by Diana Palmer
He let out one last deep breath. “It depends on how aroused he is.” His eyes narrowed. “Did you work him up the way you just worked me up, and then refuse him?”
The light went out of her. He couldn’t seem to accept that it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t realize that it was frustration talking.
She moved back from him. “I couldn’t have worked him up if I’d been a born seductress,” she said with quiet pride. “He pretended that I was cold. The fact was, he didn’t want me. He never wanted me, not physically. He was…” She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t get the word out.
He was still straining to breathe normally. “He was what?”
“It doesn’t really matter, does it? He’s dead.” She went to the office door and opened it. “I’d like a cup of coffee. I’ll start working in here after I’ve had it, if that’s all right.”
“I’ll be gone in five minutes,” he said flatly. “You can start when I leave.”
She nodded. She didn’t look back on her way to the kitchen.
Ted went out the door in a flaming rage. Twice in one day he’d let her knock his legs out from under him. She’d seen how vulnerable he was to her, and put a weapon in her hands that she could break him with if she chose. He’d never been so helpless. Did she know? Of course she knew! And she had every reason in the world to use his own weakness against him. He didn’t know how he was going to protect himself.
He couldn’t come straight back home, he knew that. What he needed was breathing space. That was it. He needed a business trip. He walked toward the waiting mechanic down by the garage where the combine sat, racking his brain all the way for a legitimate reason to leave the ranch.
Coreen sat down to supper with Sandy, who seemed unusually quiet and puzzled. They started without Ted, and Mrs. Bird had only set two places.
“Is something wrong?” Coreen asked Sandy.
“I don’t know.” She studied the younger woman with evident puzzlement. “Have you and Ted had an argument?”
Coreen quickly lowered her eyes. “Sort of,” she said. “Why?”
“He phoned Mrs. Bird and said that he was going to Nassau this afternoon. Without coming home to change, without packing…”
Coreen felt the blow all the way to her knees. So his opinion of her was really that low, was it? Now he thought she’d be laying in wait for him, trying to seduce him into marriage. He already thought she’d teased Barry into suicide by denying him her body. God knew what he thought of her after this afternoon’s episode.
“I see,” she said when she realized that Sandy was waiting for an answer.
“And he took Lillian with him, apparently.”
That was the final straw. Coreen put down her fork and burst into tears.
“That’s what I thought,” Sandy murmured sadly. She got up and took Coreen into her arms. “Poor baby,” she sympathized soothingly. “Love doesn’t die just because we want it to, does it? Even after the way he’s treated you, you can’t stop.”
“I hate him!” She choked. “I hate him!”
“Of course you do,” Sandy said, comforting her. “He’s an animal.”
“He thinks I drove Barry to suicide by teasing him.” She whimpered. “He still thinks I killed him!”
“No, he doesn’t. He’s just fighting a rear-guard action. He’s convinced himself that he’s too old for you and he isn’t going to give in. He’s let our childhood warp his whole life. I’m sorry that he’s hurting you like this.”
Coreen cried until her throat was raw. Then she dabbed at her eyes with the hem of her blouse and took the tissue Sandy handed her and blew her nose.
“I can’t stay here anymore,” she told Sandy when she was calm. “It’s tearing me apart.”
“I know. But you’re not strong enough.”
“I am. If you’ll let me rent the apartment, and Ted will give me the living allowance he promised, I think I’m well enough to get a job. I can type and I can take dictation. There must be somebody in Victoria who’ll hire me.”
Sandy grimaced. “This won’t do,” she said. “You can’t…”
“I have to!” Coreen’s eyes were tortured. “I’d go to him on my knees, begging for anything he cared to give me, if I stayed. Don’t you see? I love him!”
Sandy ground her teeth. “That bad, huh?”
“Oh, yes.” Coreen laughed bitterly. “That bad. And he doesn’t want commitment, children, or me in that order. He said so before he left.” She didn’t mention what had prompted it, or the close call they’d had in Ted’s study.
She didn’t need to. Sandy’s eyes were shrewd and she wasn’t blind to the tension between her best friend and her brother.
“He’ll kill me when he comes back and finds you gone,” she told Coreen.
“No, he won’t. He’ll be relieved,” came the weary reply. “Will you help me?”
Sandy sighed heavily. “I don’t suppose I have a choice.”
Coreen smiled. “No. Neither do I. I’ll be fine,” she added reassuringly. “I’m much better.”
Sandy didn’t argue. Heaven knew, it was going to be unbearable for Coreen if Ted was as determined as usual to keep her at arm’s length. The evidence of two years ago was still disturbing.
“What about Shep?” she asked.
Coreen didn’t like thinking about leaving her puppy. “He’ll have to stay here,” she said miserably.
“I’ll bring him to visit on weekends, how about that?” Sandy asked.
Coreen smiled through her tears. “You’re the best friend I have.”
“And you’re mine. I wish my brother was less of a trial to both of us!”
A wish that Coreen silently affirmed.
Two days later, packed and silent, she rode to Victoria ahead of Sandy with her bags in the small foreign car that Sandy had loaned her to drive. Her ribs were still a little sore, but she was more than capable of getting around by herself.
The apartment was spacious, big enough for two people to share and not run into each other. It even had a nice view. The girls stocked the refrigerator and shelves and then it was time for Sandy to go.
“You know the number at the ranch if you need me,” she told Coreen, “and I’ll be up with Shep next Saturday. You’re sure you’ll be all right?”
“This is Victoria, not New York,” she murmured with a smile. “I’m perfectly safe here.”
“I do hope so. Mrs. Lowery and her husband live in the unit next door. They’re sweet old people. If you get in trouble, all you have to do is knock on the door. Mr. Lowery is a retired police officer,” she added with a grin.
“I’ll remember. Thanks, Sandy. For everything.”
Sandy glowered at her. “I should have done this sooner,” she said. “I kept hoping that Ted might relent. I should have known better. He’s too old to change his ways now.”
“That isn’t really surprising, is it?” Coreen asked sadly. “If he’d wanted to marry anyone, he’d have done it long before now. I’ve been living in dreams. I always thought that if you loved somebody enough, they’d have to love you back. But it isn’t like that.” She brushed back her thick, short hair. “Amazing, isn’t it, that I’m still mooning over the same man? And he still doesn’t want me.”
“I think you’re wrong about that,” Sandy said quietly. “I think he wants you very much.”
“But not for keeps” came the sad reply.
Sandy couldn’t deny it. Ted had made his choice very apparent. He was willing to leave the country with one woman to make another woman leave him alone. He gave hard lessons. Coreen wouldn’t forget this one very soon.
“I’ll see you Saturday. Call if you need anything.”
Coreen assured her that she would. When the door closed, she was truly alone for the first time in years. Once she got used to it, she told herself, she was probably going to enjoy it. It was getting used to it that was going to be hard.
She spent a lonely weekend, hoping all the time that the telephone would ring and
Ted would tell her he’d made a terrible mistake. She listened for his knock at the door. But Monday came, and Ted didn’t. He was in Nassau with Lillian. Presumably he’d been making his feelings clear to Coreen. And he had. This time, she got the message. By Monday, she was resigned to a future that wouldn’t ever contain Ted.
Sandy had given her a couple of places to apply for work, and she went not only to those, but to four others that she found on the bulletin board in the labor office. And miracle of miracles, one of her job leads panned out the very same day. A local real estate office had an immediate opening for a receptionist, and Coreen was exactly what the woman who ran the office had in mind.
She started work Tuesday. Her typing speed suited the agency very well, and her personality proved an asset to the business. She fielded appointments for her boss and the other four agents who worked out of the small office as if she’d been born to it. She went home tired at the end of the long day, because she wasn’t used to this sort of work, but she loved what she was doing and it showed. She felt safe, secure in her own ability to hold down a job and pay the rent. Her self-esteem blossomed.
By Saturday, when Sandy arrived with an excited Shep in the car with her, Coreen was beaming. She’d had her hair trimmed and was wearing new clothes. She looked bright and happy, and the dark shadows under her blue eyes were beginning to recede.
“You look so much better!” Sandy exclaimed. “I can’t get over the change in you!”
“Isn’t it great?” came the bubbling reply. “I never dreamed how much fun it would be to work like this, with only myself to provide for. I make a salary with my own two hands and I don’t have to ask anybody for anything! I won’t even need the allowance from the trust, and I can pay rent on the apartment, too!”
Sandy looked hesitant. “Don’t get too independent too soon, will you? Take it easy. You’re still not completely well, and you could overextend yourself.”
“Don’t be such a worrywart,” Coreen teased. By this time, she was on the floor playing with Shep. “He’s grown, hasn’t he? Oh, I miss him so!”
She missed Ted, too, and watching the trainer work out with the horses. But she had to put up a good front. She couldn’t let them think that she was pining for the ranch. For him.
It was such a good front that she convinced Sandy entirely. The older woman went back home morose and quiet, so that Mrs. Bird walked around worrying for another week.
Ted came home two weeks after he’d left, and in between there hadn’t been a telephone call or even a postcard. He looked haggard. His tan was the only healthy-looking thing about him. His temper certainly hadn’t improved in his absence. He was out near the stable giving two of his men hell over some tasks he’d assigned that hadn’t gotten finished by his return.
He stormed back in just in time for supper. He sat down at the table and frowned when he noticed that Mrs. Bird had only set two places.
Sandy helped herself to roast and mashed potatoes while Ted fought not to ask the question he dreaded putting into words.
“Don’t bother looking for her,” Sandy said after a minute. “She’s gone.”
Chapter 9
“Coreen’s gone?” Ted echoed. He glowered at his sister. “Where has she gone?”
“She moved up to Victoria two weeks ago. I’ve let her rent the apartment there. She has a job, too. She’s receptionist to a real estate agency, and she’s blooming.”
It took him a minute to adjust to the news. He hadn’t expected her to leave. He’d stayed away, hoping to get his passion for her under control before it broke the bonds completely. The way they’d loved had been so sweet that he hadn’t slept a night since. He wanted her to the point of madness, but he couldn’t afford to give in. It was what was best for her, he’d told himself when he left. But two weeks of self-denial had only made him bad-tempered. All he could think about was the years of anguish she’d spent with Barry because of him. He’d wanted to spare her the ordeal of being tied to an older man and being discontent. But he’d caused her such pain, all from noble motives. And what he’d done to himself didn’t bear thinking about.
Then he remembered without wanting to that he’d found a job for Barney in Victoria. Did Coreen know that was where Barney was? Was that why she’d wanted to go there? She must have thought about why Ted had left so abruptly, and put his absence down to revulsion at her abandon in his arms or fear of being seduced by her. He’d even taunted her with Barry in his fervor to keep her from seeing his weakness for her. Had his abrupt departure pushed her into another man’s arms, for the second time?
“Oh, no,” he said wearily. He rested his forehead on his raised fists, propped on the table by his elbows. “God, not again!”
“What are you groaning about? By the way, how’s Lillian?” Sandy asked pointedly while she munched on a small piece of roast beef.
“I don’t know.”
“You took her to Nassau. Did you misplace her?” she taunted.
He lifted his head and glared at her. “She was on the same plane with me. We weren’t together.”
“You said you were. You told Mrs. Bird you were.”
He groaned again.
“It’s just as well. Coreen cried for two days before she went to Victoria,” she said, putting the knife into his heart with venomous accuracy. She wasn’t sorry when he went pale. “She left here cursing you for all she was worth. But when I saw her Saturday, she was as bright as a sunbeam. She didn’t even mention you.”
He glared at his sister.
She ate another piece of meat. “This is delicious. Lost your appetite?” she asked pleasantly.
He pushed the plate aside and drank his coffee black. “Yes.”
“You said that you didn’t want her often enough. She finally listened. Aren’t you glad?” she added.
He didn’t answer her. He drank some more coffee.
“You’re too old for her, remember?” she persisted. “And you don’t want children. She’s still young. She wants to get married and have a family. I heard Barney say the same thing to his father last month, that he was ready to settle down.” She brightened as Ted went pale. “Say, didn’t you get him a job in Victoria? Won’t it be funny if they meet up there and end up married?”
Ted got up from the table, so sick that he couldn’t look at food. He walked blindly into his study and slammed the door viciously behind him. He walked to the portable bar and picked up the whiskey bottle.
“No,” he told himself. “No, this isn’t the answer.”
He stared at the squat crystal decanter and at the glass. “On second thought,” he muttered, pulling out the stopper, “why the hell not?”
He was well into his second glass when he sat down behind the desk and let his imagination run wild. Coreen had probably already found Barney or vice versa. They were probably out together tonight, at a movie or a theater. He might even have driven her up to Houston to a show. He glowered at the desk, remembering how it had felt to have her lying on her back under his aching body, giving him kiss for feverish kiss. Would she kiss Barney that way?
He doggedly refused to remember that it hadn’t been Coreen who’d pulled back at all. It had been himself. She’d even offered…
“No!”
His own voice shocked him. He was letting this business go to his head. His hormones were manipulating him. He couldn’t give in, now. He knew that he was wrong for Coreen. She was too young for him. Even if she’d told the truth and she hadn’t been able to want Barry, maybe she’d only turned to Ted out of frustration. After all, she’d wanted him years ago and he’d pushed her away. Maybe it was curiosity.
His clouded mind raced on. Or was it that she’d just rediscovered her femininity? She’d discovered that she could want someone after all, and he was male and handy. He didn’t like that thought at all. He’d come home convinced that he was never going to be cured of his passion for her. He wanted her. He needed her. His own principles weren’t enough to save him from his h
unger. If she’d been here when he got home, nothing would have spared her. But she was gone, and he was caught between his hunger and his conscience all over again.
Despite her bad marriage, she was still capable of passion. Would it be the same with Barney that it had been with him? If it was only desire, wouldn’t she be able to feel it for someone else as well as himself? Barry had treated her badly, but she’d wanted Ted so much. His head spun remembering how much. She’d begged him…
He took another drink, trying to drown out the sight of her drowsy, soft eyes as she begged for his mouth. He couldn’t bear to remember that he’d pushed her away so cruelly and left. He always left, but she went with him anyway. That didn’t make sense. But then, not much did. He stared at the decanter. How many drinks had he had: one or two? Or was it three? He was beginning to lose count. He was also feeling better about the situation. If only he could remember what the situation was….
Sandy found him slumped over the desk an hour later. She clucked her tongue.
“Poor old thing,” she murmured, moving the whiskey decanter back to the bar. “You just won’t give an inch, will you?”
“She left me,” he drawled half-consciously.
“You left her,” she corrected him. “She’s in love with you.”
“No,” he replied. “She never loved me. Too young to love like that.”
“Love doesn’t have an age limit,” she told him. “She loved you all those long years, and you never did anything but push her away. First it was Barry. Now it’s going to be Barney. She’ll ruin her life. She’ll waste it with other men, when all she wants in the world is just you, gray hair and all.”
“Oh, God, I’m too old!” he growled. “Too old to be her husband, to be a father! She’d get tired of me, don’t you see? She’d want someone younger, and I wouldn’t be able to let her go!”
She frowned and stopped in place, staring down at him incredulously. Did he realize what he was admitting?
“Ted?” she said softly.
He put his head in his hands. “Nobody else,” he said dizzily. “Nobody, since the first time I saw her, standing in the feed store in that old blouse and shorts. Wanted her so much. Wanted her more…than my own life. Never anybody else, in my life, in my heart, in my bed…” He sighed heavily and slumped, his head on his forearms. Beside him, Sandy gaped at his still figure. Why…he loved Coreen!
