Diana Palmer - Rawhide and Lace

She’d been so beautiful. A living illusion. All his secret dreams of perfection rolled into one flawless, willowy body and exquisitely sculpted face. Then Bruce had put his arm around her and looked at her with unashamed worship, and Ty had felt himself growing cold inside. She’d been Bruce’s from the very beginning, a prize he’d brought home to big brother, to fling in his arrogant face.

He took a long draw from the cigarette and stared at its amber tip in the misting rain. How long ago it all seemed! But all of it had taken place in just a year’s time. The first meeting, the long weekends when Erin came to the ranch and slept in the guest room in order to observe “the proprieties.” Conchita, the housekeeper, had taken to Erin immediately, fussing and bustling over her like a mother hen. And Erin had loved it. Her father was dead, her mother constantly flying off to somewhere in Europe. In many ways, Ty thought, her life had been as unloving and cold as his own.

He took another draw from his cigarette and blew out a thick cloud of smoke, his silvery eyes narrowing with memory as he stared sightlessly at the deserted parking lot. He’d antagonized Erin from the start, picking at her, deliberately making her as uncomfortable as possible. She’d taken that smoldering dislike at face value until one dark, cold night when Bruce had been called out on urgent business. Erin and Ty had been alone in the house, and he’d antagonized her one time too many.

He vividly remembered the look in her green eyes when, after she’d slapped him, he’d jerked her into his hard arms and kissed the breath out of her. Her lips had been like red berries, soft and slightly swollen, her eyes wide and soft and dazed. And to his astonishment, instead of slapping him again, she’d reached up to him, her mouth ardent and sweet, her body clinging like ivy to the strength of his.

It had been like a dream sequence. Her mouth, dark, soft wine under his hard lips; her body, welcoming. Soft cushions on the floor in front of the fireplace, her hushed, ragged breathing as he’d bared her breasts and touched them, her shocked cry as he’d touched her intimately and begun to undress her. But she hadn’t stopped him; she hadn’t even tried. He remembered her voice in his ear, whispering endearments, her hands tenderly caressing his nape as he’d moved her under him.

He ground his teeth together. He hadn’t known, hadn’t guessed, that she was a virgin. He’d never forget the tormented sound of her voice, the wide-eyed fear that had met his puzzled downward glance. He’d tried to stop, so shocked that he wasn’t even thinking…but she’d held him. No, she’d whispered, it was too late to stop now, the damage was already done. And he’d gone on. He’d been so careful then, so careful not to hurt her any more than he already had. But he’d given her no pleasure. He knew, even though she’d tried not to let him see her disappointment. And before he could try again, could even begin to show her any real tenderness, they’d heard Bruce’s car coming up the long driveway. Then, with reality, had come all the doubts, all the hidden fears. And he’d laughed, taunting her with her easy surrender. Get out, he’d said coldly, or Bruce was going to get an earful. He’d watched her dragging her clothing around her, white-faced, shaking. He’d watched her leave the room with tears streaming from her eyes. Like a nightmare, the pain had only gotten worse. But he’d had too much pride to back down, to apologize, to explain what he’d felt and why he’d lied to her about his motives. And early the next morning, she’d left.

Bruce had hated him for that. He’d guessed what had happened, and he’d followed Erin to wring the truth from her. A day later he’d moved out, to live with a friend in San Antonio. Erin had gone on to a career in New York; her face had haunted him from the covers of slick magazines for several weeks.

That night haunted him, too. It had been all of heaven to have her. And then, all at once, he’d realized that she might see his lack of control for what it was; that she might realize he was vulnerable with her and take advantage of it. God forgive him, he’d even thought she might have planned it that way. And she was so beautiful; too beautiful to care about an ugly man, a man so inexperienced at making love. His father’s lectures returned with a vengeance, and he’d convinced himself in a space of seconds that he’d been had. She was Bruce’s, not his. He could never have her. So it was just as well that he’d let her go out of his life….

Bruce had gotten even, just before he’d left the house for good. He’d told Ty that Erin had hated what Ty had done to her, that his “fumbling attempts at lovemaking” had sickened her. Then he’d walked out triumphantly, leaving Ty so sick and humiliated that he’d finished off a bottle of tequila and spent two days in a stupor.

Erin had come back to the ranch two months later, and it had been Ty she’d wanted to talk to, not Bruce. He’d been coming out of the stables leading a brood mare, and she’d driven up in a little sports car, much like the one Bruce would die in almost six months later….

* * *

“I have to talk to you,” she said in her soft, clear voice. Her eyes were soft, too; full of secrets.

“What do we have to talk about?” Ty replied, his own tone uncompromising, careless.

“If you’ll just listen…” she said, looking at him with an odd kind of pleading in her green eyes.

Against his will, he was drawn to her as she poised there in a green print dress that clung lovingly to every soft line of her high-breasted body, the wind whipping her long black hair around her like a shawl. He forced himself to speak coldly, mockingly.

“Aren’t you a vision, baby doll?” His eyes traveled pointedly over her body. “How many men have you had since you left here?”

She flinched. “No…no one,” she faltered, as if she hadn’t expected the attack. “There hasn’t been anyone except you.”

He threw back his head and laughed, his eyes as cold as silver in a face like stone. “That’s a good one. Just don’t set your sights on Bruce,” he warned softly. “Maybe my plan backfired, but I can still stop him from marrying you. I don’t want someone like you in my family. My God, you’ve got a mother who makes a professional streetwalker look like a virgin, and your father was little more than a con man who died in prison! It’d make me sick to have to introduce you into our circle of friends.”

Her face paled, her eyes lost their softness. “I can’t help what my people were,” she said quietly. “But you’ve got to listen to me! That night…”

“What about it?” he demanded, his voice faintly bored. “I’d planned to seduce you and then tell Bruce, but you left without forcing my hand. So, no harm done.” To avoid looking at her, he bent his head to light a cigarette. Then he glanced up, his eyes narrowed and ugly. “You were just a one-night stand, honey. And one night was enough.”

That brought her to tears, and he felt a pain like a knife going into his gut despite the fact that he was justified in that lie. She’d told it all to Bruce, hadn’t she? “What a sacrifice it must have been for you,” she whispered in anguish. “I must have been a terrible disappointment.”

“I’ll amen that,” he told her. “You were a total failure, weren’t you? Why did you come down here, anyway? Bruce doesn’t come here anymore, and don’t pretend you don’t know it.”

“I’m not looking for Bruce,” she burst out. “Oh, Ty, I haven’t seen him since I left here! It’s you I came to see. There’s something I’ve got to tell you…!”

“I’ve got livestock to look after,” he said indifferently, dismissing her. “Get out of here. Go model a gown or something.”