Regan's Pride

by Diana Palmer

  She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t betray him. On the other hand, was he going to ruin his life and Coreen’s by keeping his feelings to himself? She had to do something. But what!

  In the end, there was nothing she could do. She half led, half carried him to the sofa and dumped him there, with a quilt from his bed for cover.

  “You’re going to hate yourself,” she told his unconscious figure.

  It was much later before he came out of it, groaning and holding his head. He was violently ill and he had a headache that wouldn’t quit. He went to bed, oblivious to Sandy’s worried eyes following him, and didn’t surface until the next day.

  By then, he was himself again, rigidly controlled and giving away nothing at all. He sat down to breakfast looking as bright as a new penny. Without a word, he dared Sandy to mention the day before.

  “I have a job in Victoria today,” she informed him. “I may stay overnight with Coreen, if I’m very late.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  She didn’t look up. “Any messages?”

  His pale eyes met hers head-on. “No.”

  She leaned back in her chair with her second cup of coffee in her hand. “You’ve already wasted two years of your life, and hers, being noble,” she said bluntly. “Barney is just like Barry, happy-go-lucky and as shallow as a fish pond. He probably wouldn’t hurt her, but she’d be just as unhappy with him. Suppose she falls headlong into another bad marriage?”

  He didn’t react at all. “It’s her life. She has to make her own mistakes.”

  “You’re her biggest one,” she said, irritated beyond discretion. She put the cup down hard. “She’s never loved anyone else. I don’t think she can. And she’s had nothing from you except rejection and heartache and cruelty.” She got up from the table, glaring at him. “I’m sorry I ever became friends with her. Maybe if I hadn’t, she’d have been spared all this misery.”

  His pale eyes lanced into hers. “You have no right to pry into my private life. Or Coreen’s.”

  “I’m not trying to,” she returned. “I won’t make any attempts to play Cupid, I promise you. In return, you might consider keeping a respectful distance while Coreen gets over the last few miserable years of her life.”

  He glanced down at his plate. “That’s what I intended all along.”

  “Good. Maybe I’m wrong about Barney. Maybe he’ll be the best thing that ever happened to her.”

  His hand clenched on his coffee cup. “Maybe he will.”

  She hesitated, but there was really nothing more to say. She left him sitting there, his eyes downcast and unreadable.

  Coreen had, indeed, discovered Barney. Rather, he’d discovered her, at a local fast-food joint one day when they were both catching a quick bite to eat. She’d been delighted to find a familiar face, and he was already infatuated with her. It had been a short jump from there to one date, and then another.

  Sandy had come up for the night while she was on a job, and she hadn’t mentioned Ted at all. But Coreen had mentioned Barney. She was enjoying her life, having decided that loving Ted was going to kill her if she didn’t put a stop to it.

  She put on a good front. Sandy could see right through it, and she hated the pain she read in Coreen’s blue eyes when she didn’t think it was showing. She hoped Ted knew what he was doing. He might have just lost his last chance for happiness. But she wished Coreen well, all the same. If Barney could make her happy—well, she deserved some happiness.

  But love didn’t develop between the two of them. Coreen enjoyed Barney’s company, and he hers. They both knew that friendship was all they could expect, and not only because of Coreen’s lingering feelings for Ted. Barney had found a woman whom he adored, too, but she was married. There was no hope at the moment that anything could develop there. He was like Coreen: awash in a tempest of feelings that he could never express.

  It gave them something in common, and bound them closer together. Since they enjoyed the same sort of movies, they started sharing rental costs and spending Friday evenings at the apartment, watching the latest releases over popcorn and soft drinks.

  When Sandy discovered this new ritual, she was amused at the innocence of it. Occasionally she dropped in to share the popcorn, and she and Barney became friends, too.

  “You’re spending a lot of time in Victoria lately,” Ted said one Friday afternoon. “What’s the attraction?”

  “I like to see Coreen. And Barney, of course.”

  He went very still. “Barney?”

  “I go up occasionally to watch movies with them at the apartment on Friday nights,” she explained innocently. “They’re always together these days. Friday is movie night.”

  His eyes flashed. “They’re sleeping together in my apartment?” he blurted out furiously.

  “Do you realize what you’re saying?” she asked quietly. “Think, Ted. Is that really the sort of woman you think Coreen is?”

  He was insanely jealous. He couldn’t begin to think through his violent emotions. Coreen, with Barney…

  “Don’t you even realize how cruel Barry was to her?” she persisted. “Do you seriously believe that she could lead some sort of promiscuous existence after what she suffered with him? Don’t you know that she’s frightened of intimacy?”

  “Not with me, she isn’t,” he said bluntly, and before he thought.

  Her eyes widened and her mouth snapped shut.

  “I haven’t seduced her, if that’s what the disapproving look signifies,” he said with a mocking smile. “I still have a few principles that I haven’t sold out.”

  “You might have spared her that,” she said.

  “She might have spared me as well,” he returned.

  She relented a little. “I’m sorry. I suppose you think you’re doing it for her, don’t you?”

  He averted his face. “You remember how it was when we were kids.”

  “And you don’t,” she said curtly. “Mother didn’t love him. She never loved him. She loved what he had. She didn’t even want us, because we interfered with her lifestyle. But he insisted, because he was crazy about kids.”

  “She loved him when they got married,” he said doggedly.

  “You don’t believe that. You haven’t believed it for a long time. It’s something you’ve held on to, to give you a reason to keep Coreen at arm’s length.”

  He didn’t answer her. She could see the indecision and the pain in his face.

  “Spill it,” she said abruptly. “Come on, let’s have all of it. What’s the real reason?”

  It was a shot in the dark, but his face went pale. So there was something…!

  “Tell me!” she demanded.

  He ground his teeth together. “Barry said that what she loved was my money. When I wouldn’t play ball, she settled for his.”

  “And you believed him.”

  “It made sense. Look at me,” he muttered. “I’m sixteen years her senior. Barry said we looked ridiculous together, that people laughed at the age difference.”

  “Barry was jealous of you, and he played on your conscience,” Sandy replied. “You don’t really believe these things, Ted. You can’t.”

  He pushed the coffee cup away from his restless fingers and leaned back. “It happened once before,” he reminded her. “When I was twenty-six, and I thought I might marry Edie.”

  “And then discovered that she was already bragging to her friends about all the expensive things she was going to buy herself when she got you to the altar. I remember.”

  He smiled faintly. “So do I,” he said. “Coreen wants me, all right. She always has. But wanting isn’t enough. And right now, I can’t be sure that she isn’t trying to gain back the self-esteem she lost because Barry called her frigid.”

  “Maybe she is,” she said. “If that’s the case, it’s Barney who’s helping her get it back.”

  His face went hard. “He’s closer to her own age.”

  “Yes, he is,” she agreed pleasa
ntly. “And they get on like a house on fire. He treats her so gently. Nothing like Barry did. He takes her out and buys her flowers and even cooks supper for her when she’s tired. Quite a guy, Barney.”

  He felt, and looked, sick to his stomach. He hadn’t thought it was serious. From the tidbits of gossip Sandy let slip, he’d convinced himself that as far as Coreen was concerned, Barney was more like a girlfriend with chest hair than a boyfriend. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

  “I see.”

  “I’m glad you’ve decided to let go, Ted,” she said gently. “It’s a kindness, if you have nothing to give her. She’s finding her own way now, standing on her own feet for the first time in her life. Away from you, she’s a different woman.”

  “Different how?” he asked.

  “She’s happy,” she said.

  He got up from the table and left the room without another word. Watching him go, Sandy regretted what she’d said. If Coreen was just putting on an act, if she did still love Ted, then what Sandy had just told him might have destroyed her last chance for happiness.

  It was Sunday. Coreen had gone to church with Barney and seen him off on a two-day business trip at the Victoria airport afterward. The apartment was very quiet now, and she couldn’t find anything on television that she really wanted to watch.

  The buzz of the doorbell was almost welcome, except that it was probably going to be a salesman or a neighbor wanting to chat. She wasn’t in the mood for either.

  Jeaned and T-shirted, and barefoot, she went to the door muttering and peeped through the keyhole. Her hand froze on the chain latch. She stared, drinking in the angry face of the man she’d hoped she might forget. Her eyes closed and she leaned against the door with her heart pounding audibly in her chest. Ted! It was Ted, and she loved him and wanted him. And he wanted no part of her.

  “Open the door, Coreen,” he said shortly.

  “How do you know I’m home?” she demanded angrily. “I might be out, for all you know!”

  “Obviously you aren’t.”

  She sighed. If she’d kept her big mouth shut…

  She pulled aside the chain latch and unwillingly opened the door. “Come in,” she said in a subdued tone. “It’s your apartment after all. I’m just the tenant.”

  He paused to close the door behind him before he followed her into the living room and sailed his cream-colored Stetson onto the counter of the bar. He was dressed in a suit and tie and he looked formal. His eyes drifted down to her pretty bare feet and he concealed a smile. Her slender figure was very well outlined in the close-fitting jeans she had on, and the T-shirt was almost see-through, despite its colorful message that invited people to visit Texas.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  She sat down on the arm of the big armchair. “As you see.”

  His pale eyes went around the room. There was no sign of occupation. She was here, but she’d made no mark on the room at all.

  “I haven’t trashed the furniture,” she said, misunderstanding his scrutiny.

  “No wrestling matches with Barney on my sofa on Friday nights?” he chided with more venom than he knew.

  She lifted her chin. “We can always watch movies at Barney’s apartment if you don’t like me bringing him here,” she said.

  His eyes flashed angrily. They pinned her, making her feel like backing away. But she didn’t. She’d gained new self-confidence over the weeks since Barry’s death—mainly because of Ted himself. She stood her ground, and admiration filtered through the anger in his eyes.

  “I don’t give a damn what you do with Barney,” he said.

  As if she didn’t already know that. His absence from her life in recent weeks had made his lack of interest plain.

  But he looked worn. There was no other word to describe it. His lean face had deep hollows in it, and there were new lines around his firm mouth and between his eyes.

  “You look tired,” she said with involuntary gentleness.

  Her words hardened him visibly, and at once.

  “Oh, I know,” she said heavily, “you don’t want concern from me. God forbid that I should worry about you.”

  He stuck his hands into the pockets of his expensive slacks and went to stand by the window. It was a hazy summer day. He watched the clouds shift on the horizon, dark and threatening clouds that carried the promise of rain.

  “Why did you come, Ted?” she asked after the long silence grew tedious.

  He didn’t turn. “I wanted to make sure that you were all right.”

  She didn’t read anything into that statement. She stared at his back without blinking. “I’m fine. I have a good job and I’m making friends. I’ll be able to do without that allowance, in fact. If I refuse it, can you give it to charity?”

  He turned, frowning. “There’s no need for gestures,” he said coldly.

  “It isn’t a gesture. I don’t want Barry’s money. I never did.” She smiled at his expression. “Disappointed? I know you’d rather think that I married him for all that nice money.”

  He didn’t react at all. “There’s no provision if you refuse the money. The trust will remain untouched.”

  She shrugged. “Then do what you like about it. But I won’t accept it. I wouldn’t have married Barry if it hadn’t been for Papa, anyway. At least one good thing came out of it—he had the medical care he needed.”

  “Why didn’t you ask me for help?” he demanded.

  She lifted both eyebrows, astonished. “It never would have occurred to me,” she stammered.

  “Your father was a friend of mine, as well as a business acquaintance,” he said curtly. “I would have done anything I could for him.”

  She averted her eyes.

  He moved closer. Something about her posture disturbed him. “You’re hiding something.”

  She hesitated, but he looked capable of standing there all night until he got an answer. “Barry warned me not to ask you for any financial help. He said that you’d told him you wanted me to marry him and get out of your hair. He made sure that I knew not to ask you.”

  His breath left in a violent rush. “My God,” he said roughly. “So that was it.”

  “I didn’t really need telling, Ted,” she added quietly. “You’d made it clear that you wanted nothing to do with me. Even when Dad was so sick, you hardly came near the place. And when you did…”

  “When I did, I had nothing kind to say to you,” he finished for her. “Barry kept me upset. He wouldn’t let me near you, did you know that? He said that you hated me.”

  Her eyes lifted to his in time to see the flash of pain those memories kindled in his face.

  “But I told him no such thing,” she said hesitantly.

  “Didn’t you?” He laughed bitterly. “He said that you’d agreed to marry him because you thought he had more money than I did.”

  Chapter 10

  Coreen just stared at him. She wasn’t going to make any more denials. If he believed her mercenary, let him.

  He smiled at her stony countenance. “Yes, I know,” he murmured, “I always think the worst of you, don’t I? But he made it all sound so logical. Lie after lie, for two years and more, and I swallowed every one.”

  She traced a tiny smear of oil on the knee of her jeans. “They weren’t all lies,” she said. “He told you I was frigid, and I am.”

  “Not with me.”

  She lifted her eyes to his face. “There’s more to intimacy than a few kisses, and you know it. You know what I mean, too. I destroyed him in bed. I made him incapable, every time…”

  His face fascinated her. It looked like an image frozen in ice. “Do you realize what you’re telling me?” he asked slowly.

  “Yes,” she said stiffly. “I’m telling you that I wasn’t woman enough…”

  “No!” He knelt beside the armchair, his eyes so close to hers that they filled the world. “Did he ever make love to you completely?”

  “Completely?”

  He told her, explicitl
y.

  “Ted, for God’s sake…!” She exploded.

  She got up, and so did he. He caught her arms before she could move away. His face was drawn, almost white. He shook her gently. “Tell me!” he demanded.

  “All right! No, he…he didn’t!”

  He didn’t react for several seconds. When he did, it changed him. All the color rushed back into his lean face. He looked at Coreen with wonder, with fascination.

  “You’re still a virgin,” he said unsteadily.

  She glared at him. “Rub it in.”

  He couldn’t seem to accept what he’d heard. He bit off a curse, moving away from her. It had been bad enough before. Now it was unbearable. Corrie had never had a man. She’d been married, abused, tormented, but she’d never been intimate with Barry. She was chaste, in every real respect.

  He ran his hand over his forehead, feeling perspiration there despite the air-conditioning in the apartment.

  “What difference does it make now?” she asked angrily. “He’s dead!”

  “You really don’t know, do you?” he asked. He didn’t look at her.

  “Know what?”

  His hands balled into fists in his pockets. His head was bowed while he fought needs and desires that almost exploded into action.

  He took a long breath and stared out the window. “How do you feel about Barney?” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “And please don’t, for God’s sake, tell me it’s none of my business.”

  “It isn’t,” she said doggedly. But she relented. “He’s my friend. We enjoy the same things.”

  “Do you love him?”

  Her eyes answered him long before she averted them. “I like him,” she hedged. “I’m not ready to love anyone,” she added firmly. “I’ve just come through a disastrous marriage.”

  “I know that.” He let out a long breath and turned to look at her, looking belligerent and pretty. “Are you happy, Corrie?”