The Man She'll Marry. Susan Fox P.

ladies’ lounge and made her call. But the news that she might be in for a forty-five minute wait upset her even more.

      What were her chances of leaving the nightclub and finding a cab on her own? She’d hardly ever waited for a cab. But then, she’d rarely called for one after midnight. She dreaded the thought of standing on the street at this time of night waiting to flag down a taxi.

      If she was gone too long, Greg might come looking for her. The last thing she wanted was for him to find her standing alone outside. She’d have to go back to the table, wait a few minutes, then excuse herself to go back to the ladies’ room. Then she could slip out. A second trip might lend credence to her later plea of illness.

      The new complication was Ty Cameron. If she went back to the table, she might see him again. The idea made her nerves crackle with anxiety. Hopefully the place was too crowded for a second encounter. Perhaps now that he knew she was around, he would avoid her. She was certain he wanted to see her even less than she wanted to see him.

      Resigned to the perils in her plan to escape, Tracy checked her hair and makeup. The sight of her pale face in the mirror gave her another shock. Her eyes were puffy, her complexion unnaturally flushed and blotchy. She’d been drinking too much lately, and it was beginning to show.

      It had started with a nerve-calming glass of wine on nights when insomnia plagued her. Now she couldn’t sleep without it. She was terrified she was becoming an alcoholic, but she didn’t seem to have the strength to do anything about it. She wasn’t certain anymore that she was worth the effort. The sick feeling of doom panicked her and drove her to exit the lounge to lose herself in the noise of the nightclub.

      It was almost a relief to reach her table. She’d not caught so much as a glimpse of Ty Cameron. Perhaps he’d been on his way out of the nightspot. She’d been too rattled to notice if he’d been with anyone.

      Ty Cameron watched the petite blonde. Tracy looked thinner than when he’d last seen her. She was all huge blue eyes and blond hair. And legs. Perfect legs. She still looked as vulnerable as a child, still carried that lost look. He’d heard she’d parted ways with her poison-pill mother, so maybe Tracy had wised up. Maybe the huge inheritance she’d come into had given her a choice.

      Though she’d made up for the terrible things she’d done, the fact that she’d done them in the first place indicated a character flaw he couldn’t abide. He figured she was as wicked and worthless as her mother. Or soon would be.

      Nevertheless, as he watched her return to her table and saw that she was with Parker, he felt a glimmer of sympathy. He could read her blue eyes as if they were flashing neon letters a foot tall, and what he read in them was worry.

      She ought to worry. Parker fancied himself a ladies’ man and he preferred fragile blondes. Tracy LeDeux was in for a night of sex-capades, though if she was as much like her soulless mother as he thought, she was promiscuous enough to handle it.

      He was about to look away from Tracy and dismiss her presence altogether when he noticed her drink slip from her fingers. The glass tumbled to the table, but Tracy stared at it numbly. Her lashes fell shut heavily, then opened.

      She turned her head to glance at her date, but she swayed with the movement. Parker reached over suddenly to steady her. Ty couldn’t have missed the gleam of anticipation in Parker’s smile. Or the woozy distress on Tracy’s face.

      The dizziness had come over her suddenly. She was so weak, so horribly uncoordinated. The narrow tunnel that had shrunk the room grew darker and narrower with every hard beat of her heart. The terror she felt was overwhelming as the world swam away in a gray haze.

      Tracy’s first coherent thought was that she felt safe. Cocooned. In spite of a faint headache, she felt an odd peace.

      It was that strange sense of safety and peace that made her rouse herself. She rarely felt safe, and peace was a foreign sensation. The heavy guilt that had weighted her heart for so long had banished any sense of ease or genuine self-worth.

      Was she truly awake or was she dreaming? She rolled to her back in the big bed and forced her eyes open, struggling to cling to the warm feelings. But the moment she got her eyes to focus, that rare sense of safety and peace vanished. This was not her bedroom.

      The events of the night before came roaring back. Greg Parker’s face swam in her memory like a ghoul. The last thing she remembered was him advancing on her, picking her up, then…nothing. Nothing!

      The mad whirl of terror made her stomach churn. She started to fling off the sheet and comforter to race for the bathroom, then froze as a second traumatic revelation pounded into her brain: she wasn’t wearing her dress!

      The horror she felt burst out of her in a panicked sound of distress and she clutched the bedclothes to herself.

      The rough male voice that sounded from the foot of the bed made her jump.

      “Here.”

      She barely had time to glance in the direction of the voice before a thick white terry-cloth robe came sailing through the air at her.

      “Put that on and get cleaned up. Your dress is on a hook in the bathroom.”

      Ty Cameron stood at the foot of the bed like an Old West lawman who’d tracked down an outlaw he meant to lynch. Contempt glinted in his cold gaze. The shock of his presence was quickly swallowed up by overwhelming mortification.

      Shame made her voice a raspy little croak. “Wh-where am I?”

      Ty’s harsh mouth quirked. “Sober up and figure it out.”

      The words were a slap that sent scorching heat into her face. She felt the hurt to her soul when the look in his eyes suddenly switched to indifference. It was a look that let her know she’d been judged and found so in want that she wasn’t worth another second of his attention.

      As if to underscore the impression, he turned from her and walked to the door. He closed it behind him with a finality that shook her.

      The chill that descended sliced into her heart like a shard of ice. She was contemptible, unredeemable. With one look and a few terse words, Ty Cameron had somehow confirmed her secret fears about herself and her dark terrors about how her life would go.

      She was wealthy, close to obscenely wealthy. At almost twenty-three, she was young and she still had her looks, but her life was worth nothing. She had no one. She had no real stability, no ambition, and no place to belong. There was no point to her life, no compelling reason to exist.

      If she died at that moment, she wasn’t certain anyone but her mother would care. Even then, the only thing Ramona would want to know when she found out her only child was dead was whether Tracy had made a will and left her money.

      Somehow, Tracy managed to mute her despairing thoughts. She had to pull herself together. Solving the mystery of what had happened to her and how she’d ended up with Ty Cameron was a distant second to the frantic need to get away from him.

      Once she’d showered, brushed her teeth with the new toothbrush laid out, and tried to do something with her hair, Tracy hurried silently through the huge, single-story ranch house. She reached the large red-tiled entry hall and came to a shaky halt.

      She knew she was at Cameron Ranch, but that also meant she was miles from San Antonio. She had no car and no way to leave.

      Unless she could call a car rental agency and have a car delivered. Her heart sank. She’d need a credit card number for that, and all she had in her small evening bag was her driver’s license, a few cosmetics, and the key to her penthouse.

      The deep voice that carried from the direction of the dining room sent her panic higher.

      “Come in and get something to eat.”

      The invitation was nothing more than basic good manners. Ty Cameron was the kind of man who’d at least feed a ratty stray before he chased it off or sent it to the pound. A touch of compassion, but an unwavering determination to do nothing more than was humane. And for all her money, Tracy LeDeux