Judith McNaught - Remember When

Realizing that he was inventorying the feminine assets of an innocent child, Cole diverted them both with a question, but he was furious with himself for what he'd been thinking. and wanting. "It's ridiculous that you keep refusing to ride a horse!" he said brusquely. His voice made the dog, the cat, and the girl all look at him in consternation, but Cole was so angry at himself for thinking like a pervert that his tone remained harsh. "Don't you have any guts?"

Diana couldn't believe he was speaking to her like this. Simultaneously she felt the desire to cry and had the impulse to leap to her feet, put her hands on her waist, and demand an explanation. Instead of doing either, she gave him a long look and said quietly, "I'm not a coward, if that's what you mean."

"I didn't mean that at all," Cole said, feeling like a complete bastard. Inch for inch, Diana Foster was undoubtedly one of the most courageous, kind, independent females he'd ever known. "As a matter of fact, I cried my eyes out the first time I got thrown," he lied to make her feel better.

"I didn't cry," Diana said, helplessly beguiled by the image of a little boy with dark, curly hair crying with his fists pressed to his eyes.

"You didn't?" Cole teased.

"Nope, not me. Not when I broke my wrist and not while Dr. Paltrona was setting it."

"Not even one tear?"

"Not even one."

"Good for you," he said.

"Not really." She sighed. "I fainted instead."

Cole threw back his head and burst out laughing; then he sobered and looked at her with an expression so tender that Diana's heart began to hammer. "Don't change," he said huskily. "Stay just the way you are."

Diana could hardly believe this night was actually happening, that he was really talking to her and looking at her this way. She didn't know what had finally brought it on, but she didn't want it to stop. Not yet. "Is it all right if I get a little taller?" she teased shakily.

She'd tipped her head back, gazing up at him in a way that unconsciously invited him to lower his mouth to her smiling lips, and Cole noticed it. "Yes, but don't change anything else," he said, trying to ignore her provocative pose. "Someday, some lucky guy will come along and realize what a rare treasure you are."

Having him cheerfully predict that another man would win her heart was enough to douse Diana's happy glow. She straightened and put the dog down, but she bore Cole no ill will for his impersonal attitude, and she was genuinely interested in his opinion. "What if I don't feel that way about him?"

"You will"

"It hasn't happened yet. I'm the only girl I know of who isn't madly in love with someone and convinced he's the one I want to marry." Lifting her hand, she began counting off her friends on her fingers. "Corey is in love with Spencer—Haley is in love with Peter Mitchell—Denise is in love with Doug Hayward—Missy is in love with Michael Murchison—" With a disgusted wave of her hand, she finished, "I could go on and on forever."

She sounded so despondent that Cole felt obliged to cheer her up before he could let the topic drop. "Come on, there must be at least one other girl your age with enough sense to look beyond the moment toward the future." Although Cole privately regarded Barbara Hayward as an airhead, Diana hadn't mentioned her name, so he seized on her as a possible illustration of his point. "How about Barb? Who is she hoping to marry?"

Diana rolled her eyes in disgust. "Harrison Ford."

"That figures," Cole said dryly.

"And then there's you," Diana continued, provoked into bringing up Valerie, even though she knew it would distract him completely from herself.

"What about me?"

He looked so bewildered that Diana's heart soared with hope. During their many talks over the last two years, she'd heard all about the beautiful blond from Jeffersonville who went to school at UCLA. She knew they exchanged letters and phone calls several times a month and that he managed to see her occasionally, usually during summer vacations when she was home. "I was referring to Valerie."

"Oh." He nodded with emphasis, but that was uninformative enough to spur Diana's curiosity and hope even higher. "Have you heard from her lately?"

"I saw her a few weeks ago during spring break."

Diana had a vivid and unwanted picture of Cole and Valerie making wild, passionate love together in some scenic glade beneath a starlit sky. Somehow a primitive outdoor setting seemed better suited to his rugged good looks. In a moment of weakness Diana had requested a copy of the UCLA yearbook through Houston's main library. From it, she'd discovered that Valerie was not only active in her sorority, she seemed to be dating the captain of the college's soccer team. Besides that, she was tall and beautiful, as well as older and undoubtedly more worldly than Diana. She had the face and eyes of a Nordic princess and a smile straight out of a toothpaste ad. Diana had to make an effort not to hate her. In fact, the only thing Valerie didn't have was good grades. That at least was something Diana had in common with Cole. He had a 3.9 grade-point average and so did Diana. "How were Valerie's grades at the end of the semester?" she asked, descending to petty competitiveness and hating herself for it.

"She's on scholastic probation."

"That's too bad," Diana murmured. "Does that mean she'll have to go to summer school and you won't be able to see her when you go home?"

"I don't go home unless it's to see her," Cole said.

Diana had assumed as much. Although she knew relatively little about his life before he came to Houston, she'd managed to discover that he was from a town in Texas called Kingdom City and he had no family except a great-uncle and a cousin who was five years older than he. She'd soon learned that any attempt to pry deeper into the details of his past gained her little beyond an offhand answer or a premature end to the camaraderie she treasured.

As he lifted his Coke to his mouth, Diana watched the golden lamplight flicker on the tanned column of his neck and gild the hard contours of his square chin and firm jaw, but the flame was too feeble to pierce the midnight darkness of his thick hair.

She hoped Valerie appreciated Cole's loyalty and devotion; she hoped his girlfriend wasn't going to try to make him into a tame, well-groomed Labrador retriever instead of the panther he resembled. There was something about the girl with the toothpaste smile that made her look all wrong for Cole. It was wrong to covet, but Diana just couldn't help it!

Beside her, Cole lowered his soft drink can an inch and warily studied the ferocious, possessive scowl on Diana's face. "By any chance, am I drinking your Coke?" he asked.

Diana snapped out of her fanciful dreams and quickly shook her head. It was time to leave. long past time to leave, because tonight her common sense, her logic and self-control weren't operating very well. "I'll help you clear all this away," she said, already standing up and gathering plates and silverware.

"I have to study for finals," he said as he blew out the two lamps and picked up the bowl of orange hibiscus, "but I have enough time for a hand of pinochle before you go."

He flipped on the bright corridor lights as he made that offer, and the harsh light banished the last traces of her romantic fantasies. She'd taught him pinochle and hearts last year, during one of those rare and wonderful afternoons when Corey came to help exercise the horses, as she loved to do, and no one else was around. All that was over now, Diana realized. It had to end because she suddenly realized that she was no longer able to keep her fantasies about him in their proper place. They were getting completely out of control. Tonight, if he'd kissed her, she'd have ignored all the dangers and let him. Let him? If he'd given her just a little bit more encouragement, she would have kissed him! Somehow, during the last few weeks, she'd begun to truly risk her whole heart on him, and that made the stakes much too big for a sensible girl who already knew that the odds against her were so high she couldn't possibly win.