“Why didn't you tell me that you'd lived here at one time? Why do people here dislike my father so much?” Margaret asked with unmasked concern.
Rachel took a shaky breath. “Your father and I met when he came out here to see about his interest in the company he'd bought into, sight unseen, after his old friend August Thorn came to Chicago looking for a partner to save the business.” Rachel glanced nervously at the doorway leading to the other part of the house. “We fell in love, Margaret. I want you to believe that.” She took her hands from Margaret's and held them tightly together in her lap. “I was married to a good man, but there was no excitement in our relationship. I have no excuse,” she admitted. “I married young, but I understood it was a lifetime commitment. Then I met Edward, and he set me on fire with wanting him. Although he wasn't terribly handsome and he was considerably older, I believe I would have followed him to the edge of the earth even if he'd been ragged and barefoot.”
She paused to catch her breath, but not long enough for Margaret to speak. “My husband was a hardworking, decent man, well-liked in the community. When I left him to go away with a rich man, naturally he had everyone's sympathy. Edward was the villain and I the…harlot. Edward didn't care in the least what people thought, but he did care and was very angry when I refused to marry him. Although I resumed using my maiden name—Riley—I never did divorce MacMadden.”
“Tom?” Margaret said in a voice that trembled with her surprise. “Tom MacMadden?”
“Yes. Tom is my husband.” Rachel's hands reached out to grasp Margaret's with sudden desperation.
“Why wasn't I told any of this?”
“You were Edward's life, an extension of himself, and were to be protected from all unpleasantness at any cost.” The first tiny hint of resentment whispered through her words.
“That wouldn't have made me love you or Daddy any less.”
“Tell her the rest, Rachel,” Chip commanded from the doorway, having silently returned.
With a quick glance Margaret took in his cool expression. He walked into the room and stood with his back to the fire. She took several quick deep breaths to control the shimmer of fear that flashed through her.
“You knew Rachel when she lived here, didn't you?”
“I was just a kid when she left. Tom's been like a second father to me. Naturally I knew about Rachel and Ed Anthony and…you.”
“Please, Chip!” Rachel's voice raised to a nervous pitch.
“Tell her, or I will! She's not a child. She's a grown woman, in spite of the fact that you and Ed tried to keep her a child.” The hardness of his tone and the straight, steady look in his eyes as he watched Rachel caused Margaret's fear to escalate into near panic.
“Well…” Against her sudden pallor, Rachel's eyes looked dark with despair. “Tom wasn't able to have children, and when I discovered I was pregnant, I knew it was Edward's.” Her head was bowed so low her chin almost touched her chest, and the hands in her lap twisted and clung. She looked up suddenly, her eyes swimming with tears. “I wanted to tell you so badly. I begged Edward to let me tell you, but he didn't want a breath of scandal to touch you. So he put out the story that your mother had died in childbirth.” Her voice was unsteady, anguished.
Margaret's shocked gasp was trapped by the large constriction in her throat. She sat absolutely still, feeling the color drain from her face. Dazed, she stared at Rachel's crumbling features during the deadly silence that followed her words. Her breath came back, and she gave a hysterical little laugh.
“Rachel? Are you saying that you're my mother?” She heard the words as if they came from someone else's mouth.
Rachel had squeezed her eyes tightly shut while the tears rolled down her cheeks. Impatiently, Margaret's hands grasped her arms and shook her.
“Are you my mother?…You're my mother!” she said incredulously. Relief fluttered through her, and she felt as if a ton of bricks had been removed from her chest. “But, that's wonderful! I've always loved you. You're my mother!” She threw her arms about the sobbing woman, and her glasses fell away unnoticed. “Don't cry, darling. You can't know how happy I am. I used to dream that you were my mother, and I longed to call you Mom. Now I can! I just don't understand why this wonderful news was kept from me.”
Chip placed a clean handkerchief in Margaret's hand, and she used it to wipe Rachel's tears.
“You were legally Tom's daughter,” Chip said quietly. “Tom had to sign papers allowing Ed to adopt you, even though you were Ed's biological daughter. That's how I knew Rachel was your mother.”
“But…” Margaret tried unsuccessfully to keep her lips from trembling. “I should have been allowed to know my mother while I was growing up. I always thought she was some stranger in a picture. It would have meant so much to me to know I had two parents who loved me. Not that I didn't feel close to you, Rachel…Mother…but there was always that fear in the back of my mind, that you worked for Daddy, and that you might move on like some of the other employees. It wasn't fair,” she protested.
“No. It wasn't fair to either of us. I realized it then just as I realize it now.” Rachel made a helpless gesture with her hands. “It was all my doing.” Tearing her gaze away from her daughter, she twisted her hands in her lap. “Adultery is a sin. I didn't want to compound it by divorcing my husband and marrying my lover. I think now that Edward was punishing me for not divorcing Tom and marrying him by refusing to let me acknowledge you as my child. And Tom, who could have petitioned for a divorce on grounds of desertion, was probably punishing me for leaving him.” Tears spilled and slid slowly down her face, and she continued in a strangled voice. “My daughter was caught in the middle.”
“Not anymore, Mother. I love saying it! Mother, Mother!” Margaret's eyes were moist. She reached up to grasp Chip's hand. “So many good things have happened to me, I don't know if I can handle them all.”
“Sure you can, princess. You're doing just fine.”
Rachel's eyes moved from Margaret's face to Chip's. When she slowly extended her hand, he reached out and enclosed it in his.
“She hasn't experienced life as we know it, Chip.”
“I know that, Rachel. But she's learning…fast.” His voice was gentle, and their eyes met and held. “Don't worry about her. She's made of pretty strong stuff.”
Rachel's eyes filled up again as she gazed back at Margaret. “I worried so about you, darling.” She brought Margaret's hand to her face and held it to her cheek. “I didn't want you to spend your life in that cold stone house married to a man you didn't love. I wanted you to be young—and free to love.” She placed Margaret's hand in Chip's. “Don't hurt her, Chip. Keep her happy.”
She stood. “If you'll excuse me, I think I should go to bed. I can't remember ever being this tired.” She smiled, and age lines fell from her face. “It's tiring for a woman my age to find a daughter and lose her all in the course of a few hours.”
“You haven't lost me. You'll never lose me,” Margaret said sincerely. “Come. You can use Chip's room, and he'll sleep out here on the couch. Tomorrow he'll take us upriver and show us where he really lives—when he's not trying to discourage city girls from moving to Montana.” Margaret turned her face up to Chip's and took her time studying the loving expression she saw there. Rising on her toes, she kissed his mouth and felt the evening's tension melt away. “Isn't that right, darling?”
“I guess so, sweetheart,” he said with a deep chuckle. His eyes smiled into hers.
EPILOGUE
THE SILENCE WAS utter and complete except for the rustle of the birds roosting in the treetops for the night and the gentle crackling of the burning branches in the campfire inside the circle of stones. Margaret sat on the sleeping bag with her legs drawn up, her arms about them, her chin resting on her knees.
For the past three Octobers she and Chip had made a pilgrimage to this place where they had first declared their love. It was their special place, and they always approached it with reverence
. The sapling Chip had rested his back against had grown so that Margaret could no longer circle it with her two hands, and there wasn't a trace left of the fire that had brought them here in the first place.
A smile played around the corner of her mouth as Chip came out of the woods with an armful of small dead branches for the fire. He was her everything: husband, lover, advisor, friend. She loved him with such fierce intensity that it sometimes puzzled her.
“Cold, princess?” His voice drifted to her on the crisp breeze.
She loved it when he called her his princess.
Later, he wrapped her in his arms, stretching his long legs out on either side of hers, and resting his back against the tree. His hands found their way beneath her sweater and cupped her breasts.
“The baby filled them out some. I wonder what another will do.” He slid his lips along her cheek and up to her temple, where they paused, and the tip of his tongue made a foray into her ear.
“You've been watching that country singer again,” she accused, turning in his arms so she could wrap hers about him. “Are we going to tell Duncan he was conceived here that night?”
“Maybe when he's older. Right now all he's interested in is conning Grandma Rachel into letting him stay up past his bedtime. Each time she comes, so I can have you all to myself for a while, she spoils him more.”
“Chip, darling, so much has happened in the last few years. Just think: we have Duncan, Beth is in college, and Dolly married a company man and lives in the company house. Penny's mother gave up her rights to Penny, so we don't have to worry about losing her. She spends almost as much time with us as she does with Dolly. How come things have worked out so wonderfully for me?” She placed a string of little kisses along his jaw, and her hands burrowed beneath his sweater. “Even the men like me. If you ever tell them it wasn't in Daddy's will that they became partners in the mill, I'll…sock you in the nose!”
He chuckled. “I sure don't want that to happen. You've built up muscles carrying that big boy around.”
“Now if only Mother and Tom could forgive each other and at least be friends.” She sighed.
“Don't count on it, honey. There's too much bitterness on both sides. Let it rest. We're not responsible for their lives any more than they are for ours.”
His mouth sought hers and kissed it with gentle reassurance and then with rising passion. His hands moved over her body, touching her with sensual, intimate caresses. Her senses reeled as they always did when he made love to her. The magic had never faded. This was real. This was forever. She lifted her face and looked at him. It was all there in his eyes, and the wonder of it filled her with joy.
“Are you going to dally around here all night, Mr. Thorn, or do I have to ask you to get into that sleeping bag with me?” Her hand moved across tightly stretched denim and fumbled with a zipper. “There's another baby there just begging to be started,” she murmured in a seductive tone, and she felt his body jolt as it always did when she first touched him.
“Princess!” he groaned huskily. “You're wreaking havoc with my self-control!” When she continued to caress him he dumped her off his lap and stood up. “Little devil! I just may keep you on your back all weekend,” he threatened, and he hurried to shovel dirt onto the campfire.
Margaret jumped up, her green eyes sparkling. “Will you put that in writing?” she challenged saucily.
He reached to swat her behind. She evaded him, and with squeals of joyous laughter she dashed for the truck.
BOOK TWO
SHE WANTED
RED VELVET
To special people—
my cousins, Norma and Ken Slane—
with special love.
CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS LATE afternoon. The sun made patterns of speckled brightness on the leaf-strewn ground where it filtered through the trees surrounding the clearing beside the highway. The slim blond woman closed the door to the primitive outhouse, grabbed the hand of the four-year-old boy, and urged him along the path to the parking area.
“Why are we hurryin', Mom?”
“Come on, Peter. I'll tell you later.” The woman took short running steps so the boy could keep up with her. When they reached the compact car, she quickly unlocked the door.
“Mom—”
“Get in the car,” she commanded sharply with a glance back over her shoulder. She crowded into the bucket seat beside her son, locked the door, and reached over to make sure the door on the driver's side was locked.
“What are you scared of, Mom? You're scared, aren't ya? Is it them? What'd they say?” Peter pressed his nose against the window and stared at the two men coming down the graveled path from the building set back in the woods.
“I'm not scared, Peter,” she said with far more confidence than she felt. Dammit! she thought. If the car hadn't overheated, we wouldn't be sitting in this deserted rest area; we would practically be at Aunt Ethel's by now.
“I'm hot. Can I roll down the window?”
“No,” she said sharply, then moaned silently to herself. Why didn't I think to put the hood down before we got in the car? Aloud she said, “As soon as they leave, we'll go.”
“They've got big motorcycles, and pictures on their arms. They're funny.”
“Crawl into the backseat, honey. Come on, I'll help you.”
She boosted the child into a small space next to pillows, toys, blankets, a small overnight case, and a cardboard box containing a whining puppy. She looked out the window and wondered if she'd be able to back out of the circular drive with the U-Haul trailer attached to the car. All the way out from Cincinnati she had been careful to keep out of a situation that would require backing the car for any distance.
The men were standing in front of the car, now, out of sight behind the raised hood.
“Cisco's crying. He's got to pee-pee.”
“He'll have to wait.”
“Mom—he don't want to wait. He's got to go—bad.”
“Shhh…” She scarcely heard what Peter said. The uneasiness that had flooded her the moment she came out of the rest room with her small son and saw the two huge motorcycles parked in front of her car, and the men who then stepped from around the end of the men's building, now escalated into full-fledged fear.
They had passed her fifty miles back down the highway, slowed down to twenty miles an hour, and weaved back and forth in front of her for several miles. She had honked the horn and tried to get away from them, to no avail; then, suddenly, they had let her go, when they spotted a highway patrol car parked on an overpass ahead. She had increased her speed to get as far ahead of them as possible, and had put them out of her mind when she could no longer see them in the rearview mirror.
This part of Montana was sparsely populated, and the small towns were far apart; at times she and Peter would go for miles and miles without meeting a car. In Lewistown she had pulled into a service station and filled her gas tank to be sure she would have enough fuel to get to her Aunt Ethel's motel and trailer park.
Soon after Lewistown the state highway had begun winding around the foothills and climbing into the rugged mountainous region. The small car that had brought them so far without so much as a cough from the engine had started to send distress signals in the form of a flashing red light on the dashboard. She had been so relieved to see the rest area, because by this time Peter was complaining he had to “go.”
Now Gloria wished fervently she had taken a chance on the car's making the top of the hill; she could have coasted on the way down the other side and cooled the motor. In the middle of checking the engine she had stopped to take Peter to the bathroom. As a result the stupid hood was up. She couldn't drive away, and she couldn't see what the men were doing in front of her.
Suddenly the hood came down, and a whiskered face grinned at her. The hood was lifted, then lowered, in rapid succession.
“Peekaboo, pretty woman.”
Oh, dear God! What will they do? The words never came out of her mo
uth; she didn't want to frighten Peter. She turned the key in the ignition, started the motor, and put the car in reverse, praying she would be able to back the car and trailer around the curve and onto the highway. The motor stopped. Damn! She turned the switch and pumped the accelerator. Nothing!
“What's the matter, Mom?”
“Be still, Peter…please—” Panic began to take hold, and she turned the key again and again. Grrrr…Grrrr…“Please start! Oh, start, damn you!”
The hood was slammed down so hard the car shook. “Doggy! Looky here what we found.” The man with a sleeveless shirt and brass armbands yelled triumphantly and waved several long wires in front of the windshield.
“Go away and leave us alone!” Gloria yelled. The fear that rose in her throat almost choked her. They had taken some wires out of her engine; now she and Peter were really trapped.
“C'mon out an' play, pretty thin'. Ain't ya hot in there with them windows rolled up?”
One of the men sprang up onto the hood of the car and jumped up and down. He had long, frizzy hair and a leather thong tied about his forehead. The thin metal crackled and protested, and finally gave way under the weight of the heavy man.
Peter began to cry. “Mom! What're they doin'? I'm scared!”
“They can't get in the car, honey. Someone will be along soon and they'll go away. Then we'll go on to Aunt Ethel's.” She made a great effort to speak calmly. If anyone does come along, she thought, it's doubtful they'll turn in while those two despicable creatures are in sight. “We'll just sit here and not look at them—Hey, stop that!” Gloria yelled. They were rocking the car, now, so violently that her head banged against the window.
“Who-eee! Ain't she a hot mama chick? Here, chicky, chick, chick—”
“Make 'em stop, Mom!”
The roar of a motor coming into the rest area caused her to turn hopefully, but hope turned to panic when she saw another large, black motorcycle come past the trailer and pull up ahead of the car. The rider wore boots, jeans, a sleeveless shirt, and a bright-blue helmet with a visor. He sat for a moment watching the two men rock the car before he leisurely got off the cycle and stood beside it.
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