Hours to Cherish by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online

think you’d best sit, Catherine,” he said softly. “I assure you, I’m not a ghost.”
    He reached out to touch her and the spell of the shock was broken and the emotion that prevailed was rage. Once, long ago, a girl had wanted to die because she thought he no longer existed. She had cried until her eyes had run dry remembering their stormy parting, spent years, years , learning to live again, convincing herself she could love again.
    And now here he was, obviously in the peak of health, waltzing in to hand her further torture, further humiliation … But, oh, dear God, yes, he was alive. For a second, years slipped away. She wanted to fly across the room, hurl herself into his arms, touch him, feel him, cry and hold him.
    He is alive, her mind murmured over and over again. Thank you, God, thank you, God, thank you, God. …
    Cat closed her eyes for a moment, silently hearing a mental screech of agony that shouted out, “ No !”
    Yes, he was alive. In her prayers and dreams she would never stop being grateful, happy that he walked the earth. But he was her past. She didn’t, couldn’t, love him anymore because she loved Jules, because her life was back together. She had her own strength and she couldn’t lose it because she couldn’t bear a repeat of what had happened before.
    And he was very obviously in excellent health, in excellent financial shape. She was shaking with joy that he was alive, but also with rage because this meant that he had simply deserted her. She had spent a year in tears over a man who had walked out on her cold … nights in agony, longing, praying … burning, tossing. …
    A man who was still reaching for her.
    He could never, never know what he had done to her, how it had taken her years to want to breathe again, how just seeing him now brought back the ecstasy they had shared with a deafening torment that almost obliterated the hell he had put her through.
    “Don’t!” Cat rasped out. “Whatever you do, don’t touch me.” She took a deep breath.
    He stared at her a long moment; the strong, sun-browned hand he had extended dropped to his hip and he shrugged. “Sorry—I thought you were going to keel over.”
    “For you?” She couldn’t keep the bitter venom from her voice. “Hardly. As I told you, Mr. Miller, ghost or real, you’re my ancient past.”
    His brows, high-arched over the hellfire eyes, rose slightly. “I’ll admit, Cat, I wasn’t expecting you to shower me with kisses. But out of normal human decency I hadn’t expected you to resent the fact that I was alive. You might have had a question or two about what happened.”
    “I don’t care what happened. You didn’t come home. That shouldn’t have been a tremendous shock to me. It was probably foolish for me to assume you dead. I was certainly never the driving force in your life.”
    “Cat—”
    “Clay, I’m serious. I don’t want to know what happened, or where you’ve been. You’re not dead. Fine. I mean wonderful, really. I’m very happy for you. But don’t expect me to feel much of anything else. I’m a very different person now. And I’m in love with another man—one I still intend to marry—”
    “Cat!” The slash of his voice cut across her full-speed monologue. “You can’t marry that damned Frenchman. You’re still married to me.”
    “The hell I am!” Cat protested.
    Clay sighed and patiently scratched his bearded chin. “You can’t have declared me legally dead—you have a few more months before that could have been done. And you haven’t divorced me.”
    “How do you know?” Cat demanded, stalling for time. Why hadn’t she divorced him? Because she had thought him dead! And though engaged, she hadn’t applied for a marriage license and therefore hadn’t thought of declaring him legally dead. She couldn’t grasp the fact that she was still legally tied to a man she hadn’t seen in years.
    “I know everything about you at the moment, Cat,” he told her, his tone