by Sheryl Lynn
Angry tears filled Teresa’s eyes. Her chin quivered and her throat ached with the effort of not crying.
“Get out of my house. If you ever show your face around here again, I’ll make sure you go to jail for stealing.” She tossed her hair off her shoulders and smiled in triumph. “And just who do you think Ryder will believe? Me—or an ugly little mouse like you? Hmm?”
“Mrs....” Her voice trailed into a low sob. Teresa turned away and pressed a fist against her mouth. Working for Ryder Hudson had been a dream come true, and to lose her job this way was the height of unfairness. “You can’t get away with this.”
Laura lifted her left hand and checked her diamond-encrusted wristwatch. The twelve-carat blue diamond in her engagement ring flashed fire. “Hmm, Ryder isn’t due home until late tomorrow afternoon. By then I could have you arrested and put in jail. I think you’ll be much better off if you just leave.”
Looking at the tipped corners of Laura’s unpleasant smile and the malevolence glinting in her eyes, Teresa found a name for what ailed the woman. Laura Hudson was evil. And yes, she would have Teresa arrested. And yes, she’d lie without hesitation. And yes, the police would believe a rich socialite who had absolutely no reason to steal from her own husband rather than a nobody like Teresa Gallagher who was up to her neck in debt.
Teresa swiped at her hot eyes. “I’m just trying to do my job, Mrs. Hudson,” she whispered through her teeth.
“I want you off this property. If you ever come back, I’ll call the police. If you try to contact my husband for any reason, I will swear out an arrest warrant. Don’t think I won’t.”
“Mr. Hudson won’t let you—”
“He does anything I tell him.” She thrust out her hand. “Get out!”
“Mrs.—”
“Now!” Laura’s face turned purple, ugly and vicious.
Teresa sensed the woman’s fear. That frightened Teresa most of all. Trembling, she blindly made her way out of the house. Laura Hudson wasn’t getting away with this. No way.
RIDER ENTERED the dining room—and stopped short.
Laura posed gracefully next to the sideboard. A white dress clung to her voluptuous curves like a coating of cream. A slit in the skirt revealed the alluring top of a stocking.
Most eye — catching of all was her hair. When he’d left for Fargo she’d been a blonde with cascades of platinum curls flowing down her back. Today she wore a shining mop of sleek ebony curls in a just-got-out-of-bed style reminiscent of a 1950s sex kitten. Ruby red lips gleamed dark and luxurious against her pale face. A large red pendant hung between her practically naked breasts.
She matched the room, Ryder thought in astonishment. Her hair was as glossy as the lacquered furniture. Her lipstick and jewelry matched the striking touches of red accenting the black-and-white walls and floor.
“Hello, darling,” she said.
Ryder figured he was the only man in the universe who hadn’t a clue about his wife’s natural hair color or what her face looked like without cosmetics Not that he minded, particularly. No matter what she wore or how she fixed her hair, Laura was an exquisitely beautiful woman. Even looking as starkly weird as an art nouveau statue, she was gorgeous. Still, it was disconcerting at times never knowing how she might appear. It saddened him, too. Laura would be a happier woman if only she could figure out who she was or what she wanted to look like.
He’d be a happier man if she’d stop thinking about her looks long enough to think about him.
“Nice hair,” he said and joined her at the sideboard. Her mood seemed good. It generally was after she’d spent bundles of money rearranging herself. He realized the whisper-thin dress was silk, soft as a sigh and about as substantial.
Smiling his approval, he said, “I’d say it’s a little nippy for that dress.”
She gave him a filthy look and turned away as if he disgusted her.
Desire ebbed along with his smile. He poured himself a whiskey and soda. “I had a good time in Fargo. McAllister barbecued a buffalo. He has a herd of them. I’d like to try my hand at raising buffalo. I can use them for models.”
She kept her back to him as she adjusted the hang of an abstract black, white and red painting.
Ryder stared at the smooth, luscious line of her back. How could a creature so deliciously beautiful on the outside be so cold and vacuous on the inside? He also wondered, not for the first time, what it was about himself that kept hoping she’d have a change of heart and love him Each and every day she reminded him of what a fool he was for loving her. She didn’t act as if she even cared he’d been gone two days.
“Where’s Abby?”
“I sent her to bed.” Laura took her seat.
Ryder clutched his drink, and his fingers squeaked against the glass. “It’s only six-thirty.”
“She’s a brat.” Laura lifted her chin in icy challenge.
Caught off guard by the oddness of her expression, it took him a moment to realize she was wearing colored contact lenses again. As with her hair, she couldn’t seem to settle on a color for her eyes. Today they were black.
“She was out in the barn again. Getting filthy. She tore her dress. So I sent her to bed.”
“Damn it, Laura!” Ryder slammed his drink on the tabletop. Guilt raged through his gut, chopping him up inside. Leaving Abby with her mother was asking for trouble. “How is Abby supposed to play if all you do is fuss at her about her clothes? She’s not some Barbie doll.”
Laura huffed. “I should let her run around like a little heathen? Or allow her to stink like horse manure the way you do all the time?”
He tightened his lips, holding back the harsh words rising in his throat. He counted to ten, but it wasn’t enough. He tried twenty.
“Need I remind you, she’s my daughter, not yours,” Laura finally said. “You have absolutely no say in how I raise her. If you don’t like the way I do things, we can certainly discuss a change.”
He suspected nothing would please Laura more than to send her daughter either to boarding school or to live with her biological father.
It took all his will, but he kept his words to himself. If Laura thought for a moment that he cared more about Abby than he did about her, it would be little Abby who bore the brunt of Laura’s vengeance. Laura’s wrath made Mommy Dearest read like a lullaby. He’d do anything, even allow Laura to treat him like a shamed puppy, if it meant protecting the little girl he’d come to think of as his own.
The housekeeper strode into the room. “Are you ready for supper, sir?”
“Dinner,” Laura corrected her.
“Dinner,” Mrs. Weatherbee said through her teeth.
“Bring it on,” he said. “Any idea what’s up with Tess? Tom said he hasn’t seen her. Did she call in sick?”
“I figured you gave her the day off,” Mrs. Weatherbee said. “She wasn’t here yesterday when I brought Abby home from school and she wasn’t here today.”
“She quit,” Laura said coolly. “Mrs. Weatherbee, serve dinner. Now.”
Ryder trained an incredulous gaze on his wife.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Laura said. She delicately flipped out her napkin and laid it across her lap.
“Tess wouldn’t quit on me. She’s as loyal as they come.”
“Were you having an affair with her?”
“What?”
Looking bored with the conversation, Laura stared past him. “Honestly, that girl is deranged. I caught her in my bedroom. She was trying on my clothes. I checked my jewelry cases and fortunately nothing was missing. If she wasn’t stealing then I can only assume she thought she could somehow replace me. Are you the one who gave her such a silly idea, darling? How long have you been sleeping with her?”
It took several moments of hard thinking to follow this particular flight of fancy. “You fired my assistant. You don’t have any right to fire—”
“She quit.”
Ryder gulped down the remainder of his drink. Before Te
ss Gallagher, his life had been chaotic. He didn’t have a head for schedules and paperwork. Talking directly to his agent or gallery owners made him crazy. She’d brought order into his life along with a gentle sense of humor and unabashed, unconditional approval.
Laura wasn’t getting away with this. He pushed away from the table.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
He threw his napkin onto his plate. “Tess didn’t quit, you ran her off. I’m—”
“Oh, my God, I’m right! You are having an affair.” Her eyebrows raised high, but her eyes revealed no emotion.
“I’m not cheating on you. Never have, never will.”
Laura’s full lips trembled. “It’s because she’s younger, isn’t it? Thinner. I work so hard every day trying to make myself attractive for you and you want to chase after that little hippie in her ugly dresses and clunky boots!”
Guilt tugged at him. He did like Tess, a lot. And if he had to confess, her companionship was easier on his soul than Laura’s ever was. He’d imagined, more than once, what she might look like under her loose, long-skirted dresses. “Now, darlin’, I—”
“If you go chasing after that little tramp, don’t expect me to be here when you get back.”
“You’ve got no cause for jealousy.”
“Don’t I? Fine, if you want her, go. Call her. Tell her to come back. Make your choice.” She sniffed, and her black eyes glittered like obsidian. “I’ll just take Abby and get out of your life.”
For a fleeting, bright and beautiful moment, he saw himself leaving the room and calling Tess. He saw Laura carry through on her threat, taking her demands and selfishness and chronic unhappiness with her. He saw a life of peace...
A life without Abby.
He sat down. Humiliation curdled his blood.
Laura daintily patted the base of her throat. “We’ll find you another assistant, darling. A professional.”
At times like this he wanted to kick Laura out of his life so fast she’d think she’d been shot out of a cannon. If he did, though, Laura would take Abby away from him. Technically, biologically, Abby was the daughter of another man, but in his heart, in his soul, the little girl belonged to him. Losing her would kill him.
Even worse, if he did choose his own self-respect over Abby’s well-being, it wouldn’t take more than a month, or six weeks at the most, for Laura to tire of being a single parent. Ryder didn’t doubt for a minute that she’d give the little girl to her father, and Donny Weis was the human equivalent of a scorpion. Legally, there wasn’t a single, blessed thing Ryder could do about it.
Legally....
Somehow he made it through dinner.
He made his escape as soon as politely possible. He joined the housekeeper in the kitchen, the only room in the house unaffected by Laura’s restlessness, the only place he felt comfortable.
“I’m sorry about Teresa,” Mrs. Weatherbee said.
“What’s done is done Can’t undo it.” Humiliation clung to him like a coat of itchy dust. He’d ridden killer bulls, braved blizzards to rescue calves, faced off a grizzly bear, but he could not stand up to his wife. If it was only him, he’d walk away from Laura without a single regret. But Abby needed him, and as long as Laura used her child as a pawn, Ryder remained determined to play her game.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned his backside against a counter. “How bad was it today with the kind?”
“Not as bad as I’ve seen it. No offense, but I don’t think it proper for the missus to be bringing home those outfits that make the little one look like she should be standing on a street corner. I’d pitch a fit, too.”
“What am I supposed to do? I can’t keep Abby with me twenty-four hours a day. And I sure can’t get it through Laura’s head that Abby wants to wear pants, not froufrou dresses.”
The woman’s back hitched. She loved Abby as if the child were blood. “You best do something.” She turned around and held up her hands, wiping them slowly together to catch soapsuds and water drops. “That baby loves you with all her heart. But the day’s coming when she’s gonna ask how come you aren’t protecting her. When that happens, you’re gonna lose her.”
Ryder nodded, then grabbed his hat and left the house. He’d wait until Laura’s favorite television shows came on, then he’d go see Abby. He rubbed his arms against the biting cold. It was only September, but the weather had been strange with more rain than usual. They’d get their first frost way too early, he thought as he headed for the barn. When he saw lights shining through the garage windows, he changed direction.
He stepped through the side door and spotted Tom Sorry on his hands and knees peering underneath the beat-up Dodge four-by-four Ryder used for driving around the back country.
“Hey, Tom.”
The cowboy jumped like a cat stuck with a hot needle. As he scrambled to his feet, he banged his shoulder against the Dodge. Ryder winced. Startling Tom Sorry was never a good idea. The man had lived a rough life, serving two tours in Vietnam, then picking up a drug habit that had landed him a prison stint. But he was a hell of a cowboy, and had a light band with horses and a sixth sense with cattle. Ryder had been uncertain about him at first, but over the years, Tom Sorry had proven himself. The past no longer mattered. Except for the startling him part.
Rubbing his shoulder, Tom said, “You spooked me.”
“Sorry. What are you doing?”
He glanced at the Dodge. “Uh, I was changing the oil.”
“At this time of night?”
“Chores gotta be done.”
“Something wrong with the wheel? This old pig’s about on its last legs, anyway.” Ryder sauntered across the concrete. He crouched where Tom had been and peered underneath the chassis. A puddle gleamed. “What’s leaking?”
“It ain’t a leak.” Tom grabbed a flashlight and flicked it on. He shone the light behind the tire. “Somebody cut the brake lines. All of them.”
Ryder peered closely where the flashlight beam focused. An unpleasant taste filtered into his mouth, and he worked his tongue against his palate. “How did this happen?”
“It didn’t happen. Somebody crawled under there with a pair of snips and cut ’em right through.”
“Who?”
Tom flicked off the flashlight and stood.
Ryder stood, too. He didn’t like what he was thinking, but he saw no other explanations. “Laura fired Tess. I’m thinking it was a right ugly scene.”
One side of Tom’s mouth pulled into an uneasy smile. He shook his head and cocked his hat with his thumb. “Oh, no, boss, Teresa is a nice girl. She wouldn’t have screwed around with your truck.”
“I wouldn’t think so, but...” He remembered Laura saying she’d caught Tess trying on clothes. Had Tess been obsessed with him, hiding her true feelings, but possessing a dark, twisted side?
He banished the thought. Tess solved problems, she didn’t create them. “Forget it. Can you fix the brakes?”
“Yeah, and I’ll check around, see what I—”
“I said forget it. No real harm done.” If Tess had vandalized his truck in a fit of anger, then he reckoned she had a right to anger. Laura had pushed tougher people than his assistant over the edge. “I wouldn’t have gotten out of the driveway before I knew I had no brakes. It’s a dumb prank, nothing more. So just forget it. Fix the truck and... forget it.”
Chapter Two
Shrill ringing cut through the quiet air in the art supply store. Ryder grabbed at the cellular phone holster on his hip. Hope leaped into his heart. No one had answered his knock when he went to Tess’s apartment in Monument. Perhaps she was now returning one of the many messages he’d left on her answering machine. He had in his pocket a hefty check and a letter of recommendation as an apology for Laura’s meanness.
He fumbled with the flip phone until he remembered how to open it, then punched buttons, hoping for the right combination for activation. He got through. “Hello?”
Tom Sorry
said, “Where are you, boss?”
“Downtown at the art store.” He gazed at the tubes of oil paint and brushes he’d lined up on the counter for purchase. Buying them gave him something to do until he heard from Tess. “What do you need?” He prayed Tess hadn’t called the house. If Laura found out...
“I don’t know how to say this —”
Tom Sorry was as laconic as a mountain man, but when he needed to talk, he spoke his mind. His pussyfooting made the short hairs lift on Ryder’s nape. The store clerk gazed at him, his eyebrows knitting in concern.
“There’s been a car accident.”
Ryder looked at his watch. It was almost five. Every day Mrs. Weatherbee picked up Abby from kindergarten at two, then had a long drive along the twisting roads from Palmer Lake to the ranch.
The art store clerk looked alarmed. “Can I get you a drink of water, Mr. Hudson?”
“Ryder?” Tom asked. “Are you still there?”
Ryder cleared his choked throat. “Abby?”
“Abby and Mrs. Weatherbee are fine. It’s your missus. She rolled her Mercedes into the quarry.”
Uncertain if he’d heard correctly, he whispered, “How bad? Is she okay? Is she hurt?”
“I—I don’t know. Mrs. Weatherbee spotted the car while she was coming home. When I got there, the paramedics already took her. They’re airlifting her to St. Francis.”
Ryder blinked rapidly, unable to focus. Airlift—Flight for Life helicopter. “Meet me at the hospital, Tom. I’m on my way now.”
“I KNOW this is a difficult tune, Mr. Hudson,” the young man said, “but this is necessary.” Dressed in a scrub suit, holding a clipboard, the young man stood while Ryder sat on a tweed-upholstered couch in a small conference room.
As soon as the helicopter had landed at the hospital, the trauma team had whisked Laura into surgery. Judging by the hospital worker’s expression and the organ donor papers he wanted Ryder to sign, no one expected her to pull through.
For the life of him, Ryder couldn’t figure out how he felt about it. If Laura died, he and Abby could live in peace without having to tiptoe around Laura’s temper or whims. No more living under a cloud of dread that she’d tear Abby away from him. Her death would free him.