Silver and Spice Read Free

Jake,” Link said with satisfaction.
    Anne had also noticed that Jake was enjoying himself. First with the brunette, and then with the redhead. And he was still having a good time, imprisoning her small hand neatly in his larger one. She could feel the grain of calluses on his palm, and she could also feel her control begin to slip, the control she always resented losing. The stalk had been going on for more than an hour. Her humor was beginning to give way to an attack of nerves. A delicious adrenaline was coursing through her bloodstream; she was well aware of the danger. She felt high, light-headed. He was a powerful sexual animal. She valued that in the same way that she respected any predator—as long as he understood that she wasn’t prey.
    His hand slowly freed hers, his thumb gently rubbing against her slender wrist as he let her go. “You don’t mind if I take Anne away for a dance, do you, Link?”
    “Of course not. You just show her a real good time, Jake. She’s one special lady to me.”
    Anne smiled weakly. “Actually, I sort of left a friend all alone in the house. If you would mind just for a moment, Mr.—”
    “Rivard,” he supplied.
    “I’ll be right back to claim that dance,” she assured him.
    “I’m sure you will.”
    There would be a snowstorm in hell before her cool, calm flesh would come in direct contact with his lean, hungry body—and he knew it. She could feel his eyes on the open spaces in the back of her dress as she walked away.
    It didn’t matter. Anne was leaving. Well, in a minute she was leaving. She wanted to see one last person before she left.
    Angela Stone was a white-haired wisp of an aristocrat, dressed in a plain white gown with a blaze of sapphires at her throat. “How’s your grandmother, Anne? I spoke to her on the phone last week, but neither of us really had a chance to talk…”
    Anne tried to relax, taking the straight chair next to the older woman. “I miss her when she goes south,” Anne admitted. “In fact, I’ve been worried about her lately.”
    “Now, she has a horde of people to take care of her, dear. You’re so very like her, Anne, never letting anyone do a thing for you. One doesn’t quibble with that kind of character. One simply tries to relax and not worry. Tell me what you’ve been up to.”
    Anne automatically shied from talking about herself. Instead, she switched to Mrs. Stone’s favorite subject—her artists and the scholarships she’d set up for budding sculptors. Occasionally, people came by to interrupt; Link, for one, bent over to kiss Angela’s cheek, and another neighbor did the same to Anne. The later it grew, the cooler the breeze became, and more and more people wandered inside. Still, it wasn’t until Anne felt a curl start to slip on her neck that she realized he’d been there again.
    With a flush in her cheeks, she stood up—but not soon enough. She could feel all the snaky coils of long hair begin to unwind. “I’ll tell Gran everything you said, Mrs. Stone. How good it is to see you again.”
    “So few people take the time for an old lady these days, Anne. Give Jennie my love.”
    Anne managed to reach the front door before her hair actually tumbled. She reached up frantically; there were three pins left. Irritably, she wrenched those out, and the rest of the tumbling mane promptly cascaded down her back, all soft and tickly through the silk latticework of her dress.
    It didn’t matter; she was through with the party anyway. From the front steps, she could see the long line of cars parked along the road; the cement walk that led down to them was bordered by hedges trimmed into animal shapes. One bush was a wolf. The long slope of grass had the sheen of dew; fall leaves whispered as she hurried through the darkness toward the shores of Lake St. Clair. She had parked her car a block away.
    As she approached her little red MG, her step faltered. He was already there, leaning back against the car directly ahead