Page 27 of Too Hot To Handle

With a rough word he lifted his fingers from hers. „Talk to me, green eyes. Maybe we’ll both find some answers.“

For a moment Tory bowed her head, not knowing how to handle the situation. It had always been like that with Reever, from the first time she had seen him. One look, one touch, and finally the kind of love she had never expected to feel. She shivered and her hands gripped the warm, braced power of Reever’s arm, remembering when he had told her.Hold on to me.

Did she have any choice?

Tory took several deep breaths and let them out slowly, as though she were preparing herself for the most difficult dive of her life.

„I’ve been swimming since I was six,“ Tory said as she resumed working her knee, counting off time in her head like a metronome, concentrating on anything and everything but the warm, powerful man standing so close to her, „and diving competitively since I was ten. I’m a better diver than a swimmer. My specialty is platform diving.“

Reever saw the jeweled green flash of Tory’s sideways glance as she measured his reaction. „Go on,“ he said.

„Do you know what platform diving is?“

„There’s a television in the living room,“ he said dryly. „We may be so far out in the sticks that the signals arrive a day late, but we do get them eventually.“

Tory smiled crookedly. „That’s not what I meant. When I say I’m a diver, most people think of springboards, not platforms. Of course, I use the springboard, too, but I like the platform much better.“

„Why?“

She hesitated, trying to put into words a choice that had always been instinctive. Like her response to Reever. Instinctive. Irretrievable. „Because every springboard, no matter how carefully it’s made to Olympic specifications, is different,“ she said finally. „The diver is at the mercy of the equipment. It’s not that way with a platform. All that gives when you spring is your own body, your knees and your legs. That stays the same, no matter who builds the platform.“

Reever glanced sharply at Tory’s injured knee.

„Yes,“ she said, understanding the question he didn’t ask. „I can’t dive anymore. Not for a while. Not like I used to. And,“ she closed her eyes as her voice thinned to a whisper, „maybe not ever. I don’t know.“

For a moment there was silence as Reever thought of all the questions he wanted to ask. He didn’t want to hurt Tory any more, but he had to have more answers. He had to.

„Were your parents swimmers?“ he asked after a time, wondering how she had been drawn to the sport.

„No.“

Reever hesitated. The only other time that Tory had ever mentioned her parents, it hadn’t been with pleasure. He could understand that. His own family life hadn’t been very pleasant, either.

„Did you always want to dive?“ he asked, watching the taut lines of Tory’s face as she exercised her knee, feeling himself ache. It seemed as though he had spent his life watching her green eyes darken with pain, pain that he had deliberately caused.

Tory shrugged. „I always had a good time at the pool,“ she said after a long silence. „Before my parents were divorced, home wasn’t a happy place. My mother remarried very quickly. That made it better for her, but not for me. My stepfather – “

Reever felt Tory’s hands tighten on his arm, then relax. „You didn’t get along,“ he said.

„We didn’t get along,“ agreed Tory, her voice clipped. „He was very jealous of mother, and I was living proof of the fact that he hadn’t been her first lover.“

„So you spent a lot of time at the pool,“ Reever said softly, remembering all the times he had ridden out alone over the land to get away from his father.

„The pool was the only real home I had,“ Tory said matter-of-factly. „I had a natural talent for diving, but not as much as some of the other kids,“ she continued. „As long as I worked harder than they did and won more competitions, I was seen as Olympic diving material. I could keep the work-scholarship that made my membership in the swim club possible. I could spend time at the pool instead of at home.“

Reever looked at Tory’s clean profile, the high forehead and slanting cheekbones, the soft mouth that was now held tightly against the possibility of revealing pain.

„Did you enjoy competing?“ he asked, watching her closely, wanting to know, needing it with an intensity that he no longer questioned.

Tory hesitated, wondering how she could explain. She had taken so many things for granted before her injury, before the Sundance, before Reever. As he asked questions, she was finding answers that she hadn’t even been aware of before.

„Not really,“ she admitted finally. „Competition was the price I had to pay for diving. Other kids didn’t feel that way. They only truly came alive during a competition when people watched and cheered.“

„But not you. It was the diving itself you loved,“ said Reever, not guessing anymore. Despite Tory’s determination, he knew that she was basically too gentle a person to enjoy the kind of cutthroat competition that must have existed as she grew older and had to fight with other divers for footholds on the slippery climb to Olympic glory.

The lines of Tory’s face softened as her eyes focused on something that only she could see. „Yes, I love diving. There’s nothing like it. When I stand on that platform and gather myself for a dive, nothing else exists. No arguing parents. No unpaid bills. No loneliness. No pain. No exhaustion. Nothing but me and the platform and the pool shimmering below. I used to think that, if I did everything perfectly, I would hang in the air forever, wholly at peace, as graceful as a leaf floating on the wind.“

Tory’s face changed again, older now. She smiled sadly, lowered her right foot to the floor and let go of Reever’s hard, warm forearm. „Thanks, I’m done,“ she murmured, wincing very slightly as she put her full weight on her right leg.