TODD LIFTED HIS HEAD, freezing in place, while Jane gently pushed away from him, red-faced.
“Sorry,” Cherry murmured, and then grinned. “I was looking for Meg. Don’t let me interrupt anything.”
She darted past them into the kitchen and closed the door pointedly.
“I’m sorry,” Todd said curtly, pushing his hair off his forehead. “That was a stupid thing to do.”
Jane didn’t know what stupid thing he meant, so she didn’t reply. She moved away from him and sat down, her back aching from the unfamiliar exercise. He hesitated for a few seconds, but he couldn’t think of a single defense for his uncharacteristic behavior.
“Excuse me,” he said, picking up the papers from the table. “I’d better get to work.”
He left her sitting there, and he didn’t look back on the way out. Cherry came in a few minutes later, and grimaced when she saw that Jane was alone.
“I didn’t mean to burst in,” Cherry told her. “I didn’t expect... Gosh, I never saw Dad kiss anyone like that! Not even my mother, when I was little!”
Jane flushed. “It was just a...mistake,” she faltered.
“Some mistake. Wow!” She chuckled. Her whole face lit up. “Do you like him?”
“Don’t start building dreams on me and your father,” Jane said somberly. “There’s no future in it. He doesn’t want marriage and I don’t want anything else,” she added flatly.
Cherry’s face fell. “Oh.”
“You’re still my friend, Cherry,” she said with a smile. “Okay?”
Cherry’s mouth curled down but after a minute she smiled back. “Okay.”
JANE WENT UP to Victoria with Copper and spent most of the day posing in various articles of SlimTogs for the photographer. He was nice, and very helpful, and considerate of Jane’s back problem. It was worse today because of Todd’s ardor the night before, but Jane wasn’t about to mention that to anybody. It was only a twinge, anyway.
“That should wrap it up,” Micki said a few minutes later, after she’d talked to the photographer. “Jack said that he got some great shots. We’ll make our selection for the layout and then we’ll be in touch with you. There may be a couple of promotional appearances, by the way, at a rodeo and maybe for the opening of one of our new stores. We’ll let you know.”
“It was fun,” Jane said. “I enjoyed it. And I really do like the clothes.”
“We like you,” Micki said with a nice smile. “You’re a good sport. Uh, Todd didn’t come up with you, did he?”
She shook her head. “He’s still up to his neck with projects on the ranch. My own men answer to him, now, not to me. I’m going to have a hard time getting control back when he leaves.”
“Is he leaving?”
“Not anytime soon, I don’t think,” Jane replied. She hated Micki’s probing questions, but she couldn’t afford to say so and reveal her own feelings for the man.
“He’s very attractive,” Micki said, her smile wistful and a little sad. “I guess he’s got plenty of girlfriends.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Jane replied. “They even fax him letters,” she said absently.
Micki chuckled. “Well, that lets me out of the running, I suppose. You’re not sweet on him yourself, are you?” she added curiously.
“I’d have to get in line,” Jane said. “And I’d be a long way back.”
“Just our luck, isn’t it? A dreamy man like that doesn’t come along every day, but there’s always a woman in possession, I guess.” She shook her head. “I think I’m destined to be an old maid.”
“Marriage isn’t everything,” Jane said. “You might become the head of your corporation.”
“Anything’s possible. But I have a secret, sinful hunger for dirty dishes and ironing a man’s shirts and having babies. Shameful, isn’t it? Don’t tell anyone.”
“You closet housewife, you!”
Micki chuckled. “I love what I do, and I make a lot of money. I can’t complain. It’s just that once in a while I don’t want to live alone.”
“Who does?” Jane asked. “But sometimes we don’t have a choice.”
“So they say. I’ll be in touch soon, okay? Have a nice trip home.”
“Thanks.”
Jane went downstairs and phoned the hospital. Copper drove over to pick her up. But instead of heading home, he took her to Victoria’s nicest restaurant for supper.
“But I’m not dressed properly,” she protested, gesturing toward her chambray blouse and matching long skirt.
“Neither am I.” He was wearing a sport jacket and a knit shirt with his slacks. “They can stare if they like. Can’t they?”
She laughed. “All right, then. I’d be delighted to have dinner with you, if you don’t mind the casual clothes.”
“I never minded.”
He took her inside the swanky restaurant, where he ordered her meal—lobster and steak and salad, topped off with an ice-cream-covered brownie.
“I’ll have sweet dreams about that dessert for years,” she murmured on the way home.
“So will I.”
She turned her head toward him. He was single-minded when he drove. Probably he was like that when he operated, too. He specialized in diseases of the lung, and he was a surgeon of some note. He occasionally was called in to operate in the big city hospitals. But in recent years, he stayed close to home. He was mysterious in many ways. An enigma.
“Do you want children?” she asked suddenly.
He chuckled. “Sure. Are you offering?”
She flushed. “Don’t be silly.”
He glanced at her. “Say the word. I’m willing if you are. I like kids and I wouldn’t balk at marriage. We’ve got more in common than a lot of people.”
“Yes, we have. But there’s just one thing missing.”
He smiled ruefully. “And I know what it is.”
“Two out of three isn’t bad.”
“No,” he agreed. “But I couldn’t live with a woman who suffered me in bed, Jane. That would be impossible.”
“I know.” She reached across the seat and slid her hand into his where it rested on the gearshift. “I’m sorry. I wish I felt that way.”
His fingers contracted. “You do. But with Burke, not me.”
She didn’t deny it. She leaned her head against the headrest. “He wants to have a blazing affair and then go back to Victoria.”
“What do you want?”
“Marriage. Children. Forever after.”
“He might want those things, too, after he got used to you.”
“He might get tired of me.”
“Life doesn’t come with guarantees,” he said gently. He glanced at her drawn, unhappy face. “You have a history of migraines. I wouldn’t dare prescribe birth control pills for you, because of that. But there are other tried-and-true methods.”
“Copper!”
He held on to her hand. “Grow up. We don’t always get the brass ring. That doesn’t mean we can’t get some pleasure out of the ride. At least you’d have some sweet memories.”
“I’m surprised at you,” she said.
He glanced at her. “No, you’re not. And I’m not surprised or disappointed in you for being human. Sex is a natural, beautiful part of life. It’s very rare that two people love each other enough to experience its heights. Burke may not want to marry you, honey, but he loves you.”
“What!”
“I think you know it, too, deep down. He’s pretty readable to another man. He was jealous of me the first time he saw me.”
“That could be sexual jealousy.”
“It could have been. But it wasn’t. He’s too protective of you.” He patted her hand gently. “He had a bad marriage, didn’t he, and he’s probably afraid to take another chance. But if he cares enough, eventually he’ll give in. Isn’t it worth fighting for?”
“Fighting for.” She grimaced. “I can’t. I just can’t. That...belongs in marriage.”
“I couldn’t agree more. It does. But, then, from my point of view, marriage is just a matter of time. He loves you. You love him. And he strikes me as a pretty conventional fellow. He has a daughter to think of, too.”
“He says he’ll never marry again.”
“The president said he wouldn’t raise taxes.”
She looked at him and burst out laughing. “Don’t compromise your principles,” he advised. “But you can keep him interested without tearing your clothes off for him.”
“I suppose so.”
“Now, tell me about this ad promotion.”
She did, glad to talk about some subject less complicated than Todd Burke.
When they got home it was well after dark and Todd was in the house with Meg, pacing the floor.
He went out to meet Jane as she came up the steps, having thanked Copper and waved goodbye.
“Where have you been?” he demanded.
She lifted both eyebrows. “Having lobster and steak.”
“And then?” he challenged angrily.
“And then,” she whispered, leaning close, “we got into the backseat and made love so violently that all four tires went flat!”
He stared at her long and hard and then suddenly laughed. “Damn you!”
She went close to him, putting both hands against his shirtfront. “I couldn’t make love with anyone except you,” she said, living up to her new resolve to tell him nothing but the truth, always. “I love you.”
His heart ran away. She was the very picture of femininity, and the sight of her long hair made him ache to feel it against his bare chest, as he had the night they loved each other. He gathered up a handful of it and drew it to his cheek.
“I love you, too,” he said unexpectedly. His breath sighed out at her temple while she stood still against him, unbelieving. “I loved you the night we were together.” He kissed her eyelids closed. “People can’t satisfy each other that completely unless they love, didn’t you know?”
“No,” she whispered, stunned by the revelation.
His mouth moved gently down to her soft lips and traced them. “Won’t you change your mind?” he asked huskily.
Her hands clenched on his shirtfront. “Copper won’t give me the Pill because I have a history of migraines,” she said bluntly.
His body froze in position. “You talked to that cowboy doctor about the Pill?”
“No, he talked to me about it! He knows that I love you.”
He didn’t know how to take it. For a moment, anger overshadowed what she was saying. And then, all at once, understanding pushed its way into his mind.
He moved back, frowning. “You can’t take the Pill?”
“That’s right. So the risk of a child would always be there. I couldn’t...do anything about it, if I got pregnant,” she added firmly. “And since I feel so strongly about it, I don’t want to take any more chances with you. I didn’t...that is, nothing happened last time.”
“I took precautions,” he said stiffly.
“Yes, I know. But accidents happen.”
His hands stilled on her shoulders. He was quiet, thoughtful. A child with Jane would be a disaster. He couldn’t walk away from a child. He could picture a little girl with long blond hair and big blue eyes in a taffeta dress. He could take her to birthday parties, as he’d taken Cherry when she was little. Or there might be a little boy, whom he and Jane could teach to ride. A son.
“You’re very quiet,” she remarked.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, lifting her eyes to his. “But it’s better not to start things we can’t finish. And I’d be the last person in the world who’d want to trap you.”
He searched her sad eyes. His fingers touched her lower lip, testing its softness. “Marie didn’t want to make a baby with me,” he said roughly. “We were both drunk and I knew she was on the Pill. But she’d forgotten to take it a few times. That’s the only reason Cherry was conceived.”
“For heaven’s sake!”
“Are you shocked?” he asked lazily. “Jane, she didn’t want a child. Some people don’t.”
“Yes, I know, but now she loves Cherry.”
“So do I. With all my heart. And the day she was born, when they put her into my arms, I cried like a boy. It was unbelievable to have a child of my own.”
The awe and wonder of the experience touched his eyes just briefly, before he banished it. He looked down at Jane and his hands cradled her hips. “Even if I were...willing—which I’m not,” he added curtly, “you won’t be able to carry a child, not for a long time.” He grimaced. “And as you say, the risk would always be there, if you couldn’t take the Pill. But you were willing to take any risk with me that night,” he reminded her.
“Yes, but it didn’t happen,” she said curtly. “Nothing happened afterward!”
Her tone startled him. She sounded disappointed.
He didn’t speak for a minute. His eyes searched her downcast face. “Jane...you wanted to get pregnant, didn’t you?”
She bit her lower lip almost through and pulled away from him. “What I wanted is nobody’s business except my own, and it’s a good thing that you aren’t forced into doing something you’d hate.”
“Maybe so. But...”
She laughed. “Don’t look so somber. Everything’s all right. You’ll go back to your job in Victoria and I’ll make a fortune selling clothes with my name on them. We’ll both do fine.”
“Will you marry Coltrain?” he asked bluntly.
“I don’t love him,” she said sadly. “If I did, I’d marry him in a minute.”
“Marriages have succeeded on less.”
“And ended on more.”
He couldn’t debate that. He touched her lips with his. “I won’t stop wanting you. If you change your mind, you only have to say so.”
“I can’t. I can’t, Todd.” She moved away and left him standing there. He wanted her, that was obvious, but he’d hate her if anything happened. He’d marry her, certainly, if there was a child. But it would be a hateful relationship. She didn’t want him that way.
THE NEXT FRIDAY, Todd drove Cherry up to Victoria to spend another weekend with her mother. He stayed in town, too, to get some of his own impending paperwork out of the way and to keep his mind off Jane. The hunger he felt for her was becoming a real problem.
Cherry waved goodbye to him from her mother’s elegant front porch. The house Marie shared with William, her second husband, was a startling white restored Victorian, with gingerbread woodwork and a gazebo on a spotless manicured lawn. It had all the warmth of a photograph, but it suited a woman who was trying to build an interior design business in south Texas.
“Your father seemed very out of sorts,” Marie remarked as she and Cherry went inside.
“I think it’s because of Jane,” the girl replied with a grin. “I caught them kissing, and I mean kissing!” she added, shaking her hand with appropriate facial expressions.
Marie made a curt movement. “Todd has said repeatedly that he doesn’t want to marry again,” she said.
“Never say never,” Cherry murmured and grinned. “Jane’s been helping me with my turns. She says I’m just the picture of elegance on horseback. I wish I could be more like her,” she said, without realizing how dreamy she sounded. “She’s so beautiful, and everyone knows who she is in rodeo. She’s going to endorse some women’s Western wear. They’ll have her on TV and in magazines... Gosh, it’s so exciting!”
Marie wasn’t jealous of Todd anymore. Their marriage was history. But she was jealous of her only daughter, who now seemed to be transferring all her loyalties to a disabled rodeo star with a reputation that was already fading. She didn’t like it one bit.
“I thought we might go shopping again tomorrow,” Marie ventured.
Cherry started to speak and ended in a sigh. “All right.”
“You should love pretty clothes, at your age,” Marie said, clinging desperately to the only real common desire they still shared, a love of clothes.
“I do, I guess,” Cherry said. “Rodeo clothes, at least. But I’d love some new books on horses and medicine.”
“Books! What a waste of time!”
Cherry’s eyebrows arched. “Mother, I’m going to be a surgeon.”
Marie patted her shoulder gently. “Darling, you’re very young. You’ll change your mind.”
“That isn’t what Jane says, when I tell her about wanting to practice medicine,” Cherry said sharply.
Marie glared at her. “And that’s quite enough about Jane,” she said sarcastically. “I’m your mother. You don’t talk back to me.”
Cherry’s mouth pulled down. “Yes, ma’am.”
Marie smoothed over her perfect coiffure. “Let’s have tea. I’ve had a very hectic morning.”
Doing what, arranging the flowers? Cherry thought irritably, but she only smiled and didn’t say another word. Compared to Jane, who was always doing something or reading about ranching or genetics, Marie was very dull stuff indeed. Her life seemed to be composed of clothes and society, and she had no interests past them.
Her father, like Jane, had an active mind and he fed it constantly with books and educational television. Cherry remembered her parents being together very rarely during her childhood, because Marie didn’t like horses or riding, or reading, or computers. Cherry and her father shared those interests and that had formed an early bond between them. Now Jane, also, shared the same interests. Cherry wondered if her father ever noticed. He seemed very attracted to Jane physically, but he paid little attention to her leisure pursuits. She’d have to get them together long enough to push them into really talking.
Remembering the pleasure in Jane’s face when she’d said she was going to Victoria with Dr. Coltrain brought Cherry up short. The doctor would be formidable competition for her father. She’d have to see if she couldn’t do something to help. The more she thought about having Jane for a stepmother, the happier she became.
MARIE AND WILLIAM had an engagement Saturday night, so she decided to run Cherry back to the ranch early that afternoon. She phoned Todd at the office to tell him that she’d drop the girl off, but he was involved in a business meeting so Miss Emory took the message and promised to relay it.
Marie smiled to herself as she and Cherry got into her silver Mercedes. Somehow she was going to throw a spanner into Todd’s spokes and prevent her daughter from becoming lost to the competition. She already had a good idea of how to do it, too.
“Does Jane know that your father is rich?” she asked Cherry.
“Heavens, no,” Cherry said, defending her idol. “She doesn’t even know that he owns a computer company. All Dad has told her is that he keeps the books for a company in Victoria.”
“My, my. Why the subterfuge?”
“Well, Dad felt sorry for Jane,” she said without thinking that she might be betraying her father to her mother. “She hurt her back in a wreck and she could barely walk. The ranch was in trouble. She didn’t have anyone who could manage money to help her. So on an impulse, Dad offered to take over the manager’s job. You wouldn’t believe what he’s done for her. He’s improved the property, bought livestock, got her into a licensing venture with that clothing manufacturer—all in a few weeks. I heard him say that the ranch is going to start paying back the investment any day now.”
“Where did she get the money to do all that? Has she got money of her own?” Marie asked with studied carelessness.
“Oh, no, she was flat broke, Dad said. He went to the bank and stood good for a loan to make the improvements. She doesn’t know.”
Ammunition, Marie was thinking. “Tell me about Jane,” Marie coaxed.
It didn’t take much to get Cherry talking about the woman she worshiped. In the drive to Jacobsville, she told Marie everything she knew. By the time they reached the Parker ranch, Marie had enough to put the skids under the former rodeo queen and get back her daughter’s loyalty.
“I do wish you’d consider spending the rest of the summer with me,” Marie said as they pulled up at the front door. “We could go to Nassau or down to Jamaica. Even to Martinique.”
“I’d love to, but I have to practice for the rodeo in August,” Cherry explained. “I really need to work on my turns.”
“Oh...horses!” Marie muttered. “Such a filthy hobby.”
“They’re very clean, actually. There’s Jane!”
Marie got out of the car and studied the woman approaching them. Jane was wearing jeans and a pink T-shirt. Her blond hair was in a braid down her back and she wasn’t wearing any makeup, but that didn’t lessen her beauty. If anything, it enhanced it. She was slender and elegant to look at, and she had grace of carriage despite her injury. She was twice as pretty as Marie. The other woman, at least ten years Jane’s senior, had no difficulty understanding Todd’s interest and Cherry’s devotion to the woman. Marie hated her on sight.
“Jane, this is my mother. Mom, this is Jane,” Cherry introduced them, beaming.
“I’ve heard so much about you,” Marie said with reserved friendliness. “How nice to meet you at last, Miss Parker.”
“Call me Jane, please,” the other woman said kindly. She slid a welcoming arm around Cherry, who smiled up at her with the kind of affection she used to show her mother. It made Marie go cold inside. “I’ve missed you,” she told Cherry.
“I’ve missed you, too,” Cherry said warmly.
“Would you like tea, Mrs....”
“Oh, call me Marie. Yes, I’d love a cup,” Marie said formally.
Jane grimaced. “I meant a glass of iced tea, actually.”
“That would be fine.”
“Come in, then.”
Jane led the way into the spacious living room. Marie’s keen eye could see dozens of ways to improve it and make it elegant, but she bit down on her comments. She wanted to worm her way into Jane’s confidence and criticizing the decor wasn’t going to accomplish that.
“Could you ask Meg to fix some tea and cookies on a tray?” Jane asked Cherry.
“Sure! I’ll be right back!”
She was gone and Marie accepted Jane’s offer of a seat on the wide, comfortably upholstered sofa.
“Well, you’re not at all what I expected,” Marie began with a kind smile. “When my husband—excuse me, my ex-husband,” she amended sweetly, “told me that he’d taken a little job down in Jacobsville to help a poor disabled woman, I had someone older in mind!”