by Penny Jordan
What had she done to provoke this degree of antipathy from Tip’s staff? Too proud to show how hurt she was by the woman’s attitude, she trailed tiredly behind her as she mounted the elegant double-banistered stairs.
‘Jay said to put you in the guest suite—for the time being…’
Why was it that those last few words should have such an ominous ring to them? Natasha wondered, as Dolores paused and pushed open one of the many doors leading off the galleried landing.
In London, she had looked forward with hope and anticipation to being asked to stay on for a brief time, but now… Now she was half wishing she had never come, she admitted, as she stepped past Dolores and into her room.
She was left alone to explore it. It was certainly very elegant: not just a bedroom, but a bedroom, a sitting-room and her own private bathroom.
It was decorated in a style that Natasha found slightly pretentious, and not suited to the beautiful simplicity of the Spanish-style house. The furniture was too modern, the pale Nile-green leather settee not in keeping with the building. Her bed was swathed in flimsy printed silk covers, where she would have instinctively chosen a heavily carved Spanish bed and covered it with one of the beautiful heritage quilts she had seen in a display of American goods in Harrods, or perhaps even an Indian or Mexican woven spread. Certainly, she would never have chosen the bedroom’s delicate pseudo-French gilt and white trappings.
At home in Cheshire, the farmhouse had been furnished with sturdy heirlooms collected over the generations, each one suited to its purpose and its background. Here she found her surroundings jarred on her, so out of step was the décor with the exterior and the ambience of the house.
Who had been responsible for choosing them? Not a man—they were too flimsy, too delicate for that. They spoke of a woman who loved luxury; a woman who despised the sturdy building that was her home…
She was getting fanciful again, Natasha told herself. For all she knew, Tip might have commissioned interior designers to decorate and furnish this suite.
She was in the bathroom freshening up when she heard her door open. When she returned to her sitting-room she discovered a pot of fragrant coffee and a generous plate of sandwiches waiting for her, along with her luggage.
She poured some of the coffee and ate a couple of sandwiches, stifling her yawns, as she started to make an attempt to unpack. She had to give it up half-way through, overcome by intense exhaustion. A shower and then bed, she decided sleepily. That was what she needed now…
CHAPTER THREE
‘WAKE up, Miss Ames. It’s well after seven, and Dolores will be mad as fire if you’re late for breakfast.’
The voices were familiar, but the room wasn’t. Cautiously, Natasha opened both eyes properly.
Of course, Texas… She was in Texas!
This morning the twins were dressed in dungarees and checked shirts, their hair in ponytails and not plaits.
‘Why don’t you try calling me Natasha?’ she suggested sleepily. ‘Miss Ames makes me sound like a schoolteacher. Now then, which of you is which?’
‘You can always tell, because Rosalie has a mole just there,’ Cherry informed her helpfully, pointing out the small dark mark on her sister’s throat.
‘I’ll go down and tell Dolores you’re on your way.’ Rosalie slid off the bed and made for the door.
The events of the previous day came crowding back, and unconsciously Natasha sighed.
‘Don’t worry,’ Cherry consoled her. ‘Me and Rosalie like you…’
Natasha fought to control her feelings. The girls had been quick to pick up on her misery…too quick, perhaps. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Cherry why Jay was so antipathetic towards her, but she swallowed her words. She was not going to use the girls in that way. If she really needed to know, then she must ask Jay himself…
But would he tell her? She shrugged the thought aside, pushing back the bedclothes and sliding out of bed.
‘Oh, my, that’s a real pretty nightgown!’ Cherry exclaimed. ‘We wear pyjamas.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Uncle Jay doesn’t wear anything at all, and we aren’t allowed to go into his bedroom in the morning… He always gets up too early anyway.’
‘We used to go into Ma and Pa’s. That was a long time ago, though…before they started fighting. Before we came to live back here…’
Natasha gave a small start. She had assumed that the girls had been born and brought up on the ranch, but before she could say anything Cherry went on, ‘You’ll have to hurry. It used to take Ma hours to get ready. That was one of the things that made Daddy real wild. He said she didn’t need to get herself all gussied up for living on the ranch. She never wanted to live here. We did, though. Our mother was like you… She came from England.’
Downstairs, a bell rang imperiously.
‘That’s the breakfast bell. You’ve got half an hour,’ Cherry told her, sliding off the bed. ‘I’d better go down.’
So the twins’ mother had been English, Natasha reflected as she quickly showered and started to dress. Tip had never mentioned that…but then, why should he?
She wondered uncertainly on what she should wear. To judge from the girls’ appearance, jeans would be the order of the day; but she was supposed to be meeting Tip’s lawyer to be told the nature of his bequest, and somehow jeans seemed too unbusinesslike for such a meeting.
Old habits die hard, Natasha reflected rather wryly. American laywers were not like their British counterparts even the most casual watcher of American TV had to be aware of that, but even so she found herself donning a tailored, charcoal-grey skirt and its complementary white silk shirt.
It was one of the few formal outfits she had packed, thinking she might wear it for shopping in Dallas, should she get the chance. It had a matching unlined jacket in the same charcoal-grey, with a shadowed white line forming large checks, and she had bought it in a fit of extravagance.
The grey skirt emphasised the slenderness of her hips and the length of her legs. There wasn’t time for her to coil her hair into a chignon, so she compromised by taking it off her face with two mother-of-pearl combs she had found in a small antiques shop in Knightsbridge.
A touch of lip gloss and just enough mascara to darken her long lashes and she was ready to go downstairs and face the world… But was she ready to face Jay?
She ignored the treacherous little voice that asked her the question and hurried downstairs.
Luckily, one of the twins appeared in the hallway at just the right moment to show her the way to the large, sunny room where the table was set for breakfast.
Dolores looked up as they walked in, her eyebrows lifting slightly as she saw Natasha’s formal outfit.
‘I believe I’m supposed to be seeing Tip’s lawyers this morning. At home, we tend to dress rather formally for such events, and I’m afraid old habits die hard.’
Despite her friendly explanation and the smile she gave the Mexican housekeeper, she got no response other than a cool glance from wary brown eyes.
‘Uncle Jay’s already had his breakfast and gone out to see the stock,’ Rosalie told her, correctly interpreting her hesitant glance towards the door.
She ought to have been ashamed of herself for being so relieved, but she was the first to admit that she wasn’t at her best first thing in the morning, and the thought of having to cope with the barbed innuendoes of her reluctant host, while still coping with the strain of jet-lag, was less than appealing.
‘Sit down here, next to me,’ Rosalie invited, pulling out a chair. ‘We’re having waffles this morning. You’ll love them…’
The only thing she wanted was a cup of freshly brewed coffee…several cups, Natasha amended as she caught the scent from the coffee-pot Dolores brought to the table.
Despite the fact that Dolores was being anything but friendly, Natasha said hesitantly, ‘I believe I’m to see Tip’s lawyer at nine. When he arrives…’
She had been going to ask if someone could let her know
, but Dolores anticipated her, saying flatly, ‘He’s already here. He’s been here for the last four days.’
Whether the disapproval in her voice applied only to her, or to the lawyer as well, Natasha couldn’t tell.
‘He had breakfast with Jay. They had things to discuss. You’re to meet them in the den at nine. I’ll show you where it is.’
Refusing to share their waffles, Natasha listened to the girls’ excited chatter, as she helped herself to more coffee.
Now and again their conversation betrayed a certain loneliness and sense of isolation. There were several mentions of school events at which their family had not been present. And, although it was obvious that they adored Jay, Natasha sensed that they were also a little in awe of him.
At eighty forty-five she excused herself, carrying her used cup through to the kitchen.
She saw that Dolores was surprised to see her there, and obviously even more surprised when she asked if there was anything she could do to help before going up to her room to check on her appearance before her meeting with the lawyer.
‘There’s no call for any guests around here to do chores,’ was Dolores’s curt response. ‘Jay employs plenty of staff to take care of that…’
Feeling very much as though she had been put firmly in her place as unwanted guest, Natasha retreated. What on earth had she done to merit this hostility? Surely it couldn’t just be because Tip had made her a small bequest? But families could be very clannish, very possessive over what they considered to be theirs.
Sighing faintly, she went back to the sunny breakfast-room.
It overlooked the back of the house and an enclosed patio adorned with tubs of brilliantly coloured plants, its white walls covered in creepers, a small fountain playing in an ornate round pool, very Spanish in style.
Through the wrought-iron gate set in the wall she could see a sweep of lawn and the blue glimmer of what she guessed must be a swimming pool. Perhaps later on the twins would take her on a tour of the grounds.
Tip had spent more time boasting about how his forebears had carved out the ranch from nothing than describing the house itself to her. It had come as a pleasant surprise to discover it was such a gracious building, and she thought she detected a woman’s touch in the pretty enclosed courtyard beyond the breakfast-room windows.
Upstairs in her own room she checked on her hair and re-applied fresh lip gloss.
At five to nine she went downstairs again and, almost as though she had been waiting for her, Dolores appeared in the hall, gesturing to Natasha to follow her.
Several doors led off the large, tiled hallway, but the one Dolores opened for her was tucked away right at the back, almost under the arch of the stairs.
At home, she supposed it would have been described as a library or study, Natasha thought as she stepped into a surprisingly large room and studied it in silence. Here, though, it was called a ‘den’, and she could see why. It was more the lair of man without the trappings of civilisation than the retreat favoured by men like Adam who liked to surround themselves with luxury and art.
Here the walls had been left in their natural whitewashed state. A huge, dark Spanish wood bookcase took up one wall, its shelves full of leather-bound volumes, and what looked like paperbacks, as well as piles of stacked magazines. Over the open fireplace was an ancient musket, and alongside it on the same wall, a gun-rack, padlocked with a heavy chain. Two enormous leather couches in oxblood faced one another across a woven Mexican rug.
A shaft of brilliant sunlight fell across the enormous desk. The room smelled of leather and oil, and was so essentially masculine that Natasha immediately felt an intruder in it.
To her surprise it overlooked the same patio that ran outside the breakfast-room. A shuttered french window stood open, and through it she could hear men’s voices.
Gradually, as she waited, other sounds impinged on her senses: the whirr of the old-fashioned ceiling fan, the lowing of cattle, bird song and the soft splash of the fountain—all sounds that somehow softened the harsh masculinity of her surroundings.
There were several paintings grouped on one wall: all of cattle, all very stylised, and next to them what she realised must be an aerial view of the ranch and outbuildings. Behind the desk was a bank of filing cabinets. She was just stepping forward to examine the paintings at closer quarters, when she saw the two men outside the french door.
As he had been the previous day, Jay was clad in faded blue jeans and a checked cotton shirt. His boots were covered in red dust; as he came inside he removed his Stetson, and she saw that the same dust had darkened his skin.
As he came in he brought with him the hot, acrid smell of cattle, and the disturbing, musky scent of his own body.
The man behind him was wearing similar clothes, although he was neither quite as tall or as broad as Jay, and his hair was greying at the temples. Unlike Jay, though, he did give her a faint smile.
‘I’m glad you let me come in this way,’ he was saying ruefully to Jay. ‘I don’t think Dolores would have taken too kindly to us tracking red dust across the kitchen floor. I think she must have been the only human being I’ve ever met who could actually make your grandfather toe the line…’
‘No one could make Gramps do that,’ Jay corrected curtly. ‘He just let her think she could because it made life easier all around. Even after Doc Reilly told him to quit smoking and drinking, he used to come in here and help himself to the supplies he kept locked away in his filing cabinet.’
‘Didn’t you try to stop him?’
‘I tried, but in my book a man has a right to choose the way he wants to live, or wants to die.’
The older man broke off their conversation and turned to Natasha.
‘I’m sorry, we still haven’t been introduced, have we? I’m Harvey Goldstein, Tip’s lawyer. And you, of course, must be Natasha… Your photographs didn’t do you justice, did they, Jay?’
A non-committal grunt was the other man’s only response, and Natasha knew she was flushing, not because of the compliment she had been paid, but because Jay was so obviously contemptuous of it, and of her.
‘You obviously received my letter…’
‘Yes, yes. It came as something of a shock. Of course, I knew that Tip had a heart condition, but I…I liked him a lot…’
A cynical sound behind her stopped her, her colour deepening. She ached to turn round and tell the man standing behind her how difficult she found this situation. She had not asked to come here, after all; and he should be able to appreciate that, much as she had liked Tip, she found it hard to express a fictitious depth of sorrow at his death. It had been a shock, and she had been sorry, but to deliver more than the conventional platitudes was impossible in view of his own hostility towards her. Had he been a different type of man, she might have been able to express her enjoyment of Tip’s company and salty wit, or to open up to him and tell him that she knew what it was to lose a deeply loved member of one’s family—how alone it left one feeling, how frightened and insecure—but she doubted if this man had been frightened of anything in his life. And so she was left feeling that whatever she tried to say would be inadequate.
‘Well, he sure liked you,’ Harvey Goldstein told her. ‘Look, why don’t we all sit down? And perhaps Dolores would bring us some coffee, Jay?’
Now she recognised the legal mind in him, despite the jeans and casual attire, and she found herself subsiding into a chair, and even risking a coolly polite smile in Jay’s direction as he asked her if she wanted anything else to drink.
‘Coffee suits me fine.’
The antipathy between them must have been very apparent, because when Jay left the room to get their coffee, Harvey said quietly, ‘All this has been very hard for Jay. He thought the world of his grandfather, and…’
He broke off as Jay came back into the room.
‘Dolores will be in with the coffee in five minutes. Let’s get on with it shall we, Harvey?’
He was the r
udest, most uncivil man she had ever met, Natasha seethed, fighting to control her ire at his attitude towards her.
Harvey cleared his throat.
‘Well, Natasha, you know from my letter that you were mentioned in Tip’s will…’
‘Of course she does, Harvey. What else would bring her hot-foot out here, eager to collect the reward for all her hard work? What did you do when you went to bed with him…close your eyes and ignore the fact that he was seventy-five years old?’
Natasha was appalled. She had suspected before that Jay thought that she and Tip might have been lovers, but she had never dreamed he would voice such thoughts—especially in front of someone else…
She stood up, barely aware of pushing her chair away, or of the way she trembled, her face milk-white, her eyes a brilliant tawny-gold as rage rushed through her.
‘That’s not true! Your grandfather and I were never lovers, whatever he might have told you…’
‘He told us nothing,’ came the grim response, ‘but some things speak for themselves. Why else would he leave you one half of this ranch? Why else would he hand over to a complete stranger the very thing he spent his whole life protecting for his family? What the hell did you give him? It couldn’t just have been the softness of your body. There must have been something else… What was it? The promise of another son? Was that it?’
‘Jay!’ Harvey Goldstein’s voice cut across his impassioned speech in stern warning.
The shock of what she had just heard made Natasha subside back into her chair, her whole body shaking. She was dimly aware of the door opening and Dolores coming in with a laden tray of coffee. She was also aware of Harvey clearing a space on the cluttered desk so that she could put down her tray, but these things barely impinged upon her awareness. She was still grappling with the enormity of her shock. Tip couldn’t have done that! He couldn’t have willed half the ranch to her! He had barely known her. And even in that one short week she had known him, she had felt overwhelmingly that he was a man who put his family first and foremost. A man for whom family loyalties and ties took precedence above all else. A man who would never will so much as an inch of his land away from those who shared his own blood.