“You aren’t plain, Holly.”
“I know that,” she said calmly. “But do you? Do you really believe that I’m as beautifully wrapped as Cyn?”
“You don’t have to be,” he said roughly. “Wives have enough power over their husbands without that.”
Linc put his hand on her abdomen in a gesture that was both possessive and gentle.
“What do you think it does to a man to know that someday his baby will grow inside his woman?” he asked.
Holly shivered and breathed his name.
“What do you think it does to a man when a woman cares enough to risk her neck dragging him out of a lightning storm?” Linc asked. “What do you think it does to a man when he goes to sleep with her taste in his mouth and wakes up to her sleepy smile? My God, Holly. Next to those things, beauty is just a cruel joke.”
“Physical beauty has nothing to do with those things,” she said desperately. “Beauty doesn’t make them happen and beauty doesn’t prevent them from happening.”
“You’re wrong,” he said flatly. “I know a lot more about beautiful bitches than you do.”
“The words beautiful and bitch don’t mean the same thing!”
Linc let go of Holly and strode to the dresser. He yanked open a drawer, pulled out a framed photo, and walked back to her.
“Here,” he said, shoving the photo into her hands. “My mother.”
Holly looked down.
The woman in the photograph was extraordinary.
She had radiant skin pulled taut over bone structure that would give her face elegance until the day she died. Her hair was thick, long, framing her perfect features in a chestnut cascade. Her eyes were large, set well apart and jade green. Her mouth was wide, invitingly curved, poised on the brink of a smile or a kiss.
Yet there was more than that. There was a quality to the woman’s appeal that was uniquely female, hinting at the kind of sexuality that set men’s imagination on fire.
“She is . . . the most stunning woman I’ve ever seen,” Holly said finally.
“Yeah.” His mouth twisted bitterly. “Mother had me five months after she and Dad were married. At the time, he was a big agent in Hollywood. She was a model who wanted to be a star.”
“I can see why. The camera loves her.”
Linc’s lips thinned into a grim smile.
“There wasn’t much call for pregnant starlets,” he said, “so it’s obvious I was an accident. I was five weeks old when Dad’s father died and left the ranch to him.”
Holly looked up at Linc. It was like seeing an intensely masculine version of the picture in her hands. He had the same charisma, the same quality of drawing eyes no matter where he was or what he was wearing.
“Dad was happy to come here,” Linc said. “He hadn’t liked being an agent, but he and Grandfather had never gotten along.”
“And your mother?”
“She didn’t want to come here. My earliest memories are of them yelling about Garner Valley versus Hollywood.”
Linc ran his hand through his dark hair, so like that of his mother, thick and chestnut and lustrous. Even his eyes looked like hers now, green with leashed emotion.
“By the time I was three,” he said, “Mother was back to modeling. At least, that’s what she called it. I suppose she even wore clothes from time to time. Dad didn’t buy them, though.”
Holly’s eyelids flickered at the pain in Linc’s voice.
“Paying off inheritance taxes almost broke him,” he said. “He kept the ranch, but nothing else. And he worked. My God, how he worked. Dawn to dark and then some.”
“It must have been hard for them,” Holly said hesitantly.
“Not for her. Not that one. She went to Palm Springs. There wasn’t any money for baby-sitters so she’d take me along on her ‘modeling assignments.’ ”
Holly forced herself to breathe. The scorn in his voice would have etched metal.
“I don’t know how old I was when I realized my mother wasn’t modeling clothes in those motel rooms,” Linc said. “After that, I spent a lot of hours locked in cars in motel parking lots.”
Tears burned against Holly’s eyes, but she said nothing. She sensed that if she interrupted him now he would never speak about it again.
“I was seven when she locked me in the last time,” he said.
His eyes looked through Holly, focused on a past that was too painful to remember and too savage to forget.
“It was hot in the car,” he said. “God, it was hot. I waited and waited for her to come back. I finally fell asleep. When I woke up, it was dark and cold and I was shivering.”
Seven, Holly thought in horror. He was only seven, locked in a car in the desert. He could have died.
“I waited,” Linc said. “No one came. I wanted to get out of that car, but I knew my beautiful mother would raise welts on me if I did.”
Holly bit her lips against the words she wanted to speak and the fear welling up in her soul as she realized just how deep his hatred of beauty went.
And how harshly learned it was.
“It’s hard to believe how scared a kid can get,” Linc said, his voice neutral. “By the time my dad found me the next morning, I was a mess.”
Holly wanted to stop Linc from speaking, because knowing what had happened to him wounded her in ways she couldn’t describe.
Tears welled up and fell silently down Holly’s cheeks, but she made no move toward Linc. She said nothing, did nothing. She simply listened with a grief that equalled his.
He had kept the words and the hatred inside for too many years, poisoning his own possibilities for love because his father had married the wrong women.
Beautiful women.
“I never saw my mother again,” Linc said. “Seems she ran off with one of her men. I don’t even know if she’s still alive. Not that it matters. She never wanted me and I learned to live without her.”
He shrugged, but his eyes were still focused on the past.
“Dad didn’t learn much at all,” Linc said bluntly. “Three years later he married Jan. I don’t have a picture of Beth’s mother. I don’t need one. Honey blond, slim yet fully female, turquoise eyes, eighteen when they married. Beautiful? Hell yes, she was beautiful.”
Holly forced herself to breathe through the pain clenching her heart. Linc spoke the word beauty as though it inevitably meant cold, selfish, immoral.
Cruel.
“I was fifteen when Beth was born,” he continued. “Jan had been a model in some of the better Palm Springs stores before she got pregnant. When Beth was two months old, Jan went back to modeling.”
Numbly, Holly waited, listening. Enduring.
“Jan liked the money that the ranch was finally bringing in,” he said, “but she didn’t like the ranch itself. She ignored Beth. She didn’t even like Dad to hold his daughter. All I can figure is that Jan was jealous of her own kid.”
Holly looked down at her hands. They ached from being clenched together to keep from touching Linc. She wanted to hold him, to comfort him, to love him. She wanted to wave a magic wand and make the ugly past vanish so that it couldn’t throw grotesque shadows over the future.
Her future.
Their future.
But it was too late for that. It had been too late before Holly was even born.
“I pretty much raised Beth,” Linc said. “Jan was too obsessed with her looks to see anything or anyone else, and Dad—”
Linc stopped talking abruptly. Then he shrugged again. The movement was tight, as though he was shifting a load he had carried so long he no longer noticed its weight.
“Dad drank a lot by then,” he said. “I took over more and more of the ranch. Jan spent more and more time in front of the mirror, looking for the first wrinkle, and Dad found the bottom of a lot of bottles.”
Holly swallowed against the tears that were choking her.
And the fear.
“Somewhere along in there,” Linc said, “Ja
n started having men on the side. Dad didn’t admire her enough, I guess. I sure as hell didn’t admire her as much as she wanted, even when she walked into my room dead naked late one night.”
Holly made a small sound, but he didn’t hear. His face was utterly cold, rigid with contempt.
“Jan was a real bitch,” he said coolly. “When she couldn’t get Dad and me to fight over her, she started bragging about her men to us, giving us all the details. And I mean all of them.”
Holly made a ragged sound that was Linc’s name.
He didn’t hear. He was lost to her, caught in the past.
“One night Jan picked up the wrong man,” Linc said. “He slapped her around, she called Dad, and he went to get her. On the way back home Dad lost control of the car on a bad curve.”
For the first time Linc’s eyes focused on Holly.
“Your parents were killed because my stepmother was a slut all the way to her corrupt soul. If she hadn’t died in that crash, I’d have killed her myself. She wasn’t worth one tear on your face, niná. Not then, not now.”
“I’m not crying for her,” whispered Holly.
Blindly she went to Linc, buried her face against his chest, and held on with a strength that surprised both of them.
“Tomorrow,” she said in a choked voice, “tomorrow please don’t hold those women against me.”
“You aren’t like them.”
“Remember that. And you aren’t like your father. You’re strong. He wasn’t.”
“Holly—”
“No,” she interrupted desperately. “You have to listen to me. I’m not like your mother or stepmother. You must believe that. Even when you see me tomorrow, you must believe that.”
Linc’s mouth moved gently over Holly’s, tasting her tears.
“Of course I’ll believe it,” he said.
“Will you?” she asked in a despairing voice, feeling empty and afraid. “Oh, Linc, you don’t know how beautiful I can be.”
Before he could answer, the phone rang in his office just off the master bedroom.
“It must be Shadow Dancer again,” he said. “That particular phone is connected to the barn.”
Holly nodded and let go of him.
Slowly he released her in turn and went to answer the phone. His voice carried easily to her, for the office was connected to the master bedroom just across the hall from her.
“What’s that?” he said. “Shadow Dancer is down again? What about the foal? Okay. I’m on my way.”
He hung up and started for the door. Once in the hall, he hesitated.
“It’s all right,” Holly said. “Go see to your mare.”
“I’d ask you to come with me, but it could be . . . difficult.”
“Go,” she said softly. “I understand.”
Linc gave her a searching look, nodded, and moved swiftly away from her.
For a long time Holly stood motionless but for the tears running down her face, sensing midnight coming at her like a runaway train.
There was nothing she could do but wait for it to hit.
Time only ran one way, and it was running out.
Thirteen
“Holly, are you awake?”
Beth’s voice brought Holly out of a restless sleep. She rolled over in the huge bed and kicked off the comforter she didn’t remember pulling over herself.
“I’m awake,” Holly said.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
Holly rubbed her neck, trying to take out the tension that knotted her tendons.
She felt awful. Her clothes were wrinkled and awry. She had fallen asleep while waiting for Linc to come back from the barn. She had been determined to tell him that Holly was also a model called Shannon.
But Linc hadn’t come back.
Beth walked in, carrying a cordless phone. She took one look at Holly and stopped.
“Are you awake enough to talk to your boss?” Beth asked doubtfully.
Holly stretched, then rolled her head, trying to relieve the tension in her neck muscles.
“Sure, why not?” she said wearily.
She reached for the phone.
Beth put it on the bed and turned to leave. “Stick around,” Holly said. “I may need first aid when he’s finished with me.”
She smiled, but her voice was serious. She knew that Roger wouldn’t be happy when he found out where she was staying.
Camping alone was one thing.
Living with a man was something else entirely.
Yesterday she had left a message at the hotel telling Roger that she could be reached at the home of Lincoln McKenzie. She had also instructed that, until further notice, Roger was to call her Holly. Period.
If anyone told Linc about Shannon, she didn’t want it to be the “tame Viking.”
“Are you supposed to be working?” Beth asked. “Is that why your boss will be mad?”
“No. It’s just that Roger won’t be happy to know I’m with Linc.”
“Is Roger your boyfriend?”
Holly shook her head.
“He thought he wanted to be,” she explained. “He really doesn’t, but I sometimes have a hard time convincing him.”
“Will he fire you over Linc?” Beth asked, wide-eyed.
Smiling again, Holly reached for the phone.
“I doubt it,” she said. “I’m too good at what I do. Roger will just be prickly for a while.”
She flipped the switch that activated the receiver and the speaker. Beth would be able to hear Roger as clearly as Holly could.
“Hi, Roger,” she said. “You’re up early.”
“It’s ten o’clock in Manhattan. I’ve been on the phone with Sandra since six,” Roger said. “How was the camping trip?”
“Wet, stormy, and thoroughly wonderful.”
There was a distinct pause.
“Is the name Lincoln McKenzie familiar to me?” Roger asked.
“He manages Hidden Springs,” she said, yawning. “Remember?”
“I remember you said that there was nothing between you and that hard-eyed cowboy.”
Beth smothered a giggle behind her hand, guessing that Linc was the hard-eyed cowboy in question.
Holly winked at her.
“I didn’t think there was,” she said.
“And there is now?”
“Yes.”
There was a long silence.
Then, softly Roger asked, “Is he good for you?”
Sudden tears tightened her throat. Roger was worried about her rather than angry with her. He might want her as a lover, but he was also her friend.
“I’ve loved Linc since I was nine,” Holly said simply. “We were separated when my parents died and Sandra brought me to New York.”
“First love. Bloody hell.” Roger laughed curtly. “Who can compete with that?”
“There’s no question of competition,” she said. “There never was. Ever.”
“Are you sure? Frankly, he looked like a pretty hard piece of business to me.”
“I’m sure.”
“Well,” Roger said unhappily, “as long as you still model for me, I’ll try to be a good sport.”
“Roger, I’d model for you even if I didn’t have a contract. Not only do I like you, but you also create the most incredible clothes in the world. It’s exciting just to be around them.”
“Thank God. It’s too late to replace you, Shan—er, Holly.”
“I’d kill the model who tried.”
Roger laughed, obviously pleased.
And relieved.
“When you get tired of living with the devil,” he said, “there’s a fair-haired angel who will be glad to lick your wounds.”
“Linc isn’t a devil.”
“From what I saw a few days ago, he’ll do until Old Nick comes along,” Roger said dryly.
“Roger,” she began.
“But I didn’t call to argue about McKenzie’s devilish looks,” Roger interrupted.
Holly let out a soundless breath of relief.
“Okay,” she said. “What’s up?”
“I’m putting off the Hidden Springs shoot for now.”
“Why?”
“Weather,” he said succinctly.
Holly frowned.
“We’re going to Cabo San Lucas instead,” Roger said. “The satellite forecast and the local weather shaman assure me it’s hot, dry, and sandy there.”
“As opposed to hot, wet, and sandy here?” she asked with a lightness she didn’t feel.
“Right.”
Holly twisted the corner of her blouse between her fingers and wondered what to do. She loved her work, but she didn’t want to leave Linc.
Especially not now, with so much unresolved between them.
“How much time before we leave and how long are we staying?” she asked finally.
“We’ll leave sometime in the next week,” Roger said. “I can’t be more specific, because I’m having trouble choosing the male model.”
“What happened to the last pretty face? He had wonderful gray eyes.”
“He broke his wrist climbing rocks for a cigarette ad.”
Holly just shook her head.
“I’m going to look at a few more models today,” Roger said. “If I don’t see anything I like, I’ll try something new.”
She grimaced. She remembered the last time he had tried “something new.”
“No more dumb jocks, please,” Holly said. “Smart ones, yes.”
“Where’s your sense of adventure? That piece of beefcake you’re referring to sold a lot of jogging clothes.”
“He also kept tackling me,” she said acidly.
“So his eyesight was better than his IQ.”
“Have you thought of using Linc?” Holly asked, only half joking.
“Love must be blind.”
“Excuse me?”
“Lincoln McKenzie looks like your desert mountains,” Roger said bluntly. “Big, hard, and definitely not for the uninitiated. I like to think my products are a bit more civilized.”
Beth was caught between indignation and laughter. Laughter won. She buried her face in a pillow.
“What’s that?” he asked. “Sounds like you’re choking on a bite of toast.”
Holly laughed softly.
“That is Linc’s younger sister,” she explained.
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