THE MORNING SIDE OF DAWN

by Justine Davis

  "Actually," he said, cutting off her spate of words, "I did."

  She blinked. "You did?"

  "I wanted to apologize."

  She blinked again, truly startled now. "To me?"

  He nodded, not looking very happy about it.

  "You already did," she said. "And it was me who intruded on you—"

  "Not that." He cut her off, then stopped. He ran a hand over the push rim on the right wheel of his chair. Cassie's eyes followed the motion, seeing the strength in his muscled forearms and wrists, and the well-defined tendons of his hands. She only realized she was staring when at last he spoke again. Her gaze shot back to his face.

  "I … made some assumptions about you. Because of what you look like. I shouldn't have."

  This was the last thing she'd expected. She didn't know what to say. Finally she managed a stumbling reply. "I … it's all right. I understand."

  "I doubt that," he muttered.

  His tone jarred on nerves already taut, and she couldn't help her reaction. "So that's how it works? I can't possibly understand because I'm not sitting where you are?"

  To her surprise, he flushed. "No. I didn't mean that."

  "Then what did you mean?"

  He made a dismissive gesture with his hands. "It was just … a knee-jerk reaction, okay?" She considered that for a moment, and when she didn't speak, one corner of his mouth quirked wryly. "I don't know what it would be if I'd lost both knees."

  Her eyes widened. She barely managed to keep her gaze from shifting to his legs. Then the humor of it struck her, and she grinned.

  "Just a jerk reaction?" she suggested.

  He looked startled. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed. What a wonderful sound, Cassie thought. Deep and rich, with a timbre that sent a shiver down her spine.

  "Probably," he agreed without any trace of annoyance. Then, with no warning, he shot a question at her. "What's wrong? Why are you so edgy?"

  Caught off guard, she started to answer. "Some guy has been bothering me…" She trailed off, realizing she'd just done what she'd sworn not to do.

  "What guy?"

  "Nobody."

  "'Nobody' makes you jump like a scared rabbit?"

  "It's nothing, really."

  Something in his expression, in the way his eyes became shuttered, made her wish she hadn't said that, made wish that the man who had just grinned with her, the man whose dark eyes had lit up with what she sensed was rare laughter, hadn't disappeared.

  "All right, Cassandra, if you say so."

  "Don't call me that!"

  He stiffened. "Fine. Ms. Cameron, then. I'll be getting out of your way now."

  He spun the chair around and hurled it down the single, low porch step so fast and with such exquisite balance she was stunned for a moment.

  "Dar, wait." He seemed to wince at the sound of his name; she stepped down after him. "That's not what I meant. It's just that I … hate that name. Cassandra is … somebody else. An image. Not me."

  She'd spoken the words to his retreating back, but he stopped now. When he didn't turn around, she tried again.

  "It was just a knee-jerk reaction."

  She heard him let out a compressed breath, then saw his shoulders bunch; in an instant the chair was spinning again and he was facing her, wearing an expression she couldn't read.

  "Guess we're even, then."

  She smiled tentatively. "Maybe we should quit keeping score."

  "Maybe." He looked at her steadily for a long, silent moment. "So who is this guy who's bothering you?"

  With a sigh, she gave in, not really certain why. "I don't know, not really. His name is Willis, but I don't know much more. And he hasn't really done anything, except send me notes and flowers…"

  "But?"

  "He showed up in Denver a couple of weeks ago. I was there on a shoot."

  Dar's brows furrowed. "He followed you? Did he do anything?"

  "No. He was just … there. But he made me nervous. So I decided to take a break, and come here."

  "How long has this been going on?"

  "Six months, maybe." She sighed again. "Look, I know it's probably nothing, but—"

  "You're a public figure. You can't assume that."

  She suppressed a different kind of shiver. "A public figure. God, I hate that."

  "Then you picked a hell of a career," Dar said, the wryness of his tone unmistakable.

  "I know. But when I picked it, I never expected it to … mushroom like it did."

  "You're a beautiful woman. Why were you surprised?"

  Cassie knew she was gaping at him, but she couldn't help it. There had been nothing of flattery in his tone, nothing of fawning, merely a flat acknowledgment, as if of an incontrovertible fact. Yet somehow it had more impact than any fatuous compliment she had ever gotten.

  "I … thank you."

  Dar shrugged impatiently. "You've got to know what you look like. You shouldn't be surprised."

  "I didn't know it would be like this," she said after a moment. "I was very naive, I suppose. I thought it would be great fun to wear the latest clothes and just have my picture taken all the time." Her mouth twisted. "A kid's view of modeling. The reality, on the other hand, is a lot of hard work, of getting up before dawn and working until dark, of having people poking and prodding at you constantly, ordering you around…" Her voice trailed off as she shook her head ruefully.

  "And strange men following you."

  She shivered again despite herself. "Yes."

  "Does Chase know about this?"

  "No. I didn't want to tell him. You know how he is, he worries."

  "He loves you."

  "I know." She smiled. "It's that double dose of feeling responsible he was born with."

  "He does tend to … worry. About everybody."

  Even me.

  He didn't say the words, but Cassie heard it in the wonder in his voice. She wondered if Dar had ever had anybody to really worry about him before. But she knew better than to ask.

  "If Chase knew, he'd probably feel he needed to be here, to watch out for me. And this is the first chance he and Stevie have had to get away since Jason was born."

  "What about Sean?"

  Cassie shook her head. "No. I don't want to bother him, either. Rory's having a tough time, and he's got enough to worry about." He lowered his eyes, and she gave him a sideways look. "He told me you knew."

  "That Rory's pregnant? Yes."

  "You didn't say anything the other day, when I got here."

  "Not my place," he said simply.

  She smiled. "Rory told me when I started teasing her about keeping Sean on such a short leash with that cellular phone."

  Dar looked up then. "I finally figured out that's why he bought it." Then, brows lowering, he added, "You've seen her? Is she having a really tough time?"

  "Only if you call throwing up a dozen times a day a tough time."

  He grimaced and Cassie grinned; he looked like any single man confronted with the more unpleasant aspects of pregnancy.

  "She'll be all right, as long as she doesn't get too dehydrated, and Sean's making sure of that. He's been threatening to have his mother move in if Rory doesn't keep drinking liquids."

  Dar's eyes widened, then he suddenly mirrored her grin. "I've met Sean's mother. That'd convince me."

  "Me, too," Cassie said. "She'd drive me crazy with all that fussing. But I guess it's just her way. You know how mothers are."

  He looked away, and Cassie suddenly remembered that Sean had told her Dar's mother had died when he was a child. She hastened to get past the awkward moment.

  "I'm glad my mom isn't like that. She just tells Rory to eat Popsicles."

  Dar's head came up at that, and he gaped at her. "What?"

  She grinned again. "You heard me. She said Popsicles were the only thing that got her through carrying me. The only thing she could keep down, and the only way she could get enough liquids. Dad says he was buying them by the case. To this day he c
an't look at a grape Popsicle."

  Dar shook his head. "Amazing," was all he said, but he said it so wistfully Cassie got the feeling it was about much more than a rather amusing solution to the chronic morning-sickness problem. Was he missing his own mother? she wondered. Or perhaps just a simple thing like oft-repeated, familiar family tales, things that she took for granted but he had probably never known?

  But she knew better than to ask about that, too. Based on what Sean had told her over the past couple of days, Dar showing up here at all was surprising; that it had apparently been to apologize for something like this was astonishing. Prying into the reasons behind that wistful tone would get her nowhere.

  "So you're not going to tell them?"

  So much for diverting him. She shook her head. "No. They'd just worry, and I'm not sure there's anything to worry about."

  "Yet," Dar said, a little sourly.

  Cassie gave him a surprised look. Everyone had spent so much time assuring her she was feeling nervous for nothing, it was a little startling to find support coming from this unexpected quarter.

  "You think there is?"

  "I think there are a damn lot of crazies out there."

  "He doesn't look like a crazy."

  "Are you perfect?"

  She blinked, disconcerted. "Perfect? Of course not."

  Dar shrugged. "You look it."

  Cassie felt color flood her face. But it faded quickly when she realized that again he hadn't been flattering her, he'd merely been stating what he saw as a fact. What far too much of the world saw as a fact. And belatedly she got his point.

  "You're right," she said, chagrined. "You can't judge someone by what they look like, and I should know that better than anyone."

  To her surprise, he gave her an understanding look. "So should I, but I did it to you. If everybody does that, no wonder you needed a break."

  She wanted to hug him. As unlikely as it seemed, this man, this taciturn, detached man understood. Where people who were supposedly her friends scoffed, Dar understood. Where her boss saw only the loss of a lot of revenue, Dar understood. Where even her family reminded her this was what she'd always dreamed of, Dar understood.

  She also knew if she gave in to the urge to throw her arms around him, he'd react like an annoyed grizzly; she'd never met anyone who so visibly cordoned off his own space. And it had nothing to do with the chair and everything to do with the cool aloofness of his gaze.

  So she settled on the next best thing.

  "Thank you," she said quietly.

  He looked puzzled. "For what?"

  "Understanding."

  For an instant he looked as if she'd accused him of something distasteful, and she wanted to laugh. Then she again wanted to hug him; she once more smothered the urge. She didn't quite understand why it was so hard to check the impulse; outside her family, she'd learned quickly to restrain her natural inclination to touch. Too often it was misinterpreted.

  "Most of the world thinks I'm crazy for walking away," she said after a moment.

  He looked at her consideringly. "You sound like you mean you're walking away for good."

  "I…" She hesitated; this was something she hadn't admitted out loud to anyone. Then, before she could stop them, the words came tumbling out. "I'm thinking about it."

  She waited, breathless, half-convinced something awful would happen now that she'd voiced the words for the first time.

  "Waiting for lightning to strike?" Dar asked, his mouth lifting at one corner.

  Realizing what she must have looked like, Cassie laughed. "Something like that."

  Dar smiled. Cassie felt an odd little flutter in her chest; he might not smile often, but when he did, it was powerful stuff. Too powerful. So powerful she suddenly suspected her urge to hug him had been born of something much deeper than just her natural tendency to be a touchy person. And something deeper than the surface attraction that had lured her into that uncharacteristic flirtation at Sean's wedding.

  Something that made her just a little bit nervous.

  "I…" She tightened her grip on her purse. "I need to go to my brother's office, I promised him I'd check for messages and pick up the mail."

  For a moment Dar didn't react. Then, rather shortly, he nodded.

  "I'll get my van out of your way."

  He spun the chair around with that ease she was getting used to, and rolled up to the driver's side of the blue panel van. It was old, she noticed, but immaculate. She watched as he opened the door and levered himself out of the chair and into the van with an ease that belied the effort she knew it must take. He reached down and folded the chair, the two sides coming together neatly despite the angled wheels. Although she guessed this regular chair was heavier than the racing chairs he built, he lifted it easily, and stowed it in what looked like a rack made for it behind the driver's seat, readily accessible from where he sat. The entire process took less than a minute.

  "How do people in wheelchairs who aren't as strong as you manage?"

  His head snapped around sharply, and she felt as if she were a specimen under a microscope as his dark eyes searched her face. She wondered what he was looking for, and for a moment she wished she hadn't spoken. Then she realized she'd been feeling that a lot around this man, and her mouth quirked wryly.

  "Sorry if that was a wrong question," she said. "I'm not much good at walking on eggshells around people."

  "Most people," he said after a moment, "probably find that more irritating than being asked the wrong questions. Which that wasn't, if you genuinely wanted to know."

  "It just struck me that not everyone could do that as easily as you did."

  He nodded, gesturing toward the chair now stowed behind his seat. "Some people in chairs use lifts, then switch to the driver's seat once they're inside. For powered chairs there's a setup you can bolt to the frame, which locks the wheels in place and lets people use their chairs as driver's seats. But most people who can, drive regular cars. They're not as hard to get into. I need the van for my race chairs. I always take spares."

  "In case something breaks?"

  "Or if it's a new course, and I get there and find out I need something different."

  She lifted a brow. "They're that specialized?"

  "Mine are." He sounded slightly defensive, and must have realized it, because he added, "I'm kind of picky."

  "Sean says you've won every road race there is. I'd say that's just darn good, not picky."

  "Sean talks too much."

  It was almost a growl, but Cassie noticed that for a third time, color had tinged his cheeks. His goodbye was rather abrupt, and she watched with a wry expression as the van drove away.

  You can certainly pick 'em, Cassandra, she muttered to herself as, after he'd gone, she pulled her car out of the drive. Why can't you be fascinated by someone simple, like the paperboy, or that brainless, overmuscled jeans model you met last month? But no, the first guy to interest you in ages has to be a cool, uncommunicative master of detachment, with walls a mile high and more than that thick.

  And with every right to have those walls, she thought. Who wouldn't, after what he'd been through? But somehow she knew it wasn't that simple. Dar wasn't that simple. There was more to his temperament than the maiming of his body. She wasn't sure why she was so certain of that, but she was.

  She was still mulling it over when she arrived at her brother's office and let herself in with the key he'd left her. And still wondering about the enigma that was Dar Cordell when she picked up the few pieces of mail and began automatically to sort them by size before taking them back to the house so that, when he called, Chase could tell her if anything was important enough that she should open it for him.

  Only the completely unexpected appearance of her own name, written on a plain white envelope addressed in care of Cameron and Associates, startled her out of her preoccupation. She stared down, aware that her hand had begun to shake, but unable to stop it for a moment. There was no return addres
s on the envelope, but she didn't need one. She recognized the looping scrawl all too well.

  Willis.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  «^»

  The ridiculously triumphant, chirping tune of the timer sounded as he hit the end of his workout on the cross-country ski machine, and Dar slumped over the belly pad, breathing hard. Someday he was going to get rid of that sound, he promised himself. If he could modify the thing so he could use it with what was left of his legs, surely he could figure out how to dump that stupid fanfare.

  He freed himself from the altered bindings of the wooden skis and levered himself back into his chair, still puffing a bit. He'd upped the time and the tension, and his body wasn't happy with the extra work. But he'd long ago learned to ignore those silent protests, as he'd learned to ignore the aches, pains and itches in legs that were years gone.

  He'd increased the work load simply to upgrade his physical condition, not because he needed the distraction. Or because he wanted to be too exhausted to think. Or to remember the encounter with Cassie at Chase's house this morning. She had nothing to do with anything, he told himself, trying to ignore the fact that he'd told himself that at least ten times a day for three days now. Ever since Cassie Cameron had driven back into his life.

  Cassandra, he corrected himself silently. She was Cassandra, darling of millions, the face that launched a thousand magazines.

  Don't call me that! Cassandra is … somebody else. An image. Not me.

  Her words echoed in his mind as he wiped a towel over his face and chest, mopping up the sweat. Her voice had rung with denial. He knew how that felt. How long after he'd lost his legs had he stared at himself in the mirror and denied what he saw? How many times had he cried out, "That's not me!" and turned away, sickened by the sight?

  Did she ever do that? Could the world's ideal woman ever really regret her own beauty? Did she ever look in a mirror and curse the chance arrangement of her features that had brought her such distress, in addition to the fame and fortune she'd thought she wanted?

  Remembering her concern about the man who'd been bothering her made him wonder what the hell had gotten into him this morning. He'd intended to apologize to her—she was Katie's aunt, after all—and then leave. Leave as fast as he could without insulting her all over again. And instead he'd wound up prodding her into talking about a problem she hadn't wanted to talk about and he hadn't wanted to hear.