Heather watched his gaze drop to her lips. She refrained from darting a tongue out to moisten them, licking them in an act of nervousness left over from junior high school days.
“Don’t,” he warned again. “Don’t go playing with fire in the midst of dry timber.”
Heather opened her mouth to protest but discovered that her voice had abandoned her. A more aggressive woman might have attempted wrenching her hand free—or maybe even landing a slap upon the features that looked at her with such arrogance. Struck mute, Heather could only watch helplessly as he drew her hand to his mouth and rubbed his lips across the center of her palm. To a curious bystander, it might appear to be a gentlemanly gesture. Heather knew better as she struggled to keep her knees from buckling. His mustache tickled her skin and ignited the very fire which he warned her about.
Nothing but a torrential downpour could extinguish it. Since the day she’d brushed crumbs away from that mustache, Heather had been intrigued by it. Having never kissed a man with a mustache, she couldn’t help wondering just what it might feel like.
Up until now, Heather believed it was impossible for a person to forget how to breathe. Her involuntary shallow gasp was so evident of her bewilderment that it caused a smile of masculine awareness to spread beneath that intriguing mustache of his. It was almost as if Toby knew she was considering the effect of such kisses were they to be scattered at random all over her naked body.
Somewhere between the cold shivers and hot flashes that put her body into a state of utter confusion, a sultry Southern voice rang out.
“Why, Tobias Danforth, you rambling, contrary man. I was under the impression that you had fallen completely off the face of the planet.”
Heather snatched her hand away and hid it behind her back like a child. A cloud of sweet perfume and taffeta stepped between them. A pretty thing, the woman had the distinct advantage of feeling completely at ease among the Danforth clan. She exuded the perkiness of a cheerleader. Heather bet she was the team captain.
Toby fell into the same antiquated pattern of speech used to address him. “Well, I declare. If it isn’t Marcie Mae Webster, all grown up into a sophisticated femme fatale.”
Marcie Mae’s laughter tinkled like wind chimes. Heather envied her the ability to blush on cue. She imagined the woman would be just as at home in a hoop skirt as the designer original that she wore.
“I dare say I’ve changed a good deal since the days we used to go skinny-dipping down in the old sinkhole.”
Unable to endure another sugar-cured syllable, Heather excused herself with the kind of euphemism a woman like Marcie Mae was sure to appreciate.
“I think I’ll go powder my nose, if you don’t mind.”
Clearly Marcie Mae didn’t mind at all. Her smile stretched her lips over a set of perfectly straight, white teeth. Taking Toby by the arm, she led him toward a group of old friends she claimed were just dying to see him again.
Heather tried not to smirk as Toby tossed her a helpless glance over his shoulder. That his apparent misery gave Heather a measure of satisfaction made her feel small.
The feeling was only intensified by stepping into a huge bathroom that reflected the sumptuousness of the rest of the hotel. Potted plants and cut flowers decorated sinks gleaming with gold-plated fixtures. The bathroom boasted high ceilings, a chandelier and several white wicker chairs positioned welcomingly around the room. Staring into one of the many gilded mirrors, Heather recognized the same panic-stricken expression she used to wear before becoming sick to her stomach before a performance.
Heather had never felt completely comfortable performing before a live audience. Few people could appreciate the cutthroat nature of her training. Even though it merely underscored the training she had received at home from her parents, such constant pressure had wounded her sensitive spirit so deeply that she had forsaken her musical gifts altogether.
Turning the cold-water spigot, she ducked down to splash her face.
Heather suddenly realized she wasn’t alone in the bathroom. There were two women in a darkened corner of the room, and one of them was sobbing so brokenheartedly, it made her stomach cramp in empathy. Not inclined to meddle in other people’s affairs, Heather intended to make a quick exit without getting involved. She would have made it, too, had not the other woman, obviously trying to comfort her companion, cast a desperate glance in her direction and mouthed a request for a tissue.
Heather took one from a hand-painted porcelain container and walked it over to them. The woman who took it looked to be about her same age. Wearing a beautiful white satin gown that accentuated a petite figure, she looked like a guardian angel. The woman shrugged her shoulders and gestured to the slightly open tall door.
“I stumbled upon the poor thing crying like this,” the lady in white explained. She spoke with a slight European accent of some sort. “I didn’t feel right leaving her alone in such a state. You wouldn’t by any chance be an acquaintance of hers?”
Shaking her head, Heather edged toward the door. Just then the injured party raised her head from where it had been hidden behind her hands to reveal twin rivulets of mascara streaming down a face that was too young and pretty to be so angst-ridden. Not old enough to qualify as a woman or young enough to warrant still being called a girl, she was caught in that terrible in-between stage in which one fluctuates miserably between maturity and juvenile behavior. Heather guessed her to be the traditional age when Southern girls had coming-out parties.
The teen’s voice quavered pathetically as she offered two convenient strangers an unnecessary explanation. “It might seem funny to you, but nothing I do is ever good enough to satisfy my father. Absolutely nothing.”
“It doesn’t sound funny at all,” Heather assured her in a gentle, understanding tone. “In fact, I can relate to that all too well myself.”
“As can I,” added the lady in white.
Surprised to discover a common thread holding them together, the women studied each other. In addition to being approximately the same age, the two older women were of similar height and build. And behind their initial wariness was an inability to abandon someone in need.
Rather than watering down the girl’s drawl, her tears had the exact opposite effect. Heather strained to understand the words that slipped out between sobs.
“Can you believe that my daddy actually expects me to throw myself at some old man in the other room in hopes of landing some big business contract? Have you ever heard of anything so vulgar?”
Heather wondered if by “old” she was referring to someone in his midtwenties.
“It absolutely makes me feel like a whore!”
The young lady’s choice of words required yet another tissue to stem the flow of tears that started all over again. Feeling like she was caught in some Victorian time warp, Heather wondered what kind of father would deliberately use a child as a sexual pawn to advance his own ambitions. The answer came to her in a flashback of the day her own parents hustled her across a crowded room to introduce her to Josef Sengele, the master pianist famous for grooming young prodigies for stardom.
“I know how you feel.”
It was not Heather’s voice but that of the beautiful woman standing next to her. She made note of the flicker of pain that creased the perfect beauty of that face. Her voice held a sad ring of resignation. Eyes as brilliant as the emeralds on her ears softened as she put a hand upon the