Sandra's Classics - The Bad Boys of Romance - Boxed Set

by Sandra Marton

  ‘Fine, just fine.’ She'd closed her eyes and tangled the telephone cord in her fingers. Why had she ever agreed to do this? Ten times all the Corona contracts in the world weren’t worth it. ‘I have some business to discuss with you.’ The flat silence added to her discomfort. ‘I—I took some pictures, remember? And I’ve had an offer for them.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear you made a sale,’ he'd said politely. ‘But I don’t see how that involves me.’

  ‘You’re in some of the photos and—and ' I’d like you to sign a release.'

  'That's why you called me?'

  'Yes.'

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘It’s the Corona Camera Company. They want to—'

  ‘I don’t care what they want.’

  ‘They want to make a contribution to that field study you’re going to do.'

  ‘I don’t want their money. I have legitimate financing.’

  She'd felt her hackles rise. ‘Are you saying Corona’s money isn’t legitimate?’

  ‘They want to sell cameras. They’re not interested in anything but dollars and cents.’

  God, she'd thought, pacing as far as the telephone cord would permit, how self-righteous he sounded. As always, the purist knew everything.

  How could she ever have forgotten that?

  ‘Everybody’s interested in dollars and cents,’ she’d said patiently. ‘Even you, Chad. Your wolf study couldn’t be done without money, could it?’

  ‘That’s different. My study isn’t commercial.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, all Corona wants to do is sell cameras, not used cars.’ She'd drawn a steadying breath. ‘Look, they want to buy my pictures. Do you have any idea what that means to me? They want to make my photographs the center of their advertising campaign.’

  ‘You mean they want to use my mountains and my ghost town and my face.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous. You don’t own Coleman’s Creek or the Wind River Range.’

  ‘I sure as hell own this face,’ he'd growled.

  ‘If you’d just meet with them ...’

  ‘I’m busy, Jessica. I haven’t got time to waste talking to Madison Avenue phonies. I’m only going to be in town for another couple of days ...’

  ‘They can see you whenever you like,’ she'd interrupt­ed. ‘Tomorrow, if you like.'

  ‘I’ll be at the Zoo tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I have to finish some observations I started a few months back.'

  'The wolf cubs,' she'd said slowly, and all the memories she'd tried to deny had come rushing back.

  Maybe the same thing had happened to him because, after a minute's silence, he’d said okay, he'd meet her.

  'Three- thirty. At the wolf enclosure.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she’d begun, and then she’d heard the metallic click of the line being disconnected.

  There it was now. The wolf enclosure. Her footsteps slowed as she approached the well-wooded area. No one was there, which was no great surprise. The enclosure was meant to resemble a forest as much as possible and the pack was free to roam within it. You couldn’t always see the wolves; you had to be patient and quiet, and most people were neither.

  She looked at her watch again. It was just past three-thirty— had Chad changed his mind? Perhaps he’d already been here and gone.

  ‘Hello, Jessica.’

  The sound of his voice touched her like a familiar caress. She turned slowly—yes, there he was, exactly the way she remembered, tall and lean and still dressed as if he were going out to ride the range.

  Her heart started racing and she knew what a mistake she'd made, arranging this appointment, because she had missed him, missed him, missed him…

  ‘Hello, Chad.’ She swallowed and then managed a forced smile. ‘I wish I knew how you do that. I never heard you coming.’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said, walking slowly towards her. His eyes swept over her and he smiled. ‘You look great.’

  ‘So do you,’ she said, returning his smile, and then she thought, What is wrong with you, Jessica

  She was here for a purpose.

  She had to remember that.

  ‘Thanks for meeting me,’ she said. ‘I brought the pictures.’

  ‘I told you, I had some work here anyway. I got lucky with a grant and I’m leaving New York in a couple of days. I’m going back to Alaska.’

  Jessica nodded. ‘I read about it. You must be very pleased.’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Sure.’

  If she hadn't known better, she'd have thought there was less enthusiasm in that 'sure' than she'd have expected.

  Not that that was her problem.

  'Well,' she said brightly, 'I won't keep you long.’ She pulled a large envelope out of her shoulder-bag and held it out to him. ‘The release is in there. So are the photos, if you want to see them. I know you’re afraid publishing them will be an invasion of your privacy, but...’

  ‘Of course it will,’ he said, taking the envelope from her. ‘But I know it means a lot to you, Jess. I thought about it last night and ...’ He opened the clasp and pulled out the photographs. ‘There can’t be too many of me, anyway. I don’t recall you pointing the camera in my direction all that much.’ His voice drifted away as he began to sift through the photos.

  ‘Well,’ he said after a while, ‘I’ve got to admit you’re good.’ He looked up and smiled politely. ‘You’ve captured the feeling of the mountains and the town.’ He glanced down at the pictures again and fanned through the last few. ‘I didn’t know you’d taken so many of me. This one on the trail’s pretty good ...’

  He was going to sign the release. She was sure of it. Thank you, she thought—but suddenly, the expression on his face changed.

  He stared at the last photograph and when he looked up again, his eyes were cold and flat.

  ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘I’m not signing anything.’ She gasped as he crumpled the photo and let it tumble to the ground. ‘That’s what I think of your picture.’

  ‘Who do you think you are?’ she demanded. ‘That’s my property.’ She picked up the photo and glared at him. 'It's mine. You have no right to destroy it.’

  ‘It’s better to destroy it cleanly than to sell it,’ he growled.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘This picture ...’ She looked down at the creased photograph in her hand and then back at Chad. ‘This picture...’

  The color drained from her face.

  It was a candid shot of Chad, one she had almost destroyed a dozen times because just looking at it made her remember things it was best to forget.

  He was squatting before the fire without his shirt ... She had taken the picture one snowy afternoon after long hours spent in his arms.

  The look on his face was so filled with passion, with the intimacy they'd shared…

  She looked up blindly. ‘This isn’t for sale,’ she said. ‘It shouldn’t have been in the envelope.’

  ‘Why not, Jessica? Didn’t Corona offer enough?’

  ‘Chad, please, you have to know that I wouldn’t... I couldn’t... ’

  ‘Why not?’ he asked coldly. ‘After all, it’s only a photograph of a guy you knew in another lifetime.’

  ‘You know better than that.’

  ‘What? What do I know, Jessie?’ He reached out and grasped her shoulders, his fingers biting through her corduroy jacket and into her flesh. ‘The only thing I know is that I was a fool to meet you today.’

  ‘I would never sell that photo.’

  'All it is is a souvenir of a time when you played house with a dumb cowboy.’

  Tears shone in her eyes. ‘You know it wasn’t like that.’

  ‘What I know is that only a dumb cowboy would have let himself believe we had something special.’

  She shook her head. ‘We did.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, damn it. What we had was fine as long as the real world was far away. But you couldn’t wait to get back to New York, once you had the chance.�
��

  She shook her head. ‘No,’ she whispered, ‘that’s not true!’

  ‘Or was it that you couldn’t wait to get away from me?’ His grip on her tightened. 'Did I scare you that last day in the cabin, when I was falling all over myself trying to tell you that I knew a way we could be together for the rest of our lives?'

  ‘That's not true! All you talked about that day was how impossible it would be for you to make room in your life for me.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘Telling me how you couldn’t wait to get back to Alaska and that you were already looking forward to studying hyenas in Africa ...’

  ‘Jackals,’ he said automatically.

  ‘I don’t care if it’s jackals or hyenas or penguins,’ she said furiously. ‘All I know is that you made damned sure I understood that you weren’t interested in staying around just because of me.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  She pulled free of his grasp. ‘And now,’ she said, her voice trembling, ‘now, you want to make it sound as if I walked away from you. What’s the matter, Dr. O’Bryan? Did you have an attack of morals? Does it hurt to remember how badly you hurt me?’

  ‘I don’t know what in hell you’re raving about, Jessica Howard. I thought I had this terrific idea that last day at Coleman’s Creek ...’

  ‘Oh, it was a marvelous idea,’ she said bitterly, turning away from him. ‘You were going to make sure I didn’t forget that our—our liaison was strictly temporary.’

  Chad grasped her wrist. ‘Don’t you walk away from me,’ he said angrily. ‘I let you get away with that once but I won't do it again. We’re going to settle this, Jessie, right here and right now. There’s no helicopter to interrupt us this time.’

  ‘And aren’t you lucky that chopper turned up when it did? Weren’t you afraid you might have a crying female on your hands after you reminded her that there was no room in your life for her back in the real world?'

  ‘No room in my life?’ He laughed harshly. ‘I wasn’t the one who said we had no future together, Jessie. That was your line. There I was, about to tell you I had this great plan, that you and I were going to be a team. We’d go into the field together and you’d take pictures while I did text and..’ He paused; his voice went low and hard. ‘But you finished that. You looked at me and said you could never live my kind of life.’

  ‘I never said that!’

  ‘You sure as hell did.’

  ‘Whatever I said was to make things easier for us both. I thought I owed you that much.’

  ‘Oh, it sounds good, Jessie. If I didn’t know better, I’d be tempted to believe you. But the truth is that reality was what you’d been waiting for all along.’ He moved closer and lowered his face to hers. ‘I broke my tail getting back to you at the hospital in Cheyenne,’ he snarled, ‘but I needn’t have bothered. You didn’t even wait to say goodbye, did you? You raced back to New York.’

  ‘That’s not what happened! I waited for you. I waited four long hours. And you never came to me. Never!’

  ‘I don’t suppose you know anything about the Federal Aeronautics Administration, do you, Miss Howard?’ Chad asked in an icy voice. ‘Do you think meeting with them is like having lunch at the Plaza? Those guys had a million questions and a million papers that had to be filled out. Hell, I ended up walking out on them just because I wanted to get back to you ...’

  ‘What for? So you could tell me about hyenas?’

  ‘Jackals,’ he said furiously.

  'Jackals, hyenas, what's the difference?' Jessica glared at him. 'What we should be discussing are rats, because you, Chad O'Bryan, you—'

  She began to cry.

  Chad's face darkened.

  'Oh, sweetheart,' he whispered, and the next thing she knew, she was in his arms.

  'I love you,' she said. 'I've never stopped loving you.'

  'That's what I was trying to tell you that last day,' he said. 'That I loved you, that I adored you, that if youdidn't want to do the field thing with me, I'd take a job teaching, I'd do whatever it took to keep us together.'

  Jessica leaned back in his arms and looked up at him.

  ‘That's exactly what I was going to tell you before you started that speech about your life as a rolling stone.'

  Chad grinned. 'A rolling stone, huh?'

  'That was how it sounded. And I didn't care. I was going to tell you that Alaska was beginning to sound pretty good.’

  ‘Were you really?’

  ‘Yes,' she said simply.

  Chad gathered her to him and kissed her.

  'I love you, Jessica Howard.'

  "And that's a good thing…' She smiled. ‘Because I love you, Charles O'Bryan.'

  He groaned. 'I never know who that guy is,' he said. 'That name is much too formal.'

  Jessica laughed. ‘Good, because I like Chad better.'

  'I don't want you to like him,' Chad said, with a teasing smile. 'I want you to love him.'

  Forever,' Jessica said.

  'Forever,' Chad echoed, 'because you have to remember those three rules of survival.'

  ‘You have to know where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’re going.’ She smiled. 'See? I haven't forgotten.'

  Chad touched his lips to hers.

  'And you won’t,’ he murmured, 'because the way to remember it is to stay right here, in my arms.’

  NIGHT FIRES

  by

  SANDRA MARTON

  Copyright 1990, 2012

  PROLOGUE

  Rain pattered softly against the window of the hotel room as James Forrester pulled aside the curtain and looked out into the grey street. New Orleans in winter, he thought, and a quick smile curved across his mouth, for a moment softening the hard planes of his face. He’d expected heat and humidity; what he’d found was chill and rain.

  The curtain fell back and he stretched lazily, his muscled shoulders pushing against the confines of his finely tailored cotton shirt. He looked at the travel clock beside the bed, then at the photograph propped against it. It was grainy, probably taken by a cheap camera, and the edges had begun to curl with handling.

  It was the picture of a young woman, taken outdoors at a distance.

  The camera had captured her as she walked down a city street. Her hair, long and dark, blew across her face, obscuring almost half of it.

  Her hand was raised before her, as if she’d seen the lurking camera at the last moment and tried to protect herself from its obtrusive eye.

  Forrester looked at the clock again. It was time to get moving. She was an early riser—he’d learned that watching her the last few weeks.

  It had surprised him: somehow, he’d imagined she’d laze away the mornings in that expensive little house of hers in the French Quarter.

  He took his suit jacket from the chair and shrugged it on.

  The soft grey wool was tailored expertly, empha­sizing his hard, lean body.

  His glance went to the photo­graph again, and his eyes narrowed until only the midnight darkness that outlined the cool blue irises was visible against his tanned skin.

  Slowly, almost reluc­tantly, he picked up the photo and stated at it.

  For a moment, he felt as if the woman’s defiant eyes were staring directly into his.

  I know you, she seemed to be saying. But she didn’t. She had never seen him—he knew that. A tight smile twisted across his face as he stared at the picture. It was he who knew her: her habits, her likes, her dislikes—he knew everything about Gabrielle Chiari.

  His long fingers brushed lightly over the image, lingering on the full curve of her mouth.

  She was so beautiful. She had the face of a madonna, with eyes that seemed to hint at untold mysteries. There was an innocent sensuality in the lushness of her body that brought an ache to his throat.

  Forrester drew in his breath. It was all illusion, trickery captured by the camera and nothing more. The woman in the snapshot was beautiful, yes, but she was hardly innocent. Gabriel
le Chiari had made headlines back east only a few months before. Her father had been a small­time gangster, working for Big Tony Vitale, the man some called the Don of all Dons.. He had control of every crooked operation in New York.

  Vitale had con­trolled her, as well—until she’d agreed to testify against him.

  He tossed the photo on the table. She hadn’t agreed, he reminded himself, not really. She’d been forced into it by the federal prosecutor, made to turn State’s witness to keep her ailing father from being subpoenaed. But John Chiari had died before the case came to trial. And when he did, when the prosecutor lost his hold on her, Gabrielle Chiari had fled the city and the protection the prosecutor’s office had afforded her.

  She had made her first mistake by being involved with a man like Big Tony, and her second in thinking she could escape him.

  And that, Forrester thought, as he opened the door to his hotel room and stepped into the hall, was where he came in.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Gabrielle Chiari paused in the doorway of the con­verted carriage house and stared into the flagstone courtyard. Fog, thick as cotton, curled over the old brick walls that separated the house and its outbuildings from the street.

  She had lived here for two months, but sometimes it felt more like two years. Gabrielle sighed as she flexed first her right leg and then her left. Would she ever think of New Orleans as home, or would her heart always belong to New York? Crazy as it seemed, she missed the crowded streets and the snarled traffic. Sometimes she even longed to hear the irritated bark of automobile horns and the brusque snarl of a Manhattan taxi-driver.

  Gabrielle’s mouth twisted. There was no point in thinking about the life she’d left behind. It was over— all of it, the good as well as the bad. Her father had been the good, no matter what the newspapers and the federal prosecutor said, and he was gone. And when he’d died, she’d been able to turn her back on the pros­ecutor’s lies and the agents who’d turned her quiet life upside-down.

  She had begun a new life, and, if it didn’t quite fit yet, it was only a matter of time before it did. Things were falling into place: the carriage house was beginning to feel like home, the flower shop was doing well, and Alma, the woman she’d hired to assist her, was turning out to be a good friend—even though they were as dif­ferent as night and day.