Bride of the Tiger by Heather Graham (big screen ebook reader txt) 📕

he said very softly, “I owed it to Myrna, to my brother, to take no chances. Can’t you see? Please, Tara! Damn it, how can you believe that I don’t love you now?”

She kept staring at him. She didn’t know how. Then she grew desperate, because she was going to burst into tears at any moment.

“I’ve listened to you. Now let me go.”

He didn’t respond. She shoved at him in a fury, with an incredible burst of strength.

Still, if he hadn’t chosen to release her, she wouldn’t have been free.

“Tara—”

“Leave me alone. Just leave me alone.” She rose, turning on him, commanding, begging.

“You’ve got to believe me!” He stood, then walked toward her. He couldn’t come any closer. He just couldn’t.

A strangled sob escaped her. She rushed to the connecting door, ran through it and slammed it shut.

“Tara!”

His voice thundered after her, and she burst into tears as she slid the bolt into place.

CHAPTER 13

“Tara!”

His voice, rough, urgent, came to her through the door.

“My God, Tara, I’m not going to try to touch you or see you, but please, listen to me! I had no choice. If I’d tried to meet you with the truth, you wouldn’t have given me the time of day. Myrna—Jimmy’s mother—tried to reach you right after it all happened. But you had disappeared yourself. Galliard wouldn’t let anyone know where you were. Tara, I do love you. I’ve wanted to tell you, to explain. Can’t you see, it wasn’t just me involved! I believed in you, but no one knew anything about Tine Elliott. At first I couldn’t be certain.”

He lost control for a moment. Tara felt the door shudder as he slammed a fist against it. “Tara!”

She felt numb again. So miserable that she was numb. A dead thing, with no strength, no will.

“Don’t do this! Tara, Tine is still out there somewhere. You need me now. You—”

His words broke off with a sharp expletive. Distantly she heard the phone ringing in his room.

She knew when he left the door to answer it. She knew before he spoke when he returned.

“Open the door and come with me. That was the police. They think they have the man who attacked you yesterday.”

She clenched her teeth. She couldn’t go. She didn’t think she could even stay standing.

She didn’t recognize her own voice when she spoke. It was cold and hoarse. “I’m sure you’ll recognize him. And I’m sure anything that can be dragged out of the man can best be obtained by your dubious means.”

“Tara! This has to be done.”

“Go do it, then.”

She imagined that she could hear him breathing. She could even imagine the tension in his handsome features, the pulse ticking in his throat.

She did hear it when he inhaled sharply in decision. “I’ll leave Sam and a house detective outside your door. Don’t open it to anyone.”

She didn’t reply. She leaned her head wearily against the door.

“Tara!”

“I have no intention of opening my door.”

“When I get back, Tara, you’re damn well going to open it!” he promised her.

She heard him walk away. She closed her eyes, furious with herself, because silent tears streamed down her cheeks.

She didn’t know how much time passed before she went over to one of the beds and lay down, ridiculously tired. Facts kept passing through her mind, events, sights. Foolish. They only hurt worse.

She didn’t know if she’d dozed or if she had just lain there partially asleep. She became slowly aware of a tapping at her door, slow and hesitant at first, then growing louder and more urgent.

Keyed up and suddenly aware that she had every right to be frightened, she leaped from the bed and stared at the door. Silly—Rafe had said that Sam and a house detective would be there. If he had said so, it would be the truth.

But she walked to the door carefully. “Sam?”

“No, no, Señorita Hill. It is the maid. Por favor, I must come in.”

Tara frowned. It was definitely a woman’s voice. And most probably the maid. But she had to be sure.

She bit her lower lip, then hurried to the door connecting her room to Rafe’s. She unbolted the door on her side and tried to open it, only to pause, baffled, to realize that it was now locked from the other side. She couldn’t slip into his room to peek out into the hallway to see who stood at her door.

Where was Sam?

She went back to the door. “I don’t need any maid service right now,” she said.

There was a pause outside, then a whisper reached her, a whisper that she recognized.

“Tara, please! It’s me. Jimmy Saunders.”

“Jimmy!” she exclaimed. Could she be wrong? No, no, she recognized his voice! The moment he had begun to speak, she had known that it was him.

“Tara, I can’t stay out here in the hallway!”

She fumbled with the lock, then threw open the door. For a moment, terror struck her. She might have made a mistake. He was in a hotel uniform, and his hair looked darker than before; he was standing next to a beautiful Venezuelan woman, with a room service table between them.

And he was sporting a rich, full handlebar mustache.

“Jimmy?”

She backed away. But he started laughing good-naturedly even as he stepped into the room with the nervous-looking woman.

“It’s me! It’s me!” He ripped off the mustache—crying out a little at the sudden pain, then grimacing and stretching out his arms. With a glad little gasp she hugged him. He returned the hug and softly closed the door behind him.

“What are you doing? Where have you been?” Tara demanded. Then she lightly batted him on the shoulder. “Now that I can see that you’re alive and well, I could strangle you! No one believed me! Why didn’t you contact the authorities? Why didn’t you—what the hell was going on that night?”

“Shh!” he warned her. Then he smiled and pulled the pretty woman forward. “This is Tanya. After the fracas was over, I apparently managed to pull myself to