Larger than Life by Kay Hooper Page A

possibly be Matt Preston’s son? Had Matt Preston continued to protect his son as an adult when it became obvious he was totally unsuited for the business world? Difficult, he thought, to find a resemblance between Matt’s hard face and Mark’s amiable features—but they both had blue eyes, and Mark was the right age ….
    Then Travis’s thoughts were yanked from the artist when Matt spoke again. His face had gone expressionless, eyes hooded as he gazed at Cory.
    “Did you tell Saber I was here?” he asked quietly.
    “Uh—no.” Cory shot a quick, uncomfortable look at Travis. “I haven’t seen her this morning.”
    Matt gave an odd, twisted smile but said nothing.
    Travis gazed steadily at Cory, who refused tomeet his eyes. He felt suspended thoughts crashing in his mind. Matt Preston—and Saber? No. No, she’d said … Then he remembered Saber had denied only that a lover had been involved in the months missing from her life. But there was still the man she had to prove something to, the man for whom her success meant too much.
    Numbly, Travis knew that Saber was not a woman who would accept a rich lover or husband as her due; she would strive to stand on equal terms with a man. Granted, she would never be as rich as Matt Preston, but she could very well be as successful. And Preston …
    Travis tried to look at the man objectively. Handsome, distinguished, incredibly wealthy—and not much past fifty. He could have any woman he wanted. And if he wanted Saber? Was he waiting patiently for her to prove she didn’t need the riches he offered—before laying them at her feet?
    Travis barely heard the older man excuse himself before going over to talk to his bodyguard. But he watched the graceful, athletic stride, tearing hisbrooding gaze away only when Cory claimed his attention.
    “Travis?”
    He turned his head to find her watching him with sympathy in her green eyes. “Travis, trust Saber,” she said softly.
    “I want to.” He heard the rough emotion in his voice and didn’t try to hide it. “But she won’t tell me anything. How can I accept her past as unimportant when she won’t trust me enough to confide in me?”
    “Maybe it isn’t a matter of trust,” Cory suggested. “Saber hasn’t had an easy life, Travis. You’ve guessed that?”
    He nodded.
    Cory seemed to be weighing her words carefully. “She’s been … cheated in a lot of ways. She has incredible courage, more than she realizes. But there are debts and promises in her past, and they have to be dealt with.”
    “If I lose her to him—” Travis grated out, shooting a glance toward Matt and not finishing the savage sentence.
    Biting her lip, Cory stared at him worriedly. “Travis, Saber needs you. She needs someone who loves her for what she is—not because she’s beautiful and famous. She needs an anchor. A person with a special kind of strength.”
    “A hero?” he suggested wryly, thinking of that larger-than-life part of her.
    “In a way, yes. Not a doer of great deeds, though.” Cory smiled. “I think you’ll find that Saber’s definition of a hero is something entirely different. Ask her sometime. You may be surprised.”
    Travis nodded, then rose abruptly and shrugged into his robe. “I’ll tell her Preston’s here.” He managed a smile for Cory’s anxious eyes, then left the pool and made his way to their cottage.
    Saber was in the kitchen, busy making pancakes, and Travis only greeted her lightly before going into his bedroom to change. When he came out and joined her, she had set the small table for two and was pouring coffee.
    “Hope you’re hungry,” she said cheerfully. “I got carried away and made lots of pancakes.”
    “Starved.” Travis thought that he carried off this carefree routine pretty well—until she spoke about ten minutes into the meal.
    “What’s wrong, Travis?”
    After a moment, he said casually, “Cory introduced me to two new guests out at the pool.”
    “Oh?”
    “Yes.”