THE MORNING SIDE OF DAWN Page 13

  She heard the bathroom door open, but determinedly didn't look up. True, in what she was sure was a concession to her presence, Dar usually exited the shower covered with a towel, but somehow that didn't make the sight of the broad, muscled expanse of his chest and shoulders any less unsettling. Nor, she thought wryly as she heard the bedroom door close, did the fact that she'd seen that bare chest and those shoulders fairly regularly since she'd been here make it any less unsettling.

  So much for the familiarity-breeds-contempt theory, she muttered silently. The only thing her familiarity with his body was breeding was a serious desire to know more.

  It was only a few minutes later when he wheeled out of his bedroom and silently past her to his workshop. Cassie sighed inwardly. One step forward, three steps back, she thought. Every time they made any progress, he retreated. Of course, perhaps he didn't see it as progress, she admitted ruefully. Perhaps he simply saw any increased closeness between them as a further invasion into his carefully maintained privacy.

  Already he was engrossed in making adjustments to the off-road chair that he'd brought inside yesterday. She'd read a bit about this kind of chair in several magazines she'd found on a low shelf beside the television, enough to amaze her with the complexity of the machine. The titanium frames and knobby mountain-bike tires—small in front, bigger ones in the rear—were simple enough, but when you added to that brakes, shocks, two-speed hand rims, sealed bearings and a host of other refinements she couldn't even begin to understand, these tough, durable vehicles were truly remarkable.

  And it told her a great deal about Dar that, as good as these chairs were, he was determined to make his better, determined to make them as special and in demand as Cordell road-race and track chairs were.

  She picked up her book, a lengthy thriller she'd bought in an airport months ago but had never been able to take time to read. She'd found it yesterday while digging in her bag for her old University of Washington sweatshirt, and had felt like a child who'd discovered a treat she'd forgotten she had hidden away. She'd spent the afternoon luxuriating in being able to just sit and read, and was looking forward to finishing the last few chapters today. And fortunately, the book was sufficiently intriguing to keep her mind occupied rather than dwelling fruitlessly on the enigma of Dar Cordell.

  She put her feet up and leaned back, then remembered how stiff she'd ended up yesterday after a long stint on this couch that seemed more designed for lolling than sitting. She sat up once more, opened the big drawer in the base of the low table in front of the sofa and pulled out the pillow she'd been using to sleep and propped it behind her back.

  She didn't know how long she'd been reading when a movement made her look up in time to see that Dar had shifted over to the off-road chair and was headed for the door.

  "Another test run?" she asked.

  He glanced at her, then away, silently, but did finally answer. "I've only got a couple of hours before full dark."

  This time of year in California, that gave him until well after eight o'clock, Cassie thought as he left. Which made for a long day of work when you started at dawn. But she wasn't about to say anything, not when she'd spent the last three days lazing around in wonderful idleness. Beyond her walks, reading and a brief and somewhat constrained conversation with Rory, who was feeling a little better but still not right, Cassie hadn't done much of anything.

  And to his credit, Dar hadn't said a word about her lack of activity, even in the face of his own industry. That first day she'd offered to help around the warehouse, to clean or whatever he wanted, but he'd just grimaced at her and said the only house rule was to pick up after herself.

  "You said you took a break to rest," he reminded her. "So rest."

  They hadn't talked at all about the reason she was here, and it took Cassie a while to realize that they wouldn't unless she opened the subject. She was used to dealing with people who had a tendency to pry into every corner of a person's life, and it was a novelty of sorts to be around someone who would no more pry than he would allow himself to be pried into.

  And while the silence on the subject allowed her to put it from her mind, that very thing also freed her mind to think entirely too much about her unwilling host. Her mouth twisted ruefully at one corner; she wondered if Dar had talked to Sean lately. Her almost brother-in-law hadn't shown up again since that first day, and she had no idea if it was because he was angry or disgusted or what. Although she hadn't had that much contact with him, he didn't seem the type to truly bear a grudge, so she supposed it was possible he was staying away to give what he supposed was a newly involved couple time alone. But she'd feel better if she knew that for sure. Maybe she'd ask Dar when he came back if he'd talked to Sean.

  Maybe, she added gloomily, he might even answer her.

  Aware she was sliding into that futile habit of trying to predict what Dar would do, she picked up her book. In moments she was absorbed as the fast-paced thriller rocketed toward its conclusion. She grimaced as the sole female character, inevitably it seemed, was killed off, but she'd half expected it and kept going despite her irritation; women, it seemed, still had a long way to go in certain areas of literature. But after a lot of excitement and a rather neat twist, the hero won out, the world was saved and she closed the book with a generally satisfied slap.

  She sat up, leaning forward to set the book on the table. She noticed that something, probably the blanket she'd also been using, had kept the drawer in the table from closing all the way, and pulled it open again to adjust it. She found she had somehow shifted a videocassette that had been in the drawer, obviously far enough to the back that she hadn't noticed it while taking out or putting back the blanket and pillow. She reached in and turned it on its edge, then moved to rearrange the blanket. But something on the cassette's label caught her eye, and she turned her head to read it.

  The moment she did, she wished she hadn't. It said simply, Final Game, College World Series, and was dated twelve years ago, but she knew how much more than that it was. She picked it up, staring at it bleakly. She knew she had no business even thinking about watching it. Knew she didn't want to watch it, knew she didn't want to see him as he'd been, because it would only drive home just how much he'd lost.

  She sat there for a long time. And finally, unable to help herself, she walked over, turned on the TV and VCR and slid the tape into the slot. Her fingers were shaking, but she pushed the play button, anyway.

  Oddly, it started in the middle of the game. Only then did she realize the tape had been wound beyond the beginning when she'd taken it out of the box. Did he watch it, a little bit at a time? Or had he begun to play it and been able to look only for a while before having to turn it off, unable to watch the past?

  She backed up and sat down on the edge of the table, facing the big screen. She didn't have to wait long. It seemed all the announcers could talk about was the brilliant young left fielder who had it all—talent, speed, power. Though he was barely a sophomore, it was rumored that after this series he was headed to the big leagues, already signed straight into AAA ball at nineteen. They talked about a great running catch he'd made in the second inning, and the towering home run he'd hit in the third. They raved about his speed on the base paths, and his uncanny instinct for the game. They compared him to Gwynn, Clemente, Mantle, and some names she'd never heard before but that were spoken in awed tones of respect. She sat still, listening, watching, waiting.

  She thought she was braced. She thought she was ready. But when the side was out and the other team took the field, she knew nothing could have prepared her for the sight of Dar, young and strong and whole, running in long, graceful strides to his position in left field. She'd been right, she thought, he had been tall. Over six feet, easy. The camera zeroed in on him as he pulled off his cap, shoved his longish hair off his forehead and put the cap back on, tugging it down to shade his eyes. Those incredible dark eyes, alive with the joy of playing the game he loved.

  She wante
d to turn it off, didn't think she could bear any more, but she couldn't make herself do it. She felt like one of those people who gaped at the scenes of accidents, or like some sick voyeur who knew the grim outcome but couldn't resist watching the innocence that would soon be destroyed.

  So she watched, watched until the picture went oddly out of focus with some malfunction. She waited for them to realize it and fix it, but it only got worse. She blinked, and knew then that the problem was not with the camera at all. She didn't try to stop the tears as they began to spill over; she knew it would do no good. There was no way she could control this, no way to ease the pain of what she was feeling. This was no movie where she could reassure herself that the actor would get up and walk away after the disaster to come, no newscast of tragedy where she could console herself that at least it hadn't been anyone she knew or cared about.

  This was Dar, and his world as he knew it would come to an end a few short hours after this moment caught forever on film.

  The sense of no longer being alone made her turn her head. Dar sat there, looking from her face to the images on the screen, then back.

  "Damn you."

  He spat it out through clenched teeth, and Cassie knew in that moment that she had never seen anyone so coldly furious in her life.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  «^»

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  Dar barely managed to keep his voice from shaking, he was so incensed.

  "I think that's obvious."

  She didn't dissemble or try to apologize, and he supposed he should give her credit for that, but right now he didn't feel like giving her anything, except a one-way ticket out of his life. And the fact that she'd been crying only made it worse; he'd had more than enough pity in his life, and he was sick to death of it.

  "You may be the celebrated Cassandra," he said furiously, "but that doesn't give you the right to pry into things that aren't any of your business."

  "I'm not the celebrated anyone," she said, her voice quiet. "Not here. I'm just someone who'd like to be a friend. Someone who's trying to understand."

  He looked pointedly at her still-wet cheeks. "Well, I've had a bellyful of that kind of understanding. Take your tears somewhere else, Ms. Cameron. I don't need or want your pity."

  "Pity?" She leapt to her feet with the exclamation. "Is that what you think?"

  He gestured at the television screen. "What else? I've heard it all before. Such a tragedy, he would have been a great player. He had the world in his pocket, and now he's just a helpless cripple."

  "Stop it."

  She said it flatly, but he saw her hands curl into fists at her sides. He ignored it and rolled past her to grab at the remote control and shut off the images. It was tricky; the off-road chair was much bigger and more awkward than his everyday chair, but he needed that tape to stop. He'd watched it once. Or tried to. He'd only gotten through three innings, and had had to turn it off. He should have burned the damn thing a long time ago.

  "That bothers you?" He twisted around to look at her. "It's only the truth, isn't it? It's what you were thinking—"

  "Don't you dare presume you know what I was thinking," she snapped.

  "I know," he said wearily, "because it's what every TAB thinks."

  He wheeled past her to where his regular chair sat in the workshop area. He sensed rather than saw her follow him until he came to a stop beside the chair.

  Her eyebrows lowered. "And just what does TAB mean?"

  "Temporarily able-bodied. It's what all of you are, cause it can happen anytime, to anybody."

  "All of 'you'? Is that what this is? An 'us and them' thing?"

  He levered himself out of the off-road chair and into the blue one. With the off-road chair's sturdier and higher frame, it wasn't the easiest of deeds, and it took him a moment. When he was settled, he finally looked up at her.

  "Isn't it?"

  For a long, silent moment she stared at him. "Well," she said, her voice so calm he was immediately suspicious. "As long as we're making assumptions and generalizations, I've got a few for you, Mr. Cordell. The first being that you are the most arrogant, presumptuous human being I've ever met, and I've met some prizes in the last few years."

  Dar simply shrugged again; he had no answer to those charges, because he was reasonably sure they were true. He released the brakes on his chair and started to roll away from her.

  "But I've learned to deal with that," she said. "What I can't deal with is selfishness. And you are a prime example of that."

  He stopped abruptly, spinning back to stare at her. Selfish? How could you be selfish if there was no one around to be selfish to? "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "What else would you call it? You refuse to share anything of yourself. You isolate yourself here, and tell the rest of the world to go to hell. What friends you have have to fight you every step of the way. You don't allow anything or anyone to get too close, because it might interfere with your precious privacy."

  "You're here," he said, beginning to feel a bit beleaguered; he'd never thought of selfishness quite like that before, as a stinginess with yourself as much as with things. He'd never figured anybody would miss him much if he wasn't around, except for maybe Sean, Stevie and Chase, and, of course, Katie.

  "Only because you feel some sort of misguided obligation to me because of my brother, and you don't want Sean to be bothered with me right now."

  Dar felt himself flush; he hadn't realized he'd been so transparent. But then, no one had ever been able to read him the way this woman seemed to.

  "Look," he said, wondering how he'd been maneuvered into having to defend himself. "It took me a damn long time to get here, and I like my life the way it is."

  "Oh, I don't doubt that. It must be very simple, to just hide away and keep the world at arm's length, never having to really deal with people. I mean, people are sometimes presumptuous enough to care, which would mess up the tidiness of your neat little world—"

  "Damn it, this isn't about me," he snapped. "This is about you, sticking your nose where it doesn't belong."

  "Isn't it about you? My God, Dar, what happened to you was a tragedy. Of course people feel something about it! It's only natural. But you don't want to allow even that, do you? Is no one allowed to feel anything for what happened to you?"

  "I don't care what you think is 'only natural'—"

  "Come on, Dar!" she exclaimed, cutting him off. "How could anyone look at him—" she gestured at the now-dark screen "—and not feel something, knowing his dreams were going to come crashing down around him, just hours after that game ended?"

  He expelled a compressed breath. "Listen to yourself. 'Him.' Like he's somebody else."

  "Isn't he?" she said, her voice suddenly soft. "Is there really anything of that boy left, Dar?"

  "That boy," he said sourly, "was a fool. He thought he finally had life by the tail."

  "But life turned on him."

  "Life turns on everybody, sooner or later." He looked at her steadily. "You should know that."

  "It can also turn beautiful, Dar. My family is living proof of that. Do you know how long we spent thinking Chase was dead? How long we cried over him, loving him and hating him for the same reason, that he'd done what he thought was right and it had cost him his life? Can you even imagine how we felt that day that Stevie brought him home to us?"

  "No," he said flatly. And meant it. He couldn't. He couldn't begin to imagine what it had been like for a loving family to have a son and brother returned to it.

  He spun his chair around once more and wheeled away from her. He went to the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. He didn't usually do this, especially after downing a couple with that pizza the other night, but he wanted one now. Actually, he wanted a shot of something a hell of a lot stronger, but he didn't even own a bottle of hard liquor.

  "I'm sorry if my watching that upset you," she said. She'd followed him across the warehou
se to the edge of the kitchen area.

  He took a long swallow of beer, not looking at her. "Nobody asked you to apologize."

  "I know that. But it was wrong of me to watch that video without asking you first. But if I had asked, what would you have said?"

  One beer might not be enough, he thought, taking another long swig before he said, "I think you know the answer to that."

  He heard her let out a long breath. "Yes. I do. That's why I'm apologizing for doing it." She paused, and when she went on there was a militant sound to her voice. "But I won't apologize for feeling something about it. I won't apologize for feeling sick inside because of what you lost. I won't apologize for getting furious at the unfairness of it. And I won't apologize for crying."

  He whirled on her then. "I don't want you crying over me. I don't want anybody crying over me."

  "I wasn't crying over you. I was crying for you."

  "What the hell is the difference?"

  "The difference is that it has nothing to do with pity or charity or anything that gets your back up so instantly. Look at you—how on earth could anybody feel sorry for you? You've got brains, looks, and you've accomplished more than most people do in a lifetime. And you think I pity you? Because of that?" she exclaimed, gesturing at his chair.

  She turned on her heel and started away from him, and for a moment he dared to hope that she was going to let this end. But then she spun back, and he knew he was in for more. God, he hated this. He couldn't deal with this. He was too damned tired to deal with this kind of upheaval.

  "How many people have you thrown out of your life, Dar?"

  "I'm considering another right now," he said grimly.

  "I'm sure you are," she said. She was pacing, her every movement agitated, a far cry from her usual graceful movements. Whatever else he might think, he couldn't doubt that the feelings that were driving her were genuine; they radiated from every inch of her. Every luscious inch.

  And how he could be thinking that way about a woman who was chewing him out like this was beyond him. Why he was even letting it happen was beyond him. And his irritation with himself put an edge in his voice.