Texas Rich

by Fern Michaels

  Thad turned to reach for Billie’s arm, but she was too fast. She had swiveled and was all but running for the tour bus. When he caught up to her she smiled brilliantly and started to chatter about what they had seen so far. He’d fouled up and the moment was gone.

  He took his cue from Billie and they chattered all the way back to the Peninsula Hotel. They parted at the elevator, promising to meet for dinner at eight o’clock.

  Thad paced his room for over an hour. He had never felt so hopeless in his entire life. Why couldn’t he say what he felt? Why couldn’t he take what he wanted? What Billie wanted, too? “Right? Wrong? Who gives a good goddamn,” he snarled as he smacked one fist into the other. Pain shot up his arm. It was so simple: you reached out and, if you were lucky, there was a hand reaching for yours. He knew Billie would meet him halfway, at least halfway. Nothing and no one seemed to matter except Billie and being free to tell her of his love.

  His career had been, after all, a poor substitute for the one woman he could love. After all those wasted years, nothing mattered. The chance to become fleet commander of the Pacific. loomed within his reach. It was something he’d worked toward, something to take the place of Billie. Honor, reputation, dedication—empty, empty, empty words. Right, wrong, Billie, Moss. It was all so confusing, so painful. It was a sad state of affairs when all a man had was a dog to call his own, A dog and a career. It wasn’t enough and it had never been enough. It was all so meaningless without Billie.

  The knowledge of what he was prepared to do was making him light-headed. He sat down on the edge of the bed with a thump. The hell with everything, with everyone. The years were precious-now. Reach out!

  Billie picked through the gowns and dresses, some still wrapped in the stiff rice paper in which the shops had delivered them. She wanted to wear something bright and mood-lifting, and finally chose a muted tangerine silk with slim sleeves and a mandarin collar. Gold earrings and a wide gold bracelet heightened the effect, and at the last minute she added a large topaz ring that almost obscured her wedding band.

  Billie paced her room, feeling nervous and edgy, her thoughts filled with Thad. She realized how much she had shared with him over the years, how much of her time had been spent thinking of him, how important he had become to her emotionally. But now, she had to confront the knowledge that she wanted him physically as well as emotionally. It was something she had long denied.

  Thad was already in the lobby when she stepped from the lift. He joined her immediately and Billie noticed a determined set to his jaw. His eyes held hers. A warm flush crept over her when he eyed her approvingly and tucked her hand into the crook of his arm.

  Dinner was at the Chesa, a delightful Swiss restaurant that was a reproduction of an Alpine inn. Billie admired the hand-painted fabric used for the curtains and tablecloths and immediately recognized a painted bride’s hope chest as being like one she’d seen as a young girl in Philadelphia.

  “The cuisine is authentic,” Thad assured her. “I’ve been to Switzerland for skiing and always come home with a few extra pounds around my middle.”

  “It’s comforting somehow to think of you with a paunch,” Billie teased lightly. “I never knew you had to be careful about your weight.”

  “There’s lots of things you don’t know about me, Billie,” he said flatly, without any attempt to return her light banter. Something was different about Thad tonight, she thought. Something brooding.

  They were shown to an intimate table that was quietly lit by a candle surrounded with freshly cut flowers. Billie would have liked something nearer the center of the room, where their conversation would be more guarded and the long looks he was giving her would be impossible. It didn’t matter, she told herself. Nothing mattered except that there was tension between them and she was the cause of it. She struggled with the conversation, determined to say the right things in exactly the right tone. Thad, she noticed, was on his third drink, which was rare. He was about to signal the waiter again when Billie reached across the table and took his hand. “Don’t, Thad. This isn’t like you. We’d better talk.”

  Thad shook his head. “Not here, Billie. Later. I’m sorry I’m acting like such a boor. Forgive me.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive. We’ll talk later.” Throughout dinner Thad seemed more himself, but neither of them really enjoyed the meal. They were both thinking about “later.”

  He watched her all through dinner, vacillating. But he had to take a chance, he had to reach out. She was so beautiful, this woman he had watched grow from a girl into this soft loving creature. She seemed to turn her face toward him the way a flower followed the sun. There was a new sharpness to her chin and jaw, the soft round contours of girlhood gone. All those years were gone, all those years of knowing she belonged to another man. But the real betrayal was knowing that she craved tenderness and love and was denied. That was killing him. He had so much to give, endless abounding love.

  Billie was aware of Thad watching her. At times there seemed to be a hard glint in those dark, watchful eyes, and at others there was that golden light she’d seen when he’d seen Sawyer for the first time. Sawyer! Good Lord, here she was a grandmother, contemplating . . . contemplating what? Having an affair with Thad? Yearning for that gentle attention and tenderness she knew he had to give? What was it she wanted exactly?

  Dinner over, Thad took her walking through the ornamental gardens across from their hotel. To suggest a quiet drink in his hotel room would be like putting out a fire with gasoline. Billie walked beside him, their shoulders touching, their fingertips brushing against one another. Suddenly Billie stopped and turned to Thad. “If you take me in your arms and hold me, I think I’ll explode into a million pieces. And if you don’t, I think my heart will break. Which shall it be?”

  “I’ve always been good at putting the pieces together,” he whispered hoarsely.

  She slipped easily into his arms and rested her head against his shoulder. She felt so good, so right. This was not the first time he’d held her in his arms, but it was the first time he could feel her heart beating a staccato rhythm in tune with his own.

  “Billie, Billie,” he murmured, liking the feel of her name on his lips, the name he spoke only in his dreams.

  She lifted her face to find his eyes, looking for answers to the questions her heart was asking. The moonlight caught that lovely oval and reflected the yearnings Thad found in his own heart. She was so appealing, this woman he loved. If he could never have another moment with her, he would remember this one—a moment out of all eternity and she was all that was appealing, this woman he loved. If he could never have another moment with her, he would remember this one—a moment out of all eternity that was theirs alone.

  He found his voice, felt it rumble and tremble in his chest. “Darling, how long can we go on this way? I know you care for me—it’s there in your eyes, in your voice when you speak my name. What’s keeping us apart when we need each other so desperately?” Suddenly he panicked. Had he said too much? Would she reject him? Had he ruined what little they shared?

  Billie lifted her hand and pressed tender fingers against his lips, stilling his words, fobidding any further declarations. Gently, sweetly, she rested her head against his chest and her words were spoken so softly that for a moment he thought he’d only imagined them. “Love me, Thad. Take me. I want to belong to you.”

  They found their way back to the hotel, clinging together like two children afraid to be lost to each other, fingers touching, hands holding, never losing contact with each other.

  In Billie’s room, surrounded by the dim glow from the little lamp on the bedside table, Thad’s touch became more intimate, more demanding, hungrier, as he helped her out of her dress and smoothed the gentle planes of her shoulders and back. His breath was warm on her skin, his lips tender as they tasted each hollow and curve beneath his fingers. He lifted her face to his, kissing her eyelids, the curve of her mouth, lingering there and taking possession as he had
only dared to do in his dreams.

  Her hands were suddenly urgent on his clothing; she wanted to be closer to his flesh, wanted him totally. This was right, she knew; the rightness of it was singing through her veins. Thad knew it, too; she could feel it in his response, hear it in his voice as he whispered her name.

  Lying beside him on the bed, close, so close she could feel each beat of his heart. Billie offered herself with love. It seemed as though she had been waiting her entire life for this moment, to hear him declare his love for her.

  “I love you, Billie. I love you,” he cried again and again, the words echoing from the chambers of his soul.

  She needed to hear those words. She wanted Thad body and soul, complete with every kind of love he could express. And always, always, she gave all that she could in response. Her love was in the touch of her hand and in the softness of her kiss; it was there in the tremblings of her flesh and the yielding of her body. She welcomed him, this man who was so much a part of her life—more, a part of her being. Thad had shared with her, knew her joys and sorrows, her hidden thoughts and secret longings. But this was a new Thad, a different Thad; he was her lover, exciting her passions, lifting her desires, making their love everything she could ever want it to be. She knew she could spend the rest of her life exploring the wonders of this man who could love so softly, so unselfishly.

  “I love you.” They breathed the words together and moved in unison, each striving to give, to share, to make the other complete.

  Thad poised himself above her, gazing down; her lovely face seemed to hold an illumination of its own from the love-light within her. He kissed her mouth, the pink roses of her breasts, then began to move in command of her passions, still watching her until he became unaware of anything except the driving demands of his body and the welcoming heat of hers.

  When he lay beside her, holding her tightly in his embrace, tears were burning his cheeks and he didn’t know whether they were Billie’s or his own.

  It was late, almost midnight, when the telephone rang and brought the world back. Billie reached for the receiver. “Yes?”

  Thad watched her face turn ashen and saw her white-knuckled grip on the phone. He waited, painfully aware that something terrible must have happened. Her body, which only a few moments ago had been warm and yielding, was now rigid and tense. “What is it, Billie? What’s wrong?” he asked when she’d hung up. He had to ask twice before she turned to him.

  “That was my mother. There was an air crash in Spain. There’s every reason to believe Moss was on that plane, but he’s not listed among the survivors. Seth suffered a stroke at the news. I have to leave.”

  Thad sprang into action. There was no time now to speculate on the cruelty of fate that this should happen now, when they were together, sated with their lovemaking and unburdened of their need to share and know each other’s love. “Pack. I can fly you to Japan and from there you can get a commercial flight to the states. By this time tomorrow you’ll be home. I’ve got to call the airport and have them ready my plane. Billie, will you be all right until I get back?”

  “Yes. Do what you have to do. I’ll call the desk and have them take charge of my trunks and ship them on later. Go along, darling, hurry, the children are going to need me. Especially Riley. Dear God, Riley!”

  There were no trumpets to herald Billie’s return to Sunbridge. Numb legs carried her through the massive oak doors and into the ominously silent house.

  All the long journey home questions had pounded at her. Was Moss alive? Did the children know? Should she fly directly to Spain? How was Seth? God forbid, had anyone been callous enough to tell Riley before she could be with him?

  The taxi driver who’d brought her from the airport placed her carry-on luggage near the foot of the stairs and Billie quickly stuffed several large bills into his hand. She had been lucky to have found a cab to bring her all the way from the airport. After he’d tipped his hat and let himself out of the house, Billie’s heels clicked impatiently on the hard tiles of the foyer and she shouted, “Motherrr!”

  It was several moments before Agnes appeared from the back of the house. “Billie! I’m so glad you’re home. Why didn’t you call to have the car meet you?”

  “That’s not important. The plane was early. Has there been any word?”

  “No news since I spoke to you. I have everyone working on it. Moss’s name appears on the passenger list, but aside from that, we don’t know anything. If the Spaniards are as haphazard as the Mexicans who work for us,” Agnes said disapprovingly, “I imagine it’s mass confusion over there. Perhaps later today . . .” Her voice trailed off and Billie looked at her sharply.

  “How is Seth?”

  “Resting comfortably. There’s not much to be done, according to the doctors. He refuses to go to the hospital. I think you should go up and see him. Now.”

  “Later, Mother. The children?” She held her breath.

  “They know nothing. It seemed senseless until we have confirmation.”

  Billie breathed a sigh of relief. At least she could be grateful for that. “Mother, had Seth heard from Moss while he was in Europe? How do we even know he was on that flight?”

  “We don’t! Moss called Seth several times and supposedly his last stop was Spain and from there he was flying home. I’m afraid we have to brace ourselves for the worst, Billie.”

  “Mother, exactly what did Moss say to Seth when he called? Did he give an outline of his itinerary?”

  “Only that he was flying home via Spain and that he expected to stay over in New York for a few days before coming home.” Agnes’s eyes glittered with speculation. “I think you should go up and see Seth right now. He’s very weak, Billie. The will seems to have gone out of him, and the doctor refuses to give us a prognosis. What’s wrong with you? What happened in Hong Kong? You’re different, somehow,” Agnes accused. “It’s as if you don’t care about what’s become of Moss.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I care. But this is no time for me to fall apart. You go and see Seth. Tell him I’m home and I’ll take care of things. Tell him I’ll be up when I . . . when I do what I have to do.”

  Agnes stared at her daughter but obeyed her. It was something to do. Much as she disliked the sickroom and Seth’s frail dependence upon her, it was better than being here with this strange Billie.

  When Agnes was out of sight, Billie headed straight for Moss’s study. She swallowed hard and opened Moss’s private drawer where he kept his address book. Her hands fumbled with bourbon flasks and the box of cigars. The packet of letters was still there. Without hesitation, she read the top envelope and noted the postmark. A few days before Moss had left for Europe. She settled herself, opened the letter, and read it. Her face showed no emotion when she folded the perfumed stationery and replaced it in the pretty envelope. She slid the drawer shut with her knee, picked up the phone, and dialed.

  The voice at the other end of the line was warm with sleep—or was it lax with drink? Billie didn’t know and she didn’t care. Her words were cold and full of venom. “You son of a bitch! Couldn’t you at least call your father when you returned to the States? Or when you changed your travel plans? The plane you were supposed to be on has crashed. You are not listed among the survivors. Haven’t you heard it on the news? Or have you been too busy? Seth’s had a stroke, Moss; he’s desperately ill!”

  Billie listened a minute, then said, “Personally, I don’t care much what you do. Your father might, however. Good-bye, Moss.”

  Billie’s breath exploded in a loud swoosh. Something deep inside her had told her that Moss couldn’t be dead. She would have known, would have felt something. Billie leaned back in Moss’s chair, hands pressed to her temples. She loved Thad; she knew she did. It was a mature love, a woman’s love. But would the girl in her ever stop loving Moss? Even now, there was a part of her that mourned this betrayal and grieved for her broken dreams.

  Slowly, Billie reached for the phone. A migraine w
as hitting like a lightning bolt. She rang for the overseas operator. “Thad? I’m home. . . . I’m fine. Really I am. I just have a headache. I haven’t seen Seth yet; Mother says he’s resting but that his condition is serious. Moss is alive. I’ve just spoken to him. He flew back to New York early. Fortunately, Mother was less than her usual take-charge self and didn’t tell the children. Thank God for that. All the way home I was terribly worried about Riley. You know the way he adores Moss.... You’re not to worry about me. We’ll all be fine and I’ll write in a few days. Thank you again for getting me to Tokyo. And Thad? Thank you for Hong Kong; I’ll never forget it. Never.”

  At the silence from the other end of the line, Billie squeezed her eyes shut against the engulfing pain. She felt Thad reaching for her across the thousands of miles that separated them, tender fingers of love stretching over the distance. She knew he was waiting for her to say something more, but she also knew this was a luxury she must deny herself. She loved Thad deeply, but all the long way home on the plane she had grieved for Moss, the man who was her husband and the father of her children. Regardless of everything, even her love for Thad, Billie knew without a doubt that Moss was still a part of her life and always would be.

  Thad’s voice was a deep rumble of choked emotions that tore at Billie’s heart. “Good-bye, Billie,” he murmured. “I’ll see you when I get back to the States.”

  “Yes, Thad. I’m counting on it. Good-bye.” When she heard the connection break, Billie added with a tear in her voice, “Good-bye, darling Thad.”

  Billie climbed the stairs to Seth’s room with difficulty. In the end she was forced to plant both feet on each step as she pulled herself to the top. The adrenaline that had raged through her, making her shake with unexpended energy, was gone. She was exhausted.