Because Of The Ring

She walked over to where he sat and made a palms-up gesture as a display of innocence. “I’m not doing anything, Hayden. I’m not here to con you in any way.”

He looked unconvinced. “I’m a rich man,” he informed her.

The faint frown on her face turned to a glare. “I’m not interested in what your bank accounts look like. But if you’re worried that mine are flat, I can give you the names of some financial institutions in Fort Worth that will prove otherwise.”

Maybe he should take her up on that, Hayden thought. Yet for some reason he believed that part of her story. The woman hadn’t been brought up in poverty. She just didn’t have that sort of bearing about her.

“Okay. You’re not after my money or my—shall we call it affections—so what’s the deal? And be honest this time.”

Claudia studied the rough, craggy lines of his face and wondered how just the mere touch of his lips against hers had been enough to knock her feet out from under her. Men had never affected her that way. Even Tony, with his smooth looks and practiced lovemaking, had never made her swoon.

Tony had called her frigid. She’d considered herself systematic. All that talk about passion and fire between the opposite sex had seemed like overexaggeration to her. Now, after meeting Hayden Bedford, she wasn’t quite so sure.

“Sorry, but I have been honest with you. I came here for your help. Nothing more.”

He raised up to the edge of the chair and stared at her through narrowed eyes. “Help?”

Breathing deeply, she turned her back on him and stared down at the opal on her hand. She desperately wanted to rip it off and order this man out of her room. But something stronger, some intangible force, was preventing her.

“Yes,” she answered quietly. “To help me figure out exactly why you’ve barged into my life. If I can find out why, then maybe I can get rid of you. For good!”

“You’re making me feel so wanted,” he said dryly.

“You don’t want to feel wanted,” she muttered. “Not by me.”

Suddenly one of his hands was on her bare back and electric frissons rippled over her skin. Her first instinct was to move away from his touch, but she was frozen, mesmerized by him and the strange things he was doing to her.

“I think the best thing we could do is forget about this vision thing and get to know one another a little better. Why don’t we go down to one of the cafés on the river walk and have dinner? Maybe between the two of us, we can come up with a practical solution.”

Oh, she had a solution, Claudia thought. Simply throw Betty Fay’s ring out the window and forget she’d ever possessed such a piece of jewelry. But would that help explain things? Could she go home then and be satisfied that Hayden Bedford had no connection to her life?

“I’m sure you’re a busy man. Having dinner with me is unnecessary.”

His hand moved slightly but oh so seductively against her back.

“I’m not so busy that I don’t take time to eat.”

The tips of his fingers were toying with her hair and she wondered if he was this intimate with all the women he met over the course of the day. Surely he wasn’t. Surely he couldn’t find a reason to kiss one of them. Not the way he’d kissed her.

“All right. When is a good time for you?” she conceded while hoping she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt.

“Right now,” he purred.

She closed her eyes and prayed for the shaking inside her to stop. “Let me call the airport again. I might be able to get a later flight tonight.”

With his hands on her shoulders, he turned her around to face him. “Forget about leaving San Antonio tonight, Claudia.”

“And why should I do that?”

His hands slid up both shoulders, beneath the hair framing her neck, then cupped her face.

“Because I want you to.”

Like a rose suddenly thrust into the desert heat, she felt herself wilting. If he hadn’t been holding her she would have collapsed at his feet.

“Your idea of help isn’t exactly what I needed from you,” she said.

He chuckled lowly and the sexy sound fanned her cheeks like a tempting caress. “There you go again, reading my mind. Maybe you do have some sort of sixth sense.”

He was making fun of her and she hated him for that. Hated him for making her feel so weak and vulnerable. For not understanding how lonely and terrified she’d felt these past weeks.

“Being a woman gives me enough power to read your mind!”

That seemed to sober him and he stepped back as though he couldn’t quite believe he’d been holding her in such an intimate way.

“Sorry. Something comes over me when I get close to you,” he said, and Claudia could see that the admission shocked him as much as it did her.

“Then we’d better make sure we don’t get close,” she countered.

With a grim nod of agreement, Hayden motioned her toward the door.

Chapter Three

Once they were out of the hotel room, Claudia began to breathe normally and by the time they were seated at a small, sidewalk café overlooking the river walk, she’d almost convinced herself that she hadn’t just taken a leap off the high dive.

“Have you visited San Antonio before?” he asked as the waitress served them their drinks.

Tourists and locals were everywhere in the boutiques and restaurants lining the river. Since it was the height of the dinner hour, Claudia was surprised they’d managed to find a vacant table fairly close to the hotel. It was positioned on a small terrace made of wooden planks. A nearby sago palm dappled the late-evening sun with cooling shadows and secluded them from the main group of diners. Any other time, she would have appreciated the extra privacy, but with Hayden as her dinner partner she would have welcomed the diversion of a noisy family sitting next to them.

“Yes. But it’s been a while.” She stirred sugar into her iced tea. “Do you live here in the city?”

“A few miles west and south, in the hill country.”

“So you commute here to the city to your offices.”

He nodded. “Bedford Roustabout has always been headquartered here in the same old building. My grandfather developed the business in the late nineteen forties. When he died my father took over the reins. After I graduated college at Texas University in Austin, I joined him.”

“Is your father still helping to run the company?”

He reached for his glass. “No. Unfortunately he died about five years ago.”

Claudia had always been close to her parents. They’d provided her with a solid foundation through her childhood and because they’d always been there for her, the idea of losing either one of them had seemed impossible. Until her grandmother Betty Fay had passed away. Her death had jolted Claudia and reminded her that her family was mortal and not something to take for granted.

“That must have been devastating,” she murmured.

“It was. He was only in his fifties. He was driving home one night when a drunk ignored a yield sign and smashed into the driver’s side of Dad’s truck. To make matters worse, I’d lost my mother only a year before that happened.”

“In another accident?” she asked, stunned that any one person could be handed such a double dose of grief.

“No. She had a blood disease that had weakened her immune system. She contracted pneumonia and wasn’t able to recover.” He looked at her over the rim of his tea glass. “What about you? Do you have parents?”

“Yes. In Fort Worth. Not far from where I live.”

He smiled as though her answer was what he’d expected. “So you’re still close to the nest.”

Claudia put down her spoon and leaned back in the wooden chair. He made it sound as though she was still wet behind the ears and needed protecting. “I don’t see that you’ve exactly strayed far from the home range yourself.”

He studied her with something like appreciation. “I guess I asked for that, didn’t I?”

She shrugged as her expression turned rueful. “Actually, I shouldn’t have said that to you. It wasn’t exactly nice. Not with your parents being gone.”

He chuckled lowly and she was reminded of a few minutes ago in the hotel room. He’d been so close she’d been able to see the green flecks in his blue eyes and the faint shadow of beard threatening to break through his skin. His male scent had enveloped her like a forbidden aphrodisiac and the urge to kiss him a second time had nearly overwhelmed her.

“I don’t expect niceness out of people, Claudia. Just honesty. Besides, you didn’t say anything to me that I didn’t say to you.”

Because he was too potent a man to look at for more than a few moments at a time, she turned her gaze to the narrow river. A few feet from their table, a small boat was passing by. A young couple were aboard, hugged close together on the simple seat near the bow. Their foreheads nearly touched as they exchanged words meant only for each other. Clearly, the outside world had been forgotten by the lovers and the sight of them filled Claudia with a strange sort of melancholy.

Most people considered her a cool person, a woman more interested in science and learning than femininity or romance. But at one time she’d believed in love and all the ecstasy that went with it. She’d hoped and believed that somewhere in the world there was a man that was meant to find her and sweep her away, a man who would give her children and love her for the rest of their lives. It was something she longed for and she’d thought, with the help of Betty Fay’s ring, she would find him. But Tony had shattered that idea and now it looked as though she was allowing the ring to drag her into another hopeless situation.

“I guess it’s a little late to wonder if you’re married.”

She said the words more to herself than to him, but he answered her just the same.

“If you’re feeling guilty about that little kiss we shared, Claudia, then don’t. I was divorced three years ago.”

Surprised, Claudia looked at him. “You were married?”

“For a couple of years.” The corners of his lips turned down with bitter humor. “I guess I was difficult to live with. At least, Saundra thought so.” He shrugged. “I left too many dirty socks and wet towels on the floor to suit her.”

It was obvious to Claudia that he was making light of the experience to cover up some deeper problem that had gone on between him and his ex-wife. “She didn’t divorce you for that reason.”

“No. But put a bunch of little things together and you get a big thing. And then there was the fact that Saundra liked men. Young and old. She couldn’t waste her life on just one.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Some men have to compete with money. I had to compete with other men. I didn’t like that.”

Claudia wasn’t surprised by his admission. That kiss he’d given her had tasted more than a little possessive. She’d already decided that once he branded a woman as his, he would expect her to never stray from his range.

“I know all about infidelity, Hayden. It’s a humiliating experience. One that I don’t ever plan to go through again.”

The tart sting of her voice had him searching her face. “What do you know about cheating spouses? You haven’t been married, have you?”

She shook her head as the memory of that fateful day she’d walked into Tony’s apartment filled her mind. She’d wanted to surprise him with lunch, instead she’d been shocked to find him in the shower with another woman. “You don’t have to be married to be cheated on,” she said flatly.

He started to say something else, but the sudden appearance of the waitress interrupted him. By the time the young woman served them their meals, he seemed to have forgotten where their conversation had left off and Claudia wasn’t about to remind him. The less she remembered that painful episode in her life, the better she liked it.

“You know,” he said as he forked up a bite of rib eye steak, “the more I think about this vision thing of yours the more I think there has to be a logical explanation. Are you sure you’re not just having daydreams? Sometimes when a person’s mind gets tired it wanders off to other things—things that don’t necessarily make sense.”

The food and the laid-back atmosphere of the open café were beginning to make her feel human again. In fact, if Hayden Bedford hadn’t been the image in her visions, she would have been enjoying this time with him. He was unlike any man she’d ever been around and she sensed that, if he was so minded to, he could charm a woman right out of her shoes.

“I’m not dreaming, Hayden. This happens when I’m totally awake and focused.”

The fact that she seemed so resolute appeared to irk him. “All right,” he conceded, “even if you do ‘see’ this man, you can’t be certain it’s me. Could be some old acquaintance or relative in your subconscious thoughts and you just think it’s me.”

She swallowed a piece of grilled chicken breast, then said, “I’ve already considered that avenue. I can’t think of anyone I know that resembles the man in my visions—except you. Besides, that still wouldn’t account for the boat.” She frowned as another thought struck her. “Have you ever worn khakis?”

Hayden shook his head. “No. Why?”

“Because I think that’s what you’re wearing when I see you. But I’m not entirely sure about that. The edges are usually blurred. It’s your face that I can see clearly. Or sometimes the boat and the water.”

She spoke of the visions in such a cool and collected way that it made Hayden feel uncomfortable. He didn’t want to think this woman was flat-out lying to him. Yet there was no way in Hades that he believed in such supernatural nonsense.

“You’ve been sailing before. Down on the gulf. You’ve seen the Stardust and it stuck in your mind,” he reasoned. “Even though she does belong to me, I have to admit she’s pretty and would catch most anyone’s eye.”

“Yes, I agree. The boat has a wooden hull and waxed deck and a carved dolphin at the head of her bow.”

“Like I said, anyone would remember her,” he countered with a grimace. “Or you could have taken a picture.”

“That’s true.”

She didn’t say more and with each silent minute that passed, he grew more and more irritated. “Well? Aren’t you going to argue? To deny my theories?”

Claudia studied him calmly. “I’m tired of doing that, Hayden. Your mind is closed and I’d just be wasting my time.”

“Look, I thought we came down here to discuss this—to try to find some solution or reason!”

She slipped another bite of food into her mouth. “I thought we did, too. But it’s obvious to me that we’re headed nowhere.”

He put down his fork and reared back in his chair. “Only because you want me to swallow everything you say hook, line, and sinker. Sorry, honey, I’m not that gullible.”

Her nostrils flared as she met his dark blue eyes. “And I don’t like to be called a liar.” She looked away from him, sucked in a sharp breath, then looked back at him. So much for being relaxed, she thought wryly.

“You know, a few minutes with you has made me understand why people are afraid to admit they’ve seen a UFO. It’s not pleasant having someone make you out as an idiot.”

“So now you believe in UFOs along with having visions. Lady, you need to put some lead in your shoes and get yourself back down to earth.”

It wouldn’t do to get angry with him again, Claudia silently told herself. Losing her temper wasn’t gaining her anything except a dull headache.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I haven’t mastered the art of floating yet,” she said with sarcasm.

What in hell was he doing? Hayden wondered. He was a busy man. There were never enough hours in the day to cover his busy schedule. Yet he’d canceled several pressing phone calls and another appointment just to see this woman again. If he told anyone about this, they’d drive him straight to the mental ward.

Leaning forward, he picked up his fork. “Okay. When you said you wanted my help, just what sort of help were you talking about?”

Her gaze fell from his to the food on her plate. “I’m not exactly sure. I was hoping when I saw you that—” She stopped and shook her head. “Maybe a simple explanation would just fall into place. Dear God, I never expected you to be him!”

“Who did you think I’d be?”

One of her slender shoulders lifted and fell. “Someone connected to the man in my visions. Someone who could lead me to him.”

He forked up the last bite of his steak. “Well, you found me. Has it done you any good?”

If anything, Claudia was more disheartened than ever. This narrow-minded man didn’t care about her problem or feel any kind of urge to help her. He didn’t even believe her!

“Actually, I suppose it has,” she said with false cheeriness. “I do know that you’re a real person now. And I’m also convinced that you’re not supposed to be in my life in any way.”

She spoke the last with such certainty that Hayden couldn’t help but feel insulted. “Sorry I’m such a disappointment to you.”

Suddenly, Claudia couldn’t take any more. The past three weeks had drained her and this man’s sarcastic indifference was too painful to take. There was no reason to keep putting herself through this.

“I’m sorry, too,” she muttered as she jerked the opal from her finger. “Sorry that I ever put this damn ring back on.”

She slapped the ring down next to her plate and quickly rose to her feet. “Thank you for dinner, Hayden. I hope you have a happy life.”

Hayden wasn’t expecting her to just walk away without another word. When she did, he stared after her in stunned silence, then down at the ring she’d left on the table.

“What in hell?”

“Looks like your fiancée doesn’t want to be engaged anymore.”

Hayden’s head jerked around to see that the waitress was standing just behind his shoulders. “Fiancée?” he repeated blankly before it dawned on him that the woman had seen Claudia leave her ring behind. “Uh, actually, I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”

The young waitress looked at him with as much disappointment as Claudia had.

“Then maybe you should go after her?” she suggested.

“Bring my ticket,” he told her.

She scurried away without bothering to ask if he wanted a refill of iced tea.

Hayden reached for the ring and studied it with thoughtful scrutiny. The simple piece of jewelry had been worn for a long time. The edges were all smooth; the band in the back worn thin. It didn’t make sense that she would leave it, he thought. But then nothing about the woman or his connection to her made any sense.

Dropping the ring into his shirt pocket, he rose to his feet and tossed enough bills on the table to more than cover the cost of the meal, then headed off in the same direction Claudia had taken before she slipped out of his sight.

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