by Webb, Peggy
He pulled her, stiff and unyielding, into his arms. "I wish there were an easy way to say this, Mattie. I wish I could spare you this hurt."
"Shut up." Her voice was muffled against his shirt. "I don't want to hear anymore."
"You have to, Mattie. We can't go into a marriage with this terrible misunderstanding between us." He gentled her with his hands, smoothing her hair, caressing her back. "I love you, Mattie. Well get through this together. Look at me."
She lifted her head. Her eyes were wide and frightened. And something else. She looked lost, as if she were a little girl who had suddenly been deprived of everything she held dear. He bit back a curse. She needed his strength, not his anger.
"I don't know what your mother told you. I don't want to know. But I did nothing wrong, Mattie. I was never alone with her. I never touched her."
"Stop it!" she screamed. "My mother loved me. She would never make up a thing like that."
"Of course she loved you. The pictures don't deny that. They are merely evidence of a warped mind, a sickness." He groped for the right words, hoping that instinct and love would guide him.
Mattie jerked herself free and stood up. "It's a lie. She didn't make it up. She wouldn't." White and shaking, she lifted her hand and smashed it into Hunter's face. "You raped her. And then you tried to blackmail her with those filthy pictures." She stormed across the room and picked up a vase. With all the strength of her rage, she hurled it across the room. It missed Hunter's head by a good three feet and shattered beside the sofa.
He was on his feet, striding toward her. "Mattie. Stop it. I won't let you do this to yourself."
"Get out! Get out! I never want to see you again as long as I live."
He caught her arm. "I'm not going to leave you like this."
"If you don't get your hands off me, I’ll make you sorry you ever heard the name Mattie Houston."
"Mattie. Don't do this to us."
"Us? Us!" Her voice was hoarse from shouting. "You destroyed us with those pictures!" She hauled against his iron grip. "Let me go."
"No, dammit."
Mattie was not Phillip Houston's granddaughter for nothing. Her leg shot out in a snap kick to the groin. As Hunter doubled over she ran to the sofa, grabbed the envelope, and flew out the door. By that time she was crying so hard, she could barely see.
"I hate you. I hate all of you." She ran down the hallway and into the blessed emptiness of her bedroom. She slammed and locked her door, then fell across the bed. Each sob was torn from the depths of a bruised and battered spirit. She thought she might never be whole again.
o0o
The noise of their battle had roused Phillip from his study. Grim-faced, he stood at the foot of the stairs and watched Mattie's flight to her bedroom.
"I knew there'd be the devil to pay for this," he muttered.
He waited for Hunter to come out of the music room. The minutes ticked by. Nothing happened. The silence made his skin crawl.
"Aunt Beulah's drawers. What's going on?"
He hurried up the stairs and banged on Mattie's door. "Mattie! Mattie!"
"Leave me alone, Papa."
He stood uncertainly in the hall, then marched into the music room. Hunter was still on the floor, groaning. And another two-thousand-dollar vase had been smashed, the twin to the one he'd broken earlier.
"Dammit, boy. What happened?"
"She kicked me." Hunter attempted to straighten up, and failed. "Where in the hell did she learn that?"
Phillip stifled a proud grin. "From me. I thought a little karate might come in handy. I see it did."
Hunter finally managed to sit up. He grimaced. "Couldn't you have taught her something else, like a nice kick in the shins?"
"She's got that killer's instinct. Just like me." He squatted beside Hunter and patted his arm. "Take it easy, boy. It'll be all right in a minute."
"I don't think I’ll ever be the same. She's probably ruined our family."
Phillip chuckled. "It'll feel that way for a while. What happened in here, anyway?"
"I told her the truth. She took it harder than I thought she would."
"Mattie's like William. He never wanted to face an unpleasant truth. But she's tougher than he was. More like her grandmother. And me. She’ll come around eventually. She's in her bedroom, having second thoughts right now, I’ll vow."
"It took her ten years to forgive me. I don't plan to wait another ten. I'm going to resolve this matter tonight, even if I have to break down her door to do it." He stood up with the intention of carrying out his plan, but he was shaky on his feet, and the pain in his groin commanded his full attention. "Maybe I’ll wait until tomorrow."
"Good idea. Let her sleep on it. Things always look better in the broad light of day." Phillip spoke with more confidence than he felt. He knew his granddaughter. She was stubborn. He looked up at Hunter's ashen face. "You need an escort home, boy?"
"I’ll make it." Hunter walked slowly and painfully from the room.
After he'd gone, Phillip remained, trying to believe that everything would be all right. His rationale was that Hunter and Mattie loved each other too much to let another misunderstanding come between them. It made him feel better, but not a whole lot. He had the uneasy feeling that he and Mickey had meddled.
The broken pieces of the Chinese vase caught his eye. He walked over to them and gave one a vicious kick. "Never did like those damned vases, anyhow."
CHAPTER NINE
Mattie lifted herself on one elbow and stared at the envelope. All the horror she had felt ten years before flooded through her. She didn't need to look inside to see the pictures. They were etched clearly in her memory. Hunter and her mother. Victoria's hands pinned back. Forced sex.
Mattie clenched her teeth and tried to shut out the ugliness. But she could still hear her mother's voice telling the revolting story. . . .
"He came from behind. I didn't even see him until he'd already grabbed me." Victoria's voice was shaking as she fought back tears. "Look at that top picture, Mattie. You can see how it was. . . . Mattie? Can't you, darling?"
Mattie hated the pictures. She wished she'd never seen them. She wished Victoria had never told her. The pictures were blurred and out of focus as she stared at them through her tears. Her mother kept talking, talking, going on and on about Hunter. She wanted to yell. "Shut up!" but a great lump of fear closed her throat.
"He forced me into the tub," her mother continued. "I fought him. Believe me, darling. I used all my pitiful strength against that—that monster you decided to marry. But he's strong, Mattie. You know that. He's a big man. He tore my suit, crushed me against the side of the tub, forced himself on me. It was awful!"
Her mother's voice battered Mattie’s soul. Everything that was bright and beautiful in her world came crashing down at her feet. "Hunter, Hunter," her mind screamed. "How could you have done this?"
"As if the awful defilement weren't enough, that slimy photographer tried to blackmail me with these pictures. They show as plain as day what happened. I just hope he didn't keep a set. You know how they love to follow me around, hiding in the bushes, taking pictures, making up stories for their sleazy magazines. Only, this time, they don't have to make up a story. It's all there in black and white. I just hope my poor William never finds out."
Her loud sob made Mattie look up. Her mother's beauty always reached out and grabbed her. Even in her anguish Victoria was beautiful, like one of Shakespeare's tragic heroines. No wonder Hunter couldn't keep his hands off her, she thought. A fresh stab of pain caught at Mattie.
"I . . . hate . . . him." Each word sliced her heart. She was breathless, drained, after she'd said them.
"I'm glad, darling," Victoria said. "I mean ... I'm not glad it happened this way, but I'm happy you found out about him before you made the mistake of marrying him." She dabbed a perfume scented handkerchief on her brow. "We won't tell your father, of course. There's no need for him to know what a rat his future son-in-la
w turned out to be. Poor William. He would be so heartbroken."
Mattie was numb. She could only nod her assent.
Victoria took the pictures from her and stuffed them back into the envelope. With a red felt-tip pen she scrawled "Private" across the left hand corner of the envelope.
"Then it's settled, Mattie. You'll send the ring back. There's no need for you to ever see that wretch again."
"No. No need." Mattie managed to speak around the lump of fear in her throat, which was growing bigger and bigger. She felt cold and empty and frightened. Hunter had been her love, her friend, her strength. Who could she turn to now? Not her father. Her mother was right. No need for him to be hurt, too. She couldn't even tell Papa. He had to live in Dallas, right next door to Hunter. There was no need to make it hard for him.
She longed to put her head on her mother's shoulder and cry, to feel her mother's arms around her, to know the comfort of being loved. But Victoria disliked overt displays of affection. Silly pampering, she called it. Mattie hugged her hurt to herself.
"We’ll leave on the first plane out, darling." Victoria was suddenly gay. "We’ll go on a lovely shopping spree as soon as we get to Europe. There's no better way to forget one's troubles than by spending money, lots of it. What do you say?"
Mattie said nothing. She was lost in her private hell…
Mattie stared down at the envelope. It seemed to pulse with a strange power. She felt herself drawn to it, unable to keep from opening the flap, pulling out the hateful pictures.
"I won't look," she whispered. "Not my mother. Not my mother."
She shut her eyes against the pain that ripped through her. Memories flooded her mind. There was the day they had gone to the zoo. She recalled Victoria imitating the antics of the monkeys, the two of them laughing over the pink cotton candy that got all over their faces, and both of them riding an elephant, pretending to be on safari. And always, always Victoria had been beautiful. And somehow fragile. She had been so easy to love.
Her mother's charm had colored her childhood, had painted a bright aura of love around her. Even though Victoria had not been a toucher, she had convinced those around her of her love.
"Please, God, not Mommy." It was half plea, half prayer. In her agony Mattie used the name she'd called Victoria in the magic days of her childhood, the days when reality blended with fantasy and nothing bad existed in the world that a smile from her mother couldn't fix.
Mattie clenched her jaws and kept her eyes shut to the truth, clinging to her image of Victoria with the tenacity of a drowning sailor clinging to a sinking ship. But her hands refused to stuff the pictures back inside the envelope. Against her better judgment she opened her eyes and stared down at them. They were every bit as hideous as they had been ten years earlier. The only difference was that they weren't blurred through tears. She had no more tears to shed. She'd finished with crying over Hunter.
She bent over the photos, studying his profile, the broad shoulders, his black hair. That hair, she thought. Something wasn't right. She reached over and snapped on a bedside light. The dark hair of the man in the photograph was smooth, not tousled, like Hunter's.
She leaned closer. Something was wrong about the profile, as well. The chin was too sharp. And the shoulders . . . She could shut her eyes and see Hunter's shoulders. There was a subtle difference here, one she couldn't quite put a name to.
She fanned the pictures across the bedspread and looked at them from a different perspective. This time she didn't think about the physical evidence. She thought instead about the man, his tenderness, his humor, his honesty, his basic goodness.
Her hands shook as she gathered up the pictures and stuffed them back inside the envelope. Now she knew what had bothered her all these years. The pictures were out of character for Hunter. He was a straightforward, up-front man, with a strong sense of pride and nobility. He would never have forced himself on Victoria. He would never have betrayed Mattie with such a sneaky, vicious deed.
Her mind reeled. That meant Victoria had lied. Mattie tried to shut her mind to the thought, but the floodgate of possibilities was down. Little things spilled over - how Victoria had been caught crying when Mattie turned sixteen, how she'd always stayed around to charm Mattie's dates, how she'd been obsessed with the idea of remaining youthful.
Dazzling Victoria with her harmless little flirtations, beautiful Victoria with her charming mannerisms and her lilting laughter had possessed a hard core of selfishness and deceit. How well she had hidden it. How easy it had been to believe in her beauty, her lies.
The truth lacerated Mattie's soul. The shock of it rocked the very foundations of her life. Her wedding, her happiness, her future with Hunter—all her bright dreams became obscure shadows, lifeless things, under the pall of darkness that fell over her spirit.
Hunter. Her heart clenched with pain. She had a sudden vision of him—laughing, witty, tender, passionate. And then a second vision was superimposed over the first—Victoria, bright and beautiful and treacherous.
Mattie's hands tightened on the envelope. "Nooo!" she screamed. Then she was tearing and ripping and shredding, trying to rid herself of the awful truth by destroying the pictures.
When she had finished, she flung the pieces across the room and rose from the bed. Dry-eyed, she left her room in search of Papa. She found him downstairs, in his study.
"Papa."
"Mattie." He came to her swiftly and embraced her.
"I'm leaving, Papa. On the next flight to Paris."
"For how long, Mattie?"
"I don't know. I can't deal with this . . . this . . ." She waved her hand helplessly in the air. She couldn't bring herself to put an ugly label on what she had seen. Admitting it, saying it out loud, would simply make it so.
"Stay," Papa said. "I love you. Hunter loves you. The two of you can work it out."
She hesitated. Her need to see Hunter was so powerful, she could almost feel his arms around her. But if she went to him now, wounded and bleeding, if she sought refuge in his arms, it would be a betrayal of her mother, a denial of her childhood. Even worse, the rage she felt might be glossed over, sealed off. It would be only a temporary healing, a Band-Aid applied where major surgery was needed.
"Right now, I can't deal with anybody's feelings except my own, Papa."
He leaned back and looked into her face. "You're sure? I think running away would be a mistake."
"I'm not running away this time. I'm making a rational decision to separate myself from everybody and everything that reminds me of my mother's selfishness."
"What about Hunter? It seems that he's the most maligned one in this sorry business."
"I'll call him."
"I'm glad for that much, at least." Papa patted her shoulder and chuckled. "He might not be so glad to hear from you, though. Your aim is lethal. I taught you well."
She kissed his cheek. "You're a rock, Papa. What would I do without you?"
"No need to find out. I'm planning to set a record for longevity."
"Is that a promise?"
"It's a promise."
o0o
Back upstairs Mattie made two calls: one to an airline and one to Hunter. The first was easy, the second hard.
"I'm flying back to Paris, Hunter—"
"No, Mattie—"
"—tomorrow."
Hunter felt as if an anvil had been dropped on his heart. Common sense told him that she needed time to reconcile herself to the truth, but his gut reaction was to rush next door and keep her in Dallas, to make her face the truth. Squelching that urge, he made himself ask a sensible question.
"When are you coming back?"
"I don't know."
"I can't let you go like this. You need me. We need each other."
"I need ..." She hesitated, thinking about what she needed. She needed Hunter, his love, his strength, his encouragement. But she also needed her mother. She needed something, some bright and wonderful image, to fill the great, aching voi
d inside her.
"I need nobody," she finished. "I need time."
"We need to talk. We can resolve this problem together."
"I'm finished with talking. I may even be finished with thinking. All I want is to be alone."
Hunter was afraid. He recognized an old pattern. Mattie hated to face an unpleasant truth, had always hated it. She would run to the ends of the earth to preserve her blindness. He clenched his jaw so hard he nearly cracked a tooth.
"I'd come over there right now, Mattie, and chain you to the bed if I thought it would keep you here. And if I could move. You kick like a mule."
"Save your energy for something else. Somebody else."
"Mattie, don’t."
"I've suddenly discovered that I don't have what it takes to sustain a relationship."
"If you think for one minute I'm going to let you go . . . Mattie?" Hunter was talking to a dead receiver.
o0o
Mattie set Paris on its ear. At the Moulin Rouge she climbed onstage, kicked off her shoes, and did glissandos on the piano with her bare feet. Her entourage of doting men carried her around the room on a huge silver platter, borrowed from the waiter. She attended a costume party dressed as a musical note. The black sequined note, attached to a sheer body suit, barely covered her strategic parts. An enterprising photographer got a by-line on the front page with her picture.
Her behavior kept her in the headlines. And her fear kept her running. She lived high and fast. She spent time and money as freely as if neither would ever run out. She didn't look forward and she didn't look back. Rather, she lived for the moment. She surrounded herself with people—gay, frivolous people who wouldn't ask her to think. She attended parties, she gave parties, and she played cards with a vengeance.
But in the still, lonesome moments of the night, those dark hours after midnight when she had no one to love, her fears haunted her. She was afraid of facing the truth about the mother she'd loved, the woman she'd thought was wonderful, the woman she'd sought to emulate.
She knew she had Victoria's gaiety and lilting laughter. Did she also have her cold, devious heart? Did she have a hidden core of selfishness that would someday surface? She was flesh of Victoria's flesh, heart of her heart. Did that mean the old adage would come true? Like mother like daughter? Not only her future, but her very identity, was threatened.