"Faith." Ted stood up. "My brother did what he had to do."
"Oh, yes," she said, rising to her feet. She gave a quick laugh. "He certainly did."
"And so will you, if you're half the woman I think you are. You'll marry me, take the Cameron name, raise your baby as a Cameron-"
"And what about you?" She stared at Ted in bewilderment. "Assuming I were to agree to such an insane thing-which I won't-but if I did, what would happen to your life? I-I'd never live with you as a wife should. Never, no matter how-"
"I know that. And I wouldn't expect it." Ted cleared his throat. "I'm going to... I'm going to trust you with something. Something you should know." He swallowed hard. "I've ..I've never been interested in women. Not the way a man should be."
The truth took a long moment to sink in. When it finally did, Faith stared at him, speechless.
"Nobody knows," he'd said quickly, "not even Cole. And nobody ever will, not in Liberty. I'll be an exemplary husband. And, I promise you, I'll love Cole's child as if it were my own. Just don't make this baby pay for what you feel toward my brother."
"I hate your brother," she'd said, and despite everything, the enormity of the lie had clutched at her heart.
"But you don't hate your baby." Ted had flashed the gentle smile she'd come to know so well over the ensuing years. "You'll be doing me a favor, letting me enjoy a child I'd never otherwise have. No, don't say anything. At least agree to think it over."
She'd thought it over, trying to concentrate on the logic of it instead of on the pain of her broken heart. Then, one morning her mother found her retching into the toilet. She whispered the question Faith had feared for weeks, and Faith nodded her assent.
"Your father mustn't know," her mother had said, trembling. "You'll have to do something, Faith, but not in this town. You'll have to do it far away from here."
A day later, she'd phoned Ted and accepted his proposition.
They'd been married at Town Hall while her mother stood by sniffling into a fistful of tissues. Ted put a thin platinum band on her finger, kissed her cheek and moved her into his house. He sent Cole a letter telling him about the marriage, but Cole never replied. And Isaiah never said a word to her, right up until his death.
Neither did anyone else in town, but she saw their knowing smiles. When she began to show, their smiles grew more obvious. She knew people were counting the months and assuming she'd managed to snare a Cameron in the oldest way possible.
"Don't mind those busybodies," Ted would say when she'd come home from the market or the library with her face red and her temper high. "Just go on with your life."
She had. And, once Peter was born, her days were filled with the sweet joy of caring for him. He was the love of her life, the one good thing Cole had given her, and when Ted suggested finding Cole to tell him he had a son, Faith's "no" was adamant. Cole hadn't wanted her; why would he want to know he had a son?
"I don't ever want him to know about Peter," she'd said. "Promise me that, Ted."
Ted had promised, though reluctantly. "It's wrong," he'd say. "A man has the right to know he's a father."
Now, turning onto Main Street
and pulling into the lot behind Sam Jergen's law office, Faith thought again, as she had so often in the past, that fathering a child was easy. Raising one was the hard part although the truth was, Ted hadn't been all that involved in raising Peter. He had his own life but he'd always been good to her and to her son. Thanks to that goodness, she could look forward to a fresh start for the two of them.
Damn. There was a car, a shiny black Jaguar, parked under the only shade tree. It gave her a jolt to see it, considering the memories swirling through her head. When Cole daydreamed about their future, he used to say that someday he'd trade his Harley for a Jaguar...
She shut off the engine.
Why was she wasting time thinking about Cole this morning? The past was dead. The future was all that mattered.
The day was heating up. She could feel the asphalt give under her shoes as she walked across the parking lot. A merciful blast of frigid air enveloped her as she stepped inside the marble foyer of the old building. Five to nine, said the big clock on the wall. She was right on time.
The cool air evaporated as she made her way up the steps to the third floor and down the corridor to Sam Jergen's office. Faith could feel her hair curling, her blouse wilting. She paused outside the office, wiped her hand down her skirt, tugged at her jacket, patted her hair...
"Just stop it," she said under her breath, and she opened the door and stepped inside.
The empty reception area was hot, almost airless. Faith glanced at her watch. It was precisely nine o'clock. Where was the iron-jawed secretary who normally sat at the desk?
"Hello?" she said, after a couple of minutes crept past.
There was no reply. Faith sat down on the sofa, put her leanly muscled frame. His feet were slightly spread and his hands were in his trouser pockets.
His stance was casual but something about it suggested that he knew he owned the world.
Faith's heartbeat slowed to a sluggish crawl. She forced her eyes from the man to Jergen's secretary.
"Why don't I come back later?" she said in a breathless voice that didn't sound a bit like her own. "Say, at ten? Or this afternoon? I mean, I thought I had a nine o'clock appointment but obviously-"
"You do. Mr. Jergen had to step out for a minute. He asked you to wait for him in his office."
"No! I can wait in the reception area-"
The woman took her arm. Faith wanted to grab for the wall and hang on but the secretary drew her forward, through the door and into the office.
"No," she said again, but it was too late. The man turned from the window and looked at her.
"Hello, Faith," Cole said.
And everything went black.
CHAPTER TWO
COLE had wondered how Faith would react when she saw him.
He'd thought about it through the long flight home-not that Georgia was home anymore. He had offices in Caracas, London and New York, a condo in Aspen and a penthouse in
New York but when the news of Ted's death reached him, he was deep in the Orinoco basin. It had taken him more than a week just to get back to civilization.
She was such a clever actress. Who knew what routine she'd try and pull?
He'd imagined her offering a cool smile and a handshake.
Hello, Cole, she'd say, as if he'd never left. As if there'd never been anything between them. As if they'd never made love on a soft summer night.
Or she might try the ingenue act again. He'd fallen for it years ago. So had his brother. Why wouldn't she stick with something that had been successful? Sweet Faith. Innocent Faith. Oh yeah. That had always worked.
Maybe she'd play the grieving widow. Stare at him through big eyes, weep as if her heart were breaking. Actually, he'd doubted she'd be foolish enough to try that. She had to realize that he, of all men, would know she didn't have a heart.
A swoon was the last thing he'd figured but that was exactly what she did. Looked at him, rolled up her eyes and went down in a heap. Cole cursed, moved fast, and caught her just before she hit the floor.
"Get some cold water," he snapped at Sam Jergen's secretary.
The woman flew down the hall. Cole headed in the other direction, elbowed open the conference room door and unceremoniously deposited Faith on the couch. He looked at her dispassionately and wondered if he might have walked past her on the street. The girl he'd known had lived her life in shorts and T-shirts. The woman he was looking at was dressed in designer silk.
"I suppose you know all about your brother's marriage," Jergen had said carefully, when the call had finally reached him. "That he and Faith Davenport..."
"Yes," Cole had said, interrupting the man. Surely, the lawyer hadn't phoned to give him old news. "I know all of that. Why are you calling me, Mr. Jergen?"
There'd been a long s
ilence over the satellite phone. "Your brother's been in an accident," Jergen had finally said. "I'm afraid it was a bad one. He was driving to Atlanta. It was dark and the rain was heavy..."
It was funny, what adversity could do to a man. Nine years of rage had disappeared in a heartbeat. This was Ted, his brother. And Cole loved him.
"What hospital is he in?" he'd demanded, glancing at his watch. "I can be in the States by-"
"He's not in a hospital," Jergen had said softly. "He's gone."
Ted, gone? That couldn't be. "No," Cole had whispered, "God, no..." And then his heart had almost stopped beating. "Faith? Is she... ?" His hand had tightened around the phone. "Tell me what happened to her. Is she-did she-"
"She's fine," Jergen had replied, and then his voice flattened and he said that Faith hadn't been in the car, "Ted made the trip to Atlanta once a month and he always made it alone."
"Always alone? What's that supposed to mean?"
"We can talk about all of that when you get here," the lawyer had said.
"We'll talk about it now," Cole had said coldly, and, finally Jergen had obliged.
"Your brother was seeing somebody on the side," he'd said bluntly. "Nobody faulted him for it. That wife of his was cold as ice. She never showed him the, uh, the warmth a man's entitled to in a marriage."
Jergen told him about the separate bedrooms, about the lack of outward affection between Faith and his brother. Ted's housekeeper had found the situation appalling and hadn't hesitated to describe it to practically everyone in town.
"That sister-in-law of yours is some piece of work," Sam Jergen had continued. "Hooked your brother by getting him to think he'd put a bun in the oven."
"You mean, she said she was pregnant?"
"Come on, Cole. You don't think your brother would have married her otherwise, do you? Then, after she was elbow deep in Cameron money, she showed him just what she thought of him."
"He had her sign a prenup, didn't he?"
Jergen had laughed. "Woman got him to the altar in the first place by doing away with your brother's ability to think. No, there wasn't a prenuptial agreement. Worse still, he wrote a will leaving her everything. Well, you get the house but all the rest is hers."
"Wills can be broken," Cole had said with grim determination.
He'd come to Liberty to do just that. He knew he shouldn't have hated Ted for marrying Faith. She was the one; she'd played them both for fools and now, she thought it was payoff time.
No way.
Faith had never been fit to be Ted's wife. She wasn't fit to be his widow. And that meant she sure as hell wasn't fit to claim a dime of Ted's estate. He'd fight her for every penny, win and give it to charity. Burn it. Anything, rather than see his brother's widow get her hands on the money-and she probably knew it. No wonder she'd fainted at the sight of him.
She was still lying on the couch where he'd put her, as limp as a rag doll.
Jergen's secretary skidded into the conference room, holding a tall glass of iced water and a wet towel.
"Is there anything else I can do, Mr. Cameron?"
Cole shook his head. "The lady fainted, that's all."
"Shouldn't she have come around by now?"
He squatted down beside the couch. He was wondering the same thing. Faith's face was shockingly white; he could see the swift beat of her pulse in her throat. Sweat beaded on her forehead. He looked at the heavy black silk suit and the cream colored blouse, and muttered an oath under his breath.
"Damned fool woman, to dress like a nun on a day as hot as this."
Somewhere in the outer office, a telephone rang and rang. "The phone," Jergen's secretary blurted.
Faith moaned softly.
"She's coming around now. Go on. Do whatever you have to do. I'll deal with this." Cole wiped Faith's face with the wet cloth as Jergen's secretary shut the door behind her. "Faith." He leaned closer. "Faith, open your eyes."
Color was stealing back into her face. Cole hesitated, then began unbuttoning her jacket. He undid the top buttons of the blouse, too. Then he slipped his arm beneath her shoulders, lifted her toward him and worked the jacket off. She sighed and her head fell against his shoulder.
He felt the whisper of her breath against his throat and suddenly he remembered the last time he'd held her like this. It was the night they'd made love. Afterward, she lay curled in the curve of his arm, her breath warming his skin.
Abruptly, he pulled his arm out from under her and she fell back against the cushions.
"Faith," he said sharply, "come on, Faith. If this is for my benefit..."
Cole's voice faded away. Why had he opened her jacket? The blouse clung damply to her flesh. He could see the soft, lacy outline of her bra. In the old days, her bras had been plain white cotton but then, she hadn't needed adornment. She was all the adornment a man could take. The first time he'd unhooked her bra, the roundness of her breasts, the soft pink of her nipples, had almost made him lose control.
All these years, and suddenly he could remember the feel of her silky flesh in his palms, the taste of it on his tongue...
Dammit.
Cole shot to his feet. What the hell was he doing? He'd hated this woman far longer than he'd wanted her. She'd lied, cheated, seduced him and then Ted. She was the reason his brother had died on a rain-slick road and yet here he was, remembering things that had been lies..and turning hard as a rock, just the same.
No wonder she'd trapped Ted in her web. He'd have been pathetically easy, smart when it came to books and numbers but naive about women, shy to the point of avoidance. What chance would the poor bastard have had when a woman with the face of an angel and the instincts of a whore turned her wiles on him?
"Faith," he said sharply, and as he did, she opened her eyes. They were blank at first but when they focused on him he saw fear splinter in their blue depths. She was right to be afraid, Cole thought, and shot her a quick, mocking smile. "Nice to see you again, baby. But you didn't have to give me such a memorable welcome."
Faith struggled to sit up. She moved too fast and the color began to seep from her face. Cole eased her back against the cushions. He didn't want her to faint again. How could he enjoy what was coming if she ended up playing the scene like a heroine in a Victorian melodrama?
"Take it easy or you'll black out again."
"Black out?"
Her voice was small and shaky. Another minute, she'd have him feeling sorry for her.
"Yeah." He took the glass from the table and handed it to her. "Black out, as in faint. Here. Drink this."
"What is it?" she said, giving the liquid a wary look.
"Water." Another quick smile that wasn't quite a smile curved his mouth. "Arsenic's too easy to trace."
Anger flickered across her face like heat lightning and disappeared as quickly. She took the glass and drank half of the contents.
"Thank you," she said stiffly.
"Don't thank me, thank Sam's secretary." Cole folded his arms. "Do you want a doctor?"
Faith shook her head. A mistake, she knew, as soon as she did it. The room whirled but she sat up anyway, swung her feet to the floor and put the glass on the table.
"I'm fine," she lied.
"There's a damp towel, too, if you want it." "I said, I'm fine."
She wasn't. And she didn't want a damp towel, she wanted to get on her feet. Cole would still tower over her but at least that would take away some of his advantage. She just didn't know if she could manage that without falling down again and yet, why was she so surprised to see him? Her husband was dead. Cole hadn't bothered returning for the funeral but this was different. This was all about the disposition of the Cameron estate.
A sense of unease inched the length of her spine. Would he fight her for the money? Ted had been convinced Cole wouldn't want it. She didn't want it, either. She'd told Ted that but he'd said that money belonged to Peter. To her son. Her son, and Cole's...
Cole's son.
&n
bsp; Oh, God.
She'd stopped thinking of Peter that way years ago, but here was a walking, talking reminder of the truth. She saw a copy of her son's eyes in Cole's face, the same hair falling over Cole's forehead. Her son was only a little boy but already, he held his head the way Cole did. And there was the same tiny indentation in his chin, that same fullness to his mouth...
"Put your head down."
"I'm-I'm fine."
"The hell you are," Cole said sharply. "Put your head down and take a couple of deep breaths."
Gradually, the room stopped spinning. She lifted her head slowly. Cole was squatting in front of her, his hands cupping her shoulders.
"Are you all right?"
"Yes." She pulled back. "What are you doing here, Cole?"
Slowly, he rose to his feet. "Making women swoon at the sight of me," he said, with a cool smile.
"It's the heat."
"Yeah, well, that's what happens when you wear black on a hot day. Or am I supposed to think you're in mourning for my brother?" His mouth thinned. "The way I hear it, you wore pink to his funeral."
"What would you know about it? You didn't even bother coming home."
"I didn't know Ted was-that there'd been an accident until weeks after it happened."
"No, of course not."
"It's the truth, dammit! I was in the field and..."
And Jergen's message had to find him, first, but why tell that to Faith? He didn't owe her anything but what she deserved.
". .. and whatever scheme you were up to then was more important." Faith stood up. The floor tilted slightly and she gave herself time to recover by smoothing down her skirt. “Not that it matters now."
"Oh, it matters." Cole folded his arms over his chest. "After all, today's payoff time."
"Payoff time?"
"Sure. Finding out how much the Cameron estate is worth." His smile was all teeth. "Big doings, huh, baby?"
"And that's the reason you showed up, isn't it? To stake your claim?"
"Yes. Exactly. I'm here to claim what's mine." He let his eyes move over her with slow insolence. "You might want to button your jacket before we meet with Sam Jergen."
Cole Cameron's Revenge Page 3