by Diana Palmer
“I see,” she said. She wrapped her arms around her breasts. She couldn’t look at him.
“No, you weren’t a threat, Kate,” he said, his voice very quiet. He paused to light a cigarette because he needed something to steady him. “You were off limits, and I could talk to you. But that changed, suddenly and without warning. And now if I come too close to you, I go half out of my mind with desire. I can’t let that go on. I like my life as it is, now. I want no more complications.”
“You just got through saying that you wanted a family, and children….” she began, glancing up.
He forced himself to be blunt. “I wanted that with Melody,” he replied. He took a draw from the cigarette and blew out a thin cloud of smoke. “I don’t want it anymore. With anyone,” he emphasized.
He was afraid, Kate thought, staring at him like someone who’d been unexpectedly shot. She didn’t even blink. He was afraid to trust a woman with his heart, so he was smothering the delicate feeling that had been growing between them. He wasn’t even going to give it a chance.
She felt as if she were growing up all at once, instead of in easy stages. She reached up and pushed her hair back, trying to look calm. “Well, you never had any problems with me on that score,” she told him softly. “I want a career, too, and no complications. So you were safe all along, Jason.”
Her tone irritated him. He lifted his chin, scowling. “Safe?”
“From being deliberately led down the path to the altar,” she said with theatrical effect. “From being seduced for your money and your name. I don’t want to settle down, either. I never did. Marriage is for the birds, Jason, and so are children. All I want is to make my own way in the world and have a respected designer label to show for it. I’d rather die than have to stay in rural Texas all my life, eating dust and smelling cattle all day.”
Something darkened his eyes, stiffened his posture. He didn’t let it show, but the words stung. He managed a careless smile, though, and took another draw from the cigarette.
“I’m glad you see things my way,” he said. “No harm done.”
“Of course not.” She went to the door and opened it, still smiling woodenly. “I’m going to pay you back for that design course,” she said. “I’ll finish it next week. When I get my next check, I’ll start sending you payments.”
He started to protest, but she looked unmovable. He nodded. “If that’s how you want it.”
“I don’t need charity,” she replied. “I even told you so when you offered to stake me. It was only with the agreement that you’d let me pay you back. Thanks for giving me my start.”
His eyes drew over her wan face, her drawn features. She looked older. All the sparkle was gone, temporarily at least. She’d get over this, though. She’d have her career, and eventually she’d look at another man as she’d looked at him…
“Good-bye, Kate,” he said abruptly. He turned on his heel without another word, without a backward glance. He climbed into the Mercedes, started it viciously, and took off in a cloud of dust.
Kate had no idea of the thoughts that had set him off, and assumed that he was irritated by her offer to reimburse him. She went back inside, closing the door, and fighting tears. Well, at least there’d be something good for supper, for her and Mary.
Her mother knew the instant she set foot in the house that something was badly wrong. She’d been curious when Red Barton showed up to fetch her at the plant, and he’d said that the boss was already on his way to the Whittman place. But there was no car out front, and Kate looked as if she’d been crying.
“Where’s Jason?” Mary asked gently.
“He’s gone home,” she replied. She put the food on the table with a minimum of fuss. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt now, her hair loose and no makeup on. She looked depressed and tired.
“Talk to me,” Mary said gently.
Kate ran to her, burst into tears, and for an instant they went back in time to Kate’s childhood. She was hurt, and Mary was going to kiss it and make it better.
“Come on, tell me what happened,” Mary coaxed.
“Jason thinks we’re getting too close,” came the sobbing reply. “He said…that we could get into a situation, and he doesn’t want to be trapped into marrying me.”
“Oh. So it’s that way.”
“He only kissed me,” she whispered miserably. “But he says that could lead to something much more serious, and he doesn’t want to run the risk of seducing me.”
“An honorable man, Jason,” Mary said, stroking the dark hair. “You may not realize it, but he’s paid you a high compliment with that protective attitude.”
“He doesn’t want to see me again,” her daughter wailed. “We won’t even be friends. Oh, Mama, how am I going to live?!”
The thin old arms tightened, and Mary smiled. She knew how it felt. A long time ago, before she married Kate’s father, she’d been hurt in the same way by a man who cared too much to seduce her, but not enough to marry her. She rocked her little girl in her arms, murmuring soft nothings. Kate would survive. And Jason might yet come around to marriage. He hadn’t been seen with any other women in a long time, and Kate was young and sweet and pretty, and she was close to him. Yes. It might come to marriage, if Kate was patient and didn’t run off half-cocked and do something stupid. Mary smiled to herself. She’d see to that, she thought. She’d keep Kate levelheaded, no matter what she had to do.
“There, there,” she cooed. “Everything will be all right.”
Kate was crying more softly now, her broken sobs growing faint. No, it wouldn’t be all right, she thought. But she’d get through somehow. If it was true that work could be a person’s salvation, she’d find out. She was going to work herself to death to keep Jason out of her mind. And maybe when she could think about him without crying, she’d have more men than she could manage in her life. And she’d flaunt them all in front of Jason, and she’d be rich and famous. She’d show him. Her tears stopped and she dried them, smiling reassuringly at her mother. Oh, yes, she would. She’d show him!
Chapter Seven
At first, Kate thought the pain would never stop. But slowly, one day at a time, she forced herself to go to work and smile, pretending nothing was wrong. She finished her designing course and sent in the last lesson, amazed at how much she’d learned since she started, not only about designing contemporary clothing, but also about the history of costume, the economics of designing, basic marketing, color theory, textiles, and even business law. She felt so much wiser about the industry, and much more confident in herself as a budding businesswoman. But she was going to pay Jason back for that course, all the same, whether he wanted it or not. If he wanted her out of his life, she’d help him. If only it didn’t hurt so much.
She missed even the simple things, like the occasional visit when he was just passing, or running into him in town. Now she didn’t see him at all, and her heart was hungry for him. She wished at times that she had an excuse, any excuse, just to go to the Donavan house and talk to him on any pretext.
But she was too proud. So she went along from day to day, half alive. And it might have gone on that way indefinitely, except for a chance meeting with Cherry.
Kate had just come from the beauty parlor in San Frio, where she’d had her hair restyled into a short perky cut, when she ran into Jason’s sister-in-law coming down the sidewalk at her usual bouncing dash. Cherry, like Kate, was almost always on the run.
“Kate?” Cherry exclaimed. She stopped short to gape at Kate’s haircut and sophisticated look.
Kate curtsied, some of her old humor reappearing. It had been three weeks since her confrontation with Jason and she was slowly coming alive again. “The very same. And how do you like my dress?” she added with a flourish.
It was a sample of her newest casual jumper, done in denim with lavish embroidery and an ankle-length skirt, and worn with a white round-necked blouse.
“I’d kill for it, that’s how I like it,�
� Cherry enthused. “Kate, you’re going to be richer than you ever dreamed once those clothes get on the market.”
“I do hope so,” she replied with a sigh. “Market week is just down the road, in October. I’ll go with one of our reps to the markets in Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, and New York. I even got to talk to our house model, who’ll be showing most of the collection to the press. That was the high point of my day today. It’s so exciting!”
“I don’t doubt it. Come and have coffee with me and tell me all about it. Have you got time?”
“It’s Saturday,” she reminded Cherry. “Mama’s sleeping late for a change, and I thought I’d shock her by changing my image.”
“You look older,” her friend replied. “And very sophisticated. Very…designerish.”
“Flattery will get you a fresh blueberry muffin,” Kate told her, and dragged her into Jo’s Café.
Jo was Jo Rodriquez, a middle-aged Mexican-American woman with a dynamite personality. Her small café in San Frio was known all over south Texas, especially by truckers. Rumor had it that after she’d been deserted by her husband with three small daughters to raise alone, Jo had talked one of the stingiest bankers in the territory into lending her the money for a café with only a used car and a small heirloom diamond stickpin for collateral. Jo had put all three of her daughters through college. Two were doctors, and one was a well-known author. Lately Jo had talked about retiring, but she did that periodically. Nobody took her seriously.
“Blueberry muffins are not enough protein for breakfast,” she told Kate and Cherry as she put them on the table, along with two cups of the best coffee in south Texas and a jug of fresh cream. “You should be eating bacon and eggs.”
“Steak and eggs!” Kate said in a stage whisper, grinning at a rancher she knew who was sitting nearby. He grinned back, lifting a hand.
“Thanks for your support of the limping beef industry, Kate!” he called across the café.
“You’re more than welcome, Bob,” she called back. “We only have a few steers, but they do help pay the bills.”
“As if you’ll need help paying the bills when you can sew like that,” Jo sighed, her ample figure neat in a blue denim skirt and silky blue print top. As she shook her head, a few silver hairs gleamed in the overhead lights.
“You’re bad for my hat size,” Kate scolded as she creamed her coffee. “You’ll give me the big head, talking that way.”
“Well, I want a skirt like that,” Jo replied. “Make it an expensive skirt like that, too. And make me a blouse….”
“I will not make you an expensive anything,” Kate returned, her green eyes twinkling. “Not after all the treats you gave me as a kid, and the free sodas….”
Jo bent over, resting her hands on the table. Her deep brown eyes stared into Kate’s. “You listen here, niña, without your mama, my little ones would have gone to school dressed in rags. She let me pay her as I could to make their clothes, and I don’t forget favors. So you shut up. If I want an expensive skirt, you just better let me have it. Or I’ll scream discrimination so loud, they’ll hear me clean down to the Gulf!”
Kate burst out laughing. “Discrimination, indeed,” she scoffed. She laid her hand over the callused one on the table. “Joellen Rodriguez, there isn’t a more loved and less discriminated against person in this whole town. Especially by me.”
“I know that, niñita.” Jo bent to hug her warmly, smelling of flour and coffee and the starch from her skirt. “Now you make my skirt. You know what size. And this time I’m a paying customer. I haven’t forgotten that wedding dress you sewed for my Jennie last spring, even if you have.”
“All right, all right, I know when I’m beaten,” Kate sighed. “What color embroidery do you want?”
“Blue and pink.”
“It’s yours, but right now I’m finishing the last unit in my design course, and pushing to the limit to get my collection out of the way in time for fall market week,” she said. “It won’t be anytime soon.”
“No rush,” Jo said. She grinned, showing perfect white teeth in her youthful face. “Although I hear they’re having tryouts for the ballet in October, and I’d like to have my skirt to wear. When I audition, you see.” She did a pirouette, and the rancher at the next table clapped enthusiastically. “Bob, you come with me,” she called to him as she went back behind the counter to work on her pies. “You can be my dance partner. We’ll work on those high tosses later.”
“You bet, Jo,” Bob replied, doffing his hat to her. “Just let me rush out and buy a couple of mattresses first. So you’ll have something soft to land on,” he added with a grin.
“She’s one of a kind,” Kate murmured, smiling at Cherry.
“To you, everybody is one of a kind,” Cherry mused, smiling back. “I guess I’ve still got some of my daddy’s prejudices, but you like people no matter who or what they are.”
“Daddy was foreman on Jason’s place,” she reminded the younger girl. “And Jason has cowboys that come in all colors and nationalities; there’s even a West Indian working cattle over there! Old J.B. might have been a hell-raiser, but he wasn’t a bigot. He said a man was a man, regardless of his circumstances of birth. Jason feels that way, too.”
“It’s nice to know that he has at least one good point,” Cherry said darkly.
Kate’s heart lurched as she nibbled at her muffin. “Is he back at Gene about ranch work again?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
Probably Cherry didn’t know about the friction between them, and it wasn’t something she wanted to discuss. Kate was still raw about Jason’s determined avoidance, even while she understood his reasoning.
“He’s been terrible lately,” Cherry sighed over her own muffin. “I mean really terrible,” she emphasized, lifting wide blue eyes to Kate’s. “I saw Red Barton hiding from him Wednesday before he left for Montana, can you imagine! Red’s the only one of the hands who won’t back down from him, as a rule, so you can see how rowdy he’s gotten. He mutters and glares at everybody. He won’t come to the supper table at all, and he and Sheila are having a cold war with Gene and me in the middle. We all gave thanks when he announced he was spending a few days in Montana, but he got back this morning and his mood hasn’t improved one bit.” She swallowed a sip of coffee. “I think he’s in love.”
Kate felt sick. She hadn’t considered that there might be a woman in his life besides herself, that it might have been the reason he wanted Kate out of his life. “Do you?” she asked, and there was a peculiar wobble in her voice.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking,” Cherry said ruefully. “He doesn’t date anybody, and there isn’t even a woman he sees regularly as far as we know. But he acts positively lovesick.” Her full lips pursed. “And this morning, when Gene asked if he was going over to see you, he went black-eyed and stomped off into his study, and slammed the door so hard that he knocked a picture off the wall.”
Kate felt her heart turning cartwheels. If he was missing her, there couldn’t be another woman. That made her feel better, even if he was still fighting his mental battle with involvement.
“Fancy that,” Kate said innocently. She finished her muffin. “But, then, he’s never been an easy man to get along with.”
“I’ve found that out in recent months.” Cherry sat back, dusting her hands with her napkin. “Kate, Gene and I need your help.”
“You know I’ll do anything I can.”
“Great! I knew you’d say that.” Cherry grinned. “Well, it’s this exhibit Gene’s been invited to display his work in. You know that Jason’s going to Australia for a month?”
Kate nodded.
“Well, the exhibit is during that first week he’ll be away, and Jason doesn’t want him to leave the ranch. You know and so do I that Gabe can handle things by himself.” She leaned forward. “Especially for just a few days. But Jason put his foot down and dared Gene to do it. Now Gene won’t go against him, and you know why. Jason’s sacrificed f
or him all these years, he feels he owes it to Jason to do whatever he’s asked. But I figured that if you spoke up for Gene when we explained about the giant step it would mean for Gene’s career—well, Jason listens to you.”
Kate was searching for the right words to tell Cherry about the agreement she had with Jason to stay away from him. They wouldn’t come. She was so hungry for the sight of him that it was almost unbearable.
“We thought we’d have a small dinner party tonight,” Cherry said, interrupting her thoughts, “just to welcome him back, and Sheila thinks you’d be good medicine for his temper. You know he won’t mind.”
“Did he say so?” Kate asked quietly.
“It’s a surprise,” Cherry said. “We can’t ask him, but why wouldn’t he want you there?”
“Well…” It was impossible to explain it to Cherry without telling her some very private things about the sudden shift in their relationship. Kate flushed a little. “I don’t want to impose….”
“It’s not imposing. You’re family. Oh, Kate, please? Jason will listen if you ask him to. You’re the only one he ever listens to. Please? For Gene? For me?”
Kate sighed wearily. She knew she should refuse. But if Jason had missed her as much as it sounded like he had, maybe he’d be happy to see her.
“Okay,” she agreed.
“Great! We’ll have supper about six-thirty, and wear something dressy,” Cherry instructed. “It’s going to be one of those parties like Jason throws for visiting dignitaries.”
Kate hesitated. “Cherry, I don’t know to act at those things….”
“Neither did I, until Gene taught me. Don’t you worry, I’ll cue you,” she was assured. “Do you want me to ask one of the boys to come for you?”
“No, thanks. I’ve got a car!”
“A what?”
“A new used black Ford Tempo,” Kate grinned, her eyes twinkling. “I talked mama into cosigning with me, and we can make the payments without any problem at all. They even took our old heap in trade. So I have my own transportation. Compared to old faithful, it’s a Rolls.”
