by Diana Palmer
But desire wasn’t the only thing he felt for his young wife, and for the first time he had to admit it. He remembered Dana at the age of sixteen, cuddling a wounded puppy that some cruel boy had shot with a rifle and crying with anger as she insisted that Hank drive her to the vet’s. The puppy had died, and Hank had comforted the young girl whose heart sounded as if it might break. Dana had always been like that about little, helpless things. Her heart embraced the whole world. How could he have hurt her so, a woman like that?
He groaned out loud. He wondered if he’d lost his reason with Betty’s return. He’d dreaded it because he thought he was still in love with Betty. He wasn’t. He knew it quite suddenly when he saw Dana with tears in her eyes and her suitcase in her hand. Dana had lived with him for two weeks, and he hadn’t even touched her since their wedding night. He thought of it with incredulity. Now he realized what his behavior had masked. He’d been afraid of falling so deeply in love with her that it would be as it had been with Betty. Except that Dana wasn’t mercenary. She wanted him, and seemed to be ashamed of feeling that way. But she had a tender heart, and she’d cared about him. If he’d tried, he might have made her love him. The thought, once dreaded, was now the essence of heaven.
It was too late, though. He’d let her leave and he wouldn’t be able to get her back. He’d lost her. What the hell was he doing driving to Corpus Christi with two people he didn’t even like?
As he thought it, he realized that they were already driving into its city limits. It was too late to turn back now. He’d do what he’d promised, he thought, but after that, he was going home to Dana. Whatever it took, he was going to get her back.
* * *
If only it had been that easy. They’d no sooner gotten out of the car at the Collins’s white brick mansion when Bob groaned and then fell. He died right there on the green lawn before the ambulance could get to him, despite Hank’s best efforts to revive him. He’d had another stroke.
Betty went to pieces and Hank found himself in the ironic position of arranging a funeral for his ex-wife’s second husband; and his former friend.
Back home, Dana heard about Bob Collins’s death; it was all over the radio. He’d been a prominent man in the state’s poultry industry and was well-known and liked. His funeral was very big and many important people attended it. Dana saw newspaper clippings of Hank supporting the grieving widow. She couldn’t imagine that cold-eyed woman grieving for her husband. If Betty was crying, it was because Bob’s life insurance policy had probably lapsed.
Dana chided herself for her uncharitable thoughts and threw the newspaper into the trash. Well, one thing was certain, Hayden Grant would be asking for a divorce so that he could remarry the woman he really loved. If Betty was what he wanted, he should have her. Dana remembered what she’d said to Bob Collins about not wanting to eat her heart out for the rest of her life with a man who wanted someone else. Poor Bob, who’d done exactly that, steadfastly, for ten long years. Dana offered a silent prayer for him. At least now perhaps he would have peace.
* * *
Two long weeks passed, with no word from Hank. The next morning, Dana went to see the family lawyer and asked him to initiate divorce proceedings. It would mean dipping into her small trust fund to pay for it, but that didn’t matter. She wanted Hank to be happy.
“This isn’t wise,” the attorney tried to advise her. “You’ve been upset and so has he. You should wait, think it over.”
She shook her head. “I’ve done all the thinking I care to. I want the deeds made up for my signature and delivered to Hank, along with the divorce papers. I’m throwing in the towel. Betty’s free now and Hank deserves a little happiness. God knows he’s waited long enough to get her back.”
The attorney winced as he looked at the vulnerable, pale woman sitting in front of him. She’d suffered, judging by the thinness of her face and those terrible shadowed blue eyes. He couldn’t imagine a man crazy enough to turn down a love that violent and selfless. But if she was right, that’s exactly what Hayden Grant had already done. He sighed inwardly. Talk about throwing gold away in favor of gloss! Some men just didn’t know their luck.
“I’ll have everything ready by tomorrow morning. You’re absolutely sure?”
She nodded.
“Then consider it done.”
She thanked him and went home. The house was very empty and she felt the same. There would be a new life ahead of her. She was closing a very firm door on the old one, starting tomorrow. That thought was fixed firmly in her mind until the morning came and she began to throw up as if she were dying. She made it to the attorney’s office to sign the papers, but she was too sick to travel.
Fearful that she had some virus that would prevent her plans to move, she made an appointment to see Dr. Lou Coltrain, a newly married member of the local medical community.
Lou examined her, asked pertinent questions and began to whistle softly while Dana looked at her with horror.
“It must have been some wedding night,” Lou said, tongue in cheek, “because you’ve only been married a month and I know Hayden Grant. He wouldn’t have touched you until the ring was in place.”
“Lou, you’re awful!” Dana groaned, flushing.
“Well, I’m right, too.” She patted the younger woman on the shoulder. “It’s two weeks too early for tests to tell us anything positive. Come back then. But meanwhile, you watch what medications you take and get plenty of rest, because I’ve seen too many pregnancies to mistake one. Congratulations.”
“Thanks. But you, uh, won’t tell anyone, right?” Dana asked gently.
“Your secret is safe with me.” The doctor chuckled. “Want to surprise him, I guess?”
“That’s right,” Dana said immediately, thinking what a surprise it would have been.
“Come back and see me in two weeks,” Lou repeated, “and I’ll send you to Jack Howard up in Victoria. He’s the best obstetrician I know, and it’s a lot closer than Houston.”
“Thanks, Lou.”
“Anytime.”
Dana went home in a cloud of fear and apprehension and joy. She was almost certainly pregnant, and her marriage was in tatters. But she knew what she was going to do. First she had to find her way to Houston, get an apartment and find a job. She’d handed the deeds to her father’s property and the divorce petition over to the attorney for disposition. Presumably, he’d have already forwarded them to Hank in Corpus Christi in care of the bereaved Mrs. Collins. She’d burned her bridges and there was no going back.
Unaware of what was going on in Corpus Christi, Dana set out for Houston the next morning, painfully working out a future without Hank while a tall man with shocked dark eyes was served a divorce petition and cursed her until he went hoarse.
* * *
Hank jerked up the phone, oblivious to Betty’s shocked stare, and dialed the phone number of the attorney, who was also a friend of his.
“Luke, what the hell’s going on?” he demanded, shaking the divorce papers at the receiver. “I didn’t ask her for the deeds to the ranch, and I sure as hell don’t remember asking for a divorce!”
“There, there, old fellow, calm down,” Luke said firmly. “She said it was the best thing for both of you. Besides, you’re going back to Betty anyway.”
“I am?” he asked, shocked.
“That’s what Dana told me. See here, Hank, you’re throwing over a good woman. She never thought of herself once. It was what you wanted, what you needed to make you happy that she considered when she arranged all this. She said it would give you a head start on all the happiness you’d missed out on ten years ago, and she was glad for you.”
“Glad for me.” He looked at the papers and glanced irritably at Betty, who’d been practicing bereavement for two weeks while trying to entangle Hank in her web again. She hadn’t succeeded. He was untangling Bob’s finances for her, and they were in one major mess. It had taken time he didn’t want to spend here, but for Bob’s sake he’
d managed it. Now he only wanted to go home and reclaim his wife, but he was holding proof that she didn’t want to be reclaimed.
“She knew you’d be happy to have the matter dealt with before you came back,” he continued. “Listen, if you don’t contest the divorce—and why should you, right?—I can get it through in no time.”
Hank hesitated, breathing deliberately so that he wouldn’t start swearing at the top of his lungs. The words on the pages blurred in his sight as he remembered the last time he’d seen Dana. He mentally replayed the cruel, hateful things he’d said to her. No wonder she was divorcing him. She didn’t know how he felt; he’d never told her. She thought he hated her. What a laugh!
“Can you hold it back for a few weeks?” he asked the attorney. “I’ve got some things to untangle down here for Bob’s widow, and I can’t get back home for a week, possibly longer.”
“I can, but she won’t like it,” Luke said.
“Don’t tell her.”
“Hank…”
“Don’t tell her,” he repeated. “Leave it alone until I get back.”
There was a heavy sigh. “If she asks me, point-blank, I won’t lie to her.”
“Then make sure she doesn’t have the opportunity to ask you.”
“I’ll try.”
“Thanks.”
He hung up. He felt sick. God, what a mess he’d made of his life!
Betty sidled close and leaned against his arm, wearing a wispy negligee. “Poor old dear, is she leaving you?” she asked softly. “I’m sorry. Why don’t you come upstairs with me and I’ll kiss you better?”
He looked at her as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “Betty, your husband was buried week before last,” he said.
She shrugged. “He’d run out of money and he was barely able to get around by himself.” She smiled in a shallow, childlike way, and he realized that she was just that—childlike. She had no depth of emotion at all, just a set of wants and needs that she satisfied the best she knew how, with her body. He’d lived with her for two years, ached for her for ten more, and he’d never known the sort of person she really was until he became involved with Dana. Now he could see the real difference between the two women.
He removed her hand from his arm. “I have some things to finish,” he told her. “We’ll talk later. Okay?”
She smiled. “Okay, lover.”
CHAPTER SIX
It took all of another ten days for Hayden to wrap up the odds and ends of Bob’s life and get his affairs safely into the hands of a good local attorney. Bob had an attorney, but the man had been evasive and almost impossible to locate. Finally it had taken the threat of litigation to get him to turn over needed documents. And afterward, the man—who had a degree in law from an interesting but unaccredited law school overseas—had vanished. It was no wonder that Bob had lost most of his money. The charlatan had embezzled it. Fortunately there would be enough left, added to the life insurance, to keep Betty fairly secure if she was careful.
It was only as he explained things to her and she realized that he wasn’t going to propose marriage that she came apart for real.
“But you love me,” she exclaimed. “You always have. Look at how quickly you married that child just so I wouldn’t think you were carrying a torch for me!”
“It might have started that way,” he replied quietly. “It didn’t end that way. I can’t afford to lose her now.”
“Oh, she’s got money, I guess.”
He frowned. “No. She hasn’t a dime in the world. Do you always ascribe mercenary reasons to every decision?”
“Of course I do,” she said, and smiled faintly. “Security is the most important thing in the world. I didn’t have anything when I was a child. I went hungry sometimes. I promised myself it would never happen to me.” She made an awkward gesture with her shoulder. “That’s why I left you, you know. You were heading into debt and I was scared. I did love you, in my way, but there was Bob and he had a lot of money and he wanted me.” She smiled. “I had no choice, really.”
“I don’t suppose you did.” He was remembering that Dana had nothing, and she was giving him the only thing of worth in her possession, those deeds to the land, so that he wouldn’t face the threat of some dangerously noisy neighbor. He could have kicked himself for letting her walk out of the house in the first place.
“I felt sort of sorry for her,” she added thoughtfully. “She isn’t sophisticated, is she? She was afraid of me.” Her eyebrows met. “Why won’t you sleep with her?”
He averted her eyes. “That’s none of your business.”
“It is, in a way. You won’t sleep with me, either. Why?”
He grimaced. “I don’t want you,” he admitted reluctantly. “I’m sorry.”
“You used to,” she recalled. “You wanted me all the time. I thought it was going to kill you when I walked out.”
“It damned near did. But things have changed.” His eyes were sad and quiet. “I am sorry, Betty. For your loss, for everything.”
“Bob wasn’t a bad man,” she said. “I was fond of him. I guess I’ll miss him, in a way.” She looked up. “You’re sure about not wanting me?”
He nodded.
She sighed and smiled again. “Well, that’s that. At least I’ll have enough money to make ends meet, thanks to you. And I’m still young enough to make a good third marriage!”
On that note, he said his goodbyes and went back to the motel where he’d been staying. It felt nice to have the weight of Betty’s disastrous finances off his shoulders, although he’d enjoyed untangling the mess. Now he was going to go home and work on his own problems.
He looked at the divorce petition and the deeds and his eyes narrowed. Dana had wasted no time at all turning over the ranch to him. He began to frown. Where was she going to live without her house?
He picked up the phone and dialed the attorney’s number, but he was told that Luke was in court on a case and couldn’t be reached. Really worried now, he dialed the Mobry ranch number. It rang twice and the line was connected. He started to speak. Just as he did, a mechanical voice informed him that the number had been disconnected.
Frustrated and worried, his next call was to his own house, where he found Tilly.
“All right, what the hell’s going on? Where did Dana go?” he demanded without preamble.
“She wouldn’t let me call you,” Tilly said stiffly. “I begged, but she wouldn’t budge. I gave my word. Couldn’t break it.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s left,” came the terse reply. “Said you had the deeds and that Joe and Ernie would keep watch over the place until you made other arrangements, but you’d have to pay them.”
“Oh, to hell with the ranch!” he snapped. “Where is she?”
“Took a cab to the bus station. Got the bus to Houston. I don’t know where she went from there.”
Hope raised its head. “Houston! Tilly, you’re a wonder!”
“There’s, uh, something else. The nurse who works for Dr. Lou Coltrain is a cousin of mine. Seems Dana went to see Lou before she left town. If you don’t find her pretty soon, you’re going to be looking for two people instead of one,” she said, and hung up.
He stared at the telephone blankly and felt all the blood draining out of his face. Dana was pregnant? He counted back to their wedding night and realized that neither of them had even thought about precautions. His Dana was going to have a baby, and she’d left him! What an idiot he’d been!
He called the airport. Houston was a good place to start, thanks to Tilly, who’d saved him hours of tracking. But it was a big city, and he didn’t even know where to start. He cursed himself for every painful thing he’d ever said to her. It couldn’t be too late to convince her how much he cared, it just couldn’t!
* * *
He soon realized how impossible it was going to be to locate Dana in Houston. She had a little money, but it would soon run out if she didn’t get a job. He had to find her qu
ickly, so he went straight to one of the better-known Houston detectives, and told him everything he knew about Dana including a description.
“Do you have a photo of your wife, Mr. Grant?” Dane Lassiter asked the man across the desk from him. A former Texas Ranger, Dane had built his agency from scratch, and now it had a fine national reputation for doing the impossible.
The question startled Hank, who hadn’t expected it. He looked uncomfortable. “No,” he said.
The other man didn’t comment, but his eyes were steady and curious. No wonder, because the table behind Lassiter’s desk carried a family photo of the detective, his attractive wife and two young sons who looked just like him.
“We’re newlyweds,” Hayden felt constrained to explain. “It was a quick marriage.”
Dane didn’t say a word. He was busy writing things down. “Did she run away, Mr. Grant?” he asked suddenly, and his black eyes pinned the other man.
Hayden took a sharp, angry breath. “Yes,” he said through his teeth. “I did something stupid and I deserve to lose her. But I don’t think I can stand to, just the same.” He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his splayed legs in a defeated position. “And she’s pregnant,” he added through his teeth.
Hank’s predicament sounded very familiar to Dane Lassiter. He knew all about pregnant women who ran away.
“We’ll find her,” Dane told the man, not so distant now. “You’ve given us some good leads, we’ll check them out. Where can I reach you?”
Hayden gave the name of a local hotel. “I’ll be here until I hear from you,” he added, and he had the look of a man who planned to stay there until the turn of the century if that’s how long it took.
“Okay. I’ll get right on it.” He stood up and shook hands. “Women need a lot of tenderness. They get hurt easily, and they keep secrets,” he said surprisingly. “But if it helps, you learn how to cope with it after a while.”
Hayden smiled. “Thanks.”
Dane shrugged. He smiled back. “I’ve been married a long time. Nobody starts out in paradise. You sort of have to work up to it.”