The music was around her, inside her, and her eyes, full of Cole's dark face, betrayed her to the world as she sang.

  "Sad. sad eyes, melancholy eyes, how dark the shadow of your dying love . . . memory and melody can't warm the ashes of. . . the melancholy love that hides . . . behind the sadness of your sad, sad eyes. . . ." She let the sweet melody trail away, the last note of the song dying in the soft silence that followed the band's final bar. All at once, the silence was broken by applause and whistles and cheers, and Heather knew that the song was going to have a popularity of its own. But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered except the sight of Cole sitting there watching her. She had to fight to stop herself from running the length of the room to him with her arms outstretched.

  He doesn't love you, she reminded herself, and all the sweet blazing light visibly died out of her. She finished her last number, a song about love gone wrong, and left the stage. Her knees were trembling when she got to her dressing room. Why was Cole here? Why had he come?

  Scant minutes later there was a sharp knock at the door and Heather cringed. "Come in," she called bravely, and found herself meeting Tessa's cold dark eyes in her dressing room mirror.

  "Quite the little star, aren't you?" Tessa shrugged, staring indifferently at her surroundings. "I didn't like your act."

  Heather shook back her long hair, proceeding to remove her makeup with steady hands. Tessa couldn't hurt her anymore. She'd lost Cole long ago, and there was nothing else she minded losing. Nothing that Tessa could take from her. "I'll cry all the way to the bank," she informed the dark-haired girl with a short laugh. "Strangely enough, Tessa, your opinion doesn't matter to me one way or the other."

  That made Tessa's black eyes sparkle wildly. All the envy and jealousy and hatred came boiling to the surface. "I asked Cole to bring me," she told Heather with a false smile. "I wanted you to see him with me. He didn't want to come near the place," she added venomously.

  "Don't think I'm any more anxious to see him," came the quiet reply.

  "Aren't you?" Tessa propped one long-nailed hand on her hip. "You'll never get Cole," she promised her rival. "I made sure of that."

  Heather didn't understand the veiled remark, but she didn't bother with a reply. She finished removing her lipstick and reached for her brush to drag it carelessly through her glorious long hair. "Don't you have somewhere else to go, Tessa?" she asked coolly. "I only entertain my friends backstage."

  "Don't play the big star with me!" the other girl screamed at her. "Remember, you're nothing but an outsider at Big Spur now!"

  That hit home. It made her burn inside. She turned in her seat and her blue eyes flashed at Tessa, fury making every line of her body taut. "That description fits you better than it will ever fit me," she threw out. "And if you don't get out of my dressing room in the next five seconds, I'll have Johnny's bouncer drag you out of this nightclub through the front door and toss you in the gutter where you belong!"

  The other girl's mouth flew open. She'd never heard Heather talk like that. She was absolutely tongue-tied, especially when she read in Heather's eyes that this was no bluff.

  Cole chose that moment to walk in the door, making Heather's heart beat wildly in her chest. Tessa, seizing the opportunity, burst into agonized tears. "Oh, Cole, she's cruel!" she moaned, burying her face in his dark jacket. "She called me horrible names and threatened to have me thrown out in the street!"

  Cole patted her back absently, glaring over her shoulder at Heather. "Nobody's throwing you anywhere. Go wait for me at the table."

  "Of course, darling," she said, sniffing for good measure. She pranced haughtily out the door without a backward glance.

  The silence in the room was ominous, like the charged stillness before a hurricane. Heather brushed her hair quietly, avoiding Cole's piercing stare.

  "Was it necessary to attack Tessa, who never meant you harm?" he asked coldly.

  "Rattlers never mean harm, either, they just strike for the hell of it," she replied. "Surely you could have found another club to take her to? Or couldn't you talk her out of this one?"

  He lit a cigarette, watching her in the mirror with narrow, glittering silver eyes. "You look well," he said indifferently. "How's it going?"

  She shrugged. "Better than I ever expected. We've got a song climbing the charts and we're about to leave on tour." The sight of him was cutting her to pieces. Her hand clenched the brush handle, and she said untruthfully, "Gil's going, too."

  He turned away, his long back stiffening as if she'd struck him. But when he faced her again his expression was as impassive as ever. "Is he? You'll probably need some protection on tour."

  Cole, you're killing me! she wanted to scream. But all she could do was swallow down the searing hurt and not let it show.

  "Thanks for stopping by to say hello," she said with the same courtesy she'd have shown a stranger. She rose from her seat, a wan smile fixed on her lips.

  "It was insanity," he replied, a muscle in his jaw working as his eyes traced her slender body in the revealing dress.

  "Then why did you come?" she asked tig:

  A strange smile touched the hard curve of his mouth. "To see if you hated me," he told her.

  Her heart hung in mid-air. "No, I don't hate you, Cole."

  "I'm sorry about that. It would have been better, for both of us." He crushed out his cigarette and checked his watch. "I'd better get going. Tessa and I need to get some sleep before we fly back in the morning."

  Her last hope that she and Cole might have a future together died inside her. Cole and Tessa, together all night; it was more than she could bear.

  "No regrets, baby," he said strangely, his face hard. "I've got my ranch and you've got your career."

  She nodded. "Music is all I care about," she said, turning her attention to a shiny hairpin on the dresser. Her fingers turned it in the light. "It's the air I breathe."

  "I thought Austin was that."

  The harshness in his voice brought her face up, and his eyes trapped hers as effectively as a net. That glittering stare burned into her until she could feel her heart pounding in response, the blood rushing to her cheeks.

  "God Almighty," he breathed gruffly, "don't look at me like that!"

  She tore her eyes away, her lips trembling. She couldn't let herself be drawn to him again, not after the torture of cutting her life away from his. "Go away! I don't want you here!"

  There was the sound of boot heels moving behind her, and then strong, hard hands jerked her back against a hard, muscular body. "Like hell you don't," he breathed harshly. "You want the sound and taste and feel of me! God, do you think I'm blind? It was in your eyes when you sang to me tonight. It's shining out of you now like a beacon; it's here in this heartbeat that's shaking your body," he persisted, his hand sliding to rest beneath her soft breast, making her heart race madly under its touch. "You want it so much you're trembling all over!"

  The embarrassment was exquisite. Soundless tears slid down her burning cheeks. She tore away from Cole, her eyes burning, and put half the length of the small room between them. "You flatter yourself!" she choked, hating him now, hating herself for her own weakness. Her hands clenched so tightly that the nails bit into her palms.

  In her fury, she missed the somber darkness in Cole's silver eyes, the glimpse of pain so sweeping it could not be hidden. She missed the brief hard clenching of his big hands that turned the knuckles white before he rammed them into his pockets. All she saw was the tight smile that lingered on his mouth and the hardness of his face.

  "Still want me, Heather?" he asked with calculated cruelty. "Too bad. God knows, I want no part of you. I won't deny that your sweet young body tempted me a bit, but there was never any love in what I felt. I could never love you."

  Tears streamed down her cheeks, mirroring a hurt that was bone-deep. She turned stricken eyes to Cole.

  "Are you through?" she asked in a choked whisper. "Please, are you through?"

  "Pretty near," he agreed casually, his jaw tightening at the sight of her vulnerability. "If I'm getting the point across. Wanting me is a one-way dead-end street. Find someone else to moon over, Heather. I've had about all the lovesick adoration I can stomach for one lifetime."

  Her eyes went blank, as if the piercing pain inside her had suddenly turned to numbness. She felt very calm. Cole was telling her he could never love her as a woman, that all she had was a crush on him, and all at once nothing mattered anymore. Nothing mattered. Cole didn't want her.

  He scowled at the expression on her face. "Heather?"

  She stared at him. "Now, are you through?" she asked expressionlessly.

  "Yes," he said tightly. "I'm through. Don't come back to the ranch. Tessa doesn't want you around, and neither do I. If there's anything about the business end of it that you need to know, I'll send you a note. Otherwise, we don't need you. You'd just be underfoot."

  He might as well have put a bullet in her, she thought dully. She wouldn't have felt it. "I won't have the time," she told him quietly. "I'm going to be very busy."

  He drew a hard breath, turning toward the door, and there was an unfamiliar hesitation in his steps as he paused with his hand on the doorknob, looking back at the pale blond wraith standing so still in the middle of the room. Her paleness, her startling beauty against the darkness of the window behind her was breathtaking. It held him against his will.

  "Good-bye," he said tautly.

  She didn't answer him. She was afraid her voice would break. She only nodded, mute and aching with an emptiness nothing could fill, not even music. Her eyes were steady on his dark face.

  With a muffled curse, he slammed the door behind him. She stared at it for several minutes before she mechanically took off her gown and dressed for the street. She barely noticed when Gil Austin came to take her home, and she didn't say one word to him all the way to her apartment. When he tried to pry some explanation for her behavior out of her, she only smiled and closed the door in his face.

  Numb with grief, she walked around in a daze for weeks after that, going through the motions of rehearsal as the band moved on tour from one big city to another. She still gave her all during performances, but as time went by, she began to lose weight. Always delicate, she now became fraiL She drove herself at a killing pace. She began to smoke, a habit she'd picked up from Charlie, to his annoyance, and she lived on black coffee and nerves.

  "You're killing yourself," Charlie growled, watching her chain smoke one afternoon at rehearsal.

  She spared him a cool glance. "What I do with my voice may be your business, but what I do with my life is my own."

  "You won't have a life if you keep this up," he persisted. Perching himself on the edge of the piano where she sat, he stared down at her through narrowed brown eyes.

  "I'm holding up my end," she said defensively.

  "You always have," he agreed, folding his arms across his thin chest. "No argument. But you're beginning to look like a basket case. We're on top right now, you know. I don't kid myself that the boys and I did it alone—it's mostly your looks and talent. But you're getting skeletal, and if you keep smoking those damned things"—he gestured toward the thin white cigarette in her hand—"your voice may not last, either. You've been hoarse a lot these days."

  "You taught me how to smoke," she reminded him with a teasing smile.

  He returned it. "Shame on me." He mussed her long, silky hair. "Listen. I don't know what's been eating you. I don't pry into anyone's business, 'cause I don't like nosy people either. But if you don't come to grips with whatever's bugging you, you're going to destroy yourself before much longer. All that stress is going to bring you down. And if you won't think of yourself, think about the poor starving musicians you'll put out of work."

  That made her smile again. She shrugged. "I guess I have been pretty much in a fog lately," she admitted. She drew in a deep breath and stubbed out the cigarette. "Okay. No more cigarettes. And I'll stop living inside myself."

  He grinned. "That's my girl. Think about all that nice money we're going to make. And Rolling Stone is sending a reporter out to do a feature spread on you, how about that?"

  She mumbled something unintelligible. Something you might remember, Heather," he said before he walked away. "Everything passes. Grief, love, happiness, sorrow . . . everything. Nothing lasts long, and that's a mixed blessing. It might get you through this bad patch to remember it, though."

  She bit her lower lip. "Thanks, Charlie," she murmured huskily.

  He didn't answer her. She went back to her dressing room, and for the first time since Cole had said good-bye to her, she wept. When the tears stopped, she pulled herself erect and looked at her face in the mirror with a cool, stubborn expression.

  "I lived through a killing wreck, and I'll live through this," she told her reflection. "I'll never live Cole the satisfaction of seeing me down for long. From now on, nobody is ever going to make me cry again. Nobody!"

  With that idea firmly in mind, she splurged on a new wardrobe and had her long, silky hair cut in a new sexy hairdo that just covered her ears. She grinned as Charlie and the other members of the band moaned and wailed over the change.

  "I'm all grown up," she reminded them. "Only little girls walk around with waist-length hair."

  "I'll wear black for a month," Dewey Dan mumbled, his bespectacled face lifting accusingly.

  "Couldn't they glue it back on?" Billy asked.

  "The fans will mob us," Charlie wailed. "They'll think you sold them out. Your hair was your trademark!"

  "My new look will be my trademark," she told him with hauteur, indicating the simple elegant lines of her sophisticated gown. The clinging silk fabric was purple with splashes of cool aqua. Draped from one shoulder down across her slenderness like a sari, it emphasized her fairness. It gave her extra maturity. She looked like a woman now, not like a teenager with a crush on any man. The image she projected was that of a young goddess on holiday.

  Charlie shook his head. "I love it, don't get me wrong," he told her. "I'm just wondering how the fans are going to react."

  "Wait until tonight and we'll all see," she told him with sparkling eyes.

  They played to a packed house in one of New York's most exclusive clubs. Heather wore her new gown, and when she perched on her stool in the soft spotlight to do "Sad, Sad Eyes," the daring slit down the front of the dress revealed the graceful curve of one long, tanned leg. There was a hush in the club, almost a feeling of reverence. She put everything she felt into the song, the last of her regret, her heartache, her grief, her loneliness. ... It was as if she poured a lifetime of emotion into that one performance, leaving behind nothing but the shell of the girl she'd been. Now she was all elegance and sophistication, poised as she hadn't been before, controlled, cool. And her new look went over like fireworks. As she ended the song the applause burst out, almost deafening, and she had to do an encore before she could get off the stage. It wasn't until later that Charlie told her one of the biggest recording executives in the city had been in that audience. The performance led to a record contract and a week full of personal appearances. She was slated for a talk show later in the year. Overnight, Heather had become the hottest singer in the East. And the band went right to the top with her.

  Gil Austin had been following her progress by long distance, but the last night she and the Red Rhythm Band appeared in New York, he showed up backstage to take her out for a late supper.

  "I wouldn't have recognized you," he sighed, staring across the table at her as they lingered over coffee. "Miss Sophistication. Where's that long-haired little girl who lived on the edge of her emotions?"

  Cole murdered her, she wanted to say, but she only shrugged. "I grew up fast."

  He frowned slightly and crossed his arms. "Did you tell your stepbrother I was going on tour with you?" he asked suddenly.

  She felt something jerk inside her, but not a movement of her face or body betrayed her inner turmoil. She'd learned to conceal everything now, even her responses. "I don't believe I mentioned it, Gil," she said quietly. "Why?"

  He laughed shortly, his eyes dancing. "He called the paper to find out where 1 was."

  That made her angry. What business of Cole's was it who went with her, anyway? "He had no right," she said coldly.

  "My editor must have thought he did. He told him. Your stepbrother carries a lot of weight in southeast Texas, didn't you know? He's on a first-name basis with our publisher, and he's got enough money to buy the paper if he wanted to. I had the feeling he wanted my job."

  She blinked. "He tried to get you fired?"

  "It sounded like it. He doesn't care for me," he said, toying with his fork. His eyes caught hers. "I wonder why he's so antagonistic?"

  Nothing showed in her face. "He's been responsible for me for a lot of years, Gil. It's hard to let go."

  "Not that hard. And there's no blood relationship between you, is there?" he asked shrewdly.

  "He's my stepbrother. ..."

  "That wouldn't stop a man like Everett," he said tightly. "He's rich enough to make his own rules, and I know it. Don't play games with me, Heather. I'd like to know if jealousy has anything to do with his antagonism toward me."

  She stared at him. "That comes under the heading of my personal business," she said politely. "I answer to no man. Not to Cole, not to you. I've worked hard to be independent, and I'm not about to give that up now."

  "I didn't mean it that way," he argued.