скачать книгу бесплатно
She lifted her chin and stared at him with pure bravado. “Aren’t you, Cy? That isn’t how I remember it.”
He turned away, his eyes glancing down the wide street. “You were eighteen. Too young. Years too young. I never asked, but I’d bet I had your chastity.”
Meredith flushed. Cy watched the stain in her cheeks with faint amusement, the first he’d felt since he’d seen her get off the bus.
“So I did,” he murmured, tingling all over at having his suspicions confirmed.
“You were the first,” she said coldly. She smiled. “But not the last. Or did you think you were going to be an impossible act to follow?”
His pride bristled, but he didn’t react. He finished the cigarette and flipped it off the porch. “Where have you been for the past six years?”
“Around,” she said simply. “Look, this bag is getting heavy. Do you have anything to say, or is this just a friendly visit to see how fast you can shoot me out of town?”
“I came to ask if you needed a job,” he said stiffly. “I know your aunt left nothing except bills. I own a restaurant here. There’s an opening for a waitress.”
This was really too much, Meredith thought. Cy offering her a job waitressing, when she could easily afford to buy the place. Guilty conscience? she wondered. Or renewed interest? Either way, it wouldn’t hurt to accept it. She had a feeling she’d see a good bit of the Hardens that way, and it fitted in nicely with her plans.
“Okay,” she said. “Do I need to apply?”
“No. Just report for work at six sharp tomorrow morning,” he said. “I seem to remember that you had a job in a café when we first met.”
“Yes.” Her eyes met his, and for an instant they both shared the memory of that first meeting. She’d spilled coffee on him, and when she’d gone to mop up his jacket, electricity had danced between them. The attraction was instant and mutual…and devastating.
“So long ago,” he said absently, his eyes dark with bitterness. “My God, why did you run? I came to my senses two days later, and I couldn’t find you, damn you!”
Came to his senses? She didn’t dare dwell on that. She glared at him. “Damn you, too, for listening to your mother instead of me. I hope the two of you have been very happy together.”
His eyebrows arched. “What did my mother have to do with you and Tanksley?”
He didn’t know! She could hardly believe it, but that blank stare of his was genuine. He didn’t know what his mother had done!
“How did you get him to confess?” she asked.
“I didn’t. He told Mother that you were innocent. She told me.”
Her heart trembled in her chest. “Did she tell you anything else?” she asked with affected carelessness.
He scowled. “No. What else was there to tell?”
That I was pregnant with your child, she thought darkly, that I was eighteen and had nowhere to go. I couldn’t risk staying with Great-Aunt Mary with a theft charge hanging over my head.
She lowered her eyes so that he wouldn’t see the fury in them. Those first few weeks had been the purest hell of her life, despite the fact that they’d strengthened and matured her to a frightening degree. She’d had to take complete charge of her own life and fate, and from that time she’d never been afraid again.
“Was there anything else?” he persisted.
She lifted her face. “No. Nothing else.”
But there was. He sensed it. Her eyes held a peculiar gleam, almost of hatred. He’d accused her unjustly and hurt her with his rejection, but her anger went deeper than that.
“The restaurant is the Bar H Steak House,” he said. “It’s off North Twenty-seventh past the Sheraton.”
Meredith felt her body go hot at the mention of the hotel, and she averted her eyes quickly. “I’ll find it. Thanks for the recommendation.”
“Does that mean you might stay for a few weeks, at least?” he asked, frowning.
Her eyes fenced with his. “Why? I do hope you don’t entertain any thoughts of taking over where we left off. Because frankly, Cy, I’m not in the habit of trying to superglue broken relationships back together.”
He went very still. “Is there someone?”
“In my life, you mean?” she asked. “Yes.”
His face showed nothing, but a shadow seemed to pass over his eyes. “I might have known.”
She didn’t reply. She simply stared at him. She saw him glance at her left hand, and she thanked God that she’d remembered to take off her wedding band. But the engagement ring Henry had given her—a diamond-cut emerald with small diamonds—was still there. She remembered how Henry had laughed at her choice, because the ring was so inexpensive. He’d wanted to give her a three-carat diamond, and she’d insisted on this ring. How long ago it seemed.
“You’re engaged?” he asked heavily.
“I was,” she corrected. True enough, she was, before Henry married her a week after the engagement.
“Not now?”
She shook her head. “I have a friend, and I care about him very much. But I don’t want commitment anymore.” She wished she could cross her fingers behind her. She’d told more lies and half-truths in two minutes than she had in two years.
His features were more rigid than usual. “Why isn’t your friend here with you, then?”
“I needed a breathing space. I came alone to dispose of Aunt Mary’s things.”
“Where were you living?”
She smiled. “Back east. Excuse me, I have to get these things in the refrigerator.”
He stood aside, hesitating. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Presumably he ate at the restaurant where she was going to work. “I suppose so.” She glanced at him. “Are you sure they won’t mind giving me work without references?”
“I own the damned restaurant,” he said shortly. “They can’t afford to mind. The job’s yours, if you want it.”
“I want it,” she said. She unlocked the door and hesitated. Since he didn’t know her circumstances, he was probably doing it out of pity and guilt, but she felt obliged to say something. “You’re very generous. Thank you.”
“Generous.” He laughed bitterly. “My God, I’ve never given anything in my life unless it suited me or made me richer. I’ve got the world. And I’ve got nothing.” He turned and walked to his car, leaving her staring after him with wide, sad eyes.
Meredith let herself into the house. It had shaken her to see him again after so many barren years. She dropped the groceries on the kitchen counter and sat down, her mind going back to their first meeting.
She’d been seventeen then, a week shy of her eighteenth birthday. But she’d always looked older than she was, and the uniform she wore as a waitress molded itself lovingly to every soft curve of her slender body.
Cy had stared at her from the first, his narrow eyes following her as she waited on one table and then another. She’d been nervous of him instantly, because he radiated self-confidence and a kind of bridled arrogance. He had a way of narrowing one eye and lifting his chin that was like a declaration of war every time he studied someone. Actually, she found out later, it was because he had a slight problem focusing on distant objects and was too stubborn to go to an ophthalmologist. She wondered if any of the people he’d intimidated with that level glare ever knew what caused it.
His table drew its regular waitress, and she’d seen him frown and ask the girl something. Seconds later, he’d moved to a table that was in Meredith’s territory.
The very idea that a man who looked like that should seem interested in her made her toes tingle. She’d approached him with a gentle smile, her face flushing with excitement when he looked up at her and smiled back.
“You’re new here,” he’d said. His voice was deep and slow, with delicious sensuality in it.
“Yes.” She’d sounded as breathless as she felt. She could still remember how cold her hands had suddenly become. “I just started this morning.”
“I’m Cyrus Harden,” he said. “I have breakfast here most mornings.”
She’d recognized the name instantly. Most people in Billings did. “I’m Meredith,” she said huskily.
He lifted an eyebrow, and the smile deepened. “Are you past the age of consent?”
“I’m…twenty,” she said at once, lying through her teeth. If she’d told him her real age, she knew instinctively that he’d have dismissed her.
“That’ll do. Bring me some coffee, please. Then we’ll discuss where we’re going tonight.”
She rushed back behind the counter to pour the coffee, running headlong into Terri, the older waitress who worked with her.
“Careful, chick,” Terri said under her breath when Cy wasn’t looking. “You’re flirting with disaster. Cy Harden has a reputation with women as well as in business. Don’t get in over your head.”
“It’s all right. He…he’s just talking to me,” Meredith stammered.
“Not when you look that flustered, he isn’t,” Terri replied worriedly. “Your great-aunt must live in a world all her own. Honey, men don’t automatically propose marriage to women they want—especially men like Cy Harden. He’s out of our league. He’s rich, and his mother would savage any woman who tried to get him to the altar unless she had money and connections. He’s upper crust. They marry among themselves.”
“But we’re just talking,” Meredith protested, forcing a smile while all her dreams crashed to earth.
“See that it stays just talk. He could hurt you badly.”
The sound of authority made her bristle, but she couldn’t really afford to antagonize a co-worker, so she just smiled and finished getting Cy’s coffee.
“Was she warning you off?” he asked when she put the cup and saucer in front of him on the red-and-white-checked tablecloth.
She gasped. “How did you know?”
“I took Terri out once,” he replied easily. “She got too possessive, so I broke it off. It was a long time ago. Don’t let her get under your skin, okay?”
She smiled, because now it all made sense. He was interested, and Terri was just jealous. She beamed. “I won’t,” she promised.
Remembering her own naiveté that day, Meredith groaned. She rose from the chair she’d been sitting in and went to put the groceries away. How could anyone have been so stupid? she asked herself. At eighteen, with a sheltered upbringing, she’d known nothing. To a man as worldly as Cy, she must have been a pushover. If she’d had any idea how things were going to turn out, she’d never have…
Who was she kidding? She laughed bitterly. She’d have done exactly the same thing, because Cy fascinated her. He still did, after all the grief and pain. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen in her life, and she remembered those long lovings in his arms as if they’d happened yesterday.
Now she’d landed herself back in his orbit again and taken a job that she had no business taking. She was living a lie. But as she remembered the reasons for her visit, her blood began to boil. Cy had discarded her like garbage, she and the child she’d been carrying. He’d turned his back on her and left her to fend for herself with a theft charge hanging over her head.
She hadn’t come back to rekindle an old love affair. She’d come back for revenge. Henry had taught her that everyone had a weakness that could be exploited in business. And some people were better at hiding their Achilles’ heels than others. Cy was a past master. She’d have to be very careful if she was going to locate his. But in the end she’d get the upper hand, and he’d be out in the cold. She meant to cost him everything, to put him in the same horrible position he’d put her in so long ago. Her eyes narrowed as she considered the possibilities, and a cold smile touched her disciplined mouth.
Meredith was no longer a naive eighteen-year-old deeply in love with a man she couldn’t have. She held all the aces this time. And when she played her hand, it was going to be the sweetest pleasure since Cy’s treacherous kisses.
CHAPTER THREE
MEREDITH HAD BROUGHT some old clothes with her, so that she wouldn’t arouse Cy’s suspicions by looking too prosperous. Now, as she dressed for her new job, she was glad.
She stepped into a neat denim skirt that matched her white cotton long-sleeved blouse. She put on soft-soled loafers and discarded her Gucci purse for a brown vinyl one. Then she put up her hair in a neat French braid at the back of her head and left the house to catch a bus to work.
Billings was gorgeous first thing in the morning, Meredith thought as she savored the cool morning air. This spacious city was a world away from the bustle of Chicago. She missed her son, and even Mr. Smith and Don, but the change had already revived her fighting spirit and made her feel less depressed. The incredible pressures she faced daily in her work had been getting to her lately.
Meredith stepped off the bus in front of the restaurant. It was a prosperous one, very large and attached to a hotel. She noticed through the window that all the waitresses wore spotless white uniforms. It had been a long time since she had felt nervous around people, but here, without the cocoon of her wealth to cushion her, she was ill at ease. She found the cashier and asked for the manager.
“Mrs. Dade is just through there,” the woman said pleasantly. “Is she expecting you?”
“I think so.”
Meredith knocked on the door and walked in, surprised to find the woman almost twenty years older than she was. Perhaps she’d been harboring the subconscious thought that Mrs. Dade might be one of Cy’s old lovers, but she had to revise that opinion now.
“I’m Meredith…Ashe,” she said hesitantly. The name sounded strange. She was so used to being called Kip Tennison.
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Dade said, smiling as she stood up behind her huge polished wood desk. She was a tall woman, her red hair mingling with silver above a broad, happy face. “I’m Trudy Dade. I’m glad to meet you. Cy said that you’d just lost your aunt and needed work. Luckily for both of us, we’ve got an opening. Have you had experience at waitressing?”
“Well, a little,” Meredith replied. “I used to work at the Bear Claw years ago.”
“I remember. I thought I recognized you.” Her gray eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “I’m sorry about your aunt.”
“I’ll miss her,” Meredith said softly. “She was the only real relative I had in the world.”
Mrs. Dade’s perceptive gaze swept over Meredith, leaving no detail untouched. She nodded. “It’s hard work, but the tips are good, and I’m not a slavedriver. You can start now. You’ll get off at six, but you’ll have to work some evenings. That’s unavoidable in this business.”
“I don’t mind that,” Meredith said easily. “I don’t need my evenings free.”
Mrs. Dade’s eyebrows arched. “At your age? For heaven’s sake, you’re not married?”
“No.” Meredith didn’t say it rudely, but there was something in her manner that made the other woman visibly uncomfortable.
“Off men, then?” Mrs. Dade smiled and didn’t pursue it, going on to detail Meredith’s duties and her salary, along with information about uniforms and territory.
Meredith was busy giving herself a lecture on keeping to the part she was playing. It wouldn’t do to assume Kip Tennison’s persona every time someone pried too deeply. She forced a smile and listened with every indication of interest, while at the back of her mind she wondered how long it was going to be before Cy Harden made his next move.
LATE THAT AFTERNOON, Cy walked into the gardens at the huge Harden estate. His eyes lingered halfheartedly on the Greek revival columns on the house’s wide front porch. He remembered playing on that porch as a child, with his mother nearby, watching him. She had always been far too possessive and protective of her only child, a condition that, in later years, had caused friction between them. In fact, their relationship had fallen apart with the departure of Meredith Ashe. Cy had changed, in visible and not-so-visible ways.
He hung his hat on the antique hat rack in the hall and wandered absently into the elegant living room, gathering the usual impressions of pastel brocades and thick neutral shag carpeting and the priceless antiques his mother loved.
She was sitting on her wing chair, crocheting. Her dark eyes lifted and she smiled at him a little too brightly. “You’re home early, aren’t you?” she asked.
“I finished early.” He poured himself a stiff whiskey and sank onto his own armchair. “I’ll be out for dinner. The Petersons are hosting a business discussion on some new mineral leases.”
“Business, business,” she muttered. “There’s more to life than making money. Cy, you really should marry. I’ve introduced you to two very nice young women, debutantes…”
“I won’t marry,” he said with a cold smile. He lifted his whiskey glass in a mock toast. “I took the cure. Remember?”
His mother went pasty white and dropped her eyes to her thin, nervous hands. “That…was a long time ago.”
