Rivals (28 page)

The foreman looked at Flame, then hesitated, his glance slicing to the physician standing beside her. “What about Doc, Miss Hattie?”

“Tell him…tell him to leave.” She made a feeble attempt to grip the foreman's hand. “You and Ben, I want you to stay.”

“We will.” With a jerk of his head, he directed the doctor to the door, then motioned for Flame to approach the bed.

The physician looked none too pleased with the request, but he didn't argue. “I'll be right outside if you need me, Charlie.”

As he slipped quietly from the room, closing the door behind him, Flame walked slowly to the bed, gripped by a vague sense of déjà vu. The surroundings, the circumstances, the individuals were all different. This was not a hospital room. It was not her mother lying in the bed. There had been no accident. Yet the poignant feeling was the same—the feeling that this was going to be the last time she would see Hattie alive.

Charlie Rainwater stepped to one side, making room for her as Flame came up to take his place next to the bed. The shadows seemed to lift, allowing a clear view of the woman, her head and shoulders propped by a mound of feather pillows. That cloud of white hair was the same, but the face looked older, much older than Flame remembered. That parchment-fine skin was furrowed with lines of pain, lips pinched and pale. And the deathly white of her face was only intensified by the pink satin of her old-fashioned quilted bed jacket.

Swallowing to ease the constriction in her throat, Flame smiled faintly. “Hello, Hattie. It's me—Margaret Rose.”

Her eyelids fluttered open, revealing a pair of dark, nearly black eyes that tried to focus on her. “Margaret Rose?” A deep frown creased her already lined brow. “Come closer. I can't see you.” Obligingly, Flame sat on the edge of the bed and leaned toward the woman. Those dark eyes brightened, relief shimmering through them. “Your hair.” A gnarled hand lifted briefly, as if to touch Flame's hair, but she lacked the strength, and the hand fell weakly back. “It is you.” She breathed the words, softly, faintly.

‘Yes.” Flame covered the bony, age-spotted hand with her own and squeezed it lightly.

Anger suddenly blackened Hattie's eyes, turning them sharp and accusing. “You promised me. You gave me your word. How could you do it?”

“Do what? I don't understand.” She frowned, recalling a promise of some sort, but it was all too vague.

Hattie's head moved against the pillows in obvious agitation as she ranted on, giving no sign that she'd heard Flame's reply. “You swore you wouldn't do anything until we talked. How could you let yourself be taken in by him? I thought you were smarter than that. I tried to warn you about him. I tried.”

“What are you talking about?
Who
are you talking about?” Flame demanded, half-convinced the pain was making Hattie delirious.

“Why did you have to go and marry him?” Her fingers closed fiercely around Flame's. “Why didn't you see through him?”

“Chance? You're talking about Chance?” She stiffened in disbelief.

“It isn't too late, Margaret Rose.” Dark eyes fastened on her. “We can get your marriage annulled. Ben can get it annulled.”

“I don't want an annulment.” Flame pulled her hand back and shot a quick look at the wiry foreman. “She doesn't know what she's saying.”

“Listen,” he urged quietly, the white curl of his long mustache moving slightly with the sympathetic smile that lifted the corners of his mouth.

“He's using you, Margaret Rose.” That rasping voice reached out to her again. “Stuart only married you so he could get control of Morgan's Walk.”

“That's nonsense.” Flame stood up, her whole body rigid with denial.

“It's true, I tell you.” For an instant, there was hard force behind her voice, then Hattie subsided weakly against the pillows, more pain twisting through her face. “It's true,” she whispered. “He thought I would have to leave it to him when I died. But I fooled him. I found you.” Her eyes closed. “He found you, too, though. I don't know how. You can't let him have Morgan's Walk. You have to stop him, Margaret Rose.” Her head moved from side to side against the pillows, her voice growing fainter. “I promised my grandfather on his deathbed that no Stuart would ever get his hands on this land. You must keep that promise. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, I hear you.” The woman was mad. It was the only possible explanation that made any sense to Flame at all. Chance loved her and she loved him. That was the basis for their marriage—not all this nonsense about Morgan's Walk. But why did she keep going on about it? What could she mean?

“Don't…don't ever trust him. The Stuarts are a ruthless breed. They'll do anything…even murder to get what…they want.” She was slipping deeper into the blackness of pain. She seemed to know it as she made one last valiant attempt to fight it off. “Ben will tell you. Ben and Charlie. They have the proof. They'll show you. Won't you? Ben? Charlie?” An edge of fear crept into her voice for the first time.

“We're here.” The old foreman quickly stepped to the bed, the brightness of tears in his eyes as he reached down to cradle her hand between his callused palms. “Ben and me, we'll explain everything just like you would have done.”

“The pain, Charlie.” There was a hint of a sob in her voice. “I don't think I can take it anymore.”

“You don't have to, Miss Hattie.” With a turn of his head, he looked over his shoulder at the attorney standing well back from the bed. In a voice husky and thick, he said, “Take Miss Margaret Rose down to the library, Ben, and have Doc Gibbs come back in.”

“Of course.” Stepping forward, the diminutive attorney lightly touched her arm. Frozen inside with a mixture of grief, disbelief, and confusion, Flame let herself be led from the room.

20

T
he
library occupied a secluded corner of the mansion's first floor, its tall, small-paned windows looking out onto the tree-shaded rear lawn. Rich paneling of black oak lined three sides of the room, while bookshelves stretched from floor to ceiling on the fourth. A pair of wing-backed chairs, covered in burgundy leather and studded with brass, flanked the imported marble fireplace, the pair of them mates to the chesterfield sofa that faced them.

Alone in the room, Flame wandered over to the large mahogany desk that took up one whole corner. Yet she couldn't escape the sensation that there were eyes following her. She pivoted sharply and faced the portrait that hung above the mantel. There he was, glaring at her in silent accusation. No matter where she went in the room, it was the same.

She stared at the man in the painting. Over the years, an accumulation of smoke and grime had dulled its colors, but it hadn't lessened the impact of that strong-jawed face or those piercing black eyes. And the hair visible beneath the wide brim of his western hat had a definite red cast to it, although Flame wasn't ready to concede that originally it might have been the same fiery gold color as hers.

“Hattie frequently stared at the portrait like that, too.” The remark came from the library's arched entrance with its set of sliding pocket doors. Flame swung toward them, startled to see the attorney in the opening, his short arms laden with a large tray holding a silver coffee service and china cups. “Imposing, isn't it?” He walked into the room, the thick rubber soles of his oxfords making little sound on the hardwood floor.

“I assume that's Kell Morgan.” Her teeth, her nerves, and her temper were all on edge.

“Hattie told you about him?” He sent her a questioning look as he awkwardly set the tray down on the occasional table next to the wing chair, rattling the china cups against each other in the process.

Again Flame observed the innate shrewdness of his eyes and reminded herself that this little man was not as jolly or as harmless as he appeared. “She mentioned that her grandfather's portrait hung above the fireplace in the library.”

“Yes, of course.” He wrapped a pudgy hand around the silver handle of the coffee service and picked it up. “I know you said you didn't use it, but I brought some cream anyway. Charlie made the coffee earlier, and—around here—cowboys like their coffee black and thick. So you might want to dilute yours with a little cream.”

But Flame wasn't interested in talking about coffee or cream. She wanted answers to those ridiculous charges Hattie had made. “What was all that nonsense Hattie was saying about Chance?”

Ben Canon hesitated a fraction of a second, then finished filling one of the cups with coffee. “I'm afraid it wasn't nonsense.”

“You're wrong.” He had to be. “In the first place, Chance would never have expected to inherit Morgan's Walk, even if he knew about the place. She must have been delirious when she said that. She told me that it had to pass to a direct descendant.”

“Your husband is Hattie's nephew.”

“But—how can that be?” She'd always understood that Chance had no family—none at all.

“His mother was Hattie's baby sister.” The lawyer glanced at her, a knowing gleam lighting his eyes. “Obviously he didn't tell you that.”

“No.” Why? Why hadn't he told her? Why had he kept it a secret? Had he done it deliberately? Or, like her, had he simply not gotten around to mentioning Hattie?

“I'm afraid there are a great many other things that he has failed to tell you as well.”

“That's what you say,” she charged. “But I don't believe you. I don't believe any of this. Where's all this supposed proof Hattie was talking about? Show it to me—if you can.”

He held her gaze for a long, considering second, then shook his head. “I prefer to wait until Charlie joins us.”

“Why? What difference does it make whether he's here or not? Or is he your proof?” Flame challenged, armed by the memory of Chance saying, “No matter what anyone tells you, remember that I love you.” “You surely don't expect me to accept his word for this, because I won't.”

As if on cue, she heard the clump of booted footsteps in the hall outside the library. Flame glanced at the doorway as Charlie Rainwater appeared. Grief bowed his shoulders and shadowed the faded blue of his eyes.

“Hattie?” That was all Ben Canon said, just her name, but that one word was loaded with question. Flame unconsciously held her breath, bracing herself for the old foreman's answer. However much as she might resent Hattie's unfounded accusations against Chance, she couldn't pretend, not even to herself, that she wouldn't be touched by the old woman's passing.

The droop of his mustache lifted slightly as Charlie Rainwater made an attempt to gather himself. “She's resting for now,” he said. “The doc's gonna sit with her.”

The attorney nodded, but made no comment as he turned to the serving tray on the table. “I brought in some of that coffee you made, Charlie. Would you like me to pour a cup? I seem to have been elected by default to do the honors.”

“I sure would,” he accepted readily, his long legs carrying him into the room, the thud of his heeled boots echoing hollowly in the high-ceilinged room and increasing the feeling Flame had that they had gathered here to keep a lonely deathwatch.

“Would you like to change your mind, Margaret Rose, and have a cup with us?” the attorney offered again, the spout of the coffee server poised above the third cup.

“No. And please stop using that name. My mother's the only one who ever called me that.” Her mother—and Hattie.

“That's right. You're known as Flame, aren't you?” Ben Canon recalled, his sharp eyes sliding to the red of her hair. “A most descriptive sobriquet.”

“I'm really not interested in your opinion, Mr. Canon—only in the explanation you promised to give me once Mr. Rainwater joined us.”

“Yes, so I did.” He took a sip of his coffee, and peered up at the considerably taller foreman. “It seems her husband failed to mention that he was Hattie's nephew.”

“He is. That's true enough, ma'am.” Charlie Rainwater took a hurried and noisy slurp of coffee, then wiped at the clipped ends of his mustache with the back of his forefinger. “He was born right here in this house—in the room right next to Miss Hattie's. If you don't believe me, you can ask Doc Gibbs. He was the one who brought him into this world.” Pausing, he stared into the black of his coffee. “A sad day it was, too. I don't reckon any of us expected to see the day come when there'd be a Stuart in this house.”

“But his father—”

Charlie never gave her a chance to finish as he looked up, a cold fire blazing in his eyes. “Ring Stuart was a lazy, no-good hoodlum. He didn't give a hoot about Miss Elizabeth. He just wanted the easy life Morgan's Walk could give him. Miss Hattie tried to tell her that, but Miss Elizabeth wouldn't listen. Her eyes were so full of him, she couldn't see anything else.” He gave a wry shake of his head, but there was little humor in the slant of his mouth. “That really ain't so surprising, I guess. Them Stuarts always did have more charm in their little fingers than most men got in their whole body. So what does Miss Elizabeth do, but run off and marry him. With her being of legal age, there wasn't much Miss Hattie could do about it. She tried. We all tried. But once Miss Elizabeth married him, Miss Hattie had no choice but to turn her out. That hurt her. That hurt her bad. She loved that girl. Raised her from the time she was born, and she was just a kid herself.”

“But how could Chance have been born here if Hattie threw his mother out?”

“'Cause she took her back. Miss Elizabeth got real sick and there he was not taking care of her like he should. Miss Hattie couldn't stand that, and Stuart knew it. I warned her that she was playin' right into his hands when she brought them both back to Morgan's Walk, but she said it was better to have the devil close so she could keep an eye on him and know what he was up to. We all knew what he figured. With Miss Hattie being so much older than Miss Elizabeth, he thought she would die first and his wife would get Morgan's Walk—and he'd have control of it. But it didn't work that way. Miss Elizabeth got blood cancer. Many's the time you could see it workin' in his mind to hurry Miss Hattie's demise along, but he couldn't twitch a hair without somebody seein' it. That's when he started drinking—out of frustration mostly.” He cupped both leathered hands around the delicate china cup. “I reckon he had reason to be frustrated, 'cause he sure didn't get Morgan's Walk like he wanted—like he tried to do.”