Denim and Lace

by Diana Palmer

  Gussie sent a postcard saying that she was having fun and might come back in a few weeks to visit. But she didn’t include a return address, and Bess wondered why. Gussie might not want her daughter to know where she was, she supposed, but it was an odd omission. The postmark was odd, too, very dim, and it didn’t look Jamaican.

  But Bess was too busy with her greater responsibilities to worry about it because her job began to stretch into her leisure time. Not that she dated anyone, so the work was welcome. She purchased a small television so that she’d have something for company. But her biggest and best purchase was a small, older-model imported compact car. She had to learn how to use a stick shift, but she did well, and the sporty little red car became her pride and joy. It was a stretch to afford it, but it was getting hard to walk to work in the cold rain, and she wanted a way to get around because it was spring and the world was turning green again.

  The weather was getting warmer day by day. Green sprouts began to appear on lifeless-looking trees, and Bess felt as if she’d become reborn like those trees. She was a different woman from the shy, nervous, insecure one who’d left Coleman Springs back in January. Being around Nell and Julie had developed her personality and given her confidence. She’d found a thrift shop and managed to buy some nice clothes, and she was coping with housework and cooking very well indeed. Gussie was going to be surprised.

  She wondered what Cade would think of the new Bess, but that didn’t matter anymore. He had his gorgeous brunette, and she was sure that he wouldn’t ever look her up again.

  So it came as a shock when she answered a knock on her door late one spring night and found Cade himself standing on her doorstep.

  She stared at him, stifling a crazy urge to rush into his arms and kiss him until she fainted.

  “Yes?” she asked, trying to sound more poised than she felt.

  His eyes went over her slowly. She was wearing gold-and-cream pajamas, and her honey-brown hair was loose and sexy around her shoulders, waving toward her soft eyes and her oval face, making her look soft and sweet and delectable. She seemed older than before, more confident.

  “No warm welcome?” he taunted.

  She only half heard him. Her eyes were feeding on him. He was wearing the same blue pin-striped suit he’d been wearing when she’d seen him with his brunette lady friend, and he looked elegant, but she didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her interest.

  “Dream on,” she said quietly. “You’ve already shown me what you think of me and how little I matter to you.” Her brown eyes met his levelly. “I don’t beat dead horses. Did you want something?”

  His eyebrows shot up. That was new, that coolness. Was it real, or was she bluffing? “You’ve moved since I came to San Antonio last,” he replied. He took out a cigarette and lit it, apparently content to stand in the hall all night as he propped his shoulder against the door facing to study her.

  “I wanted an apartment with a kitchen,” she said.

  “You can cook?” he scoffed.

  “As a matter of fact, yes, I can,” she replied. “I can clean house and drive a stick-shift car and all sorts of strange things. I can even hold down a job and make my own living.” She forced a tiny smile. “If you’re looking for helpless adulation, I’m afraid you just struck out, tall man. I’m all grown up now. I don’t need a hero anymore.”

  One dark eye narrowed as he looked at her. She was different, all right. She was acting as if he was part of a past she’d outgrown. She was more poised and mature, and his eyes narrowed as he remembered the expensive wrap she’d been carrying that day he ran into her. This apartment was pretty ritzy, too. Surely Bess didn’t have a job that paid that kind of money. No, she was getting help. Gussie had railroaded her right into some rich man’s hands, and he felt murderous. He wanted to throw things. Bess had been his. Damn his own stupidity for thinking that he had to protect her from him. He should have taken his chances before she got out of his reach. This wasn’t the same woman he’d known in Coleman Springs.

  “I didn’t come here looking for a fan club,” he replied with a mocking smile.

  The way she looked was making his blood sing, but she didn’t seem to care if he looked at her anymore. That stung.

  Even so, he couldn’t help coming here any more than he could make himself go away. The sight of her fed his heart. He’d been lonely, and he was only now realizing how lonely. “Can you make coffee?”

  “Yes.”

  He tilted back the Stetson. “I’ve driven all the way from Coleman Springs. I could use something hot.”

  She felt her head spinning and she didn’t want to be alone in her apartment with him, but her heart wouldn’t let her send him away. Anyway, she told herself, she could keep a poker face and not let him see how he was affecting her.

  “All right.” She stood back to let him in.

  He looked around him with narrow, hard eyes. It was a much better apartment than she and Gussie had been living in. There were good chairs and tables, and an expensive-looking sofa. His dark eyes flashed as he thought of the price of this apartment compared with the other one.

  “Well, it’s ritzy,” he said, giving the room a cursory glance and sliding his eyes back to hers.

  She could almost read his mind. As usual he was right back on the offensive.

  “That’s it, Cade, always expect the worst,” she said. She put his coffee in front of him, without offering cream or sugar because she knew he didn’t take it. But he looked at her hand with a stare that could have stopped a clock, and that was when she realized her mistake.

  She was still wearing the ring he’d given her, and on her wedding finger. He couldn’t seem to drag his eyes away from it.

  “I liked it,” she said defensively. “And it fits.”

  His dark eyes caught hers, asking questions that she didn’t want to answer. If she was that mixed up with another man, why wear his ring?

  That stare disturbed her. She put her cup down. “Excuse me a minute.”

  She went into the bedroom, locked the door and changed into a colorful sundress and sandals. She couldn’t bear walking around half-dressed with Cade in her apartment, especially at night. She was vulnerable with him, and it was going to be a strain to keep him from finding that out. She should have hidden the ring before he saw it, but it was so much a part of her hand now that it was difficult to think about putting it away.

  Cade’s dark eyes slid appreciatively over her slender body. “You’ve filled out,” he murmured, wondering if her lover had brought about the new sensuality of her clothing and her graceful way of moving. “City living must agree with you.”

  “It isn’t the city so much as the job,” she said. “I’m doing very well, and I like the people I work with.”

  “Where does the rich man fit in?” he asked suddenly, his eyes pinning her. “Jordan Ryker, isn’t it?”

  She had to clamp down hard on her emotions. She smiled coolly. “Yes. Jordan Ryker. He’s the big boss. A handsome, eligible bachelor with a very kind disposition.”

  “And rich, I suppose,” he said cuttingly.

  She nodded. “Filthy. Mother introduced us,” she added, just to rile him. “He’s really something.”

  He stared at her unsmiling. “So Gussie told me.”

  She stopped and stared at him. “Mother told you? When? That night you were here?”

  He dropped his eyes to his coffee, glaring into it. “No.”

  It was getting more complicated by the second. She felt uneasy and didn’t understand why. “Then, when?”

  “Two days ago.”

  Her lips parted. She had a sinking feeling she knew why he was here. “You’ve seen her?” she asked.

  “I can’t move without tripping over her, in fact,” he said through his teeth. He looked up. “My mother invited h
er to stay at Lariat. She’s more than willing to forget the past and forgive. Gussie called her up with some sob story and wrangled an invitation while I was out of town. My mother feels sorry for her.” His tone added, emphatically, that he didn’t.

  Bess knew she was going to faint if she didn’t sit very, very still. “She’s in Jamaica,” she said.

  “The hell she is,” he replied with an insolent smile. “She talked Mother into an extended visit. Amazing, wouldn’t you say, in view of the animosity she knows I have for her. I came up here to tell you that I want her out of my house.” That wasn’t why he’d come at all, but hearing her rave about Ryker had made him furious. She was missing the old life, and Ryker was one of her own kind. He’d been wrong right down the line, it seemed. Losing her wealth hadn’t put her within his reach at all. She was still upper class and he wasn’t. He was going to lose her to a richer man in spite of all his hopes, and he had no one to blame but himself. She’d been vulnerable several weeks ago. He should have moved in while there was time, before he made the fatal mistake of not telling her why he was taking another woman to lunch. That had probably pushed her right into Ryker’s arms.

  He lashed out in pain, although she didn’t know it. “She’s your headache, not mine. I’m not going to support her.”

  “Who asked you to?” she returned. “You’re the head of the household, aren’t you? Tell her to go.”

  “I care too much about my mother’s feelings to do that,” he said quietly. “You’ll have to send word that you need her here. God knows why you let her land on us in the first place.”

  “I didn’t know where she was,” she insisted, refusing to tell him that she’d thrown Gussie out in the first place. “She told me she was going to visit a friend in Jamaica.”

  “She didn’t make it,” he returned.

  “So I gather.” Bess groaned inwardly. She’d had a taste of freedom and now she was about to lose it again. Gussie was back and making trouble all over again. How could she have imposed herself on Elise and Cade? And why?

  Bess leaned back in her chair. “I knew it was too easy,” she murmured to herself.

  “What was?” he asked.

  “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

  His dark eyes narrowed on her face. His lean hands wrapped around the coffee cup half-angrily. Gussie didn’t concern him half as much as Bess’s new love, but he wasn’t going to admit that. He wanted to knock the stuffing out of Jordan Ryker. It was the tormenting thought of that man in Bess’s life that had finally driven him to come here. The memory of her had haunted him day after day, and he couldn’t bear to lose her. But it wasn’t as easy as he’d thought it was going to be. Even though she wore his ring on her finger, Bess wasn’t receptive at all, and she seemed actually to dislike having him here. Well, two could play at being antisocial.

  “I want your mother out of my house by next weekend,” he said curtly. “I don’t give a damn how you do it. Just get her back here.”

  She’d been so happy, so carefree. Now she was going to have her flighty mother in her lap again, and the cycle would start all over. What had happened in Jamaica? Why had Gussie gone to Lariat? She frowned, feeling her security fall apart.

  “I’ll call her tonight,” she said wearily. “I’ll think of some reason to ask her to come back.”

  He felt guilty when he saw that hopeless look come back into her face. She’d seemed mature and poised until he mentioned Gussie, and then the facade had fallen away. She was almost shaking. He was letting his jealousy get the better of him, but he couldn’t help it. He’d never really faced the possibility that he could lose Bess. Until now.

  “You do that,” he said, his voice reflecting his frustration.

  She looked up at him. “Why do you hate her so, Cade?” she asked. “What has she ever done to you?”

  Well, why not tell her, he thought irritably. He was tired of protecting her from the truth. His dark eyes flashed. “I’ll tell you what she’s done,” he replied slowly. “She killed my father.”

  Bess felt as if her body had turned to stone. She stared at him with only faint comprehension. “What did you say?”

  “She killed my father,” he repeated coldly. “I stopped short of having her charged with it, but I know for a fact that she caused his death. I saw her hurrying out of a San Antonio hotel room just before I found him in it dying of a heart attack.”

  “She couldn’t kill anyone!” Bess protested huskily, horrified at the revelation. “Mother is flighty and selfish, but she’s no murderer.”

  “She’s capable of anything when she wants her own way. She was having an affair with my father,” he added with a cold smile. “He had a heart attack in her arms, and she ran out of the room and left him there, dying, to save herself from the scandal!”

  Bess got to her feet shakily, uncertain of her ground. He sounded convinced, and the hatred in his eyes was very real.

  “She loved my father...”

  “She loved your father’s money,” he said harshly, rising from the chair with threatening ease. “But my father was good-looking, and women liked him, even your mother. She teased and tempted him until he betrayed my mother for her. She killed him, all right. My poor mother didn’t even know, until I accused Gussie in front of her. She went white in the face, but she never denied it. Not once.”

  None of it made sense. Gussie wouldn’t have done that to Frank Samson, not with his best friend. But Cade seemed so certain, and it explained his hatred for her mother. It even explained Gussie’s hatred for him, because he’d revealed her part in Coleman Hollister’s death.

  “I can’t believe it,” she whispered brokenly. “Not my own mother! She isn’t that kind of woman!”

  But even as she said it, she saw the truth in Cade’s eyes, and she knew he wasn’t lying. But now that she knew why Gussie hated Cade, and why Cade hated Gussie, she knew that the past was going to be forever between them.

  “Gussie said that you and Ryker are thick as thieves, and I guess it would take a rich man to buy you fox jackets and keep you in an apartment like this,” he added, shocking her because she hadn’t even seen Jordan Ryker lately. That was more of Gussie’s attempt to keep her out of Cade’s reach, she knew. But the fox jacket had been Gussie’s. He’d never given her the chance to tell him she was returning it. She opened her mouth to tell him so.

  But before she could speak, he caught her suddenly by the arms and jerked her against him. “All the years of waiting, hoping, holding back,” he muttered under his breath, his eyes devouring her. “I’ve wanted you until you colored my life, but I wasn’t good enough, was I, Bess? You were meant for better things than the life a poor cowboy could give you, Gussie said. Maybe she was right. But if Ryker’s had you, there’s no reason I can’t, is there?” he bit off, jerking her against him. “No reason at all...”

  His mouth covered hers before she had time to consider what he was saying. His hand slid into the thick hair at her nape and held her head where he wanted it while he savored the first soft touch of her trembling lips under his mouth.

  It was as if he’d never kissed a woman before. All of it was new and exciting. The way her breath caught, the taste of coffee on her mouth, the softness as his mouth stilled and hardened. His head was already spinning. The feel of her warm body in his arms aroused him as he’d never imagined any woman ever could, so quickly that he shuddered as he felt his own sudden, sharp arousal. Just being near her had always stirred him, but this was unexpected and staggering in its intensity.

  He wanted her with an obsession that defied logic or reason. His hard arms swallowed her up while his mouth bit hungrily into hers, drowning her in the fierce sweetness of his ardor.

  Bess had tautened with the first shock of his touch, but almost at once the intimacy overwhelmed her. Sensations piled on each other, the feel of his lips for th
e first time, the steely hardness of his chest and stomach and thighs against her, the rough demand of his mouth as it grew slower and rougher on the trembling of her soft lips. She felt his arms sliding even more closely around her yielding body, felt him groan softly as his lean hand slid down her back and pulled her close. And then she felt the full force of his sudden arousal, and her breath caught at the undisguised need. It was the first time in her life that she’d ever known such intimacy with a man, but it didn’t frighten her. She gave in to him without the tiniest struggle, all her longing for him reflected in the clinging warmth of her arms around his hard waist, the response of her shy mouth.

  She could hear his rough breathing mingling with the loudness of her own heartbeat as they kissed in the silence of the apartment. Whatever his reason, even anger, it was the sweetest pleasure in the world to feel his mouth moving on her lips, to have him holding her against his taut, muscular body. He might not have wanted her three years ago, but he wanted her now.

  Heaven, she thought, after all the years of loneliness, of aching need. He was slow and very expert, and she loved the feel of his arms, the close contact with his hard, fit body. He smelled of spicy cologne and leather, and she thought that if she died now, she’d have had all life could offer. This was Cade, and she loved him more than the air she breathed. She relaxed into his taut body and let him kiss her, savoring every breathless second of the hard mouth slowly penetrating her own.

  But even as she reveled in the crush of his mouth, she knew that she was going to have to stop him soon. He thought she was a tramp. He thought her mother was responsible for his father’s death. There were too many reasons why she couldn’t afford the luxury of letting him carry her to bed, even if her body was resisting reason.