Reflected Pleasures

by Linda Conrad

  Her crystal fogged over and the gypsy looked toward the heavens, trying to explain to her ancestor’s spirit. “I cannot make him see the light, father. The time and distance is too far for me to interfere this time. I have tried to honor your legacy. I, too, owe a debt to Lucille Steele, and this young Steele is worthy of the gift.

  “He is so close to his heart’s desire. So close…and yet he continues to shun the magic. I can do no more than watch and hope. If he never looks in the mirror to see the truth of his own selfishness, all will be lost.

  “If the problem is due to my bungling of the gift-giving, then I am truly sorry Forgive me…”

  Standing outside the 4-H arena where the luncheon was to be held, Merri felt a stirring of cold wind against her skin and it gave her the chills. But when she looked up, the winds were calm and the heat of the afternoon sun bore down on all the females who were awaiting their turn to walk down the runway. Sweat was beginning to show across several feminine foreheads.

  A sudden panic jolted across Merri’s skin, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Something was not right.

  But when she gazed down into the smiling, happy faces of the girls from the ranch, she struggled to ignore the deepening sense of foreboding. Merri had made sure no photographers were on the guest lists, so it couldn’t be the fear of being discovered that worried her.

  Perhaps what she was experiencing was guilt about not telling Ty the truth. Her desperation to make time stand still so that tonight would never arrive must be making her paranoid.

  “Ms. Davis, you sure look beautiful without your glasses,” little Rachel told her as they waited in line for their turn. “You should be a real model. I bet you could be a big star in Paris or New York.”

  Her glasses? Oh, my gosh. It had been days since she’d even thought about putting on those fake rims.

  She’d gotten too comfortable here. The place felt too much like the home she’d never known and always wished for. She had become careless.

  Taking a deep breath, she thanked Rachel for the compliment and felt her heart sink. The truth was, she’d simply fallen head-over-heels stupid in love with the place…with the people…with the man who ruled her soul.

  Biting back the tears, Merri plastered a smile across her lips as they entered the darkened backstage area. Just a few more hours. She would make the kids happy, raise as much as possible for them this afternoon, and then it would be all over. She would tell Ty the truth and take the consequences.

  She would once again be on her own. Alone with her guilt and her unfulfilled love—and more miserable than ever.

  “You did what?” Frank asked him incredulously.

  They were standing out in front of the 4-H arena, getting ready to go back inside and take their seats for the end of the show. They’d been hanging around outside for a few minutes, making sure the reporters had arrived and that everything was ready for the big announcement.

  “I asked her to marry me,” Ty answered and felt the goofy grin break across his face.

  “But why?”

  Ty’s lips narrowed into a scowl. “Because we love each other. Why else?”

  “You two hardly know each other. What do you really know about Merri’s background? You should’ve let me check her out more thoroughly first. She’s worked out fine at the Foundation, but as a wife?”

  “Don’t push it, pal. I don’t care about her background.”

  “What if she’s really another gold-digger—just better at it than all the rest?”

  “Keep that kind of talk to yourself, Frank. I know who she is inside. She can’t be like that.”

  “All right, fine. But at least let me draw up a prenup agreement for her to sign. Be a little practical here.”

  The fury blinded Ty and he nearly grabbed Frank by the throat. “Never say anything like that again,” he growled. “I don’t want you to slip and mention such a thing when she’s around. She loves me and I trust her. Don’t ruin it by making it seem that we need a written contract to be able to trust each other with our future.”

  Frank shrugged but knew enough to keep his mouth shut. He had said too much already. Taking his leave from Ty, he hurried over to talk to one of the reporters who had gathered up in front of the main door.

  Ty leaned back against the wall and let the sunshine wash over him, soothing his anger and calming him back down. He closed his eyes and took a breath. It wasn’t Frank’s fault. Not really.

  No one knew Merri like Ty did. He had seen into her soul and found the other half of himself.

  The acid smell of cigarette smoke disturbed his reverie. He opened his eyes and saw a couple of the professional photographers standing apart from the others and within a few feet of him. They weren’t paying a bit of attention to who was nearby and suffering from their smoke.

  Too bad he needed them for the publicity photos or else he might just be tempted to tell them what they thought about rude strangers in this part of Texas. Ty clamped his mouth shut.

  “You have got to be kidding,” one of the reporters said to the other. “What the crap would someone like her be doing in such a hellhole as this? It’s barely civilized here. There isn’t even a damned Starbucks in this whole section of Texas.”

  “Dude, I’ve spent hundreds of hours studying her pictures and a thousand more trying to get a lead on where in the world she’d disappeared to,” the other guy argued. “It’s her. I’d stake my next big shot on it.”

  “Well…well.” The first man took a last drag and pitched the cigarette a few feet away. “I’ll be damned. Looks like this gig isn’t going to be as boring as I first thought.”

  “Yeah. Hell. The sleaze rags will pay in the six figures for a decent shot of her. Maybe we can even get her to give us an interview. Shit. That’d be worth millions.”

  “Shut up about it,” the other man said in a stage whisper. “Don’t let the other guys figure it out. We have to get to her first.”

  Ty was suddenly beyond curious. Who were they discussing? He’d grown up with every single person in this part of Texas. There couldn’t be anyone famous here that he didn’t know about.

  There couldn’t be…

  “Just think of it,” one of the men said with a wistful grin. “We ambush the infamous Merrill Davis-Ross and we’ll be famous, too. And rich. What a kick. We must be living right for a change.”

  Merrill Davis-Ross. Merri Davis?

  Ty’s breath whooshed out of his chest, leaving him stunned and sick to his stomach. He felt as if the ground had opened up and was about to swallow him whole.

  He fisted his hands at his side and fought for clarity. No wonder she looked so much like a danged fashion model in that dress. No wonder she had seemed so familiar to him the last few days and especially this morning.

  It wasn’t because she was the missing piece in his life and his heart had recognized her spirit. It was because she was a fashion model—a tabloid queen he’d remembered from the front pages at the grocery store—and a damned liar.

  Wanting to hit something, Ty fought the pain in his chest and shoved away from the wall. How could he have let himself be taken in—again?

  He stalked around the idiot reporters in silence. Gritting his teeth, he made his way toward the back entrance that had been turned into the model staging area for today.

  This time he wasn’t going to back away and let the pain take over his life for years to come like the last two times he had been fooled by women. No way.

  Ms. Merrill Davis-Ross was going to have to explain herself. If she could find some excuse for lying, that was.

  Ty’s whole body shook with rage. There was no excuse for lying. And, by God, she was going to hear him tell her so before he ran her out of town and sent her packing back to her plastic life forever.

  Twelve

  Trying to ignore the deepening premonition that something terrible was about to happen, Merri stepped out the back door of the arena and into the heat. The place was packed and they
were bound to raise a lot of money for the kids at the ranch. Still the uneasy feeling persisted, making her check over her shoulder every ten minutes.

  She’d heard that reporters were out front waiting to take publicity pictures after the luncheon. But she knew how to duck them. That couldn’t be where this strange feeling was coming from.

  Dressed in her last outfit of the day, Merri looked around for the little girl who would be wearing a matching lilac linen tea dress. As she recalled, this girl was the tiniest one of the bunch, a mere four years old with big wide eyes and as cute a smile as could be. Merri spotted one of the matrons from the ranch but the little girl was nowhere in sight.

  The Mexican-American matron waved her over. “If you’re looking for Lupe, we had to take her back to the ranch,” she said with a chuckle. “I’m sorry, but it was a mistake to let you schedule her for last. Pobrecita. She’s too little to understand and too young to wait around for an hour without getting her dress all dirty.”

  “Oh, no.” Merri felt like a moron for not thinking of that. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I’ll have Janie send her another dress, and I’ll come out to the ranch to try and make it up to her.”

  The other woman shook her head and smiled. “She’ll be fine. Don’t worry. They were planning on getting her an ice-cream cone on the way back. She’ll never be disappointed with her day after ice cream.”

  Merri nodded but she still felt like a jerk. How could she be so stupid?

  Sighing, she chalked it up to yet another example of her selfish ways. “The show is nearly over. Our models are about to be served lunch. Then we can get them all back to the ranch.”

  The other woman opened her mouth to reply, but stopped as her attention was drawn to something over Merri’s shoulder. A shadow fell across Merri from behind and the cold wind once again raised goose bumps on her arms.

  “You can’t leave until they take the publicity photos, Ms. Davis-Ross.”

  She didn’t need to turn around to know that was the voice of her beloved. Only his tone carried an edgy, bitter sound that she’d never heard before.

  And he’d called her—Davis-Ross. Oh. My. God.

  No!

  Merri spun on her toes to face him. “Ty…”

  “Excuse us a second, will you?” He glared at the matron, who quickly walked away.

  “You know,” Merri mumbled as her heart sank.

  Ty drove his hands through the short strands of his hair and frowned. “Of course, I know. You didn’t think I could be fooled forever, did you? Regardless of what you must think of me, I’m not a completely backward redneck.”

  His voice was flat, the look in his eyes was dead. She had never seen him like this. Always when he gazed at her in the past, there had been a sexy glimmer in the depths of those steel blue eyes. This afternoon all of that was gone.

  “I’m sorry…I tried to tell you this morning. I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

  “Gee, thanks,” he said in a voice that dripped of sarcasm. “How kind of you to worry about me.”

  “Ty…”

  “You lied to me, dammit! To Jewel, and to all of us. And for no good reason except to make us look like fools. Was this all some kind of publicity stunt?”

  She raised her chin and straightened up. “Never. If anything, it was exactly the opposite.” Her voice caught and she had to swallow hard to go on. “At first, I was just trying to escape from my empty, useless life. I wanted to do something worthwhile…I wanted to physically help others instead of throwing money at the world’s problems like my parents had always done. I wanted to find out for myself what it was like to lead a normal life—no servants—no fuss. I…”

  “You lied to me. Why? I would’ve understood. I would have let you be normal. Why did you have to hide the truth from me?” His voice cracked and he scowled.

  His pain was killing her. This was what she had dreaded the most. This was what she’d tried so hard to avoid. And yet, she’d let her selfishness override her good sense and here she was after all, facing devastation.

  “I wanted to find out if anyone could like me for just me. So I did something really ironic and stupid and became someone else. Someone kinder, more real.

  “But by the time…other people…befriended me, it seemed so hurtful to confess the truth that I…”

  “Continued lying?” he said through gritted teeth. “After you lied your way into our lives—and our hearts—you kept on lying?

  “Was everything a lie?” Ty turned, paced a few feet away then swung around for one more bitter dart. “You’ve been acting…fooling everyone. I don’t give a rip about your previous useless life, but did you lie again this morning when you said you loved me? Are you that good an actress?”

  She shook her head violently, but the words backed up in her throat as she fought not to break down.

  He turned and paced again, hands fisted by his sides. “Damn you,” he muttered. “I trusted you. I thought I knew who you were. I wanted to make you the public face for the Foundation and promote you to Chairman.”

  “You do know me,” she sobbed into her hands.

  “Now,” he continued right ahead as if he hadn’t heard her words. “Instead of publicity photos with the kids, the reporters will all be trying to catch a shot of the famous runaway tabloid queen. Thanks a lot. For nothing.”

  The reporters? So that’s how he found out. They must’ve spotted her.

  “Oh, Ty, I’m so sorry.” The pain was searing through her chest, the tears blinding her eyes. “I never meant for this to happen. I really tried to keep you and Jewel out of the glare of the spotlight I’ve always hated. Let me try to fix things with the paparazzi, and then I’ll just go.”

  “Fix things?” he exploded as he paced back. He wanted to strangle her, cause her as much hurt as he felt. His own naive stupidity at letting yet another woman get to him was beyond belief. Had he learned nothing about women in his life?

  She stiffened and winced at his tone. “Let me try, I can…”

  “You can just get out,” he growled. “Go back to jet-setting and leave us be. We don’t need your kind here. I’ll have someone pack your bags and fly you wherever you want to go.”

  The pain in her eyes nearly made him reach for her, but he held himself back. His own pain was too overwhelming.

  “No, thanks,” she said tightly. “I’ve found out I can take care of myself. And for that I’ll always be grateful to you and this whole town.”

  He couldn’t stand watching her. She was trembling and holding herself together with her arms crossed over her waist, as if one wrong move would break her in two. Turning his back on her, he squeezed his eyes shut and held onto the last vestiges of self-control.

  “Goodbye, Tyson,” she whispered. “And…I wasn’t lying when I said I loved you.”

  Ty couldn’t move. He wanted to scream “liar” at her one more time, but his wounds were too great to speak.

  Hearing her steps as she walked away drove nails into the empty space that used to be his heart. This time it would definitely kill him. She was the last one to punish him this way by taking his soul with her as she left.

  Never again, he swore silently—never again.

  Several hours later, as purple dusk crept over the range, Ty found himself still pacing. But this time he was pacing up and down the main aisle of the foaling barn, the one place that should’ve been able to soothe his battered heart.

  But nothing was working. All he could think of was never having Merri in his arms again. Never being able to touch or stir or taste her. It was driving him crazy.

  He’d made a mad dash back here after he’d walked away from her at the arena, hoping to rid himself of the scent of her, of the sound of her pain in his ears. But he could still smell her. Still hear her in his heart. Still feel her on his fingers and his tongue.

  Dammit. To top that off, he’d had to shut off his phone because all of a sudden every tabloid in the world wanted to interview him. H
e’d even been forced to post ranch hands as guards along the main gate to keep the fool reporters out. Idiots.

  He used the toe of his old comfortable boots to kick violently at the dirt. This pacing wasn’t making him feel a bit better, so he started out across the barnyard heading for the house. Maybe he would try to work in his office for a while. Anything to take his mind off of Merri and what might be happening to her right now.

  When he’d almost reached the house, Jewel drove up and parked. Odd. She rarely came out to his ranch except for parties or emergencies.

  Jewel got out of her car and stormed toward him, her eyes shooting sparks and her whole body tensed for a fight.

  “What brings you all the way out here?” he asked warily when she got close enough.

  “I have something to say to you, Tyson Adams Steele. And I’ll say it inside. Now.”

  He followed her as she stalked through his kitchen, down the hall and into his office. When he walked into the room, she slammed the door behind him and rounded on him with such a furious expression across her normally sweet face, it made him take a step back.

  “What’s the matter? What did I do?”

  “Give me a minute to get over that mob out at the front gate,” she said as she hissed in a breath. “Jackals. The whole lot of them.”

  “I’m sorry, Jewel. If you’d let me know you were coming, I would’ve sent someone to help you through.”

  With one hand, she reached out and gingerly patted his arm while putting the other hand against her breast. “Not your fault. At least not that particular part of this mess isn’t.”

  Underneath the glaring look she was giving him, Ty could still see the love and concern shining in her eyes. It hit him out of the blue that here was a woman who had never lied to him. A woman he could trust completely never to betray him. He’d always known he loved her, but now he could see why he’d clung to the idea that somewhere out there was another woman he would be able to count on.

  Another woman just like Jewel. Too bad it wasn’t the woman that he’d stupidly fallen in love with.

  “I love you, Jewel,” he told his aunt before she could say anything else.