Paper Rose (21 page)

Cecily was proud that she understood enough about their problems to speak with authority about the methods which might be used to improve conditions on their reservation. She even made suggestions that delighted them.

One of the older members of the tribe actually grinned at her on the way out of her office.

“You're not half-bad,” he murmured.

She grinned back, recognizing this as a compliment. “Thank you.”

 

The sleet kept coming down. It wasn't such an odd thing for November in Washington, but Cecily hadn't listened to the weather reports and now she was sorry. She was wearing slick-soled little stacked-heel shoes and it was going to be the very devil to get to her car in the parking lot.

She wondered if Tate had gotten the message she'd left on his answering machine, about the stories in the paper. She wanted him to know that she hadn't given such a sensational lie to the press, but she also wanted him to know that Audrey had told her about the wedding. She'd only passed along what she'd heard from the woman. It probably wouldn't make any difference, but she wanted to clear her name. She wasn't vicious enough to do something like that to him, knowing how sacred his privacy was to him.

She never saw the dark car that had been sitting in the parking lot for several minutes before she came out the door. She didn't know that its driver had been studying her movements all week.

When she started toward her car, the vehicle with its engine idling suddenly shot into gear and sped toward her, its chains holding it in the ruts made by other departing cars.

Cecily, her mind on the pleasant end to the meeting in her office, was watching her feet. She heard the car, but only when the noise became disturbing did she look up, just in time to see it heading straight for her, with its headlights blinding her.

She threw up an arm and gasped, leaping to one side just in the nick of time to avoid being hit head-on. Her feet, predictably, went right out from under her on the slick ice coating the pavement. She cried out as she fell over the concrete bar of an empty parking spot and went careening down the small rise that bordered the parking lot and right into the path of an oncoming car. The last thing she remembered was the horrible squeal of tires on slick pavement.

 

She came to in the emergency room. Her hands went immediately to her belly and she looked around for a doctor, a nurse, anyone who could reassure her.

A nurse caught her eyes and smiled. “It's all right,” she said gently. “The baby's fine.”

Cecily let out the breath she'd been holding. Thank God for miracles!

“But you've got some nasty bruises and a sprained wrist,” the nurse continued. “The doctor wants you admitted so that we can observe you overnight. You were concussed, you know.”

“I've got a dreadful headache,” Cecily murmured, shaken.

“He'll give you something for that presently. Slipped on the ice, did you?”

Cecily hesitated. “Sort of.” She didn't want to say what had really happened, not until she had a chance to talk to Matt Holden. The car had deliberately tried to hit her. If she hadn't jumped in time, she might have been killed. As it was, falling into the path of traffic had almost cost her her life anyway. She was too upset to discuss it now.

The nurse smiled. “Is there someone we can notify for you? Any family?”

Cecily's eyes closed as the drugs they'd given her began to work. “I have no family,” she mumbled drowsily. “None at all.”

It was true, although Leta would have been astonished to hear her say it. Leta would have come right over, but Cecily wasn't doing that to her, not on her honeymoon. She and Matt had slipped off to Nassau for a few days, and Cecily wasn't going to be the cause of bringing them back. Besides, she thought, the baby was her family now. She placed her hands over her thickened waist with a dreamy smile, pushing to the back of her mind the reality of what had almost happened.

 

Two days later, they let her out, after a battery of tests and with a bandage on her wrist to keep it straight while it healed. Fortunately it was her left hand, not her right one, so she would be able to get on with her work.

The reporters hadn't come looking for her in the hospital, thank God. But then, there was a juicy new scandal going on in Washington, and Matt Holden's wicked past had just been relegated to history.

Cecily did wonder where Tate had gone. Probably he'd taken Audrey off to some hideaway. It was something of a statement of intent that he'd brought her to his parents' wedding. Every time she thought about that, for the rest of her life, Cecily was going to see Tate turning away from her. Nothing had ever hurt quite as much.

Not that she'd forgotten what had happened in the parking lot at work. She didn't know what to do. She should probably tell someone, because if the driver had meant to kill her, he'd probably try again. The only people she could think of who had a reason to hurt her were the gambling people whose leader was in jail pending trial. It was a scary thought that someone out there might want her dead.

She dressed into loose sweatpants and a matching blue sweatshirt and made herself a pot of decaf in the kitchen. She fixed herself half a bagel with some no-fat cream cheese and nibbled it halfheartedly at the kitchen table while she waited for the scalding coffee to cool. She wasn't really hungry, but she had to eat for the baby's sake.

“Sorry, little guy,” she murmured, staring at the unappetizing bagel. She put it down. “It should be vegetables and fruits and fish and high-protein dried beans, huh? I'll go shopping tomorrow…”

The doorbell rang. Surely that would be Colby. He was already overdue back from his trip. She could tell him what had happened, and he'd take care of it. She felt a burst of relief as she opened the door with a smile that went into immediate eclipse. And found Tate there.

He stared at her, taking in her wan complexion, her short hair, her glasses perched back on her nose because she wasn't able to manage the contacts with the bandage on her wrist. He was wearing a black turtleneck with black slacks. He looked very sophisticated. With his hair short, he didn't look very much like a Lakota at all.

“What do you want?” Cecily asked quietly, and without welcome.

His chest expanded and fell. “I need to talk to you.”

“We don't have anything to talk about,” she said stiffly, remembering his harsh words at their last meeting, at Leta's wedding.

“Like hell we don't. You've been in the hospital,” he said sharply. “They took you off in an ambulance two days ago.”

How had he known that? “I fell on the ice,” she said, quickly averting her eyes. “I'm fine.”

He just stared at her, looking disturbed and worried. “You told the staff at the hospital that you had no family to notify.”

“I haven't,” she said matter-of-factly and glared up at him. “Except maybe Leta. She and Matt are in Nassau on a belated honeymoon, and I wasn't about to have them bothered.”

That seemed to bother him. He leaned against the doorjamb, frowning. “No matter what disagreements we have, you'll always be family to me.”

She wondered how he'd felt about her phone message. She almost asked, but there wasn't much point.

She lifted her chin. She didn't smile. “I'm very tired,” she said. “If that's all you wanted to say…”

He was oddly hesitant. “Well, no, it isn't. Cecily, it would be more comfortable if we talked sitting down. Wouldn't it?”

She didn't want him in her apartment. She was worn and sore and half sick, and the sight of him hurt her. Her eyes told him so.

“Please go away, Tate,” she said wearily. “We've already said everything that needs saying. You get on with your life, and let me try to find some peace in mine.”

“I can't do that,” he said, his voice even more strained. He propelled her gently back into the apartment and closed the door with a snap. His expression wasn't easily read. It ran the gamut from concern to wounded curiosity. “I've had a man watching you since the story broke. You didn't take a fall on the ice, Cecily. A car tried to run you down, and damned near succeeded. You're going to tell me what's going on. Right now!”

C
ecily glared at Tate, but she gave in. She led him into the small living room and offered him a seat on the sofa. She curled up in her armchair, full of resentment and hurt and trying not to let it show. If only her heartbeat would slow down. If only she could forget how it felt to be close to him, held by him. But he was only concerned about her for old time's sake.

“Anytime today,” he prompted tersely, tossing his overcoat onto the seat beside him.

“I was walking to my car when I looked up and a dark-colored sedan seemed to be aiming itself right at me. I jumped out of the way, slid on the ice, rolled down a small grassy embankment and, apparently, right into the path of an oncoming car. It must have had chains and good brakes, because it barely brushed me. I had a concussion and I sprained my wrist from the way I landed.” She held it up to show him the bandage. “They kept me for observation, and bandaged my wrist. I'm all right.”

She was giving him only the bare bones. She looked paler than ever, drawn, worried. He hated knowing that she could have been killed. “Did you tell the doctor not to release the information on your chart to anyone?” he asked.

She blinked. “Yes.” She had, because she was afraid Tate might find out about the accident and start digging. She didn't want him to know about the child.

“Why?” he asked curtly.

She met his eyes, trying not to let the uneasiness she felt show. “Because it's nobody's business but mine,” she replied emphatically. His expression was so grim that she added, “I don't have anything fatal, if that's why you look so worried.”

He seemed to relax a little. Not much. He leaned forward to study her. The bruise high up on his cheek where Matt had hit him had gone away. “Who has a reason to want to kill you?”

She linked her hands together in her lap. “I can't imagine that I have enemies myself. Maybe somebody was after Colby,” she added, voicing one fear she hadn't been able to shake. “He does some freelance work, and people know that he spends a lot of time here,” she added matter-of-factly.

“Yes. He spends a lot of time here,” he said icily. “So, in other words, maybe they were trying to get at Colby through you.”

She nodded. “It's rather far-fetched, though.”

“Not so far-fetched. It could even have been someone trying to settle a score with me,” he said irritably, running a restless hand through his short hair. He glanced at her. “Then there's Matt Holden.”

She nodded. “That's what I thought. A lot of shady people lost a lot of their ill-gotten gains because of him, and several of them are facing jail terms over what happened at Wapiti.” She shifted her legs. “They want revenge. They can't get to Matt or Leta. He has around-the-clock protection. It's highly unlikely that they'd target Tom Black Knife again. And only an idiot would go after you,” she mused. “I seem to be the one weak link in the chain, and Leta and Matt are fond of me. Maybe they decided to go after someone they could get. At least, that's how it seems to me.”

He nodded solemnly. “That's the same conclusion the man who's watching your apartment and I came to.”

She shifted again, trying to get more comfortable. “What are the odds of getting me in the witness protection program?” she jibed.

“About as good as my odds of getting the lead in the next Batman movie. You didn't see anything that you could testify to.”

She sighed. “Then if you've got someone watching me, can I assume that he can use a gun if he needs to?” she asked uneasily.

“Yes. But you're my responsibility…”

“I am not.” Her voice was much calmer than her turbulent eyes. “I've been your responsibility for the past eight years. That's over. I live alone. On any normal day, I can take care of myself. All I need is someone to watch out for me until this blows over and the ringleaders of the plot go to prison.”

His expression wasn't reassuring. “Cecily, people escape prison terms all the time through technicalities or well-meaning jurors. There's no guarantee of a conviction. Even if there is, these people have plenty of clout on the outside. They can pay someone to get to you, or have someone on the outside do it for them.”

She felt sickness whirl in the pit of her stomach. He was outlining a nightmare. It was worse than he could imagine, too, because he didn't know about the baby she was carrying. She looked at him hungrily, wishing she could tell him. But the news wouldn't be welcome. She didn't dare tell him about the child.

“I'm not leaving you alone, even with a good shadow,” he said firmly. “So either you move in with me, or I sleep on the couch here. Your choice.”

“Where will Audrey sleep?” she asked coldly.

He looked outraged. “At her own apartment,” he said flatly.

She was really in the fire now. She couldn't stay with him; she had morning sickness. Tate wasn't stupid. It wouldn't take him long to connect her continual nausea and fatigue with pregnancy. She couldn't have that.

“I can stay with Matt and Leta when they come home,” she lied. Leta would see her pregnancy long before she was told about it. She didn't dare go and stay with Leta, but she wasn't telling him that.

Tate knew she'd be safe with his parents. But it wounded him that she was so determined not to let him protect her. He and Audrey had gone together to the wedding because he didn't want to face it alone. Perhaps he'd done it deliberately to wound Cecily, too, for hiding the truth from him and telling lies to the press. But Audrey had become so possessive and insanely jealous that he hadn't seen the woman since the wedding. He wanted to tell Cecily that, but her expression told him she wasn't going to believe him. He couldn't blame her. He'd traded on his relationship, such as it was, with Audrey for too long already. He'd played hell, and his lack of foresight was coming back to haunt him.

“Or I can stay with Colby when he comes back,” she added deliberately. She even smiled. “He'll take care of me.”

His black eyes narrowed. “He can barely take care of himself,” he said flatly. “He's a lost soul. He can't escape the past or face the future without Maureen. He isn't ready for a relationship with anyone else, even if he thinks he is!”

She didn't rise to the bait. “I can count on Colby. He'll help me if I need it.”

He looked frustrated. “But you won't let me help you.”

“Colby isn't involved with anyone who'd be jealous of the time he spent looking out for me. That's the difference.”

He let out an angry breath and his eyes began to glitter. “You have to beat the subject to death, I guess.”

She managed to look indifferent. “You have your own life to live, Tate. I'm not part of it anymore. You've made that quite clear.”

His teeth clenched. “Is it really that easy for you to throw the past away?” he asked.

“That's what you want,” she reminded him. There was a perverse pleasure in watching his eyes narrow. “You said you'd never forget or forgive me,” she added evenly. “I took you at your word. I'll always have fond memories of you and Leta. But I'm a grown woman. I have a career, a future. I've dragged you down financially for years, without knowing it. Now that I do…”

“For God's sake!” he burst out, rising to pace with his hands clenched in his pockets. “I could have sent you to Harvard if you'd wanted to go there, and never felt the cost!”

“You're missing the point,” she said, feeling nausea rise in her throat and praying it wouldn't over-flow. “I could have worked my way through school, paid for my own apartment and expenses. I wouldn't have minded. But you made me beholden to you in a way I can never repay.”

He stopped pacing and glared at her. “Have I asked for repayment?”

She smiled in spite of herself. “You look just like Matt when you glower that way.”

The glare got worse.

She held up a hand. “I know. You don't want to talk about that. Sorry.”

“Everyone else wants to talk about it,” he said irritably. “I've done nothing but dodge reporters ever since the story broke. What a hell of a way to do it, on national television!”

“Matt didn't have much choice,” she stated. “If he'd tried to keep it under wraps, the media frenzy would have been even worse. He's a powerful member of the Senate. He had to think about damage control or kiss his career goodbye.”

Tate knew that, but it didn't make him feel much better. “They need to go back to news four times a day instead of around-the-clock,” he said. “They've got too much time to fill and not enough real stories to fill it with.”

“Don't tell me,” she said. “Tell them.”

He studied her thin, wan face. “Are you sick?” he asked suddenly.

“No. Why?”

He moved closer. “Your face is like rice-paper.”

“I had a bad fall. It shook me up, but I'm fine,” she assured him.

He wasn't buying it. There was something different about her. It wasn't just the fall, or the scare she'd had. He couldn't quite decide what it was.

“You're staring,” she pointed out with growing uneasiness.

“Something's changed,” he replied slowly. “There's a difference in you.”

She forced herself not to react to his suspicions. “I've grown up. I have a responsible job and constant disagreements with various groups of people over exhibits,” she said. “Plus the very real competition of another Native American museum that has more contributors, more exhibits and more space than we do. We're almost redundant.”

“You're unique,” he disagreed. “It may be a small museum, but it has a real feel for native issues. It isn't as full of bureaucrats as some of the others.”

“Thank you,” she said, surprised.

He shrugged. He stopped just in front of her, his eyes narrowed in thought. “You're hiding something, Cecily,” he said, and her heart jumped because there was conviction in it. There had always been a bond between them, but he felt it more now than ever before. And it wasn't just because they'd been intimate. There was something…more.

She folded her hands on her pants and tried to look nonchalant. “I can't hide anything from you,” she said. “You'd see right through a lie.”

“I didn't see through you when you kept the truth about my father from me.”

She grimaced. That would always be a sore spot with him, she knew, and there was nothing she could say that would make a good defense. “You seem to forget that you did your own bit of lying, Tate,” she replied, lifting her eyes to his. “You were keeping me from the time I was seventeen, and I had to find it out from Audrey.”

His lips made a thin line. “I kept it from you for your own good.”

She held out a hand, palm up. “Exactly. What good would it have done you to know that Matt was your father until you had to be told?”

He didn't speak. His hand jiggled the loose change in his pocket.

“He agonized over how to tell you, you know,” she said, her voice a little softer. “If he could have, he'd have kept the knowledge from you for the rest of your life. So would Leta.”

“Why?” he demanded.

“Because you were so proud of being a full-blooded Lakota,” she said evenly. “Nothing mattered more to you. They knew how badly it was going to hurt you, and Leta was afraid that you might hate her when you knew the truth.”

“Jack Winthrop hated me,” he said coldly.

“Yes. Because he couldn't have children of his own. You were a constant reminder of it. He loved Leta and she loved someone else. You were a reminder of that, too.”

He looked away. “One lie. And it still makes ripples.”

She nodded. “Even good lies do damage,” she said introspectively.

He stared at the wall for a minute before he turned back to her. “All right,” he said decisively. “If you're determined to stay here, I'll put two men nearby and have you watched around-the-clock.” He held up a hand when she started to protest. “Colby hasn't contacted any of us, so I assume he's still undercover somewhere out of the country. This is the only workable solution. I'm not going to let you get killed over this.”

“Thanks,” she murmured.

“But I'd like a straight answer to one question.”

She pondered that. “If I can,” she said finally.

He moved closer. “Why don't you want me here?”

That was a complicated question and she didn't dare give him a truthful answer. She searched his lean, beloved face. “You don't belong to me,” she said finally, choosing her reply carefully. “You're engaged to another woman.”

He frowned. That wasn't the answer he'd expected.

He was going to tell her the truth about Audrey when the doorbell rang. He turned, his hand smoothly going under his jacket to the .45 holstered there. He motioned Cecily back into her chair and moved toward the door.