“COREEN’S GONE?” TED ECHOED. He glowered at his sister. “Where has she gone?”
“She moved up to Victoria two weeks ago. I’ve let her rent the apartment there. She has a job, too. She’s receptionist to a real estate agency, and she’s blooming.”
It took him a minute to adjust to the news. He hadn’t expected her to leave. He’d stayed away, hoping to get his passion for her under control before it broke the bonds completely. The way they’d loved had been so sweet that he hadn’t slept a night since. He wanted her to the point of madness, but he couldn’t afford to give in. It was what was best for her, he’d told himself when he left. But two weeks of self-denial had only made him bad-tempered. All he could think about was the years of anguish she’d spent with Barry because of him. He’d wanted to spare her the ordeal of being tied to an older man and being discontent. But he’d caused her such pain, all from noble motives. And what he’d done to himself didn’t bear thinking about.
Then he remembered without wanting to that he’d found a job for Barney in Victoria. Did Coreen know that was where Barney was? Was that why she’d wanted to go there? She must have thought about why Ted had left so abruptly, and put his absence down to revulsion at her abandon in his arms or fear of being seduced by her. He’d even taunted her with Barry in his fervor to keep her from seeing his weakness for her. Had his abrupt departure pushed her into another man’s arms, for the second time?
“Oh, no,” he said wearily. He rested his forehead on his raised fists, propped on the table by his elbows. “God, not again!”
“What are you groaning about? By the way, how’s Lillian?” Sandy asked pointedly while she munched on a small piece of roast beef.
“I don’t know.”
“You took her to Nassau. Did you misplace her?” she taunted.
He lifted his head and glared at her. “She was on the same plane with me. We weren’t together.”
“You said you were. You told Mrs. Bird you were.”
He groaned again.
“It’s just as well. Coreen cried for two days before she went to Victoria,” she said, putting the knife into his heart with venomous accuracy. She wasn’t sorry when he went pale. “She left here cursing you for all she was worth. But when I saw her Saturday, she was as bright as a sunbeam. She didn’t even mention you.”
He glared at his sister.
She ate another piece of meat. “This is delicious. Lost your appetite?” she asked pleasantly.
He pushed the plate aside and drank his coffee black. “Yes.”
“You said that you didn’t want her often enough. She finally listened. Aren’t you glad?” she added.
He didn’t answer her. He drank some more coffee.
“You’re too old for her, remember?” she persisted. “And you don’t want children. She’s still young. She wants to get married and have a family. I heard Barney say the same thing to his father last month, that he was ready to settle down.” She brightened as Ted went pale. “Say, didn’t you get him a job in Victoria? Won’t it be funny if they meet up there and end up married?”
Ted got up from the table, so sick that he couldn’t look at food. He walked blindly into his study and slammed the door viciously behind him. He walked to the portable bar and picked up the whiskey bottle.
“No,” he told himself. “No, this isn’t the answer.”
He stared at the squat crystal decanter and at the glass. “On second thought,” he muttered, pulling out the stopper, “why the hell not?”
He was well into his second glass when he sat down behind the desk and let his imagination run wild. Coreen had probably already found Barney or vice versa. They were probably out together tonight, at a movie or a theater. He might even have driven her up to Houston to a show. He glowered at the desk, remembering how it had felt to have her lying on her back under his aching body, giving him kiss for feverish kiss. Would she kiss Barney that way?
He doggedly refused to remember that it hadn’t been Coreen who’d pulled back at all. It had been himself. She’d even offered...
“No!”
His own voice shocked him. He was letting this business go to his head. His hormones were manipulating him. He couldn’t give in, now. He knew that he was wrong for Coreen. She was too young for him. Even if she’d told the truth and she hadn’t been able to want Barry, maybe she’d only turned to Ted out of frustration. After all, she’d wanted him years ago and he’d pushed her away. Maybe it was curiosity.
His clouded mind raced on. Or was it that she’d just rediscovered her femininity? She’d discovered that she could want someone after all, and he was male and handy. He didn’t like that thought at all. He’d come home convinced that he was never going to be cured of his passion for her. He wanted her. He needed her. His own principles weren’t enough to save him from his hunger. If she’d been here when he got home, nothing would have spared her. But she was gone, and he was caught between his hunger and his conscience all over again.
Despite her bad marriage, she was still capable of passion. Would it be the same with Barney that it had been with him? If it was only desire, wouldn’t she be able to feel it for someone else as well as himself? Barry had treated her badly, but she’d wanted Ted so much. His head spun remembering how much. She’d begged him...
He took another drink, trying to drown out the sight of her drowsy, soft eyes as she begged for his mouth. He couldn’t bear to remember that he’d pushed her away so cruelly and left. He always left, but she went with him anyway. That didn’t make sense. But then, not much did. He stared at the decanter. How many drinks had he had: one or two? Or was it three? He was beginning to lose count. He was also feeling better about the situation. If only he could remember what the situation was....
Sandy found him slumped over the desk an hour later. She clucked her tongue.
“Poor old thing,” she murmured, moving the whiskey decanter back to the bar. “You just won’t give an inch, will you?”
“She left me,” he drawled half-consciously.
“You left her,” she corrected him. “She’s in love with you.”
“No,” he replied. “She never loved me. Too young to love like that.”
“Love doesn’t have an age limit,” she told him. “She loved you all those long years, and you never did anything but push her away. First it was Barry. Now it’s going to be Barney. She’ll ruin her life. She’ll waste it with other men, when all she wants in the world is just you, gray hair and all.”
“Oh, God, I’m too old!” he growled. “Too old to be her husband, to be a father! She’d get tired of me, don’t you see? She’d want someone younger, and I wouldn’t be able to let her go!”
She frowned and stopped in place, staring down at him incredulously. Did he realize what he was admitting?
“Ted?” she said softly.
He put his head in his hands. “Nobody else,” he said dizzily. “Nobody, since the first time I saw her, standing in the feed store in that old blouse and shorts. Wanted her so much. Wanted her more...than my own life. Never anybody else, in my life, in my heart, in my bed...” He sighed heavily and slumped, his head on his forearms. Beside him, Sandy gaped at his still figure. Why...he loved Coreen!
She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t betray him. On the other hand, was he going to ruin his life and Coreen’s by keeping his feelings to himself? She had to do something. But what!
In the end, there was nothing she could do. She half led, half carried him to the sofa and dumped him there, with a quilt from his bed for cover.
“You’re going to hate yourself,” she told his unconscious figure.
It was much later before he came out of it, groaning and holding his head. He was violently ill and he had a headache that wouldn’t quit. He went to bed, oblivious to Sandy’s worried eyes following him, and didn’t surface until the next day.
By then, he was himself again, rigidly controlled and giving away nothing at all. He sat down to breakfast looking as bright as a new penny. Without a word, he dared Sandy to mention the day before.
“I have a job in Victoria today,” she informed him. “I may stay overnight with Coreen, if I’m very late.”
“Suit yourself.”
She didn’t look up. “Any messages?”
His pale eyes met hers head-on. “No.”
She leaned back in her chair with her second cup of coffee in her hand. “You’ve already wasted two years of your life, and hers, being noble,” she said bluntly. “Barney is just like Barry, happy-go-lucky and as shallow as a fish pond. He probably wouldn’t hurt her, but she’d be just as unhappy with him. Suppose she falls headlong into another bad marriage?”
He didn’t react at all. “It’s her life. She has to make her own mistakes.”
“You’re her biggest one,” she said, irritated beyond discretion. She put the cup down hard. “She’s never loved anyone else. I don’t think she can. And she’s had nothing from you except rejection and heartache and cruelty.” She got up from the table, glaring at him. “I’m sorry I ever became friends with her. Maybe if I hadn’t, she’d have been spared all this misery.”
His pale eyes lanced into hers. “You have no right to pry into my private life. Or Coreen’s.”
“I’m not trying to,” she returned. “I won’t make any attempts to play Cupid, I promise you. In return, you might consider keeping a respectful distance while Coreen gets over the last few miserable years of her life.”
He glanced down at his plate. “That’s what I intended all along.”
“Good. Maybe I’m wrong about Barney. Maybe he’ll be the best thing that ever happened to her.”
His hand clenched on his coffee cup. “Maybe he will.”
She hesitated, but there was really nothing more to say. She left him sitting there, his eyes downcast and unreadable.
COREEN HAD, INDEED, discovered Barney. Rather, he’d discovered her, at a local fast-food joint one day when they were both catching a quick bite to eat. She’d been delighted to find a familiar face, and he was already infatuated with her. It had been a short jump from there to one date, and then another.
Sandy had come up for the night while she was on a job, and she hadn’t mentioned Ted at all. But Coreen had mentioned Barney. She was enjoying her life, having decided that loving Ted was going to kill her if she didn’t put a stop to it.
She put on a good front. Sandy could see right through it, and she hated the pain she read in Coreen’s blue eyes when she didn’t think it was showing. She hoped Ted knew what he was doing. He might have just lost his last chance for happiness. But she wished Coreen well, all the same. If Barney could make her happy—well, she deserved some happiness.
But love didn’t develop between the two of them. Coreen enjoyed Barney’s company, and he hers. They both knew that friendship was all they could expect, and not only because of Coreen’s lingering feelings for Ted. Barney had found a woman whom he adored, too, but she was married. There was no hope at the moment that anything could develop there. He was like Coreen: awash in a tempest of feelings that he could never express.
It gave them something in common, and bound them closer together. Since they enjoyed the same sort of movies, they started sharing rental costs and spending Friday evenings at the apartment, watching the latest releases over popcorn and soft drinks.
When Sandy discovered this new ritual, she was amused at the innocence of it. Occasionally she dropped in to share the popcorn, and she and Barney became friends, too.
“You’re spending a lot of time in Victoria lately,” Ted said one Friday afternoon. “What’s the attraction?”
“I like to see Coreen. And Barney, of course.”
He went very still. “Barney?”
“I go up occasionally to watch movies with them at the apartment on Friday nights,” she explained innocently. “They’re always together these days. Friday is movie night.”
His eyes flashed. “They’re sleeping together in my apartment?” he blurted out furiously.
“Do you realize what you’re saying?” she asked quietly. “Think, Ted. Is that really the sort of woman you think Coreen is?”
He was insanely jealous. He couldn’t begin to think through his violent emotions. Coreen, with Barney...
“Don’t you even realize how cruel Barry was to her?” she persisted. “Do you seriously believe that she could lead some sort of promiscuous existence after what she suffered with him? Don’t you know that she’s frightened of intimacy?”
“Not with me, she isn’t,” he said bluntly, and before he thought.
Her eyes widened and her mouth snapped shut.
“I haven’t seduced her, if that’s what the disapproving look signifies,” he said with a mocking smile. “I still have a few principles that I haven’t sold out.”
“You might have spared her that,” she said.
“She might have spared me as well,” he returned.
She relented a little. “I’m sorry. I suppose you think you’re doing it for her, don’t you?”
He averted his face. “You remember how it was when we were kids.”
“And you don’t,” she said curtly. “Mother didn’t love him. She never loved him. She loved what he had. She didn’t even want us, because we interfered with her lifestyle. But he insisted, because he was crazy about kids.”
“She loved him when they got married,” he said doggedly.
“You don’t believe that. You haven’t believed it for a long time. It’s something you’ve held on to, to give you a reason to keep Coreen at arm’s length.”
He didn’t answer her. She could see the indecision and the pain in his face.
“Spill it,” she said abruptly. “Come on, let’s have all of it. What’s the real reason?”
It was a shot in the dark, but his face went pale. So there was something...!
“Tell me!” she demanded.
He ground his teeth together. “Barry said that what she loved was my money. When I wouldn’t play ball, she settled for his.”
“And you believed him.”
“It made sense. Look at me,” he muttered. “I’m sixteen years her senior. Barry said we looked ridiculous together, that people laughed at the age difference.”
“Barry was jealous of you, and he played on your conscience,” Sandy replied. “You don’t really believe these things, Ted. You can’t.”
He pushed the coffee cup away from his restless fingers and leaned back. “It happened once before,” he reminded her. “When I was twenty-six, and I thought I might marry Edie.”
“And then discovered that she was already bragging to her friends about all the expensive things she was going to buy herself when she got you to the altar. I remember.”
He smiled faintly. “So do I,” he said. “Coreen wants me, all right. She always has. But wanting isn’t enough. And right now, I can’t be sure that she isn’t trying to gain back the self-esteem she lost because Barry called her frigid.”
“Maybe she is,” she said. “If that’s the case, it’s Barney who’s helping her get it back.”
His face went hard. “He’s closer to her own age.”
“Yes, he is,” she agreed pleasantly. “And they get on like a house on fire. He treats her so gently. Nothing like Barry did. He takes her out and buys her flowers and even cooks supper for her when she’s tired. Quite a guy, Barney.”
He felt, and looked, sick to his stomach. He hadn’t thought it was serious. From the tidbits of gossip Sandy let slip, he’d convinced himself that as far as Coreen was concerned, Barney was more like a girlfriend with chest hair than a boyfriend. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
“I see.”
“I’m glad you’ve decided to let go, Ted,” she said gently. “It’s a kindness, if you have nothing to give her. She’s finding her own way now, standing on her own feet for the first time in her life. Away from you, she’s a different woman.”
“Different how?” he asked.
“She’s happy,” she said.
He got up from the table and left the room without another word. Watching him go, Sandy regretted what she’d said. If Coreen was just putting on an act, if she did still love Ted, then what Sandy had just told him might have destroyed her last chance for happiness.
IT WAS SUNDAY. Coreen had gone to church with Barney and seen him off on a two-day business trip at the Victoria airport afterward. The apartment was very quiet now, and she couldn’t find anything on television that she really wanted to watch.
The buzz of the doorbell was almost welcome, except that it was probably going to be a salesman or a neighbor wanting to chat. She wasn’t in the mood for either.
Jeaned and T-shirted, and barefoot, she went to the door muttering and peeped through the keyhole. Her hand froze on the chain latch. She stared, drinking in the angry face of the man she’d hoped she might forget. Her eyes closed and she leaned against the door with her heart pounding audibly in her chest. Ted! It was Ted, and she loved him and wanted him. And he wanted no part of her.
“Open the door, Coreen,” he said shortly.
“How do you know I’m home?” she demanded angrily. “I might be out, for all you know!”
“Obviously you aren’t.”
She sighed. If she’d kept her big mouth shut...
She pulled aside the chain latch and unwillingly opened the door. “Come in,” she said in a subdued tone. “It’s your apartment after all. I’m just the tenant.”
He paused to close the door behind him before he followed her into the living room and sailed his cream-colored Stetson onto the counter of the bar. He was dressed in a suit and tie and he looked formal. His eyes drifted down to her pretty bare feet and he concealed a smile. Her slender figure was very well outlined in the close-fitting jeans she had on, and the T-shirt was almost see-through, despite its colorful message that invited people to visit Texas.
“How are you?” he asked.
She sat down on the arm of the big armchair. “As you see.”
His pale eyes went around the room. There was no sign of occupation. She was here, but she’d made no mark on the room at all.
“I haven’t trashed the furniture,” she said, misunderstanding his scrutiny.
“No wrestling matches with Barney on my sofa on Friday nights?” he chided with more venom than he knew.
She lifted her chin. “We can always watch movies at Barney’s apartment if you don’t like me bringing him here,” she said.
His eyes flashed angrily. They pinned her, making her feel like backing away. But she didn’t. She’d gained new self-confidence over the weeks since Barry’s death—mainly because of Ted himself. She stood her ground, and admiration filtered through the anger in his eyes.
“I don’t give a damn what you do with Barney,” he said.
As if she didn’t already know that. His absence from her life in recent weeks had made his lack of interest plain.
But he looked worn. There was no other word to describe it. His lean face had deep hollows in it, and there were new lines around his firm mouth and between his eyes.
“You look tired,” she said with involuntary gentleness.
Her words hardened him visibly, and at once.
“Oh, I know,” she said heavily, “you don’t want concern from me. God forbid that I should worry about you.”
He stuck his hands into the pockets of his expensive slacks and went to stand by the window. It was a hazy summer day. He watched the clouds shift on the horizon, dark and threatening clouds that carried the promise of rain.
“Why did you come, Ted?” she asked after the long silence grew tedious.
He didn’t turn. “I wanted to make sure that you were all right.”
She didn’t read anything into that statement. She stared at his back without blinking. “I’m fine. I have a good job and I’m making friends. I’ll be able to do without that allowance, in fact. If I refuse it, can you give it to charity?”
He turned, frowning. “There’s no need for gestures,” he said coldly.
“It isn’t a gesture. I don’t want Barry’s money. I never did.” She smiled at his expression. “Disappointed? I know you’d rather think that I married him for all that nice money.”
He didn’t react at all. “There’s no provision if you refuse the money. The trust will remain untouched.”
She shrugged. “Then do what you like about it. But I won’t accept it. I wouldn’t have married Barry if it hadn’t been for Papa, anyway. At least one good thing came out of it—he had the medical care he needed.”
“Why didn’t you ask me for help?” he demanded.
She lifted both eyebrows, astonished. “It never would have occurred to me,” she stammered.
“Your father was a friend of mine, as well as a business acquaintance,” he said curtly. “I would have done anything I could for him.”
She averted her eyes.
He moved closer. Something about her posture disturbed him. “You’re hiding something.”
She hesitated, but he looked capable of standing there all night until he got an answer. “Barry warned me not to ask you for any financial help. He said that you’d told him you wanted me to marry him and get out of your hair. He made sure that I knew not to ask you.”
His breath left in a violent rush. “My God,” he said roughly. “So that was it.”
“I didn’t really need telling, Ted,” she added quietly. “You’d made it clear that you wanted nothing to do with me. Even when Dad was so sick, you hardly came near the place. And when you did...”
“When I did, I had nothing kind to say to you,” he finished for her. “Barry kept me upset. He wouldn’t let me near you, did you know that? He said that you hated me.”
Her eyes lifted to his in time to see the flash of pain those memories kindled in his face.
“But I told him no such thing,” she said hesitantly.
“Didn’t you?” He laughed bitterly. “He said that you’d agreed to marry him because you thought he had more money than I did.”