Dear Reader,

True Colors was one of the first mainstream novels I wrote. It is still one of my favorites, a powerful story of revenge and its ultimate price, as well as the terrible danger of jumping to conclusions. I love this book, and not only for its plot. I wrote it in 1991, when I first went back to college, in my forties. I was bristling with courses in American history and anthropology and I had a ball putting some little-known facts into print.

I have studied the Little Big Horn battle for many years, and I mentioned some key qualities of Native American culture in this book. The heroine had Crow ancestry, but my fascination for all the protagonists in the fight has always carried me mostly toward the mysterious and intelligent Crazy Horse, who was Sioux. In fact, this great war chief was Oglala, which is one of the tribes of the Lakota (as the Sioux people I mention in the book more properly call themselves).

If you’ve read my books, you know that I frequently deal with the issues of native peoples. My extended family is heavily Native American. I also have a small connection to the Lakota people, since this year I established a nursing scholarship at the Oglala Lakota College in Kyle, South Dakota, in memory of my mother.

To my friend Marilyn Pourier at the Oglala Lakota College, and also to Nursing Department Chair Sarah Coulter Danner and President Thomas H. Shortbull of the same institution, I send my most heartfelt respect for your hard work and your dedication to the field of higher education.

Sincerely,

Diana Palmer

Diana Palmer
True Colors

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER ONE

MEREDITH STOOD by the window watching the rain beat down on Chicago, while her companion watched her with worried eyes. She knew her face was showing the strain of business, and she’d lost weight, again. At twenty-four, she should have had a carefree outlook on life. What she had was a burden of pressure twice the size most women could carry.

Meredith Ashe Tennison was vice president of Tennison International’s huge domestic enterprises, much more than a shadowy figurehead who avoided publicity like the plague. She had a shrewd mind and a natural aptitude for high finance which her late husband had carefully nurtured during their marriage. When he died, she had stepped into his shoes with such capability that the board of directors reversed their decision to ask her to step down. Now, two and a half years into her term of office, company profits were up and her plans for expansion into new mineral and gas reserves and strategic metals were well under way.

That explained the set of Meredith’s thin shoulders. A company in southeastern Montana was fighting them tooth and nail over mineral rights they currently owned. But Harden Properties was not merely a formidable rival. It was headed by the one man Meredith had reason to hate, a shadow out of her past whose specter had haunted her through all the empty years since she’d left Montana.

Only Don Tennison knew the whole story. He and his late brother, Henry, had been very close. Meredith had come to Henry a shy, frightened teenager. At first Don, to whom business was a primary concern, had fought against the marriage. He relented, but he’d been faintly cool since Henry’s death. Don was now president of Tennison International, but also something of a rival. Meredith had often wondered if he resented her position in the company. He knew his own limitations, and her brilliance and competence had impressed harder heads than his. But he watched her very carefully, especially when she drew on her nervous energy to take on too many projects. And this fight with Harden Properties was already taking its toll on her. She was still getting over the aftereffects of a rough bout with pneumonia that had come on the heels of a kidnapping attempt on her five-year-old son, Blake. If it hadn’t been for the inscrutable Mr. Smith, her bodyguard, God only knew what might have happened.

Meredith was brooding over her forthcoming trip to Montana. She felt she had to make a brief visit to Billings, home of Harden Properties and Meredith’s own hometown. The sudden death of her eighty-year-old great-aunt who had lived there had left Meredith with the house and a few belongings of Aunt Mary’s to dispose of. Meredith was really her only surviving relative, except for a few distant cousins who still lived on the Crow Indian reservation several miles from Billings.

“You arranged the funeral over the phone—couldn’t you do that with the property, too?” Don asked quietly.

She hesitated, then shook her head. “No, I can’t. I’ve got to go back and face it. Face them,” she amended. “Besides, it would be a God-given opportunity to scout out the opposition, wouldn’t it? They don’t know I’m Henry Tennison’s widow. I was Henry’s best-kept secret. I’ve avoided cameras and worn wigs and dark glasses ever since I took over.”

“That was to protect Blake,” he reminded her. “You’re worth millions, and this last kidnapping attempt almost succeeded. A low public profile is invaluable. If you aren’t recognized, you and Blake are safer.”

“Yes, but Henry didn’t do it for that reason. He did it to keep Cy Harden from finding out who I was, and where I was, in case he ever came looking for me.” She closed her eyes, trying to blot out the memory of the fear she’d felt after her flight from Montana. Pregnant, accused of both sleeping with another man and being his accomplice in a theft, she’d been driven from the house by Cy’s mother’s harsh voice while Cy looked on in cold agreement. Meredith didn’t know if the charges had ever been dropped, but Cy had believed she was guilty. That was the hardest to face.

She’d been carrying Cy’s son, and she’d loved him so desperately. But Cy had used her. He’d proposed to her, but she’d learned later that it had only been to keep her happy in their relationship. Love you? he’d drawled in his deep voice. Sex was pleasant, but what would he want with a gangly, shy teenager in any other respect? He’d said that in front of his vicious mother, and something in Meredith had died of shame. She remembered running, blinded by tears, her only thought to get away. Great-Aunt Mary had bought her a bus ticket, and she’d left town. Left under a shadow, in disgrace, with the memory of Myrna Harden’s mocking smile following her….

“You could give up the takeover bid,” Don suggested hesitantly. “There are other companies with mineral holdings.”

“Not in southeastern Montana,” she replied, her soft gray eyes fixing on him calmly. “And Harden Properties has leases we can’t break. They’ve made it impossible for us to get any mineral leases in the area.” She turned and smiled, her oval face and creamy complexion framed by an elegant sweep of blond hair. She had the look of royalty, and the graceful carriage. That confidence was a legacy from Henry Tennison, who’d given her far more than control of his business empire by the time he died. He’d hired tutors for her, to teach her etiquette and the art of hostessing, to educate her in business and finance. She’d been an eager, willing pupil, and she had a mind like a sponge.

“He’ll fight,” the thin, balding man said stubbornly.

She smiled, because Don looked so much like Henry when he set his lips that way. He was ten years Henry’s junior and ten years Meredith’s senior. He was a good businessman, even if he wasn’t her best friend in the world. But Don was conservative, and Meredith was aggressive. More than once they’d locked horns over company policy. The domestic operation was her baby, and Don wasn’t going to tell her how to run it. Her steady, level gaze told him that.

“Let him fight, Don,” she replied. “It will give him something to do while I’m taking over his company.”

“You need rest,” he said with a sigh. “Blake’s a handful by himself, and you’ve been ill.”

“Flu is inevitable with a child in kindergarten,” she reminded him. “I didn’t expect it to go into pneumonia. Besides, the takeover bid is crucial to my expansion plans. Regardless of how much time or energy it takes, I have to give it priority. I can ferret out a lot of information while I’m deciding what to do with Great-Aunt Mary’s house.”

“There shouldn’t be a problem. She left a will. Even if she hadn’t, Henry paid for the house.”

“Nobody in Billings knows that,” she said. She turned from the window, arms folded over her high, firm breasts as she nibbled her lower lip thoughtfully. “I wrote to her, and she came out here to see me several times. But I haven’t been to Billings since—” She caught herself. “Not since I was eighteen,” she amended.

But he knew. “It’s been six years. Almost seven,” he added gently. “Time is a great healer.”

Her eyes darkened. “Is it? Do you think six years or sixty would be enough to forget what the Hardens did to me?” She turned toward him. “Revenge is unworthy of an intelligent person. Henry drilled that into me, but I can’t help what I feel. They accused me of a crime I never committed, sent me out of Billings in disgrace and pregnant.” Her eyes closed and she shivered. “I almost lost the baby. If it hadn’t been for Henry…”

“He was crazy about Blake, and about you.” Don grinned. “I’ve never seen a man so happy. It was a shame about the accident. Three years out of a lifetime isn’t long for a man to find and lose everything he values.”

“He was good to me,” she said, smiling with the bittersweet memory. “Everybody thought I married him because he was wealthy. He was so much older than I was—almost twenty years. But what nobody knew was that he didn’t tell me just how rich he was until he talked me into marrying him.” She shook her head. “I almost ran away when I knew what he was worth. This—” she gestured around the elegant room with its priceless antiques “—terrified me.”

“That’s why he didn’t tell you until it was too late,” Don mused. “He’d spent his whole life making money and living for the corporation. Until you came along, he didn’t even know he wanted a family.”

“He got a ready-made one.” She sighed. “I wanted so much to give him a child….” She turned away. Thinking about that would do no good at all. “I have to go to Billings. I want you to check on Blake and Mr. Smith every day or two, if you don’t mind. I’m so nervous, about both of them, after that kidnapping attempt.”

“Wouldn’t you like to take Mr. Smith with you?” he asked hopefully. “After all, there are Indians up there. Grizzly bears. Mountain lions. Crazed Winnebago drivers….”

She laughed. “Mr. Smith is worth his weight in gold, and he’ll take very good care of Blake. There’s no need to have much contact with him, since he disturbs you so much.” He didn’t look convinced. “Blake loves him,” she reminded him.

“Blake isn’t old enough to realize how dangerous he is. Meredith, I know he’s worth his weight in gold, but you do realize that he’s a wanted man…?”

“Only by the state police in that South African country,” she said. “And that was a long time ago. Mr. Smith is forty-five if he’s a day, and we did commandeer him from the CIA.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t the KGB?” He threw up his hands. “All right, I’ll try to keep watch. But if I were you, I wouldn’t have that animal of his near me.”

“Tiny lives in an aquarium,” she said defensively. “And she’s very tame.”

“She’s a giant iguana,” he muttered.

“Iguanas are vegetarians, and she’s not quite that big. Yet. Besides, he’s still grieving for Dano.”

“Dano was a five-foot iguana,” he said. “He actually petted the horrible thing. I think it ate my dog, that day you and Blake visited me and he brought the vile thing with him.”

“Your dog ran away. Iguanas don’t eat dogs.”

“And he’s raising a replacement for it,” he moaned. “Can’t he put it up if I have to come over here?”

“I’ll ask him. It’s just for a few weeks, until I see to Great-Aunt Mary’s property and organize a way to get those mineral leases away from the Hardens. I’ll have to do some scouting first,” she added. “I want to see how the Hardens are placed these days.” Her face darkened. “I want to see how he’s placed.”

“He probably knows who you are by now, so be careful.”

“No, he doesn’t,” she replied. “I made a point of finding out. Henry was very protective of me at first, so he never told people anything about me. Since he always called me ‘Kip,’ there’s very little likelihood that Cyrus Harden has any inkling about my connection with Tennison International. He only knows me as Meredith Ashe. If I leave the Rolls here and don’t flash my diamonds, he won’t know who I am. More important,” she added coldly, “his mother won’t know.”

“I’ve never thought of Cy Harden as a mama’s boy,” he mused.

“He isn’t. But Mama is a prime mover, a secretive manipulator. I was eighteen and no match for her shrewd mind. She got rid of me with ridiculous ease. Now it’s my turn to manipulate. I want Harden Properties. And I’m going to get it.”

He opened his mouth to warn her but after a second thought gave up. She’d known Cy Harden as a man, even as a lover. But she knew nothing about the business head on those broad shoulders, and if she pursued the takeover bid, she was going to find herself in over her own head. Others had tried to take on Harden, to their cost. He was a formidable foe, among the most ruthless of businessmen. He and Henry had butted heads several times. Probably Harden didn’t know why Tennison hated him so, or deliberately tried to foil deals for him. It had been a shock to everyone when Henry was invited to sit on the Harden Properties board of directors. Harden had engineered that move so that he could keep an eye on Tennison’s business deals, but it had worked to Henry’s advantage as well, so he’d accepted. Naturally Don went to the meetings, and Meredith’s name was never mentioned.

“You don’t think I can do it, do you?” she asked, narrow-eyed.

“No,” he said honestly. “His is a family-based company. He holds forty percent and his mother has five. That means you have to get his great-uncle’s ten percent and the fifteen percent held by his directors and the remaining shares from his unrelated stockholders. I don’t think any of them are brave enough to go against Cy, despite the financial rewards.”

“By the time their next board of directors meetings rolls around, I expect to have those proxies,” she told Don firmly. “And is Mr. Harden due for a surprise when I show up with them, and you, in his boardroom.”

“Just be careful that your surprise doesn’t backfire,” he cautioned. “Don’t underestimate him. Henry never did.”

“Oh, I won’t.” She stretched lazily. “What’s on the agenda for this afternoon? I have to do some shopping.” She indicated her expensive suit. “Little Meredith Ashe could never have afforded anything like this. I don’t want anyone to think I’ve prospered.”

“‘O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,’” he quoted dryly.

“And hell has no fury like a woman scorned,” she shot back. “Don’t worry, Don. I know what I’m doing.”

He shrugged. “I hope so.”

DON’S MOROSE TONE haunted Meredith all day. As she packed her new clothes that evening in Mr. Smith’s borrowed secondhand suitcase, Blake sprawled on her queen-sized bed in their Lincoln Park home, frowning.

“Why do you have to go away?” he muttered, his little face dark and sullen. “You’re always going away. You’re never here.”

She felt a twinge of guilt. Her son was right. But she couldn’t afford to give in to that stubborn determination of his. Blake was as formidable in his young way as she was.

“Business, my darling,” she replied, smiling. She stared at him lovingly. He looked nothing like her. He was his father, from his dark hair to his deep-set brown eyes and olive complexion. He was going to be tall like Cy, too, she guessed.

Cy. Meredith sighed heavily and turned away. She’d loved him so much, with all the passion of her young life. He’d taken her chastity and her heart, and in return he’d given her grief and shame. His mother had done her part to break up what might have been an honest love affair. God knew, he’d always felt guilty about her. Probably he’d have felt even more guilt if he’d known that she was only eighteen to his twenty-eight. She’d lied and told him she was twenty. He’d said even then that it was like robbing the cradle. But his passion for her had been a helpless, deeply resented one that had cost him his stoic self-control time and time again. She often thought that he’d hated her for that, for making him vulnerable.

His mother had hated her, certainly. The fact that Meredith had been living with her great-aunt and uncle on the Crow reservation—and the fact that her great-uncle was a respected elder at that—had been a scandalous shock to Mrs. Myrna Granger Harden. Myrna belonged to the social set and made no secret of her snobbery. That her son had dared to embarrass her by dating the niece of one of his employees had haunted her, especially when she’d already hand-picked a wife for him—one Lois Newly, a local debutante whose people had property in Alberta, Canada, and could trace their ancestry back to royal England. Myrna had never even bothered to ask Meredith if she was Indian. She’d taken it for granted, when actually Meredith was only related to Uncle Raven-Walking by marriage.

There were dark-skinned people in Cy’s background. Myrna swore they were French, but Meredith had once heard someone mention that Cy’s ancestors contained a full-blooded Sioux on his father’s side. Many Plains people had mixed ancestry, but most of them weren’t as prejudiced and snobbish as Myrna Harden.

Blake Garrett Tennison would someday have to be told the truth about his parentage, Meredith thought worriedly. She didn’t relish that at all. For now, he accepted that the tall, fair man who used to laugh and bring him things was his real father. In most senses, he was. Henry had spoiled Meredith shamefully, attended LaMaze classes with her, treated her pregnancy as if he’d been responsible for it, and showered her with luxuries when little Blake was born. He stayed with her through the delivery, and he cried when the child was placed in his arms. Oh, yes, Henry really was Blake’s father in so many ways. He’d earned the right.

She often wondered why Cy had apparently never considered the possibility of Meredith becoming pregnant during their brief affair. Presumably his women were usually on the Pill, because he’d never even asked if she was. Not that he’d been in any condition to ask, the first time or the others. She dreamed about him sometimes, about the fierce pleasure he’d taught her to share with him. But she never told Henry about the dreams or compared him with Cy. It wouldn’t have been fair. Henry was a gentle, skillful lover, but she’d never attained the heights with him that Cy had taken her to so effortlessly.

Blake cuddled his plush toy alligator. “Isn’t Barry the Alligator nice?” he asked. “Mr. Smith let me pet Tiny. He says you should let me have an iguana, too, Mommy. They make very nice pets.”

She laughed gently at Blake’s adult-sounding speech. He was almost six, and he already had a tremendous grasp of language. He would be ready to start first grade next year. This year he attended private kindergarten until one each afternoon, and he was learning fast. Meredith knew that Cy had never married. She allowed herself to wonder for one long instant what Myrna Harden would think of her grandson. It was unlikely that the elderly woman would covet him, of course, since he was Meredith’s. And a grandchild would tarnish the youthful image she tried so hard to project.

“Can’t I have an iguana?” Blake persisted.

“You can pet Tiny, when Mr. Smith lets you.”

“Doesn’t Mr. Smith have a first name?” he asked, frowning.

She laughed. “Nobody has the nerve to ask,” she whispered.

He laughed, too, his young voice delightfully carefree. Had she ever been that happy, she wondered, even as a child? The premature death of her parents had left scars. Thank God there had been Aunt Mary and Uncle Raven-Walking to look after her. They’d loved her, even if nobody else ever had.

Blake sighed. “I wish I could go with you.”

“One day soon,” she promised. “Then I’ll take you to the Crow reservation and you can meet some of your Indian cousins.”

“Real Indians?” he asked.

“Real Indians. I want you to be proud of your ancestry, Blake,” she said seriously, smiling at him. “One of your distant relatives actually scouted for General Custer before the battle of the Little Bighorn.”

“Wow!” he said, all eyes. He frowned. “Who was General Custer, Mommy?”

“Never mind.” She shook her head. “Time enough for that when you’re older. Now, I have to pack.”

“Blake!”

The thunderous voice echoed along the upstairs landing.

“In here, Mr. Smith!” Blake called.

Heavy footsteps echoed down the hall, and a tall, balding hulk of a man walked into the room. Mr. Smith had a Marine Corps tattoo on one brawny arm, and he wore khaki slacks with an olive drab T-shirt. He was the ugliest, and the kindest, man Meredith had ever known. He had to be in his middle or late forties, but nobody knew just how old he was. He had a spotless service record and had come from a successful career in the CIA to work for Henry Tennison. After Henry’s death, Meredith had inherited him, so to speak. From his big nose to his green eyes and square face, he was a treasure. He’d aborted the kidnapping attempt on Blake. And nobody bothered Meredith when he was with her. She raised his salary every year without his having to ask. Next to Blake, he was the most treasured person in her private life.

“Bedtime for you, mister,” Mr. Smith told Blake without cracking a smile. “Front and center.”

“Yes, sir!” Blake saluted, laughing, and ran to the big man, to be swung up on his shoulders.

“I’ll settle him for the night, Kip,” he told Meredith. His eyes narrowed. “You shouldn’t go. You need another week in bed.”

“Don’t fuss,” she said gently, and smiled at him. “I’m all right. I have to do something with Aunt Mary’s things you know. And it’s a dandy opportunity to reconnoiter the opposition.”

“Recon what?” Blake asked.

“Never mind,” she told him. She leaned forward and kissed his rosy cheek. “Sleep tight, my lad. I’ll be along to tuck you in.”

“Mr. Smith is going to tell me about Vietnam!” Blake told her excitedly.

Meredith grimaced. Vietnam War stories hardly seemed the proper bedtime tales for a young boy, but she didn’t have the heart to argue.

“I want to hear about the snake again.”

She frowned at Blake. “The what?”

“The snake. Mr. Smith is teaching me about all the animals and stuff in Vietnam,” he continued.

She flushed. She’d thought the stories were about something else entirely.

Mr. Smith saw the flush and almost smiled. “Fooled you, huh?” he asked smugly. “That’s what you get for misjudging innocent people.”

“You’re not innocent people,” she pointed out.

“I’m innocent of a few things,” he argued. “I never shot anybody twice.”

She looked toward the ceiling. “My bodyguard, the saint.”

“Keep that up and I’ll go back to the government,” he promised. “They treat a guy right.”

“I’ll bet they never bought you kidskin moccasins and your very own Jacuzzi,” she said haughtily.

“Well, no.”

“And they don’t give you three weeks’ paid vacation and offer you free hotel rooms and carte blanche at restaurants,” she continued.

“Well…”

“And they don’t hug you like I do,” Blake exclaimed, throwing his arms around Mr. Smith’s thick neck as hard as he could.

Mr. Smith chuckled, returning the hug. “Got me there,” he admitted. “Nobody in the CIA ever hugged me.”

“See?” Meredith asked smugly. “You’re well off and don’t know it.”

“Oh, I know it,” he said. “I just like to watch you squirm.”

“One of these days,” she began, pointing a finger at him.

“That’s our cue to leave, Blake,” Mr. Smith said, turning with the boy in his arms to head for the door. “She’s good for an hour on that subject.”

Meredith hid a smile and went back to her packing.

TWO DAYS LATER she arrived in Billings on the bus. She could have flown, but that was an admission that she had money. A bus ticket was considerably cheaper, and besides, the bus station was located next door to the office of Harden Properties, Inc.

She waited for her suitcase, her hair loose around her shoulders, wearing a pair of jeans and a faded denim jacket over a sweatshirt. She wore a pair of scuffed boots she’d used for riding back home, and she’d left off her makeup. By and large, she looked very much as she had the day she’d taken the bus out of Billings six years before. Except that she had a different secret now, one she was going to enjoy keeping until the proper time.

In an office building just catercorner to the bus station, a man sitting at a desk happened to notice the movement of passengers disembarking. He got out of his swivel chair and moved to the one-way window, staring down with dark eyes that seemed to burst with mingled emotions.

“Mr. Harden?”

“What is it, Millie?” he asked without turning.

“Your letter….”

He had to force himself to turn away from the window. Surely not, he thought. That couldn’t be her, not after all these years. He’d seen her in crowds before, only to get closer and find another face, the wrong face. But he felt as if it were Meredith. His heart began to beat with the fierce rhythm she’d taught it. He felt alive for the first time in six years.

He sat down, his tall, fit body in a dark blue suit so striking that even his secretary of many years stared at him. He was thirty-four now, but sometimes his lean, deeply tanned face seemed older than its years. There were lines around his eyes, too, and threads of gray in his thick, black hair. He had an elegant look for a man whose primary interest was agricultural properties and acquisitions and who had a ranch and spent time with cattle and horses.

“Forget the letter,” he said abruptly. “Find the address of Mary Raven. Her husband was Crow—John Raven-Walking, but they’re listed in the phone directory as Raven. They moved into town two or three years ago.”

“Yes, sir.” Millie left to find the address for him.

Cy continued to sit, turning to read some new contracts and an inquiry from one of his directors about a few mining leases he’d refused to cede to Tennison International. He looked at the papers without seeing them as memories flooded back, memories six years old of a woman who’d betrayed him and left town under a cloud of suspicion.

“Sir, there’s an obituary here,” Millie said as she returned thumbing through the local paper. “I saw it last week and meant to mention it. Well, I remembered, you know, about that Ashe girl who was involved in the theft six years ago.”

Cy bristled. “Her part in it was never proved,” he corrected.

Her eyebrows arched, but she was concentrating on the column and hardly heard him. “Yes, here it is. Mrs. Mary Raven, and here’s the address—they print it, you know. She was buried two days ago. No family is listed at all. I suppose they didn’t know about Miss Ashe at the newspaper….”

“Give me that.” He took the paper and pored over it. Mary was dead. He remembered her from the Crow reservation, where she and Raven-Walking had lived until the old gentleman’s death two years ago. Mary had moved into town. God only knew how she’d managed to afford a house on her Social Security. Cy hadn’t seen the house but knew about it because he’d seen her one day in Billings. He’d questioned her harshly about Meredith, but she wouldn’t tell him anything. She was frankly evasive and even a little frightened. He grimaced, remembering his desperation to find Meredith. The old lady had practically run to get away from him. He hadn’t followed her, but he’d been tempted to go and see her. Then he’d realized that it would accomplish nothing. He’d only upset her more. Besides, the past was dead. Meredith was probably married by now, with a house full of kids.

The thought hurt him. He sighed angrily. Well, she’d be coming back, surely. In fact, that could have been Meredith he’d just seen. Someone would have to tie up all the loose ends that Mary’s death created. He knew that Meredith was Mary’s closest living relative.

He sat back in his chair, scowling. Meredith was here. He knew she was. He didn’t know whether he was sorry or glad about it. He only knew that his life was about to be disrupted all over again.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS TOO MUCH to hope for that Cy would walk out of his office building and run headlong into her, Meredith decided as she watched the city bus head toward the Billings station. He might not even be in town. Like Henry, and now herself, business demanded frequent trips to business meetings and conferences. And for her to run into the object of her youthful desire today would require a ferocious kind of coincidence or a helping hand from fate.

She boarded the bus and got off several minutes later near the Rimrocks. Her aunt’s little house sat on a dead-end street sheltered by towering cottonwood trees. This house, thank God, held no memories for her. When Meredith lived here, Great-Aunt Mary’s home was a small matchbox on the reservation. When she dated Cy, they always wound up in the penthouse he kept at the Sheraton, the tallest building in the city. She ground her teeth, remembering. Perhaps it had been a mistake to come back here after all. With the city of her youth around her, memories hurt more.

She unlocked the door with the key Mr. Hammer, the Realtor, had sent her. September was chilly here in southeastern Montana, and the snows weren’t far away. She hoped to be long gone before they trapped her.

The house was cold, but fortunately Hammer had remembered to have the utilities put on for her. There was a gas stove with the pilot light already burning, and the electricity worked. He’d even been kind enough to leave her a few groceries. Typical Montana hospitality, she thought, smiling. People here looked out for each other. Everybody was friendly and kind, even to tourists.

Her eyes lingered on the old but functional furniture. Everything was done in Early American, because that was what Great-Aunt Mary liked. But she had kept many of her late husband’s treasures. The medicine shield and bag that he always displayed so proudly were on the one wall. His pipe, with its exquisite decoration, rested on another peg, as did the bow and arrows his own grandfather had made for him in his youth. There were several parfleche bags filled with secret things in a coffee table drawer. There was a huge mandala on another wall, and assorted dried skins and woven hangings on the others. Dead potted plants covered almost every available surface. Great-Aunt Mary’s plants had been her greatest treasures, but they’d gone without water since her death and now were beyond saving…except for one philodendron, which Meredith took to the kitchen and watered, then placed gently on the Formica counter.

When she noticed the telephone on the wall, Meredith felt a stab of relief. She was going to need it. She was also going to need her fax machine and her computer with its internal modem. Smith could bring all that equipment out, and she could make use of Aunt Mary’s library as an office. It had a door that locked, to protect her secret from prying eyes in case any of the Hardens ever made it this far.

Meredith was a little concerned over the amount of time this project was going to take, but the mineral leases were her top priority right now. The domestic operation simply couldn’t move ahead with its expansion program without them. She was committed, however long it took. She’d have to keep up with business through Don and the telephone and hope for the best.

Worst of all was the time away from Blake. He was becoming hyperactive in school. Her lifestyle was apparently affecting him more than she’d realized. And business had edged its way between them until she couldn’t even sit down to a meal with her son without being interrupted by the telephone. He was on edge, and so was she. Maybe she could use this time to her advantage, to catch up on work so that she could have more time with him when she got home again.

She made herself a pot of coffee, smiling at the neatness of the little kitchen with its yellow walls and white curtains and oak furniture. Aunt Mary hadn’t wanted to let Meredith and Henry buy her this house and furnish it, but they’d convinced her finally that it was something they wanted to do. Despite the fact that she had friends and cousins on the reservation, they wanted her close to her best friend, Miss Mable, who’d offered to look after her. Miss Mable had died only a few weeks before Mary. Perhaps they were together now, exchanging crochet patterns and gossiping on some ghostly front porch. Meredith liked to think of them that way.

Her fingers were cold, and she almost spilled the coffee as she poured it. Aunt Mary’s doilies were everywhere in the living room, intricate patterns of colored thread that she’d crocheted so beautifully. It was a shame to use them, and Meredith knew that she wasn’t going to let them be sold with the house when the time came. She’d have to choose some personal items to keep, especially the doilies and quilts, and of course Uncle Raven-Walking’s legacy for little Blake.

As Meredith’s gaze lingered on the beautifully decorated parfleche bags she had removed from the drawer, she remembered sitting on Uncle Raven-Walking’s knee while he told her stories about the long-ago times of the People and how they’d enjoyed their horse-taking forays into Cheyenne and Sioux camps, and vice versa. So much she’d read and seen about the Plains Indians was inaccurate. The thing she remembered most from her uncle was his teachings about giving and sharing, traits that were inherent in Crow society. The giving of gifts and the sharing of acquired wealth were commonplace among these Indians. Selfishness was virtually unknown. Even the religion of the Crow focused on brotherly love and giving to the less fortunate. Nobody went hungry or cold in the camps of long ago. Even enemies were fed and gifted and allowed to go their own way, if they promised never again to make war on the Crow. No enemy was attacked if he walked into camp unarmed and with peaceful intent, because courage was admired.

Courage…Meredith sipped her coffee. She was going to need plenty of that. Myrna Harden’s face flashed before her eyes, and she shivered. She had to remember that she was no longer eighteen and poor. She was twenty-four, almost twenty-five, and rich. Much richer than the Hardens. It was important to keep in mind that she was equal to them socially and financially.

Her eyes settled on Uncle Raven-Walking’s medicine pouch. It contained, among other things, kinnikinnick—willow shavings used as tobacco—and sage, some gray dust from the Custer battlefield, a tiny red rock, a red-tailed hawk feather and an elk tooth. She’d opened it once secretively and looked in. Later she’d asked her uncle about the contents, but all he was willing to say was that it was his own personal “medicine,” to keep away evil and protect him from enemies and ill health. How ironic, she mused. Her people seemed to think money and power were the answers to the riddle of what made life bearable. But Uncle Raven-Walking had never cared about having things or making money. And, content to work as a security guard for Harden Properties, he was one of the happiest people Meredith had ever known.

“Wasicun,” she murmured, using a Plains Sioux word for whites. It meant, literally, “You can’t get rid of them.” She laughed, because it seemed to be true. The Crow word for whites was mahistasheeda—literally, “yellow-eyes.” Nobody knew why. Maybe the first white man they saw was jaundiced, but that was the expression. Crow called themselves Absaroka—“People of the fork-tailed bird.” Meredith had loved the huge Montana ravens as a girl. Perhaps the forerunners of the Crow had loved them, too.

She finished her coffee and carried her suitcase into the neatly furnished second bedroom, the one Aunt Mary had used as a guest room. Meredith had never used it—she’d been too afraid of seeing the Hardens to ever come back to Billings.

Her few things put away, Meredith took the bus to a small convenience store several blocks away and bought a sack of groceries. It had been years since she’d done anything so menial. She had maids and a housekeeper at her Lincoln Park house, and they took care of such things. She knew how to cook, but it wasn’t a skill she practiced often. She smiled at her own shortcomings. Aunt Mary liked to chide her for her lack of homemaking abilities.

She decided to walk back. Passing the enormous Billings city park she sighed at its beauty. The towering cottonwoods formed a green canopy over the lawn. Here, in summer, there were symphony orchestra concerts and ice-cream suppers. There was always something going on. Billings was a huge city with well-designed wide streets and plenty of elbow room, spreading between the Rimrocks and the Yellowstone River, with railroad tracks through the city and all around, because plenty of trains came through here. Agriculture and mining kept things going. Refineries were everywhere. So were vast ranches and fields of wheat and sugar beets. To the west stood the towering Rocky Mountains, to the southeast the Big Horn and Pryor mountains. Buttes surrounded Billings, leveling off to flat plains and rolling hills farther east. Meredith loved the country out of town, loved the vastness of it, loved the absence of concrete and steel. Distances were terrifying to easterners, but a hundred miles was nothing to a Montanan.

Her arms tightened around the grocery sack as she reached the street on which Great-Aunt Mary’s house stood. Odd, she thought, that sleek gray Jaguar hadn’t been sitting on the curb when she left. Perhaps the Realtor had come looking for her.

Digging in her jeans for her house key, she didn’t see the shadowy figure on the front porch until she reached the steps. Then she stopped dead. She felt her heart skip.

Cyrus Granger Harden was every bit as tall as Mr. Smith, but the comparison ended there. Cy was dark and dangerous-looking even in an expensive blue vested suit like the one he was wearing now. He stepped into the sunlight. Despite the anguish of the past six years, Meredith felt a surge of warmth shoot through her body as she looked at him.

He was older. There were new lines in that long, lean face with its high cheekbones, thick black eyebrows and deepset dark brown eyes. His nose was straight, his mouth a sensual delight, its firmly etched contours so familiar that Meredith had to drag her eyes back up. There was a Stetson tilted arrogantly over his broad forehead, covering hair that had the sheen of a raven’s back. His lean, dark fingers held a smoking cigarette; so he hadn’t quite given up that habit, she thought with faint humor.

“I thought it was you,” he said without preamble, his deep, cutting voice as harsh as the unrelenting sunlight on her bare head. “I can see the bus stop out my window.”

As she’d hoped. So he had seen her after all. She gave herself a quick, mental pep talk. I’m older, I’m richer, I have secrets, and he has no power over me. She repeated it.

Her full lips tugged into a careless smile. “Hello, Cy,” she said. “Fancy seeing you over here in the slums.”

His jaw tautened. “Billings doesn’t have slums. Why are you here?”

“I came back for your family silver,” she returned with a pointed stare. “I must have missed it on my last trip through.”

He shifted uncomfortably, ramming one hand into his pocket. It drew the thin fabric of his slacks against the powerful muscles of his long legs, and Meredith had to fight not to look. Unclothed, that body was a miracle of perfection, all dark skin and dark curling hair that wedged sexily down his chest and his flat stomach and feathered his legs….

“After you left,” he said hesitantly, “Tanksley admitted to my mother that you had nothing to do with the theft.”

Tony Tanksley, she recalled, was the “accomplice” she’d allegedly been in love and sleeping with. Only a jealous fool could have imagined Meredith going from Cy to Tony, but since Myrna had paid Tony to invent the story, the details she’d given him had been perfect. A classic frame. But regardless of that, Cy had believed her capable of infidelity and criminal acts. Love without trust wasn’t love. He’d even admitted that his only interest in her had been sexual. What a pity that her mother hadn’t lived, couldn’t have warned her about giving a man everything without counting the cost. The lesson she’d learned the hard way had been expensive.

“I wondered why the police hadn’t come after me,” she said easily.

His powerful shoulders moved under the fabric. “You couldn’t be found,” he said tersely.

Not surprising, considering the fact that Henry had stashed her on a Caribbean island during her pregnancy, with Mr. Smith to protect her. Nobody, but nobody, had been told her real name. She was known as Kip Tennison after their marriage, period. Now she was grateful for that safeguard. She’d been afraid that the Hardens might try to track her, if for no other reason than to embarrass her.

“How nice to finally know that,” she said with faint sarcasm, watching his eyes glitter as she shifted the bag of groceries. “A jail sentence wouldn’t have appealed to me.”

His face became more severe, his dark eyes narrowed under those thick brows as he studied her face. “You’re thinner than I remember,” he said. “Older.”

“Twenty-five next birthday,” she said breezily, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “You’re thirty-four now, aren’t you?”

He nodded. He moved his gaze down her body and back up. He felt as if he were dying inside all over again. Six long years. He remembered tears on that young face, and the sound of her voice hating him. He remembered, too, long, exquisite lovings in his bed with her arms clinging, her soft body like quicksilver under the heated thrust of his, her voice breaking as she moaned her pleasure into his damp throat….

“How long are you going to be here?” he asked tightly.

“Long enough to dispose of the house,” she replied.

He lifted the cigarette to his mouth. “You won’t keep it?” he asked, hating himself for being vulnerable enough to ask the question.

She shook her head. “No. I don’t think I’ll stay. Billings has too many enemies in it to suit me.”

“I’m not your enemy,” he replied.

She lifted her chin and stared at him with pure bravado. “Aren’t you, Cy? That isn’t how I remember it.”

He turned away, his eyes glancing down the wide street. “You were eighteen. Too young. Years too young. I never asked, but I’d bet I had your chastity.”

Meredith flushed. Cy watched the stain in her cheeks with faint amusement, the first he’d felt since he’d seen her get off the bus.

“So I did,” he murmured, tingling all over at having his suspicions confirmed.

“You were the first,” she said coldly. She smiled. “But not the last. Or did you think you were going to be an impossible act to follow?”

His pride bristled, but he didn’t react. He finished the cigarette and flipped it off the porch. “Where have you been for the past six years?”

“Around,” she said simply. “Look, this bag is getting heavy. Do you have anything to say, or is this just a friendly visit to see how fast you can shoot me out of town?”

“I came to ask if you needed a job,” he said stiffly. “I know your aunt left nothing except bills. I own a restaurant here. There’s an opening for a waitress.”

This was really too much, Meredith thought. Cy offering her a job waitressing, when she could easily afford to buy the place. Guilty conscience? she wondered. Or renewed interest? Either way, it wouldn’t hurt to accept it. She had a feeling she’d see a good bit of the Hardens that way, and it fitted in nicely with her plans.

“Okay,” she said. “Do I need to apply?”

“No. Just report for work at six sharp tomorrow morning,” he said. “I seem to remember that you had a job in a café when we first met.”

“Yes.” Her eyes met his, and for an instant they both shared the memory of that first meeting. She’d spilled coffee on him, and when she’d gone to mop up his jacket, electricity had danced between them. The attraction was instant and mutual…and devastating.

“So long ago,” he said absently, his eyes dark with bitterness. “My God, why did you run? I came to my senses two days later, and I couldn’t find you, damn you!”

Came to his senses? She didn’t dare dwell on that. She glared at him. “Damn you, too, for listening to your mother instead of me. I hope the two of you have been very happy together.”

His eyebrows arched. “What did my mother have to do with you and Tanksley?”

He didn’t know! She could hardly believe it, but that blank stare of his was genuine. He didn’t know what his mother had done!

“How did you get him to confess?” she asked.

“I didn’t. He told Mother that you were innocent. She told me.”

Her heart trembled in her chest. “Did she tell you anything else?” she asked with affected carelessness.

He scowled. “No. What else was there to tell?”

That I was pregnant with your child, she thought darkly, that I was eighteen and had nowhere to go. I couldn’t risk staying with Great-Aunt Mary with a theft charge hanging over my head.

She lowered her eyes so that he wouldn’t see the fury in them. Those first few weeks had been the purest hell of her life, despite the fact that they’d strengthened and matured her to a frightening degree. She’d had to take complete charge of her own life and fate, and from that time she’d never been afraid again.

“Was there anything else?” he persisted.

She lifted her face. “No. Nothing else.”

But there was. He sensed it. Her eyes held a peculiar gleam, almost of hatred. He’d accused her unjustly and hurt her with his rejection, but her anger went deeper than that.

“The restaurant is the Bar H Steak House,” he said. “It’s off North Twenty-seventh past the Sheraton.”

Meredith felt her body go hot at the mention of the hotel, and she averted her eyes quickly. “I’ll find it. Thanks for the recommendation.”

“Does that mean you might stay for a few weeks, at least?” he asked, frowning.

Her eyes fenced with his. “Why? I do hope you don’t entertain any thoughts of taking over where we left off. Because frankly, Cy, I’m not in the habit of trying to superglue broken relationships back together.”

He went very still. “Is there someone?”

“In my life, you mean?” she asked. “Yes.”

His face showed nothing, but a shadow seemed to pass over his eyes. “I might have known.”

She didn’t reply. She simply stared at him. She saw him glance at her left hand, and she thanked God that she’d remembered to take off her wedding band. But the engagement ring Henry had given her—a diamond-cut emerald with small diamonds—was still there. She remembered how Henry had laughed at her choice, because the ring was so inexpensive. He’d wanted to give her a three-carat diamond, and she’d insisted on this ring. How long ago it seemed.

“You’re engaged?” he asked heavily.

“I was,” she corrected. True enough, she was, before Henry married her a week after the engagement.

“Not now?”

She shook her head. “I have a friend, and I care about him very much. But I don’t want commitment anymore.” She wished she could cross her fingers behind her. She’d told more lies and half-truths in two minutes than she had in two years.

His features were more rigid than usual. “Why isn’t your friend here with you, then?”

“I needed a breathing space. I came alone to dispose of Aunt Mary’s things.”

“Where were you living?”

She smiled. “Back east. Excuse me, I have to get these things in the refrigerator.”

He stood aside, hesitating. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Presumably he ate at the restaurant where she was going to work. “I suppose so.” She glanced at him. “Are you sure they won’t mind giving me work without references?”

“I own the damned restaurant,” he said shortly. “They can’t afford to mind. The job’s yours, if you want it.”

“I want it,” she said. She unlocked the door and hesitated. Since he didn’t know her circumstances, he was probably doing it out of pity and guilt, but she felt obliged to say something. “You’re very generous. Thank you.”

“Generous.” He laughed bitterly. “My God, I’ve never given anything in my life unless it suited me or made me richer. I’ve got the world. And I’ve got nothing.” He turned and walked to his car, leaving her staring after him with wide, sad eyes.

Meredith let herself into the house. It had shaken her to see him again after so many barren years. She dropped the groceries on the kitchen counter and sat down, her mind going back to their first meeting.

She’d been seventeen then, a week shy of her eighteenth birthday. But she’d always looked older than she was, and the uniform she wore as a waitress molded itself lovingly to every soft curve of her slender body.

Cy had stared at her from the first, his narrow eyes following her as she waited on one table and then another. She’d been nervous of him instantly, because he radiated self-confidence and a kind of bridled arrogance. He had a way of narrowing one eye and lifting his chin that was like a declaration of war every time he studied someone. Actually, she found out later, it was because he had a slight problem focusing on distant objects and was too stubborn to go to an ophthalmologist. She wondered if any of the people he’d intimidated with that level glare ever knew what caused it.

His table drew its regular waitress, and she’d seen him frown and ask the girl something. Seconds later, he’d moved to a table that was in Meredith’s territory.

The very idea that a man who looked like that should seem interested in her made her toes tingle. She’d approached him with a gentle smile, her face flushing with excitement when he looked up at her and smiled back.

“You’re new here,” he’d said. His voice was deep and slow, with delicious sensuality in it.

“Yes.” She’d sounded as breathless as she felt. She could still remember how cold her hands had suddenly become. “I just started this morning.”

“I’m Cyrus Harden,” he said. “I have breakfast here most mornings.”

She’d recognized the name instantly. Most people in Billings did. “I’m Meredith,” she said huskily.

He lifted an eyebrow, and the smile deepened. “Are you past the age of consent?”

“I’m…twenty,” she said at once, lying through her teeth. If she’d told him her real age, she knew instinctively that he’d have dismissed her.

“That’ll do. Bring me some coffee, please. Then we’ll discuss where we’re going tonight.”

She rushed back behind the counter to pour the coffee, running headlong into Terri, the older waitress who worked with her.

“Careful, chick,” Terri said under her breath when Cy wasn’t looking. “You’re flirting with disaster. Cy Harden has a reputation with women as well as in business. Don’t get in over your head.”

“It’s all right. He…he’s just talking to me,” Meredith stammered.

“Not when you look that flustered, he isn’t,” Terri replied worriedly. “Your great-aunt must live in a world all her own. Honey, men don’t automatically propose marriage to women they want—especially men like Cy Harden. He’s out of our league. He’s rich, and his mother would savage any woman who tried to get him to the altar unless she had money and connections. He’s upper crust. They marry among themselves.”

“But we’re just talking,” Meredith protested, forcing a smile while all her dreams crashed to earth.

“See that it stays just talk. He could hurt you badly.”

The sound of authority made her bristle, but she couldn’t really afford to antagonize a co-worker, so she just smiled and finished getting Cy’s coffee.

“Was she warning you off?” he asked when she put the cup and saucer in front of him on the red-and-white-checked tablecloth.

She gasped. “How did you know?”

“I took Terri out once,” he replied easily. “She got too possessive, so I broke it off. It was a long time ago. Don’t let her get under your skin, okay?”

She smiled, because now it all made sense. He was interested, and Terri was just jealous. She beamed. “I won’t,” she promised.

Remembering her own naiveté that day, Meredith groaned. She rose from the chair she’d been sitting in and went to put the groceries away. How could anyone have been so stupid? she asked herself. At eighteen, with a sheltered upbringing, she’d known nothing. To a man as worldly as Cy, she must have been a pushover. If she’d had any idea how things were going to turn out, she’d never have…

Who was she kidding? She laughed bitterly. She’d have done exactly the same thing, because Cy fascinated her. He still did, after all the grief and pain. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen in her life, and she remembered those long lovings in his arms as if they’d happened yesterday.

Now she’d landed herself back in his orbit again and taken a job that she had no business taking. She was living a lie. But as she remembered the reasons for her visit, her blood began to boil. Cy had discarded her like garbage, she and the child she’d been carrying. He’d turned his back on her and left her to fend for herself with a theft charge hanging over her head.

She hadn’t come back to rekindle an old love affair. She’d come back for revenge. Henry had taught her that everyone had a weakness that could be exploited in business. And some people were better at hiding their Achilles’ heels than others. Cy was a past master. She’d have to be very careful if she was going to locate his. But in the end she’d get the upper hand, and he’d be out in the cold. She meant to cost him everything, to put him in the same horrible position he’d put her in so long ago. Her eyes narrowed as she considered the possibilities, and a cold smile touched her disciplined mouth.

Meredith was no longer a naive eighteen-year-old deeply in love with a man she couldn’t have. She held all the aces this time. And when she played her hand, it was going to be the sweetest pleasure since Cy’s treacherous kisses.

CHAPTER THREE

MEREDITH HAD BROUGHT some old clothes with her, so that she wouldn’t arouse Cy’s suspicions by looking too prosperous. Now, as she dressed for her new job, she was glad.

She stepped into a neat denim skirt that matched her white cotton long-sleeved blouse. She put on soft-soled loafers and discarded her Gucci purse for a brown vinyl one. Then she put up her hair in a neat French braid at the back of her head and left the house to catch a bus to work.

Billings was gorgeous first thing in the morning, Meredith thought as she savored the cool morning air. This spacious city was a world away from the bustle of Chicago. She missed her son, and even Mr. Smith and Don, but the change had already revived her fighting spirit and made her feel less depressed. The incredible pressures she faced daily in her work had been getting to her lately.

Meredith stepped off the bus in front of the restaurant. It was a prosperous one, very large and attached to a hotel. She noticed through the window that all the waitresses wore spotless white uniforms. It had been a long time since she had felt nervous around people, but here, without the cocoon of her wealth to cushion her, she was ill at ease. She found the cashier and asked for the manager.

“Mrs. Dade is just through there,” the woman said pleasantly. “Is she expecting you?”

“I think so.”

Meredith knocked on the door and walked in, surprised to find the woman almost twenty years older than she was. Perhaps she’d been harboring the subconscious thought that Mrs. Dade might be one of Cy’s old lovers, but she had to revise that opinion now.

“I’m Meredith…Ashe,” she said hesitantly. The name sounded strange. She was so used to being called Kip Tennison.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Dade said, smiling as she stood up behind her huge polished wood desk. She was a tall woman, her red hair mingling with silver above a broad, happy face. “I’m Trudy Dade. I’m glad to meet you. Cy said that you’d just lost your aunt and needed work. Luckily for both of us, we’ve got an opening. Have you had experience at waitressing?”

“Well, a little,” Meredith replied. “I used to work at the Bear Claw years ago.”

“I remember. I thought I recognized you.” Her gray eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “I’m sorry about your aunt.”

“I’ll miss her,” Meredith said softly. “She was the only real relative I had in the world.”

Mrs. Dade’s perceptive gaze swept over Meredith, leaving no detail untouched. She nodded. “It’s hard work, but the tips are good, and I’m not a slavedriver. You can start now. You’ll get off at six, but you’ll have to work some evenings. That’s unavoidable in this business.”

“I don’t mind that,” Meredith said easily. “I don’t need my evenings free.”

Mrs. Dade’s eyebrows arched. “At your age? For heaven’s sake, you’re not married?”

“No.” Meredith didn’t say it rudely, but there was something in her manner that made the other woman visibly uncomfortable.

“Off men, then?” Mrs. Dade smiled and didn’t pursue it, going on to detail Meredith’s duties and her salary, along with information about uniforms and territory.

Meredith was busy giving herself a lecture on keeping to the part she was playing. It wouldn’t do to assume Kip Tennison’s persona every time someone pried too deeply. She forced a smile and listened with every indication of interest, while at the back of her mind she wondered how long it was going to be before Cy Harden made his next move.

LATE THAT AFTERNOON, Cy walked into the gardens at the huge Harden estate. His eyes lingered halfheartedly on the Greek revival columns on the house’s wide front porch. He remembered playing on that porch as a child, with his mother nearby, watching him. She had always been far too possessive and protective of her only child, a condition that, in later years, had caused friction between them. In fact, their relationship had fallen apart with the departure of Meredith Ashe. Cy had changed, in visible and not-so-visible ways.

He hung his hat on the antique hat rack in the hall and wandered absently into the elegant living room, gathering the usual impressions of pastel brocades and thick neutral shag carpeting and the priceless antiques his mother loved.

She was sitting on her wing chair, crocheting. Her dark eyes lifted and she smiled at him a little too brightly. “You’re home early, aren’t you?” she asked.

“I finished early.” He poured himself a stiff whiskey and sank onto his own armchair. “I’ll be out for dinner. The Petersons are hosting a business discussion on some new mineral leases.”

“Business, business,” she muttered. “There’s more to life than making money. Cy, you really should marry. I’ve introduced you to two very nice young women, debutantes…”

“I won’t marry,” he said with a cold smile. He lifted his whiskey glass in a mock toast. “I took the cure. Remember?”

His mother went pasty white and dropped her eyes to her thin, nervous hands. “That…was a long time ago.”

“It was yesterday.” He threw down the rest of the whiskey and got up to refill the glass. Remembering was painful. “She’s back in town, did you know?”

There was a funereal stillness in the room. “She?”

The word came out sounding as if his mother had choked on it. He turned. “Meredith Ashe. I gave her a job at the restaurant.”

Myrna Harden had lived with her terrible secret, and her guilt, for so long that she’d forgotten anyone else shared it. But Meredith did. Ironically, the very information she’d used to get Meredith out of town could now be turned against her with even more devastating results. The ensuing scandal could ruin her by destroying the failing relationship she had with her son. She panicked.

“You mustn’t!” she said frantically. “Cy, you mustn’t get yourself involved with that woman again! You can’t have forgotten what she did to you!”

His face gave away nothing. “No, Mother, I haven’t forgotten. And I’m not getting involved with her. Once was enough. Her great-aunt died.”

She swallowed nervously. “I didn’t know.”

“I’m sure there are bills to pay, loose ends to tidy up. She came from somewhere. She’ll probably go back there as soon as she’s got it all together.”

Myrna wasn’t so sure. “She’ll inherit the house.”

He nodded, staring into his second whiskey. He swirled the liquid carelessly. “She’ll have a roof over her head. I have no idea where she’s been all these years, but I know she had nothing when she left town.” His face hardened and he tossed down the whiskey as if it were water.

“That’s not true,” Myrna said quickly. “She had money!” Myrna had given her a wad of bills which Meredith had promptly returned. Myrna had always refused to believe, however, that the girl hadn’t kept enough of it to get out of town. It eased her conscience to think it.

Cy stared at his mother over the glass, curious about her expression and about the fear in her normally calm voice. “Tony gave back the money that was supposedly stolen. Had you forgotten?”

Her face went even paler. “I’m sure she had some money,” she faltered, lowering her eyes with raging guilt. “She must have.”

Cy’s eyes were thoughtful and bitter. “I was never comfortable with her part in it,” he said. “Tony gave us the story as if he’d learned it by heart, and Meredith swore to me that he’d never touched her, that they’d never been lovers.”

“A girl like that would have many lovers,” Myrna said, flushing.

Cy’s eyes went dark as he remembered the way it had been with Meredith, the fever that burned between them. He could still see her trembling because she wanted him so badly. Could she have been that way with any other man? She’d been as obsessed as he had, every bit as involved. He’d been too insanely jealous and angry to listen at the time his mother had accused her. It took only a couple of days after she left town for him to begin doubting her part in the so-called theft. It really had been very convenient that Tony subsequently produced all the “stolen money,” and that Myrna insisted the boy not be arrested. The whole matter blew over after Meredith left town. But she hadn’t looked guilty. She’d looked…defeated.

He hadn’t questioned that. Perhaps he should have asked questions, but he’d deeply resented his helpless attraction to Meredith at the time. It had been almost a relief to have her out of his life, to close once and for all the door to his sexual excesses, to the headlong, wanton passion she had kindled in him. There had been a brief affair or two since then, but no woman had been able to make him lose control the way Meredith had. He wasn’t sure he was even capable of it now. He felt dead inside. That was how Meredith had looked the last time he’d seen her, standing with her head bent in the hall of his home. She’d looked as if something inside her had died, and her accusing eyes had burned indelibly into his mind. He could see them even now.

He turned. “It’s all past history. There’s nothing left to build on, even if I were tempted. She was a fling. Nothing more.”

Myrna relaxed a little. “I’m glad to hear it. Really, Cy, a waitress with a full-blooded Crow Indian for a great-uncle. Not our kind of people.”

Under his heavy brows, his eyes glittered. “Isn’t that a little snobbish for descendants of a British deserter?”

Myrna actually gasped. “We don’t speak of that!”

He shrugged. “Why not? Everybody has a black sheep in the family tree.”

“Don’t be absurd. Sheep don’t climb trees.” She put down her crocheting. “I’ll tell Ellen that you won’t be in for dinner.”

She walked past him, her mind whirling with fear and new complications. She didn’t know what she was going to do. She couldn’t have Meredith Ashe in Billings, not now, when she was doing her best to get Cy married. Dragging up an old love affair was the last thing he needed. She’d have to get Meredith out of town, and fast, before she had time to play on Cy’s sympathy or make any hints about what had happened.

The baby…had she kept the baby she was carrying? Myrna ground her teeth at the thought of Cy’s child being put up for adoption. The baby would have been a Harden, her blood. She hadn’t allowed herself to think of that at the time. She only considered what was best for Cy, and she knew Meredith wasn’t. She’d cut that woman out of his life with surgical precision, and if Myrna could help it, she wasn’t coming back into it now. But she did want to know about the child. If Meredith hadn’t had an abortion, there might be a way to get the child. She’d think about that, and about how to explain it to Cy without involving Meredith in his life again. Having successfully coped with the menace once, she was confident of her ability to do it again.

THE DAY PASSED QUICKLY for Meredith. She gained confidence as she worked, and she liked the people she worked with. They all accepted her at face value, helping her learn the routine and covering for her when she was slow at getting orders to customers. She especially liked Theresa, who was twenty and a raven-haired brunette, a Crow, like Meredith’s late great-uncle.

Mealtime, however, meant crowds. The food was of sufficient variety and price to attract local people as well as out-of-towners. Many conferences were held in Billings, and not only in the cattle industry. The visitors liked the simple but elegant fare provided—even the southerners. That morning she’d waited on a gentleman from Alabama who was disappointed that grits weren’t served for breakfast this far north. She noticed that he was back for dinner, though, and giving her frankly interested looks. She fended them off politely. Men had no part in her life anymore.

He was persistent, however. Meredith was busy warding him off once again while he ordered his evening meal when a familiar face came into view at a nearby table. Cy. And not only Cy. Myrna Harden, too.

Meredith used all of her skills at diplomacy to release herself from the Alabama gentleman and quickly turned in his order. As she did, she remembered that once she’d have switched tables with another waitress to avoid Myrna Harden. Those days were over. She turned and walked over to the table—one of hers—with easy pleasantness, belied only by the cold cruelty of her eyes as they met Myrna Harden’s for the first time in years.

“Good evening. Would you like something to drink before you order?” she asked politely.

Myrna’s dark eyes flickered. “I don’t drink,” she said flatly. “As you might remember, Meredith.”

Meredith looked straight at her, ignoring Cy altogether. “It might surprise you what I remember, Mrs. Harden,” she said quietly. “And my name is Miss Ashe.”

The older woman laughed, too high pitched and much too mocking for pleasant amusement. “My, aren’t you arrogant for a waitress?” She toyed nervously with the utensils in the place setting. “I’d like to see a menu.”

Meredith produced two. “I’ll have a glass of white wine,” Cy told Meredith, shifting back on his chair to gauge her reactions. His mother’s hostility disturbed him. Surely he was the one with the grudges.

“Coming right up,” Meredith said. As she stood at the bar waiting for the drink, she took the opportunity to study her two antagonists. Cy was wearing a dark suit with a conservative tie. His creamy Stetson was parked on a chair at the table, and his thick dark hair was swept back neatly. He didn’t look as if anything would ruffle him, his lean face completely without expression, his deep-set brown eyes staring straight ahead. But his mother was fidgeting beside him. Meredith could see her eyes dart nervously from left to right.

That body language was revealing. Meredith found it as explicit as a confession. She smiled, slowly and with cold malice, and at that moment Myrna looked at her.

Her well made up face went pasty. There was something in the expression on that girl’s face, Myrna thought, something in that cold stare that made her backbone turn to jelly. This wasn’t the same girl she’d sent packing. No. There was something very different about Meredith now, and it made her begin to feel nauseated.

Meredith took Cy’s drink back to the table and placed it before him. She then produced her pad and pen with perfectly steady fingers, mentally thanking Henry for the poise and self-confidence he’d engendered in her.

“These aren’t necessary,” Cy said curtly, pushing the menu away. “I’ll have a steak and salad.”

“So will I,” Myrna said stiffly. “Rare, please. I don’t like well-done meat.”

“Same here,” Cy replied.

“Two rare steaks,” Meredith murmured, letting her eyes slide sideways to meet Cy’s.

“Rare, not raw,” he said, uncannily reading the thought in her mind. “I don’t want it to get up and moo at me.”

Meredith had to fight down a smile. “Yes, sir. It won’t be long.”

She left them to give in the order, then served it minutes later with cool courtesy.

“She’s very efficient, isn’t she?” Myrna said icily as they ate. “I can remember one time when she spilled coffee all down my dress, when you took me to that horrid little café for lunch.”

“You made her nervous,” Cy said tersely. He disliked the memory. His mother had gone out of her way to make Meredith uncomfortable, sniping at her constantly.

“Apparently I don’t anymore,” Myrna said with faint apprehension. She cut a piece of steak very delicately and raised it to her thin lips, chewing it deliberately before she swallowed. “Maybe she’s married. Did you ask?”

Cy glared at her. “I didn’t have to. She obviously isn’t.”

Myrna smiled. “If you say so. Odd, though, isn’t it? A pretty girl of her age, still single.”

“Maybe I’m a hard act to follow,” Cy said cuttingly, and smiled in that unpleasant way that made Myrna shift on her chair.

“Don’t be crude, dear. Pass me the salt, please.”

Cy obliged her. He finished his meal, but he hardly tasted it. Watching Meredith move around the restaurant disturbed him. She was as graceful as ever. More so. There was a new carriage about her, a new confidence combined with a total lack of inhibition. She was nothing like the shy, loving, uncertain girl he’d taken to bed so many years ago. But she still made him burn. His reaction to her was as potent as ever, and he was fighting it with everything in him. Regardless of his mother’s inexplicable hostility toward Meredith, he knew that he couldn’t let the younger woman conquer his senses again. He’d been free from her, and he wanted to stay that way. Being taken over wasn’t in the cards. Never again was he going to give in to that sweet madness.

Meredith brought the check and thanked them with a friendly smile, even adding that she hoped they had a nice evening. It was the way she said it, looking straight into Myrna Harden’s eyes, that made it a threat instead of a farewell.

Myrna was silent all the way home. No, this wouldn’t do, it really wouldn’t. Presumably Meredith wasn’t a woman of means, even if she did now own her great-aunt’s house. A little money, a few words of warning, might be enough to remove the threat once and for all. She’d work it out.

Cy drove down the wide streets, unaware of his mother’s plotting. He was trying not to think about how that neat uniform covered Meredith’s assets as he fought down the memories once more.

MEREDITH WAS WORN OUT by the time she started home. It was late, and her feet hurt. It had been a long time since she’d been on them all day.

She liked this city. She’d grown up outside Billings, in a tiny community several miles north of the Yellowstone. Her parents were shadowy figures in her mind, because they’d been killed in a wreck when she was just a small girl. Her only real memories were of Great-Aunt Mary and Great-Uncle Raven-Walking, who’d taken her in without hesitation and raised her as their own daughter. Since they had lived on the Crow Indian reservation, some of Meredith’s earliest memories revolved around great celebrations and ceremonial occasions, her great-uncle in full Crow regalia. Meredith used to own a buckskin dress and a beaded headband that a Crow cousin had made for her. It seemed forever ago, now. Once painful, these memories had became bearable. The past was a safe place. Unchanged. Nothing could alter it. The good memories lived inside her, like the love she still had for the dark-eyed man who looked like her son.

She got off the bus near the house she’d bought for Great-Aunt Mary. It was a beautiful September evening, just right for walking. She enjoyed the invigorating cool weather. But snow wasn’t far off, just another month or so. In this part of the world, it could be more than an inconvenience. Out in the isolated rural areas, it could be deadly to animals and humans alike when huge drifts of snow blocked roads and made travel impossible for long periods of time.

Amazing, she thought, how far she’d come from the ragged little girl living in the matchbox house on the Crow reservation with her relatives. She was wealthy now. No more homemade dresses and secondhand shoes. All the same, her childhood had been full of love. That was surely worth more than all the money in the world. Remembering those good days with her kin had made her keenly aware of the plight of the people on the reservation. She regularly contributed to causes that would benefit the Plains Indians, and she still did her share of gift giving to her cousins and their families. With no return address, of course. It was still only a drop in the bucket to what was needed. But every little bit helped. Family was family.

She locked the door behind her and sat down on the sofa, her eyelids falling listlessly. But she couldn’t go to sleep. She had to call home. She’d promised Blake that she would.

Drowsily, she dialed the number direct and waited for Mr. Smith to answer it.

“Tennison residence,” his gravelly voice greeted.

She smiled. “Hi, Mr. Smith,” she said lazily. “How’s everything?”

He chuckled. “Blake flushed his rubber duck down the toilet. Not to worry, I rushed out and bought him another. The plumber unstopped the overflow. Everything’s fine.” There was a pause. “How are you?”

“I’m working,” she replied. “I got this great job waitressing at a local restaurant. I make minimum wage plus tips, isn’t that great?”

There was a longer pause. “You have a job?”

“Just temporary. It’s Cy Harden’s restaurant, you see. Proximity to the enemy may give me a small advantage while I search out his weak spots.”

“Be careful that he doesn’t find yours,” he cautioned. “Don’s here. He had to get some papers from your desk. Want to talk to him?”

She frowned. Odd that Don would be at her home this time of night. “Yes.”

Don picked up the line, sounding a little uncertain. “Nice to hear from you,” he said. “I, uh, had to have the Jordan file. You brought it home.”

Her brows knitted. “I was working on the Jordan merger. You know that. Why do you want it?”

“Jordan and Cane insisted that we get the deal through this week. Unless you want to fly up here to ramrod it…?”

“No,” she said abruptly. “Of course not. Go ahead. I should have phoned you earlier about that, but it slipped my mind.”

“That’s a first,” he said.

“I suppose so. You’ll still need my signature, won’t you?”

“Yes. You can fax it….”

“I don’t have a fax machine,” she said. She grimaced. “Send the papers express. I’ll have them back within a day.”

“Will do. You need a fax machine.”

“I know. Mr. Smith can bring it out next week and fetch my office equipment with him. I may be here for a few weeks, but I’ll make sure the business doesn’t suffer because of it. I can handle my end at night. I’ll call in every day and check on everything at the office.”

“Are you sure such a long absence is wise?” Don asked cautiously.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said darkly. “Listen, Don, I’m not some flighty female with no business sense, and you know it. Henry taught me everything he knew.”

“Yes, he did, didn’t he?”

Don sounded bitter. Meredith wondered sometimes if he didn’t resent having part of his brother’s corporation headed by an outsider. He was pleasant enough, but there had always been a little distance between them, as if he didn’t quite trust her.

“I won’t let you down,” she said. “This mineral deal is the most important thing I have on my agenda, regardless of how much time it takes. If I can find a weakness in Harden’s stranglehold on the property, I can take advantage of it.”

“Are you sure that it’s the corporation you’re concerned with, and not taking vengeance on Harden himself?”

She didn’t answer that. “I’m glad to have the Jordan matter dealt with. Will you put Mr. Smith back on, please?”

He cleared his throat. “Of course. I’m sorry if I sounded antagonistic. I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”

“Yes. I know how it is.”

“Meredith, are you sure Smith should have that iguana running loose in the house? The thing weighs almost ten pounds, and it’s got claws like a cat and teeth like a snake….”

“Tiny is part of the family,” she said simply. “She doesn’t bother anything. She just sits on the back of Mr. Smith’s chair until she’s hungry, then she goes to the kitchen and eats her vegetables. She has a litter box in the bathroom, which she uses, and she never attacks anybody. Blake loves her, too.”

“It’s unnatural, having a big reptile slithering around everywhere. The plumber screamed when he came to unstop the commode. Tiny was sitting under the shower, having a bath.”

“Poor plumber,” she murmured, smothering a giggle.

“Yes, well, he said not to call him again. See what I mean? That reptile is a menace.”

“Tell that to Mr. Smith. I’d do it from behind a door, though.”

“I see what you mean. All right. Your house, your problem.”

“It should have been your house, Don,” she said unexpectedly. “I’m sorry it worked out this way. You’re Henry’s brother, his only blood relative. The bulk of the estate should have been yours.”

Don sighed sharply. “Henry had the right to do what he pleased with it,” he said, and the hostility abruptly left his voice, to be replaced by a tone that was almost regretful. “You were his wife, after all. He loved you.”

“I loved him, too,” she said. She meant it. Henry had been her refuge in that terrible storm of anguish Cy had caused. It wasn’t the kind of love she’d felt for Cy, but it was love all the same. Given enough time, with Cy’s presence removed permanently, she might have come to love Henry with the same fervor he’d offered her.

“This mineral monopoly the Hardens have,” Don said, his voice strange. “Are you sure you want to go through with this? Harden is a formidable businessman. You could be risking more than you realize.”

“Expansion without risk is like bread without butter. No flavor. Take care, Don. Let me speak to Mr. Smith again, please.”

“Okay. I’ll call him. Take care of yourself.”

“Sure.”

Minutes later, Mr. Smith was back on the line. “He’s gone,” he said curtly. “I don’t trust him, Kip. Neither should you. I think he’s up to something.”

“I’ll bet you’re the most suspicious man on earth. It must be that old CIA experience affecting your brain. Don’s all right.”

“He said Tiny should be kept outside,” he said after a minute.

She laughed. “Tiny would be miserable outside. It’s my house. As long as it is my house, Tiny lives inside. Okay?”

He relaxed. “Okay.” He made a rough sound. “Thanks.”

“I want you to come out here next week.” She gave him a list of the things she needed and set a time. “Call Blake, will you?” she added. “I hate being away from him so much. At least we can talk on the phone. I know it’s late, but I do want to say hello.”

“He’ll be glad to do that. He’s already missing you again.”

She sighed. “I do travel a lot, don’t I? Too much, sometimes.”

“Uh, about Tiny…”

“I’ll get a new plumber,” she promised. “Don’t worry.”

She could almost see him grin. “Okay.”

Seconds later her son picked up the phone. “Mama, when are you coming home?” he asked sleepily. “My rubber duck fell in the cubbymode and Mr. Smith throwed him away. He got me a new one. Did you buy me a present? I can count to twenty, and I can write my name….”

“That’s very nice. I’m proud of you, son. You’re coming to see me soon, and I’ll have a present for you.” She crossed her fingers. She would have, by then.

There was a brief pause. “Can’t you stay home then and play with me sometimes? Jerry’s mama takes him to the park to see the ducks. You never take me places, Mama.”

She had to grit her teeth not to make some sharp reply about the necessity for her work. “When I get home, we’ll talk about that,” she said.

“That’s what you always say, but you go away again,” he muttered angrily.

“Blake, this isn’t the time for an argument,” she said firmly. “Now, listen. Mr. Smith is going to bring you out here very soon. There’s a lot to see, even some real cowboys, and we’ll have time to spend together.”

“We will?” he asked with such delight that she felt guilty all over again.

“Yes,” she promised.

“All right, Mama. Can we bring Tiny? Uncle Don says we ought to eat her. I think Uncle Don’s mean.”

“Now, now. We aren’t going to eat Tiny. Mr. Smith can bring her with you when you come out here to see me. But not just yet, okay?”

“Okay.” He sighed sadly. “Can Tiny sit with me when we come?”

“Tiny’s carrier can sit with you,” she corrected, remembering vividly the last time Mr. Smith had taken Tiny in the limousine with them on a trip. A small-town garage attendant had refused to pump gas after Tiny had pressed her nose against the window to look at him. People shouldn’t carry monsters around in their cars, he’d added scornfully. Mr. Smith had gotten out of the car to answer that insult, but the attendant was already out of range. Ever since then, Tiny rode in a carrier because Meredith insisted.

“I love you, Mommy,” Blake said.

“I love you, too, darling. I’ll call you tomorrow. You mind Mr. Smith and be a good boy.”

“I will. Night-night.”

“Good night.”

She hung up, fingering the receiver tenderly. Blake was the most important thing in her world. Sometimes she regretted bitterly the time she had to spend away from him on business. He was growing up, and she was missing some of the most precious days of his life. Would he resent that when he was older? Was she being fair to him not to let Don assume more of the responsibility for the domestic operations or to designate another corporate officer to help her? Perhaps her own pride was adding to the problem, because she felt obligated to carry on the role Henry had originally carved out for her. But would Henry have given her so much responsibility if he’d realized how it would affect her relationship with Blake?

No, she thought. He’d have delegated to give her more time with her son. He would have been with her himself, too, playing with Blake, taking him places, encouraging his curiosity about the world around him. Henry had loved Blake so much.

She turned away from the phone. Sometimes life without Henry was very hard. She wondered what it would have been like if Cy Harden had ignored his mother’s accusations and believed in Meredith, if he’d married her. They’d have been together when Blake was born, and perhaps the delight of having a son would have bound Cy to her.

She laughed coldly. Oh, certainly. Blake would have warmed his cold heart, and he’d have fallen madly in love with Meredith and kicked his manipulative mother out on her ear.

All of it whirled around in her head, blinding her. The pressure of business, Blake’s indignation and resentment of her absences, Cy Harden’s renewed presence in her life. She tugged at her thick blond hair and remembered something she’d read about “primal scream therapy.” She wondered what the neighbors would say if she went out into the street and screamed at the top of her lungs. She’d be locked up, that’s what, and then who’d take care of Blake, acquire new contracts, and deal with Cy Harden and his vicious mother?

She went upstairs and took a tranquilizer. She didn’t take them often, but sometimes the pressure was so terrible that she couldn’t cope. Alcohol, thank God, had never appealed to her. Neither did pills. She only took them when she had no other option. This was one of those nights.

With a long sigh, she showered and dressed for bed. It did no good at all to agonize and theorize over problems. Henry had taught her that. The only way to deal with a situation was with action, not mental gymnastics.

She lay down and closed her eyes. The tranquilizer began to work and she left it all behind, drifting off into a twilight of semiawareness. Sometimes, they said, a good night’s sleep was all that stood between an anguished person and suicide. She wasn’t suicidal, but oblivion was sweet, just the same.

CHAPTER FOUR

AS DAWN STREAMED THROUGH the curtains in Great-Aunt Mary’s immaculate bedroom, Meredith lay drowsily between the clean white sheets of the four-poster bed. She was remembering back. Cy’s cold aloofness, Myrna’s hot accusations, Tony’s confession…She could still feel the sickness as she ran from the Harden house to her Great-Aunt Mary’s. She couldn’t even tell the worried old lady or her great-uncle the truth about what had happened. It was too shameful to share.

She’d packed her bags and gone straight to the bank to withdraw her pitiful savings from her restaurant job. With no clear idea of what she’d do when she got there, she’d bought a one-way bus ticket to Chicago and kissed her worried relatives good-bye before she boarded the Greyhound and said a silent farewell to Cy.

Even then, she’d hoped that he might come after her. Hope died hard, and she was carrying his child. She’d even hoped that Myrna might relent and tell him the truth, because Myrna knew about her pregnancy. The older woman had made that apparent just before Cy came into the room that long-ago morning. But no one came. No one rushed to the bus station to stop her.

The Chicago bus terminal had been unwelcoming, crowded and busy. Clutching her worn suitcase in her hand, Meredith had fought down the instinctive fear of being alone and without visible means of support. There was always the YWCA if everything else failed. She’d find some place. But she felt sick and afraid, and always there was the threat of Myrna pursuing her over that supposedly stolen money.

The first three nights she’d spent at the YMCA in tears, mourning Cy and the life that could have been. But then she’d been told about another place, a Christian home with only a few tenants. She’d decided to try her luck there, hoping for a little more privacy in which to spend her grief without the prying, compassionate eyes of the other downtrodden women at the Y.

She remembered leaving the YWCA, wandering aimlessly down the cracked sidewalk while the cold winter wind whipped her long hair around her thin, pale face. As a few snow flurries touched coldly against her cheeks and eyelids and lips, she wondered what to do next.

Fate took a hand when she stepped off the curb without looking and found herself flat on the pavement, beside a very expensive limousine.

A minute later, a quiet, intelligent face came into focus, a face with deep blue eyes and thin lips, high cheekbones and brownish blond hair.

“Are you all right?” asked a velvety voice. “You’re very pale.”

The voice had what sounded to Meredith like a definite New York accent. She’d heard it often enough in the café when tourists passed through. She smiled. “I’m fine,” she murmured. “I guess I fell.”

The man’s eyes lit up. “I guess you did. But we helped a little, didn’t we, Mr. Smith?”

A second man came into view. This one was a giant with thinning dark hair and big, deep-set green eyes, with an imposing nose in a chiseled face. He was wearing a chauffeur’s uniform. “I couldn’t brake quickly enough,” he said. “But I’m sorry. It was my fault.”

“No,” Meredith said weakly. “I felt faint. I’m pregnant….”

The two men exchanged a speaking glance. “Your husband?” the first man asked. “Is he with you?”

“I don’t have…a husband,” she whispered, and tears sprang to her eyes. “He doesn’t know.”

“Oh, boy.” Henry smoothed back her long, disheveled hair with a gentle hand. “Well, you’d better come with us.”

In her naive way, Meredith equated big black limousines with organized crime. This man was dressed fit to kill, and his driver looked every inch a mobster. She hadn’t run away from one dangerous situation to land herself in another.

“I can’t do that,” she blurted out, her big eyes saying more than she realized as she looked from one of them to the other.

“Will it help if we introduce ourselves?” The thin man smiled. “I’m Henry Tennison. This is Mr. Smith. I’m a legitimate businessman.” He leaned closer, his lazy eyes smiling at her. “We’re not even Italian.”

One look at the humor in his face, and all her apprehension disappeared.

“That’s better. Help me get her in the car, Smith. I think we’re becoming the center of attention.”

Belatedly, Meredith realized they were blocking traffic. Other drivers were making their irritation known with their horns. She allowed herself to be put in the back of the limousine with Henry Tennison while the formidable Mr. Smith stashed her luggage in the trunk.

She looked around her at the luxurious interior of the car. Real leather. Not to mention a bar, a television, a cellular phone, and some odd kind of computer and printer. “You must be worth a fortune,” she said without thinking.

“I am,” Henry mused. “But it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I’m a slave to my job.”

“Everything has a price, hasn’t it?” Meredith asked sadly.

“Apparently.” He leaned back and folded his arms as Mr. Smith started the car and pulled into traffic, leaving the loud horns behind. “Tell me about the baby.”

Without knowing why she trusted him implicitly, a man she didn’t even know, she began to talk. She told him about Cy and the beginning of their love affair, her voice quiet and slow as she skipped over the passion to his mother’s interference and her speedy departure in disgrace.

“I guess I must sound like a tramp to you,” she concluded.

“Don’t be absurd,” he said gently. “I’m not an impressionable youth. Is the father going to come after you?”

She shook her head. “He believed his mother.”

“Too bad. Well, you can come home with me for the time being. Don’t worry. I’m not a lecher, even if I am a certified bachelor. I’ll look after you until you find your feet.”

“But, I can’t—”

“We’ll have to get you some clothes,” he said, thinking aloud. “And your hair needs work, too.”

“I haven’t said—”

“Delia, my secretary, can look after you while I’m away. I’ll have her move in, just to keep everything aboveboard. And you’ll need a good obstetrician. I’ll have Delia take care of that, too.”

Meredith caught her breath at the way he was arranging her life. “But—”

“How old are you?”

She swallowed. “Eighteen.”

His eyes narrowed on her thin face. “Eighteen,” he murmured. “A little young, but it will work out.”

“What will work out?”

“Never mind.” He leaned forward, his hands dangling between his knees as he stared straight into her eyes. “You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.” He sat back again. “Do you like quiche?”

“What?”

“Quiche. It’s a kind of French egg pie—Oh, never mind. I’ll show you when we get home.”

Home was a penthouse apartment in one of the most expensive hotels in Chicago. Meredith, who’d never known anything grander than Great-Aunt Mary’s small house, was shocked and delighted at the luxury. She stood in the entrance to the living room and just stared.

“Don’t let it intimidate you,” Henry said, smiling. “You’ll get used to it in no time at all.”

Incredibly, she had. Without quite knowing how, she became Henry Tennison’s possession. She was maneuvered into marriage scant weeks later and shipped out of the country to one of Henry’s houses in the Bahamas, near Nassau. Her name became Kip Tennison. Henry undertook her advanced education in business tactics and strategy, in between natural childbirth classes with a registered nurse he hired to live in and look after Kip. During this time, he anticipated the baby with all the delight of its real father, spoiled his young wife, and seemed to lose twenty years of age as he involved himself with her pregnancy.

She sighed, remembering how it had been. Slowly, she had begun to replace Cy’s face with Henry’s, to trust her husband, to confide in him. She warmed to him. When the baby was born, he was with her at the delivery in Nassau, and as the tiny infant was placed in his arms, tears fell from his eyes.

It was only later that she discovered Henry was sterile, that he could never have a child of his own. It was why he was single at the age of thirty-eight—why he’d never asked anyone to marry him until Meredith came along. But fatherhood seemed to come naturally to him, and he treated Blake as if the infant were his own blood child.

In all the months they’d waited for Blake, he’d never touched Meredith. She wouldn’t have refused him. He was kinder to her than anyone had ever been. He worshiped her, and slowly she began to return his warm affection, to look forward to their time together.

Then, almost inevitably, he came to her one night. It was as if there had never been a woman, he told her softly while he loved her. And while it wasn’t the intense passion she’d shared with Cy, it wasn’t at all unpleasant. Because Henry loved her, she was able to indulge him. He was a tender, expert lover, and she felt no revulsion at being touched by him. And if he ever suspected that, with her eyes closed, she sometimes thought of Cy as she gave herself to him, he never said so. They were compatible. They got along well together, with mutual respect and affection, and Blake was their world.

It had all fallen apart the day Henry left on a business trip and his plane crashed into the Atlantic. Meredith had felt something with him the night before that she hadn’t experienced in their marriage. A merging, a oneness, that left her sobbing in his arms afterward. For the first time, she’d curled into his body and refused to let go. She was glad about that, when the news came. She’d finally told him that she loved him. If he’d lived…

She sat at the funeral with anguish in her eyes, and even her brother-in-law, Don, who’d been so distant with her, softened as he realized how genuine her grief was.

Henry was gone. But he’d been a good tutor, and Meredith had been an excellent student. She didn’t stop learning after he died and left her with control of the domestic operation. Possessed already of a keen, intuitive mind, she found the give and take of negotiating right up her alley. In her first month, she astounded the corporate directors with her ability to size up a potential acquisition and land it with a minimum of fuss. Despite their initial desire to kick her out, the directors became her greatest fans—to the chagrin of Henry’s brother, who was secretly nurturing a jealous resentment of Meredith’s power that grew by the day.

Unaware of that resentment, Meredith barreled through business like a velvet bulldozer. She was enjoying power for the first time in her life and loving her job as mother to Blake. All the while, as Meredith grew in strength, she never stopped thinking about Cy Harden and his venomous mother. Don had been right about one thing. Her interest in Harden Properties went far beyond mineral rights acquisitions. She wanted to back Cy into a corner and cut him to ribbons, while his arrogant mother stood by helplessly and watched. She wanted Myrna Harden to suffer along with her son. Meredith was so far gone with regard to the Hardens that revenge was the only thing that registered. Whether Don liked it or not—and of course, he didn’t—she wasn’t leaving Billings until she had the Hardens on their knees, no matter what it took to get them there.

She got up and dressed, taking time to pour herself a cup of coffee before she left the house. Mrs. Dade didn’t like her employees having breakfast on her time. She was a good boss, and a fair one, for all that.

The phone rang and Meredith yawned lazily as she answered it.

“Good, you’re home,” Mr. Smith said. “Don had me fly out with those Jordan papers for your signature. He said express mail was too slow. I’ll be with you in five minutes.”

“All right.” She hung up, surprised. It wasn’t like Don to send the corporate jet just for some routine papers. Perhaps the merger was more complicated than she’d realized.

She met Mr. Smith at the door with a cup of strong black coffee. He grinned as he took it.

“Here.” He handed her the papers, then produced in short order her computer and printer, the fax machine, and boxes of paper. Meredith had him put them in the library, which she then locked.

“Now, I’ve no excuse not to work.” She laughed, having only just realized how free she’d been until that dreaded equipment arrived. “How’s Blake?” she asked.

“Fine. I left him with Perlie just for the morning. I’ll be back before he misses me. I brought you this, too.” He handed her a case of fresh orange juice. “You’ll need plenty of vitamin C to help you build back up.”

She laughed. “Well, I guess this qualifies as necessary equipment.”

“Essential, if you’re going to live in Billings for a while.” He sipped coffee while she signed documents. “Heard from Harden?”

“Not today. He and his mother had dinner at the restaurant last night.”

“How’s it going?” he asked.

She glanced at him ruefully. “It’s painful. But I expect the end result will be worth it.”

His green eyes narrowed as they scanned her face. “Don’t get caught again. Mr. Tennison wouldn’t like having you hurt twice.”

She smiled at him, remembering how Henry had cosseted her. Mr. Smith did, too. It was almost like having Henry back again when Mr. Smith was around. “You’re good to me, Mr. Smith,” she said.

He looked uncomfortable and averted his eyes. “No trouble to be good to someone like you. Sign those papers, please, so I can get out of here. Your brother-in-law was impatient to get the merger finished.”

“So I see.” She took her time reading the documents, suspicious at Don’s eagerness. But the papers were just routine, no surprises. She didn’t understand why it was so urgent. Then it occurred to her that Don was literally taking the merger out of her hands, and it all made sense. He was showing her up.

“You look worried,” Mr. Smith remarked.

She shrugged as she handed the papers back. “I never credited Don with one-upmanship.”

“Competition runs in the Tennison clan.”

“Yes. Funny that I didn’t realize it before, isn’t it?”

“You’ve had a lot on your mind,” he replied noncommittally. “Don’t sweat it. Maybe the boss is just trying to give you a hand. God knows you could use one sometimes. You push yourself too hard.”

“Do I?” she mused.

“Too many long hours, too much time on the run. You’re several pounds light.”

She grinned. “Send me down to the gym and build me up, then.”

“Wish I could. Can’t keep you still long enough.” He went to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. “Watch your back. It gets dangerous up in the high altitudes.”

“I have noticed that,” she agreed.

Mr. Smith opened the door and walked out onto the porch, idly noting a car that hesitated as it passed the house. Nosy neighbors, he thought mockingly, motioning to the cabdriver.

“I’ll phone you tonight,” she said. “Tell Blake I love him.”

“He knows that.”

“It never hurts to tell him, all the same.”

He grinned and got into the cab. “Okay.”

Meredith watched the cab drive away. Mr. Smith was like family. When he was gone, she was alone again. Just like old times, she thought as she turned back into the house.

The knock on the door ten minutes later startled her. Perhaps Mr. Smith had forgotten something, she thought as she went to answer it.

Meredith opened the door to an unexpected visitor. Myrna Harden stood rigidly on her doorstep, dressed in black, her thin, pinched face hard with contempt and repugnance.

“I’ve been expecting you,” Meredith said with icy calm. “Come in.”

Myrna walked into the house, looking around with disdain. She took the best of the living room chairs and crossed her elegant legs, her purse clutched tightly on her lap.

“I’ll come straight to the point,” she said primly, producing a check. She held it out to Meredith. “That should make it worth your while to leave Billings for good.”

Meredith didn’t take it. She smiled vacantly. “Would you like coffee?”

“Thank you, no,” Myrna said stiffly. She waved the check. “It’s for ten thousand dollars,” she announced. “Take it and go away.”

Meredith eased down onto the sofa and crossed her jean-clad legs comfortably. “I went away, once.”

“Why didn’t you stay?” Myrna’s face stiffened even more. “What do you want? My son doesn’t care about you! He never did, or he’d have gone after you, surely you must realize that?” she demanded in an almost frantic high-pitched tone.

Yes, of course Meredith realized it, and almost winced at the old pain. “My great-aunt died,” she said with dignity.

Myrna’s inherent good manners flinched at the reminder. “I did know that. I’m sorry. But you must have been offered something for the house….”

“I don’t want to sell the house. It has pleasant memories for me. I don’t want to leave Billings just yet, either,” she added quietly, and some of the steely makeup Henry had taught her was coming into play. She looked straight into Myrna’s eyes, her posture open and threatening, her face giving away no weaknesses. “It will take more than ten thousand to get me out of Billings. It will take more than you’ve got.”

Myrna gasped. “You arrogant backwoods brat!”

“No name calling, if you please,” Meredith said easily. She studied the lined face without haste. “You haven’t worn well, have you? I’m not surprised. The guilt must have been terrible at times.”

Myrna actually paled. She clenched her purse tightly. “I don’t feel guilt.”

“You lied to your son, falsely accused me, cost me my home at a time when I desperately needed it…you don’t feel guilt for any of that?”

“You were a child, playing games,” Myrna rasped.

“I was a woman, deeply in love and pregnant with your grandchild,” Meredith said, the words delivered with the precision of a merciless scalpel. “You lied,” she accused, her eyes contemptuous.

“I had to,” Myrna cried. “I couldn’t let my son marry someone like you!”

“You never told Cy the truth, did you?” Meredith persisted.

Myrna swallowed. “I’ll give you twenty thousand dollars.”

“Tell him the truth.”

“Never!”

“That’s my price,” Meredith said, rising. “Tell Cy what you did to me, and I’ll go without a penny.”

The older woman looked frail. Damaged. She stood up, her lips trembling. “I can’t do that,” she said, shaken.

“You’ll wish you had, before I’m through,” Meredith said, her eyes as cold as Henry Tennison’s had ever been. “Did you really think you were going to get away with it forever?”

Myrna dug out a handkerchief with trembling fingers and dabbed at the corners of her mouth. She looked pasty. “Abortions are easy these days,” she said. “I gave you enough for one. I gave you enough to go away.”

“And I had it sent back to you, along with all Cy’s gifts, didn’t I?” Meredith challenged.

Myrna squirmed, but she didn’t answer.

“You told Cy I’d robbed the company of thousands, Tony and I. You had Tony tell him that we’d been lovers, that I’d betrayed him.”

“It was the only way I could get rid of you. He wouldn’t have let you go if I hadn’t. He was obsessed with you!”

Meredith laughed bitterly. “Obsessed, yes. But that was all. He didn’t love me. If he had, you and all your plotting wouldn’t have made the slightest difference.”

Satisfaction smoldered in Myrna’s eyes. “So you know that, do you?”

Meredith nodded, the heat building in her body from a temper suppressed too long. “I was naive, all right. I didn’t realize just how naive until you shot me out of here.”

“You haven’t fared badly, have you?” Myrna asked stiffly. “You look well. You’re still young.”

“There was a baby, Myrna.”

“Yes.” Myrna moved closer, her eyes calculating. “Did you have it? Did you put it up for adoption? I’ll give you anything. Cy never has to know. The baby will want for nothing!”

Meredith looked at the older woman incredulously. “Suppose someone had made you that offer when you were carrying Cy?”

Something happened in Myrna’s eyes. An expression came into them that Meredith had never seen there. An uncertainty. An anguish.

“All these years…You never knew where I was, or what I had to do to take care of myself, and you didn’t care,” Meredith said. “Now you waltz into my home and try to blackmail me out of town. You even have the audacity to try to buy a grandchild you didn’t give a damn about six years ago.”

“That isn’t true,” Myrna said, lowering her eyes. “I…tried to trace you.”

“Because you felt guilty about letting a Harden be put up for adoption?” Meredith said with a mocking smile when the older woman flushed guiltily. “Just as I thought.”

“You put him up for adoption, didn’t you?” Myrna persisted. “We could still find him. Or her. Which is it?”

“That’s something you can wonder about to your heart’s content,” Meredith said. “Whether I had an abortion, whether I had the baby and put it up for adoption, all of it. And you can take your offer of money with you. I’m afraid I still can’t be bought.” Meredith stood up.

Myrna rose from her chair looking nervous and shaken. “Everyone has a price,” she said. “Even you.”

“Oh, that’s true enough,” Meredith agreed. “But then, you know what my price is, don’t you?”

The older woman started to speak, but Meredith opened the door in a way that was more than a suggestion that she leave.

Myrna stopped in the doorway. “Your male visitor was very formidable, wasn’t he?” she asked. “Are you living with him?”

Meredith couldn’t find an answer fast enough. Myrna smiled venomously. “I’m sure Cy will be interested to hear that he’s been replaced in your affections. Good day.”

There was nothing she could say, nothing she could do, that would stop Myrna from taking news of Mr. Smith’s visit home to Cy. Not that she cared, really, she told herself. It would only fortify his opinion of her. Probably he couldn’t have a worse one. He’d accused her of being unfaithful many times, not just with Tony. Myrna Harden had said she was sleeping with Tony, and Tony had been paid not to deny it. Cy had thought of her as a tramp. She had no reason to suppose his attitude had changed over the years.

She went to work, and fortunately it was a busy day. She didn’t have to think. But dinner brought Cy back for the second night in a row, and his whole posture spelled trouble.

“May I get you something to drink?” she asked politely with carefully schooled features and a blank smile.

Cy’s dark eyes stared back at her from a face like a wall. “Who was the man your neighbor saw leaving your house early this morning?”

“It wasn’t a neighbor,” she replied carelessly. “It was your mother.”

He scowled. Apparently Myrna hadn’t shared her visit with him. Meredith smiled.

“Didn’t she tell you she came to see me? Pity. She offered me ten thousand dollars to leave town.”

“That’s a lie,” he said coldly.

She shrugged. “Okay. What would you like to eat?”

His face hardened. “My mother doesn’t need to pay you to leave town. I can get rid of you whenever I like.”

“Can you really?” she asked with genuine interest. “It would be fascinating to watch you try.”

“You don’t believe it?” His smile was calculating. “For instance, I could buy the mortgage on your aunt’s house and foreclose.”

“The house doesn’t have a mortgage,” she said easily. And it didn’t. Henry had paid it off, anonymously, through a Realty company in Illinois.

Cy was surprised. Something niggled at the back of his mind for just an instant before he dismissed it. “I could fire you.”

“I can get another job,” she said. “Even you can’t control quite every business in Billings. I seem to remember that you used to have enemies. I could go to one of them for work.”

His eyes flashed. “Try it.”

“Why don’t you ask your mother why she wants me to leave?” she asked quietly.

“I know why. She thinks you’ll worm your way into my life again and leave me bleeding, like you did years ago.”

She laughed softly. “You don’t bleed,” she said huskily. “If you did, it would be pure gold, or silver.”

“You cheated on me and helped another man steal from me. You’re the one who might bleed money, not me.”

“Think so?” The pain and anguish of the past contorted her features, made her eyes darker. “What you and your mother did to me didn’t count?”

“We did nothing to you,” he said tersely. “Although we could have. I could have sent you to prison for that theft.”

She shook her head. “Because a good attorney would have cut Tony to pieces on the witness stand. Where is the dear boy now?”

“I don’t know,” he said coldly.

“Don’t know, and don’t care.” She nodded. “Well, that’s too bad. I liked Tony, despite what he and your mother did to my life.”

“My mother did nothing to you!”

Her gaze was level and unflinching. “Nothing?” She leaned forward. “Ask her. I dare you. Ask her why I’m here, why I won’t leave. Ask her for the truth.”

His eyes glittered. “I know the truth. Don’t push me. You’re only here on sufferance.” He threw down his napkin and got up, towering over her. “You won’t find me as vulnerable this time.”

“The reverse is also true,” she said quietly. “And you can tell your mother that my price is now beyond her pocket.”

“Careful, honey,” he said softly. “You’re on my home ground now, and I fight to win.”

“Then you’d better start polishing your sword, big man,” she replied. “Because this time you’re going to have to make the first cut count. Have a nice evening.”

She turned and walked over to the next table without batting an eyelash.

CHAPTER FIVE

MYRNA HARDEN ATE NOTHING that evening. Her interview with Meredith hadn’t gone at all the way she’d planned it. She hadn’t wanted to make threats, but the younger woman had frightened her. This wasn’t the shy young girl who’d once cringed at her cold tone, who’d been beaten and sent packing. No. This new Meredith was an unknown quantity, and when Myrna hadn’t been able to ruffle her composure, she’d said things she never meant to say.

She’d wanted to tell Meredith how desperately she’d searched for her, how upset she’d been at her own irrational actions. She hadn’t wanted to leave a young, pregnant girl at the mercy of a heartless world, and when Meredith had sent back the small wad of bills she’d given her, along with all the expensive things Cy had tried to give her, she was even more afraid. Meredith’s people wouldn’t have had much to give her. The young girl, alone and pregnant in a large city, would have been at the mercy of any stranger who wanted to hurt her.

Shocked and horrified at what she’d done, Myrna had hired private detectives, unbeknownst to Cy, in a furious attempt to track Meredith down and provide for her. The thought of her own grandchild being aborted or put up for adoptions by strangers had haunted her for years. Her best efforts hadn’t produced one scrap of evidence that would point to Meredith’s whereabouts. The girl might have disappeared from the face of the earth.

Myrna gave up trying to eat and pushed the plate away. She was alone tonight, as she frequently was. Cy had business, he’d said. Even his attitude had changed over the years. He was no longer the loving, considerate son he’d once been. Meredith’s departure had twisted something inside him, made him hard and uncaring and cruel at times. He blamed the girl, when it was Myrna’s manipulating that had caused his pain. She closed her eyes. Meredith had accused her of feeling guilt, and of course, she had. Guilt, shame, anguish, all those things. She felt the weight of her villainy tonight, along with her memories. Meredith’s pleading face, Cy’s unyielding one, Tony’s innocent complicity, came back to torment her. Cy had stayed drunk for days afterward, refusing to leave his room, even to speak to his mother. When he regained his composure, he became a playboy of the worst kind, and for months the business suffered.

He’d weathered his storm, but he wasn’t the same. Myrna laughed bitterly. She wasn’t the same, either. Her plotting had caused so much tragedy that even the terrible fear that had triggered her actions couldn’t justify them. She thought of the child and wished she knew if Meredith had really had it. Was it safe? Was it happy? Was it in the hands of loving people and not sadists who might abuse it? The same thoughts had grieved her all the long years, had given her no peace. She got up from the table, leaving the maid to clear away, and she strolled aimlessly into the living room. A mausoleum, she thought, looking around at the exquisite decor. She was entombed in this luxury, with no real friends and no living relatives except her son. She was alone, as perhaps she deserved to be.

Her long fingers touched a Ming vase on a side table, caressing its beauty, its faded colors. She was like that, she mused. Old and faded and delicate, for all her bluster. Meredith hated her, and it was no more than she deserved. She hadn’t really expected to get away with her sins. Nobody did. Payment might take twenty years, but inevitably your trespasses ricocheted right back to you.

Myrna shivered as she felt the approaching storm. Meredith couldn’t be bought, she couldn’t be intimidated. There was no way to make her leave, and if she stayed, there was every chance that Cy would learn the truth. All of it.

Her eyes closed on a shudder. Her son would hate her when he learned what she’d done.

Restlessly, she walked over to the darkened window and looked out at the cold, bare silhouette of the trees on the horizon. Farther, in the distance, were the lights of the refinery near the Yellowstone, like beacons against the dark sky. She couldn’t confess her crime, not yet. She’d just have to bide her time. There was so much Cy didn’t know about her past, about the reasons she’d fought so hard for respectability. She’d even married Frank Harden for that, when she didn’t love him. The man she’d really loved had gone off to Vietnam shattered by her cold mercenary plotting, and he’d been killed there. That, too, was on Myrna’s conscience. She’d sacrificed love all her life in the pursuit of wealth and power, to arm herself with the things that would protect her son from the devastating childhood she’d had to suffer.

Nobody knew, not even the one great-uncle she had left, what she’d had to endure as a little girl because of her mother. No one would know, ever, she swore. She’d made her bed, now she had to lie in it. But what she’d done to Meredith, to Cy, to the man she’d loved—her soul ached with the bruises her actions had dealt it.

But there might still be time to spare herself the humiliation of having Cy know what she’d done. If she begged, she might gain Meredith’s compassion and get her out of Billings in time. The damage was done, the child was lost. She was almost certain now that Meredith had placed him or her up for adoption. The only possible course of action was to convince her that revenge was an empty pleasure, to ask her to spare them.

It would scorch her pride, but perhaps it was no less than she deserved. She’d hurt so many lives with her determination to have Cy marry into the proper bloodlines. She laughed mirthlessly. Myrna’s fierce need for social acceptance had probably cost her any hope of grandchildren, because Cy refused even to consider marriage anymore. The only grandchild she’d ever had was lost to her, through her own arrogance. She closed her eyes and shivered. Paradise lost, she thought. How cold were the dead dreams of the past. She turned slowly and wandered back into the living room to sit down.

IT WASN’T LATE WHEN Meredith left the restaurant. Cy had walked out just after their brief quarrel. How silly of her to expect that he might ask Myrna for the truth, when he’d believed his mother’s lies from the beginning.

If she felt any consolation at all, it came from Myrna’s uncertainty about the fate of her only grandchild. It was a bitter pleasure at that, because Meredith didn’t like hurting people—not even people like Myrna. All that pain, all that anguish, and for what? Myrna had wanted Cy to marry a local socialite he’d been dating infrequently, but that had obviously come to nothing. Cy was still single and showed no interest whatsoever in becoming anyone’s husband. There was a cold cynicism in him now that Meredith didn’t recognize, a hardness that completely overshadowed the sensitivity she remembered. He’d changed, as she had. Only Myrna remained the same: icy and arrogant and certain of getting her own way. But not this time, Meredith told herself. Oh, no, not this time. She wasn’t leaving town until Cy had the truth of it, no matter what it took. And she had a few surprises for him before that day came.

Meredith called the office as soon as she reached Mary’s house. Working eased her aching heart, made her whole again. She wanted to check with her contacts on the inquiries she was making into Harden Properties. Cy had to have an Achilles’ heel. She’d noticed that most of his executives ate at the restaurant where she worked. She smiled at that irony. He’d given her a job at the very best place to eavesdrop on his business. How would he feel, she wondered smugly, when he found out?

During the next few days, she made it her business to be especially courteous to his executives and become friendly with them. That being the case, they were much less guarded in their conversation, assuming that she wouldn’t know what they were talking about. But she did. From the information she gleaned, she gathered that one of Cy’s directors was quietly working against him, trying to obtain a majority of the stockholders’ votes to oust Cy from his own company. She mentioned that over the phone to Don the night she heard this. He agreed to find the director and cultivate him.

Little bits and pieces of conversation, small tidbits of gossip, fueled her secretive inquiries, provided her with insight into the best avenues to pursue as she sought a foothold in Cy’s company.

Cy hadn’t been back to the restaurant since they argued, which was something of a relief. Neither had Myrna, and Meredith began to wonder if something was afoot.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Dade had noticed Meredith’s special attention to the Harden executives, and she asked her employee into the office late one evening to discuss it.

“You’re a good waitress,” Mrs. Dade said with a steely look, “but I don’t like the attention you’re giving Cy Harden’s employees. Not only does it not look good, but you’re making a spectacle of yourself in front of the other help.”

Meredith’s eyebrows rose. “I wasn’t aware that I was paying them any special attention, Mrs. Dade,” she said innocently. “They’re very nice tippers….” She added that last bit with a calculating look and saw with pleasure that she’d given exactly the impression she meant to.

Mrs. Dade’s face relaxed into a smile. “I see.”

I thought you would, Meredith thought with silent satisfaction.

“Well, if that’s all it is,” Mrs. Dade continued. “But you mustn’t pay them such obvious attention. It does look bad. And I’d hate to have to let you go.”

That would be interesting, she thought. She wondered what Mrs. Dade would do if she fired Meredith and Cy found out. It might be the restaurant manager who was out on the streets looking for work, because Cy didn’t like anyone undermining his orders.

“I’ll be very careful not to let it happen again, Mrs. Dade,” Meredith promised.

The older woman smiled. “Okay. No harm done. I know how much you young girls depend on tips to keep you going. And you are very good at your job, Meredith.”

Meredith suppressed the desire to curtsy. “Thank you, Mrs. Dade.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then.”

Dismissed, Meredith got her light jacket and walked to the bus stop, laughing softly to herself. She wondered what the businesslike Mrs. Dade would say if she knew how her erstwhile employee really was. It was like having a secret identity, and she loved the subterfuge. Of course, it wouldn’t do for her to lose sight of the reason she was here, she reminded herself, and the smile faded. The acquisition of those mineral rights was the bottom line, and she had to remember it. If Cy Harden and his mother got their noses bloodied in the fight, that wouldn’t bother her in the least. But she was holding the reins of Henry’s domestic operation. It wouldn’t do to let things get too personal. She had to keep her mind on the objective, without allowing herself to be too much diverted by the past. There were hundreds of Tennison International employees whose jobs hinged on the decisions she made. It was an awesome responsibility, and it allowed little leeway for personal revenge.

The wind was picking up, and it felt cool. Meredith closed her eyes, drinking in the feel of the breeze on her face. Until she’d come home to Billings, she hadn’t even realized that she’d missed it. Despite the long hours and hard work, this job was like a vacation, a safety valve from the pressure that had jeopardized her health. The aftereffects of pneumonia—the weakness and cough—had already disappeared. She felt stronger by the day, perhaps because she was finding her roots all over again. It felt good to be home, except that she missed Blake so terribly.

The bus was late, and Meredith was the only person waiting for it. When a sleek, light gray car pulled up beside her with the window down, she almost jumped out of her skin. Then she recognized the driver and her teeth clenched.

“You don’t need to be out here alone at this hour of night,” Cy said curtly. “It’s dangerous.”

“This is Billings, not Chicago,” she said without thinking.

He scowled, and she felt her heart stop, because she’d given away a tidbit of information she’d never meant to divulge.

“Know Chicago, do you?” he asked softly.

She smiled. “I know a lot of cities. Chicago is one, yes.” She put her hand on her hip and moved it suggestively. “One city is pretty much like another, if you know which streets are the best pickings.”

His eyes flashed as the insinuation penetrated. “And you did?”

She tossed back her long hair and gave him a blank look. “What do you think?”

His face hardened even more. The thought of Meredith having to go on the streets to stay alive at the age of eighteen made him sick, even sicker than the certainty that he’d condemned her to it. He had to block out the images of other hands touching her…

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said harshly, borrowing one of Henry’s favorite euphemisms, “I didn’t become a streetwalker!”

He relaxed visibly, and she hated herself for reacting to that horrible expression in his eyes. She should have let him think what he liked.

“Get in,” he said, weary with relief. “I’ll drive you to the house.”

She didn’t argue. It was a dark and lonely night, and she’d never liked being on her own after dusk. Usually she wasn’t; Mr. Smith was always somewhere nearby.

“Who is he?” he asked as the powerful car purred away from the curb and down the long, wide street.

“He?”

“Don’t play games. The man leaving your house that morning.”

“His name is Mr. Smith,” she said simply.

“Is he your lover?”

She leaned her head back against the seat with a long sigh. “Isn’t it a nice evening?” she mused. “I always did love Billings at night.”

“You haven’t answered me,” he said impatiently.

“I won’t, either,” she replied. She turned toward him, her eyes steady and accusing. “You have no right at all to ask anything about my personal life. Not after what you did to me.”

He didn’t look at her. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Why didn’t you go with him?”

“He works in Chicago,” she said. “I work here. For the time being.”

His dark eyes narrowed angrily. “Is it serious?”

Her thin shoulders rose and fell. “Not really. He’s a friend.”

He let out a held breath.

“Why would it matter to you?” she asked, conversationally. “What we…did was over long ago.”

He looked at her while he stopped for a traffic light, his gaze slow and possessive. “I burn every time I look at you,” he said gruffly. “I ache for you. There hasn’t been one woman who could block you out of my mind for five minutes.”

Her face burned. “That’s lust,” she said, enunciating the word clearly. “That’s all it ever was to you. You wanted me. You couldn’t get enough. You’d have come to me from your deathbed if I’d asked you, and we both know it. But it wasn’t enough then, and it isn’t now.”

“I don’t remember you having so many moral scruples at the time,” he said mockingly.

Her head lowered. “I had none at all. I was in love with you.”

He made a sound. The flat statement had shocked him. He’d never really questioned Meredith’s motives for the affair. He’d always assumed that she felt the same helpless, raging desire that he did.

“Sure,” he said after a minute, his voice harsh. “That’s why you fell into bed with Tony.”

She tilted her head toward him and smiled coldly. “I went to you a virgin. I was so besotted with you that I couldn’t have given myself to another man if I’d been stinking drunk.”

“Maybe that was how you got him to help you steal the money,” he persisted, his eyes calculating.

She laughed. “Tony gave all the money back, though, didn’t he?” she asked icily. “And if you’d pushed him hard enough, he’d have told you that we never had either a conspiracy or a relationship.”

Cy looked straight at the road. “Tell me, Meredith,” he said unexpectedly.

“Tell you what?”

“The truth.” He looked at her. “Tell me all of it.”

She smiled, unblinking. “I offered it to you six years ago and you didn’t want it.”

“Now I do.”

“Then ask your mother,” she said. “Ask Myrna Harden for it.”

“You won’t get anywhere by trying to drag my mother into this,” he said. “We both know she disapproved of you.”

“She hated me,” she corrected. “I have Indian relatives, remember? I come from poor people, from ordinary stock. My parents had a very small farm until they died, and I can remember needing shoes and having to wear secondhand ones before my great-aunt and great-uncle took me in. But even afterward, I didn’t have social status or money, and that’s what your mother wanted for you. I wasn’t good enough. It had to be a blue blood.”

He turned into the street that led past her great-aunt’s house. His face was rigid with pent-up emotions. “Most mothers want what’s best for their children.”

She thought of Blake and nodded. “Yes. But all mothers don’t interfere to the point of making decisions for them. I never would,” she added.

He pulled into her driveway and turned off the engine and the lights, turning to look at her in the porch light.

“Why are you still here?” he asked quietly. “If there’s a man waiting in Chicago, why haven’t you gone back to him?”

She looked into his face, and all the anguish came flooding back, all the rejection, all the love. “I have my reasons,” she said.

He slid his arm over the back of the seat, tugging the fabric of his gray jacket closer to his muscular body. He smelled of spice and soap. Meredith remembered how it had felt to lie in his arms with nothing between them except the beads of sweat they generated as they melded together in passion.

He seemed to sense those memories. His voice was husky when he spoke. “The first time was under a tree by the lake on my ranch,” he recalled quietly, as if he’d read her mind. “We’d gone riding, but by then, we were both burning with need of each other. I pulled off your top and you let me. I put you down on the grass and you let me. I undressed you, and myself, and I couldn’t even wait long enough to arouse you. I had you—” his voice deepened as he moved closer “—in one long, hard thrust.”

She flushed. “Don’t!”

“Does it embarrass you?” he asked. He jerked her against him, imprisoning her against his chest. “You were tight and afraid, and when I started convulsing, you asked if I was hurt.” He bent and whispered into her ear, then her mouth. “But the second time, I kissed you from head to toe and bit the inside of your thighs and your nipples, and when I took you, you were ready for me. We were all over the ground that second time, thrashing, shaking. We came apart because I was too explosive, and you came after me, sitting over me to finish it. I watched you,” he breathed into her, his tongue following the words into the soft darkness.

Meredith’s eyes stung with tears as she reached up to him, her arms clinging. Vivid memories flashed through her mind.

“Yes,” he groaned. His mouth opened, insistent, while his hands fought under her blouse and bra to find the soft warmth of her body.

She didn’t think about the changes he was sure to find. He knew her body as well as she did in the old days. It was inevitable that her maturity would be noticeable.

His fingers pushed softly at one breast before his palm slid under it, lifting it. He raised his head, and his eyes burned into hers. “You’re bigger.”

“I’m older,” she said huskily.

He moved, and before she realized what he meant to do, he had the blouse and bra up past her collarbone, and he was looking at her. His breath caught at her soft firmness, at her delicate color.

“Oh, baby,” he breathed.

Her lips parted at the reverence in his tone. “I’m not…a girl anymore,” she whispered, trying to divert his curiosity.

“My God, I know that.” His eyes lifted back to hers. “You became a woman in my arms. Did you really think I could ever forget?” His thumbs rubbed down against her nipples as he spoke, and she shivered.

“Meredith,” he whispered hoarsely. He bent his head, his mouth poised over one taut nipple, his breath warming it.

The glare of headlights and the roar of an engine caused his head to jerk up. Meredith took advantage of his diversion to tug her clothing down and pull out of his arms. By the time the passing vehicle was out of sight, she was out of the car.

Cy managed to catch her as she reached the porch, his lean hands insistent as they turned her to him. “I want you,” he said, his voice ragged.

“I know that,” she replied tersely. “I’m just as vulnerable as I was at eighteen, and apparently every bit as stupid when I get close to you. But that won’t work twice. I’m not going to be your mistress a second time. I learned my lesson the hard way.”

He was breathing hard, his eyes still faintly glazed with desire. Her gaze fell and she could see the blatant evidence of his frustration.

“You still want me,” he said. “I could take away every choice you have. I could make you get on your knees and beg me for it.” He smiled contemptuously. “In fact, I did. Do you remember?”

She did. It had been just before his mother had filled his head with lies about Tony, that last wild loving—before the confrontation with his mother. He’d humbled and exalted her, and she’d been too much in love and too weak to resist him. She hadn’t known that Tony and Myrna had sold her out. She’d given in because she loved him, because she thought he was in love with her, too. But he hadn’t been. Ever. It had all been a means to an end. He’d only wanted her.

“I remember,” she said, stiffening as he drew her against his body. “Let go of me.”

His voice deepened. “That isn’t what you want.”

“It’s what your mother wants,” she replied, playing the only card she had left. She hoped that it would divert him, because her body was betraying her. It had been so many years since she’d been with Cy. She wanted him until it hurt, but she didn’t dare give in.

He hesitated, and she pulled back.

“Remember your mother, Cy?” she asked coldly. “Nothing’s changed. She still hates me.”

“She doesn’t have to love a woman I sleep with,” he said, resorting to cruelty as frustration and pain gnawed at him.

“But I’m not sleeping with you, Cy,” she said, holding her purse protectively over her sensitive breasts.

He stood there, towering over her, struggling to breathe normally. It was just like before, just like old times. He was falling headlong into her web, and he wanted her so much that he couldn’t even save himself. He looked at her and ached like a boy.

“Tell me you don’t want me, Meredith,” he said mockingly.

She moved toward her door, fumbling in her purse for the key. “What I want doesn’t enter into it,” she said. Wearily, she unlocked the door and turned, her eyes big and sad in her tired face. He looked only a little less worn himself. “I don’t want that madness again, any more than you do. Go home, Cy. I’m sure your mother will be glad of the company.”

“She didn’t come to see you, did she?” he probed. “That was a lie.”

“It amazes me,” she said, searching his face. “Even now, you automatically think that if someone’s in the wrong, it must be me. Myrna should be proud. She’s taught you that the only truth is hers.”

“At least she’s capable of it,” he replied.

She smiled. “Once I thought you might love me,” she said. “But I knew the minute you sided with your mother that it was only desire. Love and trust are both sides of the same coin. One is nothing without the other.”

He clenched his teeth. “You can’t accept the fact that my mother has any virtues, can you?”

“You don’t know what she’s cost me,” she replied coldly, “because you don’t want to know the truth.” She smiled again. “Someday, you’ll have it. I swear you will. And when you know what she’s cost you, you’ll wish to God you’d listened to me. Good night, Cy.”

She was inside with the door locked before he had time to reply. She wasn’t at all surprised to find that she was shaking.

Outside, Cy strode back to his car, bristling with temper and frustration. As usual, she had him weak in the knees. She was just as much woman as she’d ever been, and his response to her was powerful, immediate.

He fought himself out of the sensual fog by the time he got home, but something Meredith had said was disturbing him. You don’t know what your mother has cost you, she’d said. He frowned as he went into the house. Did she mean money? Or was it something intangible? Perhaps she meant her love. But he knew how treacherous she was. She’d betrayed him. Or had she?

That was a thought he didn’t want to entertain. He passed the living room, still deep in thought.

“Oh, you’re home,” Myrna said, rising from the sofa. “I waited up. You’ve been very preoccupied the past several days. I thought…you might want to talk.”

“About what?” he shot at her.

She swallowed. “About whatever’s bothering you.”

He moved into the room, his dark eyes threatening. “Did you go to see Meredith?”

That was a question she hadn’t wanted to answer. She could have lied, but what if one of the neighbors had seen her? It would be a risk to lie.

“I…did,” she said finally.

He scowled. “Why?”

“You know I don’t approve of Meredith,” she said quickly. “I was only trying to convince her that bringing back old memories won’t help either of you. I asked her to go away.”

“I gave her a job,” he reminded her.

She twisted her hands together, her face tormented. “Oh, Cy, she’s not for you! Don’t make it worse.”

“Make what worse?” he demanded. “What do you know that I don’t?”

She actually paled. “Cy…”

He moved forward, determined to get it out of her. Just as she panicked, the telephone rang, diverting him. Fortunately it was someone on business, and she excused herself quickly with a rushed “Good night.”

By the time she got upstairs, her heart was beating her to death. It was like a nightmare. Why hadn’t she realized the implications of what she’d done all those years ago? Her chickens had come home to roost, now. She didn’t know how she was going to survive if she didn’t get Meredith out of town fast.

CHAPTER SIX

BLAKE WAS ANGRY when Meredith phoned Chicago.

“Why won’t you come home?” he demanded. “You said a few days, didn’t you?”

“It’s taking longer than I anticipated,” she defended herself, sick over Cy’s rekindling of her physical needs and the slowness of her progress. “Blake, don’t push. You know I’d be home if I could. I have to support us, little man. I have to work.”

He sighed. “I know. But I miss you, Mommy.”

Her eyes closed. “I miss you, too,” she said, and it was true. She missed him more every day. Seeing Cy was like looking at a mature image of Blake. The pressure of trying to conduct business from a long distance, missing Blake, and dealing with the Hardens kept her nerves on end.

“Tell you what,” she said after a minute. “My secretary reminded me earlier when I phoned in that I have to go to a banquet Saturday night in Chicago. Suppose I fly up Friday night and spend the weekend? How about that?”

“Oh, Mommy, that’s radical!” he exclaimed.

Already, she thought, he sounded like a typical boy of the nineties. She laughed. “I hope that means you’re glad I’m coming. Now, put Mr. Smith on, please.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I gather that you’re coming home?” Mr. Smith asked with droll humor.

“For the weekend,” she emphasized. “I need to pick up some more diskettes for the computer and conduct a few personal visits to clients I seem to have been neglecting.” She added that last bit because her secretary had mentioned that those clients had reacted to some comments of Don’s that Meredith was taking a working holiday. How like him to forget to mention that it was on company business. He’d made it sound as if she were off enjoying herself to the company’s detriment. “Have one of the jets pick me up at the Rimrocks at six sharp Friday night. I’ll get off from work early.”

“Can’t get much work done on the weekend,” he murmured.

“Stand back and watch me. Or don’t you remember that Henry did most of his plotting at cocktail parties?” She grinned to herself. “The Harrisons are having that banquet for Senator Lane Saturday night, and Don promised to tag along. We can discuss the new computer operation and the personnel shift at the same time. Remind Don.”

“Will do. How do you plan to manage this project, the acquisition, and hold down a full-time waitressing job at the same time?”

“Don’t fuss,” she replied, although it touched her that he was concerned for her health. “I’ll see you Friday.”

She hung up before he could argue. It would be a lot of pressure. But, then, she’d had nothing except pressure since Henry died—and even before. She was young and strong and willful. Besides, it wouldn’t be forever. The pressure would end for a while once she had her hands on those mineral rights. Except that it was looking more and more as if the only way to do that was to get enough proxies from Cy’s stockholders to assume control of his company and force him into relinquishing the mineral rights. In fact, she’d determined that nothing less was going to work, so she’d already set the wheels in motion. And the thought of ousting him and his mother so delighted her that it had helped to stem the frustration she felt at being away from her son.

Cy hadn’t been to her house since the night he’d picked her up when she was working late. But Wednesday evening he came to the restaurant for dinner. He didn’t come alone. His companion was a beautiful redhead with long legs, wearing an outfit that had probably cost more than a week’s take at the restaurant. He was getting even with Meredith for his loss of control. She knew it instantly. Not that it did much for her ego or lessened the pain of seeing him with another woman. She’d heard plenty about Cy’s reputation with women since she’d started work. It was depressing, because he hadn’t been a rounder when he was with her.

She put on her best smile and let nothing she was feeling show as she greeted them and produced menus. “Would you like something to drink while you wait for your order?” she asked politely.

“I’ll have a German lager,” the redhead said carelessly, and named the brand she wanted. “And do make sure that they don’t substitute foam for beer, will you? I detest being shorted.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Meredith said pleasantly. “And what will you have, sir?”

“White wine,” he said curtly. He didn’t look at her. That sunny bright greeting had taken the starch out of his sails. He’d brought Lara here to make Meredith jealous. And he’d kept his distance, hoping that she might miss him. He wasn’t sure of his own motives, except that he ached for her. He wanted her more than ever, but she’d dug in her heels and wasn’t giving an inch. It was going to be an uphill battle all the way to get her back into his arms. Lara’s presence didn’t even seem to faze her. The old Meredith would have been in tears.

Meredith served them with the impeccable control that Henry had taught her. Cy looked darker and angrier by the minute as she did her best impression of a star-struck waitress serving her betters. Lara swallowed it, insisting that he leave a huge tip. Cy only glared at Meredith, his eyes promising retribution. She had to resist the urge to rage at him. She knew what he was doing, but it didn’t help her bruised feelings.

He was showing her that he attracted other women, beautiful women. Inadvertently, it helped her get a bridle on her own need for him. Nothing had changed. He was a playboy now, and he had no use for commitment. She’d do well to remember the way he’d thrown her to the wolves before, so that she wouldn’t have to repeat it.

FRIDAY NIGHT, she changed hours with one of the other waitresses—with Mrs. Dade’s permission—and called a cab to take her to the airport. She changed into a black wig and expensive coat, so nobody at the airport would mistake her for Meredith Ashe. It was just a precaution, in case anyone who knew her saw her getting into a Tennison International jet. Cy probably wouldn’t even know that she was away for the weekend, nor would he care. He was avoiding her lately with a vengeance. But just in case, she’d make sure she was seen leaving the Billings bus terminal Sunday afternoon.

She boarded the small corporate jet quickly, and in minutes she was bound for Chicago.

Blake was waiting at O’Hare with Mr. Smith. He ran to her, recognizing her through her disguise, outdistancing even his companion in his excitement.

“Mommy!” he shouted.

Meredith bent and picked him up, swinging him around with laughter brimming over inside her. It had been such a dismal week and a half, and she’d missed Blake so badly.

“Welcome home, ragamuffin,” Mr. Smith mused, his eyes pointedly assessing the dark wig and the worn jeans and sweatshirt under Meredith’s open coat.

“Well, I couldn’t very well go to work in a Liz Claiborne original, could I?” she asked with a mischievous grin.

“Point taken. Your brother-in-law is still out of town, but he promised to be back in time for the banquet tomorrow night.”

“Very good. And the Jordan merger?”

“Went through with flying colors.”

“Oh, Mommy, don’t talk business,” Blake wailed as they got into the car.

She pulled him close and kissed him. “Okay. I’ll try. Until tomorrow night, we’ll just do what you want to.”

“Honestly?! Great!”

It wasn’t until she was failing miserably at the Nintendo controls with Blake that she realized how much she missed being with him. Even a simple game like this—at which she was terrible—was so much fun. Blake laughed and flaunted his superiority at eye and hand coordination while Meredith rolled on the floor with glee at her own failure.

They watched a nature special together after supper, and then Meredith read bedtime stories for half an hour. When Blake fell asleep in her arms, she looked down at him with aching tenderness. She’d never be alone, not while she had Blake. It even eased the pain of losing Cy. There was so much similarity between Blake’s small features and those of his father, she thought wistfully. The resemblance really was striking, especially when he opened his dark eyes. Her child…hers and Cy’s. Not that Cy would ever believe it, she told herself.

Meredith tucked in her son and walked back downstairs into Henry’s old study, which was now hers. Passing the fax machine and computer, she walked over to her desk and sat down. She started to pore over contracts and memos and correspondence that seemed endless. Although work had piled up in her absence, Meredith still looked upon the past week and a half as a vacation. Even the physical work of waitressing wasn’t a patch on the mentally exhausting routine she was used to. The exercise was rather relaxing, in fact.

She worked far into the night on current projects without really getting caught up. The most she accomplished was to answer the more immediate correspondence on tape for her secretary to type and Don to verify. She’d have to pack up and take the rest back to Billings with her. She could fax and use the phone to catch up on the rest. She hoped. Most deals were best conducted in person. Well, if all else failed, she could sneak out on the corporate jet for meetings. But that was risky. Seeing the Tennison International conveyance too often at the Rimrocks, upon which Billings’ airport was located, could tip Cy Harden to a move on his company. And that she didn’t want.

Blake wanted to go to the park the next morning, so Meredith dressed him warmly and walked him the four blocks east to the playground. Mr. Smith brought up the rear. The rugged ex-mercenary never left them alone. She knew it was driving him crazy that he couldn’t be around in Billings to look after her. He was as loyal as he was trustworthy.

Meredith and Smith sat on a wooden bench watching the sun play off the vast expanse of Lake Michigan. “How’s it going?” he asked while Blake was swinging on the playground equipment.

Meredith leaned back on the park bench and pulled her cashmere coat closer around her body. “I’m surviving. It isn’t easy. I tried to get to some of the executives and almost got fired for fraternizing.”

He smiled, something he did rarely. That hard face was scarred and laced with mementos of the violent lifestyle Mr. Smith had led. One of the executives once told Meredith that his scars were the result of his being shot to within an inch of his life in a commando raid, after which they’d practically had to put his face back together with superglue. She could believe it. He was rugged and indomitable. She always felt safe with him, as she had with Cy.

“Giving up?” he taunted.

She glanced at him and grinned. “What do you think?”

His green eyes searched over her face quietly, lingering just a second too long before he averted them. “I think Don’s right. You’ve found yourself one formidable adversary. There’s no shame in cutting your losses.”

“I haven’t started yet,” she reminded him. “I’ve got McGee working on proxy acquisition behind the scenes. All I’m doing is keeping the head honcho diverted while they work.”

“No, I don’t think so,” he replied.

She folded her arms and watched Blake, waving back when he waved and called for her to see how high he could go. “All right,” she said finally. “I got a little too close to the fire and singed my wings. But I won’t make the same mistake again.”

“I hope not. I haven’t forgotten how broken up you were that night we found you.”

She looked up at him warmly. “You saved my life.”

“I almost cost it,” he replied. “I didn’t even see you.”

“Did I ever tell you that you and Henry made me want to live?” she asked wistfully. “You even went to Lamaze classes with us, to learn natural childbirth in case Henry was out of town when Blake was born and you had to coach me. We did so many things together.” Her eyes grew sad. “I miss him.”

“So do I,” he replied. “He gave me a job when nobody else would. I was under indictment for murder. No prospective employer wanted me around. But Henry believed I was innocent. He hired me, got me the best criminal lawyer in town, and I was acquitted.”

“I know. Henry told me.”

He glanced at her wryly before he stuck a toothpick in his mouth and began to gnaw on it. “You used to hide from me at first.”

“I thought you might be ex-Mafia.” She chuckled. “But after a while, especially after Blake was born, you were just family. I couldn’t have imagined you changing diapers or washing an infant.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.