The world seemed very far away as the drugs took hold at last and she slept. Her dreams were full of the old days, of growing up with Mary and Matt, of Ethan always nearby, beloved and taciturn and completely unattainable. No matter how hard she tried to act her age, Ethan had never looked at her as a woman in those early days.
Arabella had always loved him. Her music had been her escape. She could play the exquisite classical pieces and put all the love Ethan didn’t want into her fingers as she played. It was that fever and need that had given her a start in the musical world. At the age of twenty-one, she’d won an international competition with a huge financial prize, and the recognition had given her a shot at a recording contract.
Classical music was notoriously low-paying for pianists, but Arabella’s style had caught on quickly when she tried some pop pieces. The albums had sold well, and she was asked to do more. The royalties began to grow, along with her fame.
Her father had pushed her into personal appearances and tours, and, basically shy in front of people she didn’t know, she’d hated the whole idea of it. She’d tried to protest, but her father had dominated her all her life, and she hadn’t had the will to fight him. Incredible, that, she told herself, when she could stand up to Ethan and most other people without a qualm. Her father was different. She loved him and he’d been her mainstay when her mother had died so long ago. She couldn’t bear to hurt her father by refusing his guidance in her career. Ethan had hated the hold her father had on her, but he’d never asked her to try to break it.
Over the years, while she was growing up in Jacobsville, Ethan had been a kind of protective but distant big brother. Until that day he’d taken her swimming down at the creek and everything had changed. Miriam had been at the ranch even then, starting on a layout with a Western theme for a fashion magazine. Ethan had paid her very little notice until he’d almost lost control with Arabella when they started kissing, but after that day he’d begun pursuing Miriam. It hadn’t taken long.
Arabella had heard Miriam bragging to another model that she had the Hardeman fortune in the palm of her hand and that she was going to trade Ethan her body for a life of luxury. It had sickened Arabella to think of the man she loved being treated as a meal ticket and nothing more, so she’d gone to him and tried to tell him what she’d heard.
He hadn’t believed her. He’d accused her of being jealous of Miriam. He’d hurt her with his cold remarks about her age and inexperience and naiveté, then he’d ordered her off the ranch. She’d run away, all the way out of the state and back to music school.
How strange that Ethan should be the one to look after her. It was the first time she’d ever been in a hospital, the first time she’d been anything except healthy. She wouldn’t have expected Ethan to bother with her, despite her father’s request. Ethan had studiously ignored Arabella since his marriage, right down to deliberately disappearing every time she came to visit Mary and Coreen.
Mary and Matt lived with Matt and Ethan’s mother, Coreen, at the big rambling Hardeman house. Coreen always welcomed Arabella as if she were family when she came to spend an occasional afternoon with her friend Mary. But Ethan was cold and unapproachable and barely spoke to her.
Arabella hadn’t expected more from Ethan, though. He’d made his opinion of her crystal clear when he’d announced his engagement to Miriam shortly after he’d started dating the model. The engagement had shocked everyone, even his mother, and the rushed wedding had been a source of gossip for months. But Miriam wasn’t pregnant, so obviously he’d married her for love. If that was the case, it was a brief love. Miriam had gone, bag and baggage, six months later, leaving Ethan alone but not unattached. Arabella had never learned why Miriam had refused the divorce or why Miriam had started running around on a man she’d only just married. It was one of many things about his marriage that Ethan never discussed with anyone.
Arabella felt oblivion stealing her away. She gave in to it at last, sighing as she fell asleep, leaving all her worries and heartaches behind.
When Arabella woke up again, it was daylight. Her hand throbbed in its white cast. She ground her teeth together, recalling the accident all too vividly—the impact, the sound of broken glass, her own cry, and then oblivion rushing over her. She couldn’t blame the accident on her father; it had been unavoidable. Slick roads, a car that pulled out in front of them, and they’d gone off the pavement and into a telephone pole. She was relieved to be alive, despite the damage to her hand. But she was afraid her father wasn’t going to react well to the knowledge that her performing days might be over. She refused to think about that possibility. She had to be optimistic.
Belatedly she wondered what had become of the car they’d been driving. They’d been on their way to Jacobsville from Corpus Christi, where she’d been performing in a charity concert. Her father hadn’t told her why they were going to Jacobsville, so she’d assumed that they were taking a brief vacation in their old home town. She’d thought then about seeing Ethan again, and her heart had bounced in her chest. But she hadn’t expected to see him under these circumstances.
They’d been very close to Jacobsville, so naturally they’d been taken to the hospital there. Her father had been transferred to Dallas and had called Ethan, but why? She couldn’t imagine the reason he should have asked a man he obviously disliked to look after his daughter. She was no closer to solving the mystery when the door opened.
Ethan came in with a cup of black coffee, looking out of sorts as if he’d never smiled in his life. He had a faint arrogance of carriage that had intrigued her from the first time she’d seen him. He was as individual as his name. She even knew how he’d come by the name. His mother Coreen, a John Wayne fan, had loved the movie The Searchers, which came out before Ethan was born. When Coreen became pregnant, she couldn’t think of a better name for her firstborn son than the first name John Wayne had been given in the movie. So he became Ethan Hardeman. His middle name was John, but few people outside the family knew it.
Arabella loved looking at him. He had a rodeo rider’s physique, powerful shoulders and chest that wedged down to narrow hips, a flat belly and long, muscular legs. His face wasn’t bad, either. He was tanned and his eyes were deep-set and very gray, although sometimes they looked silver and other times they had the faintest hint of blue. His hair was dark and conventionally cut. His nose was straight, his mouth sensuous, his cheekbones high and his chin faintly jutting with a slight cleft. He had lean hands with long fingers and neatly trimmed flat nails.
She was staring at him again, helplessly she supposed. From his blue-checked Western shirt to his gray denims and black boots, he was impeccably dressed, elegant for a cowboy, even if he was the boss.
“You look like hell,” he said, and all her romantic dreams were pushed aside at once.
“Thank you,” she replied with a little of her old spirit. “That kind of flattery is just what I needed.”
“You’ll mend.” He sounded unruffled; he always did. He sat down in the armchair next to the bed and leaned back with one long leg crossed over the other, sipping his coffee. “Mother and Mary will be in to see you later. How’s the hand?”
“It hurts,” she said simply. She used the good one to brush back her hair. She could hear Bach preludes and Clementi sonatinas in the back of her mind. Always the music. It gave her life, made her breathe. She couldn’t bear to think that she might lose it.
“Have they given you anything?”
“Yes, just a few minutes ago. I’m a little groggy, but I don’t hurt as much as I did,” she assured him. She’d already seen one orderly run for cover when he walked in. All she needed was to have Ethan bulldoze any more of the staff on her behalf.
He smiled faintly. “I won’t cause too much trouble,” he assured her. “I just want to make sure you’re being treated