by Diana Palmer
She finished her coffee and carried her suitcase into the neatly furnished second bedroom, the one Aunt Mary had used as a guest room. Meredith had never used itshe'd been too afraid of seeing the Hardens to ever come back to Billings.
Her few things put away, Meredith took the bus to a small convenience store several blocks away and bought a sack of groceries. It had been years since she'd done anything so menial. She had maids and a housekeeper at her Lincoln Park house, and they took care of such things. She knew how to cook, but it wasn't a skill she practiced often. She smiled at her own shortcomings. Aunt Mary liked to chide her for her lack of homemaking abilities.
She decided to walk back. Passing the enormous Billings city park she sighed at its beauty. The towering cottonwoods formed a green canopy over the lawn. Here, in summer, there were symphony orchestra concerts and ice-cream suppers. There was always something going on. Billings was a huge city with well-designed wide streets and plenty of elbow room, spreading between the Rimrocks and the Yellowstone River, with railroad tracks through the city and all around, because plenty of trains came through here. Agriculture and mining kept things going. Refineries were everywhere. So were vast ranches and fields of wheat and sugar beets. To the west stood the towering Rocky Mountains, to the southeast the Big Horn and Pryor mountains. Buttes surrounded Billings, leveling off to flat plains and rolling hills farther east. Meredith loved the country out of town, loved the vastness of it, loved the absence of concrete and steel. Distances were terrifying to easterners, but a hundred miles was nothing to a Montanan.
Her arms tightened around the grocery sack as she reached the street on which Great-Aunt Mary's house stood. Odd, she thought, that sleek gray Jaguar hadn't been sitting on the curb when she left. Perhaps the Realtor had come looking for her.
Digging in her jeans for her house key, she didn't see the shadowy figure on the front porch until she reached the steps. Then she stopped dead. She felt her heart skip.
Cyrus Granger Harden was every bit as tall as Mr. Smith, but the comparison ended there. Cy was dark and dangerous-looking even in an expensive blue vested suit like the one he was wearing now. He stepped into the sunlight. Despite the anguish of the past six years, Meredith felt a surge of warmth shoot through her body as she looked at him.
He was older. There were new lines in that long, lean face with its high cheekbones, thick black eyebrows and deepset dark brown eyes. His nose was straight, his mouth a sensual delight, its firmly etched contours so familiar that Meredith had to drag her eyes back up. There was a Stetson tilted arrogantly over his broad forehead, covering hair that had the sheen of a raven's back. His lean, dark fingers held a smoking cigarette; so he hadn't quite given up that habit, she thought with faint humor.
"I thought it was you," he said without preamble, his deep, cutting voice as harsh as the unrelenting sunlight on her bare head. "I can see the bus stop out my window."
As she'd hoped. So he had seen her after all. She gave herself a quick, mental pep talk. I'm older, I'm richer, I have secrets, and he has no power over me . She repeated it.
Her full lips tugged into a careless smile. "Hello, Cy," she said. "Fancy seeing you over here in the slums."
His jaw tautened. "Billings doesn't have slums. Why are you here?"
"I came back for your family silver," she returned with a pointed stare. "I must have missed it on my last trip through."
He shifted uncomfortably, ramming one hand into his pocket. It drew the thin fabric of his slacks against the powerful muscles of his long legs, and Meredith had to fight not to look. Unclothed, that body was a miracle of perfection, all dark skin and dark curling hair that wedged sexily down his chest and his flat stomach and feathered his legs
"After you left," he said hesitantly, "Tanksley admitted to my mother that you had nothing to do with the theft."
Tony Tanksley, she recalled, was the "accomplice" she'd allegedly been in love and sleeping with. Only a jealous fool could have imagined Meredith going from Cy to Tony, but since Myrna had paid Tony to invent the story, the details she'd given him had been perfect. A classic frame. But regardless of that, Cy had believed her capable of infidelity and criminal acts. Love without trust wasn't love. He'd even admitted that his only interest in her had been sexual. What a pity that her mother hadn't lived, couldn't have warned her about giving a man everything without counting the cost. The lesson she'd learned the hard way had been expensive.
"I wondered why the police hadn't come after me," she said easily.
His powerful shoulders moved under the fabric. "You couldn't be found," he said tersely.
Not surprising, considering the fact that Henry had stashed her on a Caribbean island during her pregnancy, with Mr. Smith to protect her. Nobody, but nobody, had been told her real name. She was known as Kip Tennison after their marriage, period. Now she was grateful for that safeguard. She'd been afraid that the Hardens might try to track her, if for no other reason than to embarrass her.
"How nice to finally know that," she said with faint sarcasm, watching his eyes glitter as she shifted the bag of groceries. "A jail sentence wouldn't have appealed to me."
His face became more severe, his dark eyes narrowed under those thick brows as he studied her face. "You're thinner than I remember," he said. "Older."
"Twenty-five next birthday," she said breezily, but her smile didn't reach her eyes. "You're thirty-four now, aren't you?"
He nodded. He moved his gaze down her body and back up. He felt as if he were dying inside all over again. Six long years. He remembered tears on that young face, and the sound of her voice hating him. He remembered, too, long, exquisite lovings in his bed with her arms clinging, her soft body like quicksilver under the heated thrust of his, her voice breaking as she moaned her pleasure into his damp throat
"How long are you going to be here?" he asked tightly.
"Long enough to dispose of the house," she replied.
He lifted the cigarette to his mouth. "You won't keep it?" he asked, hating himself for being vulnerable enough to ask the question.
She shook her head. "No. I don't think I'll stay. Billings has too many enemies in it to suit me."
"I'm not your enemy," he replied.
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 mutualand 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 hera diamond-cut emerald with small diamondswas 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'mtwenty," 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. Hehe'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 wantespecially 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.
R
emembering 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
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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.