Simon forced himself to breathe normally. He still couldn't quite believe it all. He sipped his coffee and stared into space.
"Did you know how she felt?" he asked Corrigan.
"She didn't tell me, if that's what you mean," his brother said. "But it was fairly obvious, the way she talked about you. I felt sorry for her. We all knew how much you loved Melia, that you've never let yourself get close to another woman since the wreck. Tira had to know that there was no hope in that direction."
The coffee in Simon's cup sloshed a little as he put it down. "It seems so clear now," he remarked absently. "She was always around, even when there didn't seem a reason for it. She worked on committees for organizations I belonged to, she did charity work for businesses where I was a trustee." He shook his head. "But I never noticed."
"I know."
He looked up. "John knew," he said suddenly.
Corrigan hesitated. Then he nodded.
Simon sucked in a harsh breath. "Good God, I broke up their marriage!"
"Maybe. I don't know. Tira never talks about John." His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "But haven't you ever noticed that she and John's father are still friends? He doesn't blame her for his son's death. Shouldn't he, if it was all Tira's fault?"
Simon didn't want to think about it. He was sick to his stomach. "I pushed her at John," he recalled.
"I remember. They seemed to have a lot in common."
"They had me in common." Simon laughed bitterly. "She loved me..." He took a long sip of coffee and burned his mouth. The pain was welcome; it took his mind off his conscience.
"She can't ever know that we told you that," Corrigan said firmly, looking as formidable as his brother. "She's entitled to salvage a little of her pride. The newspapers got hold of the story, Simon. It's in the morning edition. The headline's really something—local socialite in suicide attempt. She's going to have hell living it down. I don't imagine they'll let her see a newspaper, but someone will tell her, just the same." His voice was harsh. "Some people love rubbing salt in wounds."
Simon rested his forehead against his one hand. He was so drained that he could barely function. It had been the worst day of his life; in some ways, worse than the wreck that had cost him everything.
For years, Tira's eyes had warmed at his approach, her mouth had smiled her welcome. She'd become radiant just because he was near her, and he hadn't known how she felt, with all those blatant signs.
Now, this morning, she'd looked at him with such hatred that he still felt sick from the violence of it. Her eyes had flashed fire, her face had burned with rage. He'd never seen her like that.
Corrigan searched his brother's worn face. "Don't take it so hard, Simon. None of this is your fault. She put too much pressure on herself and now she's paying the consequences. She'll be all right."
"She loved me," he said again, speaking the words harshly, as if he still couldn't believe them.
"You can't make people love you back," his brother replied. "Funny, Dorie and I saw her in the grocery store a few weeks ago, and she said that same thing. She had no illusions about the way you felt, regardless of how it looks."
Simon's eyes burned with anguish. "You don't know what I said to her, though. I accused her of killing John, of being so unconcerned about his happiness that she let him go into a dangerous job that he didn't have the experience to handle." His face twisted. "I said that she was shallow and cold and selfish, that I had nothing but contempt for her and that I'd never let a woman like her get close to me..." his eyes closed. ''Dear God, how it must have hurt her to hear that from me."
Corrigan let out a savage breath. "Why didn't you just load the gun for her?"
"Didn't I?" the older man asked with tortured eyes.
Corrigan backed off. "Well, it's water under the bridge now. She's safely out of your life and she'll learn to get along on her own, with a little help. You can go back to your law practice and consider yourself off the endangered species list."
Simon didn't say another word. He stared into his coffee with sightless eyes until it grew cold.
Tira slept for the rest of the day. When she opened her eyes, the room was empty. There was a faint light from the wall and she felt pleasantly drowsy.
The night nurse came in, smiling, to check her vital signs. She was given another dose of medicine. Minutes later, without having dared remember the state she was in that morning, she went back to sleep.
When she woke up, a tall, blond, handsome man with dark eyes was sitting by the bed, looking quite devastating in white slacks and a red pullover knit shirt.
"Charles," she mumbled, and smiled. "How nice of you to come!"
"Who'll I talk to if you kill yourself, you idiot?" he muttered, glowering at her. "What a stupid thing to do."
She pushed herself up on an elbow, and pushed the mass of red-gold hair out of her eyes She made a rough sound in her throat. "I wasn't trying to commit suicide!" she grumbled. "I got drunk and Mrs. Lester found an old empty prescription bottle and went ballistic." She shifted sleepily and yawned. "Well, I can't blame her, I guess. I still had the pistol in my hand and there was a hole in the wall..."
"Pistol!?"
"Calm down," she said, grimacing. "My head hurts. Yes, a pistol." She grinned at him a little sheepishly. "I was going to shoot the mouse."
His eyes widened. "Excuse me?"
"There's a mouse," she said. "I've set traps and put out bait, and he just keeps coming back into my kitchen. After a couple of drinks, I remembered a scene in True Grit, where John Wayne shot a rat, and when I got halfway through the whiskey bottle, it seemed perfectly logical that I should do that to my mouse." She chuckled a little weakly. "You had to be there," she added helplessly.
"I suppose so." He searched her bloodshot eyes. "All those charity events, anybody calls and asks you to help, and you work day and night to organize things. You're everybody's helper. Now you're working on a collection of sculpture and still trying to keep up with your social obligations. I'm surprised you didn't fall out weeks ago. I tried to tell you. You know I did."
She nodded and sighed. "I know. I just didn't realize how hard I was working."
"You never do. You need to get married and have kids. That would keep you busy."
She lifted both eyebrows. "Are you offering to sacrifice yourself?"
He chuckled. "Maybe it would be the best thing for both of us," he said wistfully. "We're in love with people who don't want us. At least we like each other."
"Yes. But marriage should be more than that."
He shrugged. "Just a thought." He leaned over and patted her hand. "Get well. There's a society ball next week and you have to go with me. She's going to be there."
Tira knew who she was—his sister-in-law, the woman that Percy would have died to marry. She'd never noticed him, despite his blazing good looks, before she married his half brother. In fact, she seemed to actually dislike him, and Charles's half brother was twenty years her senior, a stiff-necked stuffed-shirt whom nobody in their circle had any use for. The marriage was a complete mystery.
"I don't have a dress."
"Buy one," he instructed.
She hesitated.
“I’ll protect you from him," he said after a minute, having realized that Simon would most likely be in attendance. "I swear on my glorious red Mark VIII that I won't leave your side for an instant all evening."
She gave him a wary glance. His mania about that car was well-known. He wouldn't even entrust it to a car wash. He washed and waxed it lovingly, inch by inch, and called it "Big Red."
"Well, if you're willing to swear on your car," she agreed.
He grinned. "You can ride in it."
"I'm honored!"
"I brought you some flowers," he added. "One of the nurses volunteered to put them in a vase for you."
She gave him a cursory appraisal and smiled. "The way you look, I'm not surprised. Women fall over each other to get to you."
"Not the
one I wanted," he said sadly. "And now it's too late."
She slid her hand into his and pressed it gently. "I'm sorry."
"So am I." He shrugged. "Isn't it a damned shame? I mean, look what they're missing!"
She knew he was talking about Simon and the woman Charles wanted, and she grinned in spite of herself. "It's their loss. I'd love to go to the ball with you. He'll let me out of here today. Like to take me home?"
"Sure!"
But when the doctor came into the room, he was reluctant to let her leave.
She was sitting on the side of the bed. She gave him a long, wise look. "I wasn't lying," she said. "Suicide was the very last thing from my mind."
"With a loaded pistol, which had been fired."
She pursed her lips. "Didn't anyone notice where the shot landed? At a round hole in the baseboard?''
He frowned.
"The mouse!" she said. "I've been after him for weeks! Don't you watch old John Wayne movies? It was in True Grit!"
All at once, realization dawned in his eyes. "The rat writ."
"Exactly!"
He burst out laughing. "You were going to shoot the mouse?"
"I'm a good shot," she protested. "Well, when I'm sober. I won't miss him next time!"
"Get a trap."
"He's too wily," she protested. "I've tried traps and baits."
"Buy a cat."
"I'm allergic to fur," she confessed miserably.
"How about those electronic things you plug into the wall?"
She shook her head. "Tried it. He bit the electrical cord in half."
"Didn't it kill him?"
Her eyebrows arched. "No. Actually he seemed even healthier afterward. I'll bet he'd enjoy arsenic. Nope, I have to shoot him."
The doctor and Charles looked at each other. Then they both chuckled.
The doctor did see her alone later, for a few minutes while Charles was bringing the car around to the hospital entrance. “Just one more thing," he said gently. "Regardless of what Simon said, you didn't kill John. Nobody, no woman, could have stopped what happened. He should never have married you in the first place."
"Simon kept throwing us together," she said. "He thought we made the perfect couple," she added bitterly.
"Simon never knew," he said. "I'm sure John didn't tell him, and you kept your own silence."
She averted her eyes. "John was the best friend Simon had in the world. If he'd wanted Simon to know, he'd have told him. That being the case, I never felt that I had the right." She looked at him. "I still don't. And you're not to tell him, either. He deserves to have a few unshattered illusions. His life hasn't been a bed of roses so far. He's missing an arm, and he's still mourning Melia."
"God knows why," Dr. Gaines added, because he'd known all about the elegant Mrs. Hart, things that even Tira didn't know.
"He loved her," she said simply. "There's no accounting for taste, is there?"
He smiled gently. "I guess not."
"You know, you really are a nice man, Dr. Gaines," she added.
He chuckled. "That's what my wife says all the time."
"She's right," she agreed.
"Don't you have family?"
She shook her head. “My father died of a heart attack, and my mother died even before he did. She had cancer. It was hard to watch, especially for Dad. He loved her too much."
"You can't love people too much."
She looked up at him with such sadness that her face seemed to radiate it. "Yes, you can," she said solemnly. "But I'm going to learn how to stop."
Charles pulled up at the curb and Dr. Gaines waved them off.
"Look at him," Charles said with a grin. "He's drooling! He wants my car." He stepped down on the accelerator. "Everybody wants my car. But it's mine. Mine!"
"Charles, you're getting obsessed with this automobile," she cautioned.
"I am not!" He glanced at her. "Careful, you'll get fingerprints on the window. And I do hope you wiped your shoes before you got in."
She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"I'm kidding!" he exclaimed.
She let out a sigh of relief. “
And Dr. Gaines wanted me to have therapy," she murmured.
He threw her a glare. "I do not need therapy. Men love their cars. One guy even wrote a song about how much he loved his truck."
She glanced around the luxurious interior of the pretty car, leather coated with a wood-grained dash, and nodded. "Well, I could love Big Red," she had to confess. She leaned back against the padded headrest and closed her eyes.
He patted the dash. "Hear that, guy? You're getting to her!"
She opened one eye. "I'm calling the therapist the minute we get to my house."
He lifted both blond eyebrows. "Does he like cars?"
"I give up!"
When she arrived home, she was met at the door by a hovering, worried Mrs. Lester.
"It was an old, empty prescription bottle!" Tira told the kindly older woman. "And the pistol wasn't for me, it was for that mouse we can't catch in the kitchen!"
"The mouse?"
"Well, we can't trap him or drive him out, can we?" she queried.
The housekeeper blushed all the way to her white hairline and wrung her hands in the apron. "It was the way it looked..."
Tira went forward and hugged her. "You're a doll and I love you. But I was only drunk."
"You never drink," Mrs. Lester stated.
"I was driven to it," she replied.
Mrs. Lester looked at Charles. "By him?" she asked with a twinkle in her dark eyes. "You shouldn't let him hang around here so much, if he's driving you to drink."
"See?" he murmured, leaning down. "She wants my car, that's why she wants me to leave. She can't stand having to look at it day after day. She's obsessed with jealousy, eaten up with envy..."
"What's he talking about?" Mrs. Lester asked curiously.
"He thinks you want his car."
Mrs. Lester scoffed. "That long red fast flashy thing?" She sniffed. "Imagine me, riding around in something like that!"
Charles grinned. "Want to?" he asked, raising and lowering his eyebrows.
She chuckled. "You bet I do! But I'm much too old for sports cars, dear. Tira's just right."
"Yes, she is. And she needs coddling."
"I'll fatten her up and see that she gets her rest. I knew I should never have let her talk me into that vacation. The first time I leave her in a month, and look what happens! And the newspapers...!" She stopped so suddenly that she almost bit her tongue through.
Tira froze in place. "What newspapers?"
Mrs. Lester made a face and exchanged a helpless glance with Charles.
"You, uh, made the headlines," he said reluctantly.
She groaned. "Oh, for heaven's sake, there goes my one-woman show!"
"No, it doesn't," Charles replied. "I spoke to Bob this morning before I came after you. He said that the phone's rung off the hook all morning with queries about the show. He figures you'll make a fortune from the publicity."
"I don't need..."
"Yes, but the outreach program does," he reminded her. He grinned. "They'll be able to buy a new van!"
She smiled, but her heart wasn't in it. She didn't want to be notorious, whether or not she deserved to.
"Cheer up," he said. "It'll be old news tomorrow. Just don't answer the phone for a day or two. It will blow over as soon as some new tragedy catches the editorial eye."
"I guess you're right."
"Next Saturday," he reminded her. "I'll pick you up at six."
"Where will you be until then?" she asked, surprised, because he often came by for coffee in the afternoon.
"Memphis," he said with a sigh. "A business deal that I have to conduct personally. I'll be out of town for a week. Bad timing, too."
"I'll be fine," she assured him. "Mrs. Lester's right here."
"I guess so. I do worry about you." He smiled sheepishly. "I don't have any family, e
ither. You're sort of the only relative I have, even though you aren't."
"Same here."
He searched her eyes. "Two of a kind, aren't we? We loved not wisely, and too well."
"As you said, it's their loss," she said stubbornly. "Have a safe trip. Are you taking Big Red?"
He shook his head. "They won't let me take him on the plane," he said. "Walters is going to stand guard over him in the garage with a shotgun while I'm gone, though. Maybe he won't pine."
She burst out laughing. "I'm glad I have you for a friend," she said sincerely.
He took her hand and held it gently. "That works both ways. Take care. I'll phone you sometime during the week, just to make sure you're okay. If you need me..."
"I have your mobile number," she assured him. "But I'll be fine."
"See you next week, then."
"Thanks for the ride home," she said.
He shrugged and flashed her a white smile. "My pleasure."
She watched him drive away with sad eyes. She was going to have to live down the bad publicity without telling her side of the story. Well, what did it matter, she reasoned. It could, after all, have been worse.
Chapter 3
The week passed slowly until the charity ball on Saturday evening. It was to be a lavish one, hosted by the Carlisles, a founding family in the area and large supporters of the local hospital's charity work. Their huge brick mansion was just south of the perimeter of San Antonio, set in a grove of mesquite and pecan trees with its own duck pond and a huge formal garden. Tira had always loved coming to the house in the past for these gatherings, but she knew that Simon would be on the guest list. It was going to be hard facing him again after what had happened. It was going to be difficult appearing in public at all.
She did plan to go down with all flags flying, however, having poured her exquisite figure into a sleeveless, long black velvet evening gown with lace appliques in entrancing places and a lace-up bodice that left little gaps from her diaphragm to her breasts. Her hair was in an elegant French twist with a diamond clip that matched her dangling earrings and delicate waterfall diamond necklace. She looked wealthy and sophisticated and Charles gave her a wicked grin when she came through to the living room with a black velvet and jewel wrap over one bare shoulder. It was November and the weather was unseasonably warm, so the wrap was just right.
Books By Diana Palmer Page 189
