True Colors

by Diana Palmer

  Meredith exchanged a speaking glance with Mr. Smith and followed her out to the car.

  "Blake Tennison," Myrna said heavily as she started the car. The thought of Cy's son being raised as someone else's had a particularly keen effect on Myrna. She didn't blame Meredithhow could she?but the pain was terrible. "Oh, Meredith!" she breathed.

  "Henry was with me every step of the way through my pregnancy," Meredith told her. "He was in the delivery room when they took Blake. He helped me change diapers and give bottles, and he loved Blake even more than he loved me." Her gray eyes softened with the memory. "If ever a man worked to deserve fatherhood, it was Henry Tennison. Yes, I gave Blake his name. At the time, I had no idea that I'd ever see Cy again. I was reconciled to spending the rest of my life with Henry."

  "Yes, I know." Myrna didn't look at her as she drove. The past was haunting her, and not just the part that included Meredith. There were secrets she'd kept all her life, but she was beginning to rethink her justification for keeping them. "You did the only thing you could. It's just that Blake will grow up never knowing his real father."

  "Cy may not want him," she replied quietly. "Has that thought not occurred to you?"

  "No. Cy loves children."

  "Other people's."

  "You don't think he could love his own son?"

  "I never really knew Cy, except in obvious ways. He wouldn't let me close enough."

  Myrna sighed wearily. "He won't let anyone close enough. I suppose his father did that to him. My husband was a past master at finding weaknesses and attacking them. He never wanted a child in the first place, but I was pregnant with Cy and I begged him to marry me, to give him a name."

  Meredith stared at her. "Did you love him?"

  "No." She didn't look at Meredith. "The only man I ever loved was killed in Vietnam. He was a career officer. Cy's father was a friend of his." Her face went hard. "Frank Harden had money and prospects, and I wanted respectability and security. I threw away everything for it. I even got pregnant with Cy so that he'd marry me," she said. "But the price I paid!"

  "Have you heard from the hospital?" Meredith asked after a long pause.

  "They said that Cy was resting comfortably and out of danger," Myrna replied. "I only pray that he's going to recover fully. What you said to him must have done some good, because the nurse told me that he's conscious."

  Meredith studied the purse in her lap. "I wonder if we ought to congratulate ourselves on that before we've seen him?" She smiled wanly. "I have visions of being pelted with bedpans and IV bags on the way into his room."

  To her surprise, Myrna Harden laughed. "Well, at least that would prove he's in fighting shape, wouldn't it?"

  When they got to Cy's roomand it was a private room, because he'd been moved out of intensive carehe was lying in bed, his dark eyes open and accusing. The pain he was feeling, despite the drugs they'd given him, was as obvious as his anger.

  "How do you feel?" Myrna asked him hesitantly.

  "How the hell do you think I feel?" he asked, his deep voice a little slurred from medication, but cold as ice. "My God, you're brave. In your place, I'd be packing."

  Myrna bit her lower lip. "Cy, try to understand"

  "I've been trying, ever since I came out from under the anesthetic. Do you know what you've cost me?"

  "Yes." She averted her eyes, almost trembling. "I know all too well. But I thought I was doing what was best for you."

  "I had the right to decide that. You didn't."

  "Cy"

  He stared at Meredith with steady, unblinking eyes. "And you," he said in a husky tone. "Didn't you consider that it might have been worth your while to make me listen?"

  "I was too afraid of being arrested to stay and try it," she said quietly.

  "You could have written to me!" he raged.

  She stared at her feet, without speaking. His mother was in enough trouble. She could have told him that she'd written, but she hated to make things even worse for Myrna.

  "She did," Myrna confessed miserably. "I tore up the letter."

  Cy cursed furiously, and his mother bit back tears.

  "Get out," he told Myrna.

  "Don't you do it," Meredith said when she started to leave. She moved closer to the bed and stared down at Cy. "It's ancient history. Nobody got hurt except me. You don't have to pretend that you were dying of love for me. You wanted me, and you had me. It was over before I left Billings, and you know it. You were glad of the excuse to shoot me out of your life. Certainly you had plenty of consolation after I left."

  His jaw clenched. "I didn't know there was a child!"

  She shrugged. "And if you had? You didn't want me in any permanent capacity. I can't imagine that you'd have wanted Blake, either."

  "But your husband did?" he demanded.

  "Oh, yes," she said huskily. "Yes, Henry wanted him, very much."

  He gave a heavy sigh, grimaced, and closed his eyes again. His big, lean hands gripped the pillow.

  "Oh, Cy," Meredith whispered.

  "I'll live," he muttered. His eyes opened, glaring at the two women. "Unfortunately for you two."

  Meredith glanced at his mother and grimaced, finding fellow feeling in those dark, resigned eyes.

  "Do you need anything?" Myrna asked hesitantly.

  "No." He bit off the word.

  Meredith nodded to herself and called the nurse. After she'd given him a shot and left the room, Myrna went downstairs to get coffee for both of them. Meredith took the chair by Cy's bed and gently touched his drawn cheek.

  His eyes opened, narrow and hurting. "Six years," he whispered.

  She drew in a steadying breath. "Yes."

  "I didn't know," he ground out. "Oh, God, Meredith, I didn'tknow!"

  Moisture brightened his eyes for an instant. Meredith leaned close to him, her hand smoothing his dark, damp hair, her cheek laid against his.

  "Don't," she pleaded. "Cy, I can't bear it !"

  His fingers clenched hard on the pillow and he groaned. Her lips touched his cheek, his closed eye, his chin, the corner of his hard mouth.

  "Darling," she whispered. "Darling, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

  He moved his head just enough to let her reach his lips. She kissed them with aching tenderness, a brief touch that seemed to take some of the pain out of his face. She rested her forehead on his broad shoulder in its plain hospital gown, the scent of antiseptic and medicine that clung to him reminding her painfully of the accident.

  "Will I walk?" he asked.

  "Of course you will," she said, praying that she hadn't told him a lie. "Try to sleep. You need all the rest you can get."

  "My motherlied to me," he bit off.

  "A mother will do anything for a child she loves," she said dully. "Please, don't dwell on it. You have to get well. Try not to blame her too much."

  He tried to speak, but he was too weak and pain-racked to get the words out. His eyes closed on a rasping sigh, and the medicine began to do its work. Silently Meredith let the hot tears escape her eyes.

  Myrna paused in the doorway, grimacing as she saw the anguish on Meredith's vulnerable face. She deliberately backed away, leaving the younger woman her privacy. How well she understood that look. It made her guilt so much worse

  Another day passed before Cy was able to sit up in bed and eat. He was pale and weak, and he lost weight, but none of that had affected his temper. He was outspoken, rude, and totally hostile to everyone around him as he began to understand the extent of his injuries and the very real possibility that he might not be able to walk when his fractures and the scar from his back surgery healed.

  "You lied to me," he accused Meredith. "You said I'd walk. The surgeon isn't sure that I will."

  "You know very well he said that it depends on how well you recuperate from the surgery, and how hard you're willing to work with the physiotherapist after you're released from the hospital," she replied calmly. "Dr. Danbury thought there was every chance."

&
nbsp; "Danbury flew in from the Mayo Clinic," he said, staring at her narrowly. "On a Tennison International jet."

  She shrugged. "I beat your mother to the punch, that's all. She'd have done the same thing."

  "You and I are adversaries," he said softly. "I'm grateful for what you've done, but it's not going to make any difference in a business sense. I'll fight you tooth and nail for my company."

  "Oh, I never expected anything less," she mused. "I do like a good fight."

  He shifted in the bed, grimacing a little. "Damned stitches pull."

  "They come out in five more days and you can go home," she informed him.

  He closed his eyes and lay back on the pillows. He looked pale and drawn. "I'll have to have a room downstairs," he said, thinking aloud.

  "Yes." She crossed her long legs, watching him quietly.

  His eyes opened, catching her at it. He studied her face, seeking out the telltale signs of fatigue. "You haven't left the hospital since I came in, except to sleep."

  "Myrna needed someone. You don't have any other family."

  "Imagine you, caring about my mother."

  "I have a son of my own," she said stiffly. "Perhaps I understand her now a little better than I once did."

  His expression stilled. His eyes averted to the window. "Do you have a picture of him?"

  "Him?"

  His jaw tautened as he glared at her. "My son."

  Waves of sensation rippled down her body at the deep tone, the faint possessive note in it. "Yes," she said, and fumbled in her purse for her photograph of Blake with hands that were suddenly clumsy.

  She brought it to Cy. He caught her wrist with a steely dark hand and held it while he took the photograph in his free hand and stared at it for a long time without speaking.

  "He has your eyes," he said after a minute, "even if they're the color of mine. But he has my nose and my chin."

  "He's going to be tall, too," she said hesitantly.

  His gaze lifted to her face, and he watched the slow flush spread across her cheekbones. "When did we make him?" he asked.

  Her body felt hot all over. She didn't want to remember.

  "When?" he whispered.

  "The first time," she said.

  "My God." He looked at the picture again, something in his expression so foreign, so mystifying, that Meredith stared down at him helplessly.

  Everything had been so cut and dried before. She and Henry had done the natural childbirth classes together, he'd been with her when Blake was born, he was always there as the child grew and thrived. But now she realized just how much a substitute Henry had been for what she'd really wantedfor Cy, doing all those things with her. Cy, holding her at night when she worried about labor; taking her to the hospital when the time came; staring down at his first child in his arms. Tears stung her eyes.

  He looked up and saw them. His chest rose and fell heavily, and his eyes were dark with sadness and pain. He let go of her wrist and handed the photograph back.

  "I wouldn't have known," he said, almost to himself. He stared out the window without seeing anything. "I'd never have seen him."

  If Henry had lived, he meant. Meredith traced her son's dark hair on the photograph before she put it back in her purse and sat down again. "One day I'd have told him," she said eventually. "Henry and I both agreed that he had the right to know who his real father was."

  Myrna Harden had come into the room while Meredith was speaking. She stood quietly in the doorway, grimacing as she listened to that last damning statement. So she'd have told Cy eventually. Perhaps it was just as well to have it out in the open now.

  "Back so soon?" he asked sarcastically. "If that's for me, I'm tired of coffee."

  Myrna handed a cup of black coffee to Meredith, taking the other to her own seat by the window. "It's not for you," she told Cy with magnificent unconcern. This was how she handled his furious temper, by ignoring it. He'd been hostile for days, and it hurt, but she wasn't going to let him see how much, even if she did realize that she deserved everything she was getting.

  "I feel like hell," Cy muttered on a weary sigh. "The company's going to pot while I lie around doing nothing."

  "Your vice president is coping quite nicely," Myrna informed him.

  "Is he? Coping, and keeping predators away?" he added with a meaningful glance at Meredith.

  "This predator is too tired to nip away at your company," Meredith replied. "For the moment, anyway. I'll wait until you're back on your feet."

  "Sporting of you," he mused. His eyes darkened. "And if I'm never back on my feet?"

  "Dr. Danbury said you will be," she replied. "He's the best in his field."

  He looked at her for a long moment, reading truth in her expression. He seemed to relax a little. "All right."

  "You'll be able to come home in a few days," Myrna said.

  "I'll move into the penthouse apartment," Cy announced, watching his mother turn pale.

  "No, you will not," Meredith said firmly. "You'll go home, where you belong."

  His eyebrows lifted. "Are you going to make me?"

  "No. But Mr. Smith will," she told him. "I'm going to lend him to your mother for a week or so, just until you're settled in. Mr. Smith is very good at physiotherapy."

  "Like hell I'll have your lover in my house!" Cy raged.

  "Mr. Smith is not, and has never been, my lover," Meredith said calmly. "He's my bodyguard. There was an attempt to kidnap Blake earlier this year. If it hadn't been for Mr. Smith, I don't know what might have happened."

  He scowled, feeling protective stirrings deep inside himself. "Kidnapping?"

  Her gray eyes searched his face. "Cy, do you have any idea of my net worth as Henry's heir? That kind of money makes anyone close to me a target. Especially Blake. Mr. Smith never leaves him for a minute, unless he's certain we're in a secure area."

  "What a hell of a life for a child," he said quietly.

  "And for his mother," she agreed. "It wears on my nerves from time to time. Mr. Smith is ex-CIA, and he was a mercenary for some years. Believe me, he knows his business."

  Cy seemed to relax a little, but his eyes were still glittering with feeling.

  Myrna was thinking while she listened. She had a solution that was going to make everything all righteven give her a buffer against her son's righteous anger.

  "Meredith," she began slowly, "why don't you move in with us while Cy recuperates?"

  The younger woman gaped at her. She should have expected the suggestion, but she hadn't.

  "Yes, why don't you?" Cy asked without offering a single argument. "It's a big house. Plenty of room. You can even bring Mr. Smith," he added curtly, "as long as you keep him away from me."

  "It's an ideal arrangement," Myrna coaxed. "We have an excellent cook and housekeeper. You can work from the house. We have a telephone and a fax machine"

  "Yes, Meredith, you can work on taking over my company from my own phone," Cy drawled, glaring at his mother.

  "Talk about inside sabotage," Meredith murmured dryly.

  "Think about it." Myrna's dark eyes pleaded.

  Meredith was weighing alternatives in her mind. Cy had perked up considerably since Myrna made the suggestion. It would give her the opportunity to help spur him to recovery. But Myrna would get close to Blake, and that was definitely a risk. Of course, Cy would get close to him, too

  "All right," she said finally, and Cy and Myrna both seemed to relax. "But there's a condition. Blake isn't to know anything about the past," she added, looking directly at Cy's mother.

  There was a definite hesitation. But Myrna knew she had no other choice, and she relented because it was the only way she was going to get to see her grandchild at all.

  "Fair enough," she told Meredith.

  The younger woman nodded. The conversation changed, but for the rest of the day Meredith wondered if she'd done the right thing. And she still had to break the news to Mr. Smith, who was certainly not one of Cy's biggest fans. />
  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  » ^ «

  The Harden home was as elegant as Meredith remembered it. It was difficult not to dwell on the last time she'd been here or the anguish she'd felt as she left. Mr. Smith glared at her as he helped move suitcases and equipment into the rooms Myrna had prepared for their use. "Are you out of your mind?" he asked. "Don't you know what she's plotting?"

  "She wants to get to know her grandson," Meredith replied. "And I'm handy to keep Cy from eating her alive. Yes, I know why we're here."

  He sighed heavily, eyeing her. "Still crazy about him, aren't you?"

  She smiled and nodded.

  He shrugged. "Okay. We'll settle in. Mrs. Harden just appropriated Blake and herded him into the kitchen. I'll bet she's planning to stuff him full of sweets. Not good for him. He needs healthy food."

  "I'll go tell her right now." She paused in the doorway.. "Bear with me. It's a difficult situation all around. I have to decide what to do. I can't walk out on Cy while he's in this condition. He's convinced himself that he won't walk, even though he's got feeling in his legs. He's weak and can't stand, and he thinks it's permanent."

  "What did that specialist really say?" he asked.

  She moved back into the room, so that there was no danger of anyone overhearing. "A disk in Cy's back was ruptured. If the nerve roots had been damaged, he'd never have walked again. There's a lot of bruising, and muscle damage. Dr. Danbury repaired it, but he's going to have some numbness and tingling and weakness for a while longer."

  Mr. Smith whistled through his teeth. "Poor guy."

  "Cy doesn't believe that he's going to improve. So he needs all the support he can get right now. I can't leave him. Regardless of what happened in the past, he is Blake's father."

  "No getting around that," he agreed. He smiled faintly. "Looks just like him."

  She smiled back. "Yes, he does."

  As she walked into the kitchen, Myrna was supervising the preparation of little cakes just for Blake.

  "Look what the lady's making me!" Blake enthused, laughing up at his mother. "Tea cakes! Mrs. Harden says that she used to make them for her little boy."

  "Her little boy is quite grown now," Meredith said, smiling at him. "You mustn't be any trouble."