Rivals (6 page)

Looking around her, Flame realized that this flat was the one good thing that had come out of her disastrous marriage. It was hers now. Although at the time, she would have willingly given it up along with anything else just to obtain a divorce. Fortunately, that hadn't been necessary.

The buzzing ring of the doorbell cut sharply through the morning stillness. Flame frowned at the black mantel clock above the white marble fireplace. It wasn't nine o'clock yet. No one came to visit this early on a Saturday morning. Her friends knew how much she relished her weekend mornings—waking up at her leisure, dressing when she pleased, and going out if she chose. During the weekdays she adhered to a set schedule of appointments, meetings, and business luncheons, but the weekends when she wasn't working on a rush campaign or on call, she spent strictly on impulse, shopping or sailing with friends, occasionally taking in an exhibit she wanted to see or simply lolling around the apartment and catching up on current novels. The evenings were different, usually with some private dinner party, social function, or benefit interspersed with concerts and theater performances.

When the buzzer rang again, more strident in its summons the second time, Flame set her cup down on the glass top of the black lacquer and brass occasional table and ran lightly from the living room into the foyer, her bare feet making little sound on the honey-colored parquet flooring. Out of habit, she glanced through the front door's peephole. On the other side stood an elderly lady, a pillbox hat of loden green perched atop a soft cloud of white hair. Despite the slight distortion from the thick glass, Flame was certain she didn't know the woman.

The woman started to ring the doorbell a third time. Flame pushed the tousled mass of her hair away from her face with a combing rake of her fingers and began unfastening the series of security locks and chains. In the midst of the third ring, she swung the heavy oak door open.

“Yes?” She glanced expectantly at the elderly stranger, certain she had come to the wrong address. Yet the avid stare from the elderly woman's brightly black eyes inspected every detail of her appearance, skipping over the purple and pink of her caftan to center on her hair. “Were you looking for someone?” she prompted when the silence threatened to lengthen.

For an instant she doubted the woman had heard her and briefly wondered if she might be deaf. Then an awareness seemed to enter the woman's expression.

“Forgive me for staring,” she said, a pleasant huskiness in her voice. “But—your hair, it's exactly the same shade of strawberry blond as Kell Morgan's. His portrait hangs over the fireplace in the library.”

“Who are you?” she challenged, a fine tension rippling through her as she suddenly realized why those eyes looked familiar. Her father's had been just as brilliantly black, always shining with life. But that was impossible. She didn't have any family left—no aunts, no uncles, no cousins.

“I'm Harriet Fay Morgan,” she announced, a pleased smile curving her lips and emphasizing the tiny fracture lines that aged the parchmentlike fineness of her skin. “And you are undoubtedly Margaret Rose Morgan.”

“Bennett.” The correction was an automatic response.

“You're married?” A pepper gray eyebrow lifted in sharp question.

“Divorced.”

“Yes, yes, I remember now. Ben told me that.” Irritation briefly darkened her expression at the momentary memory lapse. And that hint of vulnerability prompted Flame to notice that—for all the woman's alertness—she had to be in her late seventies or early eighties…too old to be made to stand outside, especially when there were a dozen questions Flame wanted to ask.

“Won't you come in, Mrs. Morgan?” She swung the door open wider and stepped to one side, allowing her to pass.

“Thank you.” With an unhurried dignity, the woman entered the foyer, her small shoulders square and straight beneath the jacket of her fur-trimmed suit, its cut reminiscent of a fashion popular twenty years ago. The cane seemed to serve as a prop rather than a support as she turned to Flame. “I must insist that you call me Hattie. I never married, but to be called ‘Miss' at my age seems inappropriate.”

“Of course.” Flame led the way into the living room. “I have fresh coffee made. Would you like a cup?”

“I prefer hot tea if you don't mind.”

“Not at all. Please, make yourself comfortable. I won't be a minute.”

But it was closer to five minutes before Flame returned with a pot of tea, the attendant cream, sugar, and saucer of lemon as well as a teacup and saucer balanced on a tray along with a cup of coffee for herself. In her absence Hattie Morgan had enthroned herself on one of the horn chairs. Catching back a smile at the thought, Flame realized that there was a certain hauteur about Hattie that bordered on regal.

“Lemon, cream, or sugar?”

“Lemon, please,” she replied, taking the delicate Sevres cup and saucer from Flame, her glance lightly sweeping the room. “This is pleasant,” she observed, her attention returning to Flame as she lifted the dainty cup from its saucer. “Of course, it's nothing at all like Morgan's Walk.”

“Morgan's Walk is your home?”

“Our family home, yes. It's stood for nearly a hundred years, and, God willing, it will stand for a hundred more.”

“Where is that?”

“Oklahoma, about twenty minutes from Tulsa.”

She volunteered no more than that, leaving Flame with the impression that Hattie was waiting for her to ask the questions. “You mentioned a man named Ben earlier. Who is he? For that matter, who's Kell Morgan?” Flame took her coffee and moved to the corner of the sofa nearest to Hattie's chair.

“Ben Canon is the family lawyer, and has been for years. It was through his efforts that I located you. And Kell Morgan”—again those bright eyes took note of the glinting red lights in Flame's hair—“was my grandfather. His brother was Christopher Morgan.”

The latter was said with a sense of import, yet it meant nothing to Flame. “Should I know that name?”

“He was your great-grandfather.” She sipped at her tea, eyeing Flame over the cup's golden rim. “You aren't familiar with your father's family history, are you?”

“Not very,” she admitted, her frown thoughtful and wary. “All my father ever told me about his grandfather that I can remember was the story of how he'd come to San Francisco shortly before the turn of the century and fallen hopelessly in love with Helen Fleming, the daughter of one of the city's founding families. Within three months, they were married. Other than that…” Flame shrugged, indicating her lack of knowledge, and settled back against the sofa's plump white cushions and curled a leg underneath her. For all her relaxed poise, inside she was tense. “I know several of my friends have become deeply involved in tracing their family tree and finding out all they can about their ancestors. It's as if they must in order to have any sense of who or what they themselves are. I've never agreed with that. In my opinion, everyone has his own separate identity. Who my ancestors were or what they did has nothing to do with who I am today.” But even as she made her slightly impassioned disavowal, she was aware that her own actions frequently contradicted that. Because of who her family was, she had a certain prestige. She hadn't earned it; her ancestors had. And even while a part of her resented it, she used it to open doors, to mix with the right people, and to further her own career. She stared at the coffee cooling in her cup, conscious of the silence and not feeling particularly proud of her accomplishments. “If I offended you, Hattie, I'm sorry. Obviously you share their interest in family trees or you wouldn't be here.”

“Their interest, perhaps, but not for the same reason. And I'm certain we differed in our approach. You see, it was a living descendant of Christopher that I was anxious to find.” But she didn't elaborate. “Believe me, that wasn't easy. Soon after Christopher Morgan left Morgan's Walk and went west all those years ago, the family lost touch with him. We couldn't even be sure he had kept the Morgan name.”

“Why would he change it?” She frowned.

“Who knows?” Those sharply bright eyes never once left Flame's face, their burning intensity somehow mesmerizing. “It was hardly uncommon for a man who went West to change his name and take on a whole new identity. Frequently it was to conceal a criminal past, but sometimes it became a symbolic way to start a new life.”

She understood such reasoning. After her divorce, she had elected to keep her married name, as if by doing so she was no longer a Morgan. But everyone knew she was.

“Tell me about yourself,” Hattie urged. “I understand you work.”

“Yes, I'm a vice-president and account executive for a national advertising company here in the city.”

“A vice-president. You must be very intelligent.”

Was she? Or had she finally gotten smart and stopped fighting the family name and started using it instead to get what she wanted? As a vice-president, she received an excellent salary, but even on that she wouldn't have been able to afford half of what she owned. Practically all the expensive furnishings in her flat and nearly her entire wardrobe of designer clothes she'd purchased from agency clients, but never at retail. No, she used her position, both with the company and in society, to obtain special discounts. That was the way the game was played, and she'd learned to be good at it. It was a form of urban survival today.

“It helps to know the right people, too,” she replied, lifting her shoulders in an expressive shrug, a little uncomfortable with the compliment.

“I understand you are an only child.”

“Yes.”

“And both your parents are gone.”

Flame nodded. “They were in an auto accident eleven years ago. My father was killed instantly. My mother was in a coma for several days. She died without ever regaining consciousness.” After all this time, the sense of loss was still acute. Even now, she missed them. There were moments when she could almost hear her mother's laughter—and her dad's teasing voice. They had loved her. Not because of her bloodline or because she was beautiful, but for herself. Since she'd lost them, she'd learned just how rare that kind of love was.

“You and I are a lot alike, I think,” Hattie observed. “We've both had to learn to be independent at an early age. My mother died a few hours after my baby sister was born. I was thirteen at the time—with a baby to take care of and a household to manage. Then I lost my father when I was nineteen. Suddenly Morgan's Walk was mine. I not only had a baby sister to raise, but an entire ranch to run.”

“Morgan's Walk is a ranch?” Flame was surprised by that. “I thought it was some sort of an estate.” Although what kind of estate there could be in Oklahoma, she had no idea. Certainly it had never occurred to her that it was a ranch.

“It's both. There's almost twelve hundred acres of land within its boundaries. Once it was twenty times that size, but time and circumstances have whittled away at it. Most of it is river valley, some of the lushest, greenest land you'll ever see.” Where before Hattie's demeanor had been marked by a watchful reserve, there was now animation, a rapt excitement lighting her face and putting an even brighter glow in her eyes. “It's beautiful country, Margaret Rose, all rolling hills and trees unbelievably green against the blue of the sky. And the main house sits at the head of the valley. Oh, and what a house it is—three stories of brick with towering white colonnades. Your ancestor Christopher Morgan is the one who designed it before he came to California. All the bricks came from a kiln right on the property, and they used the land's red clay to make them. Wait until you see it. I know you'll love it.”

“I'm sure I would.” Flame smiled, touched by the woman's obvious love for her home. “Although it's not likely I will.”

Hattie seemed startled by that. “Oh, but you will. You must. Morgan's Walk will be yours when I die.”

For a stunned instant, Flame stared at her. “What did you say?” she managed at last, certain she had misunderstood.

“Morgan's Walk will be yours when—”

She didn't need to hear any more. “You can't mean that. You don't even know me,” she protested.

“You're a Morgan. I knew that the minute I saw you. It was more than the red of your hair and the high cut of your cheekbones. It was the strength of pride and the determination to succeed that I recognized in you.”

“That doesn't explain anything.” She frowned. “It doesn't even make sense.”

“But it does. You see, Morgan's Walk must pass to a Morgan. If there is no direct descendant, then the land becomes the property of the state. That's why it was so important that I find you. For a time I thought—” She caught herself up short, and dismissed the rest of the sentence with a shake of her head. “But I don't have to worry about that now. I found you.”

It sounded logical. Almost too logical. Flame couldn't help being skeptical. People just didn't ring somebody's doorbell and announce that they were inheriting a ranch—in Oklahoma or anywhere else.

“Is this some elaborate con to get money out of me?” she demanded. “Because if it is, you're wasting your time.”

“You're suspicious by nature. That's good,” Hattie stated, a satisfied gleam in her eyes. “Morgan's Walk will definitely be safe in your hands. You won't let…anyone take it from you.”

Flame caught that faint hesitation. “Is someone trying to get it from you?”

Hattie leaned forward and pushed her teacup and saucer onto the coffee table's glass top. “As I said, it's rich land. There will always be someone who wants it. People have fought over land since before the time of Moses, haven't they?” She smiled smoothly. “As for money—I won't pretend that Morgan's Walk is as prosperous as it once was. It isn't. At best, you'll receive only a small income from it after all its costs are paid. Of course, you may run into some sort of inheritance tax situation. You might want to check into that.”