The Reluctant Lark (23 page)

She could hear the sharply indrawn breath of the audience and the swelling murmur that broke from them, but she ignored it serenely as she dropped the robe on the stool and came forward to stand in the center of the stage.

The brilliant scarlet chiffon gown she had worn beneath the black Chinese robe had been chosen very deliberately to convey a message as explicit as her words. Its cut was beautifully simple with a high empire waist and a slim, flowing skirt that barely suggested the curves it concealed. Her throat and upper breasts were left completely bare, and there were two long scarlet chiffon streamers at each shoulder that floated out behind her bannerlike, in a bold, gay challenge.

She stood quite still until the auditorium was silent once again, her small form straight and proud in its valiant plumage. “Now I’d like to sing you a song that I’ve just written about that celebration,” she said, smiling gently and tossing back her black curls to reveal tiny golden loop earrings.

With no musical accompaniment, her throaty voice
rang out the simple, moving lyrics that built from soft, wistful entreaty to an exultant paean of triumph and hope.

As the last vibrant cry soared out over the rapt audience, Sheena felt almost dizzy with the heady exhilaration that was running through her veins. Oh, God, yes, this is what she wanted to say! This was what Rand had been trying to teach her. This was the only explanation for life that made any sense.

She stood there, her breasts heaving, her whole being electrified by the glorious, exciting
rightness
of the moment. Her dark eyes were blazing in a face that had
the glow of a thousand candles as she gradually came back to earth.

Her lips parting in a smile of infinitely moving joyousness, she said simply, “Thank you for celebrating with me tonight,” then turned and walked off the stage. She was conscious of neither the emotion-charged instant of silence, nor the almost hysterical burst of applause.

Her shoulders were immediately seized by a livid Donal O’Shea, and he was shaking her roughly. “You little fool, do you know what you’ve done?” he rasped furiously, his gray eyes narrowed to menacing slits. “You’ve spoiled everything!”

“Let her go, O’Shea,” Rand Challon’s tone was as deadly as a cobra’s hiss. “I’ll give you exactly three seconds.”

Sheena looked past the glowering O’Shea and the equally furious Sean Reilly to where Rand stood a few feet away. She had been certain that he would be here, but she still felt a surge of gladness flow through her. His golden tawny coloring was set off beautifully by the black tuxedo he was wearing and he looked vibrantly magnetic and alive. Evidently her appreciation of his attractions was not shared by her uncle and Sean. Sheena saw both anger and apprehension in their faces as they turned to face Challon’s taut figure.

“Stay out of this, Challon,” O’Shea snarled furiously, his hands tightening on Sheena’s shoulders. “This is all your doing!”

Challon shook his head. “You’re wrong, O’Shea. You always have underestimated Sheena. It was her show from start to finish. Now let her go. She’s leaving with me.”

“The hell she is,” O’Shea said. “She made a mistake tonight, but not one that can’t be rectified. She stays here!”

“I said let her go,” Challon said, and the menace had quadrupled in his voice.

“You’ll find it difficult to take her.” O’Shea’s eyes narrowed. “There are two of us.”

Reilly stepped a pace closer as if on cue.

“And there are two of us,” Nick O’Brien said lazily, as he strolled out of the shadows. He, too, was dressed in evening clothes, and there was piercing menace in his aquamarine eyes.

There was a long moment of barbed silence as they confronted each other. Then O’Shea’s grip gradually loosened on Sheena’s shoulders. Sheena swiftly broke free of his hold and ran to Rand, to be enfolded protectively in the curve of his arm.

“There’s no earthly sense to all this hullabaloo,” O’Shea said easily. “There’s obviously been a terrible misunderstanding. We’ve only to talk about it and get it straightened out.” His coaxing gaze was fixed on Sheena’s face. “Sheena, love, you know me. I’ve raised you like my daughter. You don’t want to leave me now because of a parcel of arrant lies.”

Sheena met his pleading gray eyes, and for a moment she was swayed, as he had intended, by the old affection and the bond of loyalty that he’d fostered in her. She shook her head as if to clear it, and immediately the memory of Rory’s dark, bewildered eyes as he lay in that hospital room in Ballycraigh came to her.

Her face hardened into implacable bitterness. “
May you burn forever in hell, Donal O’Shea
,” she said softly. She turned and walked swiftly away.

Challon and O’Brien were immediately on either side of her, and Rand clasped her elbow in his warmly protective manner. “I couldn’t have put it better myself,” he said lightly. “You have a real way with words, Sheena.”

“I’m glad that you approve,” she said, smiling. “May I say that I was very glad to see you here tonight? I was afraid you might not understand my message.”

“With Nick there to decipher all the nuances?” Rand scoffed. “It was mere child’s play.”

“It’s wonderful to have one’s genius appreciated,” Nick said and grinned. “But I would have enjoyed it
more if our Irish friends would have been more forthcoming. I was looking forward to a little excitement.”

“When I filled him in on the set-up, he insisted on coming,” Rand told Sheena. “I think he was anticipating a real honest-to-God shoot out.”

“Well, one can only hope,” O’Brien said wistfully.

Rand’s golden eyes were glowing with a love and affection that caused Sheena’s breath to catch in her throat. “Lord, I was proud of you tonight, dove,” he said quietly. “You were the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”

Sheena felt such a heady rush of happiness that there were no words to express it. She smiled at him with all the love in the universe in her face and said huskily, “Don’t call me dove. Can’t you see? I’m a lark!”

Rand looked at her face thoughtfully, before he smiled with a warm tenderness and pride. “Yes, I believe you are.”

Sheena returned his smile with serene contentment and slipped her hand in his. She held her other hand out to Nick, and together the three walked out the stage door and into the night.

Welcome to Loveswept!

We’re celebrating May Day with two exciting e-originals! Spring and romance come to Star Harbor for one sexy sheriff and the town’s beautiful doctor in Elisabeth Barrett’s scorching third Star Harbor book
LONG SIMMERING SPRING
. We also have Toni Aleo’s exhilarating debut
TAKING SHOTS
– the first in a red-hot new series featuring the hockey hunks of the Nashville Assassins. These books will definitely turn up the heat.

We’re also pleased to offer
LADY AND THE UNICORN
, a scintillating story from bestselling author Iris Johansen;
RUN WILD WITH ME
and
SCARLET BUTTERFLY
, two scorching stories of love and passion from beloved author Sandra Chastain, and
HOT AND BOTHERED
and
DANCING IN THE DARK
, celebrated author Linda Cajio’s seductive and tantalizing novels.

We also have a special treat from bestselling author Virna DePaul – the three novellas of her contemporary Red-Hot Cops series are available together in this eBook anthology:
ARRESTED BY LOVE
.

If you love romance … then you’re ready to be
Loveswept!

Gina Wachtel
Associate Publisher

P.S. Watch for these terrific Loveswept titles coming soon: In June, we’re excited about Ruthie Knox’s utterly fantastic
FLIRTING WITH DISASTER
, Toni Aleo’s blazing
TRYING TO SCORE
, Linda Cajio’s superb
DOUBLE DEALING
, Iris Johansen’s magnificent
FOREVER DREAM
and three more red-hot books from Sandra Chastain
SINNER AND SAINT
,
SHOWDOWN AT LIZARD ROCK
, and
SCARLET LADY
. Don’t miss any of these extraordinary reads. July brings Samantha
Kane’s sensual new e-original,
TEMPTING A DEVIL
, Toni Aleo’s third captivating book featuring hockey hunks,
EMPTY NET
, Ruth Owen’s dazzling
AND BABIES MAKE FOUR
, Jean Stone’s enthralling
SINS OF INNOCENCE
, Katie Rose’s utterly irresistible
A HINT OF MISCHIEF
, Iris Johansen’s seductive
TIL THE END OF TIME
, and Sandra Chastain’s enticing stories,
DANNY’S GIRL
and
SILVER BRACELETS
. I promise that you’ll fall in love and treasure these stories for years to come.…

“Get out of my yard!” Ellen shouted.

The weasel-faced photographer ignored her, too busy snapping photos of the house next door to pay her any mind.

No surprise there. This was the fifth time in as many days that a man with a camera had violated her property lines. By now, she knew the drill.

They trespassed. She yelled. They pretended she didn’t exist. She called the police.

Ellen was thoroughly sick of it. She couldn’t carry on this way, watching from the safety of the side porch and clutching her glass of iced tea like an outraged southern belle.

It was all very well for Jamie to tell her to stay put and let the professionals deal with it. Her pop-star brother was safe at home in California, nursing his wounds. And anyway, this kind of attention was the lot he’d chosen in life. He’d decided to be a celebrity, and then he’d made the choice to get involved with Ellen’s neighbor, Carly. The consequences ought to be his to deal with.

Ellen hadn’t invited the paparazzi to descend. She’d made different choices, and they’d led her to college, law school, marriage, divorce, motherhood. They’d led her to this quiet cul-de-sac in Camelot, Ohio, surrounded by woods.

Her choices had also made her the kind of woman who couldn’t easily stand by as some skeevy guy crushed her plants and invaded Carly’s privacy for the umpteenth time since last Friday.

Enough
, she thought.
Enough
.

But until Weasel Face crushed the life out of her favorite hosta—her
mascot
hosta—with his giant brown boot, she didn’t actually intend to act on the thought.

Raised in Chicago, Ellen had grown up ignorant of perennials. When she first moved to Camelot, a new wife in a strange land, she did her best to adapt to the local ways of lawn-mowing and shade-garden cultivation, but during the three years her marriage lasted, she’d killed
every plant she put in the ground.

It was only after her divorce that things started to grow. In the winter after she kicked Richard out for being a philandering dickhead, their son had sprouted from a pea-sized nothing to a solid presence inside her womb, breathing and alive. That spring, the first furled shoots of the hosta poked through the mulch, proving that Ellen was not incompetent, as Richard had so often implied. She and the baby were, in fact, perfectly capable of surviving, even thriving, without anyone’s help.

Two more springs had come and gone, and the hosta kept returning, bigger every year. It became her horticultural buddy. Triumph in plant form.

So Ellen took it personally when Weasel Face stepped on it. Possibly a bit too personally. Swept up in a delicious tide of righteousness, she crossed the lawn and upended her glass of iced tea over the back of his head.

It felt good. It felt
great
, actually—the coiled-spring snap of temper, the clean confidence that came with striking a blow for justice. For the few seconds it lasted, she basked in it. It was such an improvement over standing around.