but his role of “big brother” had necessitated a certain amount of discipline, to which Anna normally reacted with stubborn silence. Perhaps she’d felt the same strange tingle of attraction he’d experienced and was just as stunned by it. If this were the case, he decided, the two of them would simply talk it out, then laugh over it and return to treating each other as brother and sister.
But not out here, he realized as the falling raindrops suddenly grew fat and sharp as the wind rushed in from the sea.
Logan shouted against the roar of the sudden downpour, “Let’s get out of this before we’re completely drenched.”
He turned toward the sliding glass door that led to Anna’s room. Her hesitant footsteps on the deck told him that she followed, but as he reached for the door handle, he realized that those footsteps sounded more rapid and increasingly distant.
Logan looked up just in time to see Anna disappear down the circular staircase. Immediately he gave chase, twisting down the now-slick steps, blinking away the rain to watch Anna through the openings in the ironwork beneath his feet, scowling more deeply each time his wide shoulders rammed the center post, refusing to slow in deference to the narrow curve.
By the time he neared the bottom, Logan had almost caught up with her. He missed grabbing Anna’s hand by mere inches as she released the railing and headed toward the second set of stairs at the far end of the veranda. However, he knew he had her now, knew she would need to slow down in order to keep from slipping on the expensive tiles that Charles Benedict had installed forty years ago only to discover that they became dangerously slick in the fog and the rain.
Anna, like Logan and her brother Chas, had been indoctrinated from the time she could walk never to run on the veranda, especially when it was wet. Logan prepared to slow his rushing feet as he reached the bottom step. Anna, however, hadn’t paused for a second. Across the now-shiny tiles she ran, and when she started into the sharp turn that would take her to the second stairway, her feet flew out from beneath her. She landed flat on her back, then slid to a sudden stop against the brick planter.
In moments Logan was at her side, down on one knee bending over her and asking, “Are you hurt?”
Her dark eyes stared up at him as she gave her head an uncertain shake. Her mouth opened and formed the word no, but not a sound passed her lips. At that point her eyes widened, filling with sheer terror as she fought to breathe. When she tried to sit up, Logan placed his hands on her shoulders.
“Lie back. You’ve had the wind knocked out of you. You have to relax.”
Relax? Rose wanted to scream. A weight was pressing on her chest, threatening to squeeze the very life out of her, and this man wanted her to relax? Panic stiffened every muscle and she again fought to struggle into an upright position.
“Take it easy,” his deep voice soothed as strong hands restrained her attempts to rise. His touch felt terrifyingly like the pressure around her chest. With a vehement shake of her head she battled both.
“Don’t!” His voice was harsh again; he was digging his fingers into her shoulders. A second later he said more softly, “You have to stop fighting and let your lungs take over. It will happen. Trust me. Just listen to me.”
Believing she had no choice, given the man’s greater strength, she gazed into his eyes as he continued to utter reassuring words. Her world began to turn black as she sank against the cold, wet tiles and tried not to fight the painful constriction in her chest.
A second later her ribs expanded and cold air rushed into her aching lungs. Along with a mouthful of rain.
Immediately Rose began to choke. This time the man helped her to a seated position, slipping strong arms around her, holding her as violent coughs racked her body. By the time the coughing fit eased, Rose realized she was too weak to attempt another escape. She would be forced to explain how and why she’d come to trespass on his private balcony.
Just as she was getting ready to do that, however, the man suddenly slipped an arm beneath her knees, cradled her to his chest and stood. Her abused lungs barely managed to draw a startled gasp before he began striding along the balcony. Rose shook her head and squirmed as she tried to form a verbal protest.
“Oh, no you don’t, Anna.” The man’s arms tightened around her as his harsh voice rose above the rattle of the rain. “I’m not going to put you down and give you the chance to pull God-knows-what new stunt. Not till we’re inside where it’s dry and I get a damned good explanation for what you’ve been up to.”
Rose was fully prepared to explain her actions, but she wasn’t about to take the heat for what someone named Anna might have done. Aware that they were moving past the French doors she’d noticed earlier, she opened her mouth to tell him that he was making a mistake.
“Look,” she started, but before she could say another word, one of the doors opened.
The man stopped, and Rose turned. Framed in the doorway was a blond woman dressed in a champagne-colored jacket over a matching skirt. She was maybe a shade over five feet tall, and from the lines marking her delicate, perfectly made-up features Rose guessed she was somewhere in her late forties or early fifties.
The woman’s fingers tightened around a small ivory purse as she frowned and spoke sharply. “Logan, what are you—”
She broke off as her dark-brown eyes met Rose’s. Lifting a slender hand to cover her mouth, the woman blinked and breathed a stunned-sounding, “Anna?”
Again the Anna business. Rose shook her head, but the man named Logan was already replying.
“Yes, Elise. She slipped on the tiles and took a fall. I need to get her inside and see if she’s broken anything.”
As the man carried Rose through the doorway, the woman backed into the cream-and-beige room, her wide brown eyes gazing in surprise before narrowing slightly.
“Anna,” she said. “You know how dangerous those tiles are. I must have told you a hundred times that—” The woman broke off. Her eyes narrowed further as she went on, “Where have you been, young lady? What have you done to your hair? And where did you get those clothes? Not to mention those vulgar earrings?”
Rose frowned. Young lady? No one had addressed her in such a patronizing, belittling tone since her junior year in high school. And as to the comment about her earrings, she touched the long tangle of beads strung in hues of blue and purple that her mother had given her this past Christmas, then opened her mouth to protest the term vulgar. But before she could say a thing, again she heard, “Anna?”
This time the word was barely a whisper, filled with unmistakable relief. Rose turned. A tall man with gray hair that nearly matched his light-charcoal suit stood on the threshold between the bedroom and the hallway behind him. He appeared to have paused in the act of tugging loose his red silk tie to stare across the room at Rose.
The man holding Rose was quick to reply. “Yes, Robert. Anna took a fall, and I want to lay her down on the bed and see if anything is broken.”
He’d barely taken one step forward before Rose gave a protesting wiggle and managed to blurt out, “That’s not necessary. I’m fine, just let me—”
“Logan,” the blond woman interjected, stepping toward them. “I really think it would be better if you took your sister up to her bed.”
Rose followed the woman’s gaze to the water dripping from her thoroughly soaked purple skirt and turquoise sweater, then over to the large bed draped in a pristine ivory coverlet.
The arms holding her tightened convulsively. A second later she was being whisked past the bed, then the man named Robert. The action took place so quickly that Rose found herself halfway down a cream carpeted hallway before it occurred to her to twist violently in an attempt to escape this Logan person’s hold.
“Put me down,” she demanded.
When he ignored her, instead turning and mounting a set of stairs, Rose tried again. “Look, I’m sorry