Cole Cameron's Revenge

by Sandra Marton

  Cole gave her son a smile. "Well, I didn't have a nephew, so I guess we're even."

  "Are you my mommy's brother or my daddy's? That's what uncles are, right? Brothers?"

  "Peter," Faith said quickly, "why don't you go get cleaned up so we can-"

  "That's what they are, Pete. I'm your father's brother." "Oh." Peter's face turned solemn. "My father is dead. Did you know that?"

  "Yeah." Cole's mouth thinned into a hard line. "Yeah, I knew."

  "So, is that why you came here? 'Cause my father's dead and now you're gonna take care of Mommy and me?"

  "Peter!" Faith knew she'd spoken harshly. The man and the boy looked at her, her son with surprise and Cole with something so feral glittering in his eyes that it made her breath catch, but she didn't care. This couldn't go on. It absolutely could not continue. "Peter, you know it's not polite to ask so many questions."

  "Not of a stranger, maybe." Cole's tone was cutting. "But I'm hardly that, Faith. I'm his blood, even if you'd have pre­ferred to keep me from knowing it."

  "Please." She shot him an imploring look. "Let's not dis­cuss this now."

  "No. Let's not." A muscle knotted in his jaw. "But I prom­ise you, we're going to discuss it later."

  "Discuss what?" Peter said. "If you're going to stay here and-"

  "Peter," Faith said, and forced a smile, "don't you want us to go get that video?"

  "Sure," he said, but he was looking up at Cole. "Am I supposed to call you Cole? Or Uncle Cole?"

  "Cole will do just fine."

  "Well," Faith said briskly, "isn't it nice that you two met? Cole, we don't want to keep you. I know you were on your way out the door when-"

  "Yes," Cole said in a deceptively lazy drawl, "that's right. Strangely enough, I was just on my way into town to see if that old fried chicken place is still down on Main Street

  . I guess it is, considering your plans for the evening."

  "Yes. It is. But-"

  "Isn't that the craziest coincidence? I figured I'd pick some up, bring it back here and we'd all have an early dinner. How's that sound, Pete?"

  "No," Faith blurted. "I mean, thank you but we couldn't possibly impose."

  "It's no imposition." His eyes fixed on hers, that cold flame still burning in their depths. "After all, Faith, we're family." "We're family, Mommy."

  The innocent accuracy of the words made Faith want to scream. "I'd love to say yes," she lied, "but-but. It's too early for dinner..."

  "You just said it wasn't," Peter said, his lower lip pushing out a little.

  "Come on, Faith." Cole spoke softly. "Try, just once, not to let things go until it's too late."

  She stared at him, knowing the trap was closing around her and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  "It's just..." She stopped, started again. "It's just fried chicken. And a video from the children's section. You'll be …­you'll be bored."

  Cole smiled. Once again, his gaze stripped her naked. "Nothing about you could ever bore a man."

  She felt her cheeks redden. "Fine," she said, the word as clipped and cold as she could make it. "Do what you like. Go to town, buy the chicken, rent a video. If you insist on spend­ing the evening here, there's nothing I can do to stop you short of bolting the door-" She caught herself, forced a smile.

  "Peter and I will be waiting."

  "You'll be waiting." Cole put his hand on Peter's shoulder. "Pete and I are going to town."

  "No!"

  "You'll have to show me where the video store is," Cole said, ignoring her completely. "There wasn't any, when I lived here."

  "It's right near the chicken place," Peter said, nearly jump­ing up and down with excitement. "What we do is, we order the chicken and then-"

  "Are you both deaf? I said no."

  Again, their faces turned to her but this time instead of panic, what she felt was anger. How dare Cole Cameron come stomping back into her life and take over? She wasn't about to let that happen and the sooner he knew it, the better.

  "My son is staying with me." Faith stepped forward, put her hands on Peter's shoulders and drew him away from Cole. "I've no intention of letting him go anywhere with you. Do you think I'm crazy? My boy is not-" Is not going to grow up to be like you, she almost said, caught herself just in time and, instead, spoke the first words that came into her head. "My boy is not going to ride on the back of a motorcycle."

  "Oh, wow. A motorcycle?" Her son was almost breathless with awe. "Have you got a motorcycle? Where? I didn't see it outside. I just saw that long black car. It's got a cat's picture on it."

  Cole laughed. "You're an observant kid, you know that?" He looked at Faith. "It's a Jaguar," he said. "Brand new, with all possible safety bells and whistles. Destroys a whole bucket of illusions, doesn't it?"

  Trapped, she thought again, trapped.

  "Mornmy? Can I go with Cole? Say yes, Mommy, please."

  Every instinct told her to say no, to tell Cole that this house still belonged to her and she wanted him out of it, right now. But he wouldn't leave any more than he'd accept her answer. And then there was Peter. His face was lit with excitement. For the first time in weeks, he looked happy.

  "All right," she said, accepting defeat. "You can go." She reached for her son and hugged him again. "I love you," she whispered.

  "Me, too," Peter said, but with the eager impatience of a child about to set off on a great adventure. He wiggled free of her arms and grinned at Cole. "We can get the stuff and Mommy can get dressed while we're gone."

  Cole took his time looking her over, from the top of her head to her toes. She knew her face was burning.

  "Out of the mouths of babes," he said politely, and their eyes met. "You know, Faith, it only just occurred to me... Did you suspect I was going to pay a visit? Did Jergen phone,perhaps, and suggest I might be stopping by?" His smile froze. "And did you dress accordingly?"

  "What's `accordingly'?" Peter asked.

  "It's a grown-up word," Cole said. "It means when some­one does something deliberately."

  "That's not what it means at all," Faith said tightly.

  Cole smiled. Then he turned the smile on Peter. She saw it become real and warm. He held out his hand. Peter took it. And the child she loved and the man she hated strolled ca­sually out the door.

  The trip to town and back should have taken half an hour. Forty-five minutes, if the chicken wasn't ready for pickup and Peter dawdled the way he almost always did when he chose a video.

  At the two hour point, Faith was almost frantic. Where was her son? Where was Cole? And why had she let him intimidate her? He was every cliché in the book, the proverbial bad penny that always turned up, still looking as dangerous and unsettled as he had at eighteen, and never mind the Jaguar. She wasn't an impressionable teenaged girl anymore.

  Cole had come back only to lay claim to Ted's estate. He'd discovered she had a son and laid claim to him, too. And what had she done? She'd let him get away with it, just as he had years before.

  What Cole wanted, Cole got. For whatever reason, he wanted to impress Peter. And she'd let him, dammit, let him maneuver her into compliance while he won her son's smiles with an offer of greasy fried chicken and a stupid video and a ride in a car he'd probably gone into hock to rent...

  The phone rang. Faith grabbed for it. "Where the hell are you?" she demanded.

  Cole laughed. "So much for hospitality."

  "So much for responsibility. Do you have any idea how long you've been gone?"

  "A little longer than we planned, I guess."

  "You guess?" She heard the hysteria in her voice, took a deep breath and started again. "I asked you a question. Where are you?"

  "Where are we, Pete?" Cole said.

  Pete, she thought, with what the still-functioning part of her brain told her was senseless rage, Pete! She couldn't make out her son's response but she could hear his childish excitement. And over what? Over a pathetic bit of attention from the man who'd planted him in
her womb and never looked back?

  "Cole."

  "Yeah, I heard you. Pete says-"

  "His name is Peter."

  "Yeah, so you told me. We're on North Road

  , maybe two miles from-"

  "I know where North Road

  is."

  "Well, I didn't. It's new. Pete took me on a little tour. The town's changed since I last saw it."

  "The town isn't all that's changed. You can't walk all over me anymore." She fought to get herself under control. "Bring my son home immediately."

  Faith banged down the phone. Things had changed in Liberty and so had she.

  When the doorbell rang half an hour later, she was ready for him. She thought she was, anyway, but she wasn't ready for the sight of her little boy, hanging on to Cole's hand, looking not just happy but worshipful. Looking every inch his father's son.

  "Peter," she said, "go to your room."

  "But the chicken's hot-­

  "Go to your room, Peter."

  Her son's lip trembled. "We got Aladdin, " he said. "Right, Cole? 'Cause Cole said he never saw it..."

  "You can watch it later," Faith said, her eyes on Cole's face.

  "Cole said he read the book, when he was a kid like me. Cole said-­

  "I don't give a da..." Faith took a couple of quick, deep breaths. "Peter. If you want to see that video, go to your room now. Otherwise, you'll get a time out."

  Tears welled in the child's eyes. "That's not fair. You said-­

  "Hey." Cole squatted down, put his hands on the boy's shoulders and smiled. "Your mom's upset, Petey."

  Petey, Faith thought crazily. Petey. He was explaining her to her own son, a child who'd gone from being Peter to Pete to Petey in the blink of an eye.

  "She's upset with me, not with you." He stood up, still smiling, but his eyes were chips of winter ice. "Isn't that right, Faith?"

  "Yes," she said, hating herself for not making it clear to Peter that her temper had nothing to do with him, hating Cole even more for having the presence of mind to have done it for her. "Yes," she said gently. "That's right. This has nothing to do with you, sweetheart."

  "Okay." Peter rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes. "So can we-­

  "No." Her voice was sharp; she tried to temper it with a smile. "Cole and I have to talk. Grown-up stuff, Peter. It would only bore you." Faith put her hand on her son's head. "Tell you what. You leave everything right here, Cole and I will-we'll have our chat and-and in a little while, you can come down and we'll watch the movie together."

  "All three of us?"

  "Peter." Faith took a breath. "Do as you're told."

  The boy looked at Cole. "Go on, champ," Cole said softly. "I'll see you later."

  'Promise?"

  "Yeah. I promise."

  The child hesitated. Then he stepped forward and threw his arms around the man he thought was his uncle. Because of the differences in their height, the boy enfolded Cole's legs. It caught Cole by surprise; what was even more of a surprise was that the simple action made his throat constrict.

  He'd never noticed kids very much; they were everywhere you looked but not part of his world. It amazed him that this little boy should have gotten under his skin so quickly but then, this was Ted's flesh and blood. This was his nephew...

  And if he'd stayed in Liberty, if he hadn't had to run away to protect Faith's reputation, this might have been his son. If he'd stayed, if he'd told Faith he wanted to marry her, if she'd said that she would...

  "Everything will be fine," he said briskly. "Now, go on. The sooner your mother and I have our talk, the sooner we can dig into that chicken."

  Peter stepped back. "You mean it?"

  "Give me a break, champ. Would I pass up the chance to fight you over who gets the super crispy wings?"

  Peter laughed. Then he whirled around and ran up the stairs. Faith watched him go. When she heard the sound of his bed­room door close, she looked at Cole.

  "In the library," she said coolly, and set off down the hall.

  Cole raised his brows. "Yes, ma'am," he drawled and fol­lowed her into the dark-paneled room. The door swung shut after him.

  The room hadn't changed at all. There were still the same ugly damask draperies, the same mud-brown leather furniture. Faith chose a ladder-backed chair. Cole settled on the sofa, stretched out his long legs and folded his arms behind his head. He'd rolled up his shirtsleeves and she tried not to notice how the casual posture emphasized the swell of muscle in his biceps.

  "You shouldn't have done that," she said.

  "Done what?" His tone was innocence personified. "Even my old man let me sit on the sofa in here, Faith. Or are you telling me to sit up straight, keep my feet together and my hands in my lap, the way he'd have done?" He grinned. "If you are, you're in for a disappointment."

  "You know what I mean. Telling those lies to Peter-­

  "I'm not a liar."

  "Of course you are. You lied to me years ago. Now you're lying to my son."

  "What happened between you and me has nothing to do with this. I'd never lie to the kid."

  Faith shot to her feet. "What else would you call those promises you made him? That you're going to be here when he comes downstairs again? That you're going to have supper here, and watch some-some dumb kid's movie with him..."

  She stared at him, shocked by her anger. There was nothing dumb about kids' movies, especially when you were curled on the couch with a child, sharing his excitement and laughter. She was what was dumb, otherwise she wouldn't be looking at this man she hated and thinking how handsome he was. She wouldn't be remembering that when he'd worn white shirts like this, with the collar open and the sleeves rolled back, it had made her as hot as the weather just to look at him. She wouldn't remember how she'd loved to slide her hands be­neath the shirt, spread her palms over his muscled chest, feel the heat of his skin...

  "Just just get out," she whispered. "Go away before you do any real damage, Cole. Before you make any more prom­ises you have no intention of keeping."

  He rose to his feet, his face stony. "I told you, this has nothing to do with us."

  "Yes, it does. It has everything to do with us. I know you. I know what you're really like, under all that-that charm." Her throat tightened. She swallowed, then began again. "But Peter is just a little boy. He's at an age where he believes whatever people tell him. Can you understand that?"

  "You're the one who needs to understand, Faith." Slowly, he started toward her, his eyes never leaving her face. "I didn't lie to the kid."

  "You said you'd be here for supper."

  "I will be."

  "And that you'd watch a movie with him." I’11 do that, too.,,

  "Cole, be reasonable. Even if I let you stay this evening-"

  "If you let me?" Darkness clouded his face. "You seem to forget, baby. This is my house. If I want to stay here for supper, hell, if I want to stay here until the next century, I can

  do it."

  I can't. No court-"

  Cole tucked his hands into the pockets of his trou­sers and rocked back on his heels. "So, that's what this is all about. You figure sharing this roof with me, even for a few hours, might put you in legal limbo."

  "No, of course not. I never thought-"

  "That's right. You never thought. Not once." His mouth twisted. He jerked his hands from his pockets, reached out and clamped his fingers around her arms. "Not when you were seducing my brother, not when you were getting yourself knocked up-­

  Faith yanked her arms free. "Get out. Get out of my house!" Her voice trembled; every part of her trembled as she raised a hand and pointed it at him. "Get-out!"

  They stared at each other, the silence broken only by the sound of Faith's rapid breathing and the steady tick of the clock on the mantel over the fireplace.

  "Listen to me," Cole said softly, "and listen well, baby. This house is mine."

  "It isn't. I live here and-­

  "You live here. I own it. Ma
ybe, if you concentrate hard enough, you'll start to see the difference."

  "Cole." Faith wrapped her arms around herself. Despite the late afternoon heat, she felt cold straight into the marrow of her bones. "Cole, I-I-"

  "You what? You're going to get yourself a lawyer and fight me? What will you pay your legal fees with, huh?"

  "That's just the..." Her breath shuddered. "That's the point. I have no money. And-and I know you don't give a damn how that affects me-"

  "You're right, I don't."

  "But there's-there's my son." "Ted's son, you mean."

  "Yes. Ted's-Ted's son." She looked up, her eyes filled with pleading. "Peter's just a little boy. He has no part in any of this."

  Cole folded his arms over his chest. "Go on."

  She had to go on. She had no choice. Cole held the winning hand. What did pride matter now?

  "It's not as if I want to stay in this house."

  He smiled thinly. "Good. Because you're not going to."

  "I'd already made plans to leave Liberty. To start over again, someplace where nobody knows us."

  "Right. Someplace where you can find another sucker who won't have the disadvantage of knowing you kept my brother out of your bed. "

  "You don't know anything about my relationship with Ted."

  "Don't I'

  He moved toward her. Faith saw the look in his face and moved back.

  "No. You don't. I-I loved Ted."

  "You don't know the meaning of the word."

  "I loved him. And we both loved Peter. And-­"Keep the boy out of this!"

  "I can't do that. Peter's the reason I want to move away. I just need some time to-to get my life together. Find a job, in Atlanta."

  Cole laughed. "Women with your skills don't find jobs, Faith, they find fools to support them."

  "Find a job," she said, her face coloring, her chin lifting, her eyes steady on his. "I can commute. I can save money. Then I can move away."

  "You can do that now. Move away, I mean."

  "I just told you, I can't. I need money..."

  She gasped as Cole caught hold of her and pulled her against him. "What you need," he said roughly, "is a man."