TED CARRIED THE bags into the house. Only one of them had been needed to hold Coreen’s pitiful few things. The others they’d carried were empty. It was only just beginning to sink in that Coreen had been the victim, not his cousin. Barry had lied to him from the very beginning, and because of those lies, he’d been cruel to Coreen. It was unbearable to remember it. Poor little thing, broken and bruised and terrified, and all she’d had from him was more humiliation and blame. He’d given her nothing else, in all the time he’d known her.
Mrs. Bird had gone home by the time they’d arrived. She left supper in the kitchen and a note saying that Coreen had promised to be in touch.
Ted read it twice, but it still hadn’t quite made sense when a tight-lipped Sandy came back into the kitchen. “Her room is empty,” she said. “She’s gone.”
“Gone?” He exploded. “My God, she could barely walk! Where could she have gone?”
“I have no idea,” Sandy said miserably, dropping into a chair. “She doesn’t have a relative in the world. And it’s a big world, too. She has the borrowed clothes on her back and she has less than a hundred dollars in her purse. Her credit cards won’t do her any good. I’m sure Tina has canceled them all by now.”
Ted muttered under his breath, ramming his hands deep into his pockets. “Any guesses?”
“I’ll phone Mrs. Bird. She might have said something before she left. Failing that, I’ll start telephoning cab companies. What I can’t understand is why she left so suddenly,” she said, shaking her head as she picked up the telephone receiver and began to press numbered buttons. “I’d already promised her that we’d move up to my apartment in Victoria next week.”
“When did you talk about that?” he demanded suddenly.
“Just before you came in... Hello, Mrs. Bird? Yes, do you know where Coreen went? You don’t? Then do you know what cab company...yes, I know the one. Thanks. No, it’s all right, we’ll find her, don’t worry.”
She hung up and started thumbing through the telephone directory, while Ted stared at the floor and cursed himself.
HE KNEW THERE would be no hope of finding her before dark. He only hoped she had enough money to stay at a decent hotel, with doors that would lock. He refused to let Sandy go with him while he searched. It was his fault that she’d run away. Now he had to persuade her to come back. It wasn’t going to be easy.
Coreen was sitting quietly in the common room of the YWCA when he arrived. She looked tired and sick, and a woman who looked as if she might be a social worker was sitting with her, taking notes on a clipboard.
Ted felt his whole body tensing when he got close enough to hear what was being said.
“...unlikely that we can place you until you’re in better physical condition, Mrs. Tarleton, but in the meanwhile we can work on finding accommodation for you. Now...”
“She has accommodation already,” Ted said quietly.
Coreen’s head turned and her eyes mirrored her horror. She went deathly pale and gripped the arms of the chair for dear life as Ted came closer, tall and elegant in his gray suit and matching Stetson and boots. The only splash of color was in the conservative stripe of his white shirt and the paisley tie he wore with it. He looked very rich.
“Do you know this man, Coreen?” the social worker asked suspiciously.
“He’s my best friend’s brother,” Coreen managed to say. “And he needn’t have come here. I can take care of myself.”
“She has a cracked rib and some deep lacerations from a skydiving accident,” Ted told the older woman quietly. “She’s been staying with us while she got better. There’s been a misunderstanding.”
The older woman’s eyes narrowed. “Considering the condition Mrs. Tarleton arrived here in, I should think that is an understatement, Mr...?”
“Regan,” he said shortly. “Ted Regan.”
It was a name that was known in south Texas. The woman’s arrogance retreated. “I see.”
“No, you don’t. But we’ll see that Coreen is properly cared for. She was recently widowed.”
“A misfortune,” the woman said. And before Ted could agree, her eyes hardened and she added, “Because after speaking with another social worker in Jacobsville this morning, I should have enjoyed bringing her late husband before a grand jury.”
Ted didn’t respond as Coreen had expected him to, in ready defense of his cousin. He didn’t reply at all. She had protested that telephone call, but the social worker had been adamant about getting to the truth. In the end, Coreen was too shell-shocked to refuse her answers.
“Where are your things, Coreen?” he asked, and his tone wasn’t one she recognized.
Her frantic eyes met those of the social worker. “I don’t have to go, do I?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.
Ted’s face contorted before he got it under control. His hand went deep into his pocket and clenched there. “It’s all right,” he said, controlling the urge to pick her up and run for it. “I’m going to be away on business. Sandy will be all alone at the house. She’d enjoy having you keep her company.”
She had so few options. She was tired and hurting more than ever from her physical wounds with all the exertion she’d been forced to make. The emotional wounds were even worse. She looked up at Ted with a tortured expression.
“You’ll never have cause to run away again, Coreen,” he said huskily, his features rigid. “I swear you won’t!”
She didn’t trust him. It was in her eyes. She averted them to the social worker, and saw the indecision there. The woman would fight for her if she could. But Ted Regan was powerful, much more formidable than Barry had ever been.
It was the past all over again. Money and power, taking charge, taking control, taking over. She couldn’t run. She had no energy left.
“I’ll go back,” she said in a defeated tone.
“Your things?”
She gestured at the small, thin bag. “This is all I have.”
His expression fascinated the social worker, who thought she’d seen them all.
“You will take care of her?” the older woman asked with a last, faint worry.
He nodded. He didn’t trust his voice to speak. Coreen stood up, but when he offered his hand, she moved out of reach. Her eyes didn’t quite make it to his face as she turned to thank the social worker before she moved toward the door.
His car, a sleek Jaguar, was sitting right outside the door. He helped her into the passenger seat and went around to get in beside her, stowing his Stetson upside-down on the hat carrier above the visor.
Coreen’s hands clenched over the legs of her loose, borrowed jeans. She stared at them, noticing idly that her small, thin wedding band was still on her ring finger. Barry had given her that one piece of jewelry; no other. She didn’t know why she was still wearing it, after all this time.
Ted noticed her tension. “I’m sorry,” he said curtly.
She looked out the windshield, unmoving, unmoved. “Sandy shouldn’t have made you come.”
“Sandy doesn’t make me do anything,” he said quietly. “I apologize for the things I said to you, Coreen.”
She didn’t understand his change of heart, and she didn’t trust it. She didn’t answer.
He knew that it was going to be difficult. He hadn’t realized that all his apologies were going to be futile as well. She wouldn’t even look at him.
He started the car and drove them quickly and efficiently back to Jacobsville.
MRS. BIRD HAD lunch ready by the time they arrived, but Coreen was too worn-out to eat any. Refusing Ted’s help, she let Sandy ease her down the hall and back into bed again. Mrs. Bird came in right behind her, fussing and coaxing until she got her to eat a sandwich. But she’d barely swallowed it down when the long, uncertain hours caught up with her. She closed her eyes and went to sleep.
Ted looked up as Sandy joined him in the living room. “How is she?” he asked.
“Sleeping. Poor little thing, she’s worn-out. Why did she do it?” she added. “Did she tell you?”
With a set expression, he moved to his desk and picked up the telephone. “I’m going to fly up to Kansas and check on a stallion I’m thinking of buying.”
Sandy was beginning to get a picture she didn’t like. “You said something to her, didn’t you?” she began.
“It’s ancient history now,” he replied. “She’s safe from me. I won’t hurt her anymore.”
“So you think she’s finally paid enough for the privilege of loving you? How kind of you,” Sandy returned angrily.
His fingers trembled a little on the telephone face. “She doesn’t love me,” he replied coolly. “She was infatuated. That’s all it was.”
“You’re sure?”
“If she’d loved me, she wouldn’t have married my cousin, much less have stayed with him for two years,” he said.
“As I remember, you were singularly unkind to her while her father was dying, Ted,” Sandy reminded him as she got up from the sofa. “Barry pretended to be kind and gentle and offered her comfort, something you never did.”
His face contorted as he stared sightlessly out the window. “Don’t you think I know?” he growled.
She frowned, waiting. But he got the number he’d dialed, and business replaced torment in his deep voice.
Coreen didn’t wake up until Ted had gone. Sandy sat with her for the rest of the day, and the one thing they didn’t talk about in the hours that followed was Sandy’s brother.
True to his word, Ted stayed away until he could put off his return no longer. Coreen got stronger by the day, and she was moving around with alacrity by the time Ted walked in the door one sunny afternoon.
She was laughing at something Sandy had said, her blue eyes full of humor, her elfin face smiling, aglow with pleasure. But she heard his step and turned her head, and all of it, every bit of it, went out of her like dying light. Ted felt suddenly empty. He’d dreamed over and over again of coming back and having Coreen’s face light up when he walked in the door. It had once, years ago, for so brief a time. But it wasn’t joy that claimed her features now. It was pain.
He couldn’t bear to see it. He put his case down and greeted Sandy with what he thought was normal composure before he glanced at their houseguest.
“Hello, Coreen,” he said with careful indifference.
“Ted.” She didn’t move, as if he had her in his sights and might fire at any minute. In the old jeans and ribbed knit top she was wearing, every thin line of her body was visible. Defensively, her arms folded over her breasts.
He forced his eyes away from her.
“Did you find your stallion before you went on to the cattlemen’s conference in Los Angeles?” Sandy asked pleasantly.
“Not really,” he returned. He sat down and crossed his long legs. “I wasn’t looking too hard.”
“Lillian phoned twice while you were away,” Sandy continued. “She said it was urgent.”
“I’ll call her later. How are you feeling, Coreen?”
“Much better, thanks,” she replied. Her eyes sought his warily. “If you’d rather I left...”
“I wouldn’t,” he said curtly. His pale eyes sought hers and tried to hold them, but Coreen wasn’t taking any more chances. She averted her own gaze to Sandy and smiled at her.
“Then I’ll leave you two to talk,” she said. She got to her feet, ignoring Ted’s quiet protest that there was no need to absent herself. She walked out of the living room and back down the hall to the bedroom they’d given her.
“Well, what else did you expect?” Sandy asked when she heard the muffled curse leave his lips as he stood by the window. “She’s had nothing but pain from men.”
Ted reached for a cigarette and almost had it lit when Sandy took it from between his lips and tossed it into the fireplace.
“Stop that,” she told him. “I’m tired of watching people try to kill themselves.”
He glared at her. “You’re not my keeper.”
“You need one,” she said shortly, her whole posture challenging. “Why don’t you go and return Lillian’s call? She’s crazy about you, and old enough not to make you feel so guilty.”
The innuendo didn’t get past him. “Maybe I’ll do that,” he said, turning from the window. “Haven’t you got something to do?”
“I had a date, but I broke it,” she said. “I can’t leave Coreen alone with you.”
His eyes flashed dangerously in a face gone suddenly pale.
“Don’t start rattling at me, you old snake,” she returned. “I trust you, but she doesn’t. I don’t guess you’ve even noticed that she’s afraid of you.”
He stood very still. “What?”
“She’s afraid of you, Ted,” she repeated. “Good grief, don’t you ever look?”
He let out a rough breath between his teeth and ran an angry hand around the back of his neck. “She never was before,” he said defensively.
“That’s right,” she said. “Before she was married, she never once thought that a man would be physically cruel to her.”
He rammed his hands into his pockets. “Damned little toad,” he said huskily. “I pitied him, and there he was, feeding me lies about her to keep me angry, to keep me away so that I wouldn’t know what he was doing to her!”
“Would you have cared?” Sandy challenged with a mocking laugh. “You’re the last person on earth Coreen would look to for help!”
His broad chest rose and fell heavily as he struggled with memories that hurt him. “Then, or now?” he asked.
“What’s the difference?” she replied. “You don’t have to worry about her watching you anymore, by the way. She won’t go near the window in her room, even to open it.”
He made a sound under his breath and left the room, staring straight ahead with eyes that didn’t even see.
COREEN HAD WANDERED outside on shaky legs to watch the horses. Ted was gone. She’d made sure before she’d even left the house.
The jeans she was wearing were her own, the single pair she had. She wore sneakers and a loose top over it. It was overcast, with threatening weather, and she wondered if it would rain. The parched fields looked as if they could use some rain.
She paused at the stable door and frowned because she heard voices in the back, down the clean-straw aisle that ran widely from one open door to the other.
When Ted came out into the aisle, she turned quickly and started back toward the house.
“Coreen!”
His voice stopped her. She turned, her deep blue eyes wide and wary as they met his pale ones under the brim of his Stetson.
He was wearing working clothes, stained jeans with chaps and a patterned Western-cut shirt. His face was grim and he looked out of humor—as usual.
“I didn’t know you were out here,” she began defensively, coloring as he stared down at her.
“Oh, I know that,” he said bitterly. “You leave rooms when I walk into them, you stay in your bedroom until I leave in the mornings, you won’t even come out on the damned porch if you think I’m within a mile of my own house!”
Her lips parted on a shaky breath and she backed away from him.
“No...!” He bit down hard on his anger and took a deep breath. “Here, now, it’s all right,” he said, forcing himself to talk softly. “I’m not going to hurt you, Coreen,” he added quizzically when her rigid posture showed no sign of relaxing.
She folded her arms over her breasts and just watched him, her whole stance wary, apprehensive.
He took off his Stetson and wiped his sweaty forehead on his sleeve. “Do you remember Amarillo, the horse Sandy used to let you borrow? He sired a foal by Merry Midnight. She’s a two-year-old filly. We call her Topper. Want to see her?”
She softened toward him. She loved the horses. “Yes,” she said after a minute.
He held out a hand. “Come on, then.”
She moved toward him, but her arms stayed where they were.
He pretended not to notice that she wouldn’t touch him. It was her feelings that mattered right now, not his own. He led her into the stable and to the back of the stable where the beautiful black horse with the white blaze and stockings stood in her big, clean stall grazing on fresh corn in a trough.
“Hello, Topper,” he said to the horse. “Hello, girl.”
He opened the stall door and motioned for Coreen to follow him. He smoothed his hand over the velvet nose and turned the horse’s head so that Coreen could stroke her.
“Why, she’s soft,” she exclaimed.
“Like velvet, isn’t she?” he mused, liking the way her eyes lit up with pleasure. He hadn’t seen them that way in a long, long time.
“Why is she called Topper?”
He shrugged. “No particular reason. It seemed to fit. She’s a two-year-old, and we hope she’s going to make a Thoroughbred racer. I’ve got a trainer coming soon to start working with her.”
“A racer,” she echoed. “You mean, like in the Kentucky Derby?”
“That’s what we’re hoping for next year,” he confessed.
“Well, she’s certainly beautiful enough,” she had to admit.
He watched her stroke the horse’s mane and ears. Topper paid her very little attention. She was intent on her breakfast.
A sudden clap of thunder made Topper jump. Coreen made a similar movement, gasping at the unexpected noise.
“Looks as if we may be in for a spring shower,” he remarked, looking toward the sudden darkness outside the stable.
“Or a tornado,” she added nervously.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said to reassure her. They moved out of the stall and he snapped the lock shut again before he strode to the back of the stable and looked out.
The sky was very dark, with blue-black clouds just over the horizon. Lightning flashed and a rumble of thunder followed it. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he remarked as he noticed her out of the corner of his eye. “Nature, in all her splendor.”
“Violence,” she corrected, shivering. Her eyes were apprehensive as she watched the lightning fork. “I hate loud noises.”
He leaned against the wall and watched her curiously, his eyes intent on her wan face. “Loud noises, like a raised voice?” he asked gently.
She didn’t look at him. “Something like that.”
He moved away from the wall, and her eyes swept to encompass him, the same fear in them as the storm produced.
“Is it only loud noises, or is it men who come too close as well?” he queried.
She put up a defensive hand when he took another step toward her.
He saw her body tense. His pale eyes narrowed. Outside, the wind was growing bolder as the storm clouds darkened.
“Storms increase the number of negative ions in the atmosphere. Scientists say that we feel better when that happens,” he remarked.
“Do they?” she murmured.
He drew in a slow, steady breath. “Coreen, I know about your marriage.”
She laughed coldly. “Do you?”
“Henry told us. Everything.”
The pseudosmile left her lips. She searched his eyes, looking for the truth. He hid his feelings very well. Nothing, nothing showed there.
“And you believed him?” she said after a shocked minute. “How amazing.”
He grimaced. “Yes. I suppose that’s how I thought you’d take it.”
She averted her eyes to the storm and stiffened again when a violent thunderclap shook the ground. Rain was peppering down, splattering in the dust just outside the door. It would be impossible to get to the house now without getting wet. She couldn’t run this time.
“Nothing’s changed,” she said. “Nothing at all.”
He tossed his Stetson to one side and propped a boot on a bale of hay while they watched the rain come down. “We need that,” he remarked. “We’ve just started planting hay.”
“Have you?”
He started to reach for a cigarette to calm his nerves when he realized that Sandy had taken his last pack out of his shirt pocket. He laughed softly.
Coreen glanced at him.
“Sandy’s stolen my smokes,” he explained lazily. “She thinks cigarettes will kill me. She can’t talk me into stopping, so she’s gone militant.”
“Oh.”
He raised an eyebrow and smiled amusedly. “Don’t you have any two-syllable words in your vocabulary?”
He was trying to be kind. She understood that, but she didn’t want any more trouble than she already had. She stared toward the house, hating the rain that imprisoned her here with Ted.
He saw her impatience to leave and it angered him out of all proportion.
“Damn it!” he burst out.
Her face jerked toward his. Her eyes were enormous, frightened.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he groaned. “I’ve never hit a woman in my life! I lose my temper from time to time. I’m impatient and when things upset me, I say so. That doesn’t mean I’m going to hurt you, honey!”
The endearment went through her as if it were electricity. He’d never once used an endearment when they spoke. She’d never even heard him use them with Sandy. Her eyes dropped, embarrassed.
He looked at her openly, curious, astonished at her reaction to what had been an involuntary slip of the tongue.
He moved a step closer, slowly, so that he wouldn’t alarm her. She looked up, but she didn’t back away. He stopped an arm’s length from her, because that was when she tensed. His pale eyes wandered over her face and from the distance, he could see the deep hollows in it, the shadows under her eyes.
“You don’t sleep at all, do you?” he asked gently.
“There’s been so much,” she faltered. “You can’t imagine—”
“I think I can,” he interrupted bluntly. “Coreen, I think some therapy would be a good idea. You must have realized that a warped relationship can damage you emotionally.”
“I’m not ready for that now,” she said evenly. “I’m tired and I hurt all over. I just want to rest and not have to think about things that disturb me.” She drew in a long, weary breath. Her hand went to her short hair and toyed with a strand of it beside her flushed cheek. “I know you don’t want me here, Ted. Why won’t you let me go to Victoria and stay with Sandy?”
His jutting chin raised and one eye narrowed. “Who says I won’t?”
“Sandy. She said you kept finding excuses why we can’t use the apartment.”
“They’re not excuses,” he said. “They’re reasons. Good reasons.”
Her thin shoulders rose and fell impotently.
“You’d be alone during the day, when Sandy’s working,” he explained quietly. “At least I’m somewhere nearby when she’s gone, or Mrs. Bird is.”
“You aren’t responsible for me.”
“Yes, I am,” he said. “I’m responsible for the trust Barry left you. That makes you my concern.”
“Oh, I don’t want the money,” she said wearily, turning away. “Money was never why I married him!”
“The money is yours,” he argued. “And you’ll take it, all right.”
Her head came up. For an instant he thought he’d found the spark he’d been looking for, a way to bring her out of her shell and back into the world. But the spark died even as he watched.
“I don’t feel like fighting,” she said. “When I’m back on my feet, I’ll find a job and a place to stay. Then I’ll be out of your hair for good.”
That was what he was afraid of. He wanted to talk to her, to explain how he felt, but the rain began to fall more slowly, and the instant it lessened to a sprinkle Coreen was out of the stable and on her way to the house as if pack dogs were nipping at her heels.