Priceless Gifts

Rand Peabody decided he was in hell. And he was a man, after all, who knew a thing or two about hell.Or had deluded himself into thinking he did. Unobtrusively, keeping one hand steady on the wheel of the sleek silver car he drove, keeping his eyes straight ahead, Rand reached up and touched the ridged scars that ran from his temple to his jaw line, the entire length of the left side of his face.Oh, yeah, he'd thought he knew about hell.Until now.Because now he was seated in a car that for all its luxury and size seemed way, way too small, and the young woman in the passenger seat could easily be the most beautiful in the world.Her hair was a shade of silver-blond Rand had never seen before, and it fell in a cascading wave over her slender, golden shoulders. Despite the day and age he lived in, he was pretty sure the unearthly color of both her hair and her skin was completely natural.The word hazel did not do justice to her eyes, which were an astonishing blend of colors shot through with threads of golds and greens and deep browns. Her bone structure was something artists tried to capture, a perfect symphony of lines, exquisite high cheekbones, delicate nose, a surprisingly strong jaw, her lips full, red and pouty. Only her posture belied the sophistication of the rest of her image. Her figure was reed slender, a hint of her youth and vulnerability in the faint hunch of her shoulders, the slender arms crossed protectively over her breasts.She wore the uniform of young women her age -- low slung jeans, a wide belt, a narrow strapped white tank top. But she wore them differently than most, or maybe pure expense bought that exquisite fit that saidrich. If the fit hadn't said it, the abundant tangle of gold chains that winked against her neck and trailed down to the cleft between her breasts certainly would have.The scent that wafted off of her was delicate and faintly sweet, like a silk scarf that had brushed lightly against jasmine. The scent suggested a certain pliable femininity that was at odds with her expression -- haughty, mutinous, angry.He'd seen pictures of Chelsea King, of course. You could not live in the world and not have seen her. The face of the youngest of Jake King'sprincessessold magazines. The public had an insatiable desire to know the smallest details about her: Her hairstyles, her clothes, her pets, her antics, her friends, even her occasional forays into a normal grocery store were all treated as newsworthy, as if she was as important and as interesting as peace talks in the Middle East, cancer cures, or the president.She probably got a lot more press than the president. And sitting beside her now, Rand understood why. The pictures had not done her any kind of justice. Her beauty, her actual presence, was almost drugging in its potency and power.Which put him in a strange kind of hell. He was sworn to protect her -- being caught off guard by her sheer magnetism made him aggravated with himself.Thankfully he knew himself to be a disciplined man. And also thankfully, though it annoyed him, this exquisitely beautiful woman did not seem to know he existed. A robot drove her car, someone so far beneath her that he was invisible. Would she have felt that way before an explosion had claimed part of his face?That was the kind of question he did not ask himself, ever.She had just terminated one cell phone call when her phone rang again. The ring tone was discordant, something he recognized vaguely as hip-hop, a sound he hated already.He braced himself for what would follow the sound. Right on cue, she spoke, her husky voice filled with all the drama and angst young women of her age seemed to muster over absolutely nothing."Oh, my God, Lindsay, my father has lost his mind."You're not going to believe this, he guessed silently and cynically."You're not going to believe this...."And then the rest of the whole sorry story. Her father'sColter, Cara is the author of 'Priceless Gifts', published 2006 under ISBN 9780373198221 and ISBN 0373198221.