all Texans this bold and sure of themselves?” she managed breathlessly.
“There’s only one thing I’m sure of,” he murmured and with her hands still riding his, covered her abdomen and tugged her snugly against him. His arousal pressed, provocative and brazen, against her hips. “I want you.”
He turned her in his arms. His eyes smoldered with longing and lust, yet, he smiled slow and heart-meltingly sweet. Clasping her hands in his, he lifted them to his mouth, touched his lips to the fingertips of her right hand and then her left.
“You’re perfect, Helena.” He met her eyes in the shifting, midnight shadows. “I think I could easily fall in love with you.”
He kissed her then. There beneath the West Texas moon, with the scent of the desert wafting in the air, the silk of his softly curling hair drifting through her fingers, she kissed him back. As she’d kissed no other man. Wanting him as she’d wanted no other man.
It was everything a kiss should be. Stirring yet sweet. Hot yet unhurried. And she wanted it to go on forever. Just the two of them. Just this rich savoring of each other’s mouths in the moonlight.
“Dance with me,” he said against her lips and they began to move as one to the slow rhythm of the night and the hearts that beat in tandem.
The mist swirled around them, shimmering and cool, enveloping them in yet another realm, a singular world of delicious sensations and softly murmured praise. The magic continued as he waltzed her through the night to a bedroom richly appointed with sensuous satins and gossamer lace. He praised her body as he slowly undressed her. She complied willingly as he laid her naked on a down-draped bed. She invited him into her body without reservation as he whispered her name, covered her, entered her.
Like silk, he moved inside her. Like life, he gave of himself.
“You’re perfect,” he murmured against her brow then nuzzled heated kisses across her cheek, beneath her jaw, against the crown of her breast until she was trembling and helpless to anything but him.
“Perfect…”
A perfect pain engulfed her. So perfect and so pure she knew in an instant she was no longer dreaming. What she was feeling was real. Excruciatingly real.
She opened her eyes, jolted cruelly from the dream to predawn light, to sterile white walls, the scent of antiseptic and the awful awareness that she had been thrashing in her sleep and had slammed her left hand against the gunmetal-gray headboard of her hospital bed.
Biting back tears, she cradled her hand against her ribs and waited for the pain to subside. When, at long last, it did, she waited for sleep to reclaim her. For the magic of the dream to take her.
But sleep didn’t come. Neither did the magic. Magic was for dreamers and dreamers were merely fools who found reality too difficult to bear.
“Do you have any questions about Dr. Harding’s or Dr. Chambers’s discharge instructions, Helena?”
Sitting up in her hospital bed, Helena smiled at Justin Webb. Not for the first time in the two months that she’d known him, she thought how lucky his new bride was to have found him. The good doctor, in addition to being handsome, had kind blue eyes. She met them steadily as the soft inflections in his voice told her his major concern had less to do with her questions than with his—specifically, the ones he didn’t ask anymore because he’d given up on getting a straight answer.
A game smile in place, she shook her head. “No. I think I’ve got it. Watch for infections, do my mobility exercises, have a nice life.”
He smiled patiently. “Helena, I’m all too familiar with the trauma a burn victim suffers when faced with the scarring and the inevitability of future reconstructive surgeries. Despite that brave front you hide behind, you’re not fooling me, sweetie.”
Helena’s mind locked on one word and wouldn’t let go. Victim. The word raced through her head like a brushfire that would consume her if she let it. She would not be a victim. She would not be perceived as a victim, and yet, when Justin eased a hip onto the corner of her bed it was all she could do to meet his eyes.
“The infection set you back, but you’re healing well now. I know that doesn’t necessarily mean any of this is easy.”
For the barest of moments, she felt moisture mist her eyes. She looked quickly away before he could see it and know how right he was. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy to know that while she would walk, she might never ski again, or ride her favorite mount—or dance with a beautiful green-eyed Texan who had haunted her dreams almost as often as the memory of the crash. But those were her problems to deal with. No one else’s.
Quickly composing herself, she smiled the smile she’d perfected over the years for both the paparazzi and the public. “Justin. Darling.” She patted his hand. “You worry too much. It’s a—how do you Americans say it?—a piece of pie.”
His grin was both indulgent and exasperated as he gently corrected her. “I believe that’s piece of cake. And you’re ducking the issue. Again.”
She dismissed his concern with a wave of her uninjured hand. “I’m alive. I’m in one piece. And as you said, I’m healing. I’m a lucky woman. Now, I know it’s part of your bedside manner to fuss, but stop it, would you? I’m fine. Really,” she insisted when his grave look suggested that he suspected otherwise. She was fine. She was. And if she repeated it often enough, maybe she’d start to believe it.
“There are support groups,” he offered after a long moment.
“Oh, please.” She shook her head, smiled her most brilliant smile. “Justin. You are a kind and gifted physician. And I am a strong and healthy woman. So I’ve got some scarring—and this bothersome broken ankle. So I may never ski Mount Orion again. Life goes on. I’ll adjust.”
“I have no doubt, Helena, that you will adjust—in time. But if you would talk with someone it might speed the process. If not a support group, your family—?”
“My family,” she interrupted, her smile disappearing, “must not be bothered by this. On that point, I insist. They are not to be made aware of my condition until I’m ready to tell them.”
“How can they not be aware? You’ve been front-page news for two months.”
“They are not aware because they chose to believe me when I phoned to inform them that the American press is littered with sensation-seeking bottom-feeders who fabricate those horrible stories about me because they sell papers and magazines. Honestly, do you believe everything you read in the paper?”
She tossed her hair behind her shoulder—a purely aristocratic gesture of dismissal. “No. Of course you don’t. So, of course they’re not aware. My parents are on an extended tour of the Orient for their thirtieth wedding anniversary and I will not have their vacation interrupted.
“Now don’t you glare at me like that, Justin. As far as my parents know, the only reason I decided to stay in the States was to see if I could cultivate interest and gather additional financial backing for one of my projects.”
She graced him with another wide, winning smile—the one that had successfully opened thousands of checkbooks to the tune of millions of dollars for her numerous causes. “You Texans are known for the size of your bank accounts
