Denim and Lace (4 page)

“I'll be in touch,” he said as he reached for the doorknob and pulled open the big front door with its huge silver knocker. “Don't worry. We'll work out something.”

Her eyes closed. She was sick all over. Just last week she'd been planning parties and helping her mother choose flowers for a coming-out party. And now their world was in shreds. Their wealth was gone, their friends had deserted them. They were at the mercy of the courts. Miss Samson of Spanish House was now just plain Bess.

“It's a long way to fall,” Cade was saying. “From debutante balls to poverty. But sometimes it takes a fall to get us out of a rut. It can be a challenge and an opportunity, or it can be a disaster. That depends on you. Try to remember that it's not life but our reactions to it that shape us.”

For Cade it was a long speech. She stared at him hungrily, wishing she had the right to cry in his arms. She needed someone to hold her until the pain stopped. Gussie hadn't noticed that her own daughter was grieving, but Cade had. He noticed things about her that no one else on earth seemed to, but he was ice-cold when he was around her, as if he felt supremely indifferent toward her most of the time.

She smiled faintly, thinking how uncannily he could read her mind. Sleet was mixing with the snow, making a hissing sound.

“Thanks for the wise words. But I think I can live without money,” she said after a minute.

“Maybe you can,” he replied. “But can your mother?”

“She'll cope,” she returned.

“Like hell she'll cope.” He tugged the hat closer over his forehead and spared her one last sweeping appraisal. God, she looked tired! He could only imagine the demands Gussie was already making on her, and she was showing the pressure. “Get some rest. You look like a walking corpse.”

He was gone then, without another word. As if he cared if she became a corpse, she thought hysterically. She'd lived for years on the vague hope that he might look at her one day and see someone he could love. That was the biggest joke of all. If there was any love in Cade, it was for Lariat, the Braided L, which had been founded by a Hollister fresh from the Civil War. There was a lot of history in Lariat. In a way the Hollisters were more a founding family of Texas than the Samsons. The Samson fortune was only two generations old, and it had been a matter of chance, not brains, that old man Barker Samson from back East had bought telephone stock in the early days of that newfangled invention. But the Hollisters were still poor.

She went upstairs to see about Gussie. It was an unusual nickname for a woman named Geraldine, but her father had always called her mother that.

Gussie was stretched out on the elegant pink ruffled coverlet of her bed with a tissue under her equally pink nose. Thanks to face-lifts, annual visits to an exclusive health spa and meticulous dieting, and a platinum-blond rinse, Gussie looked more like Bess's sister than her mother. She had always been a beauty, but age had lent her a maturity that gave her elegance, as well. She'd removed the satin robe, and underneath it she was wearing a frothy white negligee ensemble that made her huge dark eyes look even darker and her delicate skin paler.

“There you are, darling,” she said with a sob. “Has he gone?”

“Yes, he's gone,” Bess said quietly.

Her mother's face actually blanched. She averted her eyes. “He's blamed me for years,” she murmured, still half in shock, “and it wasn't even my fault, but he'd never believe me even if I told him the truth. I suppose we should be grateful that he hasn't raided the stables to get his money back in kind. The horses will bring something...”

Here we go again
, Bess thought. “You know he wouldn't do that. He said we'll work something out, after the funeral.”

“No one held a gun on him and made him invest a penny,” Gussie said savagely. “I hope he does lose everything! Maybe he'll be less arrogant!”

“Cade would be arrogant in rags, and you know it,” Bess said softly. “We'll have to sell the house, Mama.”

Gussie looked horrified. She sat straight up, her careful coiffure unwinding in a long bleached tangle. “Sell my house? Never!”

“It's the only way. We'll still owe more than we have,” she said, staring out the window at the driving sleet. “But I have that journalism degree. I might get a job on a newspaper.”

“We'd starve. No, thank you. You can find something with an advertising agency. That pays much better.”

Bess turned, staring at her. “Mama, I can't take the pressure of an advertising agency.”

“Well, darling, we certainly can't survive on newspaper pay,” her mother said, laughing mirthlessly.

Bess's eyes lifted. “I wasn't aware that you were going to expect me to support both of us.”

“You don't expect me to offer to get a job?” Gussie exclaimed. “Heavens, child, I can't do anything! I've never had to work!”

Bess sat down on the end of the bed, viewing her mother's renewed weeping with cynicism. Cade had said that her mother wouldn't be able to cope. Perhaps he knew her after all.

“Crying won't help.”

“I've just lost my husband,” Gussie wailed into her tissue. “And I adored him!”

That might have been true, but it seemed to Bess that all the affection was on her father's side. Frank Samson had worshipped Gussie, and Bess imagined that Gussie's demands for bigger and better status symbols had led her desperate father to one last gamble. But it had failed. She shook her head. Her poor mother. Gussie was a butterfly. She should have married a stronger man than her father, a man who could have controlled her wild spending.

“How could he do this to us?” Gussie asked tearfully. “How could he destroy us?”

“I'm sure he didn't mean to.”

“Silly, stupid man,” came the harsh reply, and the veneer of suffering was eclipsed for a second by sheer, cruel rage. “We had friends and social standing. And now we're disgraced because he lost his head over a bad investment! He didn't have to kill himself!”

Bess stared at her mother. “Probably he wasn't thinking clearly. He knew he'd lost everything, and so had the other investors.”

“I'll never believe that your father would do anything dishonest, even to make more money,” Gussie said haughtily.

“He didn't do it on purpose,” Bess said, feeling the pain of losing her father all over again, just by having to discuss what had caused his suicide. “He was taken in, just like the others. What made it so much worse was that he talked most of the investors into going along with him.” She stared at her tearful mother. “You didn't know that it was a bogus company, did you?”

Gussie stared at her curiously. “No. Of course not.” She started weeping again. “I simply must have the doctor. Do call him for me, darling.”

“Mother, you've had the doctor. He can't do anything else.”

“Well, then, get me those tranquillizers, darling. I'll take another.”

“You've had three already.”

“I'll take another,” Gussie said firmly. “Fetch them.”

Just for an instant Bess thought of saying no, or telling her mother to fetch them herself. But her tender heart wouldn't let her. She couldn't be that cruel to a stranger, much less her own grieving mother. But as she rose to do what she was asked, she could see that she was going to end up an unpaid servant if she didn't do something quick. But what? How could she walk out on Gussie now? She didn't have a brother or a sister; there was only herself to handle things. She couldn't remember a time in her life when she'd felt so alone. Her poor father—at least he was out of it. She only wished she didn't feel so numb. She'd loved him, in her way. But she couldn't even cry for him. Gussie was doing enough of that for both of them anyway.

She went to bed much later, but she didn't sleep. The past couple of days had been nightmarish. If it hadn't been for Cade, she didn't know how she and Gussie would have managed at all. And there was still the funeral to get through tomorrow.

Her thoughts drifted back through layers of time to the last day Cade had been teaching her how to ride. He'd grown impatient with her attempts to flirt, and everything had come to a head all too quickly.

He'd caught her around the waist with a strength that frightened her and tossed her down on her back into a clean stack of hay. She'd lain there, her mind confused, while he stared down at her from his formidable height, his dark eyes glittering angrily. Her tank top had fallen off one smooth shoulder, and it was there that his attention wandered. He looked at her blatantly, letting his gaze go over her full breasts and down her flat stomach to the long, elegant length of her legs in their tight denim covering.

“You don't look half bad that way, Bess,” he'd said then, his voice taut and angry. He'd even smiled, but it hadn't been a pleasant smile. “If all you want is a little diversion with the hired hand, I can oblige you.”

She'd gone scarlet, but that shock led quickly to another. He moved down atop her, his heavy hips suddenly square over her own while his arms caught his weight as his chest poised over hers. He laughed coldly at her sudden paleness.

“Disappointed?” he asked, holding her eyes. “As you can feel, little rich girl, you don't even arouse me. But once we get your clothes out of the way, maybe you can stir me up enough to give you what you want.”

Bess closed her eyes even now at the shame his words had made her feel. She'd never felt a man's aroused body, but even in her innocence she knew that Cade was telling the truth. He'd felt nothing at all. She'd stiffened, her eyes tearing, her lower lip trembling, as the humiliation and embarrassment swamped her.

Cade had said something unpleasant under his breath and abruptly got to his feet. He was holding down a hand to help her up, but before she could refuse it or even speak, Gussie was suddenly in the barn with them, her dark eyes flashing as she took in the situation with a glance. She'd hustled a shaken Bess into the house, ignored Cade's glowering stare, and the next day the riding lessons became a memory.

Bess had often wondered why Cade had felt the need to be so cruel. It would have been enough to simply reject her without crushing her budding femininity at the same time. If he'd hoped to discourage her, he'd succeeded. But her feelings hadn't vanished. They'd simply gone underground. There was a lingering nervousness of him in a physical way, but she knew in her heart that if he came close and took her in his arms, she'd cave in and give him anything he wanted, fear notwithstanding. He hadn't really touched her that day anyway. It had all been planned. But what hurt the most was that he hadn't wanted her and that he'd taunted her with it.

She rolled over with a long sigh. It was just her luck to be doomed to want the only man on earth she couldn't have. He'd thought she was teasing because he was poor and she was rich, but that wasn't the case at all. He couldn't see that his lack of material things had nothing to do with her emotional attraction to him.

He was a strong man, but that wasn't why she loved him. It was for so many other reasons. She loved him because he cared about people and animals and the environment. He was generous with his time and what little money he had. He'd take in a stray animal or a stray person at the drop of a hat. He never turned away a cowboy down on his luck or a stranded traveler, even if it meant tightening the grocery budget a little more. He was hard and difficult, but there was a deep sensitivity in him. He saw beneath the masks people wore to the real person inside. Bess had seen his temper, and she knew that he could be too rigid and unreasonable when he wanted his own way. But he had saving graces. So many of them.

It was odd that he'd never married, because she knew of at least two women he'd been involved with over the years. The most recent, just before her twentieth birthday, had been a wealthy divorcée. That one had lasted the longest, and many local people thought that Cade was hooked for sure. But the divorcée had left Coleman Springs rather abruptly, and was never mentioned again by any of the Hollisters. Since then, if there were women in Cade's life, he'd carefully kept them away from his family, friends and acquaintances. Cade was nothing if not discreet.

Bess herself had no real beaux these days, although she'd dated a few men for appearance's sake, to keep Gussie from knowing how crazy she was about Cade. No other man could really measure up to him, and it was cruel to lead a man on when she had nothing to offer him. She was as innocent as a child in so many ways, but Cade obviously thought she was as sophisticated as her outward image. That was a farce. If only he knew how long she'd gone hungry wanting him.

She closed her eyes and forced her taut muscles to relax. She had to stop worrying over the past and get some sleep. The funeral was tomorrow. They'd lay her poor father to rest, and then perhaps she and her mother could tie up all the loose ends and get on with the ordeal of moving and trying to live without the wealth they'd been accustomed to. That would be a challenge in itself. She wondered how she and Gussie would manage.

CHAPTER FOUR

A
S
B
ESS
EXPECTED
, there was a crowd at the simple graveside service, but it wasn't made up just of friends and neighbors. It was a press holiday, with reporters and cameras from all over the state. On the fringe of the mob Bess caught a glimpse of Elise Hollister, stately and tall, standing with her three sons. She caught the older woman's eye, and Elise smiled at her gently. Then, involuntarily, Bess's eyes glanced at Cade. He looked very somber in a dark suit, towering over his mother and his brothers, Gary and Robert. Red-haired Rob was outgoing, nothing like Gary and Cade. Gary was bookish, and kept the accounts. He was a little shorter than Cade, and his coloring was lighter and he was less authoritative. Bess turned her attention back to what the minister was saying, aware of Gussie's subdued sobbing beside her.

The cemetery was on a small rise overlooking the distant river. It was a Presbyterian church graveyard with tombstones that dated back to the Civil War. All the Samsons were buried here. It was a quiet place, with live oaks and mesquite all around. A good place for a man's final resting place. Frank Samson would have approved.

“My poor Frank,” Gussie whimpered into her handkerchief as they left the cemetery. “My poor, poor Frank. However will we manage without him?”

“Frugally,” Bess said calmly. Her tears had all been shed the night before. She was looking ahead now to the legal matters that would be pending. She'd never had to cope with business, but she certainly couldn't depend on Gussie.

She helped her mother into the limousine and sat back wearily on the seat as the driver climbed in and started the engine. Outside, cameras were pointed in their direction, but Bess ignored them. She looked very sophisticated in her black suit and severe bun atop a face without a trace of makeup. She'd decided early that morning that the cameras wouldn't find anything attractive in her face to draw them to it. They didn't either. She looked as plain as a pikestaff. Gussie, on the other hand, was in a lacy black dress with diamonds glittering from her ears and throat and wrists. Not diamonds, Bess reminded herself, because those had already been sold. They were paste, but the cameras wouldn't know. And Gussie had put on quite a show for them. She didn't look at her mother now. She was too disappointed in the spectacle she'd made of their grief. That, too, was like Gussie, to play every scene theatrically. She'd left the stage to marry Frank Samson, and that was apparent, too.

“I don't want to sell the house,” Gussie said firmly, glancing at her daughter. “There must be some other way.”

“We could sell it with an option to rent,” Bess said. “That way we could keep up appearances, if that's all that matters to you.”

Gussie flushed. “Bess, what's gotten into you?”

“I'm tired, Mother,” Bess replied shortly. “Tired, and worn-out with grief and shame. I loved my father. I never dreamed he'd take his own life.”

“Well, I'm sure I didn't either,” Gussie wailed.

“Didn't you?” Bess turned in the seat to stare pointedly at the smaller woman. It was her first show of spirit in recent memory, and it almost shocked her that she felt so brave. Probably it was the ordeal of the funeral that had torn down her normal restraint, she thought. “Didn't you hound him to death for more jewels, more furs, more expensive vacations that he couldn't afford in any legal way?”

The older woman turned her flushed face to the window and dabbed at her eyes. “What a way to talk to your poor mother, and at a time like this.”

“I'm sorry,” Bess murmured, backing down. She always backed down. It just wasn't in her to fight with Gussie.

“Really, Bess, I don't know what's gotten into you lately,” Gussie said haughtily.

“I'm worried about how we're going to pay those people back what they've lost,” Bess said.

Gussie's eyebrows lifted. “Why should we have to pay them back?” she exclaimed. “We didn't make them invest. It was all your father's fault, and he's dead.”

“That won't make any difference, don't you see?” Bess said gently. “His estate will be liable for it.”

“I don't believe that,” her mother replied coolly. “But even if we are liable, your father had life insurance—”

“Life insurance doesn't cover suicide.” Bess's voice broke on the word. It still hurt, remembering how it had happened, remembering with sickening clarity the bloodstained carpet under her father's head. She closed her eyes against the image. “No insurance does. We've forfeited that hope.”

“Well, the lawyer will handle it,” Gussie said. “That's what he gets paid for.” She brushed lint off her jacket. “I really must have a new suit. I think I'll go shopping tomorrow.”

Bess wished, for an instant, that she was a hundred miles away. The grief was hard enough to cope with, but she had Gussie, as well. Her father had managed his flighty wife well enough, or at least it had seemed so to Bess. She had been protected and cosseted, just like Gussie. But she was growing up fast.

Since they had to talk to their attorney, Bess asked the driver to drop them by the lawyer's office on the way home. They could get a cab when they were through, she said, wondering even then how she'd pay for it. But the driver wouldn't hear of it. He promised to wait for them, an unexpected kindness that almost made Bess cry.

The limousine stopped at the office of their lawyer, Donald Hughes, a pleasant man with blue eyes and a kind heart, who was as much a friend as he was legal counsel. He sat down with Bess and Gussie and outlined what they'd have to do.

“As I've already told you, the house will have to go,” he said, glancing from one woman to the other.

Bess nodded. “We've already faced that. Mother has a few jewels left—”

“I won't sell the rest of my jewels,” Gussie broke in, leaning forward.

“But you'll have to,” Bess began.

“I will not,” Gussie said shortly. “And that's the end of it.”

Bess sighed. “Well, I have a few pieces left. I can sell those...”

“Not Great-aunt Dorie's pearls,” Gussie burst out. “I absolutely forbid it!”

“They're probably fake anyway,” Bess said, avoiding her mother's eyes. “You know Great-aunt Dorie loved costume jewelry, and they've never been appraised.” In fact they had, just the other day. Bess had taken them to a jeweler and had been shocked at their value. But she wasn't telling their attorney that, or her mother. She had plans for those pearls.

“That's too bad. It would have helped swell the kitty,” Donald said quietly. “Well, now, about the stocks, bonds and securities...”

What it all boiled down to, Bess realized some minutes later, was that they were declaring bankruptcy. Creditors would have to settle for fifty cents on the dollar, but at least they would get some kind of restitution. But there would be nothing left for Bess and Gussie. It was a bleak picture he painted, of sacrifice and deprivation—at least it was to Gussie.

“I'll kill myself,” she said theatrically.

Bess stared at her. “Wonderful,” she said, her grief and misery making her lash out. “That's just what I need. Two suicides in my immediate family in less than a week.”

Gussie had the grace to look ashamed. “I'm sorry,” she mumbled.

“It won't be as bad as it sounds, Gussie,” Donald told her kindly. “You'd be amazed how many people will sympathize with you. Why, I heard old Jaimie Griggs say yesterday how much he admired you for carrying on so valiantly.”

“He did?” Gussie smiled. “How nice of him.”

“And Bess's idea about the two of you renting the house is a sound one, provided you can find a buyer,” Donald said. “Put it on the market and we'll see what develops. Meanwhile I'll need your signature on a few documents.”

“All right,” Gussie said, and she seemed to brighten at the thought that she might get to stay in her home.

“What about the Hollisters?” Bess said quietly. “You do know that Cade's going to need every penny back. We can't ask him to settle for fifty cents on the dollar, and he's the biggest investor.”

“Yes.” Donald sighed through his teeth. “Cade is going to have one big headache. He's careful with his money. He never puts up more than he can afford to lose, but he was generous with his investment in your father's venture. He'll have to cut back heavily to keep going if he doesn't recover that capital. They'll be in for some more lean times. A pity, when they'd just begun to see daylight financially.”

“He did it of his own free will,” Gussie said indignantly.

“Yes, so he did,” Donald agreed. “But all the law will see is that he invested in a guaranteed market. Your father gave him that guarantee, in writing, and I'm sure he can produce it.”

“Isn't that a bit unusual in a risky venture like Dad's?” Bess asked, leaning forward.

“As a matter of fact, it is,” Donald said. “But it's quite legal. Cade has the right to expect every penny of his investment back, under the terms of the contract.”

“I can see myself now, eighty years old and still sending Cade a check for ten dollars every month.” Bess began to laugh, and the laughter turned to tears. It seemed so hopeless. Her father was dead, the family was disgraced, and to top it all, she was going to be saddled with a debt that would last all her life, with no one to help. Gussie would be no more support than a broken stick. She'd be saddled with Gussie, too, wailing and demanding pretty things like a petulant child and giving Bess hell when she pointed out their circumstances. It was almost too much to bear.

“Oh, Bess, you mustn't,” Gussie burst out, shocked by the tears. Bess never cried! “Darling, it will be all right.”

“Of course it will,” Bess said with a choke in her voice. She dabbed at her tears. “Sorry. I guess I'm just tired.”

Donald nodded, but he knew very well what Bess was going to be up against with Gussie. She would have had a hard time without the older woman. With her the task would be well-nigh impossible.

Later that day, several neighbors came by the Samsons' bringing food, a custom in rural areas that Bess was grateful for. Elise Hollister had sent a fried chicken and some vegetables, but she hadn't come herself, and neither had Cade. Bess wondered why, but she accepted the food with good grace and thanks. Shortly after Maude had helped Bess set a table with the platters of food brought by their few friends, Gussie went up to bed with a headache. Bess got Great-aunt Dorie's pearls and drove to the Hollister home.

She rambled quietly over several cattle grids, inside electrified wire fence stretched over rustic gray posts. The house wasn't palatial at all, but it looked comfortable. Her eyes roamed lovingly over the white clapboard, two stories tall, newly painted with gray rocking chairs and a swing on the porch. Around it were towering live oaks and pecan trees, and in the spring it was glorious with the flowers Elise painstakingly planted and nurtured. Now, in winter, it had a bleak, sad look about it.

Bess parked the car in the driveway and got out, grateful for the porch light. It was almost dark, and there was no moon.

She walked slowly up onto the porch. It had been a terrible day, and it showed no sign of getting better. She hadn't changed out of the black suit she'd worn to the funeral, nor had she added any makeup to her face or loosened her hair from the severe bun.

She knocked on the door, hearing a television set blaring in the background.

To her amazement Elise answered the door herself. She had Cade's dark eyes and silver hair that had been jet-black in her younger days.

“Bess,” she said gently. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to see Cade,” Bess replied wearily. “Is he home?”

Elise was astute. She noticed the jewelry box clutched in Bess's slender hand. “Darling, we're not going to starve,” the older woman told her. “Please, Bess, go home. You've had enough on you these past few days.”

“Don't,” Bess whispered, fighting tears. “I really can't bear sympathy, Elise, I'll just go to pieces, and I can't. Not yet.”

The older woman nodded. “All right.” She managed a quiet smile. “Cade's in his office. It's the second door on the right.” She glanced toward the living room. “The boys are watching television, so you won't be disturbed.”

“Thank you. For everything. The fried chicken was delicious, and mother said to thank you, too.”

Elise started to say something, but she stopped before the words got out. “It was the least I could do. I would have come, but the boys were busy with an emergency and there was nobody to drive me.”

“You don't have to explain. We appreciate what you did,” Bess said softly. “I wish I could cook.”

“It's a shame Gussie wouldn't let Maude teach you,” Elise said.

Bess sighed. “Maude leaves at the end of the week,” she said. “We had to let her go, of course.” She tried to smile. “I'll practice the trial-and-error cookery method. After I've burned up a few things, surely I'll get the hang of it.”

Elise smiled. “Of course you will. If we can do anything...”

“Thank you.” She touched the older woman's shoulder gently and turned down the long hall.

She knocked at the second door.

“Come in.”

Cade sounded tired, too, and irritated. That wasn't encouraging. She opened the door and went in, leaning back against the cool wood for support. Her eyes cast briefly around the room. It was almost ramshackle compared with its counterpart at the Spanish House, with worn linoleum on the floor and equally worn throw rugs. The chairs were faded with age, and the paintings on the wall dated to the twenties. There was a small lamp on Cade's desk, along with stacks of ledgers and paperwork.