Lover in the Rough (28 page)

Melbourne shrugged indifferently and held his hand out to Reba. She came up out of her chair as gracefully as fire. He led her onto the dance floor. For a big man he moved very lightly, but it seemed that he held her much too close. Reba pushed delicately on his chest, politely hinting that she’d like more room. Melbourne’s hand slid down her back to her hips, urging her closer. She pushed away hard, demanding more room.

“This is a waltz, not a wrestling match,” she said tightly, looking up into Melbourne’s eyes. They were very blue against his tan face and chestnut hair.

“Then stop wrestling,” he said, smiling down at her patiently. “It’s hard to dance at arm’s length.”

Reba bit off a hot retort, realizing that he was right; she was trying to keep at least eighteen inches between them. She was surprised by her reaction because it had been instinctive. Was she crazy? Here she was dancing with what had to be one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen and it was all she could do to fight down nausea when he put his hand on her hip. She had never been like this before.

“Sorry,” she said, struggling to overcome her irrational distaste of being close to any man but Chance.

Melbourne sighed. “Where is he?”

“Who?”

“The man you belong to. It’s not Red. He’s got Glory, and God knows that’s all the woman one man needs.”

“What makes you think I ‘belong’ to any man at all?” she said coolly. “This is the twentieth century, remember?”

Melbourne shook his head and laughed. “That may be, but some things don’t change. The second I put my hand on you I knew you belonged to someone else. Body language doesn’t lie, as a man once taught me the hard way.”

Reba went rigid. Chance had said that to her in Death Valley. Suddenly she was certain who had taught Melbourne about body language. On the heels of that certainty came the realization that Chance was right again. Body language didn’t lie. She was his—and he didn’t want her. With an effort that made her ache, she fought against her own deepest reflexes, forcing her body to relax in the arms of a man who wasn’t Chance Walker.

Reba wasn’t entirely successful, but at least she didn’t force Melbourne to dance at arm’s length. The dance ended and another one began. Melbourne looked down into her eyes and smiled. “Want to see if Red’s temper matches his hair?”

Reba tried to smile in return, wishing that she were free to respond to Melbourne’s teasing male presence. But she wasn’t. She had been claimed by a Tiger God who didn’t want her anymore. With a sad smile she shook her head. “No. I think I’ll just turn you loose to brighten up the life of some lucky woman.”

She felt the instant of denial that went through the big man’s body. He looked at her speculatively before he led her off the dance floor to the table where Red waited with an obvious lack of patience.

“You’re brighter than you look,” said Red, smiling. Despite the gibe, it was obvious that he liked the younger man. He just didn’t like Melbourne dancing with Reba.

“Who are you watching her for?” demanded Melbourne bluntly.

Red looked uneasily at Reba, accurately sensing that she wasn’t as calm as she looked. “I’m not her keeper.”

Melbourne said something beneath his breath that only Red caught. “Look mate,” continued Melbourne in reasonable tones, “she says she doesn’t belong to anyone. But you, Ted, and Ian have been sticking to her like a bad reputation. You kicked the people out of the room across from hers, you follow her everywhere but the loo, and you sleep across her doorstep at night like a faithful hound. You even try to tell me how many dances I can have, as though I were no better than a bloody wog.”

“It wasn’t me telling you,” sighed Red, glancing ruefully at Reba before returning his attention to Melbourne. “It was Chance Walker.”

Melbourne straightened, looking at Reba with a sudden interest that had nothing to do with her as a woman. “Bloody hell! He’s never been the jealous type before.”

Red shrugged. “He is now, Melbourne.”

“I’ll be goddamned.” Melbourne turned and smiled at Reba. He bowed deeply, straightened and gave her a brotherly kiss on the forehead. “Thanks for the dance.” After a long, considering look, he smiled slightly. “If it weren’t for the body language, I’d be tempted to say to hell with Walker.”

Red sat up quickly. “Melbourne—”

“Don’t worry,” said Melbourne, “I learned my lesson.” He looked at Reba with a rueful smile. “I couldn’t believe Walker was as confident as he looked, much less that he would fight a man my size barehanded.”

“You survived,” grunted Red. “You got no complaints.”

Melbourne laughed and strode away into the crowd. Reba looked at his vanishing back with a growing disbelief. She sank into the chair opposite Red. He watched her out of the corner of his eyes, seeing her temper rise in waves of color.

“Look at it this way, Reba,” he said quietly. “Chance isn’t being unreasonable. There are some people here tonight who aren’t very nice under their clean silk shirts, and Chance knows every one of them. So long as they think you’re Walker’s woman, you and that fat collection of gems won’t be bothered. Nobody gets in Chance’s way. It just isn’t bright.”

Reba ignored Red’s soothing words, feeling only her loneliness and anger and her nails digging into her palms. “Why is Chance doing this to me?” she said in a strained voice. “He won’t let anyone else near me but he’ll trade me for a few acres of dirt! He has the China Queen; he has the kind of strike miners dream about and live and die without ever finding. Why won’t he let me try to find my own happiness?
Who the hell does he think he is?
”

“He’s one unhappy man,” said Glory from behind Reba.

The older woman sat next to Red, her vivid orange dress contrasting with his somber black evening clothes. She turned on Reba with hard green eyes. “When you gave Chance that mine, you gave him his grave. He’s been digging it as fast as he can.”

Reba went white. She held onto the table as the room spun darkly, becoming the ravenous black mouth of the China Queen, a kikituk with shattered pink crystal eyes. “That’s not what I wanted, not what I meant,” she whispered.

“That mine’s a killer,” said Red evenly. “Chance won’t even let me down in it, and Christ knows we’ve dug some bloody awful holes together.”

“And for what?” demanded Glory of Reba. “For money? Chance won’t sell one bloody crystal! Not for love. Not for money. He just brings out sacks of tourmaline, turns it over to us and goes back down into that great she-bitch of a mine. What the hell for, Reba, if not to die?”

Reba pushed to her feet, swaying slightly, seeing nothing but her own nightmare coming true. She had to go to Chance, find him before the China Queen closed its mouth once and for all, devouring the man she loved. She pushed through the people in the enormous ballroom, oblivious to stares and greetings, hearing only Glory’s brutal words.

By the time Reba reached the lobby she was running, holding her elegant dress high, taking stairs in graceful leaps because the elevator would be too slow. Ignoring the startled looks from other people, Reba flew down the long winding hallway to her second-floor suite. Once there, she pulled her dress above her knees, retrieving her room key from its place in a flat satin garter. Her hand was shaking enough that fitting the key into the lock was impossible.

“Damn!”

She took a steadying breath, jammed in the key, and swept into the suite. Slamming the door behind her, she ran through the outer room, threw open the bedroom door—

—and found herself in the heart of beauty.

The black matte silk that was Reba’s trademark had been put over every chair, every table, the bed, even the floor. Resting on the silk, illuminated with miner’s lights, were clusters and mounds and sunbursts of Pala tourmaline. Only the bed was bare, its black silk shimmering with reflected light.

For an instant Reba felt as though she were inside a gem, a place of shattering beauty and brilliance, a faceted world as complex as the man who had turned the room into a fantasy of the China Queen. The key fell unnoticed from her hand as she turned slowly, looking for him, but she saw only the beauty of the tourmaline surrounding her, magnified by her own tears. Nowhere did she see the power and male grace of the man she loved.

“Chance,” she whispered, holding out her hands blindly, “please be here.”

She sensed his presence the instant before she heard the bedroom door close behind her. A man’s hands touched her shoulders, hands both hard and gentle, warm as sunlight. With a small sound she turned, seeking his warmth even as his arms pulled her close. She held him tightly, unable to speak, afraid that she would wake up and he would be gone. His lips moved over her, smoothing words and caresses over her fragrant skin.

“All my life treasure has been an obsession with me,” Chance said, his voice deep, vibrant with emotion. “It was as though if I just looked hard enough I’d find something overwhelmingly wonderful, something surpassingly rare, something as powerful and beautiful and enduring as the earth itself. But nothing I found lived up to my expectations. No matter how beautiful, how precious, how rare . . .”

His lips gently found hers. His tongue traced the curves of her smile, tasting her tears, sharing her breath, filling the sweet softness of her mouth as she clung to him in a kiss that said more of hunger and searching than any words.

“. . . and then I kissed you in Death Valley and my world turned inside out,” said Chance, his fingers delicately tracing the line of her neck and arm. “I could take the China Queen from another Sylvie but not from the woman who trusted me enough to cry in my arms and then kiss me as though there had never been another man and never would be.”

Chance’s fingertip followed a single teardrop down Reba’s cheek. “I never believed that you were another Sylvie. But I tried to. I wanted the China Queen more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. I knew, I just knew, that I’d find what I was looking for in that mine. Then I walked into your office and saw that drunken bastard reaching for you.” Chance’s hands tightened as he remembered, all gentleness gone. “It’s a good thing Todd hadn’t touched you,
chaton
. I would have killed him.”

Reba trembled, unable to breathe or speak for the emotions filling her. She watched Chance’s silver-green eyes, listening to him with a stillness and intensity she had learned from him.

“I tried to tell you about the mine the second day,” Chance continued, his fingers lingering over the three diamond teardrops on her left shoulder, “but Tim interrupted. Then you took me to your beach. You stood in the parking lot and you told me that no man had ever wanted you just for yourself. You were so beautiful and so proud. I knew if I told you about the Queen then you would hate me. So I told myself that if we had some time together I could make you understand that no matter why I had come to Death Valley, I came to Los Angeles for a different reason.”

His hands caged her face. With an almost inaudible groan, Chance bent to take her lips once more. The restraint and heat and need in him were as shattering to her as the moment she had walked into her hotel bedroom and found herself surrounded by fantastic beauty. As he lifted her in his arms and carried her toward the silk-covered bed, she tried to tell him that she loved him but all she could do was respond to caresses which coaxed rather than demanded her passion. He set her gently on her feet, kissed her lips and her eyes as he continued speaking, his deep voice and words as seductive as his strength holding her close.

“Each minute I was with you I wanted you more,” Chance murmured, his hand moving down her left shoulder, peeling away silk that shared the warmth and fragrance of her skin.

A tremor of need ran through Chance’s body, telling Reba that the wanting was still there, stronger than ever. She ran her fingers over the smooth pleats of his white dress shirt, wanting only to feel the heat of his skin next to hers. His shirt opened beneath her fingers. She buried her lips in the male textures of his hair as her dress slid to the floor, leaving her wearing only a satin garter and gold lace panties.

His lips moved just below her glittering earring. “Gold dust and diamonds,” he said hoarsely, then invaded her mouth with his kiss before she could speak.

He possessed her mouth completely, his tongue moving slowly, deeply, while his hands caressed the beauty that had been concealed under the silk of her dress. When he felt her change beneath his touch, he made a deep sound and lifted her suddenly, bringing her breasts up to his hungry lips. She cried out as his mouth claimed her with savage restraint, tongue and teeth shaping her into hard peaks of desire.

A firestorm of passion swept over Reba, melting her. She no longer cared whether or not Chance loved her. He wanted her, and she loved him. He lowered her to the bed and shrugged out of his shirt with a muscular twist that made her hungry to touch him, hold him, love him. He took off everything but her earrings, then removed his clothes and stood looking down at her with hot silver eyes.

“After we dug our way out of that cave-in and you laughed and turned to me, sharing your joy in the sunlight and being alive, I knew that I couldn’t risk telling you about the mine. I couldn’t risk losing you. I thought if we were married, whatever had come before wouldn’t matter. We’d start new from the moment we bathed each other in that spring.

“Then Glory came and blew my dream to hell.”

Reba looked up and saw the pain beneath the harsh planes of Chance’s face. She tried to speak, unable to bear seeing him hurt, but he was talking again, his voice urgent.

“I didn’t believe you could walk away from what we had together. I knew you were furious. I knew I’d hurt you. But I thought if you’d just let me touch you, love you, I could make you understand that I never meant to deceive you.”

Chance lay down beside her, not touching her despite the male hunger and need that gripped him, outlining each hard line of his body with urgency and restraint. His eyes closed for a moment, then opened again, silver-green, remote.

“And then you ran from me, leaving me nothing. So I went back into that she-bitch mine and dug as though if I dug deep enough, fast enough, long enough, I’d get it all back somehow, the woman and the love. All I got was crystal, cold and hard, a fool’s ransom. But who wants to buy back a fool?”