Instead of having to share him with Doug and Barb Hayward and Doug’s father plus one of Spence’s innumerable and inevitable girlfriends, as Corey and Diana had expected, Corey had him entirely to herself. The Haywards had at the last minute remembered a relative’s birthday party and were attending that, and Spence was by himself.
Diana’s evening hadn’t turned out badly, either. She’d had Cole entirely to herself. Managing to see him as often as she could without having it seem contrived had been the second hardest thing she’d ever done—second only to keeping her feelings for him a complete secret from him and everyone else.
Nearly all of Barb’s friends had wild crushes on him. He was tall, tanned, wide-shouldered, and narrow-hipped. In snug, soft jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, every inch of his muscled body exuded power and raw sex appeal. His complete lack of social standing, his lack of money, and his lowly job at the stable made him off-limits to them. Which made him infinitely more attractive.
He refused to talk about himself to them, which made him mysterious and all the more fascinating.
He was unattainable, which made him even more desirable.
He was immune to their looks, their money, and their ploys. And that made him a challenge.
Since Cole couldn’t be coerced or tricked into talking about himself, they spent endless hours speculating about his family and his friends back home and inventing dire experiences that might have made him want to forget or bury his past.
They did everything to get his attention, from trying to flirt with him, to wearing their tightest pants and most revealing tops, to asking him to examine nonexistent ankle sprains and hurt wrists, to pretending to fall against him when they dismounted.
One by one, Diana had watched Cole’s reactions to each girl’s attempt to flirt with him, and she soon realized that the more blatant the attempt was, the stronger his retaliation. Milder transgressors were treated like children, subjected to his open amusement and spoken to in a condescendingly superior way that made the transgressor squirm. More daring transgressors received a much more unbearable punishment: they were subjected to weeks of cool and distant behavior. Unfortunately, both of his tactics made it necessary to find ways to get back into his good graces, which made him seem even more powerful and desirable.
At one point or another, during the last two years, practically every girl who rode at the Haywards’ place had claimed that he’d done or said something to indicate he had some secret interest in her. In April of this year, nine of the girls had each bet ten dollars on who would be the first to kiss him. Diana had abstained, claiming he simply didn’t appeal to her, but she volunteered to be the treasurer—and silently prayed she’d never have to hand the booty over to a winner. Earlier that spring, at a sleepover at the Haywards’, Barb had claimed she’d won the bet the night before. For a half hour, she provided her girlfriends with dozens of titillating, imaginative, and highly improbable details about the nature of the kissing and the extent of the petting that followed.
Just when Diana thought she would surely throw up if she had to listen to another description of their body positions, Barb had flopped back on the bed and burst out laughing. “April Fools!” she called, and was immediately bombarded with handfuls of popcorn for her joke.
As miserable as Diana had been before Barb admitted to the joke, Diana hadn’t betrayed by expression or word how she felt. Not then and not now.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw Cole pouring feed into the bucket in the last stall, and she knew he’d come back outside to join her in a minute. She knew a lot more about him than the other girls did, because she alone had spent substantial amounts of time with him.
She knew exactly how sunlight turned his hair to polished ebony; she’d seen the way his sudden white smile could soften the hard planes of his face and turn his eyes to liquid silver; she’d felt his hands at her waist when he came up behind her and jokingly picked her up to lift her out of his way. She’d heard the awful fury in his voice when he dragged outside one of Doug’s friends who was smoking in the stable and verbally flayed him for creating a fire hazard for the horses.
She’d also seen him deliver a litter of kittens while he murmured gentle encouragement to the mother, and she’d seen him revive what had appeared to be a stillborn kitten by massaging it with his fingers.
She’d actually experienced some of the fantasies the other girls could only dream of, but there were two enormous differences between Diana and the others: she was smart enough not to try to make her fantasies into reality, and she was wise enough to understand and accept that this casual friendship she shared with him was all there was ever going to be.
She realized that she would never know how it felt to have his mouth cover hers in a kiss, or his arms close around her, or his hands press her tightly against him. She accepted all that with only a little regret. Because she was also smart enough to know that if he ever made up his mind to kiss her, she probably wouldn’t be able to handle it or control him.
Cole wouldn’t bother with a lot of smooth talk and rehearsed strategies; he’d expect her to be a match for him in every way. But she wasn’t, and she knew it. Even if she weren’t hopelessly naive compared to him, they were as different as two people could possibly be.
Cole was blunt, reckless, and earthy. Diana was reserved, cautious, and hopelessly proper.
He was motorcycles and blue jeans and battered duffel bags, with a need to blaze his own trails through life.
She was BMWs and prom gowns and matched luggage, with a need to stay on smooth, paved roads.
Despite her philosophical understanding of the situation, Diana sighed as she watched Corey walking beside Spence. Corey was inviting disappointment and unhappiness by chasing Spencer Addison, but she was willing to take all the risks. Diana couldn’t and wouldn’t.
Cole finished feeding the horses and walked up silently behind her. “I sincerely hope all that sighing you’re doing isn’t because of Addison,” he said dryly.
Diana jumped guiltily, her senses going into instant overload at his nearness. His voice sounded as dark and sultry as the night; he smelled like soap and fresh hay; he seemed to loom over her—as indomitable and rugged as the mountains in the Texas hill country to the west. “What do you mean by that?”
Moving to a position beside her, he braced his foot on the lowest railing of the fence and tipped his head toward the couple coming slowly toward them. “I mean I’d hate to see anything come between you and Corey. The two of you are closer than any natural sisters I’ve ever known, and it’s embarrassingly obvious that Corey wants him for herself.”
“Is it that obvious?” Diana asked, peering at him in the darkness, trying not to notice that his shirt sleeve was touching her upper arm.
“Not at first. You have to watch her for thirty seconds or so when he’s around to see what’s going on in her mind.”
Ill at ease with that topic, and unable to think of a different one when he was standing so close, Diana followed his gaze. “Spence is a terrific horseman,” she said.
Cole shrugged. “He’s not bad.”
Diana had known Spence since she was a little girl, and she couldn’t let that slur on his ability pass without argument. “He’s better than ‘not bad’! Everyone says he could become a professional polo player!”
“What a paragon,” Cole said in a scoffing tone she’d never heard him use before. “A college football hero, a ‘professional’ polo player, and an Olympic-class ladies’ man.”
“What makes you say that last thing?” Diana asked, worried for Corey’s sake.
He shot her a sardonic look. “I’ve never seen him here when he didn’t have a beautiful girl along to lavish him with the sort of hero worship he’s getting from Corey and you tonight.”
“Me?” Diana burst out, gaping at him and on the verge of laughter. “Me?”
Cole surveyed her upturned face. “Evidently not,” he admitted with a slow grin. He looked back a
t Corey and Spence, who were making their slow way toward the stable now. “I hope Corey doesn’t get her heart broken. She’s got one hell of a crush on Addison. She used up a roll of film on him tonight.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Diana fibbed. “You know how serious Corey is about her photography. She’s working on action shots now, and since Spence was riding . . .”
“He hadn’t gotten on the horse yet, Diana.”
“Oh.” Diana bit her lip, and then hesitantly asked, “Do you think Spence notices how she feels?”
Cole knew the answer to that was an emphatic yes, but he didn’t want to distress Diana, and now that he knew she wasn’t another one of Addison’s army of admirers, he felt charitable enough to give the man some credit. “If he does know, he either doesn’t find it annoying, or else he’s too much of a gentleman to hurt her feelings.”
Cole propped both of his elbows on the fence, and he and Diana lapsed into companionable silence for several moments. Finally, Cole said, “If it isn’t Addison, then who’s the latest guy who makes your heart beat faster?”
“George Sigourney,” Diana quipped.
“And is this Sigourney a jock like Addison? Or is he just a rich preppie?”
“Mr. Sigourney happens to be the dean of admissions at Southern Methodist—he signed my college admission letter and made my little heart flutter.”
“Diana, that’s wonderful!” he interrupted with a heart-stopping smile. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
Because when I’m with you, nothing else seems to matter, Diana thought. “I was waiting for the right moment,” she said.