Bride of the Tiger by Heather Graham (best large ereader .txt) 📗

Italian. Some German.”

“Quite accomplished.”

He laughed. “No, just well traveled. I always liked to see distant places.”

“The life of an adventurer.”

“No, the life of a laborer. I worked my way around the world. It was good experience.”

“But you’re back on terra firma now.”

“Basically. A lot of the wanderlust is out of my system. I still travel, though.”

“Business?”

“And pleasure.”

“You grew up with a silver spoon in your mouth and went off to labor anyway. Very commendable.”

“And you grew up in coal dust and went on to enchant the world.”

He always managed to turn the conversation back to her!

But the wine was good, and the veal cordon-bleu delicious. The service was impeccable, the atmosphere intimate and private. She slipped off her heels somewhere along the line and relaxed. She studied him again and again, and could find no flaw. Not in his manner, not in his looks. And the more the night waned, the more she wanted everything about him to be just as it seemed. She would find herself staring at his hands and remembering their touch. Watching his mouth and remember how it had commanded hers, fierce and gentle all in one, practiced—unique in her experience.

“Pennsylvania, right?”

“You do read the papers,” she responded dryly.

“Tell me about it,” he said.

And to her amazement, she did. She tried to make him see it. The weary struggle on the miners’ faces, the wives who strove so hard to make better lives for their children. The children who did grow up to a better life—and came back to demand that safety measures be taken as far as they could go, that doctors be sent in early so that fewer men died of the black rot that formed in their lungs.

“It seems amazing for this day and age,” Rafe commented.

“Well, it exists,” Tara murmured. “My parents…”

“What?”

She shook her head. “They’re—they’re both dead. But they were wonderful people. The best. My mother…”

“What, Tara? Go on.”

“I just—” Now it was her turn to shrug. “Tine Elliott always liked to pretend they didn’t exist. They were on and off welfare all their lives. Perpetually broke. But whatever they had, they shared. My mother took in orphans and the elderly—anyone who was down knew they could come to our house. She never had a decent dress, a nice haircut—and I think my father was able to take her out to dinner twice in her life. She was still the greatest lady I ever knew.”

His hand closed over hers. “I’m sure she was, Tara. Greatness is always in the heart.”

She was suddenly embarrassed by the ferocity of her defense. Idly she moved her food around on her plate and sought desperately for a means to change the conversation. “You have a stepmother, you said. What about your family?”

“Myrna? She’s a sweetheart. My mother died when I was about five. All I remember is a gentle smile and a beautiful scent. Myrna married my dad ten years later. We’re very good friends.”

“And your father?”

He paused and sipped his wine. “Gone now, too.”

“I’m sorry. Recently?”

“Fairly.”

“That’s why you’re back—taking over the business?”

“Something like that.”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

He seemed to hesitate a long time.

“Just one. A stepbrother. Younger. Have you looked at the dessert menu? How about a coffee liqueur?”

They had marvelous napoleons and brandied coffees. Somehow the conversation turned back to her early years in the small mining town in Pennsylvania, and she discovered herself answering questions she normally avoided.

“You’ve sent a lot of money back into that town,” he said without her having told him. “Is that why you’ve decided to come back to work now?”

She hesitated a second. The warmth of the brandy filled her veins, and she really couldn’t see any harm in telling him things. After all, he knew almost everything about her anyway.

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t run home two years ago.”

“No, I, uh, bought a little house in northern Michigan.”

“Why?”

She sipped her coffee again. “I don’t know. Yes, I do. I moved to a very small farming town. No one knew me. It was quiet, and nice. I learned how to grow marvelous vegetables.”

He smiled. “I guess I’d better get you home.”

He paid the bill and led her from the restaurant. Once again, his hand was on the small of her back. She leaned against him, inhaling deeply.

And though warnings screamed within her mind, she thought that she was all right. It was fun to dine with him, fun to lean on his arm.

Fun to imagine that they might get involved. That she would feel his kiss again, his hands upon her—

Slow down!

And then, of course, she was nervous. She wondered if he would take her to her door and insist that she owed him a nightcap. If he would stare at her with those tiger eyes on fire. Then she would be in his arms, and before she was aware of what was happening, their clothing would be gone and…

He stepped into the street and hailed a cab.

On the way to her apartment he talked to the cabby about the traffic.

Once there, he walked her through the lobby and to the elevator. And when they left the elevator behind, he walked her to her door.

Fire brushed her fingers when he took her keys from her.

He didn’t step inside. He took her cheeks between his palms and stared into her eyes, searing golden magic in his.

His lips brushed hers, barely touching them.

“You are beautiful,” he murmured. “Stunning. I don’t believe that even Webster would have the perfect word for you.”

She felt that she couldn’t breathe. She longed for him to release her, before she could sigh and throw herself against him.

But she was no one’s fool, she insisted. “Why were you really following me?” she demanded.

“I told you.”

“I think you’re lying.”

He started to laugh, and for just a second his arms swept fiercely around her, crushing her against him. Letting her feel all the vibrant and electric heat of his body, all the muscled tension.

All the desire.

“If you don’t believe that I want you, Miss Hill,” he