by Diana Palmer
“You’d better leave town,” he suggested with a wry smile. “You just went on the endangered list.”
Her fingers spread on his shirt, but he caught and stilled them. “Stop that. I’m barely a step away from ravishment.”
“How exciting,” she murmured.
“You wouldn’t think so for the first few minutes,” he murmured skeptically. “And you wouldn’t be able to live with your conscience even if you did enjoy it eventually.”
She grimaced. “I guess not. I’m not really cut out for passionate affairs.”
“And I’m not cut out for happily ever after,” he said without looking at her.
“Because of your family?” she asked.
He drew in a long breath. She felt his chest rise and fall under her hand. “We could make a list. It wouldn’t change anything.” He looked at her rapt, soft face, and his hardened. “Despite everything,” he whispered huskily, “I would give everything I own to have you, just once.”
She managed a faint smile. “Maybe you’d be disappointed.”
He traced her mouth with a lazy finger. “Maybe you would, too.”
“So it’s just as well, isn’t it?”
“That’s what my mind says,” he agreed.
She nuzzled against his shoulder and closed her eyes. “Isn’t there a poem about hopeless attraction?”
“Hundreds,” he said.
She felt his hand smoothing her hair, almost in a comforting gesture. She smiled. “That feels nice.”
“You feel nice, lying against me like this,” he whispered. He bent and kissed her closed eyelids with breathless tenderness. “It was like this, the night of the wreck,” he added in a hushed tone. “I held you and comforted you, and wanted you until I ached.”
“But I was seventeen.”
“But you were seventeen.” He pressed a kiss on her forehead and put her aside so that he could get to his feet. “You haven’t changed much,” he added as he helped her up.
“I’m older,” she pointed out.
He laughed, and it had a hollow sound. “If you were a modern woman, we’d have fewer problems.”
“But I’m not modern,” she replied sadly. “And that says it all.”
A door opened and shut, and he glanced toward the closed door of the study. “That’ll be Romeo, I reckon,” he drawled with a glittery look at Natalie. “I don’t like the way he hangs around you.”
“He likes me,” she said carelessly. “I like him, too. What’s wrong with that?”
“He belongs to Vivian,” he returned, and he didn’t smile.
She searched his hard face. “You can’t own people.”
The eyebrow that wasn’t under the string of the eye patch lifted sardonically. “She won’t thank you for making a play for him.”
She ached all over with frustration and misery, and she hated him for arousing her and pushing her away at the same time. It wasn’t logical, but then, she wasn’t thinking clearly. She didn’t mean what she said next, but she was so angry she couldn’t help herself. “What would you care if I did? You don’t like him. Maybe it would open her eyes.”
“Don’t do it,” he warned in a low, threatening tone.
“Or you’ll do what?” she challenged icily.
He didn’t answer. They were enemies in the blink of an eye. He was furious, and it showed. He went to the door and opened it with a jerk, waiting for her to leave.
She hesitated, but only for an instant. If that was the way he wanted it, all right! She went out the door without looking at him, without speaking, without knowing that she’d just altered the whole pattern of her life.
Mack closed the door sharply behind her, and she grimaced before she went to the kitchen to see if Whit was there. He was. He’d just made coffee, in one of the expensive modern coffee machines that did it in seconds. He’d poured two cups, one for himself and one for Vivian.
“Where’s the tray?” he asked, looking around.
“I haven’t got a clue,” she admitted. She looked in cupboards, but she couldn’t find one.
“Never mind,” he said. “I take mine black and she takes hers with cream. I can carry both cups if you’ll bring the cream, and we’ll forget the tray.”
“Okay,” she said.
He was gazing at her with an experienced eye, and it suddenly occurred to her that she must look pretty disheveled. She thought about taking a minute to repair her makeup before she went upstairs, but Whit was already out the door.
She followed him up the staircase and into Vivian’s room. It hadn’t dawned on her, either, that Whit had been out in the wind and his hair was disheveled. When the two of them entered the room, Vivian put together Natalie’s swollen mouth and mussed hair and Whit’s mussed hair and came up with infidelity.
“Go home,” she told Natalie in a vicious tone. “Go right now and don’t ever come back!”
“Viv! What’s wrong?” she asked.
“As if you don’t know!”
Whit didn’t say anything, but he had a very strange look in his eyes. “You’d better go,” he said gently. “I’ll look after Viv.”
Natalie looked at Vivian, but she turned her face away and refused to say another word. With resignation and bitter sadness, Natalie put down the cream and left the room.
Nobody was around when she went out the front door. She’d made a clean sweep tonight. Mack and Vivian were both furious at her over Whit when she hadn’t meant to cause trouble. She hoped it would all blow over.
For the moment, all she could think about was the close call she’d had in Mack’s arms on the sofa, and she wished with all her heart that things had been different between them. For better or worse, she loved him with her whole heart. But he had nothing to offer her.
She went home and fell, exhausted, into bed.
Whit was left alone with Vivian, who was in tears. “You were making love to her!” she accused, her blue eyes shooting sparks at him. “My boyfriend and my best friend! How could you?”
He hesitated before he spoke, with both hands in his pockets. He’d seen Vivian as a nice, biddable little source of gambling money and light lovemaking. But she’d become jealous and possessive of him, and he was getting tired of it. There were other women.
“So what?” he asked, not denying her charge. “She’s not as pretty or rich as you are, but she’s sweet and she doesn’t question every move I make.”
Vivian stared at him, almost purple with rage and frustration and hurt pride. “Then go with her,” she spat at him. “Get out. And don’t come back!”
“That,” he replied, “will actually be a pleasure. You’re no man’s idea of the perfect woman, Viv. In fact, you’re a spoiled little rich girl who wants to own people. It’s not worth it.”
“Worth what?” she choked.
He looked at her with world-weary cynicism and contempt. “I like to gamble. You had money. We made a handsome couple. I thought we’d be a match made in heaven. But there are other rich girls, honey.”
He laughed mockingly and walked out, closing the door behind him. Vivian went wild, throwing things and weeping horribly until Mack came into the room minutes later and helped her off the floor and into bed.
“What in God’s name is wrong with you?” he demanded, surveying the destruction of her bedroom.
“Whit and Natalie,” she choked. “They were…making love…. Whit said she was everything I’m not.” Sobs choked the words for several seconds while her brother stood by the bed, frozen. “Oh, I hate them so. I hate them both! My boyfriend and my best friend! How could they do this to me?”
“How do you know they were making love?” he asked in a hollow tone.
“I saw them,” she lied viciously. “And Whit admitted it. He even laughed about it!”
Mack’s face became a mask. He drew the covers over Vivian with a strange, frightening silence.
Vivian wasn’t making connections. She was just short of hysteria. “They won’t come here again. I to
ld them not to. I’m through with them!”
“Yes.” His voice sounded strained. “Try to calm down. You’ll make yourself sicker.”
“If either of them call,” Vivian added coldly, “I won’t speak to them.”
“Don’t worry about that,” he told her. “I’ll handle it.”
“I already handled it,” she shot back. “And don’t tell Bob and Charles. Nobody else needs to know!”
“All right, Viv. Try to get some sleep. I’ll have Sadie come in tomorrow and clean up in here.”
“Thanks, Mack,” she managed through her tears. “You really are a dear.”
He didn’t answer her. He went out and closed the door quietly, and the life seemed to drain out of him. Natalie, with Vivian’s boyfriend. He’d told her not to flirt with the man, and she’d been angry with him. Was that why? Did it explain why she’d go from his arms into another man’s in less than ten minutes?
Well, if her idea was to make him jealous, it had failed. He had nothing but contempt for her. Like Vivian, he didn’t want her in the house, in his life. He went downstairs to his study and immersed himself in paperwork, trying not to see that long leather couch where they’d lain together in the sweetest interlude of his life.
Maybe it was just as well. He couldn’t marry her. There were too many strikes against them. But he didn’t like the idea of her with that gambler. Or any other man…
He cursed his hateful memory and put the pencil down. Natalie ran like a golden thread through so much of his life. In recent years, she’d been involved in just about everything that went on at the ranch. She rode with him and Vivian, she came to parties, barbecues, cattle sales. She was always around. Now he wouldn’t see her come running up the steps, laughing in that unaffected way she had. She wouldn’t flirt with him, chide him, lecture him. He was going to be alone.
He got up and went to the liquor cabinet. He seldom drank, but he kept a bottle of aged Scotch whiskey for guests. He poured himself a shot and threw it down, enjoying the hot sting of it as it washed down his throat. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt so powerless. He looked at the bottle and carried it to the desk. As an afterthought, he locked the door.
Vivian couldn’t sleep. She got up and washed her face, careful of the broken objects she’d dashed against walls in her rage. She kept remembering Mack’s face when she’d told him about Natalie and Whit. She’d never seen such an expression.
It bothered her enough to go looking for him. He wasn’t in his room or anywhere upstairs. Walking slowly, because it was difficult to walk and breathe at the same time despite the antibiotic, she made it to the door of his study. She tried to open the door, but it was locked. Mack never locked the door.
She hesitated, but only for a moment. She combined the look on his face with his strange behavior and the way he’d held Natalie when they’d danced at the nightclub, and with trembling hands she went to the intercom panel and called the foreman.
“I want you to come up here right now,” she said after identifying herself. “Haven’t we got a man who does locksmithing part-time?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“Bring him, too. And hurry!”
“Yes, ma’am!”
She sat down in the hall chair, biting her lip. It had been a lie that she’d seen Natalie and Whit together, but they both looked as if they’d been kissing. And Whit hadn’t denied it. But if Mack was in love with Natalie, which was becoming a disturbing possibility, she might have caused a disaster. Despite Glenna’s persistence, Mack had never behaved as if he couldn’t live without her. But the way he watched Natalie, the way he’d held her on the dance floor, the way his gaze followed her…oh, God, let those men hurry!
It seemed like an eternity before the doorbell sounded. She went as quickly as she could to answer it.
“I want you to unlock this door,” she told the man beside the foreman.
“Can’t you use the key?” he asked, clearly hesitant.
“I don’t have the key. Mack does, and he’s locked himself in there.” She wrapped her arms over her thick bathrobe. “Please,” she said in an uncharacteristic request for help. Gone was the autocratic manner. “There’s been some…some trouble. He’s in there. He won’t answer me.”
Without a word, the locksmith took out his leather packet of tools and went to work. In short order, he had the door unlocked.
“Wait,” she said when they started to open it. “Wait here. I’ll call you if I need you.” She didn’t want to expose her brother to gossip if there was no need.
She went inside and closed the door. The sight that met her eyes was staggering. It made her shiver with guilt. Mack was lying facedown on the desk, a nearly empty whiskey bottle overturned at his hand. Mack never drank to excess; the memory of his father’s alcoholism stopped him.
She went to the door and opened it just a crack. “He’s just asleep. Thank you for your trouble. You can go.”
“Are you sure, Miss Killain?” the foreman asked.
“Yes,” she said confidently. “I’m sure.”
“Then, good night. We’ll come back if you need us.”
Both men left. Vivian curled up in the big chair beside the desk and sat there all night with her brother. For the first time in her life, she realized how self-absorbed she’d become.
In the morning, very early, he woke up. He sat, dizzy, and scowled when he saw his sister curled in her robe in the big chair by the desk. He swept back his hair and surveyed the remains of the whiskey.
“Viv?” he called roughly. “What the hell do you think you’re doing down here?”
She opened her eyes, still very sick. “I was worried about you,” she said. “You never drink.”
He held his head. “I never will again, I can promise you,” he said wryly.
She uncurled and got slowly to her feet. “Are you all right?”
His shoulder moved jerkily. “I’m fine. How about you?”
She managed a smile. “I’ll get by.”
His face locked up tight. “We were both bad judges of character,” he said.
“About what I said last night,” she began earnestly. “I ought to tell you—”
He held up a big hand, and his face was hard with distaste. “They deserve each other,” he said flatly. “You know I go around with Glenna,” he added. “I don’t want a long-term relationship, least of all with a penniless, fickle, two-timing orphan!”
She felt two inches high. She did blame Natalie, but she had a terrible feeling that Mack would never recover. It would take her a while to get over Whit’s betrayal, as well. But she felt guilty and ashamed for making matters worse.
“Maybe they couldn’t help it,” she said heavily.
“Maybe they didn’t want to,” he returned. He got to his feet. “And that’s all I’ll ever say on the matter. I don’t want to hear her name mentioned in this house ever again.”
“All right, Mack.”
He looked at the whiskey bottle with cold distaste before he dropped it into the trash can by the desk.
“Let’s get you back upstairs,” he told Viv with a smile. “I’m supposed to be taking care of you.”
She slid her arm around his waist. “You’re my brother. I love you.”
He kissed her forehead and hugged her close. “Thanks.”
She shrugged. “We’re Killains. We’re survivors.”
“You bet we are. Come on.”
He put her back to bed and went to see about the animals in the barn. He didn’t think about the night before. And when Bob and Charles came home, nothing of what had happened was mentioned. But Vivian managed to get them alone long enough to warn them not to talk about Natalie at all in front of Mack.
“Why not?” Bob wanted to know, puzzled. “She’s like family.”
“Sure she is,” Charles emphasized. “We all love her.”
Vivian couldn’t meet their eyes. “It’s a long story. She’s done something to hurt me and Mack.
We don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
They were reluctant, but she persuaded them. If she could only persuade her conscience that she was the wronged party. She couldn’t forget what Whit had said to her. Natalie had been her only best friend for years. Was it realistic that Natalie would make a play for her boyfriend? She had for Carl, all those years ago, Vivian thought bitterly, and then she remembered that Carl had only been dating Natalie for a bet. She’d known, and she hadn’t told Natalie because she was jealous of her relationship with Carl. In hindsight, she began to see how painfully unfair she’d been. Her whole life had been one of pampered security. Natalie hadn’t had the advantages Vivian had, but she’d never been envious or jealous of Vivian. Remembering that made Vivian feel even more guilty. But it was too late to undo the damage. If Whit was telling the truth, everyone would know it soon, because Natalie would be seen going around with him. Then, Vivian told herself, she’d be vindicated.
But it didn’t happen. In fact, Whit was seen with the daughter of a local contractor who had plenty of money and liked to gamble. They were the talk of the town, so soon after Whit’s visible break with Vivian.
As for Natalie, she’d gone home the night of the uproar and, surprisingly, slept all night and most of the morning after she cried herself to sleep. She barely made it to the grocery store in time to work her shift. She was grateful for the job, because it took her mind off the painful argument with Mack and the vicious tongue-lashing Vivian had given her. For the first time in years, she really did feel like an orphan. She was worried about how her exams would be graded, as well, and about graduation. It seemed that the weight of the world had fallen on her over the weekend. Worst of all, of course, was Mack’s anger. Perhaps she’d provoked it, but the pain was terrible.
Chapter 8
