Dreams: Part One (19 page)

For an instant Diana felt as if she had slipped back into an ancient past to face an implacable male.
The warrior’s
anger was fully aroused. He would not tolerate her defiance. He would not rest until he had subdued her.

“You couldn’t resist, could you?“ Colby stopped in front of her and hauled her to her feet. “You just could not resist. I told you to stay out of it. He’s my son, goddamn it. My son. And you knew I didn’t want him meeting that old bitch. Damn you, Diana. You had no right to get involved. No
right.
Who the hell do you think you are?“

It was too much to deal with. Coming on top of the shock she’d had earlier, Colby’s fury was too much. This was always the way it was. When the chips were down, you could depend on no one but yourself. A woman could not afford to rely on a man. Only a fool would believe that any man would be there when you needed him.

“Let me go, Colby.“ Her voice was low and tight. Specter crowded close, teeth showing.

“You deliberately set it up for them to meet, didn’t you? You went behind my back and planned the whole thing.“

“No, Colby, I didn’t plan it. It just happened.“

“The hell it did. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been there, you can bet on that. Christ, lady, you introduced them. Brandon told me exactly how it worked. You introduced my son to that old she-devil who has totally ignored him for nearly twenty years. I trusted you, damn it. I thought you were on my side. It never occurred to me you’d go behind my back like this.“

Diana strove to keep her face expressionless. His hands were like steel clamps on her arms. She looked up at him and knew that it was hopeless. “I'm sorry, Colby.“

“Sure you are,“ he bit out scathingly. “I’ll tell you who’s sorry. I’m the one who’s sorry. Sorry for trusting you.

Sorry for believing you were different from other women. I was a fool, but it was my son who paid the price of my damned idiocy.“ He released her with an angry gesture and stalked to the window. “I don’t know what the hell made me think I could trust you just because you’re good in bed.“

Diana wrapped her arms around herself, withdrawing from Colby’s anger and the insult he’d offered. Specter huddled closer, whining softly. His massive body was a source of comfort m the storm. She could feel the tension in him. It occurred to her that Specter was the one male on earth she could rely upon.

“He bought her a cup of coffee. Can you believe it?“ Colby slammed the palm of his hand against the windowsill.

“He bought Margaret Fulbrook a cup of coffee and sat there talking to her while you blithely went grocery shopping.“

“Colby…“

“I heard she sicced that stupid ox, Harry, on the two of you. Tell me, what would you have done if that creep had taken a swing at my son? How would you have felt then?“

“Brandon handled him very well. There was no fight.“

“No thanks to you. You must have thought you were being so damned clever.“ Colby raked his hand through his hair in his characteristic gesture.

“You’ve said enough, Colby.“

Her low, cold, utterly formal tone seemed to get through to him. His head came around swiftly and he gave her a seething look.

“What don’t you want to hear?“ he asked far too softly. “That you’re so accustomed to playing lady executive that you can’t resist the opportunity to power-trip in someone else’s life? That you think you’re smarter than anyone else? That you’re better equipped than others to make the kind of decisions that will affect people for years to come?“

“Colby, I said that’s enough. I get the point. I think it’s time you left.“ It took every ounce of her self-control to hold herself in check. She wanted to cry – to scream abuse at him for not being there for her when she needed him. But if she had learned anything in the business world, it was how to control her outward emotions around a man.

“I’ve got a lot more to say to you, lady.“

She closed her eyes, clutching herself more tightly, holding herself together as she had always held herself together in front of others. “You probably do, but I’d rather not hear it. Now will you please go away, Colby? You’ve told me what you thought of me. I swear I won’t get involved with you or Brandon again. You have my word of honor.“

“What the hell is your word of honor worth?“

Diana opened her eyes and looked straight into his smoky gaze. “Believe me, Colby, in this case, you may rely on it completely. If you like, I’ll give you a money-back guarantee that I won’t see either you or your son again. Now will you leave?“

Specter reinforced the quiet command with a rumbling growl. He stood braced at Diana’s feet.

“Yeah, I’ll leave, Diana.“ Colby started past her toward the door. “You’ve done enough damage. No point hanging around to see what other tricks you’ve got up your sleeve.“

He slammed the screen door more loudly on the way out than he had on the way in.

“He didn’t even notice the hall table,“ Diana observed to her dog. Then she sank back down onto the sofa and let the pent-up tears flow.

The most frustrating thing had been watching her withdraw into herself. She had reacted to him as if he had been some wild, dangerous force of nature. She had battened down the hatches, erected the barriers that would keep her safe and secure and then stood there and let him rage.

She had handled him the way she probably handled every other male in her life. She had retreated behind that cool, collected, untouchable facade and waited for him to do his worst.

He realized he had wanted her to react somehow. He wished she had cried, or shouted, or pounded on him with her small fists. Anything would have been preferable to that cool retreat.

He’d been angry and she was to blame. Colby had wanted a fight, and she had refused to enter the lists. That riled him as much as the original reason for his anger.

Colby snapped the Jeep around the last hairpin turn in River Road and then slowed the vehicle and turned into the parking area below Chained Lady Falls. He switched off the ignition with a violent twist and then sat, arms braced on the wheel, staring at the foaming water pouring down the cliff.

She’d had no right to introduce Brandon to the old bitch.

Brandon had claimed that Margaret Fulbrook had obviously engineered the meeting, but Colby knew it could have been avoided. All Diana and Brandon had to do was perform a simple hundred and eighty degree turn, get back in the Jeep and drive away. But, no. Diana had calmly made introductions and then sent Brandon off to have a cup of coffee with his grandmother.

His son had shared a cup of coffee with the old bat.
Colby still couldn’t believe it. And Diana had coolly done the grocery shopping while Brandon dealt with Margaret Fulbrook alone. It was too much. Too damned much.

What if Harry had swung at Brandon? It was true Colby had made certain Brandon was trained to take care of himself, but the boy had never been in a real street fight.

Harry was slow, but vicious and strong. One lucky punch was all it would have taken to down Brandon. What if Diana had gotten caught in the middle of such a fight? Not an unlikely possibility since she probably would have tried to stop it. She would have been seriously injured.

Colby’s right hand clenched into a fist. He forced himself to relax the fingers one at a time. There was no excuse for Diana’s behavior. She had known full well that he hadn’t wanted Brandon to meet Margaret Fulbrook.

Sure, Brandon had been curious about his grandmother, but the boy wouldn’t have engineered the meeting against Colby’s direct orders. It was Diana who had taken it upon herself to arrange it.

“Damn it to hell.“

He should never have come back here this summer. Everything would have been fine if he hadn’t taken it into his head to see Fulbrook Corners again. He must have been out of his mind.

But if he hadn’t come back here, he would never have met Diana.

Colby got out of the Jeep and walked to the edge of the water. Mist from the falls enveloped him, dampening his hair and his shirt. He stood looking up toward the hidden cave.

She had been so warm and loving and sweet that night. She had been everything he’d ever wanted in a woman.

She had given herself to him in a way he knew instinctively she had never given herself to any other man. She had held back nothing. She had been his.

And the next morning she had acted as though nothing had happened, even though there was a very real chance she might have gotten pregnant.

Today she had given him her personal, money-back guarantee that she wouldn’t involve herself in his life ever again. She was going to walk away from him the way she planned to walk away from her job. Probably saw herself as a victim of male chauvinism once more.

Colby turned back to the Jeep and got behind the wheel. He didn’t like the idea that she was lumping him in with every other unreliable male in her life – her father, the men she worked for, that bastard when she was twenty-five.

But he had a right to his anger, by God. It was she who had failed him, not the other way around. She had no business going cold and brittle on him the way she had when he’d yelled at her. No business withdrawing into herself like that.

He was half way back to Aunt Jesse’s before he began to calm down and think rationally.

The first rational thought that occurred to him was that he couldn’t let Diana just walk out of his life.

The second rational thought was, that there had been something wrong with the hall table in her cottage.

Diana had finished cleaning up the kitchen and was packing unused food into a cooler when Specter snarled a warning. A moment later she heard the Jeep engine and closed her eyes in pain. Colby was back to yell at her again.

Diana didn’t think she could take any more.

She straightened and went quickly down the hall to the front door. She managed to set the lock just as he vaulted up the steps to the front porch. He must have heard the faint click.

“Diana, let me in.“ Colby pounded peremptorily on the door.

Specter barked loudly in response, but Diana didn’t bother to answer. She went back down the hall to the kitchen, locked the back door and then resumed her packing.

The pounding continued. “Damn it, Diana, let me in. I’ve got to talk to you.“

Diana let Specter answer for her. The dog did so enthusiastically. The ensuing racket of barking and fist-pounding continued unabated for a couple of minutes. The pounding stopped first. Specter gave one last victorious woof and trotted into the kitchen.

“Good dog,“ Diana murmured. “I can count on you, at least, can’t I?“

But there was no sound of the Jeep’s engine being switched on, and Specter began to growl again. He stood poised for a moment and then, with a loud yelp, went dashing out of the kitchen toward the bedroom.

“Too late, you fool dog. I’m already inside.“

Colby’s voice came from the bedroom and Diana remembered the window she had left open in there. She turned slowly around to face him as he strode into the kitchen. Specter growled at his heels but made no move to cause genuine injury.

“What the hell is going on here?“ Colby demanded, taking in the array of boxes and cleaning items.

“What does it look like? I’m getting ready to leave.“ Diana made herself go back to work, methodically putting packaged food items into a box to take with her.

“Going to run out now after causing all the trouble?“ he asked, his voice rough.

“I
gave you my word I would not interfere in your life again, Colby. That means I have to leave Fulbrook Corners.

To use an old western expression, this town isn’t big enough for both of us. There’s no way we can avoid running into each other here.“

“Do you always run away when things don’t work out the way you had planned?“

“As I told Brandon the other night at dinner, a smart businesswoman has to know when to cut her losses.“

“And I’m a loss, is that it?“

She took a firm grasp on her jangled nerves and uncertain temper. “The bottom line is that our
relationship
is a loss. A complete write-off.“

He walked over to a kitchen chair, spun it around and straddled it backward. He crossed his arms along the laddered seat back and watched her with brooding eyes. “Is it comfortable and convenient to be able to talk about our relationship in business jargon? It’s a complete write-off? It’s time to cut your losses? Let me tell you something, the bottom line as far as I’m concerned is that I don’t like being referred to as just another bad business investment.“

Diana’s hands tightened on a box of cereal until the thin cardboard began to crumple. “You’re the creative writer in the crowd. You think of a better way to put it.“

“Okay, how’s this? You’re a coward, Diana. You think that when the going gets tough, tough ladies like you can just walk away from the problem.“

Her head came up sharply as anger surged through her. “That’s nonsense and you know it. You’re the one who ended this so-called relationship, not me. You marched in here a little while ago and told me I was an interfering, manipulative troublemaker.“

“You were. And I was madder than hell.“

“Is that right? Well, so am I. Why don’t you just get out of here, Colby? Go on, get lost. I’ve got work to do.“

“You can’t run away from me.“

“Who’s going to stop me?“

“I am,“ Colby said bluntly.

“You’re not making sense. Less than an hour ago you were telling me to stay out of your life.“

“I never said that.“

“Well, that’s what it sounded like to me.“

“I told you, I was angry,“ Colby said through his teeth. “And with good reason. I did not, however, kick you out of my life.“

“Close enough.“

“And you decided I was just like every other man you’ve ever known, didn’t you?“ he shot back swiftly and softly. “But you’re wrong. Ill admit I can see where you got that impression about me, though.“