Storm's End

by Sondra Stanford

  Storm's End

  By

  Sondra Stanford

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Blaise Richards' Laugh Was Humorless.

  "There are some things even Andrew Barclay cannot control and one of them is my love life. I agreed to marry you so I could save the plant from being ruined by Clive's whims, but as long as the marriage is a secret, as long as I'm married to an ice cube, I'll take my warmth where I can find it."

  "Ice cube!" Julie cried wildly. "You know nothing about me! Nothing, do you hear? And I hate you for your sweeping judgments!"

  Suddenly, both his arms were around her, pinning her soft body against the hard leanness of his. "Then here's one more reason you can hate me," he growled.

  SONDRA STANFORD fell in love with the written word as soon as she could read one, at the age of six. However, besides her writing ability, she is also a gifted painter, and it was a "struggle to decide which talent would dominate." Fortunately for all her Silhouette readers the written word triumphed!

  Dear Reader:

  Silhouette Romances is an exciting new publishing venture. We will be presenting the very finest writers of contemporary romantic fiction as well as outstanding new talent in this field. It is our hope that our stories, our heroes and our heroines will give you, the reader, all you want from romantic fiction.

  Also, you play an important part in our future plans for Silhouette Romances. We welcome any suggestions or comments on our books and I invite you to write to us at the address below.

  So, enjoy this book and all the wonderful romances from Silhouette. They're for you!

  Karen Solem

  Editor-in-Chief

  Silhouette Books

  P. O. Box 769

  New York, N.Y. 10019

  For Sandy and Rena

  Copyright © 1980 by Sondra Stanford

  ISBN: 0-671-57035-8

  First Silhouette printing October, 1980

  Chapter One

  "… so I really think it's the mature, sensible thing for us to do, don't you?" Duane Sutton was saying gently, his voice almost overshadowed by the creaking of the swing. "I mean, even if your mom comes through the operation okay, and I certainly hope she does, it'll still be a long time before she's on her feet again and able to function as a mother to Bobby. You'll have your hands full with both of them while I have mine full trying to establish my own business if I ever get the financial backing I need, and right now I just can't see us going ahead with our wedding plans. We'd be starting off handicapped and loaded with responsibilities no newly-weds should have to contend with. You do understand why I'm saying this, don't you?"

  "Of course," Julie Barclay responded, proud that she could sound so calm when her world had just smashed around her feet like splintering fragments of broken crystal. "You're right, I'm sure." She caught her lower lip between her teeth in an effort to keep it from trembling. For some reason it was vitally important that she maintain an unemotional front at all costs. She pulled her hand from his clasp and began to tug from it the small diamond engagement ring that was there and then silently, she offered it to him.

  Duane accepted it from her and for a moment the ring lay on the palm of his hand, glinting in the sunlight that fell upon it before at last his fingers closed together, hiding it from view. He cleared his throat huskily and turned toward her. "Look, maybe you should keep this after all," he said with a tinge of embarrassment coating his voice. "Probably in a few months we can…"

  Julie stiffened and shook her head. "No." Now her voice was perilously close to quavering and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut for an instant. She sucked in a deep breath, then gazed off across the yard, not daring yet to look at him, knowing she would break if she did, so she kept her eyes sternly on a fence post. "No," she repeated more firmly this time, "I don't want to keep it. And I really think you'd better go now, Duane."

  There was an awkward little silence between them with only the creaking and groaning of the chains of the old wooden garden swing to fill it, until suddenly the swing shifted precariously as Duane stood up. "Look at me, Julie," he said soberly.

  Julie swallowed hard and with reluctance brought her gaze to his face. His russet-brown hair was burnished to a coppery-red by the sunlight; his green eyes were dark like the bottom of a pool as he watched her. His face was the same as ever, smooth-planed, pleasantly good looking without being precisely handsome but now the easy smile he always wore was gone.

  "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I'm really sorry. But this is only a postponement, you know. Just until things straighten out. I'm not giving you up."

  From somewhere deep inside her, Julie dredged up enough pride to hold tears at bay. "Oh yes," she contradicted him, "it's over, Duane. As you say, we've both got heavy responsibilities and I doubt that in a few months they will be gone, so there's no use in either of us pretending otherwise." Now her gaze lowered to her hands which were clenched in her lap. The left hand looked startlingly naked now with its tiny white band around her tanned finger where the ring had been.

  Proudly, Julie lifted her head and smiled. "It's been nice knowing you, Duane," she told him. "Now, please go."

  Duane frowned, still obviously hesitant. "Will you be all right?" he asked.

  Julie even managed a laugh. "Why shouldn't I be? Of course I will. Goodbye, Duane." Resolutely, she turned her head away from him, every muscle in her body strained and taut as she waited for him to leave.

  After a moment that seemed to last forever, Duane said heavily, "Goodbye, Julie," and she heard him walk away.

  Julie stayed in the same position, almost as though she were frozen into it, until a few minutes later, she heard a car engine in front of the house and knew that at last he was really gone.

  In that instant, all her defenses crumbled. Julie's shoulders slumped and she buried her face in her hands. Despite the blazing heat of an Oklahoma summer sun, it was suddenly a cold, dark night that seemed as though it would never give way to a bright dawn again. She carried the weight of the entire world on her shoulders and the load was far too heavy for her small slender frame to support.

  Tears, which she had been holding back for the past horrible week, suddenly overflowed and ragged sobbing sounds strangled from her throat. Julie made no effort to get a grip on herself. For the first time all week she was safe from detection. Her mother would surely nap for another hour and Bobby had gone to play at a friend's house, so there was no one to discover her emotional breakdown.

  "You know," a hard, insensitive voice spoke from somewhere behind her left shoulder, "you're an absolute fool to shed so much as a single tear over the loss of a shallow character like your ex-fiancé."

  Julie's head jerked up sharply and she whirled to stare in shock and dismay at the man who stood next to the shrubs behind the swing. He was a total stranger to her, well-dressed in a neat business suit. He looked to be in his early thirties and something in the deep recesses of Julie's mind registered the fact that he was also commandingly tall and a man obviously in his physical prime, since the suit covered a trim yet extremely rock-hard, sturdy-looking body. She had not heard his approach and now she glared at him in outrage even as she attempted to wipe the tears from her hot face and tuck her long brown hair behind her ears.

  "This is private property," she informed him in a biting voice, "and if you don't leave at once, I'll call the police."

  The man stood implacable and unmoved by her threat. A slow smile parted his lips. "Will you, now?" he drawled in a hateful tone that gra
ted on Julie's nerves. "And tell them what… that I overheard you being jilted by that jerk? In a small place like this, I'm sure it would make quite interesting news. Probably be all over town by sundown."

  Julie clenched her fists at her side as she rose from the swing and stood facing him. "What are you doing here," she hissed, "besides eavesdropping on things that are none of your business?"

  The man grinned. "Now that you ask me so nicely," he said in a taunting voice, "I'll be happy to tell you. Your mother sent me out here to fetch you."

  "My mother?" Julie gaped at him, then her lashes lowered over her gray eyes as she peered suspiciously at him. "Who are you, anyway, and what dealings do you have with my mother? If you're a salesman bothering her, I can tell you…"

  "Well, I'm not, so don't tell me," he interrupted. He gazed at her in a frankly assessing manner, his deep brown eyes missing nothing, from her tear-splotched face to her limp pink and white sundress. "I'm here on business. As a matter of fact, your mother invited me here and we've been talking for the past hour. A few minutes ago, she asked me to come out and get you because she would like to speak to you, but when I reached those hedges," he waved a careless hand toward the bushes behind him, "what I heard made me pause and decide it wasn't exactly the best time to approach you."

  "So you stood there eavesdropping instead of going away again as any polite person might have done!" Julie exclaimed heatedly.

  "Well, it was either hang around and hope the touching little scene would shortly come to an end or go back to the house and tell your mother why I couldn't call you and I really didn't think it was my place to inform her that your engagement is over."

  "Thanks so much for your consideration," she snapped sarcastically. Julie stalked past the arrogant, hateful man, angrily conscious of how dreadfully her appearance contrasted with his. The afternoon temperature must be in the high nineties, yet he stood there looking icily cool and neat in a pale gray business suit while she had to look as wilted as a day old salad. This, added to the fact that he was privy to her own personal tragedy made her dislike him even more intensely. Now, her sandaled feet hurried her toward the house in her eagerness to get away from him.

  But when she arrived at the back screened door, he was right there behind her and he reached around her to pull open the door. For an instant, their glances locked and slowly, he smiled. "It might," he suggested softly, "be a good idea if you washed away the tears before your mother sees you. It wouldn't do to worry her, you know."

  As if she didn't already know that! Julie refused to dignify the comment with an answer. Instead, she held her head high and entered the house in cold silence. But all the same, she headed for the bathroom before seeing her mother and one glance in the mirror told her the man, whoever he was, had had a point. If she had appeared before Mom looking all red and puffed, it would have seriously alarmed her.

  She washed her face with cold water and then lightly applied a little makeup in an effort to hide all traces of the fact that she had been crying and as she did, she wondered, really curious for the first time, who the strange man was and why he was here. Apparently he knew about her mother's heart condition since he had made that comment about not worrying her.

  In her bedroom, Julie quickly changed from the crumpled and tear-damped sundress into a fresh skirt and blouse. Then she brushed her long hair until it fell in silky ripples against her shoulders. A hasty glance in the mirror told her that though she had looked better many times in her life, she did not look too awful now and with any luck, her mother would not detect any signs of the storm that had just passed.

  When she entered the living room, her mother, who sat in the cushioned chair next to a window, was talking to the man but she broke off when she saw Julie. "Here you are at last, my dear." She smiled and held out a hand toward her daughter. Julie walked across the room and clasped her mother's hand. "Julie," her mother said now, "I'd like to introduce you to Blaise Richard."

  If she had been struck by a thunderbolt out of a cloudless sky, Julie could not have been more astonished. She had been facing the man who was seated on the sofa but now she looked down at her mother with wide, shocked eyes. "Why is he here?" she demanded bluntly. "Why did you let him come in?"

  Ruth Wilder smiled gently and patted her daughter's hand. "He's here because I invited him, Julie. Sit down and I'll explain."

  "Please do," Julie invited weakly. She went to sit on the opposite end of the sofa, as far from Blaise Richard as was possible, her entire attention on her mother.

  For a long moment, Ruth Wilder thoughtfully studied her daughter. Her short-cropped, ash-blond hair took on an almost golden glow from the sun's rays that beamed through the window but her blue eyes held a troubled expression in them, as though she were unsure of how to begin and Julie, reading that look, felt a tiny chill of unease.

  "I wrote to your grandfather, Julie," Ruth Wilder said at last. "I…" Now she hesitated as though she dreaded to continue. "I told him that I was withdrawing my objections to his seeing you, that in fact, I would do my utmost to convince you to meet him."

  "But… but why?" Julie stammered. "You've always been totally against it and so am I." She threw a scornful glance at the man who sat only a couple of feet away from her. "I don't want to meet him… or his stepson!"

  Her mother sighed audibly and Blaise Richard spoke. "Would you like for me to explain, Ruth?"

  Ruth Wilder nodded. "Please do, Blaise. I'm sure you'll do a better job of it than I could."

  Blaise Richard shifted his position on the sofa and clasped his hands around one knee. "Your mother has informed us about her need for open heart surgery. She's very concerned about the heavy burden all this places upon you, her trip to Houston which, as you know, is where her doctor wants her to go for the operation and the fact that you'd be here, holding down a job and trying to care for your brother. She's also concerned about the outcome of it all, that should she die, the way things stand now, you and Bobby would be totally alone in the world. Only you're not alone, Julie. Your grandfather has wanted to meet you all these years and your mother feels that now is the time to bury past grievances and bring you together. Dad would like to give you all the family support you're entitled to as a Barclay."

  "I don't need support of any kind from Andrew Barclay, thank you very much!" Julie said scathingly. She turned to face her mother. "Honestly, Mom, I can't think why you got in touch with them. We've managed fine all these years without the Barclays and we will in the future."

  "Julie, please," her mother pleaded. "Your grandfather is in town right now, waiting in his motel room to get a call from Blaise that you'll see him."

  "He's here?" Julie asked incredulously.

  "Yes," Ruth Wilder replied, "and I've invited him to come to the house tonight so that I can see him and he can meet Bobby as well, but for now, he's waiting for Blaise to take you there to meet him privately."

  "Then he can go on waiting," Julie said callously, "and I'll make certain I have a previous engagement this evening. Mother, if you want to see him again after what he put you and Dad through all those years ago, that's your business, but I have no intentions of ever meeting him. As far as I'm concerned, he's no relation of mine."

  "That's laughable," Blaise Richard said, "in view of the fact that you have his eyes, not to mention his stubbornness."

  "Don't you dare say that," Julie stormed at him. "I have my father's eyes and I'm not stubborn." Blaise Richard merely crossed his arms and grinned at her, which enraged her so much, she turned to her mother and begged, "Can't we discuss this alone?"

  "You do that." Blaise Richard rose to his feet and stood looking down at her. "I'll leave and return in exactly half an hour for your answer, but before I go, perhaps I'd better mention something. You are a Barclay whether you like it or not and because you are, Dad is prepared to be very generous when it comes to financial arrangements. He's ready to smooth this difficult time for you, your mother and your brother as much as possible
, but only if you will meet him and take your position in his life as his granddaughter. So before you haughtily decline, just remember that whatever you decide will also affect your mother and your brother."

  He turned to Julie's mother and taking her tiny hand, squeezed it tightly in his own huge one. "I'll be back in a half hour, Ruth."

  As soon as the door was closed behind him, Julie demanded, "Mom, how could you have gotten in touch with Andrew Barclay after all these years? I don't understand it at all. You hate him!"

  Ruth Wilder smiled wanly and shook her head. "No, Julie, I don't hate him anymore." As Julie opened her mouth to object, she held up a hand to silence her. "After twenty-two years, it's long since burned itself out. It's true I have no love for Andrew Barclay, but my feelings toward him in recent years have been benign and you know perfectly well that since you turned eighteen I told you I would not object if you established a relationship with him."

  "Yes," Julie admitted, "but I never gave any consideration toward doing so."

  "I know," her mother said sadly, "and that's entirely due to my influence. I was wrong, Julie, to teach you to hate your grandfather. I was wrong to have ever told you what happened in the first place." She gave a little half-smile. "Andrew Barclay and I both have things to regret and always shall, but to harbor hatred and unforgiveness for a lifetime is both stupid and self-destructive. I realize that now. Sometimes I wonder if the burning hate I carried for so long in some way contributed to the health problems I now suffer," she said musingly. "In fact, I'd be willing to bet it did."

  "Now, Mother…" Julie chided.

  Ruth Wilder interrupted her. "Anyway, Julie, I'm trying to set things right as much as possible now, and that's why I wrote to your grandfather. In two weeks, I'm going into surgery and only God knows whether I'll come through it or not. I don't want to leave you and Bobby alone in the world except for each other and I think it's time you met Andrew. As Blaise said, he's very generously offered to help us out financially, but even more important is the fact that you realize you do have a family, someone to lean upon."