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“I haven’t posed any questions that might have been embarrassing for you to answer, Rusty. I wanted to spare us both that. However, I’m not blind. Landry is almost a caricature of the macho male. He’s the kind of belligerent loner that women swoon over and fancy themselves able to tame.”
He cupped her chin and tilted it up so he could read her eyes. “Surely you’re too intelligent to fall for a pair of broad shoulders and a broody disposition. I hope that you didn’t form any sort of emotional attachment to this man. That would be most unfortunate.”
Unwittingly her father had echoed Cooper’s theory— that their feelings were due largely to their dependency on each other. “Under the circumstances, wouldn’t forming an attachment to him be natural?”
“Yes. But the circumstances have changed. You’re no longer isolated with Landry in the wilderness; you’re home. You have a life here that mustn’t be jeopardized by a juvenile infatuation. Whatever happened up there,” he said, hitching his perfectly groomed head in the direction of the window, “is over and should be forgotten.” Cooper had said as much, too. But it wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. And it couldn’t be forgotten. What she felt for him wasn’t going to weaken and eventually die from lack of nurturing. She hadn’t formed a psychological dependency on him that would disappear as she gradually resumed her previous life.
She’d fallen in love. Cooper was no longer her provider and protector, but something so much more. He was the man she loved. Whether they were together or apart, that would never change.
“Don’t worry, Father. I know exactly what I feel for Mr. Landry.” That was the truth. Let her father draw his own conclusions.
“Good girl,” Carlson said, patting her shoulder. “I knew I could count on you to come out of this stronger and smarter than ever. Just like your brother, you’ve got your head on straight.”
She had been home for a week after spending almost a week in the hospital recovering from the first operation on her shin. The scar didn’t look much better than it had before the surgery, but the doctor had assured her that after the series of operations, it would be virtually undetectable.
Aside from a little tenderness in her leg, she felt perfectly fine. The bandages had been removed, but the surgeon had advised her to keep clothing off the leg and to continue to use crutches for support.
She had regained the few pounds she’d lost after the plane crash. She spent a half hour or so each day lying in the sun on the redwood deck of her pool to restore her light tan. Her friends had been true to their promise, and since she couldn’t easily get to a salon, they’d brought the salon to her. A hairdresser had trimmed and conditioned and restored her hair to its usual glossy sheen. A manicurist had resculptured her nails. She’d also massaged a pound of cream into Rusty’s dry, rough hands.
As she watched the manicurist smoothing away the scaly redness, Rusty thought about the laundry she had washed by hand, then hung up to dry on a crude outdoor clothesline. It had always been a contest to see if the clothes would dry before they froze. It hadn’t been all that bad. Not really. Or did memory always make things seem better than they actually had been?
That could be applied to everything. Had Cooper’s kisses really been that earth-moving? Had his arms and whispered words been that comforting in the darkest hours of the night? If not, why did she wake up frequently, yearning for his nearness, his warmth?
She had never been so lonely.
Not that she was ever alone—at least not for prolonged periods of time. Friends dropped in to bring trifling presents that would hopefully amuse her because she seemed so morose. Physically she was coming along nicely, but her spirits hadn’t bounced back yet.
Friends and associates were worried about her. Since the airplane crash, she was not her usual, jovial self at all. They kept her stuffed with everything from Godiva chocolates to carry-out tacos to covered dishes from Beverly Hills’s finest restaurants, prepared especially for her by the head chefs who knew personally what her favorite foods were.
She had lots of time on her hands, but she was never idle. Her father’s prediction had come true: she was suddenly a celebrity real-estate agent. Everybody in town who wanted to sell or buy sought her advice on the fluctuating market trends. Each day she took calls from prospective clients, including an impressive number of movie and television people. Her ear grew sore from the hours spent on the telephone. Ordinarily she would have leaped over the moon for a client list of this caliber. Instead she was plagued with an uncharacteristic ennui that she couldn’t explain or overcome.
Her father hadn’t said any more about developing the area around Rogers Gap. She hoped that idea was officially a dead issue. He came by her house each day, ostensibly to check on her progress. But Rusty suspected, perhaps unfairly, that her father was more interested in quickly harvesting this crop of new business than in her recovery.
The lines around his mouth became tense with impatience, and his jocular encouragement for her to get back to work was beginning to sound forced. Even though she was following doctor’s orders, she knew that she was stretching her recovery time for as long as she could. She was determined, however, not to return to her office until she felt good and ready.
On this particular afternoon, she groaned in dread when the doorbell pealed through her house. Her father had called earlier to say that because of a business commitment he wouldn’t be able to come by that day. Rusty had been relieved. She loved her father but had welcomed the break from his daily visit, which never failed to exhaust her.
Obviously his meeting had been canceled and she wasn’t going to get a reprieve after all.
Hooking her arms over her crutches, she hobbled down the hallway toward her front door. She’d lived in this house for three years. It was a small, white stucco building with a red tile roof, very southern California in design, tucked into an undercliff and shrouded with vividly blooming bougainvillea. Rusty had fallen in love with it the minute she saw it.
Propping herself up on one crutch, she unlatched and opened the door.
Cooper said nothing. Neither did she. They just stared at each other for a long time before she silently moved aside. He stepped through the arched doorway. Rusty closed the door and turned to face him.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to see about your leg.” He looked down at her shin. She stuck it out for his inspection. “It doesn’t look much better.”
“It will.” His skeptical gaze moved up to meet hers. “The doctor has promised it will,” she said defensively.
He still seemed doubtful, but let the subject drop. He took in his surroundings, pivoting slowly. “I like your house.”
“Thank you.”
