same motion, leaving the horse to go wherever it would as he hurried to Banner's side. He dropped to his knees, filled with anxiety, his hands finding her shoulders.

“Are you all right?” he demanded roughly.

“Yes. Yes. I'm fine.” Her voice was shaking, and she wasn't surprised by that; the rest of her was shaking too.

He eased back on his heels, but didn't release her. “Just an easy middle-of-the-night ride, huh?” he asked wryly.

“Seemed like the thing to do,” she managed to say. “At the time.”

Rory glanced over at the jump they'd both just taken, then went very still. Obviously, he'd had no time to realize what had happened. In an
extremely careful voice, he said, “Is that what we just jumped?”

“Uh-huh.”

He turned his gaze back to her, gray eyes glittering in the moonlight. Then he shook her. Hard.

“What possessed you,” he gritted out, furious, “to risk a jump like that? Bareback, the dead of night, after a three-mile race at a gallop—you could have been killed!”

This last roar caused Banner to wince, but she wasn't at all resentful of his rage. She could hear fear for her as well as anger in his voice, and wondered amusedly when he'd realize that he had taken the same jump and the same risks— even more so, since he hadn't been familiar with them, as she had.

A bit breathlessly, she managed to answer, “Better ask what possessed the Cid; he was running wild.”

“That brute's going to get you killed!”

“It was the first time he ever disobeyed me—”

“Once is all it takes, Banner.”

She sighed. “It was my own fault. I encouraged him to run flat-out.”

“Why?” Rory demanded wrathfully. “And why didn't you answer when I called out to you?”

Banner gave herself a moment to think as she glanced toward the horses, noting that they were grazing calmly only a few yards away. “I don't know,” she said finally, looking back at him. “I guess… I went a little crazy, like the Cid. I wanted to—to run.”

“From what?” His voice was suddenly quiet.

“Do you have to ask?”

“I asked you to trust me,” he reminded.

“I know you did.”

He was silent for a moment, then said, “I saw the painting.”

Banner said nothing.

His hands tightened on her shoulders. “It's beautiful—perfect. But it isn't good-bye, Banner.”

For the first time, she pushed his hands away from her. Getting to her feet, she walked over to
her horse and patted his damp neck before unbuckling and removing his bridle. “Grass instead of your stable tonight, boy,” she murmured. “You've earned it.” To Rory she said only, “We ran in a circle. Ironic, huh?”

“Banner—”

“We can leave them here in the meadow for the night; Scottie'll see them in the morning, since the stables are just over there. I'm… going back to the cottage for a while.” She didn't wait for him, but tossed the bridle over her shoulder and struck out across the meadow toward the woods.

He caught up with her quickly, carrying his own bridle. “Banner, we have to talk.”

She kept walking, silently passing through the gate he opened, then following the path leading toward the cottage. She said nothing until lighted windows came into view, then spoke softly without looking at him.

“What's there to talk about, Rory? That's what I faced tonight, what I was trying to run from.”

He waited until they were inside the cottage, watched while she hung both bridles on pegs by the closed door, before he said, “That's it, then? There's nothing else to say?”

Banner felt tension steal through her at his flat, strained tone. Not looking at him, she went over to stand before the easels. “Nothing.”

“Can't you trust me not to hurt you?” Rory wanted to tell her that she'd be able to keep her home, but since art was something no one could be certain of—public acceptance being a fickle beast—he wasn't about to get her hopes up. And his inability to ease her mind tortured him. “Banner, I love you. Believe that.”

Banner turned slowly to face him. Vaguely, she was aware that the night's wild, dangerous ride had left tendrils of recklessness in her, but she didn't care right then. “It doesn't change anything. I told you that.” A part of her, an ancient, feline part of her, watched intently, waiting. “There's no use pretending anymore, Rory.”

“I haven't been pretending,” he gritted out.

“I have.” She stared at him. “Just like in your
favorite book; I keep pretending I'll think about it tomorrow.”

He stepped toward her, face taut. “Banner—”

“But tomorrow's here.” She gestured jerkily over her shoulder at the image of Jasmine Hall behind her. “Tomorrow's that painting.”

One long stride brought him to her, and his hands went to her waist, hauling her against him. “I won't let you throw us away,” he muttered against her lips. Then he was kissing her hungrily, all the pent-up frustration of two weeks driving him.

Banner didn't even bother to hide her exultation. Her arms lifted to slide round his neck and she rose on her toes to fit herself more fully against him; recklessness held her as firmly as he did, recklessness and a desire she wasn't about to fight—or let him fight. She wanted no reminders about her Tara. She didn't want to wait for some vaguely promised tomorrow when everything would be all right. She wanted him, and saw no reason to pretend about that.

He tore his mouth from hers. “Banner—”

“I love you,” she whispered, pulling his head back down, kissing him fiercely.

A groan rumbled from deep in his chest as Rory's mouth slanted across hers, deepening the kiss until it was a literal act of possession. Smoldering desire flared to new life, fed by her fiery response, until there was no possibility of restraint.

He lifted her into his arms, carrying her into the bedroom, where a shaft of light from the studio illuminated the bed and left all else in shadow. Setting her gently on her feet beside the bed, he framed her face in his hands for a long moment, gazing down at her. Raggedly, he accused, “Dammit, you planned this.”

“A gentleman wouldn't notice that,” she murmured huskily, her own hands lifting to cope with the buttons of his shirt.

Rory's laugh was half groan, but his fingers were no less eager than hers when they trailed down the V neckline of her summer blouse. “You're no lady, milady,” he teased, his lips
feathering along her jawline and down to her throat.