by Diana Palmer
She didn’t say anything then, either.
“Mrs. Harcourt?”
“She’s locked in her room, crying,” she said heavily.
His eyes closed. “Dear God,” he groaned. “I never meant to upset her like that. Tell her we’ll do something about the damned cat, if I have to build on another room for him to live in! Besides, you’re all making assumptions that may have no substance at all by Christmas.”
“I’ll tell her,” she said.
“I’m sorry I spoiled your birthday,” he said gently. “I hope you have fifty more, all better than this one.”
“Thank you,” she said, and her voice softened. “You be careful, over there in those dangerous places. Come home safe.”
“I will. Look after Gracie,” he said gruffly. “You know how she is, when she’s upset. I yelled at her. I never meant to hurt her like that.”
“I know.”
“Don’t let her give the cat away.”
“All right,” Mrs. Harcourt said.
“I’ll phone you from Europe.”
“Take care.”
“You, too,” he replied.
She hung up. He flipped his phone shut and stared out over the terminal with dead eyes. His life was so messed up that he wondered if things would ever be the same again. And through it all, the nagging ache he felt when he thought of Gracie tortured him.
WEEKS DRAGGED BY. Then Kittie called and suddenly there was no more time. Gracie moved her things into Barbara’s small house and was immensely grateful that she’d meant it about Mumbles being invited to live with them, too. She’d offered to consider euthanasia, in tears.
“Maybe Jason was right. He is old and he gets sick a lot. He’ll throw up everywhere,” Gracie sobbed, “and he still claws furniture.”
“We’ll manage,” Barbara said firmly. “Gracie, you can’t put down a pet who’s like a member of your family just because some addlepated model doesn’t like animals. It’s not even her house!”
“It will be,” Gracie said heavily. “Kittie phoned from some Scandinavian country last night to ask if I’d got rid of Mumbles yet. She mentioned that Jason was furious that I argued about getting rid of him.” She hesitated, grimacing. “She actually said Jason wanted to ask me to leave years ago, but he felt sorry for me. And then Kittie insinuated that it was like I was a paid companion or something.”
Barbara gathered her close and rocked her. “You take things so much to heart, Gracie. Besides, if Jason felt that way, he’d tell you to your face. He wouldn’t need to ask someone else to do his dirty work.”
Gracie wiped her wet eyes. “Maybe you’re right. But there’s some truth in it. I’ve never tried to stand on my own two feet. I’ve lived under his wing for so long, let him be responsible for me so long, that I forgot I was a grown woman.” She pulled away, her expression calming. “Everybody laughs at me. They think I’m air-headed and clumsy and incapable of doing anything really important. Even Jason finally admitted that he didn’t think I could do anything except hostess parties. I’ve let my…my affliction convince me that it was true. But it’s not. I can make a living for myself. I can be independent. I’m going to be.” Her soft gray eyes took on the glitter of silver metal. “No way am I living with that woman!”
Barbara liked that new resolution in her friend’s face. “Listen to you,” she teased. “You don’t even sound like Gracie.”
“Maybe I can be something more in life,” she replied, drying her eyes. “Maybe I can teach, buy a car, be a whole person, without Jason standing behind me to prop me up.”
“You’ve got a car already,” Barbara argued.
Gracie set her teeth together, hard. “Not anymore. Kittie said Jason gave her permission to use the VW, since he paid for it.”
“What?”
She drew in a shaky breath. “She’s letting me use Jason’s old Thunderbird to go back and forth until I get my stuff down here.”
“Generous of her,” Barbara scoffed.
“It doesn’t matter. I can take care of myself. I’m going to.”
“You can, indeed,” Barbara reassured her. “A whole new life, Gracie.”
“A whole new life.” It made her sound like a bright penny, newly minted and full of promise. Now if only she could forget Jason and that interloper who was taking him away from her. It didn’t help to think that if she’d put her arms around Jason and kissed him back passionately, she might not be in this predicament in the first place. But by bringing home his new fiancée, he’d made it clear that he wasn’t interested in Gracie. He’d only been angry that she’d kissed him, accidentally or not, and tempted him into indiscretion. So maybe it was for the best. Considering her past, she could hardly expect a rosy future with a man, even if the man was Jason.
“Now bring Mumbles into the house and I’ll look out for him while you go back to San Antonio and pack up the rest of your things,” the other woman added.
“I told Kittie I’d bring Mumbles down here today, before she got to the house. That’s when she said she’d be using my car and I’d have to borrow Jason’s old Thunderbird,” she said miserably. “He took the keys to the Mercedes with him, so I guess that meant he didn’t want me driving it.”
“Maybe he just forgot, too,” Barbara said. “You said he’s got a lot on his mind lately with business matters.”
“I guess so.”
“Listen, try not to drive around at night,” Barbara added worriedly. “You know one of Jason’s vice presidents was kidnapped last year, and there are new cases every week of people being snatched in the area and held for ransom. It even happened to Glory’s husband, Rodrigo, last year. It’s well-known that Jason is wealthy.” She nibbled on her lip nervously. “Rick says that one of the Fuentes brothers is now an underling to some deposed South American dictator who’s using the kidnappings to fund a future coup to regain his position. You’d be lovely bait. Jason would pay anything to get you back. They’d know that. They have intelligence gatherers everywhere.”
“Don’t you get paranoid,” Gracie chided. “Nobody’s going to look twice at that old Thunderbird, even if it is a renovated classic automobile.”
“I imagine the kidnappers would know every car he owns and the tag numbers,” Barbara added doggedly. “They’re making millions by bartering human lives.”
“Mostly it’s people from across the border, wealthy Latinos, at that.”
“Jason’s vice president wasn’t a wealthy Latino. Neither was your brother-in-law, Rodrigo Ramirez, when they kidnapped him for ransom,” she reminded Gracie.
The younger woman grimaced. “Okay, point made. But so far they haven’t snatched anybody locally this year. Until they do, I refuse to worry.”
“Fine. Hide your head in the sand.”
Gracie grinned. “Good advice. I’m going to take it, too. Anyway, I have to get moved quickly. That nice college president is going to give me a job, thanks to you, and a friend of mine at the local elementary school has invited me to do guest lectures on ethnic history,” she added with a beaming smile. “I’ll get paid. First thing, after I pay you rent, I’ll have to go see Turkey Sanders about buying a car of my own.”
“No!” Barbara wailed. “Not Turkey! He’ll sell you a chassis and tell you the engine’s extra!”
“I can handle Turkey,” she replied calmly. “Wait and see. I’ll bring some clothes from the house, but I’m not packing evening gowns and fancy stuff,” she added. “I’ll have no use for them here.” She laughed bitterly. “Kittie’s my size. I expect she’ll enjoy the Paris gowns.”
“You should bring them along. There are all sorts of gala events up in San Antonio starting this month—symphony concerts, the opera, the Cattle Baron’s Ball…”
“All in the past now. I’m no longer a socialite with money to invest in charities. And I wouldn’t have a way to get up to San Antonio to attend the balls. Which reminds me,” she added heavily, “I’ve got some pearls and diamonds that were in Mama’s jewel
ry box that Myron gave me. I’m going to pawn them. That will buy me a car and help me pay you rent.”
“I don’t want rent,” Barbara groaned. “You’re my friend.”
“You’re mine, too,” Gracie replied. “But I’m not letting you support me any more than I’m letting Jason do it in the future.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “I’m ashamed that I’ve sponged off him so long without even considering how wrong it was.”
Barbara winced. She wished she could say something helpful, but she could see that Gracie was lost in misery and fear of the future.
And she was right. Despite her optimism, Gracie knew it was going to be a rough road to financial independence. She was used to buying anything she liked without considering the cost, to eating in the best restaurants and driving expensive cars. She would have to learn to economize and live at a much lower level. She could do it. But it would take time. She only hoped she had the stuff in her to prove Jason wrong about her opportunities. She was going to change her life, no matter how hard it was.
MRS. HARCOURT HAD ARGUED against the move, and she had a fit when Gracie started packing her last suitcase and left her best things in the closet. “But Mr. Jason said for you not to leave, that he’d do something about the cat,” she protested.
“That venomous redhead will have somebody take Mumbles off to the vet and put him down the first time I turn my back,” Gracie said coldly. “She’s not killing my cat. And I’m not living here with Jason and his woman.”
“But your mother’s furniture, those antique Christmas ornaments, your clothes and keepsakes!” she fussed.
“I had John help me put the ornaments and the furniture in the attic, along with what few keepsakes I had left,” Gracie replied. “I don’t think Kittie will want to climb up there to throw them out. It’s dusty. Not her type of place at all. If she does, though, it won’t be the end of the world. I won’t have any place to put that stuff now.” She sighed wistfully. “Besides, Jason hates my Christmas ornaments and decorations. He won’t mind having them tossed.”
Mrs. Harcourt glanced regretfully at the beautiful gowns Gracie was leaving in the closet. “I don’t understand why he got engaged to her,” Mrs. Harcourt said heavily. “She’s not his type at all. She’s so shallow, Gracie. She doesn’t care about anybody, not even about him, really, she just likes what he buys her.”
“I don’t imagine it’s her emotional makeup that keeps him with her,” Gracie said through clenched teeth. “I expect she’s dynamite in bed. That’s what she tells her friends when she calls them. She says Jason is, too.”
Mrs. Harcourt sat down on the bed where Gracie was folding clothes. “He’s confused,” she said. “I think you are, too. He’s not your brother, you know.”
Gracie flushed. “Yes, I know,” she said tightly, and her expression was revealing.
“So that’s it,” the older woman said thoughtfully. “Something happened. He frightened you and you ran, and he thought…”
“Don’t read minds, it’s not nice,” Gracie muttered.
“It doesn’t take mind-reading to see through people you love,” the housekeeper said with a gentle smile. “She’s his revenge, isn’t she? Because you ran away and hurt his pride.”
Gracie’s eyes widened. She’d never considered that as a possibility. She looked down into her suitcase. “I don’t think it’s like that, really. It was flooding out front, and he was carrying me to the porch here after I ran in the ditch at his ranch. He turned his head to say something and I turned mine at the same time and we sort of…well, I kissed him. He was shocked, but then he kissed me back. But when I pushed him away, he was furious.” She ground her teeth together. “He said it was my fault for teasing him like that. I was upset and confused. Of course I ran. I would have apologized, but he was long gone the next morning.”
“He was standing very close to you at the party, before that,” Mrs. Harcourt reminded her. “People talked about it. He seemed unusually interested in you.”
Gracie shook her head. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“He doesn’t know about your past, Gracie,” she said after a minute. “You should have told him years ago.”
She looked at the older woman in shock. “You don’t know,” she said worriedly. She heard a faint movement and stared toward the hall, but there was nothing there. She turned back to Mrs. Harcourt. “You can’t possibly know about my past.”
“Your mother confided in me,” Mrs. Harcourt told her. “She knew something about me that isn’t common knowledge. We traded sad stories during those two weeks she lived here.” She squeezed Gracie’s shoulder when the younger woman’s face paled. “Gracie, all men aren’t like your father was. You’ve lived in the past, afraid to move forward. It’s destroying your life, and you’re letting it.”
“The alternative is to tell Jason the whole story, and if I do, he’ll…” She swallowed. “He’ll never look at me the same way again. I’ve lived in fear all my life that it would come out, that he’d be shamed along with me if people knew the truth.” Her eyes closed. “It was a nightmare. And we were so poor, Mrs. Harcourt. Some days I couldn’t go to school because I didn’t want people to see me wearing the same clothes every single day of my life…!”
Mrs. Harcourt hugged her, rocked her in her arms while she cried. “You have to learn not to care what people think. Jason doesn’t. And he won’t look down on you if he finds out the truth. It wasn’t your fault, honey. How can you imagine it was?”
“Daddy was so mad at me. If I’d gotten home on time, he’d still be alive. He died because of me.” Tears ran down her cheeks.
“People die when it’s time for them to die,” the older woman said quietly. “That’s God’s business, not ours. Gracie, if he hadn’t gone out of his mind on liquor and threatened you in the first place, or if he hadn’t been so brutal to your mother… He wouldn’t even let her work for fear that she’d run around on him. He was paranoid about her, and she never cheated on him. That poor woman. Good Lord, what a nightmare she lived all those years, brutally assaulted and afraid to leave because of what he might do to you.” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine how you think Jason would blame you.”
“He thinks I came from good people, that my father died a war hero, that we were middle class and respectable.” She laughed coldly. “It’s a lie. All of it. My real mother made up a story that she was my stepmom to throw anyone off the track if they investigated our background. The police shot my father down like a dog to keep him from killing me. He would have, too. He was laughing. He said he’d teach Mama to try and leave him.”
“Tell Jason,” Mrs. Harcourt said firmly. “Get it out in the open.”
“Right. Tell him and lose even his respect.” Gracie shook her head. “What a field day the press would have with that story.”
“Yes, wouldn’t they?” a lilting voice commented wryly from the doorway.
Both women looked up. Kittie Sartain was standing there in a pretty blue pantsuit, with her red hair piled up in wild curls around her smiling face.
“So now I won’t have to find ways to make you leave, will I? All I’ll have to do is tell Jason what I’ve just overheard!”
Gracie pulled away from Mrs. Harcourt. “I’m already leaving. I’ve got a place to go. I’ll just need to keep the Thunderbird for a couple of weeks, until I get settled and buy my own car,” she said in a hollow tone. Her pride was lacerated. Kittie couldn’t have picked a better time to just walk in unannounced. “I’ve already taken my cat away.”
“That saved his life. I was going to take him to the vet for you and have him euthanized. I did say you can borrow that old Thunderbird,” Kittie said coldly. “But you’ll have to bring it back before Jason notices it missing. He’s still mad, you know. He was furious about that cat.”
“That isn’t what he told me,” Mrs. Harcourt replied curtly, glaring at the newcomer.
“Oh, who cares what he told you?” the redhead muttered. �
��You’re just a relic of the past, kept on for sentiment. You’ll go, too,” she added with a cold smile.
“I won’t,” Mrs. Harcourt said quietly. “Mr. Jason told me to stay. He won’t like it if Gracie leaves.”
“He won’t like it if she stays,” the redhead said spitefully. “If she does, Jason’s going to get an earful about his sweet stepsister.”
Gracie paled. It was blackmail of the worst sort. But she was sick to her soul at the thought that Jason would know the truth about her.
She held up a hand when it seemed Mrs. Harcourt was about to argue. “Don’t, Mrs. Harcourt. It’s all right. I’ll get the rest of my things and leave right now. But you and the others don’t have to go.”
Kittie waited in the hall until Mrs. Harcourt came out. She pulled the door shut and smiled haughtily at the housekeeper.
“You think you can stay?” Kittie asked. “I noticed something about you and Jason that his little stepsister never has. And one of my acquaintances in San Antonio knew a private detective who did a little digging for me.” She smiled. “I wonder if Jason knows the whole truth about his own past, Mrs. Harcourt?”
For a shot in the dark, it worked like a charm. Mrs. Harcourt’s face paled.
“That’s right…you think about what sort of story I could give the tabloids, about Gracie and about you. Is it worth it?”
“No, it isn’t. I’ll go,” Mrs. Harcourt said heavily. “Will you let Dilly and John stay?”
“Fat chance! I don’t want to run a charity home. I’ve already told them they’re on notice. That John character wanted to argue about it, but I know things about him that he’d like kept quiet. Do you want to argue about it?” she added with a vicious smile.
Mrs. Harcourt did. But she had a secret that she’d rather have died than let Jason know. “I’m sure that none of us want to live in the same house with you.”
“That’s mutual,” Kittie said icily. “You’ve all got two days to find someplace to go.” She held up a set of keys. “Jason gave me permission to remodel the house, and I’m doing it. I’ve already hired new staff, young people with energy and creative minds, who’ll fit in nicely when Jason and I get married. Out with the old, in with the new,” she said with a dismissive smile.