Rivals

by Janet Dailey

  But Chance had heard all the apologies at three o’clock in the morning when Sam had called to tell him Flame was missing. He’d had a bad feeling when he hadn’t gotten an answer last night at her flat in San Francisco. But Sam had initially assured him there was nothing to worry about; he’d checked with Matt Sawyer and found out that her flight had been delayed in Dallas with a mechanical problem and she wouldn’t arrive in San Francisco until well after midnight Pacific time.

  “Dammit, Sam, we both know where she is.” Pivoting sharply, he turned to the smoked-glass windows, fighting the rage and frustration he felt at coming so close to having it all, then having it literally snatched from him at the last minute. “She’s at Morgan’s Walk.”

  “We can’t be sure of that,” Molly offered in placation. “She could have changed to another flight in Dallas or decided to spend the night there and catch a morning plane. There are any number of possible explanations—”

  “No.” Chance dismissed them all with a firm shake of his head as he stared grimly at the bleak gray clouds that hung over the city. “Somehow Hattie got to her.”

  “Jesus, Chance, what if she’s found out? What if she knows you want the ranch?”

  His control snapped at Sam’s worried question. He spun on him. “She wouldn’t have found out a damned thing if you had done your job and stayed with her! Hattie wouldn’t have been able to get near—Flame!”

  She stood in his office doorway, rigid as a statue, gripped by an icy fury that swept all remaining doubt from her. She completely ignored his two cohorts in the deception and focused the whole of her attention on the man who had tricked her, used her—betrayed her.

  Recovering quickly from his initial surprise at seeing her, Chance faltered barely an instant, then started around his desk to come to her, his expression making a lightning transition from shock to relief. “Where on earth have you been? We’ve been turning half the country upside down looking for you.” Once, the sight of that intimately possessive look in his eyes would have sent her straight into his arms. Now it failed to move her at all. “I’ve been half out of my mind thinking something had happened to you.”

  “I overheard how worried you were, Chance,” she replied coolly, watching as he came to a stop, a good twenty feet still separating them, his head lifted in wary caution. She started toward him, taking slow and deliberate steps. “What exactly was it that you were afraid I’d find out? That Hattie Morgan is your aunt? Or that you stood to inherit Morgan’s Walk before I appeared on the scene? Or that when I did, you decided the most expedient and expeditious course of action to regain control of the land was to marry me?”

  His narrowed gaze was quick in its study of her, taking in the icy green glitter of her eyes and the faintly contemptuous curl of her lips. “Flame, I know how it must look—how it must sound,” he began carefully. “But that’s not the way it is.”

  “Isn’t it?” Her challenging voice trembled with an anger she no longer tried to conceal as she stopped in front of him. “What a pushover I must have seemed to you, lapping up all your lies and coming back for more, honestly believing that you loved me and that I could trust you—turn on the charm and sweep me off my feet. That was your game plan, wasn’t it?”

  “You’re wrong, Flame.”

  “No, you’re the one who’s made a mistake.” She had come here this morning, certain that if she could talk to Chance, he’d clear away all her doubts. He had, but not in the way she’d expected. With a wrenching twist, she pulled off her wedding rings and held them up for Chance to see. “These don’t mean any more to me than they do to you.” Coolly she opened her fingers and let them fall to the floor, taking pleasure in the brief flare of anger in his expression. She started to turn away, then paused. “I suppose I should inform you that your aunt died at twelve-forty-two this morning. Unofficially, I am the new owner of Morgan’s Walk, and I swear to you, Chance, that you will never possess so much as one inch of that land.”

  This time when she turned to walk away, he grabbed her and hauled her back to him, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her arms. “Dammit, Flame will you listen to me?”

  She didn’t flinch from him or attempt to pull free. “What’s the matter, Chance? Have you decided that charm won’t work so now you’re going to resort to violence? Hattie said you’d do anything to get Morgan’s Walk.”

  He released her abruptly, his jaw clenched, eyes cold. He didn’t try to stop her when she walked away. At the doorway, she paused to look back at him.

  “The funeral’s Saturday morning. Don’t come. You won’t be welcome.” Then she was gone, closing the door behind her.

  He stared at it, then scooped the rings from the floor and held them in his palm. The diamond’s sparkling brilliance seemed to taunt him—just as she had. He closed his fingers tightly around them and turned to walk back to his desk.

  “Aren’t you going after her?” Sam frowned. “You can’t just let her walk away like that. You’ve got to talk to her—make her understand.”

  “Not now. She’s in no mood to listen.” He had never seen her like that—so angry, so hurt, all closed to him, and ready to throw his words back in his face.

  “Chance is right.” Molly spoke up quickly in his support. “Right now she feels hurt. And all she wants to do is hurt back. You can’t reason with someone in pain. You have to wait—give her a couple of days for it to ease, then talk to her.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Sam said, clearly not sharing her certainty.

  “I am.” She smiled confidently. “She loves you, Chance. I’m as sure of that as I am that the sun comes up in the morning.”

  “But what if you’re wrong?” Sam murmured, shaking his head.

  “She isn’t,” Chance asserted, holding up the hand that clenched the wedding rings. “I’ll have these back on her finger. It may take me some time, but they’ll be there. I’m not going to lose her—or Morgan’s Walk.”

  But Sam wasn’t to be consoled as he ran a hand through his rumpled hair and sighed. “This is all my fault.”

  The phone rang, the blinking light indicating the call was coming in on Chance’s private line. “I’ll get it,” Chance said as Molly started to answer it. “It’s probably either Maxine or Matt Sawyer calling to let us know about Hattie.” He picked up the phone.

  “Chance, darling, it’s Lucianna.” The familiar melodic trill of her voice came over the line. “I hope I’m not calling at a bad time, but there’s this ridiculous rumor going around that you got married without letting your friends know a thing about it. Is it true, darling?”

  He looked at the rings in his hand. “That seems to be open to argument at the moment.”

  27

  A shroud of cold gray clouds covered the late afternoon sky, casting its gloom over the imposing three-story brick mansion and adding to its bleak, cheerless look. Dead brown leaves tumbled across the lane in front of Chance’s Jaguar, chased by a brooming wind out of the north.

  He slowed as he approached the house. There were no cars parked in front of it, indicating that if any of the neighbors had stopped after the funeral, they’d already left. Which meant Flame would be there alone.

  He’d debated long and hard about the wisdom of coming out here today. According to Matt Sawyer, Flame was scheduled to fly back to San Francisco tomorrow. He wondered if he should have waited to contact her after she had returned to the city where they’d met, but he didn’t think so. The timing now was ideal, too. Sobered by the ritual of the funeral this morning and the opportunity to reflect afterward, she was bound to be more receptive than she might be another day. And, dammit, he wanted to see her. She was his wife.

  He parked the car in front and climbed out. The brisk north wind whipped at his hair and sent more leaves scurrying across the lawn as Chance stared at the house he’d once lived in. A black wreath hung on the front door. There had been a wreath of mourning on the door the last time he’d stood in front of the house—at almost this v
ery spot. That time it had been for his mother.

  Suddenly he was a little boy again, fighting the tears he was too old to cry and feeling the choke of a child’s hatred in his throat. His father’s hand was hard on his shoulder, the reek of whiskey strong on his breath.

  “Did you see her face when you told her someday you’d be back? White, she went. White as them pillars. And you will, boy.” His father’s fingers dug into the ridge of his shoulder, the grip hurting him. “Look at it. Look at it and remember, because that house and all this land is gonna be yours. And there’s nothing that bitch can do about it. Nothing.”

  “I hate her.” The words came from the back of his throat, pushed out by all that bitterness and hot emotion. “I hate her and I hate that house. When it’s mine, I’m gonna burn it down.”

  “Now you’re talking stupid. Bricks don’t burn.” He turned Chance away from the house and pushed him toward a dusty pickup. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Where are we gonna live, Pa?”

  “We’ll find us a place. Don’t you worry.”

  They’d found a place all right—an old shotgun house in Tulsa, a ramshackle relic from the boom days when the oil companies had built cheap housing for their workers. The house had been freezing in the winter and sweltering in the summer, and most of the time it stank of his father’s vomit. But the rent had been cheap, just about what he’d earned every month on his paper route that year. His father had worked sporadically then, enough to keep food on the table, clothes on their back, and a bottle of whiskey by his bed. By the time Chance turned fourteen, he’d stopped doing even that much. Enough for a cheap bottle of booze, that was all he’d cared about—that and raving drunkenly about Hattie and reminding Chance that all this was just temporary. Two years later he’d finally succeeded in drinking himself to death.

  Hattie had done that to his father—taken his pride and self-respect and ground them under her heel. When they’d lived here at Morgan’s Walk, Chance had watched his father slowly crumble under the constant lash of her tongue. He’d hated her for that. Oh, he had yes-ma’amed her and no-ma’amed her, but never with respect in his voice—only defiance.

  That was a long time ago. Yet, standing here, it didn’t seem all that long. Breathing in deeply, Chance mentally shook off the memories and walked to the front door. He lifted the brass knocker and dropped it twice, the wind carrying off the hollow thuds.

  Maxine opened the door to him, her look of surprised recognition quickly turning to quiet welcome. “Chance. I’ve been thinking about you so often these past two days, and here you are.”

  Stepping inside, he took both her hands and smiled at the stout housekeeper who had been his only friend. “How are you, Maxine?”

  The puffiness around her eyes told of the tears of grief she’d already cried, and the brightness of them now indicated more were held at bay. “She could be such a cruel woman at times, Chance, but she suffered so at the last that I—” She bit back the rest as her chin quivered. She forced a smile. “It’s hard to believe she’s gone. I expect any minute to hear her yell for me.”

  “I know.” His glance swept the grand foyer, finding it exactly as he remembered it, right down to the celadon vase on the round table. More than that, he could feel Hattie’s presence, the stirring of old hostility.

  “It isn’t fair, Chance,” Maxine murmured. “I always thought the next time you walked through that door, it would be for good. Now…” As her voice trailed off, she glanced sideways in the direction of the main parlor.

  Instantly Chance knew Flame was there. “I’m here to see Mrs. Stuart, Maxine.”

  “She won’t see you.” She shook her head sympathetically. “She gave strict orders that if you called or—”

  “Maxine, I thought I heard—” Flame halted in the parlor’s framed arch, her gaze locking on him. She wore a long-sleeved black dress, very plain and very elegant, and her red hair was swept back in a classic chignon. No jewelry of any kind adorned her, and only a minimum of makeup. Yet she had never looked more strongly beautiful to him than at that moment. He released Maxine’s hands, letting her step back from him and ignoring the housekeeper’s guilty, worried look.

  “Hello, Flame.”

  “What are you doing here?” Perhaps it was the trace of hoarseness in her voice or the faint lines of tension around her mouth that alerted Chance to her fatigue and the stress she was under. He wasn’t sure. In any case, he could see that she seemed tired and, he hoped, vulnerable.

  “I came to see you.” He moved away from the door and Maxine, angling toward Flame. “You are still my wife.”

  “You’ll be hearing from my attorney about that.”

  Even though he’d expected something of the kind, he still felt an anger at actually hearing the words. “By your attorney, I assume you mean Ben Canon.”

  “Does it matter?” She was angry, too, but it was the cold kind she’d shown him at his office. “Whatever reason you thought you had for coming no longer exists. Please leave or I’ll have you thrown out.”

  “Why are you so afraid to talk to me, Flame?”

  “I’m not!” Her temper flared ever so briefly before she shuttered it. “And I don’t have to stand here and listen to you to prove that.”

  “Hatred is a very contagious thing. It permeates the very walls of this house.” He wandered past her into the parlor, his glance skimming over the room’s familiar furnishings—the ebony piano, the Victorian sofa and chairs, and the silk rug on the floor that held traces of the tea he’d spilled on it long ago. “The place hasn’t changed,” he mused, then angled a glance over his shoulder at her. “I lived here as a boy. Did Hattie tell you that?” She nodded, almost warily. “I wasn’t allowed in the parlor except on very rare occasions, but I used to sneak in here when she wasn’t around. She caught me once, jumping off the piano, and took her cane to me. I probably deserved that. But she had no right to refuse to let me see my mother for three days.” Chance paused, remembering, a bitter cynicism pulling at a corner of his mouth. “It’s odd, but it never made any difference to Hattie that my mother was a Morgan. I was born a Stuart, and because of it, she made my life hell. If there’s any justice in the hereafter, that’s where she is now.”

  “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you now?” Flame mocked from the archway, her arms folded in front in a challenging stance. “Is that what you hoped to accomplish with that poor, abused childhood vignette? Do you know what’s sad, Chance?” She walked over to him, never losing that hint of defiance. “If you had told me that before—if you had been honest with me—I probably would have believed you…and made an even bigger fool of myself. I suppose I should thank you for that.”

  He faced her, now wary himself. “I made a mistake—”

  “A big one. You used me. You used me as a quick and easy means to get Morgan’s Walk. I will never forgive you for that or forget it.”

  “You’re wrong. When we met, I didn’t know you had any connection to Hattie.”

  “It doesn’t matter when you found out—before or after you met me. The point is, you didn’t tell me. On the contrary, you deliberately kept it from me.”

  “I admit that was wrong. Maybe I didn’t think you would understand. Maybe I wanted us to have more time together first. But it wasn’t a lie when I told you I loved you.”

  She laughed—a harsh breathless sound. “I can’t believe this. After what you’ve done, do you really think you can come here and tell me how much you love me, and I’ll just fall into your arms? Do you really think I’m so stupid—so gullible—that I’ll let myself be taken in by you again?”

  There was an ominous tightening of his mouth, a muscle leaping along his jaw. “I expect you to listen to reason.”

  “Whose reason? Yours? You make me sick, you lying bastard.” She turned from him, hating him as violently as she’d once loved him.

  “Dammit, Flame.” His hand snaked out to seize her arm. She halted, turning rigid at his touch
, and stared coldly at the hand on her arm, saying nothing. The silence stretched for several tense seconds, then he removed his hand from her arm. “You’ve been infected by the hate that lives in this house, haven’t you?”

  “Is that why you’re so determined to destroy it and build your grand development on it—because you see it as a place of hatred?” Flame caught the faint start that Chance wasn’t quite quick enough to conceal at the mention of his proposed development. “Did you think I didn’t know what you planned to do with Morgan’s Walk—and all the rest of the land you’ve bought?”

  “Whatever use I may or may not have considered putting this land to has nothing to do with why I’m here.”

  “Doesn’t it?” she mocked. “You mean you didn’t come here to win me back? I’m curious, Chance. How were you going to convince me to flood this valley and destroy Morgan’s Walk? Were you going to wait a couple of months, then come to me and say, ‘Darling, I have this great idea to take that land you inherited and turn it into a fabulous resort complex—think of the millions you’ll make from it, so much more than you would ever realize if you maintained its current ranching operation’? Maybe you’d add an incentive—‘We’ll do it together, darling—work side by side as partners.’ Naturally, I’d be so blindly in love with you that I’d agree. That’s the way you thought it would work, isn’t it?”

  “Why should I answer that when you wouldn’t believe me anyway?” he challenged quietly.

  “You’re right. I wouldn’t.”

  Reaching out, he gently took hold of her arms. Flame stiffened instinctively, ready to resist if he should attempt to force himself on her, but he didn’t. She was almost sorry. There was a part of her that was so raw it wanted to lash out—to kick and scream and claw. But the undemanding warmth of his hands didn’t invite it.

  “I’ve hurt you, Flame. I know that.” There was a persuasive pitch to his voice now, softly serious and subtly soothing. “You have every right to be angry with me—”