Eye of the Tiger

“Yes, I think it is. Lovely, isn’t she? She and her parents are hoping to work a deal with Taber, or so we hear, on a Thoroughbred of theirs,” Wade murmured with a smile. “Trust Taber to come up with an escort like that. But what’s he doing here?”

“He’s after that new colt of Blake’s—the Arabian out of Dane’s Grace by Treadway. Probably Blake decided they could discuss business here as well as at the golf course.” He chuckled.

Watching Keegan with the brunette, Eleanor couldn’t help but wonder how many women he’d gone through since the night he’d seduced her. The thought made her go hot all over.

“Why the long face?” Wade teased, whispering in her ear.

“I don’t like him,” she blurted out.

His eyebrows arched. “Why not?” he exclaimed.

“He has freckles,” she muttered, glowering at the redheaded man, who seemed to feel her cold scrutiny and turned abruptly. He caught her eyes across the room, and she stood there dying of old wounds, feeling the floor lurch under her feet. Her body ached; it took her last ounce of willpower to jerk her gaze back to Wade and calm her wildly beating heart. “Don’t you think freckles are just horribly blatant?” she asked matter-of-factly. “I can’t think why anyone would want to have them.”

He laughed helplessly. “I don’t suppose he can get rid of them, darling,” he said.

“A likely story,” she returned.

He laughed even harder and pulled her close against his side. “You bubbly little thing. I’d rather have you around than a magnum of champagne.”

She knew. Oh, how she knew. She smiled up at him just as Keegan looked her way, intercepting her smile. He seemed to grow two feet and his eyes were suddenly darker, possessive. He let his gaze rove over her from head to toe, and even at a distance the look was powerfully narcotic. She avoided it this time, in self-defense.

“Shall we dance?” Wade asked. He put their glasses aside and moved her into the ballroom, where a small orchestra was playing Strauss waltzes. She moved across the floor with him like thistledown, and he grinned.

“You dance gloriously!” he said.

“Not what you expected of a nurse?” she teased. “Actually, I took dancing for three years. Ballroom dancing was part of the course. I do love a waltz.”

“Then let’s show them how a waltz should be performed,” he murmured, and drew her around and around in the center of the floor.

Soon people were standing back to watch, because they moved as one person. He was an excellent dancer, and she followed him without a single missed step. She laughed up into his face, loving the music, feeling young again, full of life. It had been a long, bleak year, and now she was coming to life again. She closed her eyes and drifted, giving herself up to the joyous, seductive rhythm. It would have been perfect, she thought dreamily, if the arms holding her were wiry and strong, if the body against hers were lithe and lean and hard-muscled. And if the face above hers were surrounded by red hair, and if there were horrible freckles all over it….

She bit her lip. If. How long did it take a dream to die? she wondered sadly. Hers had lasted too long already.

Eleanor returned to the reality of applause all around as Wade bowed to her and led her off the dance floor. She held tight to his hand, vaguely aware of Keegan’s blue eyes watching. Always watching. Why did he stare at her so? she wondered. Was it guilt?

“That was nice,” she told Wade.

“I thought so, too. You’re magic.” He bent and brushed a kiss across her forehead. Across the room, a redheaded man clenched his fists and looked as if he could do murder.

When some of the other guests discovered that Eleanor was a nurse, she found herself much in demand to answer medical questions, none of which she felt qualified to address. She learned to excuse herself before things got too complex, and she never lacked for partners. But inevitably Keegan claimed her for a dance, and the evening turned dark.