New Way to Fly (8 page)

They also revealed something about the woman who lived here, Amanda reflected. Despite her dowdy appearance, Mary Gibson clearly had good taste, and an artist's eye for color and harmony in her surroundings.

Amanda picked up a dainty china horse with windblown mane and tail to examine the beautiful little sculpture, then set it down hastily when the door to Mary's bedroom opened.

Mary moved haltingly toward the archway leading to the living room. She paused, half-hidden behind one of the broad oak pillars.

“Come on,” Amanda coaxed gently. “Come right out here and show yourself off, Mary. I'll bet you look just lovely.”

Stiffly, her face pale with tension, Mary edged out from behind the pillar and stood in front of the younger woman with her hands folded childishly in front of her.

“Oh, my,” Amanda breathed with complete sincerity. “Mary, it's like a miracle. You should see yourself. Did you look in the mirror?”

Mary gave a jerky nod, still appearing on the verge of bolting for cover. But the warmth of Amanda's praise seemed to have relaxed her somewhat. A little color touched her weathered cheeks, and her eyes softened with emotion.

“Turn around,” Amanda ordered, getting up off the couch and examining the other woman with a calm professional air. “Let me see the back. I believe the fit is perfect. I don't think it even needs to be touched.”

Mary pirouetted stiffly and then looked up at
Amanda, her mouth twitching in an awkward smile. “Pretty spiffy, right?” she asked. “Mary Gibson, of all people, in a designer suit.”

Amanda leaned over and gave the older woman a small reproving tap on the shoulder. “What do you mean, ‘of all people'? Mary Gibson, you have a perfectly elegant figure. A lot of women half your age would envy you that figure. And this suit looks like it was made for you.”

Mary looked down at herself. Her face was still dubious, but her body seemed much more relaxed, and her eyes, Amanda noted, were actually beginning to glow with excitement.

The suit helped, of course. The fabric was a soft cream-colored knit with subtle overtones of heather, almost an exact match with Mary's beautiful light hazel eyes. The skirt draped gently, adding grace and height to Mary's figure, while the brief fitted jacket accentuated her slim waist and shapely hips.

In fact, Amanda realized, Mary Gibson was so close to her own measurements that Amanda's clothes fitted her as if they'd been professionally tailored.

“Made for you,” Amanda repeated firmly. “You look all ready for a lunch date at the country club, just as soon as we do something with that hair.”

Mary scrubbed a hand through the lacklustre graying strands. “I haven't been to the hairdresser for
months,” she confessed shyly. “I've just been hacking it off myself every few weeks.”

“Well,
that's
certainly obvious,” Amanda said without sympathy. “Lovely hair like that, and you won't do a thing with it. Absolutely criminal.”

“I should get it tinted and shaped,” Mary said. “I know I should. But I always feel so…”

She hesitated, flushing painfully, and smoothed the fine fabric of her skirt with a trembling hand.

“What?” Amanda asked gently. “What do you feel, Mary?”

Mary shrugged and turned away, avoiding the younger woman's eyes. “I don't know,” she said at last. “Like everybody's watching and laughing at me, I guess. ‘There goes Mary Gibson, poor old fool, trying to make herself look nice while her husband's out running around with a woman young enough to be his daughter….' Amanda, did you
see
that girl' shair?” Mary burst out in sudden despair. “How could I ever compete with that, no matter how many times I go to the hairdresser?”

“Mary, don't say things like that. It's not a competition,” Amanda said gently, drawing the other woman down beside her on the couch and putting an arm around her shaking shoulders. “We should never, ever try to compete with other women, not even for our men.”

“That's easy to say if you're young and beautiful, and every man in the world wants you.”

Amanda gave her a small smile. “I don't think every man in the world wants me, Mary. At least, they're hardly beating my door down at the moment,” she added dryly. “But that's not the point. The point is, we should dress for ourselves, not for men. A woman should try to be her best for her own sake and nobody else's, because that's the only way she can feel in charge of her own life. Do you understand what I mean?”

Mary nodded. “You're saying that I should do this for me, just because it makes me feel good, and not because it might make Al love me again.”

“Exactly,” Amanda said firmly, turning aside to pick up a sweater so Mary wouldn't see the sudden tears that filled her eyes.

Not because it might make Al love me again…

“Now, try the slacks,” Amanda said. “The gray ones, I think, with this soft turquoise sweater. I think that color would be really nice on you. You seem to look especially good in subdued secondary colors.”

“Subdued secondary colors,” Mary echoed with a brave teasing smile. “Now, I never thought I'd hear words like that in my own house.”

Amanda grinned back, encouraged by Mary's sudden sparkle. A little warmth and interest, a few changes of clothing, and it was already becoming
clear what a pretty woman Mary Gibson must have been at one time.

And how attractive she could still be, with some basic attention to detail, Amanda reflected.

“Go,” she said sternly. “Go right this minute and put on that sweater and slacks, Mary Gibson, and no more teasing the consultant.”

Mary giggled and vanished obediently toward the bedroom again, her arms full of clothes. But this time she felt comfortable enough to leave the door ajar, calling to Amanda through the opening.

“The gray slacks with the turquoise sweater, did you say? Or this dusty-pink one?”

Amanda paused, thinking. “Either,” she called back. “But I think the turquoise will probably be best on you. Or you could try that creamy angora with the fawn-colored slacks.”

“Oh good,” Mary said with childlike enthusiasm.

“I just love that soft cuddly sweater.”

Amanda smiled. “Mary,” she called suddenly.

“Yes? Oh, Amanda, this angora just feels lovely. It feels like being hugged by something all soft and velvety.”

“I know. Mary, that man I met at the party the other night…”

“Which man?”

“The one we were both talking to. I think you said he was your neighbor. His name was Brick, or Brock,
something like that,” Amanda added with elaborate casualness, as if the man's name weren't burned indelibly into her memory. “Was that him, up on the hill a few minutes ago?”

“Brock? Yes, it was. He's doing some fencing, I guess. What about him? Amanda, should I wear gold earrings or pearls with this creamy color?”

“Gold, absolutely,” Amanda said in the direction of the half-closed door. “Pearls will just get lost against that color. I wondered how long you've know him. Brock Munroe, I mean.”

“Oh, goodness, all his life,” Mary said in a distant muffled voice. “He was just a baby when I came here as a young bride. Brock and I, we sort of grew up together. I always liked that boy.”

“He's a strange man,” Amanda commented casually, lifting the little horse again and studying it with deep interest. “He even quotes poetry. Seemed completely out of character, somehow.”

“Not really.” Mary's voice came drifting down the hallway. “Brock's always been a reader. I used to go over there sometimes to visit his mama when he was just a little boy. Brock, he'd always be curled up in a corner somewhere with his nose in a book.”

“But he never wanted to get an education?” Amanda asked, setting the little horse down again on a side table. “Why didn't he go to college, if he's so scholarly?”

“He couldn't,” Mary said simply. “There was no money in that family to pay for luxuries like college. And besides, he had both his daddy and the ranch to look after. Poor Brock, he's always had to be the…”

Mary's voice grew louder all at once and Amanda looked up to see her standing in the entry. She wore a pair of beautifully fitted camel trousers and the angora sweater, and looked trim and graceful, her face radiant with pleasure.

All thoughts of the enigmatic neighboring rancher vanished from Amanda's mind for the moment. She got up and hurried across the room to hug the other woman, laughing.

“I declare, Mary Gibson, aren't you just pretty as a picture?
Look
what you've been hiding, girl!”

The afternoon drifted away as Mary continued to try on the clothes. They earnestly discussed accessories and shoes, laughing together like schoolgirls.

“Oh, my,” Mary said after a couple of hours had passed. “I do believe it's time for coffee. Amanda, this is more fun than I've had in years, and I truly thank you. I don't care what these clothes cost, I intend to buy almost all of them,” she added recklessly.

“Oh, they're not going to cost much,” Amanda said. “Probably about four hundred dollars for everything you've picked out, and I can always arrange terms if you're—”

“I can afford four hundred dollars,” Mary interrupted. “I'm selling most of the calves next week, and I'll just make sure that I get a little of that cash before the bank does.”

“But, Mary, if it's a problem…” Amanda began cautiously.

“I've worked real hard on this ranch, and I've hardly spent a penny on myself for years,” Mary said firmly. “I guess I'm entitled to something that makes me feel this good.”

“Of course you are,” Amanda said.

Mary looked at the younger woman with sudden shrewdness. “Are you
sure
you're quoting me a fair price, Amanda?” she said. “I haven't shopped for clothes for years and I'm not real sure what things cost nowadays, but this still looks like a lot of good quality stuff for four hundred dollars.”

Amanda hesitated, her cheeks growing uncomfortably warm. “You're partly right, Mary,” she said carefully. “I mean, you'd never get a deal like this at a retail store. But these clothes are actually secondhand, in a way, since they were bought for somebody else who's decided she doesn't want them. That's why I can give you such a good price.”

Amanda settled back, feeling childishly relieved to have gotten through this entire explanation without having to tell an outright lie.

Mary, too, seemed comforted, her face softening into a grateful smile. “Well, it's just wonderful” she
said. “For me, it feels like a dream come true. Do you ever dream about things, Amanda?” she asked suddenly, moving toward the kitchen and motioning the younger woman to follow.

“Me? Do I dream?” Amanda echoed, then paused. “Isn't that strange,” she added slowly, following Mary into her big sunny kitchen and sinking down on one of the antique oak chairs.

“Strange? What's strange?” Mary frowned briefly, feeling the sides of the coffee percolator, before taking a couple of heavy china mugs from the cupboard.

“Your neighbor…Brock Munroe? He asked me the same thing.”

“Brock? What did he ask you?”

“If I dream. He wanted to know what I dream about.”

Mary smiled. “What did you tell him?'

“Nothing,” Amanda said briefly. “I really didn't think it was any of his business.”

Mary nodded, placing the steaming coffee mugs on the table and returning to the counter to fill a plate with oatmeal cookies. “Dreams are private things,” she said quietly.

Amanda stirred cream into her coffee, thinking about her recurring dream. The same image had haunted her again in the early hours just this morning. She'd been holding the little baby in her arms and that same man was standing nearby in the sun
shine, a man she couldn't see but loved so much that she felt her heart would break with the sweetness of it….

“I keep dreaming about ostriches,” Mary said abruptly, her cheeks flushing pink.

Amanda stared blankly across the kitchen table. “Ostriches?”

Mary smiled again. “A pretty strange dream, right? I don't know if I've even seen an ostrich in real life. Maybe once in a zoo, or something. But in my dream, they're so sweet. The big one lets me ride on his back, and we go skimming off across the desert, and it feels so lovely.”

Amanda looked at the older woman. “I guess,” she began carefully, “that a psychologist would say the birds represent freedom, Mary. Something that can lift you up and carry you away from all your problems.”

Mary nodded, gazing into the depths of her coffee mug. “Probably,” she said. “Poor Al,” she added abruptly. “I wonder what he dreams about, locked away in that jail cell. I wonder if he dreams about being rescued and carried off to freedom.”

“Do you still have feelings for him, Mary? Do you love him?”