The Last Honest Woman (14 page)

He watched her over the heads of her sons. The questions that always seemed to be in his eyes were still there, but she was growing accustomed to them. And to him. He had done this for her, for her children. Maybe, just maybe, he'd done it for himself, as well. Maybe that was all that really mattered. With a smile, she linked her fingers with his.

He wasn't used to such simplicity from a woman. She'd just smiled and taken his hand. There had been no flirtation in the gesture, no subtle promises. If he'd been willing to take the gesture at face value, he'd have said it was a simple thank-you.

He thought this must be what it was like to have a family. Not-so-quiet weekends with sticky faces and mundane chores and a living room littered with toys. Warm smiles from a woman who seemed happy to have you there. Dozens of questions that leaped out of young minds and demanded answers. And contentment, the kind that didn't require hot lights and fast music.

He'd always wanted a family. Once he'd told himself he wanted Shannon more—Shannon with the slim, amazing body and the dark, sultry looks. She'd touched Off things inside him—exploded was more accurate, Dylan admitted. He found it much easier to remember now than it once had been. They'd met, made love and married, all in a whirling sexual haze. It had seemed right. They'd both lived on the edge and enjoyed it. Somehow it had been incredibly wrong. She'd wanted more, more money, more excitement, more glamour. He'd wanted… He was damned if he knew what he'd wanted.

But if he could believe the woman sitting two children away from him was real, it might be her.

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A backlog of work had helped Abby avoid Dylan throughout the morning. His typewriter had been clicking when she'd woken the boys for school. It had clattered steadily, almost routinely, rather than in the quick on-again, off-again spurts of creation she'd expected. Perhaps it was routine for him, digging into and recording the lives of other people.

The sound had reminded her forcibly that the weekend had only been a reprieve. It was Monday, she was recovered, and the questions were about to begin again. She wished she could recapture the confidence of a week ago and believe she could answer only the ones she chose to, and answer them in her own way.

Still, her own routine soothed her—the breakfast clatter, the scent of coffee, the typically frantic search for a lost glove before she sent her sons racing off to catch the bus. She watched them go down the lane as she did every morning. It struck her, unexpectedly and sharply, as it did now and then, that they were hers.
Hers.
Those two apprentice men in wool caps heading off to face the day at a fast trot had come from her. It was fascinating, wonderful and just a little frightening.

When they disappeared, she continued to watch a little longer. Whatever happened, whatever strange twist

Me tossed at her, no one could take away the wonder of her children. The day no longer seemed so hard to face.

As she headed toward the barn a few minutes later, she heard the sound of a car. Changing direction, she walked around the side and saw Mr. Petrie hopping out of the cab of his truck. She could have kissed his grizzled face.

"Ma'am." He grinned at her, then spit out a plug of tobacco.

"Mr. Petrie, I'm so glad to see you." She shifted the bucket of eggs as she studied him. "Are you sure you're well enough to work?"

"Right as rain."

He did look fit. His small, stubby body appeared well fed. Beneath several days' growth of beard, his color was good, ruddy, windburned and reliable. He was hardly taller than she and built somewhat like a thumb—sturdy and unexpectedly agile. The boots he wore were black and worn and tied up over his ankles. "If your wife let you out of the house, I guess you're ready to pitch some hay."

"Old nag," he said affectionately. "She kept a mustard plaster on me for a week." His small, slightly myopic eyes narrowed. "You look a might peaked."

"No, I'm fine. I was just about to get started in the barn."

"How are the ladies?"

"Wonderful." They began to walk together over the slowly drying ground. "The vet was here on Friday and gave them both a checkup. It looks like Eve and Gladys are going to be mothers before the week's out."

Petrie spit again as they crossed to the barn. "Jorgensen came by?"

"Yes, he's very interested."

"Don't let that old horse thief buffalo you. Top dollar." Petrie swung the door open with a hand that was missing the first knuckle of the ring finger.

"No one's going to buffalo me," she assured him.

He'd known her five years and worked for her for nearly two, and he believed her. She might look like something out of one of the magazines his wife kept on the coffee table, but she was tough. A woman alone had to be. "Tell you what now, you take the horses out and groom them. I'll clean out the stalls."

"But—"

"No, now you've been swinging a pitchfork on your own all last week. Looks like you need some sun to me. 'Sides, I gotta work off some of this food my wife pushed on me when I was too weak to stop her. There now, sweetheart." He stroked Eve's head when she leaned it over the stall. His ugly, callused hands were as gentle as a lute player's. "Old Petrie's back." He pulled out a carrot and let her take it from his hand.

Abby appreciated his easy touch with the horses, just as she had always relied on his judgment. "She's missed you."

"Sure she has." He moved down to the next stall and gave the second mare equal attention. "I tell you something, Miz Rockwell, if I had the means I'd have myself a mare like this."

She knew the position he was in, knew the limitations of living off social security and little else. The regret that she couldn't pay him more came quickly, as it always did. "I wouldn't have either of them if you hadn't helped me."

"Oh, you'd've got by all right—but maybe you'd've paid too much." With a cackle, he went down to the next horse. "You were a novice back then, Miz Rockwell, but I think you've lost your green."

From him, it was an incredible compliment. With more pleasure than she'd been able to drum up in days, Abby began to lead the horses out. She groomed them in the sunshine.

Dylan watched her from his window. She was singing. He couldn't hear her, but he could tell by the way she moved. He watched as she meticulously cleaned out hooves, brushed manes and curried. There was a lightness about her that he hadn't seen before. But then, she thought she was alone.

Her gloves were on a post, and she ran her bare hands over the flank of one of the geldings. lea-serving hands, he thought. Yet somehow they looked just as right brushing hard over the gelding's coat. How would they look brushing over his skin? How would it feel to have those hands running with abandon over his body, arousing, exciting, exploring? Would she have that dreamy look in her eyes? He thought she had it now, but he was too far away to be certain.

And if he was smart, he'd stay away.

Her face wouldn't be pale now. The early-morning air would bring the color up as the strong sunlight and exercise warmed her muscles. Her face wouldn't be pale when he made love with her. Excitement would flush it. Passion would make her agile. He could imagine what it would be like to have her skin slide over his. He could almost taste the flavor of her flesh in those dark, secret places made only more mysterious by the layers of thick winter clothing. He wanted to peel them off her while she stood watching him, wanting him, waiting for him Just thinking of it made his pulse thud.

He'd wanted other women. Sometimes his wants had been eased, sometimes they hadn't. Passion came and passion went. It erupted and it vanished. He understood that well. Just because he churned for her now, just because he stood at the window and watched her with needs bouncing crazily inside him that didn't mean he'd want her tomorrow. Desire couldn't rule your life—not desire for money, not for power and certainly not for a woman.

But he continued to watch her while his typewriter hummed impatiently behind him.

He watched as she led the horses, two and three at a time, into the barn. He waited until she came out again not even calculating the time that passed. Then, abruptly and obviously on impulse, she swung herself onto the big gelding she'd called Judd. With a halter and nothing else, she sent the horse racing out of the paddock and up the rough, narrow track that led in to the hills.

He wanted to throw the window open and yell at her not to be an idiot. He wanted to watch her ride. He could see her knees pressed tight to the gelding's side and her hand holding the halter rope. But more, as the sun fell like glory over her face, he saw the look of absolute delight.

She let the gelding run up and down the track—ten minutes, fifteen, Dylan was too mesmerized to notice. Her hair rose and fell in the wind they created, but she never bothered to push it from her face. And when she swung to the ground he knew she was laughing. She nuzzled the horse, stroking again. Stroking, soothing, murmuring. Dylan wondered what soft, pretty words she spoke.

A man was losing his grip when he became jealous of a horse. He knew it but continued to stand by the window, straining for control, or perhaps for the inevitable. She disappeared inside the barn again, and he told himself to turn away, to get back to his work, but he waited.

She returned with the stallion, holding the rope close under his chin as he danced impatiently, bad-temperedly. Abby tied him securely to the rail and began to groom him.

The animal was beautiful, his head thrown high and an arrogant look in his eyes that Dylan could see even from the window. And he was skittish. When Abby took his hind leg to clean his hoof, he jerked it twice, nearly pulling out of her grip before he settled down and let her do her business. When she set it down again, Dylan caught his breath as the horse took a hard, nasty kick at her. Abby avoided it and calmly picked up the next leg. He could almost hear her gently scolding as she might have if one of the boys had had a fit of temper.

Damn it, who ate you? He pressed a hand to the glass as if demanding she look up, hear him and answer. Who the hell are you? If she was genuine, why the lies? If she had the kind of morals, the kind of values she seemed to have, how could she lie?

Yet she was lying, Dylan reminded himself. And she would continue to lie until he tripped her up. Today, he promised himself as he watched her brush out the smooth, dark skin of the stallion. Today, Abby.

Turning, he went back to his typewriter and told himself to forget her.

It was after eleven when he heard her come back into the house. He had Rockwell's early professional years, his earlier family background, drafted out. He'd written of Rockwell's meeting with Abby from her perspective, using quotes from her and bits of her family history. People would be interested in the sister of one of Hollywood's rising stars, and in the sister of a successful Broadway actress. He hadn't overlooked the triplet angle or the theater background. Three sisters, three actresses. But he was about to rewrite Abby's script.

She heard him come down but continued to wash the eggs. "Good morning." She didn't look back at him, and continued to keep her hands busy. "Coffee's on."

"Thanks."

When he walked to the stove, she glanced over. He hadn't shaved. It always made her stomach quiver—perhaps at the thought of having that rough, slightly uncivilized face scrape against hers.

"Mr. Petrie's back. I think he could have used another day or two, but he missed the horses."

"You finished out there?"

"For now. I'm going to be checking on the mates off and on."

"Fine." He took his coffee to the bar, lit a cigarette, then turned on his tape recorder. "When did you and Rockwell decide to divorce?"

An egg hit the floor with a splat. Abby stared down at it in dull surprise. Without a word, she began to clean it up.

"Do you want me to repeat the question?"

"No." Her voice was muffled, then came stronger. "No, but I would be interested to know where you got the idea."

"Lori Brewer."

"I see." Abby cleaned up the last of the mess, then turned to wash her hands.

"She was sleeping with your husband."

"I'm aware of that." Abby dried her hands meticulously. They were steady. She hung on to that.

"She wasn't the first."

"I'm also aware of that." She went to the stove and poured coffee.

"You got ice for blood, lady?" When she turned to look at him calmly, it goaded him all the more. "Your husband slept with any woman who could crawl between the sheets. He made a career out of cheating on you. Lori Brewer was only the last in a long line."

Did he think she was hurting her? she wondered. Did he think she should feel a stab of pain, a wave of betrayal? She'd felt it all before, but that was long since over. She felt nothing now but a sort of vague curiosity about the anger she saw in Dylan's eyes.

"If we both know that, why talk about it?"

"Was he going to dump you for her?"

She took a sip of coffee. It steadied the nerves. She would give him the truth as long as it was possible to give him the truth. "Chuck never asked me for a divorce." She drank again, and the liquid slipped, hot and potent, into her system. "Though he may very well have told Lori Brewer that he did."