Denim and Lace (16 page)

Her arms started to lift around him, but he caught them, holding them gently at her side while he pulled his lips from hers and stared down into her face. “No,” he whispered. “We can't make love. You're still much too fragile.”

Her face colored, and he bent and kissed it with exquisite tenderness, his lips lingering on her closed eyelids, her cheeks, her forehead.

“Cade, you...mustn't,” she whispered brokenly.

“You can't fight me,” he said quietly. “You'll give in every time because you want it as much as I do. You want me.”

Tears of helpless humiliation stained her cheeks. “Of course I want you,” she admitted miserably. “I'll die wanting you. But it isn't enough, Cade. There's no future in it—you said yourself that it was only sex you wanted, that you could only offer me a brief affair!”

“You talk too much,” he murmured, and his mouth found hers again, savoring its soft, silky warmth, its faint trembling as he took it.

She kissed him back, her heart breaking inside her because it was only her body he wanted, not her heart. She couldn't give him a child, and when he knew, he probably wouldn't even want her body anymore.

One hand threaded itself through her long, soft hair and eased her head onto his shoulder, while his free hand moved to the buttons of her blouse.

“No!” she gasped, catching his fingers. Her face flamed.

He smiled slowly. “No?”

She didn't understand the smile. “You...you can't touch me like that,” she whispered. “It isn't right.”

“You little fraud,” he murmured. His eyes had a devilish twinkle in them. “I actually thought Ryker was keeping you, when you've never even let a man touch your breasts.”

Her blush deepened. “Cade!”

He smiled gently, and his hand caressed her slowly at her nape while he searched her misty eyes. “Are you sure you don't want me to touch you like that?” he asked in a slow, sensuous drawl. “You might like it.”

“You're the one who said we mustn't start things we can't finish,” she reminded him nervously.

“Oh, I said a lot of things,” he agreed. His mouth brushed the tip of her nose. “I'll probably keep saying them, too, but once in a while I get hungry for a soft mouth under mine and the warmth of a woman's body.”

The way he put it made it sound cheap. She froze, her body arching slightly away from him.

He let her go with obvious reluctance. “I see,” he murmured, watching her retreat. “I put that badly, didn't I?”

“It doesn't matter,” she said, averting her face. “Please stop playing games with me. I'm so green it's pitiful, and I don't know enough to laugh it off.”

He watched her silently. “You're dead wrong about the game part,” he said. “I don't play that kind of game with virgins. And I'm not laughing.”

“You might as well be.” She clenched her hands in her lap. “I'm a society girl, remember? Decorative but totally useless. And you hate my mother, even if you do believe everything she utters, as long as it's something bad about me.”

It was going to be like that, was it? Cade thought, studying her set features. Well, he had plenty of time and she wasn't going anywhere. He could wear her down.

“Okay, honey,” he said softly. “Just keep putting bricks in that wall you're building. When I'm ready, I'll knock it down.”

“I won't be one of your Saturday-night conquests!” she shouted.

His eyebrows arched as he turned the key in the truck's ignition. “I don't seduce women on Saturday night,” he pointed out. He smiled slowly. “I like it best in the afternoon, so I don't have to find an excuse to leave the lights on.”

She wanted to sink through the floorboard. He had the most awful way of making her feel naive. She quickly turned her attention to the landscape, bristling at the low laughter coming from behind the steering wheel.

Gussie and Elise were already at Lariat when Bess and Cade arrived, and Gary and Robert came out to meet them.

“Hi, Bess!” Robert said with enthusiasm. His red hair was almost standing on end as he opened the door and lifted her out before Cade could say a word. “You look great for an accident victim,” he chuckled, turning with her in his arms. He was almost as tall as Cade and wiry. He had the same brown eyes, but he was freckled, as well.

“Show-off,” Gary scoffed, smiling at them. He was the middle son, dark-eyed like the other boys, but his hair was a light brown, and he was shorter than his brothers. He was the serious one. Cade had moods, but he could occasionally be as devilish as any cowboy. Gary never played. He was the bookkeeper and had the intelligent look of his profession.

“She doesn't weigh as much as a feather,” Robert said with a chuckle.

Cade came around the truck with her suitcase. “Drop her and I'll beat the hell out of you,” he told his brother, and he didn't smile when he said it.

Robert sobered up at once. “I won't drop her,” he said defensively. He turned, grinning at Bess. “How long do we get to keep you? I'm learning chess and I need a new victim.”

“I don't like chess,” Bess confessed. “It's too logical.”

“That's the best excuse I've ever heard for not playing it,” Robert agreed.

“There's nothing wrong with logic,” Gary protested as they went inside.

“Did Jennifer tell you that?” Robert asked, tongue in cheek.

Gary gave him a hard look. “We're glad to have you with us, Bess,” he told her, smiling. “If Robert gets to be too much of a pest, you just tell me and I'll find a client in Borneo for him to go and see about our cattle sales.”

“You're a prince, Gary,” Bess said.

“He's a—” Robert began.

“Robert!” Cade snapped.

“No need to start taking bites out of me when you're just home again,” Robert teased. His eyes twinkled as he glanced over Bess's head at his older brother. “Save your energy for the rodeo Saturday.”

Bess felt her heart stop beating. She stared at Cade, but he wouldn't look at her. “You're still on the rodeo circuit?” she asked hesitantly.

“Take her to her room, Robert. You can come back for the luggage,” Cade said. He put the suitcase down in the sprawling living room with its huge rock fireplace and comfortable furniture. It had Elise's touch, because there were white Priscilla curtains at the windows and coordinating cushions on the chairs and flower arrangements on the end tables. But it was a functional room, too, with chairs big enough for men to sit comfortably in, and there was a huge oak desk in one corner.

“You're not going to bring the suitcase?” Robert asked, but he was talking to thin air. Cade was out of the room, out of the house, seconds later.

“I shouldn't have mentioned the rodeo,” Robert winced. He carried her along the hall and into the guest bedroom. It was white clapboard, like the rest of the house, with a handmade quilt at the foot of the bed and a white coverlet between the four towering bedposts. The room was done in dark antique furniture, with familiar white Priscilla curtains at these windows, too. Bess loved it on sight.

“I thought he was through until fall,” Bess said as Robert put her down gently on the bed, noticing that she winced when she moved.

“He was,” he replied. “We got that additional financing we needed, but Cade doesn't want to grow old paying off the interest. He was always a damned good bronc rider, and he's great with a rope. We figure he'll do well.”

“But it's so dangerous,” Bess protested.

Robert pursed his lips. “Worried about him?”

“It's our fault that your family is in this trouble,” she hedged. “I don't want any of you hurt because of us.”

“Cade's practically indestructible,” he reminded her, smiling. “But if you promise to look that worried, I'll sign on for the calf wrestling myself. You can come and watch.”

She shook her head. “I won't go to a rodeo. Besides,” she added, trying to lighten the atmosphere, “I'm still a working girl. I've got an ad presentation to deliver.”

“You can't possibly work all the time,” Robert said.

“No, and I won't. But I'm not quite up to social events,” she added meaningfully.

He smiled. “Okay. I'll leave you to get some rest. Mom and Gussie were upstairs talking when you came. I'll see if they're through.”

“Thanks.”

He winked at her and went out. She didn't know Robert or Gary well, and it looked as if Robert might present a problem. He'd already set Cade off with his friendliness. Of course that might be a benefit in the long run. She had to keep Cade at bay, and being friendly to Robert might accomplish that.

Gussie came in minutes later, hesitant and a little unsure of herself. “Hello, darling. Did you make the trip all right?”

“Yes, thank you,” Bess replied.

Her mother sat down in a chair beside the bed. “Don't you want to lie down?”

Bess was propped up against the pillows, her shoes off, still fully dressed. “I'm all right,” she said.

“Can I do anything for you?” Gussie persisted.

“No, thank you.”

The older woman sighed. She stared at her clasped hands. “You won't believe it, I know, but I'm sorry for what I tried to do. Cade does care for you in his way.”

“I don't care for him anymore, in any way,” Bess lied coldly. “So you don't need to worry.”

Gussie frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I like living alone,” Bess said. “I'm perfectly happy with my life the way it is, and I don't need anyone to take care of me. If you'll make an effort to look after yourself, I won't have any problems.”

Surprisingly her mother nodded. “I've been thinking about what you said. When you're better, and we can go back to San Antonio, I think I might have an idea about some work I can do that I'd like.”

Bess was shocked. That didn't sound like her mother. “You do?” she asked faintly.

“We can talk about it later,” Gussie said. She got up, looking much younger than usual, with her hair in a ponytail and wearing jeans and a white blouse. “I know you don't think I'm much of a mother,” she added. “But maybe I can change if I try.” She patted Bess's hand. “I'm going to give Elise a hand with dinner. She thinks she can teach me to cook,” she said, laughing. “I'll come back and see you later.”

“Yes.” Bess watched her leave and sat staring at the doorway after she'd gone. That didn't sound like Gussie at all. But perhaps her accident had had a sobering effect on her mother.

She wanted to ask Gussie about Cade's accusations. She wanted to hear her mother's side of it. But that might be disastrous at the moment. She was helpless and couldn't work, and she didn't feel right about starting more trouble for Cade.

Cade. Her eyes closed on a silent groan. She hadn't dreamed that he might go back to the rodeo circuit to make the money he needed to help bail Lariat out. He had his loan, but apparently that wasn't good enough for him. He wanted to pay it off, and he thought competition was the best way.

He was good, she couldn't deny that. She'd seen him ride broncs before. But anyone could have an accident. Even Cade.

She ran her fingers through her long honey-brown hair. He was in peak condition, and he didn't take unnecessary risks, but she had visions of him breaking his back or his neck in the arena. She couldn't bear to see him hurt.

Her eyes closed wearily. Life had been so simple a few months ago, and now everything had shifted and it was a new world that she had to cope with. She wondered if her life was ever going to straighten out and get on an even keel.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

C
ADE
WAS
QUIET
at supper, the only solemn note in a pleasant meal that left everyone else relaxed and contented. He didn't seem to notice. He brooded, hardly eating anything, and excused himself to go into his office with one long, silent glance at Bess. She colored, and he frowned slightly at the reaction. That was the one faint glimmer of hope, that she still reacted to him physically. It was enough to build on at least. In time she might forget his cruelty and learn to care for him all over again. She was a totally different proposition now, no longer the frightened child she'd been when she left for San Antonio. A woman with spirit and the need to stand on her own two feet could take anything he, or Lariat, threw at her. She'd grown into a woman he could marry. He only hoped he hadn't figured that out too late. He didn't like the way Robert was flirting with her, or her shy response to it. Robert was nearer her age than he was, and not as hard a man. He'd worried all through the meal, but that faint color in her cheeks dispelled some of it. He went off to his study to work with a lighter heart.

Bess averted her eyes from his intense scrutiny. He had to know that she was still vulnerable. She'd lost her head in the truck and let him kiss her. She'd kissed him back, and now he probably thought she was dying for love of him. That could be why he was keeping his distance, although he'd given the impression in the truck that he intended to pursue her in earnest.

Maybe it was better that he backed off, though, she told herself. After all, she didn't dare let him close now. Not only was she barren, but he was knee-deep in guilt. Her life was becoming more tangled by the day.

Meanwhile Elise was passing around a plate of homemade pound cake. Gary and Robert had their heads together discussing sales, but they paused long enough to have dessert.

“Cade didn't wait for his,” Elise said with a sigh.

Gussie got up, looking uncertain but determined all at once. “I'll take it to him,” she said, and several pairs of shocked eyes watched her carry it on a saucer, with a fork, to his office.

She opened the door and went in without knocking. Cade looked up from his desk, where he was sitting, brooding over columns of figures that wouldn't balance no matter how hard he budgeted. He glared at Gussie.

“I didn't poison it,” she said with forced humor as she put the saucer and fork within his reach and sat down on the edge of the worn leather chair.

“You might as well have,” he said coldly. “You've poisoned everything else.”

Gussie stared down at her folded hands. Only Cade and his late father had ever made her feel so helpless and inadequate. “There's a reason for what you think you saw...the day your father died,” she said quietly.

“Yes, and we both know damned well what it is, don't we?” he retorted.

Her head jerked up, and there was hurt and a certain amount of pride in her eyes. “Think what you want to about me,” she said. “It's better than telling your mother the truth.”

She started to get up, but he slammed his hand down on the desk, startling her.

“What truth?” he demanded, his voice flat and measured with cold rage. “That you were having an affair with him? We know that already.”

“That's a lie,” she said, meeting his glare levelly. “That's a bald-faced lie.”

“You never denied it before.”

“My daughter never hated me before! Some of that is your fault, too,” she said. “It was because of your ceaseless animosity that I stretched the truth about Bess. All right, I thought I was helping her, but it didn't bother me one bit to hurt you.” She sighed. “Until I realized that I was only hurting Bess more in the process.” Her shoulders slumped wearily. “You put me in an impossible position by accusing me in front of your mother. I couldn't tell the truth about what happened, so I had to take the blame and ruin a years-old friendship.”

“Some friendship. Mother was your seamstress—”

“And my friend,” she said quietly. Her eyes met his. “She loved your father.”

“So did you, I gather,” he returned harshly.

“I hated him!” she said with sudden venom. Cade stared at her expressionlessly and she laughed softly. “Are you that shocked? Did you really think he was so lovable? He was hard and selfish to a fault! He thought nothing of having affairs, and it didn't really bother him very much that Elise might one day find out about them!”

Cade rose slowly from his chair, his eyes blazing. “That's not true,” he said. “My father was always faithful to my mother, except at the last, with you.”

“Sit down, young man,” Gussie said commandingly. “You're going to get the truth, for Bess's sake, and I hope you choke on it. Because you won't be able to tell Elise any more than I could.”

“Are you capable of telling the truth?” Cade asked, but he backed down a little. She didn't look as if she were lying.

“Do you remember the Brindle girl?”

Cade frowned. He had known her over ten years ago, when Bess was barely a teenager, long before he saw her as a woman and began to burn for her. Daisy Brindle had been a special girl to him at the time, and her sudden departure from Coleman Springs had hurt and puzzled him. Now he realized that he hadn't thought about the girl in years. “Of course I remember her,” he replied slowly. “I was dating her. After Dad died, she left town...”

“Oh, she left town, all right,” Gussie said quietly.

Cade felt the smoking cigarette burning in his fingers. He put it out with deliberation, because a nasty suspicion was beating at the back of his mind. Daisy...and his father? Bits and pieces of memory came back, of Daisy's sudden uneasiness when he brought her to the house, the tension when his father came around her.

“You're beginning to get the picture now, aren't you?” Gussie nodded. “Care to make a wild guess, Cade?”

“It couldn't be,” he said slowly, but his eyes were admitting the possibility already.

“Well, it was,” she said, pushing back her blond hair angrily. “Your father just couldn't resist the chance to cut you out with your pretty young brunette. He wasn't a rich man, but he had a way with women. It was about the time you bested him riding that Arabian crossbreed you bought, and he lost face with his men. He got even, in the most elementary way. It was your little Daisy Brindle he was with in that hotel room. He phoned you, didn't he, to ask you to bring some papers over to the Barnett Hotel. He phoned you from the desk, and I just happened to be coming out of the restaurant and overheard him give you the room number. When I looked outside and saw Daisy waiting for him, I understood the look on his face. He was going to let you find them together.”

Cade felt sick all over. “For God's sake, why?”

“He thought it would pay you back for showing him up in front of his men, of course. He had a sadistic streak, as you, of all people, should know. He used it on Elise enough.”

He put his head in his hands. He didn't even argue with her. It was all too obviously the truth. “Why did you get involved?”

“For Elise's sake,” she said. “I thought I could head him off. Can't you see what a scandal it would have been? Not only a younger woman but
your
younger woman. Inevitably you'd have lost your temper and it would have been all over town in no time. It would have killed Elise. She didn't know he was having affairs at all.”

“Neither did I,” he said angrily.

“Well, Daisy wasn't the first, I'm sorry to say. He knew that I knew about him; one of his lovers was one of my acquaintances, and she talked. I walked around brooding about it for a long time before I finally decided that I had to do something. Not for your sake but for your mother's—there would have been such a scandal. Anyway he wasn't prepared to find me knocking at the door of his hotel room. I threatened to go straight to Frank and tell him. Your father was breaking horses for us, and it was a very profitable sideline that he didn't want to lose. He backed down and let me get her out, but I'd interrupted them at a rather...emotionally stressful moment,” she added uncomfortably. “I told her what your father was planning. She was trembling so hard that she barely made herself decent before I pushed her out the door. When I turned to tell your father what I thought of him, he started gasping for breath and clutching his chest.”

“So you ran to get help,” Cade said as he realized it.

“That's exactly what I did,” Gussie replied calmly. “But you'd just arrived at the hotel and you saw me and made the obvious assumption. My good deed turned to tragedy and destroyed the one friendship I'd ever managed to keep. I hated you for that. Over the years, making you pay was my one reason for living. Now, of course, having watched my daughter face death because of that hatred, it all seems rather pointless. So does protecting you from the truth. Nobility can be expensive. I've paid too much for mine already.”

She got up, feeling less burdened. “I'm sorry. But it was time.”

“Past time.” He searched her face quietly. “It took me years to get over Daisy. I can't imagine why, now. She was nothing but a tramp apparently.”

“She was in love,” Gussie corrected him. “Your father was her whole world. She didn't know that he was only using her, and she felt guilty about betraying you. When he died, she was desperate to get away so that she wouldn't involve her family in the scandal. I gave her some money and drove her to the airport.”

Cade sat back against the chair, his hands absently smoothing the arms. “Mother loved him.”

“Of course she did, Cade. You don't stop loving people when they hurt you, any more than you throw a child out the door because it's been bad. Love lasts. Frank never believed what you did about me, you see,” she said gently. “He loved me. That brings a kind of trust you can't imagine unless you've experienced it. I'm selfish, too, and spoiled, and I can't quite cope with life right now. But I never lied to Frank, and he knew it. It very nearly killed me when he died. I went a little wild, and Bess suffered for it.” She smiled ruefully. “But I think I'm growing up, just as she is. And you needn't worry that we're going to leech off you. As soon as Bess is able, we're going back to San Antonio, and I'm going to start taking care of myself.” She got up. “Don't tell Elise, will you?” she added, pausing at the door. “She's suffered enough just from thinking it was a woman her own age. It's hard for a woman to lose out to someone half her age and beautiful. Don't do that to her. She's learned to live with it now. Let it be.”

Cade only half heard her. He'd hated her so much, for so long, that it was hard to accept that she was innocent. He drew in a slow breath, wanting to say so many things that he couldn't manage just yet.

“Thanks. For the cake,” he said stiffly.

“It's safe to eat,” she murmured. “Elise hid the rat poison the minute I offered to bring it to you.”

A corner of his mouth tugged up, but he didn't say anything else. Gussie left him sitting there, alone.

It was something of a shock for Cade, if he could believe Gussie's confession. It was hard to think of it as a lie, because she hated him too much to bother with fabrications. He lit another cigarette and lifted it to his mouth. It seemed that he hadn't known his father at all, not in any private ways. It didn't bother him half as much that Daisy had betrayed him as it bothered him that his father hadn't even considered Elise Hollister's feelings. Gussie was right. His mother would have been destroyed if she'd found out. Even now the knowledge would hurt her terribly.

Well, knowing it did put a new complexion on something, he mused. At least it removed one barrier between Bess and himself. Not that there weren't plenty left—her new attitude of coolness toward him in any way except physically, and her accident, which he'd helped bring about, were others. Then there were the old differences, of class and wealth. He sighed. Those were the hardest to overcome. His dark eyes went slowly around the room, critical of the used furniture and the flaking paint on the walls and the long, bare lightbulb hanging from the high ceiling on its twisted cloth cord. Bess was used to crystal chandeliers. Hell, even the apartment she was living in now was ritzier than his whole house.

He got up from the desk, forgetting the books, and went down the hall and outdoors. He had to clear his head and stop brooding about things. If Bess still cared for him after all he'd done to her, it wouldn't matter that he didn't have a lot to give her, he told himself. He had to hope that it didn't anyway.

He hadn't mentioned to Gussie that he'd told Bess about her affair with his father—now he'd have to set that record straight as well, and it was going to be uncomfortable. He'd made all too many mistakes recently. A world of them. He was cool with Bess because he didn't want to play his hand too soon. But it was wearing on him, having to hold back, when what he wanted most was to sweep her into his arms and make passionate love to her. She wasn't in any condition for that just yet, and she was pulling away instead of reaching toward him. He was living from day to day while she healed, trying to manage the confusion of his own new feeling for her. Robert's adulation of her was his next biggest problem. He didn't want to hurt his brother, but Bess was his. Somehow he had to nip that situation in the bud before it became troublesome. He couldn't bear the thought of Bess belonging to anyone except him.

Meanwhile Robert was having the time of his life at the supper table entertaining Bess. She seemed to enjoy his wild stories about the cowhands and ranch life, and he was much too busy staring into her soft brown eyes to notice his brother Gary's worried scowl or his mother's curious glances.

It wasn't until Gussie came back that Robert began to wind down. He had chores, he said, and reluctantly excused himself.