CHAPTER TWO

      THE hard rocking of the big car penetrated her shock. Dazed, Tracy turned her head to see a blur of blue outside the window.

      Ty was yanking powerfully on the handle to open the jammed car door. Another half-dozen pulls and it gave. The door squealed open. Ty surged toward her and Tracy shrank back. Alarmed, she reflexively threw up her arm to protect herself. The back of her hand hit Ty’s jaw, but the brutal strike she’d hysterically imagined coming her way didn’t happen.

      It took a second to register that Ty had been grabbing for the ignition to switch off the idling car. In the sudden silence of the engine, Tracy’s horrified gaze met his furious one in the close confines.

      She saw the instant he understood her protective move and took offense. Now the furious blue of his eyes went livid and a dark flush deepened his tan. His voice was gritty with control.

      “I’ve never struck a woman in my life, Tracy, however tempting it might be.”

      Tracy shivered at his low tone. And then she noticed the nick on his jaw and watched in fresh horror as blood welled into the small wound. Her ring had done that, she realized, sickened. Oh God!

      The quick snap of the seat belt release was her only warning before she found herself hauled out of the car and deposited on her feet out of the way. Her legs felt too weak when Ty released her. She swayed, in danger of falling to the concrete floor before she braced her hand against the wall behind her.

      Tracy watched Ty’s grim inspection of the disaster and prayed to die, but God ignored this fervent petition just as steadfastly as He’d ignored those other times she’d prayed it. She cringed at the low, rumbling sound of Ty’s voice as he muttered a series of swear words.

      Tracy couldn’t fault him for his fury. His beautiful silver Cadillac was ruined. The big door had scraped heavily the length of the trunk and smashed the back glass before the door had slipped the track and collapsed full-length on the car, pushing down the roof. The hood was dented almost as ruinously as the trunk. The windshield hadn’t shattered, but the glass was a mass of cracks.

      “I’ll b-buy you a new car,” she croaked rawly, but Ty continued to circle the car as if he hadn’t heard a word. “I’m s-so sorry…”

      And still he didn’t hear. The air around him seemed to thunder with muted violence.

      Tracy was profoundly sick. Bad temper had always terrified her. She’d been bullied and manipulated by it all her life. She thought she’d escaped it forever when she’d escaped her mother, but watching Ty now, hearing his low swear words, seeing the evidence of his barely controlled anger, brought back the debilitating fear.

      She’d rarely deserved her mother’s tantrums. She’d been a good child, an obedient and submissive daughter, pitifully eager to please. But this wasn’t her hateful, volatile mother. This was Ty Cameron, and this time, Tracy deserved to be the focus of someone’s fury.

      The guilt that had strangled the color and energy and hope from her life was twisting her insides with fresh vengeance. Ty had overcome his natural revulsion to help her last night and take her to safety. However much he despised her, he’d rescued her and given her the loan of his car.

      Then she’d repaid him by wrecking it and demolishing his garage door before she’d driven the vehicle much more than a dozen feet. She couldn’t seem to stop the disastrous course her life was on, and now it looked as if anyone who became involved with her, however casually, would get sucked into her downward spiral.

      Despair made her eyes burn. God, she couldn’t cry! Ty would surely accuse her of using tears to get sympathy and avoid being held responsible for her mistake. Her mother was an expert at that and Tracy would die before she’d allow anyone to think she’d do the same.

      “So what is it, Tracy?” Ty said then as he glanced across the wreck at her. “Withdrawal from a drug habit or DT’s from alcoholism?”

      The shocking question conveyed the notion that only an addict or a drunk could have fouled up so completely. That was when Tracy realized she was still shaking wildly. She knew she looked ill and had for weeks. And she couldn’t entirely blame Ty for his suspicion. After all, she was secretly terrified she was becoming a drunk.

      Since she couldn’t truthfully deny a part of his question, she didn’t answer, though she took advantage of his attention.

      “I—I’m so sorry. I’m not sure how—” She cut herself off and tried to steady the tremor in her soft voice as she fought to withstand the laser sharpness of his gaze. “I’ll pay for all the damage—I’ll even buy you another car. I’ll send a contractor to replace the door, and I’ll pay you any amount you set for the trouble and inconvenience this ca-auses.”

      Ty was as angry with himself as he was with Tracy. All he could think about was that he’d handed his keys and his car to someone incapable of safely operating a motor vehicle. Innocent people could have been seriously injured or killed, and he would have been just as responsible as the woman he’d put behind the wheel.

      Ty studied the “woman” who looked as frail and vulnerable as a child. Tracy was shaking, and gray shadows hung heavily beneath huge eyes that were red-rimmed but dry. He saw her mortification and dismay.

      And shame. The impression was there again. That and the persistent sense that Tracy was lost.

      She’d gotten herself into a colossal mess. First by getting drunk with a rich lowlife like Parker last night, now with this. He’d made some calls this morning and asked around about her. Life wasn’t going too well for Tracy LeDeux, however much money she had.

      Ty was suddenly certain that if he drove her to town, dropped her at her penthouse and never had another thing to do with her, she’d fall even farther than she already had.

      Her softly repeated, “I’m s-sorry. I’ll pay for the damage, buy you a new car, whatever amount you say,” deepened the eerie sense that he was looking at a woman on the precipice of a swift, devastating, and possibly fatal fall. He wasn’t a man who put stock in premonitions, so he couldn’t account for the foreboding he felt. On the other hand, it didn’t take a crystal ball to see that Tracy was in peril.

      Why was that any of his business? She meant nothing to him. If she wanted to throw her life away, it was her decision. It wasn’t his place to intervene.

      And yet the compulsion was there. His anger surged up another few notches, then went cosmic when she spoke again, more nervous and anxious than ever.

      “I’ll pay any amount, Mr. Cameron. Whatever you name, I just want to make it right.”

      Her desperation seemed pitiful to him suddenly. Then he thought about her wicked, manipulative mother and wondered if this was an act. If it was, he’d soon know.

      He held his silence another white-hot moment until she said, “I’ll pay anything. Whatever you say.”

      “You’re damned right you’ll pay,” he growled, hardening his heart as she stared fearfully at him.

      Tracy nodded jerkily. “N-name the amount. I don’t care how much.”

      Tracy tried to endure the narrow look he gave her then. She struggled for some scrap of courage, but the stillness about him registered on her as the silence before a blowup.

      His tough, “You want to make it right, huh?” made her flinch. He hadn’t raised his voice, but her nerves were so ragged that any sound registered like a shout.

      She nodded emphatically. “Yes, whatever it takes.”

      Ty tipped his head back slightly as if to study her from a more precise angle. “Are you a little rich girl who thinks she can just write out a check and fix things when she’s careless with someone else’s property? And what’s the offer of extra payment for, Tracy?