New Way to Fly

by Margot Dalton

  “Turn around,” Amanda ordered, getting up off the couch and examining the other woman with a calm professional air. “Let me see the back. I believe the fit is perfect. I don’t think it even needs to be touched.”

  Mary pirouetted stiffly and then looked up at Amanda, her mouth twitching in an awkward smile. “Pretty spiffy, right?” she asked. “Mary Gibson, of all people, in a designer suit.”

  Amanda leaned over and gave the older woman a small reproving tap on the shoulder. “What do you mean, ‘of all people’? Mary Gibson, you have a perfectly elegant figure. A lot of women half your age would envy you that figure. And this suit looks like it was made for you.”

  Mary looked down at herself. Her face was still dubious, but her body seemed much more relaxed, and her eyes, Amanda noted, were actually beginning to glow with excitement.

  The suit helped, of course. The fabric was a soft cream-colored knit with subtle overtones of heather, almost an exact match with Mary’s beautiful light hazel eyes. The skirt draped gently, adding grace and height to Mary’s figure, while the brief fitted jacket accentuated her slim waist and shapely hips.

  In fact, Amanda realized, Mary Gibson was so close to her own measurements that Amanda’s clothes fitted her as if they’d been professionally tailored.

  “Made for you,” Amanda repeated firmly. “You look all ready for a lunch date at the country club, just as soon as we do something with that hair.”

  Mary scrubbed a hand through the lacklustre graying strands. “I haven’t been to the hairdresser for months,” she confessed shyly. “I’ve just been hacking it off myself every few weeks.”

  “Well, that’s certainly obvious,” Amanda said without sympathy. “Lovely hair like that, and you won’t do a thing with it. Absolutely criminal.”

  “I should get it tinted and shaped,” Mary said. “I know I should. But I always feel so…”

  She hesitated, flushing painfully, and smoothed the fine fabric of her skirt with a trembling hand.

  “What?” Amanda asked gently. “What do you feel, Mary?”

  Mary shrugged and turned away, avoiding the younger woman’s eyes. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “Like everybody’s watching and laughing at me, I guess. ‘There goes Mary Gibson, poor old fool, trying to make herself look nice while her husband’s out running around with a woman young enough to be his daughter….’ Amanda, did you see that girl’ shair?” Mary burst out in sudden despair. “How could I ever compete with that, no matter how many times I go to the hairdresser?”

  “Mary, don’t say things like that. It’s not a competition,” Amanda said gently, drawing the other woman down beside her on the couch and putting an arm around her shaking shoulders. “We should never, ever try to compete with other women, not even for our men.”

  “That’s easy to say if you’re young and beautiful, and every man in the world wants you.”

  Amanda gave her a small smile. “I don’t think every man in the world wants me, Mary. At least, they’re hardly beating my door down at the moment,” she added dryly. “But that’s not the point. The point is, we should dress for ourselves, not for men. A woman should try to be her best for her own sake and nobody else’s, because that’s the only way she can feel in charge of her own life. Do you understand what I mean?”

  Mary nodded. “You’re saying that I should do this for me, just because it makes me feel good, and not because it might make Al love me again.”

  “Exactly,” Amanda said firmly, turning aside to pick up a sweater so Mary wouldn’t see the sudden tears that filled her eyes.

  Not because it might make Al love me again…

  “Now, try the slacks,” Amanda said. “The gray ones, I think, with this soft turquoise sweater. I think that color would be really nice on you. You seem to look especially good in subdued secondary colors.”

  “Subdued secondary colors,” Mary echoed with a brave teasing smile. “Now, I never thought I’d hear words like that in my own house.”

  Amanda grinned back, encouraged by Mary’s sudden sparkle. A little warmth and interest, a few changes of clothing, and it was already becoming clear what a pretty woman Mary Gibson must have been at one time.

  And how attractive she could still be, with some basic attention to detail, Amanda reflected.

  “Go,” she said sternly. “Go right this minute and put on that sweater and slacks, Mary Gibson, and no more teasing the consultant.”

  Mary giggled and vanished obediently toward the bedroom again, her arms full of clothes. But this time she felt comfortable enough to leave the door ajar, calling to Amanda through the opening.

  “The gray slacks with the turquoise sweater, did you say? Or this dusty-pink one?”

  Amanda paused, thinking. “Either,” she called back. “But I think the turquoise will probably be best on you. Or you could try that creamy angora with the fawn-colored slacks.”

  “Oh good,” Mary said with childlike enthusiasm.

  “I just love that soft cuddly sweater.”

  Amanda smiled. “Mary,” she called suddenly.

  “Yes? Oh, Amanda, this angora just feels lovely. It feels like being hugged by something all soft and velvety.”

  “I know. Mary, that man I met at the party the other night…”

  “Which man?”

  “The one we were both talking to. I think you said he was your neighbor. His name was Brick, or Brock, something like that,” Amanda added with elaborate casualness, as if the man’s name weren’t burned indelibly into her memory. “Was that him, up on the hill a few minutes ago?”

  “Brock? Yes, it was. He’s doing some fencing, I guess. What about him? Amanda, should I wear gold earrings or pearls with this creamy color?”

  “Gold, absolutely,” Amanda said in the direction of the half-closed door. “Pearls will just get lost against that color. I wondered how long you’ve know him. Brock Munroe, I mean.”

  “Oh, goodness, all his life,” Mary said in a distant muffled voice. “He was just a baby when I came here as a young bride. Brock and I, we sort of grew up together. I always liked that boy.”

  “He’s a strange man,” Amanda commented casually, lifting the little horse again and studying it with deep interest. “He even quotes poetry. Seemed completely out of character, somehow.”

  “Not really.” Mary’s voice came drifting down the hallway. “Brock’s always been a reader. I used to go over there sometimes to visit his mama when he was just a little boy. Brock, he’d always be curled up in a corner somewhere with his nose in a book.”

  “But he never wanted to get an education?” Amanda asked, setting the little horse down again on a side table. “Why didn’t he go to college, if he’s so scholarly?”

  “He couldn’t,” Mary said simply. “There was no money in that family to pay for luxuries like college. And besides, he had both his daddy and the ranch to look after. Poor Brock, he’s always had to be the…”

  Mary’s voice grew louder all at once and Amanda looked up to see her standing in the entry. She wore a pair of beautifully fitted camel trousers and the angora sweater, and looked trim and graceful, her face radiant with pleasure.

  All thoughts of the enigmatic neighboring rancher vanished from Amanda’s mind for the moment. She got up and hurried across the room to hug the other woman, laughing.

  “I declare, Mary Gibson, aren’t you just pretty as a picture? Look what you’ve been hiding, girl!”

  The afternoon drifted away as Mary continued to try on the clothes. They earnestly discussed accessories and shoes, laughing together like schoolgirls.

  “Oh, my,” Mary said after a couple of hours had passed. “I do believe it’s time for coffee. Amanda, this is more fun than I’ve had in years, and I truly thank you. I don’t care what these clothes cost, I intend to buy almost all of them,” she added recklessly.

  “Oh, they’re not going to cost much,” Amanda said. “Probably about four hundred dollars for everything you’ve picked out,
and I can always arrange terms if you’re—”

  “I can afford four hundred dollars,” Mary interrupted. “I’m selling most of the calves next week, and I’ll just make sure that I get a little of that cash before the bank does.”

  “But, Mary, if it’s a problem…” Amanda began cautiously.

  “I’ve worked real hard on this ranch, and I’ve hardly spent a penny on myself for years,” Mary said firmly. “I guess I’m entitled to something that makes me feel this good.”

  “Of course you are,” Amanda said.

  Mary looked at the younger woman with sudden shrewdness. “Are you sure you’re quoting me a fair price, Amanda?” she said. “I haven’t shopped for clothes for years and I’m not real sure what things cost nowadays, but this still looks like a lot of good quality stuff for four hundred dollars.”

  Amanda hesitated, her cheeks growing uncomfortably warm. “You’re partly right, Mary,” she said carefully. “I mean, you’d never get a deal like this at a retail store. But these clothes are actually secondhand, in a way, since they were bought for somebody else who’s decided she doesn’t want them. That’s why I can give you such a good price.”

  Amanda settled back, feeling childishly relieved to have gotten through this entire explanation without having to tell an outright lie.

  Mary, too, seemed comforted, her face softening into a grateful smile. “Well, it’s just wonderful” she said. “For me, it feels like a dream come true. Do you ever dream about things, Amanda?” she asked suddenly, moving toward the kitchen and motioning the younger woman to follow.

  “Me? Do I dream?” Amanda echoed, then paused. “Isn’t that strange,” she added slowly, following Mary into her big sunny kitchen and sinking down on one of the antique oak chairs.

  “Strange? What’s strange?” Mary frowned briefly, feeling the sides of the coffee percolator, before taking a couple of heavy china mugs from the cupboard.

  “Your neighbor…Brock Munroe? He asked me the same thing.”

  “Brock? What did he ask you?”

  “If I dream. He wanted to know what I dream about.”

  Mary smiled. “What did you tell him?’

  “Nothing,” Amanda said briefly. “I really didn’t think it was any of his business.”

  Mary nodded, placing the steaming coffee mugs on the table and returning to the counter to fill a plate with oatmeal cookies. “Dreams are private things,” she said quietly.

  Amanda stirred cream into her coffee, thinking about her recurring dream. The same image had haunted her again in the early hours just this morning. She’d been holding the little baby in her arms and that same man was standing nearby in the sunshine, a man she couldn’t see but loved so much that she felt her heart would break with the sweetness of it….

  “I keep dreaming about ostriches,” Mary said abruptly, her cheeks flushing pink.

  Amanda stared blankly across the kitchen table. “Ostriches?”

  Mary smiled again. “A pretty strange dream, right? I don’t know if I’ve even seen an ostrich in real life. Maybe once in a zoo, or something. But in my dream, they’re so sweet. The big one lets me ride on his back, and we go skimming off across the desert, and it feels so lovely.”

  Amanda looked at the older woman. “I guess,” she began carefully, “that a psychologist would say the birds represent freedom, Mary. Something that can lift you up and carry you away from all your problems.”

  Mary nodded, gazing into the depths of her coffee mug. “Probably,” she said. “Poor Al,” she added abruptly. “I wonder what he dreams about, locked away in that jail cell. I wonder if he dreams about being rescued and carried off to freedom.”

  “Do you still have feelings for him, Mary? Do you love him?”

  Mary shifted restlessly in her chair. “I don’t know,” she said at last, meeting the younger woman’s eyes with a frank unhappy gaze. “I truly don’t know. I guess you can’t spend thirty-five years with somebody and not have some feelings for him, no matter what. I know he did some awful things, and he hurt me real bad, but I still…”

  She fell silent abruptly, gazing out the window, her eyes carefully averted.

  “You still feel sorry for him,” Amanda concluded. “You think about him there in jail, with his freedom taken away, and it hurts you.”

  “Yes,” Mary agreed simply. “It hurts me.”

  “Does he get many visitors there?”

  “I don’t know. I guess a few of his friends visit sometimes, though it’s an awful long way, and I know that Brock’s still mad at him for…for what he did.”

  Amanda was silent, gazing into the depths of her cup.

  “And our daughter, Sara, she lives so far away and she’s got the kids to look after, but she’s hoping to come down at Christmastime and go see her daddy. He’ll really like that, seeing Sara.”

  “How about you? Will you ever go visit him, Mary?”

  Mary shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to go someday, just to discuss business. The ranch…”

  She looked up at Amanda, then down at the table again, picking restlessly at the woven place mat while Amanda waited.

  “The ranch isn’t in real good shape,” Mary said finally. “The bank needs some money right away, and some plans for the future, and I don’t have either. I don’t know what to do.”

  Amanda was silent, fighting off the sudden panicky memory of a recent interview with her own banker, of his pursed lips and sober expression while he reviewed her account.

  And, although she tried hard not to think about it, Amanda was about to sell Mary Gibson a selection of clothing for four hundred dollars that had cost her, personally, more than two thousand.

  But that didn’t matter, Amanda told herself firmly. This had nothing to do with business. In fact, the transaction wouldn’t even appear in the company books. They were her own clothes, and she could certainly get along without them.

  I’ve got lots of clothes, she thought. I can spare a few suits and slacks, if it’s going to do this much good for somebody else.

  And there was no doubt that the clothes, and the company, had done Mary Gibson a world of good. Her hazel eyes sparkled, her face was animated enough to look really pretty, and she smiled readily despite her obvious concern over finances.

  “Nothing cheers up a woman like getting a new look,” Amanda said firmly. “It’s certainly better than sitting around brooding and worrying. Now if you’ll just do something about your hair…”

  “Right away,” Mary promised. “I’ll make an appointment tomorrow. After all, I can’t wear those beautiful new clothes with a hairdo like this, can I?”

  “Just a light sunny auburn tint,” Amanda said, eyeing the other woman with professional interest. “And a soft layered cut, kind of windblown…”

  The door opened suddenly. A tall young man entered the kitchen, setting a wire pan of brown eggs on the counter and turning to give Amanda a dark meaningful glance that made her cheeks grow suddenly warm.

  “Amanda Walker, this is Luke Harte, who helps out around the ranch,” Mary said. “Amanda’s brought me a whole lot of the most beautiful clothes, Luke,” she went on brightly. “I look like a real fashion plate in them, don’t I, Amanda?”

  “She certainly does,” Amanda said automatically, troubled by something in the young man’s stance, by the smoldering depths of his dark eyes.

  Mary chattered on, clearly nervous in his presence. “And she’s planning to get me fixed up even more. I’m going to the hairdresser, and probably getting my face and nails done besides. Goodness, by the time Amanda’s finished with me I’ll be able to get a job in Vogue magazine.”

  Luke Harte gave Amanda a cold level glance, his dark eyes unwavering though he addressed his words to Mary. “Well, now,” he said in a slow cowboy drawl, “all that stuff’s hardly necessary, Mary. You look real good just the way you are. If Miss Walker don’t think so, maybe she’s not the best person for you to be spendin’ your time with.”

  Amanda
gaped at him, speechless with shock and indignation. But before she could form a response he was gone, striding out the door and across the veranda, his boots clattering in the afternoon stillness.

  Mary turned to her guest with an awkward smile. “Don’t mind Luke,” she said. “He’s just being loyal and protective of me, that’s all. He didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Amanda nodded and murmured something politely noncommittal. After a few minutes she said her farewells. She accepted Mary’s check for the clothes, made arrangements to deliver a silk blouse that she’d forgotten to bring, then got into her car and drove away.

  Mary Gibson stood on the veranda waving and smiling, her slim figure visible until Amanda rounded the stand of live oak trees and pulled out through the ranch gates and onto the highway.

  Amanda waved back before she disappeared, smiling brightly, but she was still troubled by the brief encounter with Mary Gibson’s hired man.

  Who was he? And was his rudeness really prompted by loyalty and protectiveness toward his employer?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BROCK MUNROE STROLLED along the outdoor concourse of the Arboretum, one of Austin’s most elegant shopping malls. He smiled in the autumn sunlight, enjoying the pleasant European ambience of the place with its quaint green awnings and flagged walkways.

  At last he reached the far end and paused, peering at the sign that adorned a shop window.

  SPREE, the sign read, in delicate gold script. “Personal shopping by Amanda.”

  He hesitated, frowning suddenly. Brock Munroe, despite his rugged cowboy appearance, was a man with a deep love for the written word, and for the nuances of language. Just now he was thinking about the meaning and implication of the word spree, the name Amanda Walker had chosen for her business.

  A spree was any form of reckless abandonment to pleasure, an orgy of self-indulgence. The word denoted superficiality and wasteful extravagance, both concepts that were completely foreign to Brock’s own careful and self-disciplined outlook.

  He stared moodily at the elegant little sign, his resolve waning fast. In fact, he was about to turn away and walk back to his truck when he remembered the dark-haired woman’s beautiful face and body, and the warm generous spontaneity of the hug she’d given Mary Gibson the previous day.