Paper Rose

by Diana Palmer

  “He doesn’t think I am, anymore,” she returned curtly. “I let him think that Colby and I are…very close.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  She scowled. “Uh-oh, what?”

  “The only thing that’s kept him away from you this long is that he didn’t want to take advantage of you,” Leta replied. “If he thinks you’re even slightly experienced, he’ll find a reason not to hold back anymore. You’re playing a dangerous game. Your own love will be your downfall if he puts on the heat. I know. How I know!”

  Cecily refused to think about it. She’d put Tate out of her mind, and she was going to keep him there for the time being.

  “I’ll worry about that when I have to,” she said finally. “Now you dry up those tears and drink some more coffee. Then we have to plan strategy. We’re going to take down the enemy by any means possible!”

  Chapter Six

  In the days that followed, Cecily was introduced to Tom Black Knife, an elderly man with twinkling dark eyes and a kind disposition, as well as to several members of the tribal council. None of them seemed shady or underhanded in any way. Cecily was almost certain that whatever was going on here, they weren’t part of it.

  She shared her thoughts with Leta one night.

  “The problem is, they’re not going to want to confide in me,” Cecily replied, thinking hard. “I wish Colby had come back. He could get in, pose as someone in a different gambling syndicate and infiltrate. I can’t do that.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Leta mused. “I can’t even win at gin rummy!”

  “I’m going to call Colby,” she said, reaching for the telephone that Tate had ordered installed for his mother years ago and still paid for. “If he’s home, he’ll help us.”

  She dialed his number, direct, and waited while it rang several times. She was about to hang up when a deep voice came on the line.

  “Lane,” it said curtly.

  “I was afraid you were still out of the country,” Cecily said with relief. “Are you all right?”

  “A few new scars,” he said, with lightness in his tone. “How about a pizza? I’ll pick you up…”

  “I’m in South Dakota.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a long story. Leta has a comfortable sofa. Can you come out here right away?”

  There was a pause. “If you miss me that much, maybe we’d better get married,” he pointed out.

  “I’m not marrying a man who shoots people for a living,” she replied with a grin.

  “I only shoot bad people,” he protested. “Besides…I know what a foramen magnum is.”

  “Darling!” she exclaimed theatrically. “Get the license!”

  He chuckled. “That’ll be the day, when you take me on. What sort of mischief are you up to, Cecily?”

  “No mischief. Just an artifact-buying trip. But I need you.”

  “In that case, I’m on the way. I’ll rent a car at the airport. See you soon.”

  He hung up.

  “You’re not going to marry Colby Lane,” Leta said like a disapproving parent.

  “But he knows what a foramen magnum is,” she said teasingly.

  “A who?”

  “It’s the large opening at the back of the skull,” Cecily said.

  “Gory stuff.”

  “Not to an archaeologist,” Cecily said. “Did you know that we can identify at least one race by the dentition of a skull? Native Americans are mongoloid and they have shovel-shaped incisors.”

  This caused Leta to feel her teeth and ask more questions, which kept her from thinking too much about Colby’s mock proposal.

  Colby arrived the next day, with stitches down one lean cheek and a new prosthesis. He held it up as Cecily came out to the car to greet him. “Nice, huh? Doesn’t it look more realistic than the last one?”

  “What happened to the last one?” she asked.

  “Got blown off. Don’t ask where,” he added darkly.

  “I know nothing,” she assured him. “Come on in. Leta made sandwiches.”

  Leta had only seen Colby once, on a visit with Tate. She was polite, but a little remote, and it showed.

  “She doesn’t like me,” Colby told Cecily when they were sitting on the steps later that evening.

  “She thinks I’m sleeping with you,” she said simply. “So does Tate.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I let him think I was,” she said bluntly.

  He gave her a hard look. “Bad move, Cecily.”

  “I won’t let him think I’m waiting around for him to notice me,” she said icily. “He’s already convinced that I’m in love with him, and that’s bad enough. I can’t have him know that I’m…well, what I am. I do have a little pride.”

  “I’m perfectly willing, if you’re serious,” he said matter-of-factly. His face broke into a grin, belying the solemnity of the words. “Or are you worried that I might not be able to handle it with one arm?”

  She burst out laughing and pressed affectionately against his side. “I adore you, I really do. But I had a bad experience in my teens. I’ve had therapy and all, but it’s still sort of traumatic for me to think about real intimacy.”

  “Even with Tate?” he probed gently.

  She wasn’t touching that line with a pole. “Tate doesn’t want me.”

  “You keep saying that, and he keeps making a liar of you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He came to see me last night. Just after I spoke to you.” He ran his fingers down his damaged cheek.

  She caught her breath. “I thought you got that overseas!”

  “Tate wears a big silver turquoise ring on his middle right finger,” he reminded her. “It does a bit of damage when he hits people with it.”

  “He hit you? Why?” she exclaimed.

  “Because you told him we were sleeping together,” he said simply. “Honest to God, Cecily, I wish you’d tell me first when you plan to play games. I was caught off guard.”

  “What did he do after he hit you?”

  “I hit him, and one thing led to another. I don’t have a coffee table anymore. We won’t even discuss what he did to my best ashtray.”

  “I’m so sorry!”

  “Tate and I are pretty much matched in a fight,” he said. “Not that we’ve ever been in many. He hits harder than Pierce Hutton does in a temper.” He scowled down at her. “Are you sure Tate doesn’t want you? I can’t think of another reason he’d try to hammer my floor with my head.”

  “Big brother Tate, to the rescue,” she said miserably. She laughed bitterly. “He thinks you’re a bad risk.”

  “I am,” he said easily.

  “I like having you as my friend.”

  He smiled. “Me, too. There aren’t many people who stuck by me over the years, you know. When Maureen left me, I went crazy. I couldn’t live with the pain, so I found ways to numb it.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I came to my senses until you sent me to that psychologist over in Baltimore.” He glanced down at her. “Did you know she keeps snakes?” he added.

  “We all have our little quirks.”

  “Anyway, she convinced me that you can’t own people. Maureen couldn’t live with what I was. She’s happy now,” he added with only a trace of bitterness. “Her new husband is a bank vice president with two children from his first marriage. Very settled. Not likely to get shot up in gun battles, either.”

  “I’m sorry, Colby.”

  He leaned forward with his forearms on his splayed thighs. “I loved her.”

  “I love Tate. But at least you had a marriage to remember. I’ll never have that.”

  “You’re better off without anything to remember,” he said harshly. “Tate’s a fool. He doesn’t know who he is, Cecily,” he said unexpectedly.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He puts too much emphasis on the culture. He’s defensive about it. He uses it to identify himself. Heritage is important, but it isn’t the whole ma
n. Tate lives in a white world, makes his living in a white world. Surely it’s occurred to you that a man with such an obsession about his roots would logically live in that world?”

  She wondered if Tate had ever thought of that. She hadn’t. “You mean, he doesn’t live with Leta, or near his own people.”

  “Exactly. Some of the people he’s associated with have made him self-conscious about his background. They’ve made him uncomfortable, reminded him that he’s part of a minority culture, intimated that it’s just not quite sophisticated or urbane enough to be proud of.”

  “Colby…”

  He looked down at her. “You’re white. You have no idea what it’s like to be a minority, be treated like a minority. You can never know, Cecily. Even though you work for native sovereignty, even though you understand and admire Tate’s culture, you can never, never, be part of it!”

  She was uneasy. Even Tate had never said such things to her. She ran a hand over her forehead absently, disturbed by the truth in those harsh words.

  “You want to know how I know that.” He nodded at her quick glance. “I’m Apache, Cecily,” he said. “You can’t see it plainly, because I’m light-skinned through the addition of a little Scotch and German blood a generation back, but I’m almost full-blooded. I qualify for Apache status. I could live on the White Mountain reservation if I wanted to.”

  “You never said that before,” she murmured.

  “I didn’t know you well enough before. It’s almost funny. Tate’s a fanatic about his roots, and I’m ashamed of mine. I don’t even visit my people. I hate having to see how they live.”

  The confession rocked her to the soles of her feet. She didn’t know how to talk to him anymore. The Colby she thought she knew had vanished.

  “That’s why Maureen really left me,” he said through his teeth. “Not because of my job, or even because I took an occasional drink. She left me…because she didn’t want half-breed children. You see, I didn’t tell her that I was almost a full-blood until after we’d been married for a year. A little drop of Native American blood was exciting and unique. But a full-blooded Native American…she was horrified.”

  Cecily’s opinion of the legendary Maureen dropped eighty points. She ground her teeth together. She couldn’t imagine anyone being ashamed of such a proud heritage.

  He looked down at her and laughed despite himself. “I can hear you boiling over. No, you wouldn’t be ashamed of me. But you’re unique. You help, however you can. You see the poverty around you, and you don’t stick your nose up at it. You roll up your sleeves and do what you can to help alleviate it. You’ve made me ashamed, Cecily.”

  “Ashamed? But, why?”

  “Because you see beauty and hope where I see hopelessness.” He rubbed his artificial arm, as if it hurt him. “I’ve got about half as much as Tate has in foreign banks. I’m going to start using some of it for something besides exotic liquor. One person can make a difference. I didn’t know that, until you came along.”

  She smiled and touched his arm gently. “I’m glad.”

  “You could marry me,” he ventured, looking down at her with a smile. “I’m no bargain, but I’d be good to you. I’d never even drink a beer again.”

  “You need someone to love you, Colby. I can’t.”

  He grimaced. “I could say the same thing to you. But I could love you, I think, given time.”

  “You’d never be Tate.”

  He drew in a long breath. “Life is never simple. It’s like a puzzle. Just when we think we’ve got it solved, pieces of it fly in all directions.”

  “When you get philosophical, it’s time to go in. Tomorrow, we have to talk about what’s going on around here. There’s something very shady. Leta and I need you to help us find out what it is.”

  “What are friends for?” he asked affectionately.

  “I’ll do the same for you one day.”

  He didn’t answer her. Cecily had no idea at all how strongly her pert remark about being intimate with Colby had affected Tate. The black-eyed, almost homicidal man who’d come to his door last night had hardly been recognizable as his friend and colleague of many years. Tate had barely been coherent, and both men were exhausted and bloody by the time the fight ended in a draw. Maybe Tate didn’t want to marry Cecily, but Colby knew stark jealousy when he saw it. That hadn’t been any outdated attempt to avenge Cecily’s chastity. It had been revenge, because he thought Colby had slept with her and he wanted to make him pay. It had been jealousy, not protectiveness, the jealousy of a man who was passionately in love; and didn’t even know it.

  It was two days later that Tate Winthrop, still nursing a few bruises and a sore jaw, went to the museum to find out why Cecily had really gone to South Dakota. He knew it had nothing to do with artifacts. Something was going on, and she was acting oddly—just like her paramour, Colby Lane. He was going to find out why.

  He talked to Dr. Phillips, who said blandly that Cecily had located some unusual artifact that would make the museum famous and she’d gone to South Dakota to acquire it. In fact, Senator Holden thought so highly of that project that he’d even paid her airfare!

  Armed with that tidbit, Tate went storming into Matt Holden’s office, past his affronted secretary.

  “It’s all right, Katy,” Holden told the young woman. “Close the door, will you?”

  She did, with obvious apprehension. Tate looked like a madman.

  It was the first time they’d seen each other face-to-face since Matt Holden had learned that the man across the desk from him was his son. He studied Tate’s face intently, seeing resemblances, seeing generations of his people in those black eyes, that firm jaw, the tall, elegant build of him. Tate wouldn’t know that he had French blood as well as Lakota, that his grandfather had been a minor royal in Morocco, that his grandmother had been French aristocracy. Tate was the continuation of a proud line, and he couldn’t tell him. If things worked out in South Dakota, Tate would never have to know at all. The thought saddened him. He’d made so many mistakes…

  “Well?” Holden asked, trying to sound as antagonistic as he usually did, despite the faint crack in his heart.

  “Why did you send Cecily to South Dakota?”

  Holden caught his breath. He looked around the room, certain that the office had at least one bug, even if he’d had some agents search it with sophisticated electronic equipment. He didn’t dare say anything here.

  Tate intercepted that concerned look. With a curt laugh, he retrieved some complicated electronic device from his inside pocket, opened it, activated it and put it on the desk in front of him.

  He leaned back. “Set a spy to catch a spy, Holden,” he said easily. “You can talk. It’s safe. That—” he nodded at the device “—will give anyone listening a hell of a headache.”

  Holden relaxed a little. “I can’t tell you much,” he said. “It’s complicated, and there are innocent people involved.” Certainly there were; Tate was one of them.

  “Tell me what you can,” Tate said after a minute. Odd, that hesitation in Holden, that utter lack of real hostility. He’d changed. Tate wondered why.

  Holden sat back in his burgundy leather chair and stared at his son. “There’s a little cloak and dagger stuff going on at the reservation. I promised someone I’d have a look around, so Cecily’s asking a few questions for me.”

  “That would be a tribal matter, so why are you sticking your nose in?” Tate said with a scowl, looking so much like his father that, to the man across the desk, it was like looking in a youthful mirror. “You don’t have any influence there.”

  Holden’s high cheekbones flushed ruddy. He averted his dark eyes. His jaw tautened so that the muscles moved involuntarily. “It’s a personal matter. A delicate personal matter. Cecily is…finding out a few things for me. Watching some people, that’s all. Nothing dangerous.”

  Tate leaned forward abruptly, eyes flashing with anger. “If you wanted somebody watched, why didn’t you come to
me? I’ve got contacts everywhere! I could have done an investigation for you, without involving Cecily.”

  Holden closed his eyes. “You don’t understand. I couldn’t…have you involved.”

  This was getting stranger and stranger. “Why not?”

  He stared at a portrait of Andrew Jackson on the wall of his office. Absently he thought of the scandal Jackson had endured over his beloved Rachel. “I can’t tell you.” He turned his attention back to his son. “You have to keep right out of this. You can’t become involved in any way, not even casually!”

  Tate’s scowl grew blacker. “You aren’t making sense.”

  “Damn it…!” He pushed back a stray strand of silver hair and ran his hands over his face. “All right, it’s a political threat,” he said slowly, choosing every word. “There’s something in my past that I don’t want known. It involves an innocent woman whose life would be destroyed. Some people are threatening to go public with it if I don’t do…certain things for them.”

  “I can be discreet,” Tate said, puzzled.

  “I know that.” He drew in a breath that sounded painful. He searched the face of the other man with concern in every line of his own. “But I can’t involve you. I won’t. If you have any respect for me at all, honor what I’m asking of you. I want you out of this. As far out as you can get!”

  The oddest sensation washed over Tate. He felt a sudden strong bond to this man, this enemy. He didn’t understand it. It was almost as if Holden were trying to protect him. But why would he need protection?

  “I worked for the CIA,” Tate pointed out. “I know how to take care of myself.”

  “I know that. It has nothing to do with survival skills.” Holden put his broad face in his hands again. “I’ve never been in a situation like this, never had my hands tied like this. I deserve whatever I get. I brought it on myself. But I can’t let her pay for my sins. I have to protect her, whatever the cost.”