In that moment of contact, the breath whooshed from her lungs, and she stood staring at him—as she had stared when they’d been standing across the room from each other at the plantation house. Only this was different. Last time there had been thirty feet of space between them. Now her hand gripped his, and somehow the physical connection had opened a gateway between them.
Images flooded into her mind. She saw a long-ago scene. Two little boys in a restaurant. She knew one of them was . . . Craig. His name was Craig. And the other one was Sam. And their minds were open to each other the way his mind was open to her at this moment.
The other boy was his mirror image. He must be his twin brother. There was a completeness to the two of them, a bond that made her sharply aware of all the unfulfilled longings that permeated her life.
She was just sinking into the long-ago scene when the door of the restaurant where the boys were sitting flew open, and gunmen charged in—like the men who had charged into her shop. Only these guys had assault rifles, and they started shooting.
She felt the seconds of fear, the pain as Sam was hit, and Craig’s utter desolation as his brother slipped away from him.
Gasping, she tried to pull back, but his hold only tightened on her, and she knew he was pulling memories from her mind as she was from his.
More recent memories. The talk with her father where he’d told her that he couldn’t pay off his gambling debts. Then the look in his eyes when he explained that there was a solution to all their problems. A rich man was interested in marrying her. A rich man who would take care of their debts and take care of her for the rest of her life.
“He spoke to you first?” she asked her father.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He thought that was more appropriate.”
Was that the real reason, or had he known that he had an advantage with the father that he didn’t have with the daughter?
She found out her suitor was John Reynard, a man she had met at the country club out by Lake Pontchartrain, where she’d gone for a friend’s birthday celebration. He was another guest at the party, and he’d sat at her table and talked to her. They’d danced, and she’d known he was interested in her. He’d asked her out several times, and she’d accepted because she saw no harm in it. But the idea of his wanting to marry her came as a shock.
“I’m not ready for marriage,” she blurted to her father.
“You’re going to have to change your mind about that.”
“No.”
“I’m in financial trouble.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“You could say it’s my own fault, but I’m not going to go down in disgrace if someone is willing to help me. Besides,John Reynard will make a good husband. He’s rich and well connected. You’ll never want for anything.”
She felt like she was living in the Middle Ages. Women in the twenty-first century married for love, not for the right connections.
Yet she’d long ago secretly given up on love, and maybe that was why she had finally agreed.
She didn’t want to reveal any of that to Craig Branson. Or was it Craig Brady? She couldn’t be sure because both names came to her strongly.
But the exchange of information was only part of what was happening between them. She felt his emotions. The emptiness that had consumed him since his brother’s death. It was like the emptiness she had always felt, only she’d had nothing to compare it to.
Below the mental connection was a sexual pull that she had never experienced before in her life.
It was like she must make love with this man—or die. Or perhaps shewoulddie if she made love with him.
That thought was so outrageous that she pushed it from her thoughts. Which wasn’t difficult, because sexual desire was limiting her ability to think.
Craig Branson or Brady pulled her into his arms and lowered his mouth to hers.
She wanted to push him away. No, that was a lie. She wanted him to show her the pleasure of making love—pleasure that she knew would never be hers with John Reynard.
She tried to drive that last thought from her mind as his lips moved over hers, hungry and insistent. It was too private to share with anyone, least of all the man who held her in his arms. But she knew he had picked it up and knew he was glad she understood what a mistake it would be to marry Reynard. Not just because . . .
Branson cut the thought off before it could fully form. She was sure that he and Reynard had never met each other before the night of the charity reception, yet he seemed to know a lot about her fiancé.
