“Mam! It’s good to hear your voice. You feeling all right?”
The voice was wavery and tearful. It saddened Moss. “We miss you, son. I’m so happy for you. I’m certain Billie is a wonderful girl and we’re going to love her just the way we love you. When will we get to meet her?”
“Soon. Pap will explain it all. Billie and her mother are coming to Austin. Take care of them for me, Mam. Promise me.”
“I promise, darlin’. What does this mean? Are you being reassigned? I thought your father took care of that....”
“He did, Mam, but I undid it.” Before she could ask any more questions, he handed the phone to Billie.
Startled, Billie swallowed hard. “Mrs. Coleman. This is Billie Ames. No, I mean Coleman.” Moss grinned down at her flustering. “It’s so nice to talk to you. I’m looking forward to meeting you and Mr. Coleman. I just hope our coming to Austin isn’t going to be an imposition.”
“Dear child, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m delighted. In fact, I can hardly wait to get everything ready for you. Billie, I do want us to get on together, for Moss’s sake.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Coleman. I’ll put Moss back on. He wants to talk to his father again.”
Moss took the phone. This time there was something different in Pap’s voice. Was it acceptance of his reassignment? Never. It was the baby. He’d probably enrolled it in Texas A&M by now. A trust fund and the kid’s first pony were already on order. Seth would handle it all. “Send your family on, son. We’ll take care of them for you. Take care of yourself, son. You’re a damn fool. You know that, don’t you?”
“I had a hell of a teacher. I love you, Pap.”
“I know you do, son. Knock them on their ass for all of us.”
The connection was broken.
In Austin, Texas, Seth Coleman rose abruptly from his oversized desk in the library and went to stand before the long windows that overlooked the back gardens of Sunbridge and the rolling hills of the cattle range beyond. He deliberately turned his back on his wife so she wouldn’t see his defeat. The call from Moss had come as a crushing blow. The boy was going off to war and the sudden news of a grandchild was a trade-off.
Jessica Coleman watched her husband, wringing her hands in sympathy. Seth’s love for Moss was obsessive and the thought of losing his son to the war was crippling. Jessica loved her son no less, and her fears were just as great; but her love was tender and maternal, without the driving power and possessiveness of Seth’s. It was the way Seth loved—or hated—and she had come to accept it years ago, had learned to live with it. And what Seth neither loved nor hated did not exist for him. She, Jessica, did not exist.
“You’ve got yourself a daughter-in-law, Jess,” Seth told her. He turned to face her and she saw he’d come to terms with Moss’s decision. “But I’ve got myself a grandson!”
Billie lay beside Moss, watching him sleep. She needed to commit him to memory, so when she closed her eyes she could bring him back to her and conjure every line, every detail of him. She wanted to remember how his hands felt on her body as he loved her, slowly, completely. Her heart was breaking at the thought of his leaving, but it was a burden she wouldn’t ask him to take to war.
She snuggled down against him, taking his warmth, resting her head against his shoulder. It was impossible not to touch him, not to smooth her hand over the breadth of his chest and the flatness of his belly. She loved him, and for this time at least, he was hers.
He stirred beneath her touch and turned his face to kiss her brow. His arms wrapped her in his embrace and he murmured her name. Billie’s hand slipped lower, brazenly awakening him, sliding beneath him as he rolled toward her. At least she would have this to take to Texas with her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The week-long train trip to Austin, with its stopovers and delays and bone-rattling clackety-clack, was pure torture for Billie. Morning sickness, which continued for most of the day, had struck again within an hour of Moss’s leaving. She was nauseated from waking till midafternoon, and then was so debilitated and exhausted that she spent the entire trip in her lower berth with a bucket provided by a kindly conductor. Agnes fussed and clucked for the first two days but gave it up after Billie cried to be left alone to die in misery.
Agnes absented herself somewhat gratefully and dined in style three times a day in the luxurious dining car, where she made it her business to tell anyone who’d listen that she belonged to the Coleman family of Austin. She never considered this a direct lie, leaving it to the listener to assume she was a blood Coleman or to wonder just who or what a Coleman was. Her entire attention was taken up by the adventure of it all; this trip was like an overture to the opening act. Not once did Moss Coleman enter her mind; from the moment he had stepped aboard the transport that would take him to San Diego and then on to Hawaii, he had been forgotten. Moss Coleman had served his purpose.
The Southern-Pacific superliner pulled into the Austin station the morning of August 25, 1942. Billie held her mother’s arm and fought down the bile that was rising in her throat. Her eyes were rimmed with purple shadows. Her legs trembled from lying in her berth for almost seven straight days, jarring her spine and increasing her queasiness. She looked gaunt and sick.
“Mrs. Coleman?” A white-jacketed porter approached them, smile gleaming.
“Yes,” Agnes answered for Billie, who sank down again on the edge of the lower berth.
“If you’ll follow me, Mrs. Coleman, I’ll take you to your party. They’re waiting on the platform. If you give me your stubs, I’ll get your bags and bring them out to the car.”
Obviously, the Colemans tipped generously, Agnes thought; this explained the porter’s toothy grin. She dug into her purse and extracted the baggage claim stubs. “Come along, Billie. We mustn’t keep everyone waiting.”
The porter led them to the back of the train and positioned a little stepstool to help them disembark. The capped head and uniformed shoulders of a chauffeur were visible behind a white-haired woman and a tall, bulky-shouldered man leaning on a cane. They stood apart from the station throng.
Billie’s eyes met those of her father-in-law and she was sure of what she read in them: So this was the fragile, sickly female that Moss had the misfortune to marry! She turned to Moss’s mother and saw compassion and understanding in the soft gray gaze. Billie found herself heading for the woman’s outstretched arms.
“You’re ill, child,” Jessica Coleman said. “You come along with me. Tita—that’s our housekeeper—has a cure for everything, and that includes morning sickness. We’ll have you right as sagebrush in a few days.” She didn’t even have to look at her husband to know he must be thinking that Moss had gotten himself an ox in a ditch when he’d chosen this ashen-faced child to produce the Coleman heir.
Jessica turned to Agnes. “I hope you’ll enjoy Sunbridge as much as we do, Mrs. Ames,” she said quietly, and Billie recognized the soft drawl that was Moss’s.
Agnes’s polite response was designed to make perfectly clear right from the beginning that her coming to Texas had been Moss’s idea entirely—it had seemed to ease his mind before he went away, and so, of course, she’d been prompted to oblige. This Agnes said without gushing, without any display of emotion. Her manner was subdued, exactly correct. Seth observed the performance and remembered Moss’s remark when asked what the mother was like: “Just like you, Pap.” Well, here she was. Agnes Ames in her severely tailored suit and small black hat atop her chestnut curls. A woman of few words and with a no-nonsense look about her. Seth approved. He looked at Billie and thought how unfortunate it was that Moss’s tastes didn’t run along the same lines.
“Why don’t you take the little gal to the car, Jess,” Seth suggested. “Poor li’l thing looks about done in. Mrs. Ames and I will be along shortly. Carlo,” he addressed the chauffeur, “take care of the baggage.”
Seth took Agnes’s arm as they walked behind Jessica and Billie. “I wonder if you’d mind if we let J
ess and your daughter go ahead to Sunbridge. I’m going to the office and we can take a company car home from there.” Seth had no intention of riding forty miles in a car with a retching mother-to-be and this was as good a time as any to get to know Agnes.
“I wouldn’t mind at all. Billie is hardly fit company these days. The baby, you know.”
Seth forced a smile and his blue eyes beneath the thick gray hair glittered in a way remarkably like Moss’s. Agnes watched to see if he carried the cane for effect or out of need. He did walk with a slight limp, but not enough, she thought, to warrant the cane. There was nothing of the invalid about this tall, powerful man, whose eyes seemed to see everything and whose words said only half of what he meant. Agnes already felt completely comfortable with him but she knew instinctively that hers was the exceptional reaction: Seth Coleman would be intimidating to most women and especially someone as young and naive as Billie.
Agnes missed nothing, from the uniformed chauffeur to Seth’s white custom Stetson to Jessica’s expensive silk-blend suit and Stone Marten stole. When the baggage had been stowed in the trunk of the luxurious black Packard, Agnes climbed in the backseat, beside Jessica and Billie; Seth sat in front, with Carlo.
“Jess, Carlo will drop Mrs. Ames and me at the office. There’s something I have to sign. We’ll follow you in one of the company cars.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Ames is tired and would prefer to go directly to Sunbridge,” Jessica said, offering Agnes the opportunity to decline Seth’s arrangement.
“Nonsense!” Seth declared.
“Actually, I had a very good night, Mrs. Coleman. I’d be delighted to accompany Mr. Coleman to the office and follow later.”
Jessica smiled and nodded.
“She’s Jessica and I’m Seth;” her husband growled from the front seat.
“And I’m Agnes,” she replied, mimicking his tone.
In spite of himself, Seth grinned. So the old girl could give as good as she got. Perhaps there was hope for the daughter after all. Perhaps in a few years she’d lose that soft edge and smarten up, be more like her mother. He was going to enjoy having Agnes about, Seth decided, as he decided most things, instantly. The women in his household were just too soft, too easily brought to tears. Agnes would be a refreshing change.
Agnes had been expecting Austin to be a frontier town, like in a western movie, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. They drove down wide-paved streets, between sidewalks almost as wide. The downtown shopping area, while less developed and hectic than New York, certainly could rival Philadelphia’s. The long black Packard came to a stop before a tall building with a pink Italian marble façade. Engraved in the lintel over the brass-and-glass revolving doors was the name Coleman. Agnes was impressed but kept her counsel, as though she were used to associating with people who owned their own skyscrapers. Remembering Billie, she said, “You will be all right, won’t you, dear? I’m certain I’ll be joining you before long.”
Billie, her eyes closed against the bright sunlight and the motion of the car, simply nodded. She’d be glad when Agnes left the car, taking the overpowering scent of her Tabu perfume with her.
“Billie will be fine, Agnes,” Jessica reassured her. “We’re heading straight home and I’ll put her right to bed. Seth, why don’t you take Agnes out to lunch? It will be well past noon before you’ll be able to get out to Sunbridge, anyway.”
“I’ll do that, Jess,” Seth said politely. Why did Jess think people needed three squares a day to survive? He could remember a time when if he ate once a day, he could consider himself lucky.
Billie slept the forty-odd miles to Sunbridge and Jessica found herself patting Billie’s arm. She wanted to gather the young girl close to her but was afraid to disturb her.
Billie Ames Coleman, Moss’s wife, her son’s wife, and within her she carried Moss’s child. Her own honest-to-goodness grandchild. There was a time, so long ago, when she was as bright arid hopeful and young as Billie. Time and Seth had changed that.
She was being bitter, something she usually reserved for the early hours of the morning when she awoke in her bed, alone. A body had a right to feel bitter at such times. Was it too much to ask to have affection and tenderness and perhaps just a tiny dose of companionship at her age? She wished fervently she could point to a time, a place, when things had changed between herself and Seth. If she had to choose, it would be the day of Moss’s birth. She’d done what was expected, given him a son. His first son, he’d declared, the first of many! When Amelia had been born it was a disappointment that had turned bitter when it was discovered Jessica could bear no more children. Yes, that’s when things went wrong, when Seth no longer came to her bed....
Jessica had been wildly in love with the larger-than-life, rawboned Seth Coleman. She always laughed when he told her she was just what he needed, a refined gentle lady to upgrade the Coleman bloodline. “Jess, you have class,” he would tell her, sweeping her into his arms. He knew what he wanted and he wanted her. He made no secret of his desires, telling anyone who would listen. She couldn’t resist the handsome, aggressive young man, though he had worked with his hands in the oil fields and still had the dirt under his fingernails two years after they were married. He shared his dreams of owning the biggest, grandest spread in all of Texas, and she had known that he would claw it out of the bare earth. Once she had thought he had wanted it for her. Now she knew better. He had wanted it for himself, just as he wanted her refinement and respectability. She had given it gladly, thinking she would receive love and tenderness in return.
She could have done so much better, her family had told her. Carl Bowdrie from the Austin bank had wanted her almost as much as Seth. But there hadn’t been the challenge in Carl’s eyes that there was in Seth’s.
Living with her parents hadn’t prepared her for a life with Seth Coleman. Her father had been a gentleman with a classical education and a small family fortune. Her mother had been a lady. They hadn’t been rich, merely comfortable. Life had been pleasant—filled with affection, genuine affection and love—and simple: church suppers, quiet dinner parties with well-bred people carrying on intelligent conversations, good wine, delicately prepared food, discreet service.
She’d never gotten used to the shindigs Seth threw. Raw whiskey, beer by the keg, and the “wheeling-dealing,” as Seth called it; that was the underlying reason. Things had changed recently, though. Instead of raw whiskey there was champagne and the wheeler-dealers had somewhere come by parlor manners. But underneath it was all the same, attended by the same people for the same reasons: money.
Just once she had asked Seth for something that had been important to her. She’d wanted to keep the house she’d inherited from her parents. She would have been able to go there, to escape to her girlhood home with her children and show them that not all of life was focused on one man’s personality and wealth. But this had been denied her. Seth had refused her request, had taken it all away from her. Just as he’d taken her children.
She had been a young debutante when she’d met Seth. Now she was an old lady living in a monstrous house she detested, with a man who didn’t care if she took the next breath.
Jessica reached out and took Billie’s hand in her own, wishing she could impart the strength she herself had never possessed. “You have to be strong, Billie,” she whispered. “Not tough, strong. There’s a difference.”
Just before they turned into the drive Jessica shook her lightly. “Wake up, Billie. I thought you’d like to get your first glimpse of Moss’s home—Sunbridge.”
Billie rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked through the split windshield of the Colemans’ Packard. They passed under a high wooden arch that was emblazoned with the name . “Sunbridge.” Miles of white rail fencing stretched into the distance. Tall oak trees lined the winding drive and on either side were expanses of bright green lawn with sprinklers pulsing rhythmically.
Billie felt as though they were journeying through a tunnel of dappled
green. Far up the drive, bright daylight shone, and when they achieved the final turn the house came into view.
Sitting upon a gently sloping rise, the great house basked beneath the blue Texas sky and was caressed by the sun. Billie thought, as they came out from under the dark of the trees, that only here, in this place called Sunbridge, could the sun seem so warm and golden.
The house was a three-story brick of the palest pink, flanked by two wings, which were also three-storied but set back several feet from the main body. This expanse of prairie rose was accented by white columns that supported the roof of the verandah sweeping the entire frontage. A multipaned fan light crested the huge double front door and the design was repeated again over each window on the top floor. Ornamental topiary trees and crepe myrtle hugged the foundation, and surrounding the house was a magnificent rose garden complete with trellises and statuary. Billie gasped with awe. “Moss never told me about Sunbridge. He just called it a spread!”
Jessica laughed. “How like Moss. Sunbridge is a spread; it spreads over two hundred and fifty thousand acres. We raise thoroughbreds and thousands of head of cattle. They’re kept on the back acres, and other, smaller ranches are commissioned by Seth for breeding. But this is only a small part of the Coleman holdings and business interests. Seth built all of this himself.” Jessica sounded proud but Billie noticed a sadness in her eyes.
“The name Sunbridge fits it so well,” Billie said.
“Yes. When Seth first saw the land he says he felt as though he could almost reach up and touch the sun. He came from very dark beginnings, Billie, and building this place was a major achievement for him. He hoped that a great house upon this rise would bridge his past with what he wanted for the future. Seth’s not a romantic, not by any means, but the name of Sunbridge was entirely his own conception.” The sadness had remained in Jessica’s eyes, and as though to break herself from her solemn thoughts she forced a smile in Billie’s direction. “We’ll get you inside, Billie, where it’s much cooler. Then I’ll have the housekeeper fix something for you. I know you’re not feeling well, so I’ll spare you a formal introduction to the servants.”
Texas Rich Page 13
