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His grin crooked, he started to say something, but Elissa interrupted. “Lucy, a telegram for you.” She shifted toward the parlor entrance as Elissa breezed in, waving the yellow paper. Disquiet marred her lovely features. “Maybe Stadler’s had a change of heart and has decided to crawl back.”
Lucy took the telegram and tore it open. “You don’t have to be so unhappy about the idea.”
Elissa sat down in the leather chair beside the couch, worriedly eyeing her sister. “Well, before this English Apple turns to ice, I guess I’ll go ahead and pour.” She picked up a cup and the pot.
Lucy scanned the message, unable to believe her eyes. She had just read it a second time when a keening cry tore through the quiet and she felt faint. Somewhere, she heard the sound of a teacup breaking and splintering into pieces.
“Lucy!” Powerful male arms came around her, keeping her from slipping to the floor. “You screamed. What’s happened?”
CHAPTER TWO
LUCY was dismayed with herself. She’d never fainted in her life. But this news was so awful. A shiver ran through her, bringing her fully back to consciousness.
When she realized Jack held her in his arms and was laying her on the couch, she let out a moan of embarrassment and pushed at his chest. “Oh—oh, I’m okay. Don’t—don’t...”
“Shush,” he admonished. “You’re as white as a ghost.”
“Oh, Lord!” Elissa cried. From her angry tone, Lucy knew her sister was reading the telegram that had tumbled to the floor. “That pig! That putrefying slab of pork! He’s coming here!”
Jack’s worried glance lifted to Elissa although he didn’t rise. With one hand on Lucy’s shoulder, he remained kneeling beside her. “Who’s coming here?”
Even in the dim light, Elissa’s green eyes were blazing, her expression murderous. With an angry flourish, she thrust the telegram at Jack. “You read it. I’m afraid some more unattractive words will slip out of my mouth if I explain.”
Jack looked confused as he took the telegram. With shaky fingers, Lucy reached for it. “Don’t...” He evaded her attempt to snatch it from him. She groaned, covering her face with unsteady hands. She had to leave town immediately. But where could she go? They didn’t have relatives anywhere. That didn’t matter. She couldn’t stay. Not now.
There was absolute quiet in the room for such a long time she had to peek through her fingers to see what was going on. The world was blurry and she blinked, focusing on Jack as he stared at the telegram, his expression grim. When his glance caught Lucy’s, something raw and violent flashed in his eyes. “Who does this piece of crap think he is?”
Lowering his glance to the page again, he gritted out the written words.
“‘Dearest Lucy,
I know my letter must have come as a shock, and I apologize. After thinking about it, I know it is my duty to see you face-to-face and smooth things over.
“‘By the time you receive this, my fiancée and I will be winging our way to Branson, arriving on March 20. The first day of spring. Appropriate for my mission, for I’ve decided we must begin again. As great chums.
“‘You must meet my fiancée. You are both lovely, compliant women, and you will become fast friends. I know from your gentle temperament that you will agree that life is too short to harbor hard feelings between two people so sublimely simpatico as we two.
Yours forever,
Stadler”’
Jack made a guttural sound that sounded suspiciously like a curse. “That egotistical jackass.” When he lifted his gaze to Lucy’s face, his cinnamon eyes held a blaze that had nothing to do with the fire in the hearth. “I’ll show him a brand of simpatico he won’t find quite so sublime.”
Lucy touched his arm. She appreciated his anger on her behalf, but shook her head. “You mustn’t get involved, Jack.” She struggled up on her elbows. “Besides, I don’t plan to be here when he arrives.”
“What?” Elissa bent over her sister. “Where are you going?”
Lucy ran a trembly hand through her hair. “I don’t know. But I can’t be here. I couldn’t face him and—and his new fiancée. Surely you understand that.”
Elissa straightened to her full five foot seven, looking offended. “I understand nothing of the kind.” Plopping her fists on slender hips, she glowered at her sister. “You’re going to meet him at the door with a two-by-four and pound him into dust. That’s what you’re going to do.”
Lucy grimaced, slipping her legs over the side of the couch and coming up to sit. As she did, Jack seated himself beside her, his expression compassionate, his eyes telegraphing concern. “You’d leave before the twins and Helen are even out of the hospital? When she came all this way to be with you for your birthday?”
Lucy flinched at the reminder. It would be cruel to leave, abandoning Helen and the babies when her sister had come especially to see her. But what else could she do? She wasn’t an aggressive person, loving a fight like her ex-lawyer sister, Elissa. Lucy hated confrontations, had spent her life trying to keep everyone calm and happy. People had always called her the sensitive one, the conciliatory one—“the sweet sister.” Confrontation wasn’t part of her character.
There was no way she could face Stadler and his new love. She shuddered at the thought, unable to look at either Elissa or Jack. “I can’t stay.” With her forlorn sigh, Jack took her hands in his big, warm ones, but she pulled away from his touch, too upset with her sniveling cowardice to allow herself to be comforted. “I—I’ll go pack.”
“No, you won’t,” Elissa warned. Lucy rose to her feet, but her older sister’s hands clamped down on her shoulders, halting her. “You’re not bolting like a jackrabbit, young lady. If you go, there will be nobody here to keep me from leaping on Stadler’s back and strangling him. Do you want that? Do you want me to spend my best years behind bars just because I dispatched a worthless toad to Worthless-Toad Hell?”
Lucy winced, not so much from her sister’s empty threat, but from the pressure of her blunt fingernails biting into her flesh. “Elissa, please don’t belabor this. I’m leaving.” She ducked out of her grasp. “Besides, I know you’re itching to tell him off yourself.”
“What I’m itching to do is beside the point.” She took Lucy’s face between her palms, forcing her to look into determined green eyes. “It’s what you must do that we’re talking about.”
Tears welled and Lucy blinked them back. “I—I can’t.”
With a frown furrowing her brow, Elissa dropped her arms to her sides. “Coward!”
Lucy fought to keep from trembling. “Don’t be mean, Elissa,” she whispered.
There was movement beside her and she knew Jack had stood. “Your sister’s right, Luce. Don’t run away. Stay and show the jerk you don’t care a damn about him.”
Gulping around a knot of tears, Lucy faced him. “But—but I do care.”
There was a brief slitting of his eyes, a fleeting sideways stirring of his jaw, an odd reaction. Almost as though he’d been slapped. The expression lasted only a millisecond before he offered a sympathetic smile. “Luce, the man has a tremendous ego, thinking his two women must meet. Hell, he probably has visions of a catfight over him right here in the parlor. The only thing he could hope for that could be more flattering than that would be if you ran.” He reached out as though he was going to touch her cheek, then seemed to think better of it. With a slow fisting of his hand, he dropped it to his side. “Don’t you have the smallest desire to avenge yourself for what he did to you?”
She stared, confused. “Avenge myself?”
“Great idea!” Elissa clapped her hands together with enthusiasm. “Make him think you’re so bored to see him you can hardly remember his name.” She sat down on the leather chair as Lucy pivoted to look at her. There was a frightening gleam in her older sister’s eyes. “Now, Jack,” Elissa was saying, “since Lucy’s so rotten at plotting revenge, it’s up to us. What would make Stadler hang by his thumbs, twisting in the wind, screaming in agony?”
Lucy sank to the sofa. What was going on? Her mind was too numbed to grasp what they were plotting. But it didn’t really matter what they were talking about. She only needed another minute to get her strength back and she would tell them to forget it, then she’d go to her room and pack a bag and be gone.
“Being a man, I know what would put a gaping hole in my ego.”
“What?” Elissa sat forward, expectancy stamped on her pretty face. “I hope it involves a ‘kick me’ sign on Stadler’s back.”
Jack grinned wryly. “Psychologically, yes.”
“Please, you two, I—”
“Hush, sweetie!” Elissa waved a dismissal. “Jack has an idea.”
Lucy shifted to stare at him, afraid she wasn’t going to be thrilled by his idea—if it had anything to do with being in town when Stadler got here. She was sorry to have to admit it, even to herself, but she was as terrified of facing her ex-fiancé and his lady love as she had been of thunderstorms when she was a child.
She watched Jack’s face. He surveyed her gently, his eyes narrowed with worry or possibly pity. She couldn’t be sure which, and squirmed. She didn’t want Jack’s pity! She’d never thought about it until this minute, but for some reason, she couldn’t bear the idea of Jack’s feeling sorry for her. She wanted him to smile his teasing smile, not watch her solemnly, his eyes stricken. Unable to deal with what she saw and how that sight made her feel, she twisted away.
Her uneasy movement seemed to affect him, and he cleared his throat. “Okay, how’s this for an idea? His ego would be exploded all to hell if you met him with a fiancé of your own.”
Elissa’s gasp drew Lucy’s gaze. She felt dull-witted, her brain trying to assimilate what Jack had said. But apparently, Elissa’s brain had readily grasped the concept, deduced that it was perfect and ordered up a victorious smile.
“Wonderful!” Elissa cried. “Fight fire with fire! Make him think you’ve been as disloyal to him as he was to you, the bag of dirt!” She vaulted up, clearly deciding the plan was settled. “I can’t wait to see his face when he realizes you don’t care a crumb for him!”
Lucy frowned at her sister, her astonished glance skittering to Jack. She couldn’t even express what she was thinking. For instance, even if she agreed to this, just who would be her fake fiancé? The whole idea was impossible.
“I’d better clean up the mess I made.” Elissa began gingerly picking up broken shards of the teacup. “Then we’ll have to warn Helen and Damien and get our story straight. We don’t have long.”
Lucy’s ability to speak clicked on and she jumped up. “We?” She glared at Elissa and then at Jack. “We? I hope you don’t think I’ll agree to this. First of all, there aren’t that many men hanging around that I can ask to go along with such a crazy scheme. And secondly, I can’t lie. I’ve never been able to lie. It’s hopeless.” She headed for the parlor exit. “I’m going to pack. Elissa, call the Springfield bus station and get me a ticket on the first bus to Kansas City. I’ll hide out in the YWCA until he’s gone. The Smiths are leaving for Springfield in the morning. I can hitch a ride with them.”
She felt a hand take her wrist. “I’ll do it, Luce.”
Caught in Jack’s firm grasp, she spun toward him as Elissa scolded, “You certainly won’t do any such thing, Jack. Nobody’s giving her a ride anywhere.”
“I didn’t mean that.” He faced Lucy, towering there, all muscle and firelight. His bedroom eyes at half-mast, his features were unsmiling. “I meant, I’ll pretend to be your fiancé.” His voice was smoky soft, his glance strangely beguiling. She blinked, feeling out of breath as she focused all her senses on what he was saying. “You’ve known me a long time, Luce. We already care about each other. It wouldn’t be that hard to pretend you love me—would it?”
Elissa gasped. “Perfection! Absolute perfection.” Since her hands were full of broken pieces of china, she nudged Lucy in the ribs with her elbow. “And Jack’s a lot better looking than Stadler. Taller, richer, and he has a strong, square chin, not that excuse for a jaw of Stadler’s.”
Jack grinned wryly at the redhead. “Stop it before I blush.”
Elissa laughed. “Really, Jack. This is better than my ‘kick me’ sign idea. It’ll destroy Stadler right down to his scummy roots.” Elissa stretched up to kiss his cheek. “I’d better go throw this china away before I slash an artery. You two start planning Stadler’s downfall.”
When Elissa was gone, Lucy could only gawk at the man before her. “I—I won’t let you do this.”
He squeezed her wrist, his fingers lingering a second before he let her go. “Hey, if it weren’t for the influence of your family, I might have traveled a very different road in life.” He shrugged his hands into his trouser pockets. “Let me help, Luce. I want to.”
“But I’m not a vengeful person. I wouldn’t be able to carry it off. Besides—besides...” Her lower lip began to quiver in spite of her attempt to quell it. Suddenly overwhelmed, she dropped to the sofa, covering her eyes with her fists. “Oh, Jack—I waited so long for Stadler. You have no idea what it’s like to wait and wait for somebody you love—” A sob cut off her words.
The sofa dipped as he sat down, drawing her against him. His solicitude was so welcome that she could no longer hold in her gnawing heartache. He held her protectively, allowing her to cry herself dry against his chest. Somewhere in her anguish, as he stroked her back to calm her, she thought she heard him murmur, “Maybe I can imagine, Luce. Maybe I can....”
Lucy looked up from polishing their silver tea tray at the kitchen table as Elissa swept into the kitchen through the pantry. Bella and her assistant had been scraping food from the breakfast dishes and filling the dishwasher. “Bella,” Elissa called, “could you and Ramona excuse us for a minute?”
The plump cook looked a little startled, but nodded. “Sure, Miss Elissa. Ramona and I were just going into town to do some shopping for supper anyway.” She indicated the kitchen door with a nod of her gray curls, and her gaunt, plain-faced assistant scurried out ahead of her without a word. Seconds later, the door closed, leaving the sisters alone.
The guests had already scattered for the day, heading off for sight-seeing in Branson and Silver Dollar City. But Lucy’s mind was on anything but the bounty of things to do in their unique community, with its many theaters and gala shows, nestled in the unspoiled Ozark Mountains of Missouri. Her mind was raging, Why am I still here? Why hadn’t she packed her bags and left for Springfield the first thing this morning with the departing Smiths? She couldn’t possibly have decided to go along with the plan to pretend to be engaged to Jack—could she? She took an extra hard swipe at the silver tray, a family heirloom, and gritted her teeth. Why, oh why, couldn’t she act! Leave! Why did she have to be such a wimp? Why was she even listening to Jack and Elissa?
“Well!” her big sister interrupted the mutinous train of thought with a loud sigh. “I don’t know what’s the matter with our baby sister and her husband.”
Lucy looked up, a tremor of alarm slithering through her. “Is something wrong? Are they okay? Are the twins—”
“Hold it.” Elissa put a reassuring hand on her sister’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. They’re fine. I meant, when I told them about our plan, Helen started laughing. When she couldn’t stop, she got after me for making her stitches hurt. Then she told Damien, and I could hear him laughing in the background.” Elissa shook her head. “They have a strange sense of humor, those two. Do you think they’ve been snorting laughing gas?”
Lucy could feel heat creep up her face. She knew what Helen and Damien were thinking—the myth! That was foolish, of course. She had no intention of getting involved with another man, not now, maybe never. And Jack was merely a friend offering his assistance because he owed John Crosby, and he cared enough about her to want to help her save face. There was nothing more to it than that.
Swallowing, she set down the tray and eyed her sister as directly as she could. “How could you have told them such a thing? I’m not sure I’ll agree to do it. As a matter of fact, I still think packing and getting—”
“Lucille Violet Crosby, you will not disgrace yourself by turning tail and running. Is that clear?” Elissa took up the polishing cloth and furiously began to buff the intricate pattern that banded the square tray, apparently trying to channel her fit of temper. “Jack is willing. He cares for you. He cares for us all. Now you stiffen your upper lip and get with the program. Stadler Tinsley needs to be taken down a peg for his egotistical scheme, and you’re going to find the backbone to do it.” She plunked the tray onto the table and eyed her younger sister for a few seconds before her expression relaxed. ”Besides, once old Stad’s hit in the face with the fact that you don’t care about him, I bet he drags that unfortunate new fiancée of his onto the first plane out of Missouri.” Elissa brushed a hand through Lucy’s white blond, shoulder-length hair, more as a sisterly caress than a gesture of grooming, though the stuff was so fine and flyaway it always needed a good finger combing. ”You’ll have to pretend to be engaged for five minutes, tops.”
“You think so?” Lucy wondered how it was that Elissa managed to make ideas that were completely insane seem perfectly reasonable. Probably some class she’d taken in law school.
“I know so.” Elissa grinned, putting her arm around her sister and gathering her close for a peck on the cheek. “Now that that’s settled, I have an inn to run.”
As the redhead set off for the hallway, Lucy had a horrible thought. “What about the help, Elissa? Bella, her assistant, Ramona, and the housekeeper, Jule?”
Elissa’s features grew momentarily pinched, then she shrugged and grinned. “Okay, so for five minutes they’ll think you’re engaged, too. No big deal.”
Elissa was gone before Lucy could come up with the obvious arguments. Like, what if Stadler saw through the lie? What if he stayed longer than five minutes? What if—what if...? She couldn’t think of the other things. And even if she could have thought of any, she didn’t want to dwell on them.
Shaking her head, Lucy slowly stood. Pack. That’s what she had to do. She could always catch a ride to Springfield in Branson on one of the big hotel shuttles. There was no way she could carry off this charade even if Jack was willing to help. She wouldn’t put him through it. It was too much to ask, even of him.
She must leave. Now.
Lucy checked her watch. Ten o’clock. Her cab should be arriving any minute. Snapping shut her suitcase, she headed out of her basement bedroom and hurried up the steps as quickly as her heavy bag would allow. She knew that Elissa would be in her office at this hour working on the inn’s books, and Jack... Well, hopefully he was in his room or taking a nature walk in the woods—anywhere but in her direct escape route. She didn’t want either of them to see her and try to persuade her to go through with their insane plan. At the top of the stairs, she hastened right into the little hallway that led to the staircase vestibule, then to the reception hall.
She could hear the crunch of tires on gravel as she reached the front door. Perfect timing. Peering through the beveled glass, she recognized the vehicle as a cab.
Taking a long, relieved breath, she knew she was about to make a clean getaway. Let Stadler think she ran away. Let him believe she was too hurt to see him. She didn’t dare look into his two-timing, plum-colored eyes, eyes that she feared could still make her melt. She didn’t dare let him see her pain.
Besides, Elissa had too much family pride to admit Lucy had run off. She would deny the truth with all her strength and make up some plausible story. This was the best way. If she stayed, there was no way she could hide her anguish. Stadler was not a stupid man.
Just as she turned the door handle, she heard the slam of a car door, then another. Two slams? Two car doors? For one cabdriver? Alarm constricted her stomach, and she peeked through the glass again, only to gasp out loud.
Stadler!
He and—and his woman were here.
“Luce?” The query came from somewhere in the vicinity of the staircase. She spun around. “What is it?” Jack came down the remainder of the steps and made quick work of the distance between them. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, pointing disjointedly over her shoulder. Words wouldn’t form.
He leaned close, his night-woodsy scent clean and pleasantly familiar as he looked through the frosted and cut glass. “The bastard?”
Though she was unsettled by his word choice, she knew whom he was talking about and nodded.
When he stepped back and looked at her again, he noticed the suitcase beside her and frowned. His glance flicked back to hers as realization struck. His look of disappointment almost made her cry. “Luce, you weren’t.” The words of disbelief came out in a husky whisper.
She swallowed hard several times. “I—I can’t go through with it, Jack.”
The flare of his nostrils was his only comment as he grabbed her bag and sprinted with it to the staircase hall. Throwing open the storage door below the stairs, he shoved it inside.
Lucy started to object, but jumped when she heard heavy footfalls on the front porch. As though it were a pack of rabid wolves bent on gnawing through the door, she leaped away. Even in her stumbling retreat, she couldn’t keep from staring in hypnotized fascination at the crystal knob, twinkling as it turned.
There was a click and a low-pitched creak when the door began to open. It happened in a crazy slow motion, seeming to take forever. But after an eternity of ponderously ticking seconds, there he was.
Stadler Tinsley—the man Lucy had thought she would spend her life with. The drama teacher at the University of Kansas, who got a lucky break, being chosen for the lead in an off-Broadway production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Naturally, for an aspiring thespian, it had been an opportunity he couldn’t resist, even though he and Lucy were to have been married in only two months.
So he’d asked her to wait for him—a wait that had become two long years while he toured Australia—and apparently romanced and won another woman along the way.
Lucy was unsettled to note that he was still as disarmingly attractive as she remembered. Tall, lithe, he stood there, impeccably dressed, somewhat on the dramatic side. Not a hair on his sandy blond head was out of place. His dazzling plum eyes were bright in contrast to his milky skin. And as usual, his prominent, aristocratic nose was lifted a bit high for him to claim a shred of humility.
Lucy knew the second Stadler recognized the woman he’d so recently and heartlessly dumped. His lips lifted in a jaunty smile, and her heart twisted. How dare he smile like that, without a hint of remorse?
