Denim and Lace (3 page)

Gussie glared at her with angry green eyes. “I suppose Cade was at the house?”

“No, Cade wasn't at the house,” Bess replied quietly.

Gussie sighed angrily. “I don't want you near that man. He's a common cowboy...”

“He's an able and intelligent man with great potential,” Frank argued, putting an arm around his wife. “Stop riding him. All that is in the past, remember? And better forgotten.”

Gussie flushed, darting a glance at Bess. “Never mind the past,” she told Frank quickly. “Shall we go?”

Bess was more in the dark than ever after that statement. She wondered if she knew her parents at all, especially Gussie. But she wasn't one to pry into people's secrets, so she smiled and waved goodbye to her parents and went upstairs to change.

That night she overheard an argument between her parents over money, and although they made up quickly, she couldn't forget it. The next evening a man came to see her father.

“Who is he?” Bess asked Gussie curiously.

“I don't know, darling,” Gussie said nervously. “Your father's been in a terrible mood for two days. He snaps and snarls and his color is bad. I don't know what's wrong, but something is.”

“Can't you ask him?”

“I did. He only stared at me. There's a party tomorrow night at the River Grill. Want to come with your father and me?” she coaxed. “The Merrills will be there, and their son, Grayson, is going to be with them.”

“Gray's very nice, but I don't want to be thrown at him, if you don't mind,” she said softly. “I'm not in the market for a rich husband.”

“You'll enjoy yourself,” Gussie assured her, smiling. “Now, no more arguments. You know you love seafood, and Gray is just back from a month in Europe; he'll be full of stories. You can wear your new gray crepe dress and that pretty fox cape I bought you for Christmas.”

“But, Mother...”

“Let's have some coffee. Ask Maude to fix a tray, dear, and perhaps your father and his guest will join us. There's a good girl,” Gussie added, patting Bess's hand absently.

Bess gave up. It was easier than trying to fight Gussie, but she knew that someday she was going to have to stand up to her. Giving in was a dead end. Her father was right. Odd, she thought, that her father should have made such a statement, when it was usually Cade who disliked Gussie's overbearing maternity. She knew that Cade and her father talked a good deal when they had business meetings about the new real-estate investment. But surely Cade wouldn't have talked to her father about so personal a subject. Would he?

She came back from the kitchen still pondering, when Gussie came running toward her, wild-eyed and breathless.

“Your father's guest left, and now Frank's locked the study door and I can't make him answer me!” she cried. “Bess, something is terribly wrong!”

“But...what could—”

They heard the chilling, loud report of a pistol and they both froze in place. Then Bess turned and ran down the hall to the study, trying the door with both hands, banging on it, kicking.

“Daddy!” she screamed. She turned to Gussie. “Call the police!”

“The police?” Gussie just stood in place, white and shaking.

Bess ran to the phone, ignoring her shocked mother, and her hands shook as she searched frantically for the number, dialed it, and gave her sketchy information to the man who answered the phone.

Minutes later sirens wailed toward the house, and the nightmare began. The door to the study was finally forced open. Bess got a brief and all too good look at her father's body, where it was sprawled on the carpet in a pool of blood. She shuddered and had to run into the guest bathroom as her stomach emptied itself. Gussie, in shock, had gone upstairs even before the police came and Bess phoned the doctor when she came out of the bathroom.

The rest of the night went by in a blur of pain, grief, and numb shock. She answered questions until she wanted to scream, vaguely aware that Cade was suddenly there.

He fielded the police, lifted Bess in his hard, strong arms and carried her up the staircase into her room. She was barely coherent and shaking all over with mingled horror and fear. “The police...” she whispered huskily.

“I'll cope with everything,” he said firmly, easing her down onto the bed. He removed her shoes and gently covered her quivering body with a sheet. “Try to sleep. The doctor is with your mother, but I'll send him along when he's finished.”

“He killed himself,” she said, choking.

“Lie still. Everything will be all right,” he promised. His dark eyes scanned her white face. “If you need me, just yell. I'll be around for a while. At least until you're asleep.”

Her eyes searched his hard face and she reached up with a numb hand to touch it while tears escaped her eyes. “Thank you.”

He clasped her hand for an instant and then laid it beside her on the coverlet. “I'll be back in a few minutes.”

The doctor came and gave her a sedative, murmuring comforting things. She was aware of Cade's concerned gaze once or twice, but then the sedative took effect and she slept. When she woke, the house was empty, and the pain began.

Gussie was no help at all. She wailed and moaned and had hysterics every two hours, and took sedatives by the handful. As the day wore on, Bess began to realize just what a headache she'd inherited. If this was any indication of what was to come, her life was going to be hell.

Cade hadn't come back. She found that curious since she knew he'd been there the night before, but apparently he'd made all the arrangements and had felt that Gussie wouldn't welcome his presence.

“I'm so glad you're strong, Bess,” Gussie sniffed as they sat in the living room. “I couldn't have coped.”

“I didn't. Cade did,” Bess said quietly. “He carried me upstairs and got the doctor. I caved in, too.”

“You mean that man was in my house all night?” Gussie raged. “I won't have him here, I won't!”

“This is no time for hysterics, Mama,” Bess said in a soothing tone. “I couldn't attend to details, but Cade did. Whatever you think of him, Daddy liked him—they were friends.” She shuddered to think of Cade having to see what she'd seen through that opened door. He'd liked her father. “Why did he do it?” she asked huskily. “Why? I don't understand what's happened. Daddy was rational and strong...”

“We'll know soon enough,” Gussie said. “Now, do get me some coffee, darling, please. We'll sit and talk.”

Their attorney, Donald Hughes, came to the house just after lunch to tell them what was going on prior to the reading of the will, which would be the next day, after the funeral. Cade had arranged the funeral, too, thank God, with Donald's help.

Bess listened to Donald's quiet voice with a feeling of utter shock, and Gussie's face went from white to red to paste.

“We're what?” Gussie faltered.

“You're bankrupt,” Donald replied gently. “The investment scheme your husband involved himself in was a fake. The perpetrators are already out of the country and can't be extradited. Frank invested everything he had. That's gone, along with Cade's ten thousand dollars. And unfortunately Frank guaranteed Cade's money back to the penny. I'm sorry. It's all legal. There's nothing you can do, I'm afraid.”

There was one thing Gussie could do, and she did it. She fainted.

Bess sat there with her eyes glued to the lawyer's face, not moving, not speaking as she tried to absorb what Donald had said. Her father had been involved in an illegal operation, and it had failed. He'd lost everything and sold out his friends, and that was why he'd killed himself.

That was understandable, in a way. But now Gussie and Bess were left with his debts and they were going to lose everything. Worst of all, they were going to lose the house. It would mean having to move and being poor, and having to start again from scratch. Bess looked down at her mother, absently thinking that Gussie looked beautiful even when she was unconscious. Bess wished she could faint, too, and wake up to find that it was all just a bad dream. But Donald was very real and so was her mother. It was all real. And her problems were only just beginning.

CHAPTER THREE

B
ESS
WAS
A
little calmer by nightfall. Except that Gussie was wearing on her nerves. She wondered how she was going to cope with everything. When the shock finally wore off, it would be much worse, she knew.

It had started to snow. The silent feathering of it in the darkness was almost reverent, but Bess only half noticed the white blanket covering the ground. A pickup truck, an old familiar one, pulled into the driveway, its headlights blinding her for an instant before it stopped and the engine was cut off. Cade. She relaxed, just a little. Somehow she'd known that he would come back.

“Who's that outside, Bess?” Gussie asked, pausing on the landing upstairs to look down at her daughter.

“It's Cade,” Bess replied and waited for the inevitable explosion.

“Again?” Gussie said wearily. “He'll want his money of course.”

“You know very well he didn't come for that,” Bess said gently. “He's come to see about us. Can't you be a little grateful for all he's done already? Neither of us was able to cope with the funeral arrangements, and that's a fact.”

Gussie backed down. “Yes, I'm grateful,” she said, wiping away more tears. “But it's hard to be grateful to Cade. He's made things so difficult over the years, Bess. Elise and I were once friends, did you know? It's because of Cade that we aren't anymore. No matter,” she said when Bess tried to question her. “It's all over now. I'm going upstairs, darling. I can't talk to him. Not now.”

She watched her mother move tiredly back into her bedroom with a sinking feeling that her life was going to be unbearable from now on. Her father's unexpected suicide had shocked the small Texas community almost as much as it had astounded Frank Samson's family. None of the scandal had been his fault. He'd been an innocent pawn in the fraud. Cade wouldn't blame him, though, or his family. Cade had too much sense of family himself to do that.

She peeked out the lace curtain, her soft brown eyes hungry for just the sight of the man outside. She pushed the long honey-brown hair from her shoulders, idly tugging it into a ponytail that abruptly fell apart. Cade had that effect on her. He made her nervous; he excited her; he colored her life. She was twenty-three but still a sheltered innocent because her father had been unusually strict. Maybe that was why Cade wouldn't have anything to do with her. He'd been raised strictly, too, and his family was staunchly Baptist. Seducing innocents would be unthinkable to such a man, so it hadn't been surprising that Cade acted as if she didn't even exist most of the time.

Of course he had a lot on his mind. But he was nothing like his younger brothers, Robert and Gary, whom she adored. Cade never flirted with her or asked her out. He probably never would—she wasn't his type, as he'd told her once. She could still blush about that, remembering her shy worship of him the summer he'd taught her to ride and what he'd done about it.

Bess knew that he'd lost far more than he could spare because of her father, and she wondered how in the world she and her flighty, spendthrift mother were ever going to settle the debts.
Oh
,
Dad
, she thought with a bitter smile,
what a mess you've landed us all in
. She spared a thought for that poor, tortured man who hadn't been able to bear the disgrace he'd brought on his family. She'd loved him, despite his weakness. It was hard giving him up this way.

Outside, the wind blew up, but it didn't slow Cade's quick, hard stride. She knew that a hurricane wouldn't, once he set his mind on something. Bess shivered a little as she saw him heading toward the front door, his worn, dark raincoat brushing the high grass as he walked through it, snow melting as it fell against the brim of his gray Stetson. He walked as he did everything else, relentlessly, with strides that would have made two of hers. As he came into the light from the porch, she got a glimpse of cold dark eyes and a deeply tanned face.

He had very masculine features, a jutting brow and a straight nose and a mouth like a Greek statue's. His cheekbones were high and his eyes were very nearly black. His hair, too, was very nearly black, and thick and straight, always neatly cut, very conventionally, and neatly combed. He was tall and lean and sensuous, with powerful long legs and big feet. Bess adored the very sight of him—worn clothes, battered Stetson, and all. His lack of wealth had never bothered her. Her mother's frank dislike of him was the major stumbling block. That and Cade's cold indifference. She thought sometimes that she'd never live down that long-ago confrontation with him, that he'd never forget she'd thrown herself at him. Looking back, her own audacity shocked her. She wasn't a flirt, but Cade would never believe it now.

He was at the door before she realized it, towering over her as she stood in the doorway to greet him. He stared at her narrowly. She was wearing a pale green silk dress, and her big brown eyes were full of sadness.

The grief in her eyes disturbed him. “Open the door, Bess,” he said quietly.

She did, immediately. His voice had a deep, drawling authority despite the fact that he rarely raised it. He could make his toughest cowhands jump when he spoke in that quiet tone. He was a hard man, because his life had made him into one. Old Coleman Hollister hadn't spared Cade, though he'd been indulgent enough with his younger sons. Cade had been the firstborn, and Old Man Hollister had groomed him carefully to take over the ranch when the time came. Apparently he'd done a good job of it. Cade had a great track record with the money he made on the rodeo circuit.

He strode into the hall without taking off his hat. He had the knack of hiding his strongest feelings, with the exception of his bad temper, so Cade looked down at her without showing any emotion. Bess looked tired, he thought, and Gussie had probably been giving her hell. Her soft oval face was flushed, but it only made her lovelier, right down to that straight nose over a sweet bow of a mouth. He didn't want to take it out on Bess, but the sight of her caused its usual physical response and made him uncomfortable. There were a hundred reasons why he couldn't have Bess, no matter how badly he wanted her.

“Where's your mother?” he asked.

“Lying down.” She'd already chewed the lipstick off her lower lip. Now she started on the upper one. He made her feel much younger than her twenty-three years.

“How are you?” He was watching her still, with that dark appraisal that disturbed her so.

“I'll do. Thank you for all you've done,” she said. “Mother was grateful, too.”

“Was she? My mother and some of the other neighbors are bringing dinner and supper over for you tomorrow,” he added. “No arguments. It's the way things are done. The fact that you've got money doesn't set you that far apart.”

“But we don't have money,” she said, smiling ruefully. “Not anymore.”

“Yes, I know.”

She looked up, defeated. “I guess you know, too, that we're going to lose everything we have. I only hope we'll have enough money to repay you and the other investors.”

“I didn't come here to talk business,” he said quietly. “I came to see if I could do anything else to help.”

She had to fight tears. “No,” she said. “Heaven knows, you've already done more than your share, Cade.”

“You look tired,” he said, his dark eyes sweeping over her creamy skin now pale with fatigue. She had big brown eyes, a peaches-and-cream complexion and a body that made him ache every time he looked at it. She wasn't pretty. Without makeup she was fairly plain. But Cade saw her with eyes that had known her most of her life, and they found her lovely. She didn't know that. He'd made sure she didn't know it. He had to.

He removed his hat, unloading snow onto the faded Oriental rug, onto his worn boots. “Mother and the boys send their condolences, too,” he added, and his eyes darkened as he looked down at her.

Bess misunderstood that dark appraisal. He looked at her as if he despised her. Probably he did, too, she thought miserably. She was her father's daughter, and her father's risky venture might have cost him his ranch. She knew he'd had to borrow heavily to scrape up the money to invest in her father's venture. Why had he done it? she wondered. But, then, who could ever figure Cade?

“That's very kind of them, considering what my father cost you all,” she replied.

A corner of his mouth curled up, and it wasn't a kind smile. “We lost our shirts,” he said. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette and without bothering to ask if she minded, lit it. He let out a thick cloud of smoke, his eyes taking in her thinness, the unhealthy whiteness of her face. “But you know that already. Your mother is going to have a hell of a time adjusting.”

That was true. “She isn't strong,” she said absently, lowering her eyes to his broad chest. Muscles rippled there when he breathed. He was powerfully built, for all his slimness. She'd seen him without a shirt, working in the fields in the summer, and the memory of it made her feel warm all over. With his shirt off, he was devastating. Bronzed muscle, covered with a thick, sexy wedge of hair that ran from his chest down to his lean stomach, into the belt at his jeans...

“She smothers you,” he returned, cutting into her shocking thoughts. “She always has. You're twenty-three, but you act sixteen. She'll never let you grow up. She needs somebody to lean on. Now that your father's gone, you'll be her prop. She'll wear you down and bring you down, just as she did him.”

Her dark eyes flinched. “What do you know about my mother?” she demanded. “You hate her, God knows why...”

“Yes, I do,” he said without hesitation, and his black eyes pierced hers, glittering like flaming coals. “And God does know why. You don't know what she really is, but you'll find out someday. But it will be too late.”

“What can I do, Cade, walk out on her?” she cried. “How could I, when she's just lost everything! I'm all she's got.”

“And she's all you'll ever have,” he returned coldly. “Cold comfort in your old age. She's a selfish, cruel little opportunist with an eye to the main chance and her own comfort. Given a choice between you and a luxurious lifestyle, she'd dump you like yesterday's garbage.”

She wanted to hit him. He aroused the most violent sensations in her. He always had. She hated that cold look on his face, the devastating masculinity of him that put her back up even at a distance. But she kept her feelings to herself, especially her temper. “You don't know either of us,” she said.

He moved a little closer, threatening her now with just the warmth of his body, his superior height. He looked down at her with an expression in his eyes that made her toes curl inside her shoes.

“I know what I need to know,” he said. He studied her face in the silence of the hall. “You're very pale, little one,” he said then, his voice so soft that it didn't even sound like Cade's. “I'm sorry about your father. He was a good man. Just misguided and gullible. He didn't force any of us to invest, you know. He was as badly fooled by the deal as we were.”

“Thank you,” she said huskily, fighting tears. “That's a very tolerant attitude to take.” Her eyes searched his. “But it won't save Lariat,” she said sadly, remembering Cade's dreams for his family ranch. “Will it?”

“I'll save Lariat,” he said, and at that moment he looked as if he could do anything. One eye narrowed as he studied her. “Don't let Gussie own you,” he said suddenly. “You're a woman, not her little girl. Start acting your age.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “How?”

“My God,” he said heavily. “Don't you even know?”

His eyes dropped to her soft mouth. He stared at it intently, and he was standing so close to her that she could smell the leather of his vest, feel the warmth of him as his finger gently caressed her parted lips. The acrid smoke from his cigarette drifted past her nostrils, but it didn't even register. His dark eyes were on hers, and she'd never seen them so close. He had lashes as thick as her own, and tiny lines beside his eyes. His nose had a small crook in it that was only visible this close, as if it had been broken. His mouth...oh, his mouth! she thought achingly, looking at its chiseled lines, already feeling the hardness of it. She'd wondered for years how it would feel to kiss him, to be close to him. But Cade was like the moon. This was the closest he'd ever come to her, except for that one time when he'd only meant to frighten her, and she didn't even move for fear that he might move away. He might kiss her...!

But a tiny sigh worked its way out of her tight throat, and it seemed to break the spell. His head lifted, and there wasn't a trace of expression on his dark face. He moved away from her, without a word. But he kept his back to her for a long moment, quietly smoking his cigarette. That long, intense scrutiny had his heart turning cartwheels, and it would never do to let Bess see how vulnerable she made him.

“We'll pay you back somehow,” she said after a minute.

He turned, as if the statement made him angry. “Will you? How?”

“I'll find a way. I'm not helpless, even if I am a mere woman in your eyes,” she added with a faint smile.

He looked as formidable as a cold marble statue. “Challenging me?” he asked in a softly dangerous tone. His dark eyes mocked her. “That's been tried before, but go ahead if you feel lucky.”

She almost did. But those nearly black eyes had made men back down, and she was just a grieving shadow of a woman.

“Please thank your mother for her concern,” she said quietly. “I'm sure you have better things to do than bother with us.”

“Your father was my friend,” he said shortly. “I valued him, regardless of what happened.”

He turned toward the door without glancing at her.