Heartstealer (Women of Character3 (9 page)

"If it does, I’m not
complaining."

Sloan created excitement in her and
she liked that rush of adrenaline that came with new relationships. She had
never been attracted to a man like him before... someone rock solid and
dependable. As he had said, they were truly opposites. She wondered how far it
would take her and if she dared go down that road again.

Out on her back deck Jacie
stretched with contentment. Despite a brief moment of dizziness earlier
following a short nap in the living room, she felt incredible, physically and
emotionally. It was only her fifth day at Timber Falls, but being here
certainly agreed with her.

She had spent most of the morning
sunbathing on her back deck. Luckily she had packed a few bathing suits. She
felt more relaxed than she had in a long time. The resort had a wonderful
setup. There was a hot tub on the deck, swimming pool by the lodge, a thousand
acres of trails, numerous glens and ponds to explore. No matter where she
looked, mountains rose on all sides. She could only surmise that the winter
must be even more spectacular when snow covered the peaks.

If she had refused this job she
would have missed all this. And Sloan.

She removed her sunglasses, forcing
herself to look once more into the ravine below her. It didn't seem to bother
her quite as much. She remembered a time when she hadn't feared any height.

The phone began to ring. She
wondered if it was Bonnie calling again. Bracing herself, she decided to tell
Bonnie to lay off the mother hen routine. Her concern had become a tad
suffocating.

She lifted the cordless phone on
the table beside her. "Hello?"

"Jacie! It's great to hear
your voice. How are you?"

She clamped her fingers over her
mouth. She knew that deep male voice, despite the fact she hadn't heard it in
over a year. With detached curiosity, she saw her knuckles were white on the
phone.

"What do you want Brad?"
Was that cool voice hers? She marveled at her control.

"Now don't sound like
that," he chided, as if he still had the right. "We haven’t
talked in so long. I've missed you, Jacie. I wanted to make sure you were all
right."

"Isn't that funny, you missed
me so much you haven't called in―what―twelve, thirteen
months?" She knew exactly how long it was and was instantly mad
she’d said that. It made it sound like it mattered to her.

"I did try to get in touch
with you, Jacie. Your family blocked me every time. I've been working and I've
really missed you―"

"How did you find me?"
she demanded. She sat up and perched tensely on the edge of the lounger. She
willed herself to stay calm. "I’m not letting you twist me up in
knots again."

"I don't blame you for being
furious, sweetheart, but give me a chance here. I’m trying to make
amends. I got your number from Bonnie, she's worried about you."

Bonnie! "I'll remind myself to
tell her to get lost," she muttered. If that was true she’d tell
Bonnie more than that, but Brad could be lying too.

"Hey, don't say that, she's
only got your best interests at heart."

"What do you want?"

"I don't want anything. I
called to say I miss you. It's like you dropped off the face of the earth. No
one has seen you. I heard you weren’t working. I called Con."

"You called my brother?"
she asked in disbelief. Her brother had never made a secret of his dislike of
Brad.

"I was desperate. I couldn't
find you, short of hiring a detective."

"Maybe that should have told
you something," she said dryly. "It should have clicked that I
didn’t want you to find me."

"Well, I didn't get anything
out of your brother. He was downright hostile, threatened to call the cops if I
bothered you. Did anybody even tell you I've called? I tried to reach you
because the insurance company needed information. I contacted them on your
behalf, you know, to make sure they settled the case for you."

She stiffened. "You must've
really pulled strings to get them to settle so fast."

"You don't know how
responsible I feel. I would never have let you do that jump if I’d known
the outcome."

"I don't have amnesia,"
she said skeptically. "I remember the time you came to the hospital in
Venezuela."

"I was on sedatives. I was a
wreck. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep." He sounded convincing.
"I still care about you."

Jacie stiffened. She had never told
her family why she and Brad ended their relationship. Emotionally, she had felt
humiliated. How do you tell anyone the man you cared about left you high and
dry in a foreign country? She had fractured a leg, broken an arm. He
couldn’t handle the scars on her body.

"It’s been a long road
for me but I’ve recovered." Despite her intelligence, emotionally
she felt scarred. She had miscalculated big time.

"Nobody was saying anything
except Bonnie."

            She
exhaled slowly, counting to four. Bonnie again. "So what's the point of
this conversation?"

"Well, how about we get
together? I know I hurt you, and I'm sorry. I'm not trying to excuse what
happened, it was just the surprise―the shock."

"For everyone," she said
sarcastically. It was her body that had been hurt, not his.

"Come on, let me make it up to
you."

He had a hide like elephant
leather. Rejection meant nothing to him. The word no represented a challenge.
How had she ever thought she liked this guy? How could she have been so blind?
She couldn’t help but compare him to Sloan.

She made herself laugh and her
throat felt like sandpaper. "I’m seeing someone else, so I
don’t want to pick up where we left off. I'm not hurt either. I never
was. You see Brad, you have to care to be hurt."

His voice dropped to that deep
timbre she used to find irresistible. "Don't be like this, Jacie, remember
how it was. We really had something. You’re on the rebound with this guy.
I haven't been able to concentrate, do anything, you're always on my
mind."

"You said you've been
working." She said dryly. "I know you wrapped up the Angel Falls
movie. It was in the theaters. I presume you've moved on to other lucrative
projects?"

Silence.

"You had time to get the movie
out." Her voice rose. "It was a big box office hit."

"Come on, please understand.
It was business, I was under pressure, you know how badly those sharks wanted
their money. I had borrowed too heavily―I had no choice but to get it out
there as soon as I could. It killed me to have to do it―I knew
you’d be hurting." He paused, as if waiting for her response.
"So―can I drop by?" His voice sounded hopeful.

She took great delight in squashing
that hope. "Sorry, I'm working."

"Working? Bonnie
said―"

She tensed. "What?"

"Only that you needed a
break."

"It is a break, a self-imposed
break, but I'm also working. I'm not in the middle of a nervous
breakdown."

"Do you mean you're skydiving
again, doing aerial stunts?"

She gritted her teeth at the note
of incredulity in his voice. "You know what? I have to go. There’s
another call coming in." The lied rolled off her tongue like silk
unfolding.

"Jacie." He sounded
urgent. "Don't hang up. I really need to see you, at least so I can
apologize and get this off my chest―"

"I don't think that's a good
idea." Gently, she touched the end call button, breaking the connection.
"Because you see," she muttered, "I’m working on my
screwed-up life and it doesn’t include you."

"Bad timing?" a voice
asked behind her.

Unnerved, she twisted around, half
rising from her chair. Sloan was at the edge of her deck. She sank back down.
"I-I didn't hear you . . .." She darted him a glance, wondering what
he might have heard.

He stood with one foot resting on
the bottom step of the stairs, his hat balanced on one knee. "I can come
back later," he offered.

"No, no, it was just a phone
call from a . . . er . . . no one important." There was an awkward
silence. She wondered if he believed her, then supposed it didn't really
matter.

"An old boyfriend?"

She was going to deny that, but
ended up nodding. "Yes."

"You’re giving him the
brush off and he doesn’t get it?"

"Something like that. Is there
something I can do for you?" she asked briskly. She felt uncomfortable
discussing Brad with this man.

He held up a blue hair band.
"I came to return this. It was caught on the bed of the wagon."

"Oh, thanks. I've got loads of
those."

"Also, I told James I'd see if
you wanted to ride into town tomorrow after your lessons. He's driving some of
the other guests to check out local points of interest."

She gestured vaguely at the
mountains behind them. "Sounds like fun, but I thought maybe I'd go for a
hike to see North and South Lake in Haines Falls," she replied
distractedly. The call had unsettled her, dredging up old wounds best left
undisturbed. Brad hadn’t changed. He was still selfish.

"It's a nice hike," he
conceded. "Depending on how you want to do it on foot or horseback. In
fact, there's a trail not many people know about . . . you can see both lakes
from a vantage point on the ledges."

She shrugged off-handedly. "I
haven't formulated any plans. I have a brochure about the area's history.
Sounds like it used to be quite an attraction."

"It was. There were a lot of
famous hotels."

"Here's the hiking map I was
looking at." She leaned forward and pulled it out of the bundle of papers
beside her. She handed it to him, pulling her swimming suit strap up as it slid
down her arm. "It looks like I can hike to some of the old hotels."

He tapped the map with a finger.
"There's another falls here."

She gave him an interested look.
"I definitely have to see that. I’m a history buff, you know and I
love taking pictures. I’ve even had some of them published."

"Then you’ve come to the
right area. Actually, the falls is a double falls. We do overnight trips into
the area."

She stood and pulled on an
oversized shirt. Walking to the deck railing, she pulled her hair from beneath
the shirt collar, her movements mechanical as she drank in the view. Haze
hovered over the river far below, cloaking the valley in shadow. Dropping her
chin she deliberately took in the ravine below and gripped the rail tightly.
"I’ve never seen fog move in like here. It almost slithers across
the ground," she mused.

"It could be sunny one minute
and shrouded in fog the next. We have a saying around here," he said.
"If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.’"

Sloan studied Jacie as she stood at
the rail. He knew he was crazy to have come here. After their kiss he
hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. She possessed uncommon
grace, from slender bare feet to shining head, the sun glinting off reddish
highlights. She fairly shimmered with life, yet right now a certain untouched
quality about her drew him. It hadn't been urgent that he come and see her; in
fact, James had been on his way over when he had waylaid him.

She intrigued him, there was no
getting around it. She looked perfect with the river as a backdrop, long silky
hair curling on her shoulders. His fingers itched to tangle in those reddish
strands, remembering their warm silkiness, the feel of her lips moving beneath
his.

Something inside him tightened,
warning of his dangerous preoccupation. Fleetingly, he wondered if he was about
to repeat a past mistake. She was a woman who seemed to enjoy what the world
offered. Timber Falls, as beautiful as it was, was not the place to keep a
woman like her happy. She was used to roaming the world.

As she turned from the deck rail
she raised her face to the sky and smiled. He marveled at her apparent lack of
self-consciousness. She suddenly swayed sideways. He stepped forward.
"Jacie."

She blinked at him and her head
bobbed.

He moved in close to her.
"Here . . . sit down." Alarmed by her white face, he put an arm
around her waist. She just stood there staring at him as if puzzled. He lifted
her effortlessly. Surprisingly, she snuggled her head against his shoulder. He
couldn't help but inhale her scent. Rose scented shampoo.

Gently, he set her in the lounge
chair and she drew a deep, unsteady breath as she lifted a hand to her head.
"Sorry, it's the ravine I guess. I got a bit dizzy."

"Is there something I can get
you? Maybe I should call in a doctor."

"No. Heights," she
murmured, tossing him a smile. "They bother me, seems I have no head for
them."

Puzzled, he went perfectly still.

Her gaze suddenly sharpened. She
gave him a quick glance and grimaced. "Oops . . . forget I said that,
okay?"

"No head for heights? You
skydived into Timber Falls. What game are you playing?" he demanded.

She pulled herself further up in
the chair and clutched the shirt around her. "It's my job, my
livelihood." Her voice bordered on the defensive.

"How can you do it if you have
a problem with heights?" he asked impatiently. He shook his head. How
could he understand this complex woman?

"Listen, it's related to the
accident I had last year. The more I do the jumps the easier it gets.
Eventually, it will fade."

"Is that a doctor's prognosis
. . . like Dr. Jacie?" he asked sarcastically. He moved away to sit on the
deck rail. "Is this the same accident where you hurt your leg?"

"Yes, but I really don't want
to talk about it."

Her hands gripped the chair’s
armrests. He wanted to know about her accident. Maybe he could understand what
was going on. Was it safe for her to continue to skydive? "Take it easy,
Jacie, you're as pale as a ghost."