Shades of Twilight (29 page)

"Roanna?" Lucinda prodded, and Roanna realized she'd been sitting there daydreaming.

Murmuring a vague apology, Roanna pushed back her chair. She had a meeting at two with the organizers of this year's W. C. Handy Festival in August, so she would just stick her head in the study door, ask Webb his opinion of Lucinda's plan, then escape upstairs to change clothes. Perhaps, by the time she returned, he would have tired of paperwork and she wouldn't have to endure another evening of exquisite torture, sitting at his elbow, listening to his deep voice, marveling at the speed with which he assimilated information-in short, reveling in his presence while at the same time wondering if he thought she was sitting too close, or making too much of every opportunity to bend over him. Even worse, had he wished she would simply go away and get out of his hair?

When she opened the door, he looked up inquiringly from the papers in his hand. He was leaned back in his chair, the master of his space, his booted feet propped comfortably on the desk.

"I'm sorry," she blurted.

"I should have knocked."

He stared at her in silence for a long moment, his dark brows drawing together over his nose.

"Why?" he finally asked.

"This is yours now." Her reply was simply made, without inflection.

He took his feet off the desk.

"Come in and close the door."

She did but remained standing there by the door. Webb stood and came around the desk, then leaned against the edge of it with his arms crossed over his chest and his legs stretched out. It was a negligent position, but if his body was relaxed, his gaze was sharp as it raked over her.

"You don't ever have to knock on that door," he finally said.

"And let's get one thing straight right now: I'm not taking your place, I'm taking Lucinda's. You've done a good job, Ro. I told you yesterday that I'd be a fool if I shut you out of the decision-making process. Maybe you thought you'd get to spend your days with the horses now that I'm back, and you will have more time for yourself, I promise, but you're still needed here, too," Roanna blinked, dazed by this turn of events. Despite what he'd said to her after the commissioner's meeting, she hadn't thought he had really meant it. A part of her had automatically dismissed it as the type of thing Webb had done when she was little, reassuring her to keep her from being upset, pretending that she was important to anything or anyone. She had stopped letting herself believe in fairy tales on the night she had stumbled into a pool of blood. Very likely, she had thought, she would bring Webb up to speed, and then her usefulness would be at an end. He'd handled everything by himself before Her mind stopped, startled. No, that wasn't true. He had taken most of the work on his shoulders, but Lucinda had still been involved. And that was before he'd had his property in Arizona to oversee as well. Silent joy spread through her, warming the corners of her heart that had already begun to chill as she prepared herself for being replaced. He really did need her.

He'd said she had done a good job. And he'd called her Ro.

He was watching her with a sharply intent gaze.

"If you doll,t smite," he said softly, "then I can't tell if you're pleased or not."

she stared at him, perplexed, searching his face for a clue to what he really meant. Smile? why would he want her to smile?

"Smite," he prompted.

"You remember what a smile is, don't you? The corners of your mouth turn up, like this." He pushed the corners of his mouth up with his flugers, demonstrating. It what people do when they're happy. Do you hate paperwork, is that it? Don't you want to help me?"

Tentatively she stretched the corners of her mouth, curling them upward. It was a hesitant, fleeting little smile, barely forming before it was gone and she was regarding him solemnly once more.

But evidently that was what he'd wanted, "Good," he said, straightening from his relaxed perch on the desk.

"Are you ready to get back to work?"

"I have a meeting at two. I'm sorry."

"What kind of meeting?"

"With the organizers of the Handy Festival." .207

He shrugged, losing interest. Webb wasn't a jazz fan. Roanna remembered why she was there.

"Lucinda sent me to ask what you think of having a welcome-home party."

He gave a short laugh, immediately realizing the implications.

"She's going on the attack, huh? Are Gloria and Lanette trying to talk her out of it?"

He didn't seem to need an answer, either that or her silence was answer enough. He thought it over for all of five seconds.

"Sure, why the hell not? I don't give a damn if it makes everyone uncomfortable. I stopped caring ten years ago what people think of me. If anyone thinks I'm not good enough to deal with them, then I'll take Davencourt's business elsewhere; it's up to them."

She nodded and reached for the door handle, slipping out before he could make any more strange demands that she smile.

Webb returned to his chair, but he didn't immediately pick up the file he'd been studying before Roanna's entrance. He stared at where she'd been standing, poised like a doe on the verge of fleeing. His chest still hurt as he remembered that pathetic excuse for a smile, and the look almost of fright that had been in her eyes. It was difficult to read her now, she kept so much hidden and gave so little response to the world around her. It grated at him, because the Roanna he remembered had been as open as anyone he'd ever known. If he wanted to know how she felt about anything now, he had to pay intensely close attention to every nuance of her expression and body language, before she managed to stifle them.

She had been stunned when he'd told her that he still needed her help. He silently thanked Lucinda for giving him the key to handling
 
Roanna. The idea of anyone needing her got to her faster than anything else, and she couldn't help responding to it. For a Split second he'd seen the wonder, the pure joy, that had lit the depths of her eyes, and then it had been so quickly hidden that if he hadn't been deliberately watching her he wouldn't have seen it at all.

He'd lied. He could handle everything without her help, Shades o Twilight If even with the added burden of his properties in Arizona. He thrived on pressure, his energy level seeming to increase with the demands made on his time. But she needed to feel needed, and he needed her to be close by.

He wanted her.

The phrase beat like a refrain through his mind, his veins, every cell of his body. Want. He hadn't taken her in Nogales out of revenge or because of that damned bargain he'd made with her, or even to keep from hurting her feelings by pulling back after going that far. The simple fact was he'd taken her because he wanted her and was ruthless enough to use whatever means necessary to get her. The tequila was no excuse, though it had relaxed his control over his more uncivilized instincts.

He'd lain awake in his bed last night, thinking of her in the next room, wondering if she was awake, his damned imagination driving him crazy.

Knowing that he could have Roanna any time he wanted was more powerful than any chemical aphrodisiac ever discovered or invented. All he had to do was get out of bed and walk out onto the veranda, then slip through the French doors into her room. She had insomnia; she would be awake, watching him come toward her. He could simply get into bed with her and she would take him into her arms, her body, without question or hesitation.

Erotic dreams of that one kiss they'd shared so long ago had haunted his sleep for years. That had been bad enough, but the dreams had been only imagination. Now that he knew exactly how it felt to make love to her, now that reality had taken the place of imagination, the temptation was a constant, gnawing hunger that threatened to shred his selfcontrol.

God, she'd been so sweet, so shy, and so damn tight he broke out in a sweat remembering how it had felt when he'd entered her. He had looked down at her as he made love to her and watched the expression on her face, watched the delicate pink of her nipples darken with arousal. Even though he'd hurt her, she had clung to him, arching her hips up to take him even deeper. It had been so easy to bring her to climax that he'd been enchanted, wanting to do it time and again so he could watch her face as she convulsed, feel her body flexing and throbbing around him.

The night had been exquisite torture, and he knew he would be fighting the same battle every night, with his frustration growing by the minute. He didn't know how long he could endure it before his self-control broke, but for Roanna's sake he had to try.

He'd been back at Davencourt a little over twenty-four hours, and he'd had a hard-on for what seemed like most of that time, certainly for the hours he'd spent in her company. If she'd seemed even the least inclined to flirt with him, in any way signal that she wanted him, too, he probably couldn't have withstood the temptation. But Roanna Seemed totally unaware of him as a man, despite the hours they had spent in bed together. The idea was infuriating, but it seemed likely that she had indeed slept with him just to get him to come back to Davencourt.

Even that thought, instead of dampening his ardor, only intensified it. He wanted to toss her over his shoulder and carry her away for some hot, lazy sex on a sun-drenched bed, prove to her that she wanted him, that Davencourt and Lucinda had nothing to do with it. The fact was, where Roanna was concerned, his sexual instincts were so damn primitive he expected to start grunting and swinging clubs any minute now, And that was after only one day.

The grudge he'd held against her all those years was gone. Maybe it had been destroyed during the night they'd spent together, and he just hadn't noticed it at the time. Habit was a powerful thing; You got so used to something that you expected it to be there even when it wasn't. If any vestige had been left, she had demolished it the next morning with her quiet dignity and the utter defenselessness with which she had said, "All you had to do was snap your fingers, and I'd have come running," Not many women would have laid themselves on the line like that; none that he knew, in fact,

except for Roanna. He'd been staggered by the courage it had taken for her to say that, knowing what a weapon she had put in his hands if he'd been inclined to use it.

He wasn't. He lifted his hand and snapped his fingers, watching the motion. Like that. He could have her just like that. He wanted her, God knows he wanted her so much he ached. But what he wanted more than anything, even more than he wanted to make love to her, was to see her smile again.

By the time she drove home late that afternoon, Roanna was aching with fatigue. She usually found organizational meetings deadly dull anyway, and this one had dragged on with hours of debate on insignificant details. As usual, she had sat quietly, though this time she had been concentrating more on holding her head upright and her eyes open than she had been on what people were saying.

By the time she turned south onto Highway 43, the sun and heat were almost more than she could fight. She blinked drowsily, glad that she was so close to home. It was almost time for supper, but she planned to lie down for a nap instead. She could eat whenever she chose, but sleep was a lot harder to achieve and far more precious.

She made a right turn off the highway onto a secondary road, and a mile or so after that she turned left onto Davencourt's private road. If she hadn't been so sleepy, she would have been driving faster, and she might have missed the blur of motion in her peripheral vision. She slowed even more, turning her head to see what had caught her attention.

At first she saw only the horse, plunging and rearing, and her first thought was that it had lost its rider and bolted, and now the trailing reins were caught on some underbrush. She forgot her tiredness as urgency flooded her muscles. She slammed on the brakes, shoved the gear shift into park, and jumped out of the car, leaving the motor running and the door open. She could hear the horse's squeals of fear and pain as it reared again.

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Roanna didn't think about her expensive shoes or her silk dress. She didn't think of anything except reaching the horse before it hurt itself. She leaped the shallow ditch on the opposite side of the road, then ran awkwardly across the small field toward the trees, her high heels sinking into the earth with each step. She plunged through knee-high weeds that stung her legs, snagged her hosiery on some green briers, turned her ankle when she stepped in a hole. She ignored all of that as she ran as fast as she could, intent only on getting to the horse.

Then the horse sidled sideways, and she saw the man. She hadn't noticed him before because he'd been on the other side of the horse, and the undergrowth had partially blocked her view.

The horse's reins weren't caught on anything. The man was holding them in one fist, and in the other fist he held a small tree limb that he was using to beat the horse.

Fury roared through her, pumping strength into her muscles. She heard herself yell, saw the man took in her direction with a startled expression on his face, then she surged through the undergrowth and threw her weight against him, knocking him to the side. She couldn't have done it if he'd been expecting it and braced himself, but she caught him by surprise.

"Stop it!" she stormed, placing herself between him and the frightened horse.

"Don't you dare hit this animal again!"