Paper Rose

by Diana Palmer

He gestured toward the hall. She went out and he closed the door. Tomorrow, he promised himself, he was changing the lock again and having a heart-to-heart with his soft-touch apartment manager. He wondered at the way Audrey had behaved, like someone with an almost psychotic fixation. He’d run into that sort of thing at least once when he was in covert operations. A woman had chased a friend of his until the man was forced to have her arrested. She’d actually tried to kill his wife. Of course, Audrey wasn’t that unbalanced. She was just a poor loser. He started to telephone his mother’s house and talk to Cecily, but he had a lot of work to do. There would be plenty of time to consider the problem of his relationship with her later, when he was less uncomfortable about what had happened.

  Cecily was unusually quiet when she and Leta sat down alone to the supper table. Colby had gone out without saying where he’d be, or when he’d return.

  Leta stared at her until she looked up. “Somebody said that Tate was here yesterday,” she said. “You never mentioned it.”

  “I made him go home.” Cecily tried to put the phone call she’d made out of her mind.

  “Why couldn’t he stay here?” Leta wanted to know.

  “Because Senator Holden doesn’t want him involved, in any way. He’s afraid he might find out something if he started looking around.”

  “That’s true enough,” Leta said sadly. “But I would love to have seen him.” She looked up. “You’re very quiet tonight. Something’s wrong.”

  She shrugged. “Nothing much. I phoned to make sure Tate was home safely and got Audrey.”

  “She must live with him. I’d hoped I was wrong.”

  “Apparently she does,” Cecily said coldly. She remembered Tate denying that he was intimate with the woman at all. He’d lied. Audrey was cooking his supper, and they’d only just gotten out of bed. Cecily was so sick that she didn’t think she could even eat. Why had Tate lied to her? Had it only been to get her into bed? She knew that he was almost obsessed with her physically, that it had driven him to find her, that he’d been jealous of Colby. But men were devious when they wanted a woman. Could he have been rationalizing? He said he felt guilty about it, and he probably did, but because he’d been unfaithful to Audrey. Nothing had ever hurt so much!

  “What did Audrey have to say?” Leta persisted.

  “That he got back safely and he’s a wonderful lover and she’s having a wedding gown made.” She looked up. “Lucky you. What a beautiful daughter-in-law you’re going to have.”

  “He won’t marry her,” Leta said firmly. “And you know why.”

  “She thinks he will. So do I, when he learns the truth.” She met Leta’s worried eyes. “I’m sorry, but you must know it’s going to come out sooner or later. Even if the press doesn’t get hold of the story, it’s inevitable that he’s going to find out.”

  “I don’t like to think about it.”

  “I know.”

  “He’ll hate me.”

  “He will not,” Cecily said firmly. “He’ll be upset, and angry, and he’ll go away and sulk for a few days. Then he’ll accept it and come home. You know him,” she said sadly, and smiled.

  “Yes, I do.” She searched Cecily’s wan face. “You should tell him how you feel.”

  “He knows how I feel,” Cecily said. “But it doesn’t change anything. He still says he doesn’t want to marry a white woman. I guess Audrey’s the exception.”

  “Something fishy is going on here.”

  “I know. It involves a tribal chief.”

  “Cecily!”

  Cecily smiled gently. “We don’t have time to worry about my problems right now. We have to save Senator Holden.” She sighed sadly. “He’s going to be furious with me when he knows I’ve told you that he knows about Tate. He made me promise not to.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Eat your pudding. You’re way too thin.”

  Cecily smiled and lifted her spoon.

  It didn’t take Colby long to riffle through Tom Black Knife’s locked desk and find everything he needed. He photographed ledgers, vouchers and an unsigned letter with a New Jersey postmark. He photographed an address book with phone numbers. Then he closed the drawer and locked it back, with every paper exactly in its place. He let himself out and blended in with the night.

  “Here,” Colby told Cecily the next morning. It was a small roll of film. “Give that to your contact in D.C. with my blessings. It’s everything you need to find the right people.”

  “You’re a wonder, Colby. Are you coming back with me?”

  “Not until Tate cools off. I think I’ll go on out to Arizona for a couple of days and see my cousins.”

  She grinned at him. “Good for you! Thanks, Colby,” she added sincerely. “We couldn’t have done this without your help.”

  “It was a pleasure. I’ll see you in D.C.”

  “You bet.”

  Cecily left Leta with a warm hug and started down the winding road to the highway when it dawned on her that she’d forgotten the valuable unusual relic that she’d promised to bring Dr. Phillips.

  With a sinking heart she realized that she couldn’t ask for anything from the tribe, because old things were sacred. It would be like asking for a person’s living heart. But then something occurred to her. She turned the car in the direction of Red Elk’s little trading post nearby. She knew the old man, who had no family. Perhaps he could suggest something for the museum that she hadn’t even thought about.

  Red Elk was an elderly Sioux, so elderly that nobody liked asking his age. They shook hands like old friends, which they were.

  “I need something unusual,” Cecily told him, glancing at a couple who were just getting out of their dusty van at the steps. “I need a relic for our museum. We’re making a display of Lakota handicrafts and artifacts, but I can’t ask the tribe for anything sacred. What can you sell me that won’t give offense?”

  He smiled at her with a gap in his teeth. “I have the very thing, Cecily.”

  He went into the back of the shop and came out with a parfleche bag, very old and stained, with discolored fringe all around it and a hole in it. He handed it to her with great ceremony. The couple from the van, a man and a woman, middle-aged and dressed like tourists, hovered nearby. The man was staring curiously at what the old man had in his hands.

  “This belonged to my grandfather,” Red Elk told Cecily. “I have no family left to hand it down to, and my small band had no connection to Tom Black Knife’s tribe. I would like it to have a safe place. I would like people to see it. It saved my grandfather’s life at the Greasy Grass. He had placed a stone pipe in it, a ceremonial pipe of great power. A soldier’s bullet shattered the stone, but did not penetrate the chest of my grandfather who was holding it over his shoulder in preparation for battle.” He laid it in Cecily’s hands.

  She touched it with awe. “May I open it?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  She opened the flap with excited hands. Inside were remnants of a pipe carved from red pipestone, along with small pieces of wood, some with old pigments clinging to it. “This is…beyond my wildest expectations. You can name any price for it.”

  He waved her away. “I would not sell it,” he said. “It would cheapen it. You take it for your museum. I would like you to put my grandfather’s name, Crow Shield, below it, in a placard, and say that he was one of the Waist and Skirt Indians who fought at the Greasy Grass.”

  “I will do that,” she promised. “Is there something I can give you in return, something you would like to have?” she added, because it was custom to give a gift of equal value in return for one received.

  “Yes,” the old man said with a reminiscent smile. “I would like a German pipe. I saw a man come through here with one. It had an enormous big bole and a curved stem. It was magnificent.”

  She knew exactly what he was talking about. “I live near a tobacconist in D.C.,” she said. “I know the kind you mean. I’ll send it to Leta Warwoman Winthrop and
she will bring it to you.”

  “I know Leta. A brave woman. A daughter of a brave family.”

  She shook hands with him. “Pilamaya yelo.”

  He chuckled. “Pilamaya ye,” he corrected. “I would say pilamaya yelo, for I am male. You forget that a woman speaks one way and a man another.”

  “I’m still learning,” she told him.

  “And very well.” He gave her the Lakota for you’re welcome. “Have a good journey,” he added.

  She took his gnarled hand in hers. “And you keep well. Thank you for this.” She indicated the parfleche bag held respectfully in both her hands.

  As she left, he turned to speak to the female tourist who had come in and stood, listening to what the old man had said to Cecily. The other tourist, the man, stopped her as she went out onto the porch.

  “I didn’t understand what he was saying,” he said with a polite smile, nodding toward Red Elk. “I’d like to know what it meant. He said his grandfather fought at the Greasy Grass. I never heard of such a place, or of Waist and Skirt Indians. Can you explain? I’m a history buff, but I guess I haven’t been reading the right books.”

  She smiled. “I’m an anthropologist,” she told him. “A lot of people haven’t heard these expressions unless they’re very deep into Native American history. The Greasy Grass is what the Sioux called the Little Bighorn River. Waist and Skirt Indians are Santee Sioux. Sioux is actually a misnomer, because the people call themselves Lakota in this region. There are various bands of Lakota, like Minneconjou and Hunk-papa and Oglala. What I said to Red Elk was “thank you,” in Lakota, but I used the wrong personal pronoun,” she said with a grin. “I’m still a student. He replied that I was welcome.”

  “Do you teach?” he asked curiously.

  She shook her head. “I’m assistant curator in charge of acquisitions for a new museum in Washington. It’s a museum of the indiginous peoples of the United States. I hope that you’ll stop by if you come to the nation’s capitol. We’re very proud of our facility.”

  “We’ll do that.” He glanced at the parfleche held so lovingly in her hands. “History,” he murmured. “History you can see and touch. You’re very lucky. I got to read a sixteenth century illuminated manuscript wearing gloves and a mask. It isn’t the same thing.”

  She smiled at him. “I know. But protecting the legacy of the past is a huge responsibility. If everyone got to touch things, they wouldn’t last long. Oil in the fingertips, you see.”

  He chuckled self-consciously. “I do now.”

  She wished them a safe trip, climbed in the car with her precious cargo, and drove to the airport.

  She showed her acquisition to Dr. Phillips, who was beside himself with delight. “Our first real artifact, Cecily,” he said breathlessly. “And what an artifact! Perhaps we can have Red Elk flown up here to speak about it when we open our doors to the public!”

  “What a marvelous idea,” she agreed. “And I have another one. Why not have a similar parfleche made that people can touch, so that they have a tactile idea of how one feels?”

  “Another great idea,” he said at once. “Can you have one made for us?”

  “I’ll get my adopted mama right on it.”

  But before she phoned Leta, she took that spool of film to Senator Holden’s office and handed it to him without a word.

  He smiled from ear to ear. “Pictures of the reservation, hmm?”

  “Of an ancient artifact,” she lied glibly. “A parfleche bag that contained a sacred pipe. It saved its owner from a cavalry bullet at the Little Big Horn.”

  “I’ve got to see the real thing,” Holden said at once.

  “Come over whenever you like. We’ll be delighted to show it to you.”

  He held up the film, and his face was solemn. He nodded, and smiled. She smiled back. At least something good had come out of her trip.

  Inevitably Tate phoned her at her office when she’d returned. “Leta said you and Colby left suddenly,” he said softly. “What did you find out?”

  “This isn’t a secure line,” she told him without expression in her voice. It hurt to hear him talking to her in that almost intimate tone after what Audrey had told her.

  “Stop talking like a secret agent,” he teased.

  “You start thinking like one again,” she told him. “I’ll meet you for coffee in the usual place.”

  “What usual place?”

  “Where you and Audrey go, of course.”

  That hadn’t been a teasing tone in her voice. “I only took her there once, Cecily, the day you ran into us…”

  “Ten minutes.” She hung up, got her jacket and went out, telling her secretary that she had a meeting and would be back in an hour. She dreaded seeing him again. But if she could just keep her head, perhaps she could bluff her way through. She felt betrayed.

  Tate was sitting impatiently at a small table near the window with a cup of black coffee. He looked up, watching her get coffee at the counter. She paid for it and came to sit down beside him. It was difficult to pretend that they hadn’t been intimate. She looked at him now and felt the weight of him in her arms, the heat of his body, the fierce passion as it moved on her. He’d said that there wouldn’t be anyone else afterward, but Audrey had been in his apartment, right at home. She swallowed some coffee that was too hot and burned her tongue trying to forget.

  “Why here?” he asked at once.

  She studied him covertly over her cup. His hair was back in its braid. He was wearing a gray Armani silk suit with a turtleneck shirt. He looked as elegant as he always had. He was like the man she remembered from her teens today, because he didn’t smile.

  “I thought you liked good coffee,” she replied finally, staring down into hers. “They have Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee here. It’s wonderful.”

  “I like coffee that a spoon will stand in. I’m not particular about the brand.” He sipped his own, wondering at the change in Cecily. They’d been intimate and they sat here like polite acquaintances. She was as remote as he’d once been. Her behavior puzzled him, made him uneasy. They were lovers, but she was pushing him away as certainly as if she’d done it physically.

  “I want to know what’s going on, Cecily.”

  “You do know.”

  He shook his head. “Insinuations, gossip, rumors. Nobody will talk to me. It’s like a code of silence.”

  He was frustrated. She could hear it in his voice. “Colby found out some things,” she said finally. “I’ve given the information to the appropriate person. Now we sit back and hope that what we’ve got is enough to prevent a humdinger of a political scandal.”

  “Involving Holden.”

  Her face lifted. Her pale green eyes in their big lenses were very intent. “How did you know that?”

  “Do you know what they’ve got on him?”

  “Oh, sure, I’m going to tell his worst enemy that,” she said curtly.

  “You might not believe this, but he told me himself,” he said.

  She was even more still than before. She looked apprehensive. “He told you…everything?”

  Fishing, he thought, was an enjoyable sport. He carefully looked at the coffee cup she was holding in her neatly manicured hands. “How is it that you know?” he asked.

  She put down her cup carefully. She looked at the white linen tablecloth instead of him. Softly a Viennese waltz played in the background from speakers over their heads. “Senator Holden had to tell me everything to get me to help him,” she said after a minute. She looked up into his lean face. “You’re very calm about it,” she said. “And you aren’t angry with me?”

  He smiled carelessly. “Why would I be?”

  “I thought it would be more traumatic than this,” she ventured. He looked puzzled, and she wondered if she’d been deliberately led. “Suppose you tell me what Matt Holden told you?”

  “Holden says he’s being blackmailed because of a woman in his past,” he said. “They had an affair while he was ma
rried, and the woman lives on the reservation.”

  She nodded, reassured. “Yes. And?”

  He scowled. “And what?”

  He didn’t know! She hadn’t thought he’d take the news of his true parentage so calmly. Now she’d almost given it away.

  “The senator will have to tell you the rest,” she said flatly. “I’ve said all I’m going to. Why did you want to see me?”

  He studied her face curiously. “Why do I always want to see you?” he countered. His voice was like velvet. “You’re part of me now, Cecily.”

  She colored. She couldn’t meet his eyes. Did he think she didn’t know about Audrey?

  “And you wouldn’t lie to me,” she said.

  “Any more than you’d lie to me,” he replied softly.

  So they were both liars. She stared at the big silver-and-turquoise ring on his lean finger. Leta wore a matching one, smaller of course.

  She sipped her coffee without speaking. It was hard to talk to him. She couldn’t make the transition that he’d made so easily, from affection to intimacy. That must be the difference between experience and naiveté, she thought glumly.

  They drank the rest of their coffee in silence. She smiled politely and got to her feet. “I have to get back. I’m working on a new display, and I have a lot of phone calls to make.”

  He stood up with her, scowling. His expression was uneasy. “What’s gone wrong between us?” he asked abruptly.

  She searched his eyes with sadness in her own. “Not a thing.”

  “Talk to me!”

  She drew in a breath. “Audrey was cooking supper for you,” she said, unable to hide the pain of it that showed in her voice. “She said she’d picked out a wedding gown. And that you’re terrific in bed, of course.”

  “Damn Audrey!” he said under his breath.

  She moved one shoulder. “I have to go.” She noticed that he wasn’t denying anything.

  He could barely get his mind to work. He fell into step beside her as they reached the sidewalk, reluctant to let her go until they’d smoothed things out.

  “You’re going the wrong way,” she pointed out. “Pierce Hutton’s offices are that way.”