Free Heartbreaker by Laurie Paige Page A

her from their mutual madness.
    There would come a time, he was certain, when they wouldn’t, couldn’t, stop. Then where would they be?
    No answer came to him then or on the silent flight to Mission Creek.

Five
    â€œM other, I’m fine. Really,” Susan insisted. She swung her feet off the sofa and sat up. She felt grungy and out of sorts and in need of a shower. Her hair was a mess. She combed a dried grass blade out of it with her fingers.
    Both her parents watched her with grave faces. Vaguely she recalled a similar scene from her childhood, her lying in bed, her mom and dad leaning over her, fear in their eyes while they made her lie still. She’d fainted then, too.
    The memory came back more clearly. Her family—no, not her father, she recalled, but the rest of them—had been to Lake Maria on a picnic while visiting their grandmother. She’d tried to follow her brother in diving down and retrieving a stone from the very bottom of the lake. The next thing she knew, she was in the hospital emergency room, waking to find both her parents bent over her, worry on their faces. Just as they were now.
    â€œYou stay put,” Kate ordered. “I’m going to call Dr. O’Day—”
    â€œNo!” Susan tried to smile and make light of herpanicky reaction. “There’s no need to bother him on a Saturday. This is his time to rest.”
    She didn’t add she’d had all of the obnoxious doctor she could take at the present, thank you very much.
    Archy Wainwright, her father, spoke sternly. “I’ve ordered the ranch hands not to let you ride unless they have my direct approval. You could have broken your neck, falling off a horse the way you did. Scared your mother half to death,” he added with a protective glance at his former wife.
    Susan sighed and gave it up. “You’re right,” she admitted, hoping meekness would throw them off track when firmness hadn’t. “I’ll be more careful from now on. Absolutely no more riding alone. I promise.”
    She refrained from holding her hand up in a Scout’s honor pledge. That would be overdoing it.
    â€œYou don’t fool me a bit,” her mother informed her. “I’m going to call Michael O’Day and ask him to come out for lunch. I want to talk to him.”
    â€œNo need for you to bother with a meal,” Archy said to Kate. “Esperanza is already cooking. I’ll tell her to add a plate for you and the doctor.”
    â€œYes, that would be good,” Kate said absently, her thoughts obviously on their daughter.
    Looking more than a little worried, Archy left the room, but was back in a moment. He directed a steely eye on his daughter. “We’ll ask the heart doctor the results of your tests and find out how fine you really are.”
    Susan flounced off the sofa. “Since we’re going to have a guest, I suppose I’d better shower.” She rushed to her room before her mother could object.
    Once under the steamy water, she thought of Michael and his threat to join her if she tried to bathe alone. The blood pumped furiously through her, making her vitally aware of how much that appealed to her.
    Oh, she mentally groaned. She was obsessed with the man. What was wrong with her mind, her dancer’s discipline?
    Images of him and her at his condo leaped and spun through her brain like the finely executed chaînés she had once done so effortlessly. The visions left her breathless and excited and alarmed.
    She had no time for romantic daydreams, not when her career hung in the balance.
    And her life, according to him.
    Finding it difficult to think of her own mortality, she nevertheless found it worrisome that the dizzy spells were coming more frequently. Perhaps…perhaps she should retire from the active ballet.
    At the dismal thought, pain grabbed her and wouldn’t let go. What would she do with herself? The days were already