by Diana Palmer
He grinned from ear to ear. “Okay! Now. How about dessert?”
Before they left the restaurant, he introduced her to Nellie and explained to the waitress who Keely was and what her place was in his life. Nellie brightened at once. She was glowing when Clark added that Keely was going to be the red herring so that he and Nellie could go on dates without Boone knowing.
Keely noticed that the other woman was very demure and meek, and Clark seemed to love that attitude. But Keely noticed something that he didn’t; there was a faint glint in Nellie’s eyes that didn’t go with a meek demeanor. She couldn’t help but be apprehensive. Maybe Nellie’s allure for him was Boone’s disapproval; in many ways, he’d only just started to try the boundaries of his big brother’s control. And Nellie had to know that the family was rich. She was a working girl, like Keely. If she turned out to be a gold digger, Keely stood to be burned at the stake by Clark’s older brother for her part in this. She wished she’d refused. She really did.
They were very late getting home. It was one o’clock in the morning when Clark drove up at Keely’s front door.
Until that moment, she hadn’t remembered her mother’s vicious words. They came back with cruel force when she saw the living-room light still on. She didn’t want to go inside. If she’d had anywhere else to go, she wouldn’t set foot in the place.
But her choices, like her salary, were limited. She had to live with her mother until she could make better arrangements.
Clark was watching her with open sympathy. “She probably doesn’t even remember saying it,” he murmured. “Drunks aren’t big on memory.”
She glanced at him, curious. “How would you know that?”
He hesitated, but only for a minute. “After Boone’s fiancée threw him over, he went on a two-week bender. He didn’t remember a lot of the things he said to me, but I’ve never forgotten any of them. The crowning jewel,” he added with taut features, “was that I’d never measure up to him and that I wasn’t fit to run a ranch.”
“Oh, Clark,” she sympathized. She could only imagine being a man and having Boone as a big brother to try to live up to. Those were very big shoes to have to fill.
“He sobered up and didn’t remember anything he’d said to me. But words hurt.”
“Tell me about it,” Keely sympathized.
He turned to her. “We’re both in the same boat, aren’t we? We’re people who don’t measure up to the expectations of the people we live with.”
“Winnie and I think you’re great just the way you are,” she replied doggedly.
He laughed, surprised. “Really?”
“Really. You’ve got a wonderful sense of humor, you’re never moody or sarcastic and you’ve got a big heart.” Her eyes narrowed. “If I’d told you that Bailey needed emergency care immediately, you’d have packed him into the car and taken him right to the vet.”
He sighed. “Yes, I guess I would have.”
“Boone thought it was a pitiful plea for attention on my part,” she added sadly. “I guess my mother’s said a lot of things to him about me.”
“Apparently. She doesn’t like you, does she?”
“The feeling is mutual. We’re sort of stuck together until I can get a raise or a second job.”
“How would you manage a second job?” he asked.
“Getting away from my mother’s constant abuse would make me manage. I can’t imagine living in a place where nobody makes fun of me.”
“You could work for me,” he suggested.
She shook her head. “Thanks, but no thanks. I want to be completely independent.”
“I figured that, but it didn’t hurt to ask.”
She smiled. “You really are a nice man.”
“I’ll pick you up next Saturday morning. We can go riding at the ranch. We might as well make a start at getting on Boone’s nerves,” he added with a dry chuckle.
“Take all his bullets away before I get there,” she pleaded.
“He’s not so bad,” he told her.
She shivered. “Sure he isn’t.”
The front door opened and Keely’s mother came out onto the porch. “Who’s that out there?” she drawled, hanging on to one of the supporting posts. She was wearing floral silk slacks with a fluffy pink robe. Her hair was disheveled and she looked sleepy.
“Don’t pay her any attention,” Keely advised Clark with a sad little sigh. “She doesn’t even know what she’s saying. I’ll see you next Saturday.”
“Thanks, Keely,” he told her with sincere affection.
She shrugged. “You’d do it for me,” she said, and smiled. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
She got out of the car and walked up to the porch, shaking inside, dreading another confrontation with her parent. She tried to walk past Ella, but the older woman stopped her.
“Where have you been?” she demanded.
Keely looked at her. For the first time she didn’t back down, even though her knees were shaking. “Out,” she replied tersely.
The older woman’s face tautened. “Don’t talk to me like that. You live in my house, in case you’ve forgotten!”
“Not for much longer,” Keely gritted. “I’m moving out as soon as I can get a night job to go with my day job. I don’t care if I have to live in my car, it will be worth it! I’m not staying here any longer.”
She brushed past her mother and went into the house, down the hall, into her room. She locked the door behind her. She was shaking. It was the first time in memory that she’d stood up to her abusive parent.
Ella came to her door and knocked. Keely ignored her.
She knocked again, with the same result.
Ella was sobering up quickly. It had just dawned on her that if Keely left, she’d have nobody to do the chores. She couldn’t even cook. She’d been able to afford help until the past two or three years. But she was facing a drastic reduction in her capital, due to her bad business decisions. And there was something else, something more worrying, that she didn’t dare think about right now.
“I didn’t mean what I said!” she called through the door. “I’m sorry!”
“You’re always sorry,” Keely replied tightly.
“No. This time I’m really sorry!”
There was a hesitation. Keely started to weaken. Then she remembered her mother’s track record and kept quiet.
“I can’t cook!” Ella yelled through the door a minute later. “I’ll starve to death if you leave!”
“Buy a restaurant,” was Keely’s dry retort.
With what, Ella was thinking, but Keely’s light went off. She stood there, weaving, her mind dimmed, her heart racing. A long, long time ago, she’d cuddled Keely in her arms and sung lullabies to her. She’d loved her. What had happened to that soft, warm feeling? Had it died, all those years ago, when she learned the truth about her husband? So many secrets, she thought. So much pain. And it was still here. Nothing stopped it.
She needed another drink. She turned back down the hall toward her own room. She could plead her case with Keely tomorrow. There was plenty of time. The girl couldn’t leave. She had no place to go, and no money. As for getting a second job, how would Keely manage that when she worked all hours for that vet? She relaxed. Keely would stay. Ella was sure of it.
Saturday morning, Clark came to pick her up to go riding with him at the ranch.
She’d done that several times with Winnie. But she’d never done it with Clark. Winnie and Boone were usually both home on the weekend, but Winnie’s red VW Beetle was nowhere in sight when Clark drove up in front of the stables with Keely beside him.
He got out and opened the door for her with a flourish. Boone, who was saddling a horse of his own in the barn, stopped with the saddle in midair to glare at them.
“Oh, dear,” Keely muttered under her breath.
“He’s just a man,” Clark reminded her. “He can kill you, but he can’t eat you.”
“Are you sure?
”
Boone had put the saddle back on the ground at the gate that kept his favorite gelding from leaving his stall. He stalked down the brick aisle toward Clark and Keely, who actually moved back a step as he approached with that measured, quick, dangerous tread.
He loomed over them, taller even than Clark, and looked intimidating. “I thought you were flying to Dallas today,” he told Clark.
Clark was intimidated by his older sibling and couldn’t hide it. He tried to look defiant, but he only looked guilty. “I’m going Monday,” he said, and it sounded like an apology. “I brought Keely. She’s going riding with me.”
Boone looked down at Keely, who was staring at her feet and mentally kicking herself for ever agreeing to Clark’s harebrained scheme.
“Is she, now?” Boone mused coldly. He glanced at Clark. “Fetch me a blanket for Tank from the tack room, will you? You can ask Billy to saddle two horses for you on the way.”
Clark brightened. His brother sounded almost friendly. “Sure!”
He grinned at Keely and moved quickly down the aisle of the barn toward the tack room, leaving Keely stranded with Boone, who looked oddly like a lion confronted by a thick, juicy steak.
“Tell Clark you don’t want to go riding, Keely,” he said slowly. “And ask him to take you home. Right now.”
First her mother, now Boone. She was so tired of people telling her what to do. She looked up at him with wide, dark green eyes. “Why do you care if I go riding with Clark?” she asked quietly. “I go riding with Winnie all the time.”
“There’s a difference.”
She felt threatened. Then she felt insulted. She met his dark, piercing stare with resignation. “It’s because my people aren’t rich or socially important, isn’t it?” she asked. “It’s because I’m poor.”
“And uneducated,” he added tauntingly.
Her face colored. “I have a diploma for the work I do,” she stammered.
“You’re a glorified groomer, Keely,” he said flatly. “You hold dogs and cats while the vet treats them.”
Her whole body tautened. “That isn’t true. I give anesthesia and shots…”
He held up a hand. “Spare me the minute details,” he said, sounding bored.
“We can’t all go to Harvard, you know,” she muttered.
“And some of us can’t even face community college,” he shot back. “You had a scholarship and you threw it away.”
She felt sick. “A scholarship that paid just for textbooks,” she corrected. “And only half of that. How in the world do you think I could afford to pay tuition and go to classes and hold down a full-time job, all at once?”
“You could give up the job.”
She laughed hollowly. “My mother would love that. Then she wouldn’t even have groceries.”
His dark eyes narrowed. “Do you pay rent?”
Her big, soft green eyes met his. “I do all the housework and all the cooking and cleaning and shopping. That’s my rent.”
“Who buys her liquor?” he asked with a cold smile. “And her see-through negligees?”
Keely’s face went scarlet. He was insinuating something. Her stare asked the question without words.
He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans, pulling the thick fabric taut over the hard, powerful muscles of his legs. “I dropped by your house to thank you, belatedly, for getting Bailey to the vet in time to save him,” he said curtly. “You weren’t home, but she was. She answered the door in a see-through negligee and invited me inside.”
The shame was overpowering. She averted her face.
“Embarrassed?” he scoffed. “Why? Like mother, like daughter. I’m sure you wear similar things for Bentley,” he added with honey-dripping sarcasm.
She couldn’t manage a reply. His opinion of her was painful. She’d loved him secretly for years, and he could treat her like this. He wouldn’t even give her the benefit of the doubt.
Her lack of response made him angry. Why it should also make him feel guilty was a question he couldn’t answer. “You keep away from Clark,” he said shortly. “I don’t want you going out with him. Do you hear me, Keely?”
“It’s just for a ride….”
“I don’t give a damn what it’s for!” he snapped, watching her body tense, her eyes grow frightened. That made him even angrier. He stepped toward her and was infuriated when she backed up. “Get out of Clark’s life. Today!” he told her in a goaded undertone.
She felt her knees go weak. He was intimidating. She couldn’t even force her eyes back up to his. She was so tired of being afraid of everybody; especially of Boone.
Before he could say anything else, Clark came up with a blanket. He was grinning. “Billy’s got the horses saddled. He’s bringing them right up!”
Boone glared down at Keely. “I think Keely wants to go home,” he said.
“You do?” Clark exclaimed, surprised.
Keely drew in a quick breath and stepped close to Clark. “I’d like to go riding,” she replied.
Clark glanced at Boone, whose eyes were black as jet. “What’s going on?” he asked his brother. He frowned. “Do you really mind if I just take Keely riding?”
Boone glared at Keely as if he’d like to roast her on a spit. He glared at his brother, too. His lips made a thin line. “Oh, hell!” Boone bit off. “Do what you damned well please!”
He turned and strode out of the barn, apparently oblivious to the blanket Clark was holding out and the saddle he’d left sitting at the stall gate. His long, quick strides were audible on the paved floor, echoing down the aisle.
Clark ground his teeth together as he watched Boone’s departure. “I hope he doesn’t run into any of his men on the way to wherever he’s going,” he said with visible misgivings.
“Why?” Keely asked, relieved that Boone hadn’t said anything more.
Suddenly there was a distant voice, a sharp curse and the sound of water being splashed.
“Oh, boy,” Clark said heavily.
Keely stared down the aisle. A tall, dripping wet cowboy came into the barn, sloshing water as he walked. He was wringing out his felt hat, muttering. He looked up and saw Keely and Clark and grimaced.
“What happened to you, Riley?” Clark exclaimed.
The cowboy glowered at him. “I just made a comment about how good you and Miss Keely looked together,” he said defensively. “Boone picked me up and tossed me into the watering trough!”
Clark exchanged a glance with Keely. She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing as the cowboy passed on down the aisle, muttering about his freshly laundered clothing having to go right back into the washing machine. He headed out the back door of the barn toward the bunkhouse beyond.
“Poor guy,” Keely said. She looked up. “Your brother has a very nasty temper.”
“Yes.” He drew in a breath. “Well, it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be,” he added, smiling. “Let’s go for a nice ride and pretend that my brother likes you and can’t wait to welcome you into our family!”
“Optimist,” Keely said and grinned.
Boone was gone when they came back from the lazy ride around the ranch, but Winnie was just putting her car into the garage. She drove a cute little red Volkswagen Beetle, her pride and joy because she was paying for it herself.
She came out of the garage frowning. She didn’t even notice Clark and Keely at first, not until she’d passed right by the barn.
“What’s wrong with you?” Clark called to her.
She stopped, glanced at them and looked blank. “What?”
“I said, what’s wrong with you?” Clark repeated as he and Keely joined his sister near the corral.
“Bad day at work?” Keely asked sympathetically.
Winnie was tight-mouthed. “I had a little upset with Kilraven,” she muttered.
Keely’s eyebrows arched. “What sort of upset?”
Winnie grimaced. “I didn’t mention the ten-thirty-two involved in a ten-sixteen
physical,” she said, describing a possible weapon involved in a domestic dispute. “The caller said her husband was drunk, had beaten her up in front of the kids and was holding a pistol to her head. The phone went dead and I dispatched Kilraven. I’d just managed to get the caller back on the phone and I was listening to her while I gave him the information, and the caller was hysterical, so I got rattled and didn’t tell him about the gun. When he got to the address I gave him, he had a .45 caliber Colt automatic shoved into his face.”
Keely gasped. “Was he shot?”
“No thanks to me, he wasn’t,” Winnie said miserably. “I was also supposed to put out a ten-three, ten-thirty-three, calling for radio silence while he went into the house. I messed up everything. It was my first shift working all alone without my instructor, and I just blew it! My supervisor said I could have gotten someone killed, and she was right.” She burst into tears. “Kilraven called for backup and talked the man out of the gun, God knows how. After the man was in custody on the way to the detention center, Kilraven called me on his cell phone and said that if I ever sent him on a call again and left out vital details of the disturbance, he’d have me fired.”
Keely hugged her, muttering sympathetic things, while Clark patted her on the shoulder and said that it would all blow over.
Winnie blew her nose and wiped her eyes. “I’m going to put in my resignation at the police station and at 911 dispatch and come home,” she sobbed. “I’m a menace! Kilraven said I was taking up jobs that some other woman needed desperately, anyway. He said rich women who got bored should find some other way to entertain themselves!”
“That’s harsh,” Clark muttered. “I’ll have a talk with him.”
Winnie looked up at her sweet brother through tear-filled eyes. “Are you kidding? Kilraven makes Boone look civilized!”
“Well, we could ask Boone to speak to him,” Clark compromised.
Just as Winnie was starting to answer him, a Jacobsville police car came flying up the long driveway and skidded to a halt in front of the barn. A tall, black-haired, powerful-looking policeman got out and stalked toward them.