She had come to know him fairly well. He didn't make idle threats, or hand out orders he didn't expect to be obeyed. If she didn't appear in the kitchen in five minutes, he would be back up the stairs, soundlessly, swiftly--determinedly--to drag her down. She might resent the idea, but she wasn't about to take any more chances.
Because if he touched her again tonight, she might break into a thousand tiny pieces and be forever lost.
Bryn breathed a soft sigh of resignation. It was almost a relief to have no choice but to tell all.To Lee. If she had come to him to begin with, things might not have gotten this far.
This frightening...
There might be dangerous men after her, but...
But he had to be the most damned dangerous man she had ever met.
Bryn closed her eyes tightly and breathed deeply for strength. She was going to have to go down and talk to him. Tell him everything, from the beginning.
From the beginning.
Who could have known...?
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Chapter 1
Arggghhh!"
At the sound of the loud and piercing scream, Bryn Keller dropped the trade paper she had been industriously reading onto the comfortably stuffed love seat, sprang to her feet and rushed to the door, flinging it open.
In her year and a half of being apseudoparent , she still hadn't learned to decipher which screams were of pain, and which were of play.
Luckily, this one seemed to have been play. Brian, at the grand age of seven, the oldest of her nephews, had been the perpetrator of the sound. He met her eyes curiously as he saw her anxious stare.
"We're playing, Aunt Bryn." He puffed out his chest proudly and waved a plastic sword. "I'mGringold !
God of water and light! And I'm battling the forces of the Dark Hound."
"And I'm Tor the Magnificent!" chimed in Keith. He was six, and second-in-command among the trio.
They only owned two plastic swords, and he carried the second.
"Oh?" Bryn raised her eyebrows and suppressed a grin. She didn't have to ask who had the honor of being the Dark Hound. Her eyes traveledto little Adam. At four, he was the youngest and therefore always elected to be the bad guy. The boys were using the tops of garbage cans as shields, but just as there were only two plastic swords, there were only two can tops. Adam carried a giant plastic baseball bat and a ripped-up piece of cardboard.
Adam graced her with a beautiful smile, and she forgot that she had been about to knock all three heads together for the scare they had just given her. She laughed suddenly, narrowed her eyes at Keith and raced over to Adam, stealing his baseball bat."Tor the Magnificent, eh? Well, I'm the White Witch!" she told them all gravely. "And I'm going to get the lot of you for turning my hair gray way before its time!"
The boys squealed with delight as she chased them about the small yard, catching their little bottoms with light taps of the bat. At last they began to gang up on her, rushing her, hugging her and knocking her to the ground.
"Beg for mercy.White Witch!" Brian demanded.
"Never!" she cried in mock horror. Then she started as she heard the phone ringing in the kitchen.
"Cry for mercy!" Keith echoed Brian.
"Off! Off, you hoodlums! I'll cry for mercy later, I promise, but right now the White Witch has to answer the phone."
"Ahh, Auntie Bryn!"
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The boys grumbled but let her up. Bryn threw them a kiss as she rushed back into the house and flew to the phone.
"Bryn?"
"Barbara?"
"Yes, of course, it's Barbara. What were you doing? You didn't take up jogging, I hope? You sound absolutely breathless. I didn't interrupt anything--ordid I? I would just love for you to be doing something that I could worry about interrupting!"
Bryn gave the receiver an affectionate grimace. Barbara couldn't understand her friend's withdrawal from male society since her broken engagement.Especially since it had been Bryn who had made the final break.
"No, you didn't interrupt anything except for a wild battle between the forces of good and evil. What's up?" "I've got something for you."
"Work?Oh.great ! I'm just about to wind up those wildlife shots, and Cathy's ankle got better, so she returned to the dinner show last night. I've been worrying about finances already. What have you got, a dance gig or a shoot?"
Barbara's delighted laughter came to her over the phone."Bryn! What a card you are.And what a lucky card to have me for an agent. How many people can sell you as a photographer, and a dancer?"
"Probably not many," Bryn replied dryly. "I can see the billboard now: 'Jack of all trades--master of none.'"
"Hey, don't undersell yourself, Bryn. You do damn well at both your trades."
Bryn remained silent. She was a good dancer and a good photographer. But she had learned through life that "good" did not mean success. It meant that, if you were lucky, you could keep working.
She laughed suddenly. "Maybe if I had decided earlier whether I wanted to grow up to be either Martha Graham or Matthew Brady, I might have made it as one or the other!"