Tangled Web

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  “Then maybe that’s a clue not to do it again in the future,” Hope countered stiffly, resuming her dishwashing with unnecessary force.

  Again, water surged over the rim of the small plastic dishpan, this time dampening both their thighs. Tears sparkled against her lashes, but fell no farther. Desperate to mend the rift between them, Chase grabbed her shoulders and turned her to face him. He held her there when she would have bolted. “Hope, I was trying to protect you.” In her heart, he felt she knew that.

  She gave a bitter little laugh, and looked even more distressed. “If you cared about my feelings you would never have gone there,” she whispered hoarsely. Her wet hands inched up to try to pry his fingers from her shoulders. “Ever! Damn you!”

  Afraid she would wake Joey if her escalating emotions remained unchecked, he cupped a hand beneath her elbow and half dragged, half led her farther away from the tents, not stopping until they were standing at the far edge of the campsite, in a stand of trees.

  “I’m sorry, okay?” He knew he’d had no right to go snooping around like that, but he also knew instinctively that she was in some sort of trouble. Russell Morris was a part of that trouble, even if she wouldn’t yet admit it to him. “But at least I was honest,” he continued when she pushed away from him and leaned her back against the spreading base of a live oak. “At least I leveled with you.”

  She shook her head in exasperation and tilted her head up to his. “Is that oh-so-noble gesture supposed to win you my admiration?” she questioned sarcastically. “Is that supposed to get you off the hook with me?”

  Yes, dammit, Chase thought, it was. He had expected her to be open to reason with the passage of this much time; the fact that she wasn’t was both frustrating and annoying. “I said it before. I’ll say it again. I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he repeated tightly.

  “Well, sorry doesn’t cut it,” she snapped. She tried to step around him. “Not in this case. You lied to me, Chase.” And that she wouldn’t sanction. She’d been played for the fool once. It would never happen again.

  He stopped her from fleeing by planting a hand on either side of her. She had run from too much already—from her past, her home, her parents, and Russell Morris. She wasn’t going to run from him, too. “And you’re not lying? Pretending you have no feelings for Russell Morris, then meeting him on the sly.”

  The thought of her with Morris made him furious. Dammit, she knew the guy was a sleazy jerk! Yet she was spending time with him again! Why? Were they back to her need for money again? Was she part of one of Russell’s schemes?

  Hope was aware how close they were, how damp and clinging the midsections of their clothing, and how very much she wanted him to hold her in his arms. “I don’t have any feelings for Russell.” The idea that she could was ludicrous! She hated Russell Morris. It was Chase she cared about, Chase who she didn’t want to think badly of her. Chase who, if he found out the truth, undoubtedly would think her a fool and a coward and maybe even a tramp. And she couldn’t bear that. She couldn’t bear it if he, too, looked at her with the same disdain as her parents and all the people she had once known. They hadn’t believed her story, either.

  Chase’s glance narrowed. “Then why were you meeting with him?” he asked in disbelief.

  Hope pushed at his shoulders, and found them immovable. Dropping her hands, she leaned back against the cold, rough bark. Although they weren’t touching, she was acutely aware of his body and of the energy seething between them. Turning her head to the side, she ignored his nearness. “I only saw Russell for one reason. I was trying to get rid of him!”

  His arms flexing slightly, he studied her. “You’re not still carrying a torch for him?” he asked roughly.

  “No.” Just the thought of him made her ill and brought on the awful migraines. She closed her eyes briefly, unable to deal with Chase’s penetrating gaze, or her need to vindicate herself in his eyes. She feared she would inadvertently reveal too much, and cause an even bigger mess than the tangled web of lies and half-truths they were already in. “I hate the man!”

  He waited until she opened her eyes again before he spoke. “Because of what he did to your family?” Chase watched as she wet her lips.

  “Yes,” Hope answered hoarsely. Part of her wished he would let her go, the other part wished he would find out everything now, so they could just get it over with. Then he could think her a fool like everyone else. He would walk away before they became any closer. She knew now how very wrong they were for each other. Chase thought they should tell everything, risk everything. Only she knew how very much the truth could hurt.

  The moments drew out and the embattled silence continued. Whatever had happened back then had scarred Hope irrevocably and made her afraid to trust, Chase thought. He wanted to help her, but in order to do that he had to get her to talk.

  Realizing abruptly how shaky she looked, he dropped his hands from either side of her and laced one around her waist. “What happened back then, Hope?” he asked gently, pulling her against him. “Why did your family get thrown off the tenant farm after you and Russell stopped dating?”

  Again, misery filled her face. Her arms pressed tightly against her waist, Hope slipped from the warm circle of his arm and stalked further back into the trees. “Russell Morris told a lot of lies about me. He insinuated I was after him because of his money and everyone believed him.”

  Her words had the ring of truth. And yet, he knew instinctively, there was still so much she wasn’t saying, so much she was afraid to say. Only harsh questions would make her angry enough to forget her inhibitions and speak her mind. “Were you interested in him because he was rich?” Chase asked, deliberately letting a lazy, faintly insinuating tone creep into his voice.

  Hope whirled to face him and sent him an aggrieved look. “I dated him exactly twice,” she enunciated clearly, pushing the words through her teeth, “because I was very young and very naive and too inexperienced to see through his surface charm. I couldn’t have cared less about whether or not he had money! I went out with him because I thought he liked me.”

  Looking into her eyes, Chase could believe that. He also recalled what Louise had said about Hope and her schemes. There was something more here that Hope didn’t want him to know. “Then you didn’t try to extort money from the Morrises?”

  Hurt flickered in her eyes. “Is that what my mother told you?” Hope asked. If so, it didn’t surprise her.

  Ignoring her question, he deftly closed the distance between them. “Is it true?” He knew he had hit on something here, from the tense, wary expression in Hope’s eyes.

  Her shoulders slumped with defeat. “All I wanted from the Morrises,” Hope began tiredly, running a hand through her hair, “was for them to be fair, to tell the truth, to admit they were wrong about me.” But she knew that would never happen. They had sided with their son, against her, and they always would. Her family had sided against her, too. And Chase might, if he found out the truth. It wasn’t a chance she was willing to take. She’d rather he know nothing and resent her for her secrecy than have him find out the truth and despise her for the naive fool she had once been.

  Feeling more trapped and desperate than ever, she moved blindly away from him. If they kept this up she’d have a throbbing migraine by morning. “I can’t talk about this with you,” she said in an anguished voice. She wouldn’t. It was just too painful. He was too important to her.

  Having come close to getting at the truth, to getting close to Hope, and then having it all slip away was more than he could bear. Aware he was losing control but helpless to do anything to prevent it, Chase went after her. It took three steps, maybe four, and they were even. Another for him to cut her off. Catching her implacably by the arm, he swung her around to face him. “What are you so afraid of?” The depth of his frustration oozed from every pore.

  Trying to steady herself, Hope took a deep breath. “I’m not afraid.”

  “The hell you’re not!” he retorted
, his low voice intense.

  The silence drew out between them and their gazes collided, held. She knew he wanted her; she knew she wanted him, and that the passion they felt was dangerous. But as time suspended and they stood there facing each other in the moonlight, none of that seemed to matter. No matter how firmly she told herself to move, to get away from him now while she still had the chance, she couldn’t seem to drop her gaze. Nor could he. “Hope,” Chase said hoarsely.

  The next thing she knew he was stepping closer, anchoring an arm around her waist. His head was slanting, lowering, and then the barest second later his mouth was on hers.

  She fought him at first, her arms coming up between them, to splay against the rock solidness of his chest and push him away. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want him. Not when she was still so very angry. But as the seconds ticked out, her hurt and her sense of betrayal began to fade. The passion she felt for him overrode her anger completely. She was entranced by the feel of his warm, smooth lips on hers.

  She hadn’t known it could be like this, so soft and warm and enticing. So gentle, yet so provocative. He made her feel as though she was something precious, like this was something precious. And it was. And she wanted more of it, wanted more of him. Only she didn’t know quite what to do or how to act, or what he wanted from her. But that didn’t seem to matter, either. She followed her instinct, opened her lips slightly, and his tongue slid inside her mouth. Gingerly she touched her tongue to his, and felt an answering shiver deep inside her. He tasted of mint and coffee and man.

  So this was passion, she thought, stunned, as her arms and legs, indeed her whole body, tightened. The arm he had anchored at her waist pulled her even nearer. She felt the strength of his desire pulsing against her. She felt the same strong yearning pulsing within her. But she wasn’t afraid. Not at all. Not this time. And that was such an incredible, awesome relief.

  I SHOULDN’T HAVE done that, Chase thought, hours later when he was lying in his sleeping bag, with his hands folded behind his neck. Joey slumbered peacefully beside him. He shouldn’t have kissed her. But he’d been unable to help himself. She’d looked so beautiful and fragile standing there in the moonlight. She’d been so frightened and so much in need of someone to love her. He’d acted on impulse and gotten the surprise of his life. She kissed like a virgin, tentatively and shyly. And that, combined with her smoldering, come-hither beauty was sexy as hell.

  Maybe that was her turn-on, he speculated guiltily. Maybe that was how she drove men insane. Maybe that was how she’d gotten his father to marry her so quickly. God knew it had worked on him against all common sense and familial loyalty.

  The really strange thing was that her shyness hadn’t felt like a put-on. It had seemed very real to him. So real, in fact, that he’d had a heck of a time stopping with just the one long, soul-shattering kiss. But somehow he had stopped and they’d stepped back from each other.

  If she had slapped him, he would’ve felt better. She hadn’t. Instead, she had looked at him as though he was some sort of marauding angel. At that point, he’d had a vision of his father. Edmond wasn’t angry exactly, but he wasn’t exactly pleased, either.

  Chase rolled over on his side, thinking again of how Hope had looked after the kiss, so stunned, as if that had never happened to her before. Certainly she’d been kissed before. She’d been married to his father for ten years, for cripes sake. Surely, Edmond’d—

  No, he didn’t want to think about that, Chase reprimanded himself grimly. If he did he’d be dreaming about his father all night. Thinking about Hope and Edmond together, even in the most obscure, scientific fashion possible, was just too kinky for Chase’s taste. He had to put that out of his mind entirely. He didn’t want to know what had happened in his father’s bedroom, ever. Even if Hope had been there.

  He also had to stop agonizing over the kiss if he were ever going to get through the rest of this weekend. So what if Hope had once been married to his father? So what if he’d kissed her once? It wasn’t as if she were still married. She was single, a widow. His dad had been gone a year. Hell, being the generous soul he was, his dad would probably want Hope to have a life and maybe even get married again. Just probably not to him, Chase conceded on a weary sigh.

  He knew if he and Hope hadn’t been previously related by marriage, he would have given in to desire and kissed her long ago. And considering how Hope had responded to him by going all soft and cuddly and weak-kneed, she probably would have kissed him back. And it was just a kiss. One kiss! He had no reason to feel guilty. He shouldn’t let this bother him. So why was he still feeling so torn up, so bad about the whole thing?

  Because of his dad? Or because Hope had yet to completely open up to him? He felt, in his heart, she might never do that, no matter how long they were together. He knew if he did get together with Hope there would be plenty of talk. And though he might be up to weathering it emotionally, he wasn’t sure either Hope or Joey was. Not to mention the fight they’d have to put up with from his mother.

  Rosemary was already harassing Hope night and day. If she were to get wind of a possible romance between Hope and himself, there was no telling what she might do. And he knew it wasn’t fair to make Hope walk through fire again. She had already done that once, when she married his father. To ask her to do it again by getting involved with him, especially when she now had Joey to consider, too, was uncaring and selfish in the extreme. So what if he’d never felt one-tenth the passion for another woman that he felt for Hope? So what if she kissed like an angel? She was still his father’s wife.

  He turned on his side, away from the slumbering Joey. Maybe the solution was to simply keep his distance. He’d try not to do anything else rash, like kissing Hope again. Maybe they both just needed time, to think this through, to figure out if letting their relationship take a passionate detour was going to be worth it in the end. Right now it wasn’t too late. They both still had time to back out and to leave things as they were. He knew in his heart, everything considered, perhaps that was the best choice of all. Certainly it would be the path of the least resistance.

  HOPE, too, was unable to sleep. Chase’s kiss had come out of nowhere, and although she had fantasized about an embrace, having him actually take her into his arms and hold her against him, length to length, had left her speechless and shaking and drained of every ounce of strength. She had wanted him in a way she had never wanted any man, not even Edmond. And that scared her. She didn’t like the feeling that her passion for Chase was stronger than her common sense. Tonight that had indeed been the case. Worse, she was scared it could easily happen again. All he would have to do was touch her.

  No. She couldn’t think about that. Not when there was still so much at stake. Chase knew something was going on between her and Russell. Both curious and concerned, he thought he could help her. She knew he couldn’t. And he could never know both she and Edmond had lied to him about the facts surrounding their marriage or that she was still lying to him to this day. She knew how Chase felt about the truth. It was everything to him. Everything.

  Having been betrayed by her parents, she knew how much it hurt. She couldn’t, knowingly, put Chase through an equally debilitating trauma. Especially when it might not be necessary. After all, she had paid off Russell. She’d given him everything she had. He wasn’t happy now with what she’d been able to raise, but he would accept it sooner or later and find someone else to milk for cash. Knowing him, she thought, shuddering, there were probably plenty of other potential victims.

  She climbed into her sleeping bag and zipped it to her chin. The ground was rough beneath her, and no matter which way she twisted or turned she couldn’t seem to get comfortable. Nor could she seem to sleep. She just kept remembering Chase asking her why she had dated Russell in the first place. Looking back, it seemed so unreal, like it had all happened to another person, in another lifetime. Of course, they had changed. Back then, Russell had been fit and healthy. With his deep blue eyes a
nd charming, very aristocratic, very Southern manner, he had been different from any boy she had ever known and he’d seemed determined to sweep her off her feet.

  She sighed, folding her arms behind her head. Maybe it had been the money that had drawn her. Maybe Chase was right. If Russell hadn’t sent her that first big bouquet of roses or the second or the third, and if he hadn’t insisted upon taking her to the most expensive restaurant in town on the first date and treated her like such a queen, she would never have gone dancing with him on the second.

  Was it her fault that he had started drinking heavily that night? She didn’t want to think so. She knew she hadn’t suggested the tequila sunrises or indulged in even a sip of the one he had ordered for her. But she also knew, for fear of making a scene and calling attention to herself, that she hadn’t prevailed hard enough to get him to stop drinking once he had started. She hadn’t walked out on him at the first sign of trouble, or insisted she telephone her parents for a ride.

  Louise and Henry would only have been furious that Hope inconvenienced them and humiliated their landlord’s son. She had decided to handle the situation alone. Stone-cold sober, she had insisted she drive them the fifty-five miles back to the Morris ranch. And that’s when the real trouble had started, when she insulted Russell’s manhood.

  Shuddering, she put the thoughts of that evening aside. It wouldn’t help to remember the crash on the lonely country road or what had happened afterward. It wouldn’t help to remember the looks on her parents’ faces when she had straggled in, bruised and battered, shortly after dawn. Or the days of screaming accusations and raging disbelief that had followed.

  She had to concentrate on the present, on getting through this weekend. She wouldn’t be able to do that if she continued to hold on to her anger. Or let herself give in to her passion. Yes, Chase had betrayed her in going to see her mother, but he had been trying to help. He had made things worse, but she couldn’t continue to fault him for that. His heart had been in the right place.