“What’s happened?” Claudia asked.
“Maria blessed her mother with a visit this morning. From what I understand that girl is getting more and more irrational every day. Seems she spouted off some nonsense about Daddy not marrying Lily, even if Lily’s found innocent.”
“Why would she say such a thing to her mother, when it’s clear to everyone how much Daddy loves Lily?” Victoria asked.
“I, for one, think Maria has some serious mental problems,” Claudia said. “I feel so sorry for Lily. It’s not bad enough that she’s being tried for a murder she didn’t commit, but she has to deal with Maria’s hysteria and wild mood swings.”
Victoria dressed Taylor in the outfit Claudia had laid out for him, then kissed both of his cheeks and handed him over to his substitute mother. “I’ll go downstairs with Vanessa and see if we can lighten the mood. We might persuade Lily to take a ride with us or maybe we can talk her into going shopping.”
“I’m afraid a shopping trip is out,” Vanessa said. “Lily’s picture has been plastered across every newspaper in the state. She can’t go anywhere without being recognized.”
“How awful!”
“You should see this morning’s headlines.” Vanessa opened the bedroom door. “Come on, I’ll tell you the worst of it on the way downstairs. When I left to find you, Dallas and Matthew were trying their best to talk Daddy out of suing half a dozen papers and two television stations.”
“And what was Zane doing?” Victoria followed her sister out into the hallway.
“Zane’s on the phone with one of his many bimbos, setting up a date for next weekend.” Vanessa shook her head in disgust. “It’s high time we found that man a good woman.”
“One crusade at a time,” Victoria said. “Let’s go help the boys save Daddy from a heart attack and then we’ll see what we can do to make Lily feel like a part of this family.”
“God forgive me for speaking ill of the dead, but Lily’s a real improvement over Witch Sophia, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is, so that’s why I don’t understand how the newspapers can paint her in such a negative light.”
“Oh, it’s only because of Daddy’s money,” Vanessa said. “They keep implying that she’s just a gold digger…or worse.”
The sisters made their way side by side down the stairs, hesitating in the foyer when they heard loud voices coming from Ryan’s den. They exchanged looks of sympathetic understanding for their father.
“I’m not giving up on us,” Ryan bellowed. “Do you hear me, Lily! Marry me now, before the trial. That should show the whole world how much faith I have in you.”
Victoria and Vanessa opened the door to their father’s den, but hovered in the doorway, making no move to enter.
Lily lifted her hand to Ryan’s cheek. “I love you so, and I know that you love me. But I can’t marry you until I’ve been acquitted. I couldn’t bear the thought of chaining you to me if I—”
Ryan gathered Lily into his arms. “I’ll never allow you to go to prison. We’re going to find out who really killed Sophia. I’ve already asked Sam Waterman about hiring the best private detective in Texas to back up your defense team.”
“I know you’re doing all you can, but I must admit that there are times when I wonder why so many obstacles have been put in our path,” Lily said. “It’s as if fate is conspiring against us to keep us apart.”
Vanessa cleared her throat. Lily jumped. Ryan glared toward the open doorway. The moment he recognized the intruders, his harsh expression softened.
“Why don’t you two girls go on in to lunch,” Ryan said. “And rustle up your brothers and that husband of yours, Vanessa. Lily and I will join you shortly.”
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Victoria asked.
“Your being here all in one piece helps me,” Ryan said. “By the way, how’s your Mr. McCoy doing today? Is he going to be able to join the family for meals, now? He’s been holed up in Vanessa’s old room for over a week.”
“He’s much better, Daddy. Thanks for asking. But I’d already planned to take a tray upstairs and share lunch with him. I hope you don’t mind. I’m sure Quinn and I can join you for dinner tonight.”
“See that you do. We’re all together just for the weekend and will have to get back on schedule come Monday morning. I’d like to have all my children around me as much as possible. Besides, we’ve invited Lily’s children to join us tonight, too.”
When Victoria carried their lunch tray into the bedroom, she found Quinn fully dressed in shirt, pants and jacket. He stood by the windows with his back to her. When she set the tray on the round table by the windows, he turned to face her.
“I’ve brought lunch. Steaks. Fries. Corn on the cob. And chocolate cake for dessert.”
“We need to talk, honey.”
“Let’s eat first and talk later.”
“No, let’s talk first.”
She draped her arms around his waist, nuzzled his cheek and pressed her body intimately against his. “Whatever you say, darling. See what an obedient little wife I could be? Don’t you think you should start seriously considering proposing to me? After all, I don’t think my father’s going to approve of his little girl living in sin.”
Quinn loosened her arms from around his waist and held them to her sides. “You aren’t going to be living in sin.”
She smiled at him. “Going to make an honest woman of me, huh?” she teased. “The sooner the better.” She strained toward him until she was able to kiss him. “I love you so much.”
Quinn released his hold on her hands, turned on his heels and stomped across the room to the bed. That’s when Victoria noticed the suitcase.
“Going somewhere?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m going home.”
“When?” Her heart caught in her throat.
“Today. I’ve already booked a four o’clock flight.”
“Did you book two seats?” She could tell from the expression on his face that he’d planned a solo trip.
“There’s no easy way to say this…”
“Say what? That you’re tired of living the good life here at the Double Crown Ranch? That you’re homesick and want to get back to your own house? That as soon as you settle in and regain all your strength, you’re going to send for me and—” tears gathered in her eyes “—and I’ll come running when you call.” Tears trickled down her cheeks. “And we’ll get married and have lots of babies.” She gulped in painful sobs. “And we’ll live happily ever after.”
“Don’t do this, princess.” He had to end things today. He couldn’t go on letting her delude herself into thinking they had a future. If he hadn’t been so damn selfish and given in to his desperate need to be with her for just a little while longer, he’d have insisted on going back to New Mexico the minute they’d returned from Santo Bonisto. But he hadn’t been strong enough to cut the cord and set her free. Sorry fool that he was, he had let her tend to him, care for his every need and shower him with her love. And not once had he told her that the arrangement was only temporary.
He hadn’t gone so far as to tell her that he loved her, but he hadn’t said that he didn’t.
She had slept in his arms the past couple of nights and they’d made love despite his healing wounds. Taking her again had been wrong, but dammit all, just how much willpower was a man supposed to have when the sweetest thing on earth gave herself to him with such total abandon?
More than anything, Quinn wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, to beg her to forgive him. But he didn’t dare touch her. If he did, he might not be able to ever let her go. So he just stood there, only a few feet separating them, and watched her cry her heart out because of him.
“I’m no good for you, Victoria. I tried to tell you that. Besides, I’m just not the marrying kind.”
“But you love me. I know you do!” She held open her arms, begging him to come to her and make everything all right.
Quinn’s ja
w clenched tightly.
Do what you have to do, reason told him. Get this over with and get the hell away from her. You don’t belong in this rich, powerful family and you know it. What do you have to offer Victoria? What can you ever give her that she doesn’t already have? You could never support her in the style in which she’s been raised. You’ve gone and gotten yourself all tangled up with a real Texas princess. The cream of Southwest Society.
And who am I? he asked himself. Quinn McCoy, a real nobody. The son of a worthless grease monkey from Houston. A mercenary whose hands are stained with other men’s blood. A gun for hire who’s taken half a million dollars from her father for rescuing her.
You aren’t fit to kiss the ground she walks on.
“Don’t stand there and tell me that you don’t love me!” Victoria screamed. “I couldn’t love you the way I do, if you didn’t love me just as much.” She took a tentative step toward him, her face wet with tears. “It was love at first sight, remember?” She laughed weakly.
“I don’t love you,” he said.
She flung herself at him, trying to wrap her arms around him. He knew he couldn’t touch her and then do what had to be done.
“Look, honey, it was fun while it lasted, but you can’t honestly think that I’d marry you.” The pitiful look on her face almost stopped him, but he forged on, being cruel to be kind. “You’re not the first naive little virgin I’ve had and you probably won’t be the last.” That statement was the biggest lie of all. “What happened between us didn’t mean a damn thing to me. I was horny and you were available. Beginning and end of story.”
“I—I don’t believe you!”
“It’s never any good with inexperienced girls,” he said. “I prefer making it with women who know what they’re doing.”
“Quinn, why are you saying these things? I know you don’t mean them. Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll fix it. Whatever you need for me to do, I’ll do it.”
“Always the girl who wants to solve the world’s problems. Well, honey, this is one problem you can’t solve. You can’t fix things between us because I don’t want them fixed.”
Quinn picked up his suitcase, turned his back on Victoria and walked out the door.
Quinn nursed the Scotch and water the stewardess had brought him fifteen minutes ago. All the liquor in the world couldn’t help him. But regardless, when he got home, he intended to get rip-roaring drunk and stay that way for at least a week. He had just left behind the best thing that had ever happened to him—the only woman he had ever truly loved. But it didn’t matter how much he loved her or how much she loved him, he could never marry her. She deserved better than him. She deserved the best man in the world and that sure as hell wasn’t Quinn McCoy.
Victoria locked herself in her room and refused to come out. Not even Vanessa could coax her into opening the door. Cuddled in a fetal ball, she lay in the middle of her bed, her eyes dry after hours of crying. Her nose was stuffy. Her head throbbed. And her chest ached.
She had gone over her conversation with Quinn a hundred times, each remembrance widening the bleeding wounds on her heart. She’d never realized that anything other than the death of a loved one could hurt so much. But then, she had never been in love before, had never been ridiculed and rejected by the man she adored, had never had her heart ripped to shreds.
All this time she had been deluding herself, thinking that Quinn loved her the way she loved him. How could she have been so wrong about someone? Why hadn’t she realized that, for him, their love affair had been a meaningless pastime?
Hugging herself tightly, she fought to control the tears that threatened to return. No more crying! Enough of this self-pity!
Even now she couldn’t bring herself to believe all the cruel things Quinn had said to her. Why would he lie to her? Why would he deliberately hurt her? Had he really meant all those horrible things he’d said to her or had he simply wanted a way out of their relationship?
“Either way, he’s gone,” she said, reinforcing the statement by uttering it aloud. “Quinn doesn’t want you and there’s nothing you can do to change that fact.”
Undoubtedly she wasn’t meant to know the kind of love her father and Lily shared, the kind with which Matthew and Claudia had been blessed. When two people loved each other equally, with the same passion and commitment, nothing and no one could destroy that love. But no matter what her future held and regardless of the fact that he didn’t want her, Victoria knew one thing for certain—she would love Quinn McCoy until the day she died.
Ryan and Cole followed Lily into the den. When she motioned for them to sit, they did as she requested.
“What’s this private meeting all about?” Cole looked to Ryan for an answer.
Before Ryan could reply, Lily said, “This meeting was my idea, not Ryan’s. I’ve decided that…well, there’s something…I should have told both of you before now, but…” Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes.
Ryan jumped up, but when he moved toward her, she held up her hands to fend off his advance. “No, please, sit down. I—I… This is so difficult for me. You see, I’ve kept this secret for thirty-six years—ever since the night…” She stopped to take a deep breath, then continued as her gaze rested on her son. “Please, remember how much I love you, Cole. I’ve loved you since the first moment I held you in my arms. Never, for one minute, doubt that.”
“What are you trying to tell me?” Cole asked.
“Thirty-six years ago I was very much in love with Ryan,” Lily said. “And although I cared deeply for my husband Chester, I’ve never truly loved anyone except Ryan.”
“Lily, honey—” Ryan said.
She shook her head, the movements quick, negative tremors. Emotion lodged in her throat. She swallowed with great difficulty. “Ryan and I had a quarrel, which was my fault. I didn’t trust Ryan’s love for me and I—”
“Why are you putting us both through reliving those painful old memories?” Ryan asked.
“Because it’s necessary,” she replied. “Because what I did after that argument changed both of our lives forever and—” her gaze settled sadly on her son “—I’m afraid the truth about that night is going to change your life forever.”
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell us,” Ryan said.
As her eyes glazed over with memories, Lily continued. “Cameron had been after me for quite a while, but he knew I loved his brother Ryan. He didn’t care. He wanted me because he knew I belonged to Ryan. That night, after our argument—” she looked pleadingly at Ryan “—Cameron came to me and told me that your father had found out about us and had persuaded you to agree to break off our relationship and go away to college.”
“That wasn’t true!”
“I know that now, but then… I believed him and I allowed him to…to seduce me.”
“What?” Ryan and Cole asked simultaneously.
“He was kind and comforting and I was a naive little fool.” Lily hugged herself, gripping her elbows as she rocked back and forth. “I felt so used and dirty afterward. So ashamed.”
Ryan shot off the sofa. With his hands balled into fists, he stalked back and forth across the room.
“I couldn’t come to you and tell you that I had betrayed you with your brother, a man who cared nothing for me.” Lily wanted to beg Ryan’s forgiveness and she would—later—after she had finished her story and freed herself from a secret that had been eating away at her soul for thirty-six years. “I realized that I didn’t deserve you.”
“I should have known you wouldn’t desert me without a reason,” Ryan said, then slammed his big hands down on top of his desk. “Damn Cameron’s black-hearted soul! But, Lily, honey, why did you marry Chester Cassidy if you still loved me? Why didn’t you—”
“I was pregnant,” she said calmly.
“Pregnant?” Cole’s eyes widened with concerned interest.
“With Cassidy’s child?” Ryan asked.
“No, the chil
d I carried had been fathered by Cameron,” Lily confessed. “How could I have come to you and told you that I was pregnant with your brother’s baby?”
“The child—” Cole stood and faced his mother “—what happened to the child?”
“I think you know the answer to that question,” she said. “That child was you, Cole. Cameron Fortune was your biological father.”
The silence in the room was deafening. Lily held her hands together in a prayerlike gesture, waiting for a reaction. Waiting for her son to vent his anger and frustration. Waiting for Ryan to reject her, now that he knew the truth.
But Cole only stood there, seemingly in a state of shock. Ryan looked directly at her, then, with moisture in his eyes, he crossed the room, opened his arms and pulled her into his embrace.
Lily dissolved against him, cleansing sobs racking her body as Ryan comforted her. He kissed her forehead. “It’s all right, sweetheart.” He kissed her cheeks. “You’ve told us. The worst is over now.” Cupping her face with his hands, he wiped away her tears with his thumbs. “If only you had come to me. But it doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters, except that we were always meant to be together.”
“Oh, Ryan, how can you be so understanding?”
“Because I love you.”
Lily turned in Ryan’s arms so that she faced Cole. He stood deadly still, his expression one of stunned disbelief. When she reached out to him, he stared at the hand she offered him, but didn’t respond.
“Cole, please—”
“I need—” Cole swallowed hard. “I need some time to let this sink in.”
“Yes, I’m sure you do,” Lily said. “I’m so very sorry that I’ve lied to you about this your whole life, it’s just that I did what I thought was best for everyone concerned.”
Cole nodded his head. “I don’t think I should say anything now. Not until I’ve had time… I don’t want to say or do anything I’ll regret later.” Cole walked toward the door.
“Cole!” Lily cried, but Ryan held her, keeping her from running to her son.
In the Arms of a Hero Page 16
