by Diana Palmer
She drew the cover back over her nudity, ashamed because of the way he was looking at her. He made her feel as if she’d done something terrible.
“You knew nothing happened that night,” he continued quietly. “I didn’t. I was too drunk to care what I did, but I remembered all too well that I lost my head the minute I touched you. For all I knew, I might have gone through with it. But you knew better, and you let me marry you in spite of it, knowing it wasn’t necessary.”
She clutched the coverlet. “I tried to tell you, but I couldn’t seem to get you alone for five minutes,” she murmured defeatedly.
“Of course you couldn’t,” he returned. His voice was as cold as his eyes. “I wasn’t going to make matters worse by seducing you a second time.”
“I thought it was your brothers….”
She didn’t finish, but her face gave the game away. His eyes positively glittered. “My brothers? Of course. My brothers!” He glared down at her. “They were in on it, too, weren’t they? No wonder they did their best to make me feel like a heel! Did you convince them to go along with the lie?”
She wanted to tell him that it had been Leo’s idea in the first place, but what good would it do now? He was making it clear that he’d married her against his will and blamed her for making it necessary. Nothing she could say would be much of a defense.
Her silence only made him madder. He turned toward the door.
“Where…are you going? Do you want supper?”
He looked at her over one broad, bare shoulder. “I’ve had all I want. Of everything.”
He went through the doorway and slammed the door behind him.
Tess dissolved into tears of misery. Well, she was married, but at what cost? If Cag had ever been close to loving her, he wasn’t anymore. He hated her; she’d seen it in his eyes. She’d trapped him and he hated her.
She got up, feeling unusually stiff and sore in odd places, and went to take a shower. The sooner she could get back to normal, or nearly normal, the better.
She bathed and dressed in a neat flowered shirtwaist dress, combed her freshly washed and dried curly hair and went to the kitchen to make supper. But even as she went into the room, she heard one of the ranch trucks crank up and roar away in a fury.
Curious, she searched the house for Cag, even braving his own bedroom. His closet was still open and she caught a whiff of aftershave. She leaned against the doorjamb with a long sigh. So he’d run out, on their wedding night. Well, what did she expect, that he’d stay home and play the part of the loving husband? Fat chance, after the things he’d said.
She fixed herself a sandwich with some cold roast beef and drank a glass of milk. Then she waited for Cag to come home.
When he hadn’t come back by midnight, she went to her room and crawled into bed. She was certain that she lay awake for an hour, but she never heard him come in. She slept alone and miserable, still tingling with the memories of the past few hours. If only he’d loved her, just a little, she might have had hope. She had none, now.
By morning, she knew what she had to do. She went looking for Cag, to tell him she was leaving. She had the promise of her mother’s legacy and a small savings account, plus last week’s salary that she hadn’t spent. She could afford a bus ticket and a cheap apartment somewhere, anywhere, out of Jacobsville.
It might have been just as well that Cag still hadn’t come home. His room was empty, his bed hadn’t been slept in. The brothers were still out of town and Mrs. Lewis wasn’t coming again until the next week. Nobody would be here to say goodbye to her. But what did it matter? Cag had made his disgust and contempt very clear indeed. He wouldn’t care if she left. She could get the divorce herself and have the papers sent to him. He didn’t love her, so what reason was there to stay here and eat her heart out over a man who didn’t want her?
She blushed a little as her mind provided vivid proof that it wasn’t a case of his not wanting her physically. He’d been insatiable, inexhaustible. Perhaps that was why he left. Perhaps he was ashamed of how hungry he’d been for her, of letting her see that hunger. Her own inexperience had been her worst drawback, because she had no real knowledge of how men behaved after they’d soothed an ache. She didn’t think a man in love would insult his new bride and leave her alone all night. Apparently he was still furious with her and in no mood to forgive what he saw as a betrayal of the worst kind.
Well, he needn’t expect her to be sitting at home mourning his loss! She’d had enough of being alternately scorned, rejected and passionately kissed. He could find another object for his desires, like the noncooking Miss Brewster! And she wished the woman joy of him. Such a narrow-minded, hard-nosed man deserved a woman who’d lead him around by the ear!
Tess packed, took a long last look around the first real home she’d ever known and called a cab. She thought about leaving a note. But, after all, Cag hadn’t left her one when he’d stayed out all night. He must have known that she’d be worried, but he hadn’t cared about her feelings. Why should she care about his? Now it was her turn. But she was staying out much longer than a night.
She took the cab to the airport and walked into the terminal, staying only until the cab pulled away. She hailed another cab, climbed in and went to the bus station, just in case Cag tried to trace her. She wasn’t going to make it easy for him! She bought a ticket for St. Louis and sat down to wait for the bus.
A plane ticket would have been nice, but she couldn’t afford the luxury. She had to conserve her small store of cash. It would be enough to keep her for at least a week or two. After that, she could worry about getting enough to eat. But if she ran out of luck, there was always the shelter. Every city had one, full of compassionate people willing to help the down and out. If I ever get rich, she thought, I’ll donate like crazy to keep those shelters open!
She was rich, she remembered suddenly, and bit her lip as she realized that she hadn’t left the lawyer a forwarding address. She went to the nearest phone and, taking his card from her wallet, phoned and told his secretary that she was going out of town and would be in touch in a week or so. That business accomplished, she sat back down on one of the long benches and waited for the bus to arrive.
St. Louis was huge. Tess noticed barges going down the wide Mississippi and thought how much fun it would be to live in a river town. She’d lived inland all her life, it seemed.
She found a small efficiency apartment and paid a week’s rent in advance. Then she bought a newspaper and got a sandwich from a nearby deli and went back to her room to read and eat.
There weren’t a lot of jobs available. She could wait, of course, and hope for something she could do that paid a nice salary. But her skills were limited, and cooking was her best one. It seemed like kindly providence that there was a cooking job available at a local restaurant; and it was nearby!
She went the very next morning just after daylight to apply. The woman who interviewed her was dubious when Tess told her how old she was, but Tess promised she could do the job, which turned out to be that of a pastry chef.
The woman, still skeptical but desperate to fill the position, gave Tess a probationary job. Delighted, she got into the apron and cap and got started.
By the end of the day, her employer was quite impressed and Tess was hired unconditionally.
She went back to her apartment tired but satisfied that things had worked out for her so quickly. She spared a thought for Cag. If he’d come home, he probably wondered where she was. She didn’t dare expand on that theme or she’d be in tears.
Running away had seemed the answer to all her problems yesterday, but it wasn’t so cut-and-dried today. She was in a strange city where she had no family or friends, in a lonely apartment, and all she had to show for it was a job. She thought of the brothers waiting patiently for their breakfast and nobody there to fix it. She thought of Cag and how happy she’d felt that night she’d taken him the special dessert in his study. Things had been magical and for those few
minutes, they’d belonged together. But how soon it had all fallen apart, through no real fault of her own.
“I should have stayed,” she said, thinking aloud. “I should have made him listen.”
But she hadn’t. Now she had to live with the consequences. She hoped they wouldn’t be too bad.
Callaghan dragged back into the house a day and a half after he’d left it with his misery so visible that it shocked his brothers, who’d come back from their business trip to an ominously empty house.
They surged forward when he walked through the door.
“Well?” Leo prompted impatiently, looking past Cag to the door. “Where is she?”
Cag’s tired mind took a minute to work that question out. “Where is she? What do you mean, where is she? She isn’t here?” he exploded.
Rey and Leo exchanged worried glances as Cag pushed past them and rushed down the hall to Tess’s room. It was empty. Her suitcase was gone, her clothes were gone, her shoes were gone. He looked over her dresser and on the bed, but there was no note. She hadn’t left a trace. Cag’s heart turned over twice as he realized what she’d done. She’d run away. She’d left him.
His big fists clenched by his sides. His first thought was that he was glad she’d gone; his life could get back to normal. But his second thought was that he felt as if half his body were missing. He was empty inside. Cold. Alone, as he’d never been.
He heard his brothers come up behind him.
“Her things are gone,” he said without any expression in his voice.
“No note?” Leo asked.
Cag shook his head.
“Surely she left a note,” Rey murmured. “I’ll check the office.”
He went back down the hall. Leo leaned against the wall and stared unblinking at his big brother.
“Gave her hell, did you?” he asked pointedly.
Cag didn’t look at him. His eyes were on the open closet door. “She lied. She tricked me into marriage.” He turned his black eyes on Leo. “You helped her do it.”
“Helped her? It was my idea,” he said quietly. “You’d never have married her if it was left up to you. You’d have gone through life getting older and more alone, and Tess would have suffered for it. She loved you enough to risk it. I’d hoped you loved her enough to forgive it. Apparently I was wrong right down the line. I’m sorry. I never meant to cause this.”
Cag was staring at him. “It was your idea, not hers?”
Leo shrugged. “She didn’t want any part of it. She said if you didn’t want to marry her, she wasn’t going to do anything that would force you to. I talked her into keeping quiet and then Rey and I made sure you didn’t have much time to talk to each other before the wedding.” His eyes narrowed. “All of us care about you, God knows why, you’re the blooming idiot of the family. A girl like that, a sweet, kind girl with no guile about her, wants to love you and you kick her out the door.” He shook his head sadly. “I guess you and Herman belong together, like a pair of reptiles. I hope you’ll be very happy.”
He turned and went back down the hall to find Rey.
Cag wiped his forehead with his sleeve and stared blindly into space. Tess was self-sufficient, but she was young. And on top of all his other mistakes, he’d made one that caused the others to look like minor fumbles. He hadn’t used anything during that long, sweet loving. Tess could be pregnant, and he didn’t know where she was.
Chapter Eleven
Tess was enjoying her job. The owner gave her carte blanche to be creative, and she used it. Despite the aching hurt that Cag had dealt her, she took pride in her craft. She did a good job, didn’t watch the clock and performed beautifully under pressure. By the end of the second week, they were already discussing giving her a raise.
She liked her success, but she wondered if Cag had worried about her. He was protective toward her, whatever his other feelings, and she was sorry she’d made things difficult for him. She really should call that lawyer and find out about her stock, so that she wouldn’t have to depend on her job for all her necessities. And she could ask him to phone the brothers and tell them that she was okay. He’d never know where she was because she wasn’t going to tell him.
She did telephone Clint Matherson, the lawyer, who was relieved to hear from her because he had, indeed, checked out those stocks her mother had left her.
“I don’t know quite how to tell you this,” he said heavily. “Your mother invested in a very dubious new company, which had poor management and little operating capital from the very start. The owner was apparently a friend of hers. To get to the point, the stock is worthless. Absolutely worthless. The company has just recently gone into receivership.”
Tess let out a long breath and smiled wistfully. “Well, it was nice while it lasted, to think that she did remember me, that I was independently wealthy,” she told the lawyer. “But I didn’t count on it, if you see what I mean. I have a job as a pastry chef in a restaurant, and I’m doing very well. If you, uh, speak to the Hart brothers…”
“Speak to them!” he exclaimed. “How I’d love to have the chance! Callaghan Hart had me on the carpet for thirty minutes in my own office, and I never got one word out. He left his phone number, reminded me that his brother was acting attorney general of our state and left here certain that I’d call him if I had any news of you.”
Her heart leaped into her throat. Callaghan was looking for her? She’d wondered if he cared enough. It could be hurt pride, that she’d walked out on him. It could be a lot of things, none of which concerned missing her because he loved her.
“Did you tell him about the stock?” she asked.
“As I said, Miss Brady, I never got the opportunity to speak.”
“I see.” She saw a lot, including the fact that the attorney didn’t know she was married. Her spirits fell. If Callaghan hadn’t even mentioned it, it must not matter to him. “Well, you can tell them that I’m okay. But I’m not telling you where I am, Mr. Matherson. So Callaghan can make a good guess.”
“There are still papers to be signed…” he began.
“Then I’ll find a way to let you send them to me, through someone else,” she said, thinking up ways and means of concealing her whereabouts. “Thanks, Mr. Matherson. I’ll get back to you.”
She hung up, secure in her anonymity. It was a big country. He’d never find her.
Even as she was thinking those comforting thoughts, Clint Matherson was reading her telephone number, which he’d received automatically on his Caller ID box and copied down while they were speaking. He thought what a good thing it was that Miss Brady didn’t know how to disable that function, if she even suspected that he had it. He didn’t smirk, because intelligent, successful attorneys didn’t do that. But he smiled.
Callaghan hadn’t smiled for weeks. Leo and Rey walked wide around him, too, because he looked ready to deck anybody who set him off. The brothers had asked, just once, if Cag knew why Tess had left so abruptly and without leaving a note. They didn’t dare ask again.
Even Mrs. Lewis was nervous. She was standing in for Tess as part-time cook as well as doing the heavy housework, but she was in awe of Callaghan in his black mood. She wasn’t sure which scared her more, Cag or his scaly pet, she told Leo when Cag was out working on the ranch.
Always a hard worker, Cag had set new records for it since Tess’s disappearance. He’d hired one private detective agency after another, with no results to date. A cabdriver with one of Jacobsville’s two cab companies had been found who remembered taking her to the airport. But if she’d flown out of town, she’d done it under an assumed name and paid cash. It was impossible to find a clerk who remembered selling her a ticket.
Jacobsville had been thoroughly searched, too, but she wasn’t here, or in nearby Victoria.
Callaghan could hardly tell his brothers the real reason that Tess had gone. His pride wouldn’t let him. But he was bitterly sorry for the things he’d said to her, for the callous way he’d treated her. It
had been a last-ditch stand to keep from giving in to the love and need that ate at him night and day. He wanted her more than he wanted his own life. He was willing to do anything to make amends. But Tess was gone and he couldn’t find her. Some nights he thought he might go mad from the memories alone. She loved him, and he could treat her in such a way. It didn’t bear thinking about. So he’d been maneuvered into marriage, so what? He loved her! Did it matter why they were married, if they could make it work?
But weeks passed with no word of her, and he had nightmares about the possibilities. She could have been kidnapped, murdered, raped, starving. Then he remembered her mother’s legacy. She’d have that because surely she’d been in touch with…the lawyer! He could have kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner, but he’d been too upset to think straight.
Cag went to Matherson’s office and made threats that would have taken the skin off a lesser man. She’d have to contact Matherson to get her inheritance. And when she did, he’d have her!
Sure enough, a few days after his visit there, the attorney phoned him.
He’d just come in from the stock pens, dirty and tired and worn to a nub.
“Hart,” he said curtly as he answered the phone in his office.
“Matherson,” came the reply. “I thought you might like to know that Miss Brady phoned me today.”
Cag stood up, breathless, stiff with relief. “Yes? Where is she?”
“Well, I have Caller ID, so I got her number from the unit on my desk. But when I had the number checked out, it was a pay phone.”
“Where?”
“In St. Louis, Missouri,” came the reply. “And there’s one other bit of helpful news. She’s working as a pastry chef in a restaurant.”
“I’ll never forget you for this,” Cag said with genuine gratitude. “And if you’re ever in need of work, come see me. Good day, Mr. Matherson.”
Cag picked up the phone and called the last detective agency he’d hired. By the end of the day, they had the name of the restaurant and the address of Tess’s apartment.
