Texas rich (23 page)

"She looks terrific, doesn't she, Mam?" Moss said proudly, disregarding another snort from Seth.

For the next few minutes torn wrapping paper littered the living room. Billie squealed with pleasure when she opened Moss' s present. A Chinese silk wrapper and tiny matching heeled slippers. Laughing, she slipped it over her shoulders and brought the front edges together. "I'll save it for after the baby," she announced, demonstrating how the protuberance of her belly prevented it from closing. Only last night she would have been overcome with self-consciousness and embarrassment about her size. But since this afternoon and Moss's ardent loving, she was accepting the changes in herself because he could. That was a gift more precious and valuable than any other.

For Jessica there was a carton from England, from Amelia, and inside was a delicate bone china tea service and a letter.

Seth received his usual box of cigars and bottle of bourbon and Moss had brought him an ornamental bridle for old Nessie. Seth presented Jessica with a $2,000 voucher in her name for her favorite charity, the March of Dimes. It was a tradition that had begun several years ago, after Seth had complained that buying a present for Jessica was harder than roping a wild steer in a blind canyon. Seth handed Agnes a long, slim box carefully wrapped in bright paper. He stood by while she fumbled with the ribbon. "For Christ's sake, Aggie, just rip it open. My beans are gettin' cold!"

It was a jeweler's box and inside was a twenty-four-inch

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strand of perfectly matched pearls. Agnes's hands trembled when she lifted them out of their nest.

"Don't go saying you can't accept them, Aggie. Can't have the grandmother of my first grandchild going around wearing dimestore jewelry. And since you're so partial to pearls I thought you should have them."

Billie looked from the gleaming rope of her mother's gift to Jessica, who attempted a smile. The old bastard, thought Billie. She was very glad that she'd bought the antique silver picture frame to give to Jessica. It had a place for a portrait of herself and Moss, and one that waited to be filled with one of the baby. Certainly it could never compensate for Seth's thoughtlessness, but it was an acknowledgment that Jessica would be the baby's grandmother, too.

Agnes was overwhelmed by Seth's generosity, but her poise and polish made it appear that she was merely accepting what was due her. That seemed to rattle Seth. "Put them on, Aggie! I told you my beans are getting cold. What're you waiting for?"

A slow smile touched Agnes's lips. "I'm not so certain I like the idea of you thinking about my neck, Seth," she told him sharply.

"Take it easy, Aggie. If I ever want your neck on a chopping block, I'll give you fair notice. Put them on, dammit, and let's eat!"

The pearls slid over Agnes's head and rested on the cranberry velvet of her cocktail dress like twenty-four inches of smiling teeth.

That night, after the traditional Christmas Eve dinner, after the friends had gone home and all the presents had been opened, Moss slept in Billie's bed, holding her, caressing her, and allowing the drinks he'd consumed to overpower Seth's warning again. This was his wife and she was offering herself to him, consoling him for the time he'd gone without a woman, being the essence of womanhood when she welcomed his flesh into hers.

Christmas morning, when the fu-st rays of daylight invaded the room, Moss awakened to the sound of Billie's pitiful retching in the adjoining bath. Hastily, he grabbed up his clothes and escaped to his room. Christ! What if he'd hurt her last night? What if it was all too much for her? He should have listened to Pap.

Two hours later, at the breakfast table, Billie was pale and

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weak, yet bravely making the best of it. But Moss was unable to look into her shadow-rimmed eyes any longer. He made the announcement that he had checked with San Diego, and he was ordered back at once. Billie's fork clattered onto her dish. Seth was appalled by Moss's statement, which he didn't believe for one second. He was leaving because of herl Billie glanced up at her father-in-law. His eyes hated her.

On February fourth, Billie began her labor. A private ambulance was dispatched on Seth's excited phone call. Billie was trundled into the back of the vehicle and a nurse held her hand. Agnes and Seth followed the ambulance in the chauffeur-driven Packard. Jessica watched the ambulance and Packard leave, her rosary clutched tightly in her hand. At that moment she didn't know whom she'd feel sorrier for, Billie or Seth. Billie, if the baby was a girl, Seth, if he should be disappointed.

Billie had fourteen hours of agony. Until the moment the mask came down over Bilhe's perspiring face she prayed for death, anything to take away the relentless pain

When Billie opened her eyes the first person she saw was Seth Coleman. He stared down at her accusingly. Her mother stood next to him with a judgmental look on her face. So, she had delivered a girl! Jessica would be pleased. Moss would be... Moss would be disappointed. She had failed. She wasn't a Coleman yet. Not yet, Seth's eyes told her. Should she apologize? They were waiting for her to say something, probably to ask about the baby. Instead she closed her eyes and slept. Deeply.

Later, on the ride back to Sunbridge, Agnes realized that she had never seen Seth so angry, so controlled. She understood perfectly. Perhaps too perfectly. Her own position—and Billie's too, of course—was in jeopardy until there was a Coleman heir. Good God, if something happened to Moss, Billie and she could be shipped back to Philadelphia without a moment's notice or a backward glance.

Striving for a light tone, Agnes said, "First pregnancies are usually hard on a young girl. Billie is young and healthy. Living at Sunbridge will put the bloom back in her cheeks. She'll be right as rain in a month. In three months she'll be ready to try again."

Seth hardly acknowledged Agnes's words. A damn baby girl, for God's sake! Moss was going to be fit to be tied. It

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should have been a boy; he'd depended on it being a boy. It was part of the bargain. Seth sank lower into the backseat of the Packard and gritted his teeth. That little gal Moss had taken for a wife had no more spunk and grit than Jessica. Sure, he'd hit pay dirt with Moss, but Jessica had failed him after that, first producing Amelia, then drying up completely and forever. Agnes had said something about three months and they could try again. That would be around the beginning of May. Three months to arrange for Billie and Moss to be together again.

When Jessica heard the news that her first grandchild was a girl, she stared down at the rosary in her hands. A girl, a little girl, just like her Amelia. Seth must be in a rage because this was something over which he had no control. She almost cried with relief that the child wasn't a boy. Seth's posses-siveness could be a little boy's undoing. She threw her rosary beads angrily onto the bed. It was one of the few violent outbursts she'd ever experienced, and she was surprised at how good, how right it felt. Perhaps if she'd given vent to her anger all these years, she wouldn't have these terrible headaches and her heart wouldn't thump so madly in her breast.

Moss climbed from the cockpit of the Texas Ranger. As was his custom, he patted the plane fondly, the way a man might touch his woman. Less than a week before he'd fought in the battle of Rennell Island, the last of the Guadalcanal campaign. The heat of the victory still ran in his blood.

Two more meatballs would be added to the eight akeady on Moss's fuselage. He'd be asked to command his own squadron, to train his men, instill them with confidence. Well, he was ready. He'd had the best teachers, known the best men. He'd seen battle and smelled its hell, known victory and felt its elation.

The flight deck officer was running toward him. "Coleman, the chaplain wants to see you. Pronto!" It was in such contradiction to his train of thought that Moss's belly immediately constricted. Something was wrong, very wrong. Gut fear propelled his feet, his mind racing as fast as he ran. Seth? Billie? Jessica? But no way, no matter what it was, would he leave the Big E. He was being assigned to command his own squadron, things were turning up for him, things he wanted, needed. He wasn't going home until this was over, one way or the other, whether he walked through the door of Sunbridge under his own steam or was carried in in a box.

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His salute was snappy, his words crisply spoken. "Lieutenant Moss Coleman reporting, sir."

"At ease. Lieutenant." The chaplain smiled. Freckled hands extended to give Moss the slip of pap)er from the radio room.

Moss read the message, a grin stretching across his face. A baby girl, Margaret Jessica Coleman. February fourth. Four pounds, three ounces. Mother and daughter both fine. Jesus, he was a father! Two months early! Billie was fine. His sigh of relief sounded loud in his ears.

A knock sounded on the office door and Captain Hardison stepped in, extending his hand to Moss. "Congratulations, Coleman. I was in the radio room when the message came through." He reached into his breast pocket and withdrew three cylinders, fondling them reverently before extending one to the chaplain and one to Moss. "I filched these fi-om Admiral Hal-sey's private stock when we were in Pearl. If you tell anyone, I'll clip your wings, and as for you. Father, you will keep to the confidentiality of confession. Agreed? Pure Havana—^I've been saving them for a special occasion. Think of me when you smoke it, Lieutenant."

Moss saluted. "I'll do that, sir." It wasn't until he was back in his own quarters with the cigar clamped between his teeth that he took a second look at the radio message. A girl! What the hell, a baby was a baby. There'd still be time for boys. Pap was probably belly up over the disappointment. He took a satisfying pull on the cigar, blue smoke ringing his head, then almost laughed. Agnes had been so certain that the baby would be a boy. "You were wrong, you old buzzard," he said aloud. He was the littlest bit disgruntled about it himself, but his delight over what he imagined was Agnes's chagrin was compensation. "Aggie, old girl, you've got to learn we Cole-mans are a slippery bunch. Very slippery indeed."

Billie returned to Sunbridge ten days after the birth of her daughter. Dr. Ward's dire warnings against another pregnancy too soon had darkened her day. She hadn't even considered having another child, suffering another nine months, swelling and vomiting and aching her way through another year. Seth was hell-bent on having a grandson. But boy or girl, it didn't matter to Moss, did it? Maggie was a beautiful baby, a little too small from being bom prematurely, but she was healthy enough to be allowed to go home. Still, Billie hadn't liked the expression on the doctor's face or the technical language he'd used. Toxemia, low birth weight, breech presentation—it was

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all too much to understand but it left her with the feeling that whatever had gone wrong was her own fault. She still wasn't a Coleman woman, to have her children on the side of the road and run back to work, and perhaps she never would be. Dr. Ward's words made her afraid. At the same time, he had presented a challenge.

A private ambulance brought Billie and Maggie the forty miles out from Austin and she walked to the front door under her own power. When she reached out for Maggie, the nurse Seth had hired shook her head and cradled the baby protectively in her arms.

"I want to take Maggie upstairs and present her to her grandmother," Billie explained. If she spoke as though Maggie had only one grandmother, it was what she was feeling. Jessica's phone conversations twice a day to the hospital had been loving and her inquiries about Maggie sincere and enthusiastic. Now Billie wanted to proudly take Maggie up to Jessica's room and be gratified by grandmotherly croonings.

"I'll take the baby now," Bilhe said more forcefully, meeting the nurse's stare.

Agnes, who had followed the ambulance in the family automobile, came forward. "Don't be ridiculous, Billie. For all you know, Jessica is sound asleep. You're behaving like a child. The nurse has her instructions and you're not to interfere." For a moment, Agnes thought Billie would stand her ground. A warning bell went off in Agnes's head: Billie might very well become difficult and totally unlike the respectful, obedient daughter she'd always been. Until she'd met Moss, Agnes qualified. Before Billie could argue, Agnes touched her arm solicitously.

"There will be plenty of time to spend with the baby, Billie. You're still not completely recovered from the whole ordeal. Until you get your strength back, why don't you just rely upon me to know what's best."

Agnes's gentle caring penetrated Billie's reserve and she felt herself slipping back into the old rhythms of following her mother's directions. She was tired and still sore and cried easily. Dr. Ward said it was natural for a woman to feel depressed after the birth of a child. And it was just easier to have someone else make the decisions.

Settled back in her room, Billie rested in bed. She'd written Moss about the baby, describing Maggie's shock of nearly black hair and telling him that it was already obvious her eyes

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would be the same clear light blue as his. But what else could she tell Moss about their daughter when she hardly saw her? Little Margaret Jessica Coleman was at the other end of the house in her pretty little nursery with her own nurse in attendance. On Dr. Ward's suggestion, probably orders issued from Seth, Maggie was to be bottle-fed. The doctor's words—^"You're hardly strong enough, Mrs. Coleman"—echoed in her head. Something else in which she was lacking. She felt fme now, even if a little tired, and her breasts beneath the agonizing breast binder were heavy with milk.

Reaching into her bedside table, Billie withdrew the stationery she'd received from Agnes at Christmas. Her name was engraved at the top: Mrs. Moss Coleman. Tears threatened. Whatever had happened to BiUie Ames? She felt as though she'd been swallowed whole and was being digested as permanently and efficiently as Seth's favorite beans.

The bedroom door opened and Agnes came into Billie's room. "Darling, are you writing to Moss? That's good. Seth and I were worried about your lackadaisical attitude these past few days. Now that you're on the mend your life is going to be just wonderful. Aren't you ever so grateful that there is a nurse for Maggie? Why, when I had you I would have cut off my right arm for just a little help. Babies are so draining and they do prevent one from regaining one's strength. I also think it was very wise of Dr. Ward to start Maggie on bottles. There's nothing more loathsome for a woman than pulling out her breast for a baby to guzzle. Seth agrees.