After the Music by Diana Palmer Page A

hurting me," she said quietly.
    His nostrils flared and his face hardened, but slowly he released his cruel hold on her hair and let her move away from him. His gaze went down to the small fingers still pressed against his chest, and he lifted them away.
    He wasn't a man at the mercy of his emotions now, she thought, watching him light a cigarette with cool, steady hands. He'd become as cold as stone.
    His mouth curled slowly. "You've got one hell of a lot of spirit. Al may miss you, after all."
    "He isn't going anywhere."
    "No. But you are." He lifted his head, studying her insolently. "I'm working on a little surprise for you, tulip. Just another day or so, and I'll have everything I need."
    "How exciting," she murmured. "I can hardly wait. Does Al know?"
    The smile faded. "I don't want him hurt any more than he has to be. Not that you seem to mind playing around with me behind his back."
    How could she tell him that the engagement was a bogus one, that Thorn appealed to her senses in a way that left her completely at his mercy? That she loved him, wanted him, needed him. It was a maelstrom of discovery that left her knees weak. It couldn't happen so quickly, could it? He was arrogant and ruthless and narrow-minded. But he was more man, pound for pound, than any male she'd ever run across in her life. Her eyes coveted the very sight of him. And because of that, she turned away and wouldn't let him see her face again.
    "I'll leave you to your work, oil baron," she said as she mounted her horse. "I'm going to find Al."
    "Enjoy his company while you can," he returned, mounting his own horse with lazy grace. "You haven't got long."
    "What was your father like, Thorn?" she asked suddenly, curious.
    "Like me," he said shortly.
    "No wonder your mother is the way she is," she said sadly. "She must have been devastated when he died."
    He frowned. "What a hell of a way she has of showing it!"
    "Al showed me a picture of your father; he's told me things about him." Her hand lifted to shade her eyes from the sun. "He must have been a strong man. There aren't a lot of strong men in the world. I imagine she's been looking all this time for someone who halfway measured up to him, without the least success. She's relatively young, Al said. What a pitiful way to live."
    He glared at her, but he was listening. "She might have showed him she cared while he was still alive. He'd be alive, but for her."
    Her soft eyes wandered all over him, loving every rippling muscle, even the stubborn set of his jaw. He'd changed her whole life so quickly. "Perhaps he made it impossible for her to show it. Perhaps she only wanted to capture his attention. And afterward, after it happened, the guilt would have been terrible. Some men take a lot of forgetting," she said.
    "How the hell would you know?" he challenged.
    He was back to his old impossible self. She shrugged delicately and rode away without answering. If she'd said anything else, she might as well be talking to the wind. She rode back to the path where she'd left Al, dismounted, and sat on a stump waiting for him to return.
    She could hardly believe how fast it had happened. She hardly knew Thorn, for heaven's sake! But he'd worn on her nerves and her emotions and her heart more in the past few days than most men had in months, even years. She wanted him, and it was oddly comforting to realize that he felt the same hunger for her. It was a dead-end street, of course. There was no possible future in it. But while she could see him and be near him, she took a terrible pleasure in her growing love for him. There was a lot of man under that cruel, cynical exterior. She was only sorry he was her enemy, that he'd never let her see behind his mask. It would be sheer heaven to be loved by such a man.
    Al appeared a few minutes later, grinning. "We got the license," he said, giddy with excitement. "And we decided to set the date. We're getting married the day after Easter."
    "That's Monday!" Sabina