a sprain. It’ll be fine in a few days.”
“I hope so. I don’t need to remind you that good reviews mean good attendance, and good attendance means better funding for the company. If this tour doesn’t go well, we’ll all be looking for work.”
“I know. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Two days! We open in Kansas City in two days. Don’t let me down, Cheryl. Work is hard to find when word gets out that a dancer is unreliable.”
It was a threat—one she didn’t dare ignore. She was on her way up in her career, but Damon Sands could make things hard for her if he chose.
“I’ll be there,” she promised. Nothing was going to keep her from finishing this tour.
“You’d better be,” he snapped and hung up.
The last call she placed went to the rental car company. They weren’t happy with her either. She’d just finished that conversation when Sam walked back into the room.
“You’re looking kind of glum, New York. Is your boyfriend mad at you for standing him up?”
She pressed her fingers to her throbbing temples. “My boss, not my boyfriend, and, yes, he’s angry. This tour is important to him, and to me.”
“Tour?” he asked, clearly puzzled.
“I dance, remember? My ballet company is on an eight-city tour for the spring. We’ve been performing in Tulsa for the past two weeks. We were scheduled to give a one-night-only performance at the University Theater in Manhattan tonight. From there, we go on to Kansas City for a week, then two weeks in Denver, two weeks in Salt Lake City, then Reno, Fresno and San Francisco.”
“How’d you get separated from your company?”
“That is a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere and neither are you,” he said, sitting beside her.
He was right. She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice as she recounted the tale that had landed her almost in his lap. Literally.
“My sister called a few months ago to tell me she was getting married. She knew I’d be on this tour, so we planned her wedding to coincide with a break in my itinerary. The wedding was today.”
“Your sister lives near here?”
“In Wichita. We had it all planned,” Cheryl said with a shake of her head. “I flew from Tulsa to Wichita for the wedding. I couldn’t get a flight into Manhattan today so I rented a car. The rest you know.”
She pushed back a strand of hair and sighed. “My company will travel to Kansas City tomorrow with or without me.”
She wouldn’t think about what would happen if she couldn’t join them—if her foot was broken, not just sprained, and she couldn’t work for weeks.
“We can’t do anything about it tonight,” Sam said.
He was right. She would simply have to make the best of it.
“I doubt the road to Manhattan is even open now,” Sam continued. “Soon as the weather clears, I’ll get you to Kansas City even if we have to ride Dusty all the way.”
The twinkle in his eyes proved he was trying to cheer her. She held up her hands clasped together and begged, “Not that! Please! Not another ride on Dusty.”
“Now, that will hurt his feelings.”
“Not as much as he hurt my behind.”
Cheryl gazed at Sam’s amused face feeling oddly happy in spite of her predicament. It was easy to trade banter with him. Why was that? He was everything that she had loathed, once upon a time.
Still smiling, he stood and held out his hand. “Come on. I’ve got the perfect answer for your saddle sores. I ran a bath for you while you were on the phone.”
She brightened. “That’s right. You did promise me a hot bath to get me to come home with you.”
“And you accepted, cheap date that you are.” He picked her up, and she circled his neck with her arms.
Her pulse began to race once more, and she didn’t try to delude herself—it wasn’t due to the pain in her foot. She tried for a nonchalant tone. “Obviously, I need to raise my standards. Next time you’ll have to promise me chocolate and roses.”
His gaze met hers for a long instant. “It’s a deal,” he said softly. She looked away first.
He carried her through a doorway beyond the kitchen and through a huge bedroom to the bath. The room, tiled in stark black and white, held a large, black whirlpool tub in one corner, while a separate shower area took up the opposite wall. Inviting steam rose from the tub.
She stared in amazement. “Wow! This is awesome.”
“Compliments can go to my ex-wife. It’s her design.”
“She has great taste.”
“So she told me. In everything except husbands.”
“Your bathroom is bigger than the living room of my apartment in Manhattan. Your wife let you keep a house like this after a divorce? What’d she get?”
When he didn’t answer, Cheryl glanced at his face. The smiling, teasing cowboy had vanished. It was as if his face had turned to stone.
“She got her freedom,” he said at last.
Chapter Three
Sam turned away, but not before Cheryl glimpsed the pain in his eyes. Instantly, she regretted prying into his private life. She knew what it was to carry around things too painful to talk about.
He indicated some clothes on a small wicker stool beside the tub. “I’ve left you a robe and some sweats you can use when you’re done. Call me if you need anything.”
He was gone before she could think of a way to apologize. Feeling like a heel, she pulled off her sweater and noticed the bloodstains on her clothes. One more thing ruined—rental car, job, favorite sweater—what next? Determined to salvage her clothes, she hopped to the sink and began filling the basin with cold water. She glanced into the mirror and nearly screamed at her gruesome reflection. With shaky hands, she began to wash away the blood from her face.
Suddenly, her lip started to tremble as hot tears stung her eyelids. She dashed them away with the heels of her hands. She would not cry. Hopping back to the tub, she tried to stifle the sobs building inside her. She sat on the rim and discovered another problem. She couldn’t get her tight-legged pants off over her swollen ankle. It was the last straw.
Outside Sam had rested his head against the bathroom door as his anger ebbed away. Three years, and he still couldn’t talk about Natalie’s cheating and desertion without feeling a bitterness that nearly choked him. When she’d left him with their two small daughters to raise alone, the hurt had gone bone-deep. The old saying, Love is blind, was no joke. It had been
