Free Larger than Life by Kay Hooper Page A

thinking of what the artist had seen in Travis’s face. Pensive. Sad, wistfully reflective.
    What had she to be sad about? As Travis hadsaid—she had fame, success, more money than she could ever spend. She had youth, health, friends. Why, then, had Mark seen sadness?
    “Saber!”
    Startled, she looked toward the young artist to find him frowning at her.
    “You’re moving,” he complained.
    Glancing down, Saber realized that the heel of her right hand was rubbing steadily, unconsciously, against her upper thigh. She halted the movement and turned her eyes back to Travis.
    Softly, he said, “You do that often.”
    “What?” she murmured.
    His green gaze flicked downward to a point half-way up from her knee, then lifted again to her face. “Rub your leg as if it aches. But you never seem to realize you’re doing it.”
    It was another mental jolt, and one Saber could have done without. Though the gesture Travis and the artist had noticed was unconscious, she knew, of course, that it had become a habit. Now, she couldn’t think of anything to say in response to Travis’s comment.
    Suddenly the artist closed his sketchbook and rose, a look of mild disgust in his amiable face. “It’s no good,” he told them. “I’ve lost you today. Maybe we can try again later?” He didn’t wait for a response but immediately headed toward the main house.
    Saber occupied herself with scrambling to her feet and gathering their picnic things together. She didn’t look at Travis. So Mark had “lost them” for the moment? Travis’s face had gone unreadable, she’d noted, and her own expression had most likely become unreadable, too, in an effort to guard against betraying her thoughts. She wondered vaguely if Mark would ever be able to capture expressions of which both she and Travis were now painfully aware.
    And why had she gazed into Travis’s eyes and felt—again—that she was seeing him for the first time?
Still waters run deep.
Now what, she wondered, did that cliché have to do with anything? It was just Mark making her aware, of course. Had to be.
    “Saber?”
    His quiet voice caught all her attention, but she still refused to look at him as she folded the blanket they’d so recently lain on. “Yes?”
    “Don’t let it spoil things.”
    She realized he was on his feet and standing close behind her.
Too close
, she thought, and experienced the unnerving certainty that it was not his physical nearness but something far more elusive that had panicked her. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, again imposing an iron self-control.
    He caught her shoulder suddenly, turning her to face him; she looked up instinctively—and wished she hadn’t. There was an understanding on his face, in his green eyes, that she’d never seen before.
    “You’re like a touch-me-not flower,” he said quietly. “Someone comes too near and you close up. What is it you’re afraid to let anyone see, Saber? What are you hiding?”
    She didn’t say, “Nothing,” because it would have been a lie. But Travis didn’t seem to expect an answer.
    He held her shoulders gently, ignoring thefolded blanket she clutched almost like a shield between them. “I don’t want to rush you. I don’t want you to feel I’m asking more than you can give. But I can’t deny my own feelings, Saber.”
    “You don’t know me.” It was someone else’s voice she heard, and it was gritty with emotions she wouldn’t let herself understand.
    “I know what I feel,” he insisted firmly. Green eyes searched her face. “I love you, Saber.”
    She stepped back. “No.”
    “Saber—”
    “D’you mind taking everything back to the cottage?” She tossed him the blanket. “I want … I need to be alone for a while.”
    Clearly reluctant, his expression anxious, Travis nonetheless nodded in acceptance. “All right. But Saber … don’t go too far?”
    She knew he wasn’t referring to physical distance. Nodding, she headed off through the woods,