The Cowboy and the Lady (13 page)

“When are you getting married, Mother?” Amanda asked, just beginning to realize that Reese would inherit the responsibility for her mother and her mother’s debts.

“Next week!” Bea sighed. “I wanted more time, but Reese was simply adamant, so I gave in. I’m so excited!”

“Yes, so am I.” Amanda smiled, pressing her mother’s fingers. Bea was such a child, so full of ups and downs, so sparkling bright, like an amber jewel. Amanda couldn’t help loving her, even while she blanched at some of her escapades and spending sprees.

“Mother, about the trousseau…we don’t have very much in the bank…” Amanda began cautiously.

“Oh, I’m buying the trousseau—it’s my wedding gift,” Marguerite said with a happy sigh. “I can’t wait to get started. Bea, we simply must go to Saks tomorrow morning early. There’s so little time…!”

“Yes, indeed,” Bea agreed, and launched into the reception plans.

Amanda sat beside her, listening, smiling now and then at her mother’s exuberance, and only going upstairs when the afternoon had drifted away to change for supper and worry about Jace’s reaction. She had a horrible premonition that he wasn’t going to be at all pleased.

She dressed carefully in a becoming gray skirt with an embroidered pink blouse, noting with pleasure the way it molded her slender body. The fit was perfect, and though the clothes were two years old, they didn’t show it. Amanda took excellent care of her wardrobe, making innovative alterations to keep it up to date. A scarf here, some jewelry there, the addition of a stylish blouse to an old but classic suit made all the difference. Shoes had been a problem at first, but she quickly learned to buy at the end of the season, when prices were slashed. She never bought anything except during sales. She couldn’t afford to.

She was just running a brush through her long hair when there was a slight tap on the door and her mother came in, vividly captivating in a pale pink dress that highlighted her rosy complexion and exquisitely coiffed hair.

“I thought we might go downstairs together,” Bea suggested softly. “I…well, I know Jason doesn’t like me, and he’s much less likely to say something if I’m with you,” she added with a nervous smile. “You haven’t told him about the bull, have you, darling?”

“No, Mother,” Amanda replied soothingly. She put down the brush and hugged her petite mother. “I’m so glad you’ve found someone. I know how lonely you’ve been these last few years.”

“Not so very lonely, my dear,” Bea replied. She touched her daughter’s cheek. “I had you, after all.”

Amanda smiled. “We had each other.”

Bea nodded. She studied her daughter’s face intently. “Marguerite said that you and Jason are…softening toward one another. Is that so?”

Amanda blushed fiercely and turned away. “I’m not sure. I don’t know if he even likes me.”

“Amanda…” Bea bit her lower lip. “Dear, I’ve often wondered if all that arguing between you wasn’t really an indication of something much deeper than dislike. You’ve shied away from Jason for many years. I’d like to think it wasn’t because of my quite ridiculous attitude toward him when you were in your teens. I was a dreadful snob. I only wish I’d realized it at the time, before the damage was done.”

“What damage?”

“Between you and Jace.” Bea studied the carpet. “Amanda, men like Jason Whitehall are very rare creatures. The man’s man isn’t popular these days. Women much prefer softer men who cry and hurt and make mistakes and apologize on bended knee, and that’s all very well, I suppose. It’s a new world, a new generation, with new and better ideas of what life should be.” Her eyes were wistful for a moment. “But men like Jason are a breed apart. They make their own rules and they don’t bend. A woman who’s lucky enough to be loved by a man like that is…blessed.” She drew a long, quiet sigh. “Oh, Mandy, don’t run from him if you love him,” she burst out. “Don’t let the rift I’ve caused between you blind you to Jason’s good qualities. I lost my happiness, but you still have a chance for yours.”

“Mother, I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Amanda whispered blankly.

“You’re such a good girl, my dear,” Bea murmured, her eyes sad and full of vanished dreams. “But it takes so much more than noble intentions with some men…”

“Bea, are you in there?” Marguerite called.

Bea looked faintly irritated. “Yes, dear, we’re coming!” She patted Amanda’s arm. “I’ll try to explain it to you later. I must tell you something, a secret I’ve kept from you. We’ll talk later, all right?”

“Yes, darling,” Amanda replied with a puzzled smile. “Let’s go down.”

* * *

They were sitting in the living room, waiting for dinner to be served, when Jason came in from the office. He looked tired and out of sorts, his silver eyes glittering in a face that showed every day of its age.

He caught sight of Bea as soon as he entered the room, and he seemed to explode.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked the stunned woman. His eyes shot to Amanda’s white face. “A little premature, wasn’t it, calling Mama? I don’t remember making any promises.”

Amanda started to speak, but Bea was quicker. “I invited myself,” she told him, rising like a little blond wraith to face him bravely. “I’m getting married, Jason. I came to invite my daughter to the wedding.”

“Oh, you’re marrying this one?” he asked cuttingly, his eyes openly hating her. “Will you be as faithful to him as you were to that poor damned fool you married last time?”

“Jason, where are your manners?” Marguerite burst out. “Bea’s my friend!”

“Like hell she is,” Jason replied coldly, eyeing Beatrice, and Amanda saw her mother’s face go sheet-white.

“What are you talking about?” Marguerite persisted.

“Ask your…friend,” Jason growled. “She knows, don’t you, Mrs. Carson?” He emphasized the “Mrs.,” making an insult of it.

“Leave my mother alone,” Amanda said, standing. Her eyes fenced with his. “You’ve no right to insult her like that. You don’t know her.”

“Honey, I know more about her than you’d believe,” he replied with a cold smile. “Remind me to tell you one day. It’ll open your eyes.”

“You…you…cowboy!” Amanda threw at him, her lower lip trembling, her eyes bright with tears.

“That sounds more like old times,” he told Amanda, something like a shadow passing over his face. “I like it better when you drop the pretense. I told you once, and I’ll tell you again, you aren’t getting your hands on my money.” He glanced harshly at Bea. “And you might as well send Mama home. I’m not financing her wedding. And neither are you, Mother,” he informed Marguerite coldly. “If you so much as try to buy that well-heeled slut a handkerchief at any department store in town, I’ll close down every account you’ve got.” He turned on his heel and walked out the door, his spine rigid with dislike and temper.

Marguerite threw her arms around Bea. “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry! I don’t know what’s the matter with him!”

Bea wept like a child, tears running down her cheeks. Amanda put her arms around her, taking her from Marguerite, and held her tight.

“It’s all right, Mama,” she cooed, as she had so many times. “It’s going to be all right.”

But even as she said it, she knew better. Her world was upside down, Jace hated her again, and she only wished she knew why. Could he really hold a grudge so long, from childhood, and hate Beatrice for something she’d said to him years ago? Why did he hate her so passionately! And why in the world did he call her a slut? Heaven knew, Bea might be a lot of things, but that wasn’t one of them. She was so proper, always socially correct. She would never dream of soiling her reputation with an extramarital affair. Amanda rocked Bea gently, her eyes meeting Marguerite’s pained ones over the thin shoulder. Jace could be so cruel. Her eyes closed. How could he say such things after the passion that had burned between them like a wildfire out of control? She’d thought that he might care for her, especially after the New York trip, after the kisses they’d shared. But he hadn’t cared. He didn’t care. And how was she going to protect her fragile mother from his unreasonable hatred? She felt like crying herself. The day had begun with such promise, only to end in desolation.

The three women sat down to supper without Jace, who came back downstairs an hour later dressed in brown slacks, a tweed jacket and a white roll-neck shirt. He walked out of the house without a word, probably on his way to see Tess, Amanda guessed.

“Don’t look so tragic, darling,” Bea said gently, sensing her daughter’s depression. “It will all work out. Things do, you know.”

Amanda tried to smile. “Of course they will,” she agreed numbly.

“I could just strangle my son,” Marguerite said under her breath, stabbing viciously at a piece of steak on her plate. “Of all the colossal gall…!”

“Don’t, dear,” Bea pleaded, touching her friend’s manicured hand lightly. “Jace can’t help the way he feels about me, and there is some justification. After all…” She bit her lip jerkily. “After all,” she tried again with a pained glance at Amanda, “it was I who ran into his bull, not Amanda. She wasn’t even driving.”

Marguerite’s eyes widened. “You? But Amanda said…”

“She was trying to protect me. No.” Bea sighed miserably. “That’s not true. I begged her to protect me. Knowing how Jace dislikes me, I was afraid he’d deny me the hospitality of Casa Verde, so I let poor Amanda take the blame for it all…to my shame,” she finished weakly. Her lovely dark eyes misted with tears as she looked at her shocked daughter. “I know I’ve been a trial to you, my dear. I seem to have walked around in a trance since your…since your father’s death.”

“That doesn’t give Jason the right to call you foul names,” Marguerite interrupted, her own dark eyes blazing. “I think it’s outrageous and as soon as he calms down, I’m going to tell him so.”

Amanda couldn’t help the brief smile that twitched her lips. Marguerite was no braver than she when it came to facing Jace’s fiery temper.

The next day passed in a foggy haze, with Bea and Amanda cautiously keeping close to Marguerite’s side and avoiding Jace as much as possible. He managed to find plenty to keep him busy around the ranch and at his office, but the eyes that occasionally glanced Amanda’s way were icy gray, cold. It was as if that magical night had never happened, as if he’d never touched her with tenderness. And Bea, for all her usual gaiety, seemed crushed, almost guilty. Reese Bannon had promised to wire her the money for her trousseau, despite Marguerite’s protests that she wanted the privilege of buying it. The two older women spent most of the day shopping, while Amanda kept to her room and mourned for what might have been.

Bea and Marguerite went to visit a mutual friend that evening after supper, and Amanda returned to her room to change into slacks and a blouse. When she went back down, wandering out onto the darkened porch to enjoy the cool peace of evening, a movement caught her eye and made her start. She’d reached the big rocking chair at the side of the porch when a quiet figure detached itself from the swing and stood up.

“Don’t run away,” Jace said quietly. “I’m not armed.”

She hated the bitterness in his deep voice. The very sound of it was like an ache in her soul. She could hardly bear to be near him after the harsh accusations he’d made. But she sat down in the huge, bare wood rocker and leaned back. The woven cane made a soft, creaking sound as she began to rock. The sound, combining with the murmur of crickets and frogs, was a wild lullaby in the sweet-scented darkness.

“I didn’t think you’d be at home,” she remarked coolly.

“Obviously, or you’d still be hiding in your room,” he said curtly.

She leaned her head back against the rocking chair, gazing out into the darkness. Jace made her feel like a tightly wound rubber band. She felt as remote from him as the moon when he drew into himself like this.

“You sat out here with me once before on a moonless night,” he remarked suddenly, his voice deep and quiet in the stillness. “Remember, Amanda?”

“The night your father died,” she recalled, feeling again the emptiness of the rooms without Judge Whitehall’s domineering presence, the weeping of Marguerite and Bea…“We didn’t say two words.”

He laughed shortly. “You sat beside me and held my hand. Nothing more than that. No tears or wailing, or promises of comfort. You just sat and held my hand.”

“It was all I could think to do,” she admitted. “I knew how deeply you cared about him…even more than Duncan did, I think. You aren’t an easy man to offer comfort to, Jason. Even then I expected you to freeze me out, or tell me to go away. But you didn’t.”

“Men don’t like being vulnerable, honey, didn’t you know?” he asked in a strangely gentle tone, and she remembered another time when he’d made a similar remark. “I wouldn’t have let anyone else near me that night, Amanda, not even Mother, do you know that? You’ve always managed to get close when I’d have slapped anyone else away.” He shifted. “I’d let you bandage a cut that I wouldn’t let a doctor touch.”

She felt her heart pounding. Watch out, she reminded herself, this is just a game to him, and he’s a master player. Don’t let him hurt you.

She stood up with a jerky motion. “I’d better go in. It’s getting late.”

“Amanda, talk to me!” he growled.

“About what?” she managed tearfully. “About my mother? About myself? We’re sluts, you said so, and you know everything, don’t you, Jason God Almighty Whitehall!”

She turned and ran for the front door, hearing his harsh, muffled curse behind her.

More restless than ever the next morning, Amanda wandered down to the stable to look at a new snowy-white Arabian foal. It brought back memories of the old days on her father’s ranch when she’d spent hours watching the newborn foals, never tiring of their amusing antics. This one was a colt, on wobbly little legs that looked far too long for him.

She was so involved in the sight of the colt and his mother that she didn’t hear the sound of approaching horses’ hooves. She did hear the rapidly nearing footsteps a moment later, though, and turned just in time to see Jace coming down the wide aisle, his booted feet sinking into the fresh, honey-colored woodchips that covered the floor.