The Girl with the Golden Spurs (8 page)

Bad as being on her own was after such a shock, being with anyone else tonight, especially Caesar’s family—before she got a grip—would have been worse. Of course, she would have to call Uncle B.B., Caesar’s younger brother, or Aunt Nanette, his older sister, but Caesar’s relationship with his siblings had been as complex and fraught with as many tensions and jealousies as their marriage. Joanne felt too fragile to deal with them.

Aunt Nanette was a spoiled, bossy hypochondriac who lived like a princess on her feudal ranch in Montana. She took younger lovers, and when she was around, her needs
had to come first. Uncle B.B. and his too elegant, extravagant, much-younger wife, Aunt Mona, were every bit as demanding. Uncle B.B. couldn’t abide Caesar because he thought he—not Caesar—he should be running things.

She would have to call them eventually, and they would come running because all of them lusted for what Caesar had—power. All of them were constantly at him, demanding a higher return on their holdings. They wanted him to sell land, or give them more oil royalties, or to settle costly litigation.

Caesar, her indestructible Caesar, who could keep them in line, had had a stroke, and Cherry had panicked and thrown him back into her lap. It would be up to her to deal with them.

Tomorrow, when her friends and relatives found out about Caesar, they’d be all over her. Her local relatives would want her to move in with them. And maybe she would. If she hadn’t called Uncle B.B. and Aunt Nanette by then, her friends would do it behind her back.

For the first time in a long time she thought of Jack. If only her darling, precious Jack had lived. If only he hadn’t thought he was so immortal he could ride wild stallions alone.

But had he been alone?

Joanne would never forget the night Caesar had found her and taken her to Jack’s body. Electra had left him by then. That night he’d been so kind and gentle to her, so different than he’d become later. She began to think about that horrible night. At the time it hadn’t seemed odd to her that Caesar had been the one to find Jack. After all, he’d been the one who’d refused to give up searching for him until he was found.

She’d never doubted Caesar until years later when someone else had planted the doubt in her mind.

Leaving the window she went to the phone again. When she lifted it, she knew she was being compulsive, but she couldn’t stop herself from trying one more time.

Quit dialing. Quit it, damn it. Lizzy won’t answer. Not
until she’s feeling strong enough to talk
.

She’s not your daughter anyway
.

Don’t even think that
.

You promised Caesar
….

He broke his promises, every single one of them
.

Joanne had been running on nerves ever since Cherry had called. After that weird, surreal conversation, the worst had been not knowing what was really wrong with Caesar.

By the time she’d arrived in Houston, Caesar was in ICU, looking fragile and helpless underneath coils of tubes that ran everywhere. If she hadn’t known it was he, she wouldn’t have recognized the still, shrunken body lying in that tiny, windowless room. Only his eyes were the same, and they had burned her with a fierce intelligence that was unnerving even now.

Was he still mad at her? Or did he want to tell her something?

He was completely paralyzed the doctors had said.

“Can he think?” she’d whispered, feeling a weird survivor’s guilt. “Is his mind affected?”

“It’s too early to tell.”

What if he could think?

Horrible thought
.

Thank God Cole had been in Houston. She’d called him the minute Cherry had hung up.

She’d sent him over there, and somehow he’d gotten Caesar to the hospital. She hadn’t asked for the details, and maybe it would be better if she didn’t.

All that mattered was that nobody knew he’d been with Cherry when it happened. And nobody would know—unless Cherry or Cole talked.

The girl had a big mouth. For the moment, however, for some reason, she seemed to be running scared. Joanne wondered if Caesar had told her about the board meeting.

Joanne dialed Lizzy again and listened to the phone on the other end ring until Lizzy’s recorded voice answered sweetly, saying her message was very important and that she would get back to her as quickly as possible.

Fear and frustration engulfed Joanne. Sometimes she almost hated Lizzy. From birth she’d been difficult. Not like Mia, who’d fit into their lives so perfectly. Why hadn’t Caesar ever seen that? But no, he’d spent all his spare time trying to prove Lizzy was the best. He’d tried to crush Mia.

Joanne set the phone down and walked to the window. This time she opened the drapes, so she could look out without having to hold the heavy curtain. It wasn’t dark yet. Her hotel room had a view of the sumptuous pool. Two children about ten years old were laughing and splashing while their parents watched.

What a lovely time in life being a young parent was. She’d been so full of hope back then, so sure she and Caesar would put Jack and Electra behind them.

Joanne liked being up high and able to look out. The ranch was in flat country, and one never had anything like a real view.

“Best room in the house,” Cole had said when he’d handed her the plastic card that served as the key.

Odd how life worked out. Her perfect, talented, darling daughter dead. While Lizzy was still very much alive and pulling the same tricks.

Joanne dialed Lizzy again. When the voice mail picked up on the first ring, Joanne suspected that Lizzy knew perfectly well she was calling and had deliberately taken the phone off the hook.

When Lizzy’s message finished, it was all Joanne could
do not to blurt, “Your father’s had a stroke in that whore’s bed. Answer the damned phone. I need you. God, how I need you.”

Of course, Lizzy didn’t know anything so catastrophic had happened or that Joanne blamed herself and felt crazed. Lizzy was young. Heaven knows, she and Caesar had called her far too often lately. Any girl Lizzy’s age had every right to be sick of it.

Joanne bit her lips and pressed the phone against her lips as she inhaled a desperate breath. Then she dialed Lizzy again. “Answer. Please answer. I can’t go through this alone.”

When Lizzy still didn’t answer, she called Cole, who picked up immediately. For all his faults, even when he’d been himself, Cole wasn’t one to play games.

“You did say,” she began hesitantly, hating herself for feeling so dependent, “that if I needed anything, I should—”

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I—I’m fine.” She attempted polite conversation but managed only false starts, stumbles and stops. “It was hard, seeing him like that,” she finally admitted. “I don’t think he’ll ever be the same.”

“I’m afraid you may be right.”

“I thought he was…”

“Invincible,” Cole finished in his low, flat drawl.

“Yes… It’s too early to talk about this, but nothing… I mean the ranch…the family…me…will be the same…if he doesn’t get well. There might not be a divorce. I mean how could there be? I certainly never wanted a divorce, and I’m not going to push for it.”

Cole said nothing.

How could she like be so frank and friendly with a son-in-law Caesar and she had barely been able to tolerate a year ago?

“I know it’s late. I—I called to ask a very specific favor.”

“Anything.”

“It’s Lizzy—I’ve tried to call her… She won’t answer the phone. Anyway, I’ve decided maybe it’s better not to tell her about this over the phone… I wish I could go myself…”

When she told him what she wanted, he was silent for such a long time, she though he would refuse.

“She won’t want to hear it from me…or see me,” was all he said when he finally spoke.

“I—I know it’s not an easy thing to ask,” she said, holding her next breath when he didn’t say anything else. “But you have an airplane and a pilot—I—I’m sorry. I’m sure you have a million things to do tomorrow.”

Besides his crop-dusting business, he ran the Carancahua division. “I did say anything, now, didn’t I?”

“Thank you, Cole.”

Utterly exhausted, she lay down on her bed and pressed her fingertips against her closed eyelids.

It was funny, how life worked out. She’d hated Cole when Mia had turned up pregnant and said the baby was Cole’s. At first she’d thought Mia was lying about him being the father, and then she’d been so sure he was using Mia to get the ranch. But the baby had his blue eyes and black hair. And she knew him well enough now to know he’d never force himself on a woman. Still, nothing about Mia and Cole’s relationship had ever made much sense. They’d been so cool and reserved around each other, especially the day Vanilla had been born.

But he’d been so different since the plane crash. When Joanne had been utterly grief-stricken, he’d been kind and comforting. It was almost as if he wasn’t the same man. Strangely he didn’t remember Vanilla or much about Mia. But he didn’t hate them or seethe all the time anymore.

Although Caesar would have been the last to admit it,
Cole had become Caesar’s right-hand man. Nobody loved the land more or was better at the hard work that had to be done daily or supervising the hands than Cole. Not even Sam.

Since the accident that had killed Mia, Joanne had felt sorrier for Cole than she had herself. He’d hated the stories people circulated about the man he’d been before the plane crash.

Still, Caesar hadn’t trusted him. He was sure Cole would revert to kind and turn on them as soon as he got his memory back.

But would he?

L
izzy was filled with new hope when she woke up before dawn and slipped sleepily out of bed. Switching on her bedside light, she reread her plan and the lists she’d made late last night after doing her affirmations.

4:30 a. m.—get up

coffee

yoga stretches

lingerie drawers

shower—dress

rework story…

Nell

Lizzy went over her lists and affirmations and goals until she felt charged. Then she tiptoed silently to her closet, so as not to wake Vanilla, who slept in the corner in her crib with a navy bedspread thrown over it. Ever since she’d been a tiny baby, Vanilla would not sleep in a lighted or a cold room. The only way to get her to take naps during the day or to sleep at night was to put her to bed the way one did a bird—to cover the crib.

With a good night’s rest, Lizzy’s shock and self-doubt had
dulled a little. She had a plan, didn’t she? Goals. A step-by-step list. Several lists, in fact.

The first thing she had to do was get her ladder so that she could reach the French lingerie that Bryce hadn’t already taken down. This she did after drinking a cup of steaming vanilla bean coffee. The door to the second bedroom was open. Walker, true to his word, had gotten up even earlier than she had and had already left.

After her sun salutations, she tackled the closet. Trying not to blush, she arranged lacy teddies, bikini panties, corsets, garter belts and bras in her drawers and then stored her cotton jogging bras and panties on the high shelves of her closet. She selected some sexy undergarments, including a corset, to wear today. Next she showered and dressed and reworked her story, until Vanilla stood up in her crib, her head tenting the dark blue bedspread as she began to babble and coo. After that, getting the baby fed, bathed and dressed and both of them out of the apartment—Vanilla to day care and herself to the station—took all her concentration and determination. Lizzy was exhausted by the time she dropped Vanilla at day care.

Lizzy ran all the way to the television station, which wasn’t easy since she was wearing the corset. She was racing inside the lobby, rehearsing her speech to Nell in her head, when a hard voice stopped her.

“Your badge please, Miss Kemble.”

She whirled, her long red skirts flying around her legs. The security guard, what was his name.
What was it?

Whatever it was, the tall, dark-eyed man in the black uniform with the balloon belly caught up to her and blocked her path to the elevators.

Owen Jones. That was it
.

“Owen, yes…” She smiled. “Owen, I’ve got to get to my office—”

Usually he was all smiles. Not today. His voice was stern and yet faintly apologetic. “I need to collect your badge.”

Lizzy shakily felt for the plastic card pinned to her red sparkly blouse. “I—I really do have to get to my office—”

Not an office really but a cubicle surrounded by short walls. Her desk faced a single window that overlooked the street.

“We need the badge before we can release your things.”

“Release my…” The corset cut off her breath, and the scratchy lace on her garter belt was rubbing her thigh raw. “I—I have to see Nell—”

“Miss Bradshaw told me to tell you she won’t be in all day.”

Lizzy felt a little light-headed. “Of course she’s in.”

“Your badge, please.”

Lizzy drew another tortured breath before surrendering her badge. He had her sign some resignation forms. Then silently he handed her an envelope that contained her severance pay. Without speaking, he led her to a closet which contained four, white store-all cardboard boxes with the name, Liz, scribbled on them in Nell’s handwriting.

Nobody had ever called her Liz but Nell.

Three years of dreams and hard work amounted to Nell’s telephone message, a final check and four cardboard boxes taped shut.

Lizzy fought tears.

“Do you need help with these?” Owen asked gently.

She turned toward him in a daze of confusion and misery.

“Y-yes—”

So much for her kick-ass, career girl fantasy. Nell wasn’t even going to let her in the door.

Two men arrived with dollies. As she walked back to her apartment with them following at a brisk pace, she pulled
out the crumpled bit of paper where she’d written her plan for Nell. Tearing it into little bits, she dropped it in a garbage can.

Bryce was number one on the next list.

She slid the list into her pocket. She couldn’t tackle Bryce. Not without lunch. Not without advice from a real pro.

Her eyes felt wet, but she wiped them dry with the back of her hand. She told herself she wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t.

But she did.

Cole Knight read the screen of his PDA to-do list one last time to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything before he left home. Then he swung his long legs out of his pickup and scowled at the limp windsock. Then he stared down the runway at the clear, blue Texas sky.

Damn. Why couldn’t it be raining cats and dogs or fogged
in? Hell, he wouldn’t have complained about a tornado or
two
.

He didn’t much want to go to Manhattan. In fact he’d rather face demons than square off with Lizzy again.

Much as he’d dreaded the recurrency training he’d taken last week that had included ground school with an IFR simulator, flight training and a flight check, he dreaded her more. He’d passed the recurrency training with flying colors. If the past was any indicator, he’d never get that lucky with Lizzy.

Cole looked way off beyond the fences where a cowboy was pushing a bunch of cows across a pasture. He had better things to do than to fly to New York and bring Lizzy home. He had bulls to test and his crop-dusting business he was still trying to get off the ground to manage. Not to mention he’d been planning to play poker with Eli, Kinky and some of the other hands.

Lizzy always had to tell him off for things he’d done that he couldn’t remember and remind him of what a louse he’d been.

He didn’t ever feel like fighting with her. She was too damned pretty.

In fact, his feelings for her confused him more than most things since the accident. He had constant recurring visions about her during the day, and at night he dreamed about her. He couldn’t smell a rose without thinking about her. In a nutshell, he wanted her, but she despised him for years of offenses he didn’t remember and didn’t want to.

His recurring dreams and images were like riddles. What had she meant to him? If he’d wanted her so damn much, why the hell had he gotten Mia pregnant and then married her?

Still, somebody had to tell Lizzy about her daddy’s stroke and bring her home. With her brothers gone, there wasn’t anybody else but him to do it. In the thick of getting Caesar settled in ICU, Cole had given his word to Joanne that if she needed anything, all she had to do was ask him.

Joanne was the one person in the family who’d been really kind to him since the accident and Mia’s death. She hadn’t blamed him for the accident. Nor for not remembering Mia or Vanilla. Nor for owning Mia’s stock. Nor for having feelings for Lizzy instead of Mia. Nor even for still being alive when Mia was dead. She didn’t blame him for who he’d been, either. She’d been his main support during the difficult days of the investigation that followed the accident that had killed her daughter.

Cole knew what it was to be on the spot. He had a lot of sympathy for what Joanne Kemble had been through lately, and he admired the way she handled herself when reporters besieged her. Not that he didn’t sympathize with Caesar. No matter what he’d done, nobody deserved to end up like that.

Cole knew what it was not to be yourself, too. Even now, when he was so much better, he dealt with flashes and half thoughts, with the inability to focus on a subject, and with walls and closed doors in his mind. A glance at an old photograph or even a chance meeting with somebody he’d known but didn’t recognize on the town square triggered weird, jittery feelings that put him on edge and made him sure that soon, soon he’d remember. He couldn’t function without his PDA to organize his life.

Then there were the blackouts. He lost time—seconds, minutes, even hours sometimes. He could be driving the truck on a desolate, private ranch road and
awaken
in strange surroundings with no knowledge of how he’d gottenthere or what he’d done. Although the blackouts scared him, he’d told no one other than his doctors, who told him not to worry since they didn’t interfere with his ability to drive or fly or ride horseback. But he wasn’t to fly without another pilot. Nor was he to drive on public roads or highways.

Who was he when he wasn’t there? His old hateful self, maybe?

One reason he was leery of going to New York was that he was afraid of blacking out around Lizzy. What if he did something or said something terrible?

Still, Lizzy had to be told and brought home. Joanne had asked him. Even though Lizzy despised him, Cole didn’t want her to get the news about her daddy over the phone and have to fly home alone with the baby.

So he was stuck. With a regretful glance at the distant cowboy and his herd, Cole locked the cab door and strode into the office of his private airstrip where he operated his crop-dusting business and kept his Cessna.

Several young mechanics who were hovering over his secretary’s desk looked up and then waved and smiled at him
and told him that his twin-engine plane was ready to fly. His pilot, John, was in the hangar.

Suz, who was dark-haired and too flirty, looked up, and her hand went still on her ledger as she batted her lashes at him. Next came her slow, warm smile. She pushed her chair back, and her short black skirt crawled up her legs. She wore a tight silk top that was so thin he could see her nipples.

Cole took off his Stetson and tried not to grin or fan himself since his mechanics were watching him. Cole had forgotten a lot, but he remembered the vital stuff, like how to fly and how to cowboy and how to survive. The last men on earth a pilot wanted to piss off were his airplane mechanics. He’d be flying alone soon enough—at least that’s what he told himself.

Cole had longish black hair with a few strands of gray, ice-blue eyes, dark skin and a hard jawline. At six feet two inches, he was tall and lean and long-legged and muscular, too. His shoulders were broad, and girls told him his cheekbones were of the slashed variety that wore well over time. Which was good, he supposed, since he was on the wrong side of thirty-five.

The jealous mechanics and the flirtatious Suz made Cole so tense, he willed Suz to go back to her work. Not that he didn’t appreciate her interest. He hadn’t had a woman since he’d lost Mia. Not that he remembered ever having had Mia. It was Lizzy, only Lizzy who haunted him.

You’ve got classic bad-boy sex appeal
. Cole could almost hear Lizzy’s laughing voice. He saw her trace his cheekbones with a fingertip and then kiss the tip of his nose.
Except for your lashes. You have long sissy lashes
.

He remembered his reply, too.
There’s not a damn thing
I can do about them, darlin
’.

Was that memory real? Or had he made it up?

Ah, Lizzy… Classic good-girl sex appeal. Understated…

She was a little fearful of her wild urges and where they
might lead her. He’d only had to touch her to get her all hot
and bothered
.

How did he know that? Was it true? Or was the memory that got him instantly hot false?

To hell with Lizzy. She was a big, spoiled crybaby, a poor little ranch princess, Daddy’s favorite. Caesar had spoiled her, and she’d left him, seeking fame and fortune.

Cole had schooled himself never to dwell on the puzzle of Lizzy. Today, for some reason, the usual tricks weren’t working.

Maybe it was for the best. After all, he would have to face her soon. Might as well get his gut in a knot so she couldn’t cut him to ribbons.

Jamming his battered Stetson onto his head, he waved goodbye to Suz and headed out onto the tarmac. Climbing aboard his plane, he and John carefully went through their routine in the cockpit and then taxied down the runway, waiting until they were given clearance to take off into that damnably gorgeous blue sky.

According to the latest weather report, it would be smooth flying, all the way to Manhattan.

Smooth flying, that is, until he met up with Lizzy.

Knowing her, she’d give him hell.

Maybe someday he’d remember exactly why she disliked him.

Or maybe, when he was his old self, he’d be dead set against her, too. He’d married Mia, hadn’t he?

Why the hell had he done that?

“To get the ranch, pure and simple,” old Eli had told him. “To cut Lizzy to the quick. To make old Caesar so spitting mad he’d have a heart attack and die. Probably to make Mia miserable, too. You were a real bastard, Mr. Knight. You were after one thing—revenge against the Kembles, especially
Caesar. And you damn sure got it! You got even more stock for fathering Vanilla!”

Cole hated the cold, ruthless man Eli described. And he was scared that was the real him, that if he got his memory back, he’d be that man again.

Normally Lizzy never stopped by SEX-E-E, the fetish shop, where Mandy worked. The two friends usually met somewhere far more discreet for lunch.

Like Bryce’s gifts of sexy French lingerie, the shop wasn’t Lizzy’s kind of thing, and it amazed her that an honors graduate in English from Princeton, no less, who was the daughter of a wealthy, high-profile family, would choose to work here. And yes, this job was definitely Mandy’s choice.

“Okay, I’m going to be a writer when I grow up, if you have to know, kiddo,” she’d confessed to Lizzy once at breakfast when they’d been munching bagels after the journalism class they’d taken where they’d met. “So, I’ve got to do interesting things now, so I’ll have something to write about later. I was born rich, and you can’t imagine how boring that is.”

“Right. I thought maybe you just wanted to shock your family.”

“Those repressed snoots? They gave up on me after the first few piercings and Internet lovers from the wrong side of the tracks.”