It's News to Her (15 page)

“I owe Cord,” he replied with a shrug. “And now he's the top banana, so it's smart to stay on his good side. From what I hear—and saw—back inside, you're doing good yourself. Want to get together later and compare notes, maybe help each other?”

“You're a real piece of work,” she replied. “You're the only person I know who could bring a date to a funeral
and have the nerve to hit on another woman—especially one who has a better memory about your last parting than you apparently do.” Furious, Hunter brushed by him. “You played me for a fool once. It won't happen again.”

“Not so fast.” His smile became a sneer as he placed his hands on his hips. “You don't want to blow me off. I'm betting that I could make life pretty difficult for you if I let it be known that KSIO's princess wasn't the lily-white angel everyone thinks she is.”

Although she was shaking inside, Hunter merely raised her eyebrows. “You're threatening to blackmail me?”

“Being in the information business—”

“You make a living spreading gossip, Denny.”

His eyes grew cold. “Fine. Just think of what your new boss will say if he learns that you were once my fiancé.”

“Cord already knows. So did Mr. Henry. I told them the day Cord took over the company.”

Although the news left Denny deflated, he still blocked her way. “Wait a minute. At least smile or say something like it was good to see me again. You've got the KSIO watchdogs taking interest, and—okay, look, Fred is heading this way.”

With a brief, humorless laugh, Hunter replied, “And this should mean something to me because?”

“I can't afford to have my face bashed in. It's my paycheck.”

“Go to hell, Denny.”

H
unter was surprised to make it to her car without Denny trying to stop her again. Trembling with fury, she sped out of the parking lot without looking back. How dare he make her feel cheap and dirty? She'd given him her heart as well as her trust. Regardless of whether he'd ever really loved her, a decent person wouldn't have tried to bank on a relationship he'd already walked away from.

Humiliated and afraid this would just morph into a bigger scene at the cemetery, she went in the opposite direction. It was the least she could do for the family.

By the time she got home, she was fighting back angry tears. “Don't you dare!” she scolded herself in the bathroom mirror as she started to change out of her clothes. Denny didn't deserve them. She could only
hope that Cord didn't hear anything about what had happened. But, of course, he would. Tom or Fred, or someone, would tell him. And if by some miracle they didn't, he and his family would wonder why she wasn't at the reception.

Call the house now while no one is home.

That's it, she thought. There was housekeeping help, she knew. If she didn't get the answering machine, she could give whoever a message that she had grown ill at the church and needed to go home.

A minute later, after returning to the kitchen to get her BlackBerry from her bag, she called the Yarrow estate and left the message with Inez, Lenore's housekeeper.

Returning to the master bathroom, she finished changing into her teal-blue sleep shirt. She really did feel physically ill and knew she needed to lie down. Sleep would probably be an impossibility, but these last days and Denny's behavior had taken their toll on her. Still shaky, she returned to the bedroom, reached for the silvery chenille throw from the gray corner chair and covered herself as she laid down on the bed. Then, as she often did when under emotional overload, she fell into a deep sleep.

 

It was almost dark when she woke, but thankfully the nausea had passed. In fact, she was even starting to experience a little hunger pang—no surprise, since she hadn't eaten in almost twenty-four hours.

Slipping off the bed, she folded the chenille throw.
Once she set it on the foot of the bed, she headed for the kitchen to see what appealed in the refrigerator. Along the way, she turned on her favorite Tiffany-style lamp. The stove and microwave clocks confirmed that it was nine o'clock. The sun set around this time in the summer.

After taking a frozen container out of the freezer, she paused to open a bottle of cabernet to let it aerate. Inevitably, she thought of Cord and Lenore and everyone. The reception was probably hours over by now. No one had called here and her heart weighed heavily as she accepted that they were probably deeply disappointed in her.

About to reach for a long-stemmed wine goblet from the breakfast nook's china hutch, she heard the doorbell. It gave her a little jolt. With visitors a rarity, and her neighbor out of town, her dread mounted. Surely Denny wouldn't have the nerve to try to come here?

She was still barefooted, and her steps were silent on the hardwood floor as she went to the front door. There she checked the security hole. To her amazement, illuminated by the light-sensitive, front-door fixture, she saw Cord. Quickly releasing the dead bolt, she yanked open the door. He stood in his dress shirt and suit pants, and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled to his elbows, making it impossible to miss the bandage on his left hand and wrist.

“Oh, no!” she gasped. “What happened?” She knew the answer as soon as she asked the question. “You hit
Denny.
Why,
Cord? That's exactly the kind of press you don't need.”

He'd been doing his own inspection, and after taking in her attire, his tired eyes warmed and his grim mouth curved slightly. “I can tell you out here,” he began, “but I don't exactly want to share my view with whoever else might drive by.”

Flustered, Hunter glanced down at herself and groaned. Quickly crossing her arms over her breasts, she stepped aside. “Come in. I'll go change,” she added as soon as she could shut the door behind him.

“Don't you dare. Looking at you makes me not think of this so much,” he said, indicating his bandaged hand.

At least he wasn't angry with her—yet, she amended. She winced at the thick, ACE Bandage, which was clearly covering gauze, as well. “Stitches and what else?”

“Mostly stitches.”

“‘Mostly?'”

“Fifteen. The wrist is only mildly sprained. And for the record, I didn't hit Denny. Fred beat me to him. I got this while keeping Fred from putting Denny's pretty face into another car's passenger window.”

Hunter momentarily touched her fingers to her mouth as she visualized the fiasco. “Fred has to have hernia surgery. He has no business getting into a fist fight with someone twenty years his junior. Is he all right?”

“He's in better condition than I am. He's rather proud of his black eye and swollen lip. You do inspire chivalry in some men, Ms. Harding.”

She would have to call Fred as soon as Cord left. “I'm so sorry.”

“For what? It gave me the cause I hoped for to fire Denny. He swung at Fred first.” Seeing her doubt, Cord shrugged. “Sure, ratings will nosedive temporarily, and we might lose a sponsor if they want to follow him to whoever is foolish enough to hire him, although by the time I'm through with making his reputation known, I doubt it. Even if it happens, it'll be a small price to pay.”

This must have all happened hours ago. “Why didn't anyone call me?”

“I told them that I was handling things where you were concerned. They understood pretty quickly that no one was to dare touch a phone or BlackBerry.”

“Oh.” Hunter mentally ran through all that could have been said.
“Oh.”

As dozens of questions started to flood her mind, she looked at him with new curiosity. Belatedly, she realized that he'd changed shirts. The other would undoubtedly have blood on it. It must have been a small agony to button it, even halfway, and tuck it into his slacks as well as he did. “Did they give you something for pain? You drove yourself, didn't you?” Too stunned when she'd seen his bandages, she'd forgotten to look. “Cord, you shouldn't be driving. How could Phil let you? How could Lane?”

“Because I pay their salaries, that's how,” he drawled. “And to answer your other question, I got a prescrip
tion, but I didn't bother filling it. I would take a drink, if you're offering?”

The way he braced his forearm with his right arm, his hand and wrist must be throbbing. Momentarily forgetting her attire, she gestured toward the kitchen. “Come sit down at the bar. Do you want a pillow to cushion that? I just woke and opened a bottle of cabernet. I'll get the glasses.”

“I don't need the pillow, but the wine sounds great.”

She led the way to the kitchen, intensely aware of how his gaze roamed over her from head to bare feet. He made her wish that she hadn't taken off her bra, but she never slept in a bra, and it was too warm for socks. “I have scotch—a few other things if you'd prefer? I've forgotten what all is in the cabinet. Some of it is so old, it might be undrinkable.”
Lovely,
she thought. She was being reduced to rambling.

“I'll have what you're having,” Cord replied, all calmness. “This way we'll taste the same.”

Hunter almost dropped the glasses as she brought them down from the hutch. Even as he made her imagine being kissed by him again, she knew she couldn't let him. Yes, she'd been worried sick the moment she saw him hurt, but he had been turning her inside out for the last two, three days.

“No. Don't say that. I know I owe you an apology,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “You and your family. For not coming to the cemetery.”

“We got your phone message, and they understand. I understand.” At her look of horror, he held up his hand.
“They only know that a disgruntled employee was trying to strong-arm you. You should have stayed with the family the way Lenore told you to.”

“And have Denny pull what he did after the graveside service?” Hunter shuddered.

“The police came quickly enough. They escorted him and his
date
back to his hotel. By now they've seen that he's on a return flight to California.” When she poured the wine and handed him his glass, he asked, “Did you really manage to sleep?”

Hunter smoothed her mussed hair. “Can't you tell?”

Cord's blue-gray eyes darkened with desire. “I like the less-than-camera-ready look. Did the rest help?”

“I thought it did. Now you're here, and I'm confused again.” She took a fortifying sip of her drink.

“I'm sorry.”

Certain her hands were about to give away her nerves, Hunter put down the glass and laid them flat against the granite countertop, her fingers splayed. Focusing on them and not him, she asked, “Why did you shut me out when Henry died?”

“I didn't mean to. But there were things going on that you couldn't know about.”

“It hurt. From my first day at the station, I never asked for your attention.”

Her gentle rebuke left him looking pained. “That's an understatement.” Drawing the same kind of deep breath that he'd done on the altar, he continued. “Still, I thought my best chance would be to make you want it. Make you want me.”

“You succeeded.” Hunter was willing to meet his gaze then, but he didn't get a dewy-eyed, innocent look. He got the challenge of the woman who wasn't going to be emotionally twisted and psychologically hammered with the push-pull of a man who she suspected might want to have a deeper relationship than he'd been used to, but was reluctant to give up his previous life—whatever all that entailed.

“I did,” Cord murmured. “But tell me, Hunter…could I make you love me?”

Hunter stared at him, certain she'd heard him incorrectly.

“Henry's death threw us all. Not that he died, but that the doctors couldn't buy him—and us—that extra time. But that's how devious cancer is—and Fate. A person seems to be rallying, and you're fooled into starting to make plans and having hope.” Cord put his own glass down. “When I saw him watching us, I felt blessed. And when he passed, I feared that hope was being withdrawn. Maybe because I didn't deserve any blessing.”

“Please don't feel the need to list every transgression in your life from licking a spoon that your mother was using as she put icing on a friend's tray of cupcakes to having a one-night stand with a girl and never feeling guilty for not calling her again.”

“Full disclosure—I was never guilty of doing either of those things. And the woman who hugged me at the viewing that you saw? Don't deny it now,” he said drily. “I know you saw. That was nothing.”

“It didn't look like nothing.”

“She was someone I knew even before you started at the station. She's a great lady. Smart as a whip and happily married.”

Hunter wasn't going to say a word. She'd apologized all she was going to, and she wasn't going to answer his question about love when he hadn't said he loved her.

“You're angry.”

She shook her head once. “I'm afraid.”

“Not of me. Never of me again.” Cord came to her and watched her as she watched the hands she kept on the counter as though they were her anchor to reality. “The reason I didn't call you back the night Henry passed and seemed to shut you out until now, was that I had a clear but debilitating insight into who I'd been.

“I need you, Hunter. Realizing how badly was like a double-aught shotgun blast between the eyes. I need a family. I want my own family. I'll remain an empty shell without it. You want that, too. You had it and miss it. I feel that as profoundly as I feel my heart beating. I felt it when you were a sweet little ingenue right out of college. Dear God, I wanted to snatch you up for myself before anyone else could get a chance at you. But Gramps wasn't going to have any of that because he knew I hadn't walked through enough fires. He was right, I didn't deserve you.”

Cord took one of her hands and kissed her fingertips. “I had more to say, but you're awfully quiet.”

“I'm taking all this in…and thinking. So all you need to know is if I could love you?”

“No. I've changed my mind. Now I need to know
you
do
love me. Because I love you—so much that it hurts to live with the yearning.”

There had been enough words for now, Hunter decided. Coming around the edge of the counter, she went into his arms and kissed him.

Cord wasted no time in using his uninjured arm to lock her against him as he hungrily tried to absorb her with his own kisses. This time he was the one left shaking.

“Do you realize how long I've been waiting for this?” he whispered against her lips.

“Poor, deprived bachelor.”

“This is no time to tease a man whose heart is in his throat.”

“My heart stays in my throat almost every time you look at me,” she said, touching his cheek.

“Then you've seen what I feel for you—” it wasn't a question “—and all that I want to do with you.”

His body's need made that grow increasingly apparent. But there was just one more thing she wanted him to know.

“I've never been able to trust in happiness for long,” she began. “Not without something awful happening and ruining things. The blow of realizing Denny wasn't who I believed was the last straw for me. It made me avoid dating and lose myself in work.”

“Until Jack came along.”

“No. I'll admit, I agreed to go out with him because I thought it would make you leave me alone. I thought, at best, you wanted a mistress, a temporary lover. But
Jack was only a favor for Danica. The truth is,” she added, stroking her thumb over his firm lips, “we're more alike than you know. I'd rather have whatever time I'm allowed with you than an eternity of this emptiness. I love you, Cord.”