Give Me Tonight(61)

Slowly Addie leaned over and kissed Leah's fore­head. "I'm sorry if! scared you when I got mad then."

"It's okay, Aunt Adeline. Is it still our secret?"

"Yes, please, Leah," she replied, her voice thin, insubstantial. "You have sweet dreams, you hear?"

The child turned over and flopped onto her own pil­low, sighing.

Her knees weak, Addie walked to her own bed and sat down.

Why would I be telling Jeff about the will? There was no reason to. Unless . . . unless I was plotting something with Jeff. Oh, but I couldn't have been. Not about the will. Why, that would mean . . .

Suspicion spread through her like poison. Wilfully she tried to deny it.

I was—am—Russell's daughter. I wouldn't do any­thing to hurt him, no matter what I was like before. I know I wouldn't.

"My God, what's going on?" she said through dry lips.

What kind of a person had she been before she had returned to Sunrise?

A schemer. And maybe something far worse.

6

THE WEDDING WAS HELD OUTSIDE IN THE COOL MORN­ing air. Addie sat through the entire ceremony without hearing a word of it, her mind feverishly occupied with questions. Until now she had been certain about Ben's guilt and her own innocence. It had been so easy to picture him as the villain, and herself as the heroine who would save the day. But nothing was black or white anymore. Ben wasn't all good or bad, just as she wasn't. And the most horrifying thing of all was that if he wasn't guilty of plotting to kill Russell, she might be. She couldn't forget what Russell had said to her about the will.

"Aw, honey . . . I know you're prob'ly a mite dis­appointed at gettin' Sunrise in trust instead of all that money . . . you'd be a rich woman if I did that . . . you'd have enough money to do whatever you wanted for the rest of your life . . .

A rich woman.

How badly had she wanted to be a rich woman? If only she could remember more about the things she might have done in the past. If only there weren't so many shadows crowded in her mind.

She cast her eyes over the congregation until she saw Jeff's hatless head, his mahogany hair shining in the morning light. He hadn't even looked at her this morn­ing. Boyish, blue-eyed Jeff. Had he really been that clumsy drunken stranger in the blacksmith shop last night? She could hardly believe it. It seemed like a dream.

Ben was just a few seats away from her. She was astounded by the strange part he had played in all of it. He was the last one she would have cast as her rescuer. His head turned in her direction, and she looked away before their eyes met. She couldn't look at him, not after what had happened between them.

Wincing, Addie couldn't dispel the picture that flashed through her mind, the two of them writhing on the floor of the blacksmith shop. She could feel her cheeks burning with embarrassment as she bent her head to hide her face. The way she had let him touch her, the way she'd encouraged him . . . no, she could never bear to meet his eyes again.

In the last twenty-four hours she'd become a stranger to herself. Addie smiled bitterly as she recalled how this unwanted nightmare had begun. How full of fire and conceit she had been, so eager to convict Ben, so certain she would be Russell Warner's savior. But last night she had found herself clinging to Ben like a wan­ton, drunk with desire for him, with no thought of Russell or anything else to sober her. It had never been like that before, not with anyone. After her first resis­tance she had made no effort to push Ben away. So much for herself-righteous intentions.

And what Leah had said later that night in the pri­vacy of their room was more disturbing than anything else so far. Addie hadn't forgotten a word of it. It made her more than a little afraid. What had Leah overheard her planning with Jeff? What had she and Jeff been conspiring to do?

No, I wouldn't have planned anything that would have hurt Russell, she thought frantically. Not my own father. I may have been different then, but I would never have done something that horrible.

Addie was alerted by the burst of happy cries from the congregation when the ceremony was over. Blink­ing as if newly awakened, she raised her head and looked at the people standing up around her. Caroline tapped her on the shoulder after Peter helped her to rise.

"What are you daydreamin' about?"

"Nothing," Addie said quietly, rising from her seat and fussing with the sleeves of her dress.

Caroline was in a mood to tease. "Maybe you were thinkin' about the wedding you'll have someday."

Ben, who was standing just behind Caroline, hap­pened to overhear. "A wedding?" he repeated, look­ing over Caro's blond head and making Addie the target. of a polite, faintly curious glance. "You fixing to marry someone soon, Miss Adeline?"

As she looked at him and flushed, his green eyes flickered with a subtle light she couldn't mistake. Sud­denly the whole world was filled with nothing but the two of them and the private memory of those swelter­ing minutes in the blacksmith shop. Addie felt trapped, as surely as if she'd been chained to him. Ben caught her look of alarm, and he smiled, allowing just a touch of smugness to shine through.

Addie longed to spit out some words that would wipe the masculine smirk off his face. "At the moment there's not a man in the world I'd agree to marry," she said sharply.

"Glad to hear it," he commented lazily, appreciat­ing the way the sun struck off her honey-colored hair. She was unbearably tempting, all bristled up and un­certain, her mouth pursed and her brows drawing to­gether.