by Diana Palmer
She lifted her eyes slowly to his. Her heart skipped a beat. “A felony?” she echoed.
“Yes. She may have rushed back to Texas in a blaze of glory, but the law has long arms.” He smiled at her. “You think she’s invincible. She’s not. You’ve got enough rope in your hands to hang her.”
“It’s your company,” she began.
“It’s your mother.” He folded his arms over his chest. “There’ll never be a better opportunity to pry her fingers loose from your life. Go get her.”
She saw possibilities that had never existed before. He was right. She had a weapon, and Marlene had put it in her hands. It was the first time she’d ever been in a position of power over her mother in her entire life. The elation was consuming. Her whole expression changed as she looked again at the documents and then began to smile.
She stood up. “I’m going to Texas!”
“I thought you might. When do you want to leave?”
“Tomorrow morning on the earliest flight out.”
He lifted the receiver and buzzed his secretary. “Get Miss Keene a round-trip, first-class ticket on the first morning plane to...?”
“...San Antonio, it’s closest to Harmony,” she answered his unvoiced query.
“...San Antonio. Arrange for a car to meet her coming and going. Get the biggest, newest stretch limo you can hire. Black. And make sure there’s a male driver. A big, ugly one. Yes, that’s right. I’ll tell her.” He hung up. “She’ll phone your office when it’s arranged and you can pick up your tickets at the airport.”
She straightened her jacket. “Thanks,” she said stiffly.
“When you get back, I want to know who you are.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“You’ve fed me a steady diet of glitzy lies,” he explained. “Now I want the truth. I want to know what you did as a child, where you went, whom you played with, what you felt about life and the world. I want to know how you started drawing and how you ended up in design school.”
“It’s all ugly,” she said uneasily. “Ugly!”
He slid off the edge of the desk and caught her by the waist, holding her gently in front of him. “There were good moments,” he said. “You’ve buried them under the bad things, but they’re there. The Mexican family...you loved them, yes?”
“Yes,” she agreed slowly. “How did you know?”
“You speak Spanish with such tenderness, querida. Didn’t you know?”
“You make love in Spanish,” she said, lowering her eyes shyly to his throat.
“Only to you.” He kissed her forehead tenderly and let her go. “I’ve been lonely without you. Gaby was just window dressing. There hasn’t been anyone else. You see, it was no lie when I said I loved you. I haven’t stopped. I’ll never stop. And when you come home, I’ll ask you to forgive me in the sweetest way I know.”
The world became full of color again as she looked up at him with her heart in her eyes. “You don’t need to ask me to forgive you. It’s the other way around.”
“We’re going to start over again, together,” he told her gently. “No lies, ever again, Ivory.”
She touched his tie, loving the silky feel of it. Pain washed over her face at the sound of her own name. “She named me for a brand of soap,” she said huskily.
He lifted her chin and searched her wounded eyes. “Did she?” He smiled tenderly. “But when I hear your name, I think of the way you look against white satin, and the purity of your character, and the light you bring into my life.”
Tears stung her eyes at the interpretation. She stared at him without speaking.
He chuckled. “You see? It’s all subjective.” He bent and bit her lower lip delicately and then kissed it tenderly. “Now, would you like to get out of here before my staff starts gossiping about us?”
“Would they dare?” she asked.
“Querida,” he drawled, “have you ever noticed some of the more innovative uses people have discovered for desks on late-night television?”
She glanced at the gleaming dark wood of his desk and she grinned. “I’m leaving,” she said.
“That might be a good idea. While there’s still time. I’m quite impressionable, you know. It’s my Latin nature.”
She peered up at him mischievously. “You rake.”
“You’ll have your work cut out for you after we become parents,” he said easily. “I expect our sons will all take after me.”
Her eyes adored him, and all her heartaches seemed to be fading. “I hope so,” she said softly.
And that easily, they became engaged.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CURRY’S SECRETARY WAS a magician when it came to easing the path of a harried traveler. Ivory made it to San Antonio without a hitch, arriving at midmorning to find a huge black stretch limousine and an immaculately dressed driver in a dark suit waiting for her when she got off the plane.
He opened the door for her and she got in. He was a big man, not at all ugly, but formidable-looking. Ivory had to hide her amusement at the order that Curry’s secretary had apparently followed to the letter.
She gave him directions and then sat back in the leather luxury of the interior and watched out the window as they drove the short distance to Harmony.
People watched them from the small downtown area as they passed through, awed by the limousine. Ivory could see fingers pointed in her direction, and she smiled. Probably they thought the passenger behind the smoked glass windows was some rock star or wealthy oilman. She was fascinated by the way people stared. She wondered how they would feel if they knew little Ivory Keene Costello rode in the back.
She’d taken a chance in coming without checking to find out where her mother was, but she knew the woman would be at home or at the beauty parlor because those were the two places she’d frequented most often in Ivory’s youth. Even groceries took second place to Marlene’s hair.
She looked closely along the sidewalk as they passed the beauty parlor, the only one in town. Ivory’s quick eyes spotted a woman just going inside. She was wearing a mink coat despite the heat, and Ivory didn’t have to guess twice about her identity.
“Pull up to the curb over there, please,” Ivory told the driver.
He nodded, sliding easily to the side of the road. He parked the limousine, attracting attention from all sides. Then he got out and opened the door.
Her heart was beating in double time. There was a measure of fear in her slender body as she got out; but she had a thick envelope in her hand, and it was going to change her life.
She was wearing one of her own suits, with her signature crystal butterfly, in an oyster wool blend. It was really too hot in Texas for the wool, but it had felt just right back in New York City. She wore expensive designer pumps and carried a purse of equal quality. Her blond hair was perfectly groomed, her face made up delicately. She looked far more expensively turned out than Marlene in her mink coat. And she smiled at the unexpected opportunity to show the evidence she had to Marlene in a very public place. It gave the confrontation a special edge when she remembered that the woman who owned the beauty salon had accused her of stealing things when she was a child.
When she walked into the salon, the owner, who had known Ivory from childhood, didn’t recognize her.
“May I help you, madam?” she asked respectfully.
Ivory raised an eyebrow. She looked around the salon until she saw Marlene, with the mink in her lap, sitting at one of the stations.
“No. I came to speak with my mother,” she replied, and turned to walk slowly down the aisle toward a shocked, speechless and pale Marlene.
“Why...Ivory!” the proprietor gasped.
Ivory didn’t reply but strode through the shop until she was standing face-to-face with Marlene. The salon was filled with secretaries and girls from the nearby factory u
sing their lunch hours to have their hair done.
“Hello, Mother,” Ivory said. “Nice mink. Did you tell everyone where you got it?”
“What?” Marlene croaked, visibly staggered to see her daughter here.
Ivory pulled out photocopies of the credit slips Marlene had forged, along with affidavits from the store clerks who described the woman who’d forged them. She dumped them in Marlene’s lap.
“Why, what are these?” Marlene asked faintly, shocked by her daughter’s unexpected appearance and the proof of her deceit.
“Enough evidence to put you in jail for forgery,” Ivory said pleasantly. She looked around the beauty shop, particularly at the proprietor, who was obviously shocked speechless. “My mother came to New York to visit me. While she was there, she went on a shopping spree and forged my name to some sales slips, using my corporate credit card. My boss was, to put it mildly, upset.”
Marlene had gone very pale. She put a hand to her throat. “Well...well, I deserved something! You left me down here without a dime and never sent me a penny...!”
Ivory pulled out canceled checks and dumped those in her mother’s lap, as well. “Canceled checks in an amount totaling more than ten thousand dollars, written out to you, cashed by you.” She looked around. “If any of you would like to see them, feel free. I believe my mother has spent most of her life telling everyone in town that I neglected her. What she failed to tell you was that she deserved to be neglected. Why don’t you tell them about your boyfriend, Marlene, and how the two of you got drunk and held me down while he tried to have me, right on the living room couch? Or how you drank like a fish and slapped me around, and then lied and told everyone that I’d attacked you? Or how you pilfered things from every store in town and told people I was a thief so that you wouldn’t be prosecuted?”
Marlene’s face was drawn like cord. “She’s lying!” she cried.
“If I’m lying,” Ivory said carefully, “then why are you about to be arrested for forgery and theft?”
“A...arrested?”
“Arrested. You know, when men in uniforms come and take you to jail for stealing things...?”
“Marlene said you stole from her, and from other people,” the proprietor of the beauty shop spoke up. “In fact, you stole nail polish from me...”
Ivory held up her nails, nicely manicured, but never polished. “And it never occurred to you that I didn’t use nail polish, ever?” she queried, nodding toward Marlene’s thickly red fingernails.
The woman’s mouth clamped shut.
“She stole,” Ivory replied calmly, turning back to her pale mother, “and blamed me for it. Most people in small towns don’t like to prosecute children, you see.”
There were murmured comments and Marlene bit her lower lip, getting red lipstick all over her teeth in the process.
“Ivory, it’s all a mistake,” Marlene burst out.
“You tell these people the truth, right now,” Ivory demanded, gray eyes blazing, “or I’ll not say one word when Curry Kells sends the police here to arrest you! That’s what he wants to do, I promise you! He’s already been in touch with his attorneys.”
Marlene caved in. She knew when she was beaten. “All right, I wanted a few pretty things! It’s your fault,” she added icily. “If I hadn’t gotten pregnant with you, I would have had nice things! I could have married a man who had something, instead of your stupid father, with his dirty clothes and rotten teeth!”
All her life, Ivory had been intimidated by the woman who sat in the chair before her. Perhaps in a way, she always would be. Despite the small crowd in the beauty salon, there were plenty of other people who would believe every lie Marlene told. But as she saw, really saw, her mother for the first time, it no longer mattered.
The ugliness inside Marlene was quite visible, along with her narrow view of life, her selfishness, her immoral character, her callous disregard for everyone’s happiness except her own.
“I always despised you,” Marlene spat the words at Ivory. “You went on television and told lies about your past.”
“Yes, I did,” Ivory said carelessly. “I thought people would reject me if they knew I’d been poor. Now, I don’t care what they think. I’m famous and rich, and I’m going to be even more so in the years ahead. I’ll have a husband who loves me and children. And you, Mother...well,” she looked around the salon, “you’ll have all this.”
Marlene understood exactly what her daughter was saying to her. She turned an ugly green. “Damn you,” she whispered, shaking with rage. “I’ll go to the tabloids!”
Ivory smiled. “Help yourself.” She picked up the checks and the affidavits very deliberately. “I believe you’re allowed one phone call,” she added meaningfully.
Marlene drew in a sharp breath. The implication was quite clear: go to the tabloids and Ivory would go to the police. She shifted violently in the chair. “Well, just don’t expect to come back here! I don’t want to see you again,” Marlene said spitefully.
“A mutual feeling. I have a plane to catch, and someone is waiting for me in New York.” She put the evidence back in her pocketbook and gave a pitying look to the woman who had borne her. “How different your life and my life might have been if you’d wanted me.”
There was a cruel burst of laughter. “What woman in her right mind would ever want kids?” Marlene countered.
“Oh, I do,” Ivory said, thinking of Curry and tall sons who would look like him. “I want them very much.”
She turned and walked out of the salon to the waiting limousine, and she didn’t look back. The past was truly behind her now, but it had become a basis for her future. She’d accepted it, and put it in perspective. She no longer had to be afraid of it, or of her mother.
Marlene would surely bounce back, and she would always pose a threat in some way. But never again would Ivory be ruled by fear or intimidation. Those days were over. She had a lifetime ahead of her, and a future she’d given up for lost. She’d grown into someone new, someone different. She could hardly wait to get back and tell Curry about it.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
IVORY SPENT THE night at Curry’s apartment, in his arms, and the next morning she woke to the delight of never having to leave him again.
He was leaning over her. His expression would have told her he loved her even if he hadn’t said it over and over again all night long.
“Do you remember that I gave this to you last night?” he asked, lifting a gift-wrapped box from the bedside table.
“Yes, but you kissed me before I could open it and afterward I forgot all about it.”
He chuckled at her blush. “Well, open it now.”
She tore off the wrapping and uncovered the box. Within it was another box, a small square velvet one. She fumbled it open.
There, nestled inside, were two rings: a diamond in a plain Tiffany setting, and beside it a simple gold band. She had no words.
“I can wear one, too, if you want me to,” he offered.
“Of course, you’ll wear one, too,” she said immediately, finding her voice. “A great big one, so that Belle and Gaby can see it...”
He kissed her, laughing with explosive delight.
She pushed him over onto his back and loomed over him. “Did you sleep with them?” she demanded.
He stretched and sighed, moving lazily under the delightful pleasure of her hands on his chest. “No.”
“Not ever?”
The smile grew. “You made me impotent when I wasn’t with you,” he explained. “I couldn’t make love with anyone else. It would have felt like adultery.”
“Impotent? I don’t know about that, but you certainly lost weight.”
Her eyes lingered on his lean face. “You have to eat more, now. You don’t look healthy.”
“You’re pretty thin yourself,” he replied tende
rly. He reached up and caught a lock of her hair, smiling at her. “We can be married Wednesday.”
She didn’t feel inclined to argue.
He took the diamond out of the case and slid it onto her finger, then lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it hungrily.
“When did you buy it?” she asked.
“Two days after New Year’s Eve.”
“It isn’t New Year’s yet. It isn’t even Christmas...” She stopped dead. Her lips parted. “Last...last New Year’s Eve?”
“Yes.”
She stared at him, uncomprehending.
“So if you think that wanting to marry you is something new with me, think again. I wanted it the first day I saw you, when I was sitting on the cathedral steps. I’d been praying and I looked up, and there was an angel standing looking at me.”
“Oh, Curry.” She kissed his closed eyelid. She slid her arm over his chest and nuzzled closer with soft contentment. “Do we have to go to work?”
“Not today. I’ll call in sick for both of us.”
“Everyone will know.”
“Of course they will. I’ll tell them when I call in that we’re getting married.” He chuckled softly. “The tabloids will have a field day with us.”
That worried her. She raised herself up and looked at his dark face. “What about my mother, if she sees that?”
He pursed his lips. “We still have enough evidence to hang her, remember?”
She relaxed. “I’m paranoid about her.”
“I can understand that. But she’s only a threat if you let her become one. Remember that.”
She searched his beloved face. After a minute, she sank down against him with a sigh and closed her eyes. It was the end of the rainbow to be with him this way, to know that she loved and was loved. “All right,” she whispered at last.
