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“Have they shown Thomas?”
He was Anita’s favorite. She’d loved that bit about the ecstasy-induced weekend with Brooke and whether or not he’d slept with his stepmother. “Not today.” That she’d noticed, anyway.
“What’s happening with Ridge?”
“He was kissing his ex-wife before the last commercial.” Presley had seen that much, but even if she hadn’t, Ridge cheating with his ex was a safe bet. The writers had kept that love triangle going for several seasons.
“If he doesn’t choose between Brooke and Taylor soon, I’ll miss it.” Her eyes drifted shut. Presley assumed she’d fallen back asleep, but she spoke a few seconds later. “You’d better quit smoking, or you’ll wind up like me.”
Presley wanted to quit. She remembered how yellow her mother’s teeth had been before she lost them to poor hygiene. But now was not the time to fight that battle. She needed all the help she could get just to survive each day. “I will. Later.”
“Right.” Her mother coughed as she tried to laugh.
“Mom?”
Anita took a deep breath. It was getting harder and harder for her to speak. Sometimes she didn’t have the energy for it at all. “What?”
Presley used the remote to turn down the television. “Chey’s not home.”
“I didn’t ask if she was.”
“I wanted you to know she wasn’t.”
Her mother’s eyes showed a heightened alertness. She’d noticed the change in Presley’s tone. Sometimes they told each other more than they ever admitted to Chey. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to ask you again about Eugene Crouch.”
“Don’t.” Her mother smoothed her thin gray hair. “It’s better if you…leave that alone.”
“Why? He had a picture.”
A grimace added more wrinkles to Anita’s heavily lined face. “So?”
“So?” Presley repeated. “Aren’t you curious where he got it? Who was in it?”
She coughed again. “No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to…hear anything about it.”
“Because you already know.”
With a grimace, Anita motioned to the TV. “Turn that back up.”
Presley didn’t comply. She bent over Anita to convince her that she wanted the truth. “What happened, Mom? Who was the blonde woman in the picture? Is she the one Chey keeps asking about?”
Her mother waved her off. “Stop. Just trust me.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
Her face flushed with the first color Presley had seen in several days. Maybe she realized she hadn’t earned much trust, even from the daughter who loved her. “I’m trying to…do you a favor,” she said, finally meeting Presley’s gaze. “Don’t ruin it. It’s…the last gift I have to give you.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does! Why make you…carry the secret after I’m gone? It will…only tear you up inside.” She lowered her voice. “Or cost you…the one person you’ve always been able to count on.”
The sickening feeling that’d crept over Presley when she’d seen that photo of Cheyenne as a little girl, all dolled up, returned. “She doesn’t really belong to us, does she,” she said, clutching her hands in the bedding.
Anita’s breath rattled as she dragged it in and out of her lungs. “You knew that. You might…deny it, but in your heart…you knew all along.”
“No.” Presley shook her head. “We don’t look alike because we come from different fathers. That’s what you said!”
“That’s what you wanted to believe!”
She was right. As much as Presley would rather have denied it, she’d had her doubts. She’d just been unwilling to face them. She’d heard Cheyenne ask about the blonde woman, had listened to her sister describe with longing the many toys she’d once had, the pretty clothes and the full belly, and she’d purposely pretended she remembered no time when they weren’t a family. She’d even told Chey, on a number of occasions, that those images had to be from a dream.
“Oh, God,” she muttered, and sank down into her chair.
It required considerable effort, but Anita managed to sit up on her own. “Presley, you wanted a sister so bad. I couldn’t have another child, but you needed someone, someone besides me. I couldn’t be there all the time. I had to make sure we had food to eat and somewhere to sleep. I— It was just the two of us, and every day you begged me for a playmate.”
Anita’s actions hadn’t been entirely altruistic. She’d used her children as much as anything else. But Presley didn’t make an issue of it. She was too preoccupied, too frightened by what she was learning. Covering her mouth, she spoke through her fingers. “So what did you do?”
“I got what you needed, that’s what.”
The drugs Presley had taken made her feel as if her mother’s voice was growing loud and then dim. Was this really happening?
Yes. She was pretty sure it was. She’d suspected for a long time. But now that she was confronted with the reality, she didn’t know how to react. Was she supposed to be grateful to her mother?
She would’ve been miserable growing up alone. Cheyenne had provided the companionship that’d made life bearable. Together they’d weathered so much, stood against the world, especially when Anita took up with a man and her daughters became less important to her. Or when Anita went on a drunken binge. Cheyenne had been there to provide love and comfort.
“But…what about her?” Presley wasn’t sure how she managed to speak. It felt as if someone had put a clamp on her tongue.
“What about her?” Anita’s eyes snapped with the instant anger that was so typical of her. “She’s fine. I took care of her just like I took care of you, didn’t I? Why does she deserve party dresses and birthday presents? Why does she deserve to have life any better than you or me?”
Because Anita had stolen her from the family she would’ve had, and who could say what they would’ve been able to give her. Didn’t she see the injustice in that? “You told her you have no idea who the blonde woman is or why she keeps remembering all those things,” she whispered. “She’s asked at least a hundred times.”
“Well, now that you know, we’ll see if you tell her anything different,” she responded, and with a bitter laugh that said she didn’t think Presley would, she fell back on the pillows.
* * *
Presley was gone when Cheyenne returned home from work, which surprised her. With Anita in such bad shape, Presley usually waited for Chey to arrive so that someone would be with Anita at all times.
Cheyenne would’ve asked her mother why her sister had left early, but Anita seemed to be in a drugged stupor. As Chey stood at her bedroom door, looking in, she realized that what she’d told Eve wasn’t true. No way could Anita make it until after the cruise. The cancer had progressed too far. She’d already been reduced to a bag of bones beneath waxy skin. She’d grown so small and feeble compared to the woman Cheyenne used to fear, it was a wonder she was still breathing.
Maybe that was why Presley had gone. Watching Anita die a little more each day wasn’t easy.
Grateful that her mother was sleeping so she could have dinner and unwind, she headed into the kitchen, where she’d left her purse when she came in. She could smell the pine of the Christmas tree and the cinnamon candles she liked to burn, but those scents hardly cloaked the stale, antiseptic stench of her mother’s sickness.
Briefly closing her eyes, Cheyenne drew a deep breath, trying to block out anything unpleasant, and went to the refrigerator. She’d made some beef stew before bed last night, to get a jump on the day.
Presley didn’t seem to have eaten any, which worried Cheyenne. Her sister was getting far too thin....
Reminding herself not to dwell on the negative, she spent the time waiting for her stew to heat looking through pictures on the iPhone the Harmons had given her for her birthday in May. She had snapshots of her friends—Riley, Gail, Simon, Callie, Ted, Noah, Baxter, Kyle, Sophia and several others who joined them, although less frequently, on Friday mornings at Black Gold Coffee. They were all going on the cruise, except Gail and Simon, of course, who were in Hollywood, Sophia, who had a daughter as well as a husband, and Riley, who was raising a son and planned to spend the holidays remodeling the B and B. Cheyenne was disappointed to be missing the big trip. The Caribbean sounded like a marvelous place to go. But taking a cruise wasn’t something she’d ever expected to be able to do, anyway.
With a faint smile for the fun Eve and the rest of her friends would have, she thumbed farther back in her album to find the picture she’d been looking for.
There it was—Joe, with his arm around his sister. Cheyenne had taken that photograph at a barbecue last summer. Sometimes he came to the events Gail attended when she was home, but Gail wasn’t home all that often. She’d been living in L.A. for more than a decade, ever since she started Big Hit Public Relations. And now that she was married to Simon, she’d likely return even less.
The stew bubbled on the stove, but Cheyenne didn’t remove it. She was too taken with Joe’s image, although she’d seen this picture a million times. He looked good in his swim trunks, his broad chest and muscular arms bronzed from the sun, his wet hair tossed back off his face. Her heart beat faster as she stared at the contours of his strong jaw, the laugh lines bracketing his mouth and the intelligence shining through his blue eyes. In the past year or so, his hair had begun to recede a little at the temples, but Cheyenne didn’t mind. She’d never seen anyone she thought was more handsome.
“Presley?”
Her mother was awake and calling for her sister. Cheyenne set her phone aside and turned off the burner. “Presley’s gone to work,” she called back. “I’m in the middle of making dinner. I’ll bring you a bowl of stew in a minute.”
“I’m not hungry.”
She was never hungry anymore. But she had to eat or she’d lose what little strength she still had. “You should try to get a few bites down.”
“Did Presley say anything to you when she left?” Anita wanted to know.
Because it was difficult for her mother to make herself heard, Cheyenne hurried to her bedroom to answer. “About what?”
Anita studied her before relaxing. “Nothing.”
Cheyenne considered asking why Presley had left early but guessed, from her mother’s questions, that she wouldn’t know. What did it matter? Nothing had happened. “So…will you try to eat?”
“If you want,” she relented, a shrug in her voice.
“Good. I’ll be right back.”
Her cell phone, which she’d put on the counter, rang while she was on her way to the kitchen. Glancing at the display, she could see it was Eve and wasn’t surprised. She’d left The Gold Nugget only an hour ago, but Eve called her more than anyone else.
“You’d better not have canceled your cruise,” Cheyenne said as soon as she picked up.
“No, although I should,” Eve responded with a note of chagrin.
“There’s no point. You can’t stop what’s going to happen.”
“But I could help you through it.”
“You’ve already done everything you can. What’s up?”
Eve’s voice filled with breathless excitement. “I did it.”
Cheyenne had opened the cupboard and was reaching for two bowls, but she dropped her hand. What was Eve talking about? “Did what?”
“I asked him out!”
Cheyenne froze. “You mean Joe?”
“Who else, silly? I just…worked up the nerve, called him at the station and said, ‘I’d really like to get to know you better. Is there any chance you’d be interested in having dinner with me tomorrow?’”
Gripping the edge of the counter, Chey managed a strangled “And what did he say?”
“Yes!” It sounded as if she was jumping up and down. “He was so nice about it. He didn’t make me feel uncomfortable at all.”
Of course not. Joe was good at making other people feel accepted, regardless of the situation. He’d looked after Cheyenne as a sort of unofficial big brother ever since she’d moved to town, hadn’t he? Not once had he treated her as if she was insignificant, like so many of the other popular guys had at first. Although Cheyenne was eventually accepted by the “in” crowd, she felt that Eve had so much more to offer. She came from a highly regarded family. She was beautiful in the classic sense with a slender figure, dramatic widow’s peak and shiny dark hair. And she was such a nice person. Chey couldn’t imagine anyone not loving Eve.
“That—” Chey had to clear her throat “—that’s so exciting. Where will you take him?”
“I think we’ll drive to Jackson and have dinner at the Old Milano Hotel.”
“The one famous for its prime rib?”
“That’s it.”
Slumping onto the counter, Cheyenne rested her forehead in her hands. “That’ll be romantic.”
“Are you bringing me that soup today or tomorrow?” her mother interrupted, calling from her room.
Cheyenne covered the phone. “Give me a minute!”
“I might not have a minute!”
“Is that Anita?” Eve asked.
After making a sound of exasperation, Cheyenne laughed. “Yeah. Pleasant as always.”
“I don’t know how you do it. I’ll let you go, but…what do you think I should wear?”
Cheyenne knew Eve’s wardrobe as well as her own. They were the same size and often shared clothes. Until Cheyenne became an adult and had her own money, she was the only one who’d benefited from the arrangement. But that was slowly changing. Now it was Chey’s turn to give back. Eve had plenty of cute things, but she loved the new dress Cheyenne had found in San Francisco during her last visit. “I’ve got that pretty Caren Templet I got on sale, if you want to wear it. It would go perfectly with your leopard-print shoes and the black jacket with the fake fur.”
“You’d let me borrow that?” Eve said. “You haven’t even worn it yourself. The tags are still on the sleeve!”
“I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.”
“Exactly.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Her mother was making a fuss. She had to get going. “This is a special occasion.” She fought the lump rising in her throat. “Wear it. You’ll be stunning.”
“That is so sweet. Thank you, Chey. You are the best friend anyone could ever have.”
In reality, it was the other way around. If not for Eve, Cheyenne would’ve run away while in high school—or started using, like Presley. The Harmons had tried to befriend Presley, too, but she was already set on her course, had chosen other friends who weren’t a very positive influence on her. Cheyenne owed Eve and her family everything. And it wasn’t as if Joe had been hers to begin with. “I’ll bring it to the inn tomorrow.”
“Do you think he’ll like it?” Eve asked with a fresh burst of enthusiasm.
A tear rolled down Cheyenne’s cheek. Angry that she could feel sorry for herself when Eve had such an opportunity, she set her jaw, wiped away the dampness and blinked faster to staunch the flow of more tears. “He won’t be able to resist you,” she said, and believed it with all her heart.
