Chapter 2



Cole Harrison looked over his shoulder at Diana Foster, who was hovering in the open doorway of the stable, her hands clasped behind her back, watching her new stepsister in the riding ring with the other girls who were attending Barbara Hayward's birthday party. He picked up a brush and a currycomb and stopped on his way into one of the stalls. "Would you like me to saddle a horse for you?" he asked.
"No, thank you," she replied, and her soft voice was so very polite and adult that Cole bit back a smile.
He'd been working as a groom at the Hayward estate for the last two years while he went to college, and during that time, he'd seen and heard enough to form some strong impressions about the teenage daughters of Houston's ultra-rich. Among those observations was that the thirteen- and fourteen-year-old girls who hung around with Barbara Hayward were all crazy about boys and crazy about horses, and they were desperately eager to perfect their skills with both, la addition to their obsession with boys, they were totally obsessed with their looks, their clothes, and their status with their peers. Their personalities ranged from giddy to sulky, and although they could be charming, they were also demanding, conceited, and catty.
Some of the girls were already raiding their parents' liquor cabinets, most of them wore too much makeup, and all of them tried to flirt with him. Last year, their efforts had been amusingly clumsy and easy to deflect, but they were becoming bolder as they grew older. As a result, he was beginning to feel like a sex object for a bunch of single-minded, precocious adolescent girls.
That wouldn't have been nearly as exasperating if they'd restricted themselves to blushing and giggling, but lately they'd progressed to come-hither looks and languishing stares. A month ago, one of Barbara's friends had taken the lead in the "chase" by boldly asking Cole's opinion on French kissing. Haley Vincennes, who was the unchallenged head of the clique, instantly reclaimed her position as lead by informing Cole that she thought he had "a great butt."
Until a week ago, when Diana Foster brought her new stepsister down to the stable to introduce her to Barbara, Cole had rarely seen Diana, but the petite brunette had always struck him as a refreshing exception. Everything about her was appealing and wholesome, and yet he sensed there were depths to her that the other girls lacked. She had hair the color of dark copper and a pair of startlingly large, long-lashed eyes—clear, luminous, mesmerizing green eyes that regarded him, and the rest of her world, with genuine interest. They were expressive eyes, bright with lively intelligence, glowing with wit, and yet filled with a sweetness that never failed to make Cole feel like smiling at her.
When he'd finished brushing the mare, Cole patted her flank and left the stall, closing the heavy oak door behind him. As he turned to put the currycomb and brush on a shelf, he was surprised to see that Diana hadn't left. She was still standing in the doorway, her hands clasped tightly behind her back, her expression anxious as she observed the noisy activities in the riding ring and the practice area outside it.
She was looking so intently at whatever she was watching that Cole leaned to the left to get a better angle of the riding ring. At first, all he noticed was twenty girls who were laughing and shouting as they watched each other trotting in figure eights or jumping low hurdles. Then he noticed that Corey, Diana's new stepsister, was completely alone at the far side of the corral. Corey shouted a compliment to Haley Vincennes as she rode past with three other girls, but Haley stared right through Corey as if a compliment from her was completely meaningless, then said something to the other girls that made them look at Corey and laugh. Corey's shoulders drooped; she turned her horse and trotted out of the ring as if she'd been verbally ejected instead of silently shunned.
Diana's hands tightened convulsively behind her back, and Cole saw her bite down hard on her lower lip, reminding him of a distressed mother bird who knows her chick isn't doing well outside the nest. He was both surprised and impressed by Diana's obvious dismay over her new stepsister's plight, but he also knew her hope of seeing Corey accepted was probably futile.
He'd been present last week when she first brought Corey down to the stables and introduced her to Barbara and several of the other girls who'd come to the stable to see a new foal. He had witnessed the stunned silence that followed Diana's introduction, and he'd seen the expressions of hostile superiority as the young debutantes-to-be discovered Corey's background and judged her an inferior.
That day, Diana had seemed to take for smiling granted that Corey would be made welcome by her wealthy friends. In Cole's opinion, she was in for some sharp and lasting disappointments, and based on Diana's worried frown now, she was arriving at the same conclusion.
Touched by the intensity of the emotions playing across her expressive face, Cole tried to distract her. "Corey's a pretty decent rider. I don't think you have to watch her that closely or worry about her."
She turned partway around and gave him a reassuring smile. "I wasn't worrying just then; I was thinking. Sometimes I frown when I think."
"Oh," Cole said, trying to protect her dignity by pretending he believed her. "A lot of people do that." He thought for something else to say. "What about you, do you like horses?"
"Very much," she said in her strangely adult and oddly endearing way. With her hands still clasped behind her back, she turned fully toward him, obviously willing to continue the conversation. "I brought them a bag of apples," she added, nodding toward a large brown sack just inside the door.
Since she apparently preferred to feed them, not ride them, Cole leapt to the obvious conclusion. "Do you know how to ride?"
She surprised him again by nodding. "Yes."
"Let me see if I have this straight," he joked. "When you come here, you don't ride, even when all your friends are riding, right?"
"Right."
"And you do know how to ride, and you do like horses very much. Right?"
"Right."
"In fact, you like horses so much that you bring apples for them, right?"
"Right again."
He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and studied her curiously. "I don't understand," he admitted.
"I like them much better when I'm on the ground."
There was embarrassed laughter in her voice, and it was so contagious that Cole grinned. "Don't tell me—let me guess. You were thrown and got hurt, is that it?"
"You got it," she admitted. "I rushed a fence and got a broken wrist."
"The only way to get over your fear is to get right back on," Cole lectured.
"I did that," she assured him gravely, but with a twinkle in her green eyes.
"And?"
"And I got a concussion."
Cole's stomach growled, and his thoughts shifted to apples. He lived on a tight budget, and he seemed to have an appetite that was never satisfied. "I'd better put that bag of apples away before it gets stepped on or someone trips over it," he said. Harrison picked up the bag and started toward the rear of the stable, fully intending to share in the horses' bounty. As he passed one of the stalls near the end of the long aisle, an ancient named Buckshot put his head out over the door, his eyes hopeful and inquisitive, his soft nose aimed at the bag in Cole's arm.
"You can't walk and you can't see, but there's nothing wrong with your sense of smell," Cole told the horse as he dug an apple out of the bag and gave it to him. "Just don't go telling your stablemates about these apples. Some of them are mine."

Chapter 3


Cole was putting fresh hay into the empty stalls when several of the girls who'd been riding marched into the stable. "Diana, we need to talk to you about Corey," Haley Vincennes announced. Cole looked up from his chore, took one look at the group, and knew that the all-girl jury was about to deliver their verdict. And it wasn't going to be a good one.
Diana obviously sensed it, too, and tried to head them off, her voice sweet and persuasive. "I know you'll all like Corey when you get to know her, and then we'll all be good friends."
"That just can't happen," Haley decreed with haughty finality. "None of us have anything in common with somebody from a hick town we've never even heard of. I mean, did you see that sweatshirt she was wearing last week when you brought her over here? She said her grandmother painted that horse's head on it for her."
"I liked it," Diana said stubbornly. "Corey's grandmother is an artist!"
"Artists paint on canvases not sweatshirts, and you know it. And I will bet you a month's allowance those jeans she's wearing today came from Sears!"
A chorus of murmured laughter from the other girls was proof they agreed; then Barb Hayward finally added her vote to the majority opinion, but she looked a little timid as she decreed poor Corey's fate: "I don't see how she can be our friend, or yours either, Diana."
Cole winced with empathy for Corey and with sympathy for poor little Diana, who he was certain would buckle under the intense peer pressure, but poor little Diana didn't give an inch, even though her voice never lost its softness. "I'm really sorry you all feel that way," she said sincerely, directing her words to Haley, who Cole already knew was the leader in this and the nastiest of the dissenters. "I guess I never realized you'd be afraid of the competition if you gave her a chance."
"What competition?" Barb Hayward asked, looking baffled but concerned.
"Competition with boys. I mean, Corey is very pretty, and she's lots of fun, so naturally the boys are going to be hanging around her wherever she goes."
In the stall across from the girls, Cole paused, pitchfork in hand, a smile of admiration on his mouth, as he realized Diana's strategy. As he'd learned while working there, boys were the most desirable, most valued of commodities to teenage girls, and the possibility that Corey might attract more boys into their collective lair was almost irresistible. He was wondering if that possibility wouldn't be outweighed in their minds by the threat that Corey might steal their existing boyfriends, when Diana interjected smoothly, "Of course, Corey already has a boyfriend back home, and she isn't interested in having another one here."
"I think we should give her a chance and take some time to get to know her before we make up our minds we don't want her in the group," Barb said in the earnest, hesitant tone of a girl who knows the difference between right and wrong, but who lacks the courage to be a leader.
"I'm so glad!" Diana said happily. "I knew you wouldn't let me down. If you had, I'd have missed all of you—I'd have missed sharing some of my best clothes with you, and missed having you go with us to New York next summer."
"Missed us? What do you mean?"
"I mean that Corey is going to be my best friend. And best friends have to stick together."
When the others left to return to the party, Cole strolled out of the stall, startling Diana. "Tell me something," he said with a conspiratorial grin. "Does Corey really have a boyfriend back home?"
Diana nodded slowly. "Yes."
"Really?" Cole asked dubiously, noticing the guilty laughter in her sparkling eyes. "What's this boyfriend's name?"
She bit her lip. "It's sort of an odd name."
"How odd?"
"Promise you won't tell anyone?"
Enchanted with her face, her voice, her loyalty, and her cleverness, Cole drew an X over his heart with his index finger.
"His name is Sylvester."
"And he's a—?" Cole prompted.
Her gaze mischievously slid away from his, her curly russet lashes casting shadows on her cheekbones as they lowered over the jade of her eyes. "A pig," she confessed.
Her voice had been so low, and Cole had been so certain that Sylvester was a dog or cat, that he thought he had misunderstood. "A pig?" he repeated. "As in oink? As in piglet?"
She nodded. "As in 'hog,' actually," she admitted as she lifted glowing green eyes to his. "Corey told me he's huge, and he tags after her at home like a cocker spaniel. At her old home, I mean."
At that moment, Cole decided that Corey was a very lucky girl to have a diminutive but potent champion like Diana Foster to help her bridge the social gulf. Unaware of his silent compliments, Diana glanced at him. "Is there anything to drink inhere? I'm really thirsty."
Cole smiled. "Deceit is hard work, isn't it? And there's nothing like going to battle against a half-dozen stuck-up girls to work up a thirst, is there?"
Unabashed, she rolled her eyes at him and smiled. She was spunky as hell, Cole decided, but with a unique soft-spoken style that completely belied her determination and courage. "Sure," he relented, tipping his head to the rear of the stable. "Help yourself."
At the end of the hallway, on the right, Diana found a small room that she assumed was Cole's, with a single bed made up with military perfection and an old desk with an ancient lamp. Books and papers were neatly stacked on the desk and one of them was open. Opposite the bedroom, to the left of the hallway, was a bathroom and tucked behind that was a kitchen area containing only a sink, a small stove, and a miniature refrigerator like the one under Diana's father's bar at home. Diana assumed the refrigerator would be stocked with soft drinks for everyone's use, but when she opened it, there was nothing inside but a package of hot dogs, a carton of milk, and a box of cereal.
She was surprised to see that he kept his cereal in the refrigerator and even more surprised that although this refrigerator was obviously for his use he didn't keep much food in it. Puzzled, she closed the door and filled a paper cup up with water from the sink. When she dropped the cup into the little trash can, she saw two apple cores in it. The apples she brought had been old and soft and completely unappetizing, and she couldn't imagine why he would eat one, let alone two of them. Unless he was hungry. Very, very hungry.
The empty refrigerator and the apple cores were on her mind as she paused to pet a pretty palomino quarter horse; then she returned to the stable entrance to see how Corey was doing. Three girls were talking to her near the corral.
"Do you think you should go out there, in case she needs more help?"
"No, Corey will be fine. She's really great, and they'll find that out. Besides, I don't think she'd like it if she thought I was sort of… helping things along."
"You're quite a 'helper outer,' " Cole joked, then realized she was embarrassed, and hastily said, "What if they decide they don't like her?"
"Then she'll make lots of other friends on her own. Besides, these girls aren't really close friends of mine, particularly not Haley. Neither is Barbara. It's Doug I really like."
Cole gaped at her, thinking of Barbara's extremely tall and very gangly brother. "Doug is your boyfriend?"
She shot him an odd look and sat down on a bale of hay near the open doors. "No, he's my friend, not my boyfriend."
"I thought you were a little short for him," Cole joked, rather enjoying her company. "What's your real boyfriend like?" he asked as he reached for a big red plastic glass he'd left on the windowsill earlier.
"Actually, I don't have a boyfriend. What about you, do you have a girlfriend?"
Cole nodded and took a swallow of water.
"What's she like?" Diana asked.
He propped his foot on the bale of hay near her hip and leaned his forearm on his knee, looking out through a side window that faced the house, and Diana had the feeling that he had drifted very far away. "Her name is Valerie Cooper."
There was a long pause.
"And?" Diana prompted. "Is she blond or dark, short or tall, blue eyes or brown?"
"She's blond and tall."
"I wish I was," she confessed with a wistful look.
"You want to be blond?"
"No," she said, and Cole laughed. "I want to be tall."
"Unless you're planning an amazing growth spurt, you'd better aim for blond," Cole advised lightly. "In your case, blond would be a little easier to achieve."
"What color are her eyes?"
"Blue."
Diana was fascinated. "Have you been going together very long?"
Cole belatedly realized he was not only socializing with one of his employer's guests, which was totally unacceptable, but that the guest was fourteen years old and the conversation was entirely too personal. "Since high school," he said briefly as he straightened and turned to leave.
"Does she live in Houston?" Diana pressed, sensing the conversation was over but rather hoping it wasn't.
"She goes to UCLA. We see each other whenever we can, usually during the holidays."
 
The birthday party continued for hours, ending with a huge cake served on the lawn, where Barbara opened piles of gifts; then everyone went inside while the servants cleaned up outdoors. Diana had started to follow along when she noticed that half the chocolate birthday cake was still left, and she thought about those lonely hot dogs in Cole's empty refrigerator. On a whim, she walked back to the table and cut a huge chunk off the corner because he'd get more frosting on such a piece; then she took it down to the stable.
Cole's reaction to the chocolate cake was almost comically ecstatic. "You are looking at the owner of the world's biggest sweet tooth, Diana," he said as he took the plate and fork.
He was already eating the cake as he headed down the hall toward his room. Diana watched him for a moment, aware for the first time that people she actually knew, actually came in contact with, didn't always have enough to eat. As she turned away, she decided to bring extra snacks whenever she went to the Haywards, but she sensed instinctively that she'd have to find a way to give them to him that wouldn't make him think it was charity.
She knew nothing about college men, but she knew something about pride, and everything about Cole made her think he had a great deal of it.

Chapter 4




LIFE is good," Corey announced to Diana two months after Barbara Hayward's birthday party. She'd lowered her voice so they wouldn't be heard by their parents, who had already gone to sleep. The two girls were huddled beneath the quilt on Diana's bed, their backs propped against a pile of feather pillows with lace-edged cases, eating jumbo pretzels and having a gossip session. "I can't wait until you meet Grandma and Grandpa tomorrow. By the time they leave here next week, you'll be crazy about them, you'll see. You'll think of them as if they had always been your very own grandparents."
The truth was that Corey desperately wanted that to be so. She wanted to give Diana something of value to repay her for everything she'd done.
School had started last month, and by that time, Diana had already become Corey's best friend and champion. She helped Corey choose her clothes, helped her fix her hair in different styles, guided her through the social maze at school, and in the end, even Diana's friends—some of whom were snobs—accepted Corey into their inner circle.
Corey spent the first month in a state of gratitude and mounting awe toward her new sister. Unlike Corey, Diana never got flustered, never worried about saying the wrong thing, never made a dumb joke, and never looked like a fool. Her thick, dark reddish-brown hair was always glossy; her complexion was flawless; her figure was perfect. When she climbed out of the swimming pool with her hair soaking wet and no makeup on, she looked like a television commercial. She never even got wrinkles in her clothes!
By then, both girls were already thinking of their respective stepparents as real parents, and now Corey wanted to give Diana some "real grandparents."
"When you meet Gram and Gramps," Corey told her, "you'll see why everybody thinks they're so neat. Gram can figure out a way to make almost anything, and it turns out pretty. She can knit and sew and crochet. She can walk into the woods and come out with ordinary twigs and leaves and stuff, and turn it into amazing things by using just a dab of glue or a little paint. She makes the presents she gives to people, and she makes her own wrapping paper; then she uses things like berries for decoration and everything looks awesome! Mom is just like her. Whenever there's a church auction, everybody in town tries to buy whatever Mom and Gram donated.
"A man who owns a fancy designer gallery in Dallas came to an auction in Long Valley and saw their work. He said they're both really, really talented, and he wanted them to make some things he could sell in his showroom, but Gram said she wouldn't enjoy making things that way. Mom was so tired when she got home from work that she couldn't promise to do what he wanted. Oh, and Gram's a fantastic cook, too. She's really into 'natural,' homegrown stuff— natural food and homegrown veggies and fresh-picked flowers—only you never know whether she's going to decorate with it and put it on the table or put it on your plate. Either way, whatever she makes is just great."
She paused to take a swallow from her can of Coke before she continued, "Gramps loves to garden, and he experiments with ways to grow everything bigger and better. Most of all, he likes to build things."
"What sort of things?" Diana asked, fascinated.
"He can build just about anything that can be made out of wood. He can make little rocking chairs for babies, or garden sheds that look like cottages, or tiny furniture for a dollhouse. Gram usually does the painting for him because she's the most artistic one. I can't wait for you to see the dollhouse he built for me! It has fifteen rooms and real shingles and flower boxes on the windows!"
"I'm really looking forward to meeting them. They sound terrific," Diana replied, but Corey was distracted from that discussion by something that had bothered her since the first day she'd peeked into Diana's bedroom, before Diana came home from Europe. "Diana," Corey teased in a dire voice as she surveyed the relentless orderliness of the pretty room, "didn't anyone ever tell you it's unhealthy to keep a bedroom this neat?"
Instead of making some sort of deserved rejoinder about Corey's sloppy habits, Diana took a dainty bite of her pretzel and thoughtfully looked around the room. "It probably is," she agreed. "It could be because I have an artistic eye that appreciates symmetry and order. Or it could be because I'm obsessive-compulsive—"
Corey wrinkled her brow. "What's 'obsessive-compulsive' mean?"
"Nuts." Diana paused in her explanation to rub her fingertips free of pretzel dust. "Crazy."
"You're not wacko!" Corey stated loyally and emphatically, taking a bite of her own pretzel. It snapped in two, half of it landing in Diana's lap. Diana's pretzels never broke when she bit into them.
Diana picked it up and handed it back to her. "It could be that I have a neurotic need to keep everything tidy as a way of controlling my surroundings, which was brought about because my mom died when I was little and then my grandparents died a few years later."
"What does your mom dying have to do with why you file your shoes in alphabetical order?"
"The theory is that I think if I keep everything in perfect order and as pretty as possible, then my life will be like that and nothing else bad will happen."
Corey was dumbstruck at the sheer absurdity of such a notion. "Where'd you hear that junk?"
"From the therapist Dad took me to after my grandparents died. The shrink was supposed to help me 'work through' the grief of losing so many people so quickly."
"What a jerk! He's supposed to help you, so he tells you all that stuff to scare you and make you think you're crazy?"
"No, he didn't tell me that. He told Dad, and I eavesdropped."
"What did Dad tell him?"
"He told the shrink that he needed a shrink. See, in River Oaks, whenever parents think their kids are getting into trouble, or might someday, they take them to a shrink. Everybody told my dad he should do that and so he did."
Corey digested that and then reverted to her earlier line of thinking. "When I kidded you about being so neat, I was just trying to say that I think it's really amazing that we get along so great even though we're so different. I mean, sometimes I feel like a hopeless charity case who you've taken under your wing, even though I'll never be able to be like you. My grandma always says a leopard can't change its spots, and you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."
"Charity case!" Diana sputtered. "Sow's ear—but—but it isn't like that at all! I've learned lots of new stuff from you, and you have things that I wish I had."
"Name one," Corey said skeptically. "I know it's not my grades or my breasts."
Diana giggled and rolled her eyes; then she said very seriously, "For starters, you have an adventurous side that I don't have."
"One of my 'adventures' will probably land me in jail before I'm eighteen."
"It will not!" Diana said. "What I mean is, when you decide to do something—like take pictures from the top of that scaffolding on that new high-rise—you ignore the danger and just do it!"
"You went up there with me."
"But I didn't want to. I was so scared my legs were shaking."
"But you did it anyway."
"That's what I mean. I never would have done that before. I wish I could be more like you."
Corey considered that for a long moment; then her eyes began to sparkle with mischief. "Well, if you want to be more like me, we should start with this bedroom." She reached behind her head before Diana knew what she was up to.
"What do you mean?"
"Have you ever had a pillow fight?"
"No, wh—" The rest of her question was cut off by a fat pillow stuffed with goose down that landed on her head. Corey swiveled to the foot of the bed and ducked, expecting retribution, but Diana sat very quietly, munching on her pretzel, the pillow lying on her knees. "I can't believe you did that," she said, studying Corey with fascination.
Caught off-guard by her tranquil tone, Corey said, "Why not?"
"Because it makes me have to—retaliate!"
Diana lunged so swiftly, and her aim was so good, that Corey didn't have time to duck. Laughing, she dived for another one of the pillows, and so did Diana. Five minutes later, when their concerned parents threw open the bedroom door, they had to peer through a blizzard of drifting feathers to locate the two teenage girls, who were lying on their backs in the middle of the bedroom, shrieking with laughter.
"What in the world is going on in here?" Mr. Foster said, sounding more alarmed than annoyed.
"Pillow fight," Diana provided breathlessly. A feather was stuck to her lips, and she started to remove it with her thumb and forefinger.
"No, just spit it out," Corey laughingly instructed her, and then demonstrated, forcing the feathers away from her lips with her breath and the tip of her tongue.
Diana followed suit, then dissolved into giggles at the expression on her father's face. While feathers floated around his head and settled onto his shoulders, he stood stock-still in his robe and pajamas, gaping at them beside Diana's new mom, who was trying to look stem and hide her laughter at the same time. "We'll clean this mess up before we go to bed," Diana promised.
"No we won't," Corey stated implacably. "First you have to sleep in this mess. If you can do that, then there's a slim chance that with more practice you could become a marvelous slob like me!"
Still lying on the floor, Diana turned her head toward Corey and choked back another giggle. "Oh, do you really think so?"
"There's a chance," Corey declared solemnly. "If you truly, truly work at it."
Robert Foster looked taken aback at the plan, but his wife put her hand on his sleeve and drew him out of the room, closing the door behind them. In the hallway, he looked at his new wife with a baffled expression. "The girls made that mess, don't you think they should clean it up tonight?"
"Tomorrow is soon enough," Mary Foster said.
"Those pillows are expensive. Diana should have thought of that ahead of time. It's reckless and irresponsible to have destroyed them, honey."
"Bob," she said softly, tucking her arm in his and marching him down the hall and into their bedroom suite. "Diana, is the most responsible girl I've ever met."
"I've taught her to be that way. It's important for an adult to be conscious of the consequences of their actions and to act accordingly."
"Darling," she whispered. "She isn't an adult."
He considered that while a mischievous grin lifted the corners of his mouth. "You're right about that, but do you really think it's important that she also learn how to spit?"
"It's imperative," his wife said with a laugh.
Leaning down, he kissed the smile off her face. "I love you," he whispered.
She kissed him back. "I love Diana," she answered.
"I know, and that makes me love you even more." He got into bed and pulled her on top of him, his hands shifting over her silk negligee. "You know I love Corey, don't you?"
She nodded, her right hand reaching stealthily for the feather pillow on the headboard.
"You've changed our lives," he continued.
"Thank you," she whispered, lifting off his chest into a sitting position beside his hip. "Now let me change your attitude."
"About what?"
"Pillow fights," she said, laughing as she smacked him with her pillow.
Down the hall, in Diana's room, the sisters heard a loud thud. Both girls jumped to their feet in alarm and ran down the hall. "Mom, Dad—" Diana called, knocking on the door. "Is everything okay? We heard a noise!"
"Nothing's wrong," Mary Foster called, "but I could use a little help in here."
Diana and Corey exchanged puzzled looks; then Diana turned the knob and opened the door. They stopped dead. Openmouthed, they gaped at their parents, then at each other.
And they burst into shrieks of laughter.
On the floor, amid another blizzard of feathers, their father had pinned their mother beneath him and was holding her forearms against the carpet. "Say uncle," he ordered.
His wife laughed harder.
"Say uncle, or I won't let you up."
In response to that arrogant masculine command, Mary Foster looked at her daughters, struggled for breath, and managed to say between laughs, "I think women have to… to stick together… at times like… this."
The girls stuck together. The score that night was 12 to 2; twelve feather pillows that met their demise against two foam-rubber pillows that survived.

Chapter 5




Brimming with good news, Diana snatched her schoolbooks from the leather seat of the new BMW her father had given her last month for her sixteenth birthday and raced up the steps of the stately Georgian mansion that had been her first and only home. In the two years since her stepmother, and then her stepgrandparents, had come to live with them in River Oaks, the house and grounds had changed in atmosphere and appearance. Laughter and conversation had filled the empty silences; wonderful smells emanated from the kitchen; flowers bloomed in rampant splendor in the gardens and splashed their colors in beautiful arrangements all over the house.


Everyone was happy with the new look, the new atmosphere, and the new family arrangements—everyone except Glenna, the housekeeper who'd helped raise Diana after her mother died. It was Glenna who was in the foyer when Diana ran into the house. "Glenna, is Corey home?"
"I think she's out in back with everyone else, talking about tomorrow night's party." Glenna finished dusting a walnut console table and straightened, giving it a close look. "When your mama was alive, she called in caterers and florists when she wanted to give a party. She used to let them do all the work," she added pointedly. "That's the way most rich folks entertain each other, but not us."
"Nope, not us," Diana said with a quick smile. "Now we're trendsetters." She headed down the hall, toward the back of the house, with Glenna walking beside her, irritably swiping her dustcloth at nonexistent specks of dust on tables and chairs as they passed.
"Used to be, when we gave a party," Glenna continued doggedly, "that everything only had to look pretty and taste good. But now, that's not good enough. Now everything has to be fresh and everything has to be natural and everything has to be homegrown and homemade. Homegrown and homemade is for country folks. I realize your grandparents are country folks, and they don't understand that…"
Glenna had become perpetually miffed ever since Diana's new mother and grandmother had taken over the household.
Corey's grandparents and Diana had fallen in love with one another during their first visit together. After several months of the girls splitting their time between Long Valley, where Rose and Henry Britton lived, and River Oaks, Robert instructed an architect and a building contractor to renovate and enlarge the estate's guest cottage. The next step was a greenhouse for Rose and a vegetable garden for Henry.
Robert was rewarded for his generosity with fresh fruits and vegetables grown on his own property and mouthwatering meals served in an endless variety of delightful ways and changing locations.
Robert had never liked to eat in the vast kitchen at the back of his house. It had been designed to accommodate the small army of caterers who were needed on those occasions when a large party was being given. With its white tile walls, oversize stainless-steel appliances, and uninspiring view from its single window, it struck Robert as institutional, sterile, and uninviting.
Until Mary and her family had come into his life, he had contented himself with the fiery fare that his cook, Conchita, prepared, which he had eaten as quickly as possible in the rigid formality of his dining room. He would never have considered eating under a tree in his pleasant but uninspiring backyard or dining beside the Olympic-size rectangular pool that his builder had unimaginatively stuck near the middle of the yard and surrounded with an ocean of concrete.
Now, however, Robert was a changed man, living in a greatly altered environment, enjoying savory meals, and he loved it. The kitchen he had once avoided had become his favorite room. Gone was the sterility of white tile walls and blank, gloomy spaces. On one end, Henry had created a solarium by installing skylights in the ceiling and tall windows along the outside wall. In this cozy, bright area were comfortable sofas and chairs for lounging in while dinner preparations were underway. Mary and Rose had hand-stenciled vines and flowers on each piece and covered the thick cushions with fabric of the same pattern. Then they'd filled the area with a profusion of green plants growing in white pots.
At the opposite end of the refurbished kitchen, the ordinary white tiles had been ornamented with a festive border of hand-painted ones. Mellow old bricks gathered from a torn-down building now covered one wall and formed a wide arch over the stoves, above which hung copper pots and pans in every size and shape.
His wife and her family had transformed his surroundings, bringing breathtaking natural beauty to the grounds and inviting charm to interior spaces. Whether their current project was unique place mats, elaborate picture frames, graceful, hand-painted furniture, gilded vegetable centerpieces, or elegant foil gift-wrap, it was created with a wealth of love.
A year after her marriage to Robert, Mary had made her formal debut as his hostess by planning and executing a lavish garden luau for the sophisticated, somewhat world-weary Houston socialites who were Robert's peers and friends.
Instead of calling in professional caterers and florists, Mary and Rose supervised the preparation and presentation of food, which was cooked according to their own recipes, seasoned with herbs from Henry's garden, and served by flickering torchlight on tables covered with hand-appliquéd linens lavishly strewn with Henry's showy blossoms.
In keeping with the luau theme, Mary and her mother gathered hundreds of orchids from their own greenhouse; then Diana and Corey and four of their friends were put to work making elegant leis. Mary and Rose decided that each lady should receive a small lacquered ring box decorated with tiny painted orchids in the same hues as the real ones used for the leis. Clinging to the belief that even jaded Houston millionaires would surely appreciate the merits and uniqueness of her handcrafted table decorations, homegrown edibles, and the changes she'd made to soften and brighten the house's austere formality, Mary and her mother spent many happy hours in the kitchen planning and creating.
Two hours before the party, Mary inspected the grounds and the house, and burst into tears in her husband's arms. "Oh, darling, you shouldn't have let me do this!" she moaned. "Everyone will think I've ruined your beautiful home with homemade j-junk. Your friends are world travelers accustomed to five-star restaurants, formal balls, and priceless antiques, and I'm putting on a—a fancy backyard barbeque for them." Tears dripped from her eyes as she clung to him, her wet face pressed to his chest. "They're going to think you married the Beverly Hillbillies!"
Robert stroked her back and smiled over her shoulder. He, too, had taken a tour of his house and grounds that day, looking at everything through the eyes of an outsider. What he saw filled him with pride and anticipation. He truly felt that Mary and her parents had brought a whole new meaning to the term "homemade." They had redefined and elevated it to a creative act that personalized the impersonal and transformed commonplace things into items of remarkable beauty and significance. He was convinced his guests were discerning enough to recognize and value the uniqueness and beauty of Mary's efforts. He thought they were going to be amazed by her as well as everything she had done. "You're going to dazzle them, Mary girl," he whispered. "You'll see."
Robert was right.
The guests raved about the delicious food, the decorations, the flowers, the gardens, the house, and, most particularly, the unaffected graciousness of the hostess. The same acquaintances who had expressed amused shock months ago when they discovered Robert had plowed up part of his lawn for a vegetable garden tasted the vegetables it had produced and asked to have a look at it. As a result, Henry spent several hours proudly giving moonlight tours of the garden. As he guided them along the neat rows of organically grown vegetables, his enthusiasm was so contagious that before the night was over, several of the men had announced their desire to have vegetable gardens of their own.
Marge Crumbaker, the society gossip columnist for the Houston Post who covered the party, summarized the reactions of the guests in her next column.
 
As she presided over this lovely party and looked after her guests, Mrs. Robert Foster III (the former Mary Britton of Long Valley) displayed a graciousness, a hospitality, and an attention to her guests that will surely make her one of Houston's leading hostesses. Also present at the festivities were Mrs. Foster's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Britton, who were kind enough to escort many fascinated guests and would-be gardeners and handymen (if we only had the time!) through the new garden, greenhouse, and workshop that Bob Foster has erected on the grounds of his River Oaks mansion…
 
Now, a year later, Diana thought of all that as Glenna continued her litany of complaints about the upcoming party. To keep from getting angry, she reminded herself that Glenna didn't really dislike her stepmother or grandparents; Glenna simply disliked being replaced as head of "domestic affairs." As far as Diana was concerned, life was wonderful, so filled with people and activities, with love and laughter…
"I'm the last one to point a finger at a person's upbringing," Glenna confided, "but if Mrs. Foster had been from a nice high-society family, instead of from some rinky-dink little town, then she'd know how rich people are supposed to do things. Last year, when your daddy told me he was bringing her parents here to live in the guesthouse, I figured things couldn't get any worse. Next thing I knew, your new grandpa was digging himself a vegetable patch and a compost heap, right in our backyard; then he turned the garage into a—a toolshed and a greenhouse! And before I could catch a breath, your new grandma was diggin' up the grass for an herb garden and making clay pots with her own hands. It's a miracle that gossip-column lady—Marge somebody—didn't call us hicks in her column after she came here for the first party."
"Glenna, that's completely unfair, and you know it," Diana said, pausing to put down her schoolbooks. "Everybody who meets Mom or Gram or Gramps thinks they're wonderful and special, and they are! Why, we're getting famous in Houston for what Mom calls 'Getting Back to Basics.' That's why Southern Living magazine is coming to photograph our party tomorrow night."
"It'll be a miracle if they don't make us look ridiculous!"
"They don't think we're ridiculous," Diana said as she shoved open the back door. "Southern Living saw those pictures of our last party that were in the Houston Chronicle, and the magazine wants to do a story about the way we do things."
Recalling what her father had said about the need to be patient and understanding with Glenna, Diana smiled at her. She knew that she and her father were about all the family Glenna had. "Daddy and I know it's harder for you with four extra people to look after, especially when they're busy with their hobbies and things. We worry about you being overworked, and that's why he wants you to hire someone to help you."
Much of the ire drained from Glenna's face at this proof she was appreciated. "I don't need help. I've managed well enough on my own to take care of this family, haven't I?"
Diana patted her arm fondly as she walked outside, her mind on finding Corey. "You were like a mother to me for years. Daddy and I could never have gotten along without you before, and we couldn't now." The last part of that wasn't entirely true, but Diana felt the small fib was excusable because it brought an instant look of relief and pleasure to Glenna's dour face.
Diana stood beneath the upper balcony, looking for a sign of Corey amidst the chaos and temporary helpers hired for the party preparations.
Originally, the three-acre backyard had been spacious but unremarkable, with a large swimming pool in the middle, a guesthouse at the rear, tennis courts on the left, and a six-car garage on the right that was attached to the main house by a porte cochere. Diana had played out there for as long as she could remember, and it had always felt a little lonely and barren to her, just as the big rambling house had. Now all that had changed.
Despite her pleasure in the changes to her home and her family, Diana felt a little worried at the current state of affairs in the backyard. With little, more than a day before the crew from Southern Living was due to arrive, nothing was ready. Tables and chairs were scattered everywhere, along with umbrellas on the ground, waiting to be put up; her grandfather was on a ladder, trying to finish a gazebo by tomorrow night; her grandmother was arguing with two gardeners about the best way to clip the magnolia branches that were going to be used in the centerpieces; and her mother was reading from a list to two maids who'd been hired for the week.
Diana was still looking for Corey when her father emerged from the garage with his briefcase in hand and his suit coat over his arm. "Hi, Daddy," she said, leaning up and giving him a kiss. "You're home early."
He put his arm around her shoulders, his gaze taking in the elaborate confusion. "I thought I'd come see how the troops are doing. How are things at school?"
"Okay. I got elected class president today."
His arm tightened in an affectionate squeeze. "That's great. Now, don't forget all the ways you were going to make things better." His eyes smiled down at her, then shifted to his wife and his mother-in-law, who'd seen him and were heading his way with warm smiles and purposeful strides. "Well, Madame President, something tells me I'm about to be put to work," he teased. "I'm surprised you and Corey haven't been enlisted."
"Our job is to 'stay out from underfoot,' " she recited. "I came home to get Corey because Barb Hayward invited us over to ride today."
"I think Corey is in her bathroom," their mother offered, "developing some film."
"Oh, I think she'll want to go over to the Haywards'," Diana said, already turning and heading into the house. Actually, she was positive Corey would want to go, not to ride horses, but to see Spencer Addison, who was supposed to be at the Haywards' stable that afternoon.
Corey's bedroom was directly across the hall from Diana's. Both rooms were identical in size and layout, with private bathrooms, separate dressing rooms, and large closets. Beyond that, the bedrooms were as radically different as the personalities and interests of the two girls who inhabited them.
At sixteen, Diana was petite, poised, and charmingly feminine. She was still a straight-A student and an avid reader, with a propensity for neatness, a talent for organization, and a tendency to be a little reserved with strangers.
Her bedroom was furnished in French antiques, including a graceful painted armoire and a canopy bed upholstered in yellow chintz. Against the opposite wall was a French writing desk, where she did her homework. There was not a paper or pen out of place.
Diana went into her room, put her books down on the desk, and went into her closet. She took off her red cotton sweater, folded it neatly, and placed it on an empty shelf amid dozens of other identically folded sweaters that were all displayed and divided according to color hue, rather than style or sleeve length.
She peeled off her pleated navy slacks and hung them on a pants hanger in the section with blue slacks and shorts; then she padded barefoot along the row to the white section and removed a pair of pleated white shorts. From the sweater shelves she took down a navy polo trimmed in white piping and pulled it over her head. After slipping her feet into a pair of white sandals from the neat row of shoes along the floor of her closet, she stopped at her dressing table and ran a brush through her hair. Automatically, she picked up a tube of light pink lipstick, used it, and stepped back to study her reflection.
The face that looked back at her seemed extremely ordinary and unnoteworthy to her, and it wasn't changing in any noticeable way with maturity. The same green eyes and dark lashes were in the same place they'd always been, and even a touch of eye shadow made them look garish, instead of more pronounced, to her. Her cheekbones were high, but blusher made her feel as though she were made up for a masquerade, and liquid makeup didn't seem to make any difference in her skin at all, so she skipped that, too. She had a tiny dent in the center of her chin, which refused to shrink or go away. Her hair was her best feature, thick and gleaming from careful washing and brushing, but she preferred to wear it in simple styles that didn't require a lot of bother or maintenance, and she thought those looked the best on her anyway. After considering the wilting heat and humidity outside, she pulled it back into a ponytail with quick deft movements; then she went to find Corey to impart her news.
Corey's bedroom door was open, but she was nowhere in sight. The door to her bathroom was closed, however, and Diana gingerly picked her way toward it through the jungle of clothing, shoes, scarves, photograph albums, camera equipment, and miscellaneous debris that covered every surface of the room. "Corey?" she called. "Are you in there?"
"Be Out in a sec," Corey answered from inside. "I just need to hang this film up to dry. It looks like I got a great shot of Spence when he was playing night tennis at the club last week! I think I'm finally getting the hang of night photography."
"Hurry up. I have great news," Diana said with a smile as she turned away from the closed door.
Corey's interest in photography had begun two years ago, when Mr. Foster had given Corey her first camera, and it had grown into a full-fledged hobby. Her interest in Spencer Addison had begun one year ago, when she spotted him at a party, and it had grown into a full-fledged obsession. Pictures of him at home, at parties, at sports events, and even at the McDonald's drive-through in his car were taped to her mirror, tacked to her bulletin board, and framed on her wall.
Despite the fact that Spence was a football star at Southern Methodist University, where he dated beautiful coeds who drooled over his good looks and sports prowess, Corey never stopped believing that luck, persistence, and prayer would someday make him hers and hers alone.
"I was right," Corey said, emerging with a strip of wet negatives in her hand. "Just look at this shot of Spence making that serve!"
Diana grinned at her. "Why don't we go over to the Haywards' so you can see him in person?"
Corey's face lit up with joy. "He's home from school? You're sure?" Before Diana could reply, Corey ran back into the bathroom to hang up the film, then raced back out to the mirror over her dresser. "What should I wear? Do I have time to wash my hair?" Sounding as if she would die of disappointment if Diana was wrong, she said, "Are you sure he's going to be there?"
"I'm sure. Doug Hayward happened to mention that Spence was going over to their place after dinner to try out Doug's new polo pony. As soon as he told me, I found Barb and—very casually—wrangled an invitation for us to come over there tonight. I put gas in the car, and as soon as dinner's over, we can go."
Corey knew Diana didn't like to ride horses, and she knew it was boring for Diana to watch everyone else ride when the two of them went to the Haywards', but Diana was always willing to tag along because Corey loved to ride. Now she'd gotten them an invitation to go to the Haywards' because Spence was going to be there. "You're an awesome sister!" Corey said, giving her an impulsive hug.
Diana returned it and stepped back. "Hurry up and get ready, so we can eat and get there before Spence does. If you're already there, then it can't look to anyone as if you're chasing him."
"You're right!" Corey said, impressed yet again by Diana's foresight. No matter what Corey wanted to do, Diana tried to help her accomplish it, but Diana also thought ahead, looking for ways to keep Corey from getting embarrassed or into a mess. Diana excelled at looking ahead and thinking of the risks, but Corey was so impulsive and so persuasive that she still landed in deep water now and then, and Diana usually landed in it right beside her.
It was inevitable that some of their ill-fated escapades would come to the attention of their parents, and when that happened, Corey's mother usually took it in stride and pointed out that there was no real harm done.
Diana's father, however, was less philosophical about such things as having his daughters lost overnight in Yellowstone National Park because Corey wanted to photograph a sunrise with elk in the shot. He was not pleased to discover from the newspaper that his daughters had been rescued from a construction elevator on the thirtieth floor of an unfinished high-rise that was surrounded by an eight-foot fence and posted "Absolutely No Admittance."
"While you're getting dressed," Diana said as she turned and started toward the back stairs that led down to the kitchen, "I'll go downstairs and see what kind of food I can find to bring for Cole."
"For who?" Corey said, her mind fixated on the unexpected thrill of seeing Spence.
"Cole Harrison. You know—at the Haywards' stable. Doug said Cole's back from his vacation," she explained with a smile and a breathless catch in her voice. "Unless something's changed, he'll be short of food, as usual."
Corey watched her walk away, immobilized by the unmistakable undercurrent of excitement she'd just witnessed in Diana. Not once had Diana ever said anything to indicate she had secret feelings for the Haywards' stable hand, but then Diana didn't blurt out every thought that came into her mind the way Corey did.
Once the idea of Diana and Cole had taken root, Corey couldn't seem to shake it loose. In the shower, as she worked shampoo into a thick lather, she tried to envision Diana and Cole as a twosome, but it was just too ludicrous.
Diana was sweet and pretty and popular, and she had her choice among the wealthy guys from backgrounds like her own—guys like Spencer Addison, who never made social blunders and who were sophisticated and well-traveled by the time they were seventeen or eighteen. They grew up in country clubs, where they played golf and tennis, and wore custom-made tuxedos to formal dinners by the time they were sixteen.
Wrapped in a towel, Corey pulled a brush through her long, blond hair, still trying to understand how Diana could possibly prefer someone like Cole, who had none of Spence's polish or charisma. Spence looked like heaven in a navy blue sport jacket and khaki slacks, or tennis whites, or a white dinner jacket. Whatever he did or whatever he wore, Spencer Addison looked as if he was "born to the blue," as Gram often said of wealthy Houston youths. With his sun-streaked, tawny hair, smiling amber eyes, and refined good looks, Spence was handsome, polished, and warm.
Cole was Spence's opposite in every way. His hair was black, his face was tanned, his features were rugged, and his eyes were the cool, unsettling gray of a stormy sky. Corey'd never seen him in anything except faded jeans and a T-shirt or sweatshirt, and she couldn't even imagine him playing tennis with Diana at the club in tennis whites or dancing with her in a tuxedo.
She'd heard the saying that "opposites attract," but in this case the differences were too extreme. It was almost impossible to believe that practical, sweet, fastidious Diana would actually be attracted to all that raw sex appeal and macho ruggedness. He wasn't even very friendly to anyone! He did have a great physique, but Diana was so petite and dainty that he'd tower over her if they went anywhere together.


To the best of Corey's knowledge, Diana had never had a real crush on anyone, not even on Matt Dillon or Richard Gere. It seemed impossible to believe she'd go and get a crush on a guy like Cole, who didn't seem to care what he wore or where he slept. Not that there was anything wrong with how he lived or dressed; it was just that it seemed so wrong for someone like Diana.
Corey paused, a pair of tan riding breeches in her hand, when she remembered that Barb Hayward and the other girls didn't share Corey's indifference to Cole, either. In fact, he was the object of a great many secret fantasies and a whole lot of speculation. Barb Hayward thought Cole made all the other guys they knew look like wimps in comparison. Haley Vincennes thought he was "sexy."
Corey was so bewildered that for a moment she had forgotten she was going to see Spence tonight. When she remembered, she felt the same sharp stab of longing and delight that she'd experienced the first time she had set eyes on him and every time since.

Chapter 6




Corey was too excited to eat more than a few bites of her dinner, and when her grandmother remarked on it, the conversation at the large oak kitchen table came to a halt and everyone except Diana turned to her with concern. "You've hardly touched your dinner, Corey. Is anything wrong, dear?"
"No, nothing's wrong. I'm just not very hungry," she said.
"Are you in a hurry?" her mother asked.
"Why do you think that?" she asked innocently.
"Because you keep looking at your watch," Grandpa observed.
"Oh, that's because Diana and I are going over to the Haywards' to ride tonight," Corey said, feeling harassed by all this scrutiny. "Doug has a new polo pony, and we're going to watch him work in the ring. Mr. Hayward had big lights put up so the ring can be used at night, when it's cooler."
"A new polo pony!" her father exclaimed with a knowing smile at her perfect hair and carefully applied makeup. "I guess you're hoping to make a good impression on him when you see him for the first time."
To satisfy everyone, Corey had taken a large bite of chicken. Now she swallowed it and looked at her father with a puzzled smile. "Why do you say that?"
"Well, because your hair looks like you spent the day at the beauty shop, and you're wearing lipstick and that pink powdery stuff on your cheeks, and is that—" Suppressing a laugh, he peered at her eyelids. "Is that mascara I see on your lashes?"
"I don't think there's anything wrong with getting dressed up for a family dinner now and then, do you?"
"Certainly not," he agreed at once. Pretending to address his remarks to his wife, he said, "I had lunch at the club today, and I ran into Spence's grandmother. She was playing bridge in the ladies' card room."
"How is Mrs. Bradley?" Diana asked hastily. Spence had lived with his grandmother since he was a little boy, and Diana had a feeling she knew what her father was getting at. Trying to spare Corey the inevitable teasing, she added, "I haven't seen her in months."
"Mrs. Bradley is very well. In fact, she was in remarkably high spirits today. The reason she was in such—"
"She has so much energy for someone her age, doesn't she, Mom?" Diana asked.
Diana had rushed in, but her father wasn't going to be deterred. "—high spirits was because Spence surprised her by coming home for the weekend to celebrate her birthday with her."
"He's such a nice young man," Gram said. "So charming and thoughtful."
"And so fond of polo, too," Grandpa provided with a meaningful smile aimed straight at Corey. "And such a good friend of the Haywards, isn't he?" Four faces gazed at Corey with identical expressions of knowing amusement. Only Diana abstained.
"The problem with this family is that everybody pays too much attention to what everybody else is doing and thinking."
"You're right, dear," Gram said, giving Corey's shoulder an affectionate pat as she got up to help Glenna clear away the dinner dishes. "It's not good to eat on a nervous stomach. Why don't you run upstairs and fix your lipstick so it looks as nice as it did when you came down to dinner."
Relieved, Corey slid out of her chair and carried her plate over to the sink; then she headed upstairs. Over her shoulder, she said to Diana, "Let's leave in fifteen minutes."
Diana nodded, but her thoughts were on Cole. "Gram," she said, "can I take that leftover chicken to the Haywards'?"
Her grandmother said yes immediately, but at the table, her mother, father, and grandfather exchanged startled looks. "Diana," her father said, sounding baffled, "What would the Haywards do with our leftover chicken?"
"Oh, it's not for them," Diana said as she opened the refrigerator and took out several apples and oranges. "It's for Cole."
"Coal?" He repeated, nonplussed. "As in the black rock we used for fuel in the old days?"
Diana laughed. "No, Cole as in your friend Cole Martins," Diana explained, referring to a wealthy rancher friend of her father's. She opened the pantry doors, surveying the contents as she continued, "This Cole works at the Haywards' stable and lives there, too, but he's thin, and I don't think he wants to 'waste' what little money he has on food."
"Poor old feller," Grandpa said, filled with misplaced sympathy for the plight of the elderly.
"He's not old," Diana said absently as she eyed the rows of home-canned fruits and vegetables on the shelves. "He doesn't like to talk much about himself, but I know he is in college, and he's had to work to put himself through school." Diana glanced over her shoulder at her grandmother, who was already piling broiled chicken breasts and steamed vegetables into a large plastic container. "Gram, could I take some of your canned peaches and a few of these jams, too?"
"Yes, of course you can." Mrs. Britton wiped her hands on a towel and walked into the pantry to assist Diana. She got down a paper bag and put three jars of each item into it.
"The last time I brought Cole some of your strawberry preserves," Diana added, "he said it was better than candy, and he's crazy about candy."
Aglow at this praise from a hungry stranger, Mrs. Britton promptly added four more jars of strawberry preserves to the bag, then headed for an antique blue transfer ware china platter on the kitchen countertop. "If he likes sweets, he should have some of these blueberry muffins. There's no sugar and hardly any fat in them, so they're very healthy." She piled a half dozen of them on a plate. "Oh, and he really ought to have some of those hazelnut brownies I made yesterday."
When she reached for a second paper bag and headed back into the pantry, Diana stopped her. "I don't want him to think this is charity, Gram." With an apologetic grin, she added, "I have him completely convinced that you're sort of a 'compulsive canning addict' and that we always have piles of leftovers after every meal."
Grandpa had gotten up to refill his coffee cup, and he chuckled at Diana's fabrication. Putting his arm around her shoulders, he said, "He must think we're either addled or wasteful."
"I'm sure he thinks both," Diana admitted, blissfully unaware that her parents were eyeing her with barely concealed fascination. "I figured it was better to let him think that than to let him feel like a charity case," she explained with a smile as she picked up the heavy brown paper bag and wrapped both her arms around it.
"I haven't heard a word about this young man before tonight," her father said flatly. "What's he like?"
"Like? He's… well… he's different—from any of the other boys we know."
"Different how?" her father asked. "Different as in a rebel—a renegade—a malcontent?"
Diana considered that from the kitchen doorway, shifting the heavy bag into her right arm for better balance. "He's probably a renegade, but not in a bad way. He's…" She looked at them, and finally added, "… special. He's just special. I can't explain why or how, but I know he is. He's not like the other boys I've known. He seems much older, more worldly. He's—he's just not like any other boy," she finished lamely. She wiggled her hand in a cheerful wave, too eager to be on her way to notice the speculative looks on the faces she left behind. "Bye, everybody."
After several moments of silence, her father looked from his wife to his in-laws. "I happen to like the other boys she's known."
"This one is different," Gram echoed.
"Which is why I feel sure I won't like him."
"Robert," big wife soothed, "this is the first young man Diana has showed a particular interest in, and you're a little jealous. You acted the same way last year when Corey started talking about Spence all the time."
"I'm used to that now," he said, a little disgruntled. "I never thought in my wildest dreams her crush on Spence would last a month. It's lasted a year, and it's gotten worse, instead of better."
"She thinks she's in love with him," Mary Foster said wryly.
"She thought she was in love with him the night she met him. Now she's sure she wants to marry him. Have you looked in her bedroom lately? She's wallpapered her walls with his pictures. She's turned it into a shrine. The whole thing's ridiculous."
Grandpa Britton shared a little of his son-in-law's pique over being replaced in the girls' lives by other males. "Corey will get over it. It won't last. Girls don't fall in love when they're fourteen; they only think they're in love."
His wife picked up a pencil to put the finishing touches on a simple but elegant stencil design she was creating for a border along the top of the guest bathroom walls. "Henry, I fell in love with you when I was fourteen."
Robert Foster had lost the thread of the conversation. Staring toward the doorway where he'd last seen Diana, he said, "Was it just me, or did it look to anyone else like Diana was blushing when she talked about that stableboy?"
"College student," Mary corrected quietly; then she laid her hand over his and gave it a reassuring squeeze. He relaxed and smiled sheepishly. "It's just that I have such big plans for the girls. I don't want them to get absorbed with boys and all that too early to realize what they'll miss if they get married too young."
"Don't make any plans for Corey," Gram said dryly. "She's already made her own. She wants to marry Spence, and she wants to become a famous photographer."
"Not, I hope, in that order," Robert said.
Gram ignored that. "As for Diana, I can see her becoming an interior designer, or maybe an architect, or maybe a writer. She has a lot of talent for all of those things, but she doesn't seem too eager to be any of them. I hate to see gifts like hers go to waste."
"Her real gift won't go to waste," he argued. When everyone looked expectantly at him, he said proudly, "She may have gotten her mother's artistic eye, but she has my brain. In time, she'll find her own ways of putting it to use. She's always been interested in business."
"Business is good," his wife said with a nod and a smile.
"Business is very good," Grandpa said.
The women looked at each other and both of them got up. "There's only a half hour of daylight left, Mom. I could use some advice about the table arrangements."
Mrs. Britton hesitated and looked at the men. "Are you both sure you don't want some fresh strawberries with yogurt topping for dessert?"
"I couldn't eat another bite," Mr. Foster said.
"Me, either," Henry Britton agreed, patting his stomach to indicate it was stuffed to capacity. "You're right about these all-natural, low-fat meals, Rosie. They're very satisfying once you get used to them. That broiled chicken hit the spot; it really did. You girls go ahead outdoors and do what you need to do."
The two men sat there in innocent silence, listening for the sound of the back door opening. The moment it closed behind their wives, they got up. Robert Foster headed straight for the freezer and took out French vanilla ice cream, while Henry Britton hurried to a lower cupboard and removed a Dutch apple pie that Glenna had bought at the bakery earlier and hidden there for them.
Henry cut into the deep-dish pie and glanced at his coconspirator. "Large piece or medium?" he asked his son-in-law.
"Large."
Henry cut two hefty pieces of the pie and laid them carefully on plates, while Robert dug the ice cream scoop deep into the container and came out with a heaping portion.
"One scoop or two, Hank?"
"Two," Henry said.
They glanced up at Glenna as she moved efficiently around the kitchen, tidying up. "You're a saint, Glenna."
"I'm a traitor."
"You have job security for as long as I live," Robert countered with a grin.
"Your wives would fire me if they knew what you two make me do."
"We'd hire you right back," Henry said, closing his eyes and savoring the sublime taste of forbidden sugar and fats. He looked at his son-in-law, whose expression of utter contentment matched his. "I thought Mary and Rose were never going to leave us alone in here tonight. I was afraid we'd have to wait until after they'd gone to sleep to raid the kitchen."
Outside on the lawn, Mary stood with her back to the kitchen window, discussing rearranging the tables for tomorrow night's party. "I think we should," Rose said. "I'll get Henry and Robert to help us."
"Not yet," Mary said dryly. "They haven't finished their dessert."
Rose plunked her hands indignantly on her hips. "What is it this time?"
"Dutch apple pie."
"We ought to fire that Glenna. Before Conchita retired, she kept Glenna out of the kitchen."
Mary sighed with resignation and shook her head. "Glenna's only following orders. Besides, they'd just hire her back. Except for the desserts they sneak, we've got them both on a sound low-fat diet, and I know Robert sticks with it at breakfast and lunch." She started to move the heavy table into position a little at a time, and Rose pitched in to help her. "His doctor told him yesterday that his cholesterol level was finally coming down," Mary added.
"What about his blood pressure?"
"Don't ask."

Chapter 7




The riding ring was on a slight incline, thirty yards to the right of the stable. It was surrounded by a low, white fence and brightly lit now by huge, new mercury-vapor lights on high poles that shone almost as bright as daylight on the ring and simultaneously cast everything else into shadow.
From her vantage point just outside the stable, Diana watched Spence dismount and begin leading the handsome sorrel around the ring to cool him down. He said something to Corey that made her laugh as she walked along beside him, and Diana smiled with pleasure that Corey's evening was turning out so well.
Instead of having to share him with Doug and Barb Hayward and Doug's father plus one of Spence's innumerable and inevitable girlfriends, as Corey and Diana had expected, Corey had him entirely to herself. The Haywards had at the last minute remembered a relative's birthday party and were attending that, and Spence was by himself.
Diana's evening hadn't turned out badly, either. She'd had Cole entirely to herself. Managing to see him as often as she could without having it seem contrived had been the second hardest thing she'd ever done—second only to keeping her feelings for him a complete secret from him and everyone else.
Nearly all of Barb's friends had wild crushes on him. He was tall, tanned, wide-shouldered, and narrow-hipped. In snug, soft jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, every inch of his muscled body exuded power and raw sex appeal. His complete lack of social standing, his lack of money, and his lowly job at the stable made him off-limits to them. Which made him infinitely more attractive.
He refused to talk about himself to them, which made him mysterious and all the more fascinating.
He was unattainable, which made him even more desirable.
He was immune to their looks, their money, and their ploys. And that made him a challenge.
Since Cole couldn't be coerced or tricked into talking about himself, they spent endless hours speculating about his family and his friends back home and inventing dire experiences that might have made him want to forget or bury his past.
They did everything to get his attention, from trying to flirt with him, to wearing their tightest pants and most revealing tops, to asking him to examine nonexistent ankle sprains and hurt wrists, to pretending to fall against him when they dismounted.
One by one, Diana had watched Cole's reactions to each girl's attempt to flirt with him, and she soon realized that the more blatant the attempt was, the stronger his retaliation. Milder transgressors were treated like children, subjected to his open amusement and spoken to in a condescendingly superior way that made the transgressor squirm. More daring transgressors received a much more unbearable punishment: they were subjected to weeks of cool and distant behavior. Unfortunately, both of his tactics made it necessary to find ways to get back into his good graces, which made him seem even more powerful and desirable.
At one point or another, during the last two years, practically every girl who rode at the Haywards' place had claimed that he'd done or said something to indicate he had some secret interest in her. In April of this year, nine of the girls had each bet ten dollars on who would be the first to kiss him. Diana had abstained, claiming he simply didn't appeal to her, but she volunteered to be the treasurer—and silently prayed she'd never have to hand the booty over to a winner. Earlier that spring, at a sleepover at the Haywards', Barb had claimed she'd won the bet the night before. For a half hour, she provided her girlfriends with dozens of titillating, imaginative, and highly improbable details about the nature of the kissing and the extent of the petting that followed.
Just when Diana thought she would surely throw up if she had to listen to another description of their body positions, Barb had flopped back on the bed and burst out laughing. "April Fools!" she called, and was immediately bombarded with handfuls of popcorn for her joke.
As miserable as Diana had been before Barb admitted to the joke, Diana hadn't betrayed by expression or word how she felt. Not then and not now.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw Cole pouring feed into the bucket in the last stall, and she knew he'd come back outside to join her in a minute. She knew a lot more about him than the other girls did, because she alone had spent substantial amounts of time with him.
She knew exactly how sunlight turned his hair to polished ebony; she'd seen the way his sudden white smile could soften the hard planes of his face and turn his eyes to liquid silver, she'd felt his hands at her waist when he came up behind her and jokingly picked her up to lift her out of his way. She'd heard the awful fury in his voice when he dragged outside one of Doug's friends who was smoking in the stable and verbally flayed him for creating a fire hazard for the horses.
She'd also seen him deliver a litter of kittens while he murmured gentle encouragement to the mother, and she'd seen him revive what had appeared to be a stillborn kitten by massaging it with his fingers.
She'd actually experienced some of the fantasies the other girls could only dream of, but there were two enormous differences between Diana and the others: she was smart enough not to try to make her fantasies into reality, and she was wise enough to understand and accept that this casual friendship she shared with him was all there was ever going to be.
She realized that she would never know how it felt to have his mouth cover hers in a kiss, or his arms close around her, or his hands press her tightly against him. She accepted all that with only a little regret. Because she was also smart enough to know that if he ever made up his mind to kiss her, she probably wouldn't be able to handle it or control him.
Cole wouldn't bother with a lot of smooth talk and rehearsed strategies; he'd expect her to be a match for him in every way. But she wasn't, and she knew it. Even if she weren't hopelessly naive compared to him, they were as different as two people could possibly be.
Cole was blunt, reckless, and earthy. Diana was reserved, cautious, and hopelessly proper.
He was motorcycles and blue jeans and battered duffel bags, with a need to blaze his own trails through life.
She was BMWs and prom gowns and matched luggage, with a need to stay on smooth, paved roads.
Despite her philosophical understanding of the situation, Diana sighed as she watched Corey walking beside Spence. Corey was inviting disappointment and unhappiness by chasing Spencer Addison, but she was willing to take all the risks. Diana couldn't and wouldn't.
Cole finished feeding the horses and walked up silently behind her. "I sincerely hope all that sighing you're doing isn't because of Addison," he said dryly.
Diana jumped guiltily, her senses going into instant overload at his nearness. His voice sounded as dark and sultry as the night; he smelled like soap and fresh hay; he seemed to loom over her—as indomitable and rugged as the mountains in the Texas hill country to the west. "What do you mean by that?"
Moving to a position beside her, he braced his foot on the lowest railing of the fence and tipped his head toward the couple coming slowly toward them. "I mean I'd hate to see anything come between you and Corey. The two of you are closer than any natural sisters I've ever known, and it's embarrassingly obvious that Corey wants him for herself."
"Is it that obvious?" Diana asked, peering at him in the darkness, trying not to notice that his shirt sleeve was touching her upper arm.
"Not at first. You have to watch her for thirty seconds or so when he's around to see what's going on in her mind."
Ill at ease with that topic, and unable to think of a different one when he was standing so close, Diana followed his gaze. "Spence is a terrific horseman," she said.
Cole shrugged. "He's not bad."
Diana had known Spence since she was a little girl, and she couldn't let that slur on his ability pass without argument. "He's better than 'not bad'! Everyone says he could become a professional polo player!"
"What a paragon," Cole said in a scoffing tone she'd never heard him use before. "A college football hero, a 'professional' polo player, and an Olympic-class ladies' man."
"What makes you say that last thing?" Diana asked, worried for Corey's sake.
He shot her a sardonic look. "I've never seen him here when he didn't have a beautiful girl along to lavish him with the sort of hero worship he's getting from Corey and you tonight."
"Me?" Diana burst out, gaping at him and on the verge of laughter. "Me?"
Cole surveyed her upturned face. "Evidently not," he admitted with a slow grin. He looked back at Corey and Spence, who were making their slow way toward the stable now. "I hope Corey doesn't get her heart broken. She's got one hell of a crush on Addison. She used up a roll of film on him tonight."
"That doesn't mean anything," Diana fibbed. "You know how serious Corey is about her photography. She's working on action shots now, and since Spence was riding…"
"He hadn't gotten on the horse yet, Diana."
"Oh." Diana bit her lip, and then hesitantly asked, "Do you think Spence notices how she feels?"
Cole knew the answer to that was an emphatic yes, but he didn't want to distress Diana, and now that he knew she wasn't another one of Addison's army of admirers, he felt charitable enough to give the man some credit. "If he does know, he either doesn't find it annoying, or else he's too much of a gentleman to hurt her feelings."
Cole propped both of his elbows on the fence, and he and Diana lapsed into companionable silence for several moments. Finally, Cole said, "If it isn't Addison, then who's the latest guy who makes your heart beat faster?"
"George Sigourney," Diana quipped.
"And is this Sigourney a jock like Addison? Or is he just a rich preppie?"
"Mr. Sigourney happens to be the dean of admissions at Southern Methodist—he signed my college admission letter and made my little heart flutter."
"Diana, that's wonderful!" he interrupted with a heart-stopping smile. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"
Because when I'm with you, nothing else seems to matter, Diana thought. "I was waiting for the right moment," she said.
He gave her a puzzled look, but he didn't argue. "Have you decided on a major?"
When she shook her head, he adopted the patronizing tone of a wise old adult counseling a mere child. "Don't worry about it. You have plenty of time to decide all that."
"Thank you," Diana returned with a sideways smile. "And what about you? Have you already decided what you're going to be when you grow up?"
He chuckled at her impertinent question. "Yep," he said.
"What?"
"Rich," he replied with absolute conviction.
Diana knew that he was a finance major at college, but the details of his objective were unknown. "Do you have some sort of plan in mind?"
"I have some ideas."
In the riding ring, Spence turned the horse toward the stable, and Corey knew her time with him was coming to an end even before Spence said, "I have to get going." She tried to think of something clever or witty to say, but whenever he was near, Corey could hardly think at all. "I promised Lisa I'd pick her up at nine," he added.
"Oh," she said glumly, her spirits plummeting with this new piece of depressing information. "Lisa."
"Don't you like her?" Spence asked, looking surprised.
Corey marveled at the denseness of the human male. She positively loathed Lisa Murphy, and Lisa returned the feeling.
A month before, Corey's family had attended a charity horse show near San Antonio, and Corey had been surprised and elated to see Spence there. Since she'd brought her camera, she managed to get several excellent candid shots of Spence along with some fine shots of the horses. When Lisa led her horse back into the barn after taking a blue ribbon in the gaited-pleasure-horse class, Spence accompanied her, and Corey naturally followed at a discreet distance, hoping for a few more glimpses of him.
The huge barn was crowded with horses, grooms, trainers, owners, and riders, and Corey felt certain she wouldn't be noticed. Pretending to inspect the horses, she moved slowly down the gangway, pausing now and then as if to talk to some of the riders. She was almost directly across from Lisa's assigned stall when Spence passed her en route to get a Coke for his current flame. Corey turned her back quickly, and he didn't see her, but Lisa did. She marched out of her horse's stall and stormed up behind Corey. "Why do you have to be such a pest!" Lisa exploded in a low, incensed voice. "Can't you see that you're making a fool of yourself by tagging after Spence everywhere he goes? Now, go away and stay away!"
Humiliated and angry, Corey had returned to the arena and joined her family in the bleachers, but she'd kept her camera ready in case she saw Spence again. That turned out to be a very good thing because, although she didn't see Spence, she did see Lisa get thrown from her horse in the next round. As Lisa landed on her rump in the dirt with her hat off and her hair in her face, Corey had gotten that shot and several others. One of them became a favorite of hers, and it was prominently displayed in her room even though Spence wasn't in it.
Since Spence was still waiting for an answer, she shrugged and said mildly, "Lisa isn't my favorite of your girlfriends."
"Why not?"
"You'd probably think it isn't important."
"Let's hear it," he ordered.
"Okay, she's meaner than a two-headed snake!"
He laughed at that, and in a rare gesture of open affection, he put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. Corey knew it had been a brotherly hug, but she was so ecstatic that she almost overlooked a highly revealing sight: Diana was standing at the fence beside Cole, and his arm was so close to hers that they were nearly touching. What's more, Diana and the Haywards' sexy, uncommunicative stable hand seemed to be completely absorbed in their conversation.
It had seemed incredible to her earlier, but seeing them together that way was enough to convince her that no matter how ill-suited they seemed, or how well Diana had hidden it, she was in love with him. Corey immediately racked her brain for some way to prolong their time together, and in the process she hit upon a possible means to spend a little more time with Spence as well. "Spence," she burst out, "could you give me a ride home?"
He shifted his glance from the couple at the fence to hers. "Isn't Diana going to take you home when she leaves?"
"That was the plan," Corey admitted; then she flashed him a conspiratorial smile and nodded toward her unsuspecting sister. "It's just that I hate to break up their evening."
His gaze narrowed on her face; then it sliced to Diana and Cole, and his expression went from disbelief to amused skepticism. "You aren't actually implying that Diana is interested in Cole Harrison, are you?"
"You don't think it's possible?"
"No, I don't."
"Why, because he works in a stable?" Corey held her breath, hoping her idol wouldn't betray the flaw of snobbery.
"No, that's not it."
"Then why isn't it possible?"
He looked at Diana and shook his head, chuckling. "I can't believe you haven't realized that Diana is the last girl on earth to go for the dark, brooding, earthy type. Among other things, he'd completely intimidate her."
"What makes you so sure?" Corey asked, even though she'd felt exactly the same way earlier that day, when she first suspected how Diana really felt.
"My superior knowledge of women," he said with an outrageous sense of male arrogance, "combined with excellent insight."
"Insight!" she scoffed indignantly, thinking of how Lisa Murphy was getting her claws into him. "How can you talk about insight when you think Lisa Murphy is a cream puff?"
"We're talking about Diana, not Lisa," he reminded her in a pleasant, but firm tone.
Since he obviously wasn't going to believe Diana was romantically interested in Cole, Corey thought madly for some other reason to explain why Diana should stay and Spence should take her home. Diana wanted to spend time with Cole, and Corey uttered the only feasible explanation that came to mind. "Okay, but you're ruining the surprise if you make me tell you more than this: Diana got thrown a couple years ago, and she's been afraid to ride ever since."
"I know that."
Trying very hard to stick to the truth, she said, "And Cole's been urging her to ride, but you know how Diana is—she doesn't like anyone to see that she's really nervous or afraid—"
Understanding dawned and Spence grinned. "Diana's getting some private riding lessons!" he concluded— appropriately, if incorrectly. "That's great!" He nodded toward his white Jeep Cherokee as they neared the couple at the fence. "Get your things together, and I'll drop you off on the way home."
Corey nodded and hurried forward in hopes of preventing Diana from objecting and spoiling Corey's ploy. "Spence said he'd drop me off at home," she said, giving Diana a pleading look that was so obvious that Cole had to bite back a smile. "That way, you can stay here as long as you like."
Diana stared at her in embarrassed dismay. Without Corey as an excuse, she couldn't and wouldn't linger with Cole; yet she wanted Corey to be able to ride home with Spence. "Okay," she said, deciding she'd leave immediately after they did.
While Cole took the reins of the sorrel and led the stable's newest resident back into his stall, Diana watched her sister and Spence get into his car. She waited until the Jeep's taillights vanished around a curve; then she went into the stable to get her purse and car keys. At the end of the long hallway around a corner, Cole was emptying the grocery bag of goodies she'd brought onto the sink counter beside his small refrigerator, and Diana walked back there to say good-bye. "Thanks for the company," she said.
"You can't leave yet," he said, and Diana's heart soared. "If you leave too soon, you'll end up passing them on the way home," he added with a knowing smile. "Which will completely confuse Addison and embarrass the hell out of Corey. Why don't you stay and share some of this food with me?"
It occurred to Diana that she could avoid encountering Corey and Spence simply by taking a circuitous route home, but since that evidently hadn't occurred to Cole, she accepted his invitation with a happy smile. "I've already eaten, but I'll have a cookie for dessert with you."
"We can eat on our laps," he said, ruling out the desk in his bedroom as an unsuitable locale.
"I'll figure something else out," she called, already turning the corner into the corridor.
While the chicken and vegetables were heating, Cole finished unpacking the groceries; then he filled his plate with the delicious leftovers and stepped into the main hall from the small kitchen.
"All set," Diana said, straightening and reaching for the light switch. "But a little less light will make this look a whole lot better, believe me." As she spoke, she turned off the bright corridor lights, and Cole was startled by the effect she'd achieved.
In less than ten minutes, Diana had turned three bales of hay and a piece of plywood into a lamplit table covered with a red, yellow, and orange beach towel from the trunk of her car and a makeshift L-shaped bench. In the center of the table, between two kerosene lamps, was an old stainless steel bowl filled with lush hibiscus leaves and its vivid orange blossoms. "This is very nice," he said.
Diana dismissed that with a smiling shrug. "My mother and grandmother are convinced that atmosphere and presentation are seventy percent of what makes a meal taste good."
"They're probably right," Cole said as he put his meal and a plate of cookies on the makeshift table and slid onto his bale of hay. The entire concept of "presentation" as it applied to dining was completely unknown to him. He had a great deal to learn about the hundreds of little niceties and refinements that went with being wealthy and successful, but he was more concerned right now with acquiring wealth than the social polish he'd need later to go with it. "I'm awed," he added, stretching his long legs out beside the table. She sat down on the bale at his left.
"Why?" she asked, breaking off a small piece of cookie.
"Because you're remarkable." Cole hadn't meant to say that aloud, but it was true. Among other things, she was very bright and very poised. She was soft-spoken and amazingly witty, but her wit was so subtle and her voice so softly musical that her sense of humor either caught him off-guard or almost slid by his notice. But what he liked most about Diana Foster was the democratic impartiality she showed to him, a lowly stable hand.
She spoke to him with a friendly interest that was genuine and yet devoid of any hint of flirtatiousness. In the years he'd worked for the Haywards, nearly all of Barbara's teenage girlfriends had made some sort of romantic overture toward Cole, all of which he wisely and carefully dodged.
Their tactics were often blatant, usually transparent, and frequently amusing. What he found most irritating was that these wealthy, young femme fatales seemed to think they could attempt to seduce an "inferior being" without the slightest risk of repercussions. What they needed, in his opinion, was a sound spanking, though it was too late now for such parental discipline, even if their parents had been so inclined.
In this, as in everything else, Diana Foster was a delightful exception. She had been a constant surprise almost from their very first meeting, and now she surprised him more than ever before, because his honest compliment had made her shy and self-conscious. In what he knew was an attempt to avoid his scrutiny, she called out to one of the kittens she'd helped him deliver, and it bounded over to her.
"Just look how you've grown, Samantha!" she exclaimed as she scooped the tan cat into her arms and gave it a piece of cookie. A short black-and-white dog with long hair and no discernible link to any known pedigree on earth had been at her heels all evening, and she broke off a piece of cookie for him, too. "Sit up, Luke," she ordered, and when the dog eagerly obeyed, she gave him his reward.
"How many dogs and cats of your own do you have?" Cole asked, watching her fingers lovingly stroke the dog's matted fur as if it were sable instead of canine.
"We don't have any of either."
Cole was dumbfounded. When the litter of kittens was born, she'd fussed over them, played with them, and then managed to find homes for all but Samantha, whom she'd persuaded Cole to keep. Last winter, she'd appeared with a scroungy stray dog in her arms and managed to persuade him to keep that at the barn, too. "I'll help you name him," she'd volunteered while Cole was still arguing against keeping the animal. "How about calling him Luke?"
"He looks more like a Rover," Cole had argued. "Or a Fleabag."
"He'll look like a Luke when he's cleaned up."
Cole hadn't been proof against those big green eyes of hers. Taking the dog by the scruff of its neck, he'd held it away from himself and gone in search of flea soap and a metal tub. Naturally, he'd assumed she'd already inflicted the maximum quota of homeless beasts on her own family.
He seized on that subject as a way of getting her over her sudden attack of shyness. "Kitten, didn't anyone ever tell you that charity begins at home?" he asked dryly, using the nickname he'd teasingly begun calling her after she'd persuaded him to take in Luke and Samantha.
She put Samantha on the floor and picked up Luke, cradling him in her lap; then she shot Cole a quizzical glance. "What do you mean?"
"Why did I end up playing surrogate parent to that mangy waif of a dog, instead of you? I naturally assumed you had already done your fair share of providing a 'home to the homeless' before you turned to me."
She curled one tanned leg beneath her and turned sideways, so that Luke and Sam could both enjoy her petting. "My father's terribly allergic to dogs and cats. Otherwise," she told the adoring dog, "I'd have taken you straight home with me! You could have slept in my bed…"
Lucky dog. The words drifted so softly through Cole's mind that he didn't notice at first what direction his thoughts had taken. He watched the lamplight dancing on the wall behind her, casting cheerful shadows to dispel the gloom. Diana had that same ability to brighten and beautify her surroundings simply by being there. She was going to be a very special woman someday… and also a very beautiful one, he decided.
She had hair the color of dark copper and the texture of heavy silk, and soft, dewy skin. Every time he had seen her during this past year, she seemed to have grown prettier, her skin fairer, her eyes greener. She was no more than five feet two inches tall, barely reaching his shoulder, but in yellow knit shorts and a matching V-neck top, she had the figure of a petite goddess, with long shapely legs, full breasts, and a tiny waist. She also had a way of looking at him that made him feel mesmerized by her eyes. His gaze slid from her russet eyelashes to the gentle swell of her breasts, pausing to contemplate the curve of her smooth cheek and the softness of her lips…
Realizing that he was inventorying the feminine assets of an innocent child, Cole diverted them both with a question, but he was furious with himself for what he'd been thinking… and wanting. "It's ridiculous that you keep refusing to ride a horse!" he said brusquely. His voice made the dog, the cat, and the girl all look at him in consternation, but Cole was so angry at himself for thinking like a pervert that his tone remained harsh. "Don't you have any guts?"
Diana couldn't believe he was speaking to her like this. Simultaneously she felt the desire to cry and had the impulse to leap to her feet, put her hands on her waist, and demand an explanation. Instead of doing either, she gave him a long look and said quietly, "I'm not a coward, if that's what you mean."
"I didn't mean that at all," Cole said, feeling like a complete bastard. Inch for inch, Diana Foster was undoubtedly one of the most courageous, kind, independent females he'd ever known. "As a matter of fact, I cried my eyes out the first time I got thrown," he lied to make her feel better.
"I didn't cry," Diana said, helplessly beguiled by the image of a little boy with dark, curly hair crying with his fists pressed to his eyes.
"You didn't?" Cole teased.
"Nope, not me. Not when I broke my wrist and not while Dr. Paltrona was setting it."
"Not even one tear?"
"Not even one."
"Good for you," he said.
"Not really." She sighed. "I fainted instead."
Cole threw back his head and burst out laughing; then he sobered and looked at her with an expression so tender that Diana's heart began to hammer. "Don't change," he said huskily. "Stay just the way you are."
Diana could hardly believe this night was actually happening, that he was really talking to her and looking at her this way. She didn't know what had finally brought it on, but she didn't want it to stop. Not yet. "Is it all right if I get a little taller?" she teased shakily.
She'd tipped her head back, gazing up at him in a way that unconsciously invited him to lower his mouth to her smiling lips, and Cole noticed it. "Yes, but don't change anything else," he said, trying to ignore her provocative pose. "Someday, some lucky guy will come along and realize what a rare treasure you are."
Having him cheerfully predict that another man would win her heart was enough to douse Diana's happy glow. She straightened and put the dog down, but she bore Cole no ill will for his impersonal attitude, and she was genuinely interested in his opinion. "What if I don't feel that way about him?"
"You will"
"It hasn't happened yet. I'm the only girl I know of who isn't madly in love with someone and convinced he's the one I want to marry." Lifting her hand, she began counting off her friends on her fingers. "Corey is in love with Spencer—Haley is in love with Peter Mitchell—Denise is in love with Doug Hayward—Missy is in love with Michael Murchison—" With a disgusted wave of her hand, she finished, "I could go on and on forever."
She sounded so despondent that Cole felt obliged to cheer her up before he could let the topic drop. "Come on, there must be at least one other girl your age with enough sense to look beyond the moment toward the future." Although Cole privately regarded Barbara Hayward as an airhead, Diana hadn't mentioned her name, so he seized on her as a possible illustration of his point. "How about Barb? Who is she hoping to marry?"
Diana rolled her eyes in disgust. "Harrison Ford."
"That figures," Cole said dryly.
"And then there's you," Diana continued, provoked into bringing up Valerie, even though she knew it would distract him completely from herself.
"What about me?"
He looked so bewildered that Diana's heart soared with hope. During their many talks over the last two years, she'd heard all about the beautiful blond from Jeffersonville who went to school at UCLA. She knew they exchanged letters and phone calls several times a month and that he managed to see her occasionally, usually during summer vacations when she was home. "I was referring to Valerie."
"Oh." He nodded with emphasis, but that was uninformative enough to spur Diana's curiosity and hope even higher. "Have you heard from her lately?"
"I saw her a few weeks ago during spring break."
Diana had a vivid and unwanted picture of Cole and Valerie making wild, passionate love together in some scenic glade beneath a starlit sky. Somehow a primitive outdoor setting seemed better suited to his rugged good looks. In a moment of weakness Diana had requested a copy of the UCLA yearbook through Houston's main library. From it, she'd discovered that Valerie was not only active in her sorority, she seemed to be dating the captain of the college's soccer team. Besides that, she was tall and beautiful, as well as older and undoubtedly more worldly than Diana. She had the face and eyes of a Nordic princess and a smile straight out of a toothpaste ad. Diana had to make an effort not to hate her. In fact, the only thing Valerie didn't have was good grades. That at least was something Diana had in common with Cole. He had a 3.9 grade-point average and so did Diana. "How were Valerie's grades at the end of the semester?" she asked, descending to petty competitiveness and hating herself for it.
"She's on scholastic probation."
"That's too bad," Diana murmured. "Does that mean she'll have to go to summer school and you won't be able to see her when you go home?"
"I don't go home unless it's to see her," Cole said.
Diana had assumed as much. Although she knew relatively little about his life before he came to Houston, she'd managed to discover that he was from a town in Texas called Kingdom City and he had no family except a great-uncle and a cousin who was five years older than he. She'd soon learned that any attempt to pry deeper into the details of his past gained her little beyond an offhand answer or a premature end to the camaraderie she treasured.
As he lifted his Coke to his mouth, Diana watched the golden lamplight flicker on the tanned column of his neck and gild the hard contours of his square chin and firm jaw, but the flame was too feeble to pierce the midnight darkness of his thick hair.
She hoped Valerie appreciated Cole's loyalty and devotion; she hoped his girlfriend wasn't going to try to make him into a tame, well-groomed Labrador retriever instead of the panther he resembled. There was something about the girl with the toothpaste smile that made her look all wrong for Cole. It was wrong to covet, but Diana just couldn't help it!
Beside her, Cole lowered his soft drink can an inch and warily studied the ferocious, possessive scowl on Diana's face. "By any chance, am I drinking your Coke?" he asked.
Diana snapped out of her fanciful dreams and quickly shook her head. It was time to leave… long past time to leave, because tonight her common sense, her logic and self-control weren't operating very well. "I'll help you clear all this away," she said, already standing up and gathering plates and silverware.
"I have to study for finals," he said as he blew out the two lamps and picked up the bowl of orange hibiscus, "but I have enough time for a hand of pinochle before you go."
He flipped on the bright corridor lights as he made that offer, and the harsh light banished the last traces of her romantic fantasies. She'd taught him pinochle and hearts last year, during one of those rare and wonderful afternoons when Corey came to help exercise the horses, as she loved to do, and no one else was around. All that was over now, Diana realized. It had to end because she suddenly realized that she was no longer able to keep her fantasies about him in their proper place. They were getting completely out of control. Tonight, if he'd kissed her, she'd have ignored all the dangers and let him. Let him? If he'd given her just a little bit more encouragement, she would have kissed him! Somehow, during the last few weeks, she'd begun to truly risk her whole heart on him, and that made the stakes much too big for a sensible girl who already knew that the odds against her were so high she couldn't possibly win.
"You're too good now," she said with a bright smile over her shoulder.
"Not for a cardshark like you, I'm not."
"I really do have to go."
"I understand." He sounded a little disappointed, and Diana fought against the temptation to stay awhile longer. She was still wavering when he turned and disappeared into his room. By the time he emerged to walk her out to her car, she'd put the dishes in the sink and her friendly, impersonal facade firmly in place. She was congratulating herself for resisting the temptation to stay as he reached out with his right hand to open her car door. "By the way—" he said as she turned to him to say good night, "I heard some of the girls talking about the sweet sixteen party your parents threw for you a couple weeks ago."
Diana was too preoccupied with the inexplicable smile hovering at the corner of his mouth to say anything intelligent. "It was my sixteenth birthday."
"I know," he said with a sudden grin at her flustered answer. "And where I come from it's customary to give a girl something special on her sixteenth birthday—"
A kiss! He was going to kiss her, Diana realized, and all her defenses and fears collapsed beneath the weight of her joy and nervous anticipation. She dropped her gaze from his gleaming silver eyes to his sensual mouth. "What do you give a girl back home," she breathed shakily and closed her eyes, "when she turns sixteen?"
"A present!" he exclaimed triumphantly as he took his left hand from behind his back. Diana's eyes snapped open, and she clutched the car door for balance as she stared in mortified surprise at his outstretched hand. In it was a large, oddly shaped item that he'd obviously wrapped himself in a sheet of newspaper and tied with what looked like a shoelace. Seemingly oblivious to her inner turmoil, he held it closer. "Go ahead, open it."
Diana recovered her manners, gave him an overbright smile, and pulled on the end of the broken white shoelace.
"It isn't much," he warned, sounding suddenly uncertain.
The paper fell away to reveal a stuffed toy—a life-size white cat with a pink tongue, green eyes, and a tag around its neck that said, "My name is Pinkerton."
"You've probably had dozens of really exotic stuffed animals," he added uneasily when she didn't immediately react. "In fact, you're probably too old for stuffed animals, period."
He was right on both counts, but none of that mattered to Diana. To save money, he did without all sorts of things, including good food, but he'd actually gone out and gotten her a present. Speechless, she lifted the ordinary, inexpensive toy from his hands as carefully as if it were priceless porcelain; then she held it in front of her to admire it.
Cole looked at the toy and realized how cheap it would look to someone like her. "It's just something I picked up— a token—" he began defensively. He broke off in surprise as Diana shook her head to silence him, then clutched the stuffed animal to her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around it.
"Thank you, Cole," she whispered, laying her cheek against its furry head. Smiling, she lifted her glowing gaze to his. "Thank you," she said again.
You're welcome, Cole thought, but the incredible warmth of her reaction seemed to have momentarily melted his ability to speak and his ability to think. In silence he closed the car door after she'd settled into her seat, and in silence he watched her taillights vanish around a curve in the long drive that wound through the trees and along the side of the house.

Chapter 8




Diana had been gone for three hours when Cole finally closed his economics textbook and shoved his notes aside. His shoulders ached from being hunched over his desk, and his brain felt saturated. There was no point in more studying; he was prepared enough to ace the final exam, but good grades had never been his goal. It was knowledge that he pursued, the knowledge he needed to achieve and enjoy his goals.
Absently, he rubbed his aching shoulders; then he leaned his head back and closed his eyes, resting them, while he thought about his uncle's letter. The letter had arrived in the morning's mail, and the news was so good, so unbelievably good, that Cole smiled as he rotated his shoulders trying to work the kinks out of them.
Four years ago, a drilling company had approached Calvin and offered him a contract and ten thousand dollars for the right to drill a test well on Cal's land. The first well hadn't produced, but the following year they tried a second time for an additional five thousand dollars. When the second well failed to produce enough natural gas to make operation profitable, they'd given up and so had Cal and Cole.
A few months ago, however, a much larger drilling company had paid a visit to Cal and asked to drill in a different area of his land. Cal said they were wasting their time, and Cole privately agreed with him, but the two of them had been wrong. In the mail today was a letter from Cal that contained the staggering news that the new well was hugely successful and that the "money's going to be pouring in."
Straightening, Cole opened his eyes and reached for the thick envelope that contained his uncle's letter and a copy of the contract that the drilling company wanted Cal to sign.
Based on Cal's own calculations, he would make $250,000 in the next year—more money than the old rancher had netted in a lifetime, Cole knew. It was ironic, Cole thought with amusement as he unfolded the bulky contract, that of all the Harrisons who might have struck it rich over the years, Calvin Patrick Downing was the least likely to spend or enjoy the windfall. He was, by nature and inclination, a miser, and a quarter of a million dollars wasn't going to change that.
Instead of spending two dollars to call Cole long distance and tell him the fantastic news, he'd sent him a letter and a copy of the contract by ordinary first-class mail. And the reason he'd sent Cole the contract, according to his letter, was because "the drilling company says these are standard contracts and they can't be changed. I figure there's no sense in paying a bloodsucking lawyer to read all this mumbo jumbo just so he can tell me the same thing, but you've got a law school right there at your university. Get one of those student bloodsuckers to look this over, will you—or else look it over yourself and tell me if you think Southfield Exploration has any tricks up their sleeve."
That was Cal—thrifty to a fault. Cheap. Miserly.
Cal clipped coupons out of the newspapers, cut his own hair, patched his jeans, and dickered furiously over an extra penny per foot for chicken wire. He hated more than anything to part with a dollar.
But he'd handed over his first ten-thousand-dollar check for the test well to Cole so he could go to college.
And one year later, Cal had handed over his second check for five thousand dollars.
As a lonely, rebellious youth, Cole had often hitchhiked the forty miles to Calvin's place, and there, with Cal, Cole found the understanding and warmth that his own father was incapable of feeling. Calvin alone had understood his frustration and believed in his dreams, and for that Cole loved him. But Calvin hadn't just given lip service and encouraging words to Cole; he'd given him his money so that Cole could have a real future, away from Kingdom City—a bright, promising future with unlimited possibilities. For that, Cole felt a sense of loyalty and indebtedness that surpassed all his other emotions.
The contract that Cal had sent him was fifteen pages long, covered with fine print and legalese. In the margins, Calvin had penciled in some comments of his own, and Cole smiled at the wily old man's astuteness. Calvin had dropped out of school after the tenth grade to go to work, but he was a voracious reader who'd educated himself, probably well enough to merit an honorary college degree. Cole, however, had no intention of allowing his uncle to sign these documents until they'd been reviewed by a competent, practicing lawyer—one who specialized in oil and gas leases. Cal was wily, but in this case Cole knew the older man was totally out of his league. After four years in Houston, Cole had heard, read, and seen enough to know how business really worked. He knew there was no such thing as a standard contract that couldn't be changed—and he knew whose interests were usually protected by the originator of any contract.
Tomorrow, when Charles Hayward returned from his business trip to Philadelphia, Cole intended to ask Hayward for the name of the most prominent oil-and-gas-lease attorney in Houston. It was common knowledge that Cole's employer had made his initial fortune in the oil business. Hayward would know whom Cole should consult about this contract, and he'd be willing to offer advice as well.
Unlike many of the socialites Cole had met in the course of his job, Charles Hayward was neither pompous, soft, nor filled with self-importance. At fifty, he was energetic, hardworking, blunt, and fair. He had exacting standards for everything, from his staff to his family to his horses. Those who fell short of his expectations—be it employees, hunting dogs, or horses—were soon gone from the premises, but he treated those who met his standards with respect. When he was home, he visited the stable every evening and strolled down the wide corridor dispensing carrots and friendly pats to each of the splendid horses who inhabited the ultramodern stalls.
As time passed, he'd developed an increasing appreciation of Cole's knowledge and his vigilant care of the horses, and that had eventually led to a kind of friendship between the two men. Often when Hayward paid his nightly visit to his beloved animals, he stayed for coffee and conversation with Cole, and slowly, he'd become a kind of mentor to the younger man, offering advice and insight on the two subjects Cole was most interested in: business and money.
When it came to those topics, Charles was incisive, brilliant, and perceptive. In fact, the man had only one blind spot that Cole had ever discovered, and that was his family. Hayward's first wife and their only child had been killed in an airplane accident twenty-five years before, and his grief had been so deep and so prolonged that it was still a topic of whispered conversation among his friends when they gathered at the stable.
Seventeen years ago, he'd remarried, and his new wife had promptly given him a son and a daughter within two years. Hayward positively doted on his new wife, Jessica; he gave her and their children the very best money could buy, and he seemed to automatically assume that they either did, or would eventually, live up to all his hopes and expectations.
Cole could have told him he was wrong. In this one area, Cole could have offered his mentor some painfully enlightening examples of the results of overindulging children and trusting a faithless wife.
As Cole knew from personal observation and experience, Jessica Hayward was a beautiful, spoiled, promiscuous, amoral, forty-year-old bitch.
Her fifteen-year-old daughter, Barbara, was so awed and intimidated by her that the homely teenager was completely spineless—a born follower who had been rendered even more helpless by all the material goods that Charles showered on her, luxuries that she wasn't challenged to earn with decent grades or anything else.
Doug Hayward was a completely charming, irresponsible, handsome sixteen-year-old, but Cole thought there was still hope for him. Despite his frivolous immaturity, Cole occasionally glimpsed Charles Hayward's bluntness and some of the older man's sharp intellect in Doug. His grades were average, but as he'd confided to Cole, his SAT scores were very high.
Cole glanced at his watch, saw that it was after eleven o'clock, and stretched his arms, stifling a yawn. He walked out into the corridor and took a last stroll down the long walkway to make certain everything looked all right for the night.

Chapter 9





Jessica Hayward stepped off the treadmill in the workout room that was part of the master bedroom suite and grabbed a towel, looping it around her neck. Clad in thin white shorts and a clingy red-and-white tank top, she walked into the bedroom, feeling energized and restless and alone. Her husband wasn't due home until the following day, but even if Charles had been there, he wouldn't have been able to give her what she wanted.
She wanted sex… hot, rough, mind-drugging, demanding, passionate sex. She did not want the sort of lukewarm, polite, predictably boring sex that Charles called "making love." She didn't want to make love at all; she wanted to make madness. She didn't want Charles…
She wanted Cole.
Furious with herself for helplessly lusting after an arrogant, disobliging, macho employee who was nowhere near her social equal, she went over to the bar built into the closet and took an expensive bottle of chardonnay out of the cooler. She opened it and poured some into a gold-rimmed glass; then she walked over to the windows that overlooked the back lawn and the stables off to the left. Closing her eyes, she conjured up a vivid image of Cole, his shoulders broad and heavy with muscle, his skin sleek with sweat as he drove into her with the tireless brute force she preferred most of the time.
Her thighs tightened involuntarily against the delicious recollections, and she tossed down the rest of the wine in her glass and turned away from the window. Tugging off the towel, she stopped long enough to run a brush through her hair, then she picked up the bottle of wine and another glass and brought them with her.
Her daughter's bedroom door was closed, but a strip of light was visible beneath it, and Jessica moved cautiously along the hall, then down the back stairs.
Outside, the night was hot and sultry, heavy with the scent of gardenias blooming in beds along the path that led to the stable. Moonlight lit the flagstone path that wound through the oaks, but Jessica didn't need it to find her way; she'd made this nocturnal journey many times in her dreams and often enough in reality. Balancing the bottle of wine and two glasses, she slipped in a side door of the stable, glad when the air-conditioning touched her damp skin.
Without bothering to turn on the main corridor lights, she walked quietly around the corner and stopped in his doorway. His back was turned, and she watched in anticipation as he stripped off his shirt and tossed it aside. The soft glow of light from the lamp on his desk highlighted the rippling muscles of his shoulders and tapered back, and when he reached for the snap on his jeans, her breath came a little faster.
Perhaps that almost imperceptible sound alerted him, because he swung around and pinned her with a look that was at first alarmed and then annoyed. "You scared the hell out of me, Jessica!"
Jessica held up the glasses and wine bottle and strolled into his room as if she owned it, which she did. "I saw the lights on down here and since neither of us seemed to be able to sleep, I thought we could share this."
"As a matter of fact, I'm tired and I don't expect to have any trouble sleeping."
"There's no need to snap my head off," Jessica said as she perched on the edge of his desk and crossed one long, slender leg over the other, letting her sandal dangle from her lacquered toes. "I haven't seen you in ages, and I decided to come for a visit, that's all," she added as she leaned sideways and poured wine into both glasses.
"Really, that's all?" Cole said sarcastically as his gaze took in her scanty tank top, revealing shorts, and seductive smile. Deliberately, he reached for his shirt, but she shook her head, her smile turning hard and determined.
"Don't get dressed, darling. I like looking at you just the way you are."
"Jessica," he said sharply, "we aren't going to go through all this again. It's over, done with, finished. I told you, I'm tired."
"That's a very disrespectful way to speak to your employer," she said, sliding off the desk and reaching for his cheek.
"Dammit, knock it off!" Cole snapped, jerking his head aside. For the moment, that was the only evasionary tactic available to him. As a last resort, he was prepared to physically force her out of his way, but he really didn't want to touch her. For one thing, he wasn't certain whether touching her would ignite her formidable temper or worse—ignite her passion. The bed was behind him, and short of physically lifting her out of his way, he was trapped for the moment. Jessica realized he was trapped, and she moved forward, a smile of victory on her face.
"Jessica—" Cole warned darkly. "You're married, for God's sake!"
"I know that," she replied, pulling off her top and tossing it behind him on the bed.
"I like your husband," Cole said, trying unsuccessfully to sidestep her.
She gazed at him in wide-eyed wonder as she reached behind her back to unclip her bra. "I like him, too," she said.
If his predicament hadn't been so sordid and so dire, Cole would have laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of it: a beautiful woman was stripping in front of him, using her body to block his escape, while she innocently professed to like her husband, whom she was trying to cuckold. "I'm not in the mood for a striptease," he warned her.
"You will be pretty soon," she promised, the bra straps sliding down her arms.
"You don't even know the concept of marital fidelity, do you?" he said, putting his hands on the straps to stop them from sliding off her wrists.
"I'm always faithful when Charles is in town," she said, her eyes turning hot, her hands sliding up the matted dark hair on his chest. "Only he's not here tonight, and you are, and I'm bored."
"Then take up a hobby," Cole said as he clamped his hands on hers.
She laughed low in her throat, wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, and began rubbing herself against his thighs.
Cole was not enticed, not excited, and he was losing his temper and patience. "I'm warning you," he said, grabbing her wrists and yanking them free. "Don't make this hard for both of us."
She shifted her hips sensuously against his and laughed suggestively in her throat as she deliberately misinterpreted his words. "No, I wouldn't say it's very hard. I'd say it's very big, but not—"
Fluorescent light suddenly burst down the corridor outside his room as someone turned on the main stable lights, and Cole clamped his hand over her mouth.
"Cole?" Charles Hayward called out in a deep, friendly voice from thirty feet away. "I saw your light on and decided to have a look at our new resident. What do you think of him?"
Beneath Cole's hand, Jessica's lips began to tremble and her eyes were huge with panic.
"I'll be right there!" Cole called out as he pulled his hand from her mouth.
"Oh, my God! I have to get out of here!" Jessica said, her entire body rigid.
She was shaking so hard that Cole would have pitied her if she hadn't just put both of them in jeopardy. As he knew from Charles Hayward's past nocturnal visits to the stable, the man would walk down to the tiny kitchenette and make himself a cup of instant coffee; then he'd expect Cole to join him as he walked along the stalls, discussing each occupant. That had become a pleasant ritual for both men over the years, and normally Cole thoroughly enjoyed the visits, particularly when Hayward stayed on and the conversation drifted to other topics. Hayward was well-read and well-informed on a staggering variety of topics… that did not include his wife.
"Listen to me!" Cole said, his voice low and fierce as he snatched her discarded shirt and thrust it into her hands. "He's in the kitchenette, fixing himself a cup of instant coffee."
"Then he's blocking the only door out of here!" she panted. "I'm trapped!"
Cole didn't bother to comment on that. "Don't panic yet," he warned because she looked crazy with fear. "I'll close my door, and he won't come in here or see you."
"I have to get back to the house!"
"Cole?" Charles called out. "Do you want some coffee?"
"No. No thanks," Cole answered, already backing toward the door, using his body to block any view Charles might have of his room and the half-naked, wild-eyed woman standing in the middle of it, clutching her shirt to her bosom.
He left her there, closing the door behind him, and walked, barefooted and barechested into the kitchenette, where Charles had just finished stirring instant coffee into a cup of hot tap water. "Well," the older man said, looking at Cole with an expectant smile, "what do you think of the polo pony?"
"Not bad," Cole said; then he forced himself to come up with a lame joke. "I don't know how well he plays polo, but as a horse, he's a fine-looking animal." The polo pony was only a few stalls away from the doorway into Cole's room, and Cole was instinctively afraid that Jessica was going to try to bolt from the scene of her attempted crime and probably get herself caught in the process. "You might want to have a look at the chestnut mare's foreleg," he suggested, walking deliberately toward the far end of the stable.
Charles looked up in concern and instantly followed Cole down the wide hallway. "What's wrong with her leg?"
"She hurt it when she took a jump yesterday."
"Who was riding her?" Charles asked, all his sympathies with the splendid hunter-jumper whom he often preferred to ride.
"Barbara," Cole said.
"That figures," Hayward said with a disgusted grimace. "I try not to be impatient with Barb, but so far, she's not good at anything she does. Except talking on the telephone about boys. She does that very well."
Without replying, Cole opened the heavy oak stall door, and Charles followed him inside. Handing Cole his cup of coffee he bent down to personally inspect the big mare's bandaged leg. "Not too swollen," he said. "That liniment you mix smells like hell, but it does a great job. I still think you should become a vet," he added, straightening much more quickly than Cole would have liked and giving the mare a farewell pat. "I've never seen a man who had a better way with animals."
"They wouldn't be nearly as fond of me if I were shoving worming tubes down their noses," Cole said with a distracted glance down the hallway. His breath caught as Jessica's face appeared in the doorway of his room; then she made a wild dash across the hallway, holding her red-and-white top over her bare breasts. Cole swung around to block Charles Hayward from leaving the stall, and in the process he hit the coffee mug against the man's arm and sent coffee spewing over hay and trickling down Charles's shirt.
"What the—" Hayward began; then he choked off his startled exclamation and began brushing at the drops.
"I'm sorry," Cole said.
"That's okay, I'll get another one. Why don't you put our new resident on a longer line and see how he goes. I only spent a half hour looking him over in Memphis in a stall because that was all the time I had." He peered at Cole, who'd started to turn, and said, "Is anything wrong? You seem a little edgy tonight."
Cole shook his head in the negative and followed him down the hallway, actually beginning to believe that Jessica had made a safe escape and nothing worse would come of her antics tonight. His relief came a moment too soon. "That's odd," Charles Hayward said as he passed Cole's room. "I distinctly saw you close that door behind you tonight when you came out of your room."
"It probably swung open on its own—" Cole began, but his voice trailed off as Hayward came to a sudden halt, a puzzled smile still on his lips, his eyes riveted on something in Cole's room.
"I gather you were entertaining, and I interrupted," Hayward said. "And now the young lady's run off or in hiding—"
Cole's gaze followed his to the lacy white bra on the floor near Cole's rumpled bed, but before he could react, the older man had noticed something much more damning than the bra, and his expression went from startled, to accusing, to furious. "Aren't those my wineglasses?" he demanded; then he stepped forward and jerked the bottle of wine up to see its label. "And this is Jessica's favorite—"
"I borrowed it—" Cole began. "No, I stole it—" he said, trying to prevent the inevitable even as Hayward stalked toward the rear doorway of the stable, peering toward the flash of white racing toward the back door of the house.
"You son of a bitch!" Hayward exploded as he whirled and swung with his right arm, his fist connecting with Cole's jaw with stunning force. "You ****ing bastard!"
Momentarily free of imminent discovery, Jessica fled to the house and up the stairs to her room, but when she peeked out the window, she saw her husband moving at an infuriated half-run from the stable toward the house. "Oh, my God," she breathed, quaking in terror as her comfortable life began to shatter around her. "What'll I do—?" she whispered, looking wildly around the dark room for some way to avoid disaster.
Down the hall, Barbara turned her stereo up another notch, and inspiration struck.
"Barbara!" Jessica cried, racing into her startled daughter's room and slamming and locking the door behind her.
Barbara looked up from the magazine she was reading, her expression first startled and then alarmed. "Mom— what's wrong?"
"You have to help me, darling. Just do what I tell you, and don't ask questions. I'll make it worth your while—"

Chapter 10


Dallas, 1996


Good afternoon, Mr. Harrison. And, congratulations," the guard called as Cole's limousine passed through the main entrance of Unified Industries' ultramodern fifty-acre campus not far from Ross Perot's E-Systems. A smooth four-lane drive meandered through a gently rolling landscape dotted with trees, past a massive fountain and man-made lake. In fine weather, employees who worked in the seven sprawling, mirrored-glass buildings that were linked together by enclosed crosswalks frequently gathered there to eat their lunch.
The limo glided past Unified's administration building and continued past the research laboratories, where three men in white lab coats were engaged in a lively debate as they approached the front door. The limo finally rolled to a stop in front of a discreet sign at the curb that said "Executive Offices."
"Congratulations, Mr. Harrison," the receptionist said as Cole stepped out of the elevator on the sixth floor.
Cole replied with a brief, preoccupied nod and continued through the executive reception area, which was separated from the offices by a tall teak-paneled wall bearing the corporation's insignia. There, visitors with appointments waited in luxurious comfort on pale green leather sofas, surrounded by a sea of thick oriental carpeting dotted with graceful mahogany tables and accent pieces inlaid with mother-of-pearl or trimmed with brass.
Oblivious to the restrained splendor of the reception area, Cole turned to the right behind the teak-paneled wall and continued down the carpeted hallway toward his office, only vaguely aware that the place was unnaturally silent.
As Cole passed by the main conference room, Dick Rowse, the head of advertising and public relations, stopped him. "Cole, could you come in here a moment?"
As soon as Cole stepped into the crowded room, champagne corks began popping, and forty employees burst into applause in honor of the corporation's latest coup—the acquisition of a profitable electronics firm with fat government contracts to sweeten their balance sheet and a new computer chip that was in the testing phase. Cushman Electronics, owned by two brothers, Kendall and Prentice Cushman, had been the object of hostile takeover attempts launched by several major corporations, and the widely publicized battle had been bloody and fierce. Today, Unified Industries had emerged victorious, and the media was going crazy.
"Congratulations, Cole," Corbin Driscoll, the company's controller, said as he pressed a glass of champagne into Cole's hand.
"Speech!" Dick Rowse called out. "We want a speech," he persisted determinedly in the jocular tone of a man who feels compelled to make everyone feel relaxed and everything look rosy, and who has also had too much to drink. In this case his efforts struck a particularly false note, because jovial camaraderie between the executive staff and the corporation's hard-driving CEO simply did not exist.
Cole glanced impatiently at him, then relented and gave his "speech."
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said with a brief, perfunctory smile, "we've just spent one hundred and fifty million dollars to acquire a company that won't be worth half that if we can't market that computer chip. I suggest we all get busy thinking up ways to cut our losses if that happens."
"I was hoping for a quote I could use for the media," Rowse said. "My phone's been ringing off the hook since the announcement was made two hours ago."
"I'll leave that to you. Thinking up quotable quotes for the media is your job, Dick, not mine," he replied; then he turned and headed toward his office, leaving Dick Rowse feeling reprimanded and everyone else feeling a little deflated.
Within minutes the group had disbanded, leaving only Rowse, his new assistant director, Gloria Quigley, and Corbin Driscoll in the conference room.
Gloria Quigley was the first to speak. Tall, blond, and glamorous, the thirty-year-old was the youngest, and newest, member of the senior staff. "What a letdown," she said with an exasperated sigh. "Wall Street is in an uproar because Unified Industries wrested Cushman away from Matt Farrell's Intercorp and two other major players. We're all euphoric, the clerical staff is proud, and the janitorial people are probably dancing a jig," she finished, "but the man who masterminded the whole buyout doesn't seem to care."
"Oh, he cares," Dick Rowse told her. "When you've been here for six months, you'll realize that you've just seen Cole Harrison exhibiting extreme pleasure. In fact, he was happier just now than I've ever seen him."
Gloria looked at the two executives in disbelief. "What's he like when he's unhappy?"
Corbin Driscoll shook his head. "You don't want to see that."
"He can't be that bad," Gloria argued.
"Oh, yeah?" Corbin joked. He pointed to his thick, immaculately groomed gray hair. "I didn't have a strand of gray hair two years ago, when I went to work for Cole." The other two laughed, and he added, "That nice, fat salary and benefit package you got when you came to work here comes with a few strings attached."
"Like what?" Gloria asked.
"Like phone calls at midnight because Cole has some new idea and wants you to act on it," Dick Rowse said.
"And you'd better learn how to pack a suitcase and catch a plane with an hour's notice on a weekend," Corbin added, "because our CEO doesn't live by clocks or calendars."
"Weekends?" Gloria exclaimed in mock horror. "I'll have to start turning off my answering machine at home on Friday nights!"
"I'm glad you mentioned that," Rowse said with a wry chuckle as he reached into his pocket and withdrew a small, black object. "This is a present for you—something to replace your answering machine and a token proof that you have a position of some importance here."
Gloria automatically opened her hand, and Rowse slapped a pager into her palm. "Welcome to Unified Industries," he said dryly. "If you're wise, you'll sleep with that pager."
Everyone laughed, but Gloria had known when she applied for this job that a great many demands were going to be made of her. The challenge had been much of its appeal.
Before giving up her own Dallas PR firm to come to work for Unified Industries, she'd read every article she could find about the aggressive, enigmatic entrepreneur who had made history by putting together a very large, very profitable conglomerate before he was thirty years old.
From personal experience, she'd already learned that he was an exacting and demanding employer, with an aloof, impatient attitude that discouraged familiarity, even among his senior executives, who all treated him with caution and deference.
He seemed to be as unconcerned about making enemies as he was about his public image, and yet, he was ferociously protective of the corporation's reputation.
Customer service was his personal "hot spot." As a result of his rigid high standards, Unified Industries had received justifiable acclaim for the unparalleled customer service offered by every one of the companies beneath its corporate umbrella. Whether the newly acquired subsidiary was a floundering drug manufacturer, a small fast-food chain, or a large textile company, the first order of business for Harrison's takeover team was to bring the customer-service area up to Unified Industries' superior standards.
"He's a complete mystery to everyone in the business world, including the people around here," Gloria said, thinking aloud. "No one really knows anything about him. I've been interested in him ever since he made headlines during the Erie Plastics takeover two years ago. A friend told me that MBA candidates are studying his takeover techniques."
"Well, Erie Plastics wasn't that complicated. I can give you a concise view of what really happened there, and you don't need to be a candidate for a master's degree to understand it," Corbin offered wryly.
She looked at him intently. "Please do."
"Basically, the reason Cole succeeded was he ran the competition out of time and money. When other corporations decide to acquire a company, they weigh the acquisition's value to them against its cost in money and time. If the cost gets too high, they cut their losses and back off. That's the established practice among successful corporations all over the world. That's the way Cole's adversaries play the game. While the battle is raging, they constantly reassess what they have to lose against what they have to gain; then they try to predict their adversary's next move based on their estimation of what he has to lose and gain.
"Cole is different. When he wants something, he won't stop until he gets it, no matter how high the cost goes. His adversaries have finally realized that, which gives Cole an even bigger edge. These days, when he decides to acquire something, other potential buyers generally pull out and let him have it, rather than go to the trouble and expense of fighting him. Basically, that's his weapon and why he wins."
"What about Erie Plastics? That's what made him a legend."
Corbin nodded. "In the case of Erie Plastics, there were originally five suitors who courted them, and we were the first. Erie's board of directors had agreed in principle to our generous offer, but when the other companies suddenly jumped in, Erie's board decided to take advantage of the competition among us by upping the ante. The price and the concessions Erie wanted kept escalating until the three smaller companies finally dropped out of the bidding. That left only Intercorp and us in the game, but just as the other companies dropped out of the bidding, another plastics company that Intercorp liked even better approached them with an offer to sell. Intercorp pulled out and that left us as Erie's only remaining suitor. The day after Intercorp pulled out, Cole retaliated against Erie's board by offering them less than he'd originally offered in the very beginning. Erie screamed 'foul' all over Wall Street. They got some sympathy, but no other suitors came forward with an offer because buyouts and takeovers cost a fortune, win or lose, and Cole was still standing in the ring—like a heavyweight champion with gloves on and fists raised—ready to take on the next contender if they made a move on Erie. The rest is history—Unified got a plastics company for less than it was worth, and Cole got some bad publicity and a whole new set of enemies."
"I can't do anything about his enemies," Gloria said, "but I intend to do something about our public relations."
"Cole doesn't care about making enemies. He cares about Unified and about winning. That's the point I was trying to make earlier: Cole Harrison would have paid whatever it took to get Erie, no matter how much it was. It's as if winning is as important to him as the thing he's after, maybe even more important."
"With that kind of tunnel vision, I'd have expected him to be a failure in business instead of such a dramatic success."
"You'd have been right, except that Cole Harrison has a very special gift—in addition to tenacity," Dick Rowse said grudgingly as he poured scotch from the conference room's bar into his glass.
"What gift is that?"
"Foresight," he said. "He has an extraordinary ability to foresee a trend, a change, a need, and to be ready to capitalize on it long before most of his competition."
"You don't sound as if you admire that," Gloria said, puzzled.
"I admire the talent, but not the man," Rowse said bluntly. "Whatever he does, he does it with some sort of intricate hidden agenda in mind. He drives the Wall Street analysts crazy trying to second-guess him, and they rarely succeed. He drives all of us crazy trying to second-guess him."
"He sounds like an intriguing man," Gloria said with an apologetic shrug for her dissenting opinion.
"What makes you think Cole Harrison is a man?" Rowse replied half seriously. "I have reason to believe he's actually a six-foot-two robot with artificial intelligence in an eight-thousand-dollar suit." When the other two laughed, he lightened up a little. "You're laughing, but there's data to support my opinion. He doesn't play golf, he doesn't play tennis, and he's not interested in professional sports or any sort of social life. If he has a friend in the world, no one knows who it is. His former secretary told me the only non-business calls he gets are from women. Women," Rowse finished with an accusing glance at Gloria, "all seem to find him fascinating."
"That shoots down your robot theory right there, Dick," Corbin joked.
"Not necessarily," Rowse replied. "How do we know that the latest robotics technology can't produce a male robot with a—"
"I hate to interrupt this enlightening discussion," Gloria lied as she stood up and put her glass on the table, "but I have a job to do, and I'd better get at it. Mr. Harrison may not care about his public image, but it affects the corporation, and we're being paid to enhance it. While he's here today, let's talk him into a press conference about the Cushman deal—future corporate plans, and all that."
"He won't do it," Rowse warned as he stood up. "I've tried."
"Let's double-team him then and see if the two of us can prevail upon his good sense."
"He's already turned me down. Maybe you'll have beginner's luck if you try it alone—assuming you can even get in to see him."
 
Getting in to see Cole Harrison was much easier than getting his attention, Gloria had realized within moments of being admitted to the chrome-and-glass inner sanctum with its silver-gray carpeting and burgundy suede furnishings.
For the past ten minutes, she had been seated in front of Cole Harrison's desk, trying to convince him to agree to a press conference while he signed documents, talked to his secretary, made several phone calls, and mostly ignored her.
Suddenly his eyes leveled on her. "You were saying?" he said in the clipped tone of one issuing a command to continue, which of course he was.
"I—" Gloria faltered beneath that cold, assessing gaze, then forged ahead. "I was trying to explain that a press conference now is not merely helpful, it's vital. The press has already made the Cushman takeover look like a bloodbath. The losers were screaming 'foul' before the game was over—"
"I play to win. I won. They lost. That's all that matters."
Gloria looked him squarely in the eye and then decided to test her job security. "According to your opponents, and a lot of people on Wall Street, sir, you play unnecessarily rough, you don't take prisoners. The press has been making you look like some sort of rapacious wolf who enjoys the kill more than the food."
"That's very colorful, Miss Quigley," he replied with scathing mockery.
"It's fact, " she argued, smarting from his snide tone.
"No," he countered, "this is fact: Cushman Electronics was founded by a genius six decades ago, but his heirs grew more lazy and more stupid with each successive generation. Those heirs—who happen to make up the board of directors—were born to great wealth, educated in the best schools, and despite the fact that they were letting Cushman, and its shareholders' investments, go down the toilet, they still remained so convinced of their own superiority that they couldn't see what was coming. They couldn't believe that some school chum from their 'old-boy fraternity' wasn't going to step in and rescue them with an infusion of cash that they could squander either on themselves or on fighting off more takeover attempts.
"Instead of that, they lost to me—to an upstart from the wrong side of the social tracks—and it's humiliating to them; it offends all of their cultured sensibilities. That's why they're screaming 'foul.' We weren't engaged in a tea party with polite rituals; we were engaged in a battle. In a battle, there are only winners, and losers, and bad losers."
Cole waited for her to admit defeat and retreat, but she sat there in stubborn silence, refusing to agree. "Well?" he demanded after a moment.
"There are ways to fight the battle so that the winner doesn't look like a barbarian, and public relations is the key to that."
She had a point and Cole knew it, but he didn't particularly appreciate having to face it or admit it. Time and again, as Cole had built his company into a major conglomerate composed of profitable subsidiaries, he'd waged legal and economic battles with complacent aristocrats like the ones on Cushman's board, and each time he'd emerged victorious, he had the feeling that they hated him as virulently for successfully invading their ranks as for taking whatever prize he had wrested from them. It was as if the damage Cole did to their sense of invulnerable superiority was as loathsome to them as the financial damage he did to their bank accounts and stock portfolios.
Personally, Cole found their attitude funny rather than insulting, and he was amused that, when it came down to a corporate battle over the takeover of another company, he was always portrayed as a ruthless marauder swinging a mace, while his targets were innocent victims and his competitors were chivalrous white knights. The real truth was that those courteous knights hired mercenaries in the form of lawyers and accountants and stock analysts to do their "dirty" fighting and maneuvering behind the scenes; then when their opponent was too weak to put up more than token resistance, they strolled gracefully onto the corporate battlefield wielding a gentlemanly saber. After a brief, symbolic duel, they lifted the blade to their forehead for a courteous salute to their victim, plunged the blade into him, and then strolled off the field, leaving more hired mercenaries to clean up the legal mess and bury the victim.
In contrast to these corporate duelists, Cole was a brawler, a street fighter who was interested only in victory, not in his reputation or in making friends or in showing off his grace and prowess on the battlefield. As a result, he'd acquired many enemies and few friends over the years, along with a reputation for ruthlessness that he partially deserved and one for unscrupulousness that he didn't deserve at all.
None of that bothered him. Lifelong enemies, unjust public accusations, and hard feelings were the dues that one paid for success. Cole paid his without complaint, as did those other determined visionaries who, like him, had managed in the last two decades to harvest vast personal fortunes from soil that was no longer fertile, in an economic climate that was considered unhealthy.
"They said the same thing about Matt Farrell and Intercorp in the late eighties," Cole reminded her pointedly. "Now he's the Prince Charming of Wall Street."
"Yes, he is. And part of that is due to some very good publicity that resulted from his tumultuous marriage to a well-loved heiress and from a more open, public profile."
Cole glanced toward the doorway and nodded a greeting to the corporation's head counsel, John Nederly, who was being ushered into the office by Cole's secretary. Gloria assumed her time with Cole Harrison was at an end, and she stood up, defeated.
"When do you want to have the press conference?"
For a split second, Gloria couldn't believe her ears. "I— As soon as possible. How about tomorrow? That's enough time to set it up."
He was signing more papers handed to him by his secretary, but he glanced up at her and shook his head. "I'm leaving for Los Angeles tonight, and I'll be there until Wednesday."
"What about Thursday?"
He shook his head again. "I'll be in Jeffersonville, Thursday and Friday, handling a family matter."
"Saturday then?" Gloria said hopefully.
"That's fine."
Gloria's mental cheer was strangled by the secretary, who turned over the page in his desk calendar, pointed to something written on it, and said, "I'm afraid Saturday's out of the question. You're to be in Houston that night."
"Houston?" he demanded, sounding disgusted and irate at the prospect. "For what?"
"For the White Orchid Ball. You donated a Klineman sculpture to the charity auction that precedes the ball, and you're to be honored for your generosity."
"Send someone else."
They all looked up in surprise as Gloria negated that suggestion. "I put the Orchid thing together. The Klineman will be the most valuable item to be auctioned off—"
"It will also be the ugliest," Cole interjected in such a mild, factual tone that Gloria choked back an inappropriate giggle. "Why did you buy it?" she asked before she could stop herself.
"I was told it would be a good investment, and it's gone up substantially in value over the last five years. Unfortunately, I don't like it any better now than I did when I bought it. Let someone else go to Houston in the corporation's name and take the bow."
"It has to be you," Gloria stubbornly persisted. "When public relations suggested you make a donation, you made a very generous one. The proceeds go to the American Cancer Society, and the ball is a major national media event. The timing is perfect for a little publicity there, followed by a press conference here next week."
Cole stopped writing and stared hard at her, but he couldn't find an argument to outweigh her logic, and in a small way, he approved of her resolute determination to do the job the company was paying her to do, despite his personal opposition and lack of cooperation. "Fine," he said curtly.
Dismissed, she got up and started to leave. A few steps away, she turned around and found the two men watching her. "The networks are going to play up the Cushman deal," she said to Cole. "If you have a chance to catch any of that on the news, I'd like to go over it with you and make some plans for countermeasures at your press conference."
When he replied, he sounded as if she was in danger of exhausting his patience. "I'll put the news on while I pack for Los Angeles." Gloria began to retreat.
As she left, Cole leaned back in his chair and looked at the corporation's chief counsel, who, with an appreciative gleam in his eyes, was watching Gloria exit. "Tenacious, isn't she," John remarked when she was out of earshot.
"Very."
"Great legs, too." The door closed behind her, and John switched his attention to the matters at hand. "These are the proxies your uncle needs to sign for the board meeting," he said, sliding some papers across the clear glass desktop which rested on a random pattern of free-form chrome tubes that always reminded John of twisted chrome Tinker-toys. "Cole, I hate to sound like a purveyor of gloom and doom, but your uncle really needs to sign over his shares in the corporation to you, instead of giving you his proxy each time. I know his will stipulates that you're the sole heir to his shares, but I lie awake at night in a cold sweat, thinking of the disaster we would have on our hands if he should get senile or something and decide to withhold his proxy."
Cole flicked a wry glance in the attorney's direction as he slid the proxy forms into his briefcase. "You've been losing sleep over nothing," he said. He swiveled his chair around and began removing files from the credenza behind his desk. "Cal's mind is as sharp as a razor blade."
"Even so," John persevered, addressing Cole's back, "he's in his seventies, and elderly people can be tricked into doing some very peculiar and damaging things. Last year, for example, a group of small shareholders of an Indiana chemical company decided to oppose a merger its board was trying to push through. The shareholders located an elderly woman in California who owned a major block of shares she'd inherited from her husband, then convinced the old lady that the board's action would cause massive layoffs and vastly decrease the value of her shares. They then escorted her back to Indiana, where she personally voted her shares against the merger and got the damned thing blocked. A few weeks later, she wrote a letter to the board claiming she was forced to do what she did!"
Cole locked the credenza, turned back around in his chair, and regarded the worried attorney with unconcealed amusement while he put the files into his briefcase. Calvin Downing was his mother's uncle, and Cole was not only closer to him than he'd ever been to his real father, he also understood him well enough to know that the attorney's fears were ludicrous in Cal's case. "To the best of my knowledge, no one, including me, has ever been able to convince, coerce, or force Calvin to do anything he didn't want to do—or prevent him from doing something he did."
When the attorney continued to look dubious, Cole cited the first example that came to mind. "For five years, I campaigned for him to leave the ranch and move to Dallas, but he wouldn't. I spent the next five years trying to convince him to build a nicer house at the ranch, but he argued that he didn't want a new house and it was a waste of money. By then he was worth at least fifty million dollars, and he was still living in the same two-bedroom, drafty old place he was born in. Finally, two years ago, he decided to take his first—and last—real vacation. While he was gone for six weeks, I hired a contractor who brought in an army of carpenters, and they built him a beautiful place on the west side of the ranch." Cole closed the briefcase and stood up. "Do you know where he lives today?"
John heard the ironic note in Cole's voice and made an accurate guess: "In the same old house?"
"Exactly."
"What does he do out there, all by himself in an old house?"
"He's not entirely alone. He's had the same housekeeper for decades, and he has a few ranch hands to help out on the place. He spends his time either interfering with them or else reading, which has always been his favorite pastime. He's a voracious reader."
That last piece of information didn't fit at all into John's preconceived Yankee notion of an elderly, weathered Texas rancher. "What does he read?"
"He reads everything he can get his hands on that pertains to whatever happens to fascinate him at a particular stage in his life. His 'stages' usually last three or four years, during which he devours dozens of tomes on his current subject. He went through a period where all he read were biographies about war heroes from the beginning of recorded history; then he switched to mythology for a while. After that came psychology, philosophy, history, and finally westerns and murder mysteries." Cole paused to make an entry in his desk calendar before he added, "A year ago, he developed an acute interest in popular magazines, and he's been reading everything from GQ to Playboy to Ladies' Home Journal and Cosmopolitan. He says popular magazines are the truest reflection of the state of a modern society's collective mind."
"Really?" John said, carefully hiding his instinctive unease with the eccentricities and obsessions of a stubborn, elderly millionaire who happened to hold an enormous block of shares in Unified Industries—and who could, if he chose, wreak havoc on Unified's complex corporate structure of subsidiaries, divisions, joint ventures, and limited partnerships. "Has he drawn any conclusions from his reading?"
"Yes." Cole shot him an ironic smile, glanced at his watch, and stood up to leave. "According to Cal, our generation has flagrantly violated the rules of morality, decency, ethics, and personal responsibility, and we are further guilty of breeding a new generation of children who don't even understand those concepts. In short, Cal has surmised from his reading that America is going down the toilet in the same way as ancient Greece and Rome and for the same reasons that caused their decline and collapse when they were world powers. That impossible metaphor, by the way, is Cal's not mine."
John got up and walked toward the office door with him, but Cole paused with his hand on the knob and said, "You're right about the need for Cal to transfer his shares over to me. That's a loose end that I should have tied up years ago, but for a variety of reasons I've postponed it. I'll work it out with Cal when I see him later this week."
"Work it out?" John repeated worriedly. "Is there some sort of problem?"
"No," Cole said, somewhat disingenuously. The truth was that he had no desire to try to explain to a stranger the role that Cal had played in his life, or the gratitude Cole felt for him… or the love. Even if he had wanted to try, Cole knew he could never explain or justify to a corporate attorney that sheer sentimentality alone had prevented Cole from asking his uncle to sign back to Cole the stock Cole had issued to him fourteen years ago.
Back then, Unified Industries had been only a vague, farfetched dream of Cole's, but Cal had listened to his plans. With boundless faith in Cole's ability to turn his grand scheme into a reality, Cal had lent him a half million dollars to get it started—an investment that, at the time, constituted all his profits from the oil and gas leases on his land as well as an additional two hundred thousand dollars he borrowed from a bank. Cole had then approached a Dallas banker for a loan of an additional $750,000, using the future income of Cal's wells as collateral. Armed with more than a million dollars, a quick intellect, and a wealth of inside knowledge he'd obtained merely by listening to Charles Hayward and the other millionaires who gathered at the Haywards' stable, Cole made his first gamble in the high-stakes world of business and finance. He placed his opening bet on one of the riskiest, and potentially most profitable, of all ventures—oil and gas leases.
Having seen one large drilling company try twice and fail on Cal's ranch, he decided to buy an interest in the second and smaller company, the one that had ultimately succeeded. Southfield Exploration was owned and badly managed by Alan South, a cocky thirty-three-year-old third-generation "prospector," as he called himself, who loved nothing more than finding oil and gas where major drilling companies had failed.
The challenge was what drove Alan; the adrenaline of success was what he sought, rather than making and maintaining profits. As a result, he was low on funds and anxious to acquire a partner when Cole approached him with a million dollars to invest. Alan was not nearly so anxious to turn over full financial control of the operation to Cole, but Cole was adamant and Alan had no choice.
Cal had wanted Cole to consider his investment a loan, but Cole's pride made him go one step further. He had insisted that Cal be a full partner, as well as insisting on paying back the loan, and he'd had the documents drawn up by a lawyer. In the three years that followed, Alan made strike after strike—and had fight after fight with Cole, who flatly refused to let him overextend again, no matter how promising various locales looked. At the end of that time, Cole allowed Alan to buy him out for five million dollars, and the two men parted friends.
With Cal's approval, Cole used his profits from the drilling company to buy three carefully selected, small manufacturing companies. He hired a new management team, shored up the companies with new equipment, emphasized customer service, and boosted the morale of the sales staff. As soon as each company's balance sheet looked good, he sold the company. In what he considered his spare time, he studied the stock market and analyzed the philosophies of successful brokers and money managers. Based on the fact that most of the experts disagreed radically with each other on one or all of the important points, Cole concluded that luck and timing mattered as much or more than skill and knowledge. Since luck and timing had been on his side thus far, he tried his hand in some serious investing.
At the end of three years, Cole had turned five million dollars into sixty-five million. During all that time, the only condition Cal put on Cole was that Cal's other nephew, Travis Jerrold, be given a place in Cole's next business venture. Travis was five years older than Cole and from a town on the other side of Texas, where he worked for a failing tool manufacturer. He had a college degree, a pretty wife named Elaine, whom Cole liked very much, and two spoiled children named Donna Jean and Ted, whom Cole did not like at all. Although Cole had only seen Travis once as a teenager, he liked the loyalty that Travis as "family" would bring to the business, and he was perfectly amenable to Cal's request.
Cole began looking around for a profitable company on which he could found his corporate dynasty—a company that provided a product or service for which there was likely to be an ever-increasing need. Predicting that need was the key to success, and it was there that Cole discovered he had a genuine gift. Although everyone else seemed to believe that IBM and Apple would soon own the entire computer hardware market, Cole was convinced that lower-priced, but high-quality, generic brands could seize a large share of the personal computer market.
Against everyone else's judgment and advice, he bought a small company called Hancock and invented his own new "name brand." He tripled the size of the company's sales force, beefed up quality control, and poured money into an ongoing advertising campaign. Within two years, Hancock computers were sold in retail markets all over the country and winning praise for their reliability and flexibility. When all that was in place, Cole named Travis as Hancock's new president and put him in charge, which caused Travis's ecstatic wife to burst into tears of gratitude and Travis to break out in a nervous rash.
Travis proved to be an asset to what was now a family venture. What Travis lacked in imagination, he made up for in loyalty and determination and scrupulous adherence to Cole's instructions. When Cole created Unified's new research and development division four years later, he named Travis to head it.

Chapter 11



‘’I'm a big fan of yours, Miss Foster," the makeup artist at CNN remarked as she made slow, careful strokes over Diana's shiny shoulder-length hair. "My mother and my sister and I all read your magazine from cover to cover, every month."
The room where makeup was applied to guests while they waited to go on the air was like most of its kind in every television studio in the country, except CNN's was a little larger. Two long Formica countertops stretched the length of both sides of the narrow room, with chairs spaced at six-foot intervals along them and brightly lit mirrors lining the walls. At each makeup station, jars and bottles of cosmetics fought for counter space with lipsticks, eyeliners, eye shadows, and an assortment of brushes and combs.
Sometimes all the stations were occupied by guests being made up for television, but this afternoon, Diana was the only one scheduled for an interview, and the young woman who was applying her makeup was bursting with enthusiasm: "For my sister's birthday, we used your grandmother's recipe for vanilla pudding cake. We topped it with fresh sugar-glazed blueberries, just like the picture in magazine. Then we gathered armfuls of peonies for a centerpiece, and we decorated our own gift wrap by using rubber stamps cut in the shape of peonies. I used a gold stamp pad for mine, but my mom used a silver one, and they were both really great!"
"That's very nice to hear." Diana flashed her an absent-minded smile, without taking her attention from the urgent memos that had arrived by fax at her hotel late that morning.
"My mom finally got my dad to try your grandpa's special trick for raising giant, juicy strawberries, and they turned out huge, and were they ever delicious! When my dad first looked at the picture of them in the magazine, he said you were using trick photography and they were probably crab apples, but his turned out fantastic, too! Next, he built that compost box your grandpa showed in the magazine. Now he reads Foster's Beautiful Living from cover to cover, just like we do!"
Feeling that some response was again required, Diana gave her another smile before she turned to the second page of the fax from the Foster Enterprises office in Houston. The smile was all the encouragement the enthusiastic young woman needed. "Practically everybody I know reads your magazine. We just love the ideas you put in it, and the pictures your sister takes are really gorgeous! Gosh, the way your mom writes about all of you, I feel like I know your whole family. When Corey had her babies—the twins—we sat right down and crocheted those adorable little booties for them. You know—the ones that look sort of like high-top running shoes? I hope she got them."
Diana looked up and smiled for the third time. "I'm sure she did."
The young woman dusted a light coat of blusher on Diana's high cheekbones and stepped back. "I'm finished," she said almost regretfully. "You're even prettier in real life than you are in that picture at the front of the magazine."
"Thank you very much," Diana replied, laying the faxes aside and looking up at her.
"You have about ten minutes before they'll come and get you and take you into the studio."
When she left, Diana looked over at Cindy Bertrillo, the public relations director at Foster's Beautiful Living magazine, who had accompanied her to Atlanta and had been sitting nearby while Diana's makeup was applied. "Are there any other faxes?" Diana asked as she scribbled instructions on two of the faxed memos and handed them to Cindy to send to the office when they got back to the hotel.
"Nope, that's it," Cindy said, stuffing the memos into her briefcase. With her short-cropped black hair, oversize glasses, and swift, energetic movements, the tireless thirty-two-year-old publicist looked, Diana thought, as if she was constantly searching for new things to benefit Foster's. And she was.
Diana glanced at her watch and grimaced. "I hate these interviews. They take away too much time from work. I have six meetings tomorrow, the accountants want to go over the preliminary P-and-Ls, and I should be finalizing the arrangements for the new coffee-table book. I'm behind schedule on everything!"
Cindy was very familiar with Diana's killing work schedule. At thirty-one, Diana was more than a successful businesswoman; she had become a reluctant celebrity, an unwilling idol—a state of affairs that owed itself to her remarkably photogenic features and her ability to look outwardly serene even when the situation was chaotic and her nerves were unraveled. Despite Diana's wish to maintain her privacy and keep a low profile, her classic features, vivid coloring, and natural elegance had made her an increasingly popular subject for journalists and photographers—and television talk-show hosts.
Cindy smiled sympathetically as she repeated what she always said in these circumstances. "I know, but the television cameras love you, and interviews help sell magazines." She tipped her head to one side, assessing the effect of Diana's buttercup yellow crepe suit against the auburn highlights in her hair and striking green eyes. "You look terrific," she said.
Diana rolled her eyes, dismissing the remark. "Please try to book Gram and Mom for more of these interview shows, or even my grandfather, but not me. Gram and Mom are the Foster Ideal; they're the soul and spirit of the whole concept; they are the magazine. Put Corey on television, for heaven's sake; she's the one with the photographic genius that makes the magazine look so spectacular. I'm just the figurehead; I'm the business end, and I always feel like a complete phony when I do these shows. Besides, I'm just too busy for this."
When she ran out of argument, Cindy said very pleasantly, and very firmly, "The media wants you, Diana. And anyway," she added with a rueful smile, "we can't let Gram do any more live interview shows. She's gotten much too outspoken in her advancing years. I didn't tell you this, but last month, when she taped the show for the Dallas CBS channel, the host asked her to explain the difference between Foster's Beautiful Living magazine and its closest competitor, New Style."
Cindy waited, with raised brows and an expression of ill-suppressed mirth, for Diana to ask the obvious question. "What," Diana asked warily, noting the telltale look, "did Gram say?"
"She said when she followed New Style's instructions for making a hand-decorated lamp, she nearly burned the house down."
Diana muffled a horrified laugh.
"Then she said she'd eaten better-tasting plaster than New Style's special wedding cake."
"Good God!" Diana said, laughing in earnest now.
"If that show had been live, instead of taped, Gram's candor would have gotten us a nice fat lawsuit," Cindy continued wryly. "As it was, I threw myself on the host's mercy and begged him not to use what would have been the juiciest part of the interview." Cindy leaned forward and jokingly confided, "He agreed, but I have to sleep with him the next time I go to Dallas."
"That sounds reasonable," Diana said, straight-faced, and then they both laughed. "Gram doesn't say things like that to be spiteful," she explained, sobering. "In her advancing years, she's suddenly decided that she doesn't want to waste what breath she has left on polite lies—or something like that."
"So she informed me in Dallas. Anyway, I do book your mom and Corey or your grandparents whenever I can; you know that. I can arrange network specials for them, where they demonstrate all their wonderful projects, and the shows are always a big hit, but when it comes to talk shows and personal interviews, it's you the public wants to see."
"I wish you'd do something to change their minds."
"Change your face, and maybe I could," Cindy countered with a grin. "Get ugly, get fat. Get a little conceited, or a little pushy, or a little crude. The public will spot that instantly, and you'll lose your commercial appeal."
"Thanks, you're a big help," Diana said.
"Can I help it if you've become an icon? Is it my fault the public sees you as America's Favorite Domestic Goddess?"
Diana made a comic face at that phrase, which had been coined by a CBS commentator when he interviewed Diana last year. "Don't tell anyone that I haven't had time to cook a real meal at home in two years, will you?—or that I had to pay an interior designer to fix up my apartment because I'm too busy working."
"They couldn't pry it out of me with pliers," Cindy joked, then she sobered. Shoving cosmetics aside, Cindy perched her hip on the edge of the countertop and said very seriously, "Diana, I've heard you joke about things like that several times in the last few months, and it's been making me increasingly nervous. When you first started the magazine, you had a wide-open field, but all that's changed radically in the last two years. I know I don't have to tell you how much the competition has grown, or how much money they have behind them, or how far they would go just to topple you and Foster's Beautiful Living out of first place. You have major publishers putting out their own magazines and books and trying to build their own 'icons.'
"If they find just one real weak spot in you, they'll use it to bludgeon you—and the entire Foster Ideal—all over the media. No matter how inventive or talented your mother and grandmother and all the assistants at the magazine may be, it's you the women of America see as the real Foster Ideal.
"I know you're exhausted, and I know you resent the hell out of having your private life mixed with your business life, but until you and Dan Penworth are married and in a house of your own, decorated with lots of pretty projects we've featured in the magazine, you cannot afford even to joke about your lack of domesticity. If our competitors get wind of it, they'll make you look like a complete fake in the press."
Diana tipped her head back, fighting to keep the angry resentment out of her voice. "I'm an executive with a large and growing corporation. I do not have the time to stencil borders on my wallpaper."
Cindy was stunned by the sound of tears in Diana's voice, and for the first time, she realized that Diana, who always seemed to be the embodiment of vitality, optimism, and serenity, was actually strained to the breaking point. It was little wonder, considering the responsibility she shouldered. Her work schedule practically eliminated any personal life. In addition, she had kept her fiancé waiting patiently in the wings for nearly two years for a wedding that had to be the embodiment of the Foster Ideal. "I'm sorry," Cindy said gently. "I wouldn't have upset you for the world. Let me get you something. How about some coffee?"
"Thanks," Diana replied, flashing a rueful smile at Cindy. "I'd love some."
Cindy left, closing the door behind her, and Diana turned in her chair. Her face gazed back at her from the mirror, and she shook her head in amused irony at the vagaries of fate. "Tell me something," she softly said to her reflection. "How did a nice girl like you end up in a place like this?"
The woman in the mirror looked back at her with a wry smile. The answer was so obvious: necessity and desperation after her father's sudden death after a stroke eight years ago had driven her to take risks and defy the odds in order to keep the family together. Timing and luck had propelled the family far beyond their modest hopes. Timing and luck—and probably a little celestial help from Robert Foster.
After the funeral, when her father's lawyer revealed the true state of their finances—he'd finished droning on to the grief-stricken family about cross-collateralized assets and the stock market's fatal plunge a few months before— Diana alone had been capable of absorbing the meaning of it all: after her father's debts were paid, the family would have nothing except the house they were living in and the furniture in it.
In a desperate effort to keep everyone together, Diana had decided to try to turn the family's locally acclaimed flair for style into a money-making proposition. Somehow, she had managed to get good advice, draw up a business plan, and borrow the start-up money they needed. And in the end, she had managed to turn her family's unique way of life into a multimillion-dollar business.

Chapter 12


Standing in front of a dark gray marble sink with his face covered in shaving lather and his chest bare, Cole stroked the razor up his neck while he listened to the news on the television. In the study adjoining the bedroom, a large television screen was built into the wall behind a sliding panel.
His suitcase was open on the bed, packed for his trip to Los Angeles, and Michelle was mixing drinks for them in the dining room. CNN was introducing a guest they were about to interview: "In the years since Diana Foster conceived and executed a plan to turn her family's 'hobby' into a business, she's become not only the publisher of Foster's Beautiful Living magazine, but the president of a thriving Houston-based corporation that, under her leadership, has diversified into many areas, including television as well as the manufacture and sale of Foster's Products for the Home—a line of all-natural cleaning products."
Cole was rinsing his face when he heard the guest's name, and he assumed it was pure coincidence, but when the show's host also threw Houston into the equation, Cole straightened and grabbed a towel. He dabbed leftover shaving cream from his face as he strolled into the library and halted in front of the television.
A slow smile of pleasure and disbelief worked its way across his face as he gazed at Diana Foster's lovely image while the show's host continued with her bio: "In the last two years, Diana has appeared on the covers of People and Working Woman magazine. Articles have been written about her in newspapers from The New York Times to the Enquirer and Star. Working Woman called her 'an example of what a woman executive could—and should—be.' Cosmopolitan featured her in a cover story entitled 'Women with Beauty, Brains, and Bravery.' "
The host turned to his guest. "Diana, one news commentator dubbed you the 'High Priestess of Domestic Grace and Beauty.' How does all this make you feel?"
She laughed—the soft musical laugh Cole remembered from years gone by—and after all this time, the sight of those entrancing eyes and radiant smile still warmed him. "Flattered, of course," she said. "Unduly flattered, actually. Foster's Beautiful Living is a massive family effort, and I'm only one small part of it."
"You were only twenty-two when you decided to try to market what was, until then, only a well-known family lifestyle in Houston. Were you filled with youthful optimism, or did you have some fears about the risk you were taking when you founded the magazine?"
"I had only one fear," she said solemnly, but Cole grinned because he had known her well and he caught the almost imperceptible note of humor in her voice, "but it kept me awake nights for the first two years."
The host took her very seriously. "What was that one fear?"
She laughed. "Failure!" The host was still chuckling when she added, "And I really have to confess that some of my ancestors' wealth and prominence came from robbing banks and rustling cattle. In fact, until 1900, the most reputable one of them all was a professional gambler, and he was shot for cheating at cards in a Fort Worth saloon."
Standing in the center of the library with his feet bare, his fists on his hips, and a grin on his lips, Cole chuckled at her unaffected candor and wit.
Behind him, Michelle entered with a tray of drinks and hors d'oeuvres. "What's so funny?" she asked as she put the tray on the table and straightened, smoothing the wrinkles from her silk pants and shirt.
Cole shook his head without taking his eyes from Diana's face on the television screen.
"That's Diana Foster," she told him. Michelle was from a prominent Dallas family with important connections in Houston, and so she knew about all the proverbial skeletons in the closets of her own social set. "She capitalized on her family's reputation, borrowed a lot of money, and used it to start up a little business that the whole family worked in. No one figured they'd make it, but they've made it really big. Originally, Diana raised a lot of eyebrows when she started the whole thing up. Now she's made a lot of enemies, too."
Cole was instantly irate on Diana's behalf. "Why?"
"This is Texas, honey, remember? This is the home of the 'good-old-boy' network, where the myth of male superiority still prospers and where 'macho' is a holy word. In Texas, rich men pamper and patronize their wives and daughters. Wives and daughters are not supposed to strike out on their own, and if they do, they are definitely not supposed to succeed in a big way, let alone become more famous than the menfolk."
While Cole was still absorbing the unquestionable truth of what she said, Michelle ran her fingers through the short black hairs on his chest. "Diana Foster is also beautiful, unmarried, and very classy. When you add all that together, she's more likely to be envied than liked by my sex."
Cole looked down at her long aristocratic fingers with their vermilion nails as they played enticingly with the nerve endings in his chest. "Would that include you?" he asked, but he knew it wouldn't. At thirty-two, Michelle was too intelligent, too wise, and too clever to waste her time envying another woman. Besides, she had already picked out her candidate for her third husband, and Diana Foster was no threat to her.
"No," she said, tipping her head back and gazing into his eyes. "But, I'd trade places with her in ten seconds, if I could. I've already been a victim of all that 'pampering and patronizing' from my father and two husbands."
She was beautiful, candid, and a wildcat in bed. In addition to his sexual and intellectual attraction to her, Cole genuinely liked her. He linked his hands behind her back, pulling her close. "Why don't we go to bed so I can pamper and patronize you myself?"
She shook her head no and smiled seductively into his eyes.
"In that case," he countered in a husky, sensual voice, "we'll go to bed and I'll let you pamper and patronize me." Michelle never turned down a chance to go to bed with him, under any circumstances, and so he was surprised when she declined again. "Why don't you marry me instead?"
Cole's expression didn't change. He whispered one word, then bent his head and silenced her protests with his mouth. "No," he said.
"I could give you children," she said shakily when he lifted his head. "I'd like to have children."
Cole tightened his arms and seized her lips with a steamy passion that was in complete contrast to the icy finality of words. "I do not want children, Michelle."

Chapter 13


The telephone at the receptionist's desk rang, and Tina Frederick picked it up. "Foster's Beautiful Living, " she said with a bright, energetic voice that reflected the general attitude of all Foster's employees.
"Tina, this is Cindy Bertrillo. Has Diana Foster come back from lunch?"
The magazine's publicist sounded so tense and desperate that Tina automatically looked over her shoulder to double-check that the lobby's revolving doors weren't moving. "No, not yet."
"As soon as you see her, tell her I have to talk to her. It's urgent."
"Okay, I will."
"You're the first person she'll pass when she enters the building. Don't leave your desk for any reason until you've given her my message."
"I won't." When she hung up the phone, Tina tried to imagine what sort of urgent matter might have come up, but she was positive that whatever it was, Diana would handle it with ease and not show any of the anxiety that had permeated Cindy's voice.
Diana Foster's tranquility and humor were admired by all 260 of the Foster Enterprises' employees who worked in the downtown Houston offices. From the mail room to the executive suite, Diana was famous among the staff for the courtesy and respect she showed to everyone who worked for her and with her. No matter how much stress she was under or how long the hours she worked, she rarely passed an employee without a smile or some gesture of acknowledgment.
Given all that, it was little wonder that Tina rose from her chair in shock when Diana blasted through the revolving doors several minutes later with a folded newspaper under her elbow and stalked right past Tina's desk. "Miss Foster—" she called, but her normally gracious employer didn't so much as glance her way.
Diana stalked down aisles lined with secretarial cubicles and executive offices without a word or glance in any direction, her face pale and rigid. She walked past the art department without saying a word about the next issue, pressed the button for the elevator, and, when the doors opened, disappeared into it.
Diana's secretary, Sally, saw her get off the elevator, and she automatically gathered up her phone messages because Diana always asked about messages the moment she came back to her office. Instead, Diana walked around Sally's cubicle as if it were invisible and vanished into her office. Sally stood up with the message slips in her hand and, as she moved around her desk, noticed several other secretaries peering curiously toward Diana's office.
Preoccupied with the desire to give Diana her messages so that she wouldn't have to ask for them, Sally doggedly followed Diana into her office. "Mrs. Paul Underwood called about the White Orchid Ball," Sally began, reading the first of the three slips of paper. "She said to tell you that the amethyst-and-diamond necklace you'll be modeling at the charity auction is spectacular and that if it weren't understood that Dan Penworth will buy the necklace for you, she'd insist her husband buy it for her." Sally paused and glanced up. "I think she was sort of, well, joking a little."
She waited, expecting some sort of humorous reaction to this, but Diana only nodded stiffly as she flung the newspaper on her desk and pulled off the jacket of her cherry wool-crepe suit, dropping it haphazardly on the back of the suede swivel chair behind her desk. "Any other calls?" she asked, her head down, her voice strained.
"Yes. The bridal salon called to say they have several new gowns in from Paris, which they think you'll love."
Diana seemed to freeze; then she turned away from her desk and walked over to the glass wall that looked out across a sunny Houston skyline. In silence, Sally watched Diana cross her arms over her chest, rubbing the sleeves of her white silk blouse as if her arms were cold. "Anything else?" she asked in a voice so low that Sally moved a little closer, trying to hear her.
"Bert Peters called. There was a problem with two of the photo layouts in the next issue, and his group is scrambling to get it fixed. Bert asked if you'd let him reschedule the production meeting you wanted from three o'clock today to four."
Diana's voice dropped lower, but it was filled with resolution. "Cancel it."
"Cancel it?" Sally repeated in disbelief.
Diana swallowed. "Reschedule it for eight a.m. tomorrow." After a moment, she added, "If my sister's in the building, ask her to come here."
Sally nodded and reached for the phone on Diana's desk, calling the extension where she knew Corey Foster could be reached. "Corey's downstairs with the production staff, helping with the layouts," she explained to Diana's back. "Bert said she had a solution that will work."
Sally repeated Diana's request to Corey on the telephone; then she hung up and stared worriedly at Diana's still form and stiff shoulders. People who didn't know Diana were normally so dazzled and disarmed by her classic features, vivid coloring, soft voice, and quiet elegance that they were misled into thinking of her as a languid young socialite who spent her days dabbling in charity work or dropping by her office for an occasional board meeting and spent her evenings being pampered in order to keep worry lines from marring her fragile beauty. However, those people who worked closely with her, as did Sally, knew that Diana was a tireless worker with seemingly endless supplies of energy and enthusiasm.
When the magazine's monthly deadlines drew near, it was not unusual for the staff to work each night until midnight. When everyone was too exhausted or too stressed out to do more than droop in their chairs, Diana—whose administrative duties often kept her working late in her office on the top floor—would frequently appear in the production department with an encouraging smile on her face and a tray of coffee and sandwiches in her arms.
The following morning, the production staff would stagger in a little late, their eyes bleary and their brains foggy, while Diana would look fresh and rested and be filled with sympathetic appreciation for the long hours they'd worked. The wide difference between the effect of stress and lack of sleep on Diana versus its effect on others almost always evoked some sort of good-natured grumbling comment from someone who'd worked late the night before. Diana would bear it with a smile or laugh it off with some remark about it all catching up with her someday, then turn the discussion to the next issue and the next set of problems they would invariably face.
Considering the fact that she never showed the slightest pessimism about even the largest problems, and considering her ability to juggle a dozen different projects and a hundred different details without ever seeming to be rattled, Sally had found it both amazing and endearing when she discovered that Diana actually had two weaknesses: she required a basic framework of routine within which to operate, and she required a state of absolute orderliness in her office. The lack of either of these could throw her into a state of confusion and dismay like nothing else could.
Diana could stand serenely in the chaos and disorder of the production department, the floors and drawing boards littered with proposed layouts and copy proofs, and make vital decisions with flawless judgment—but she could not sit at her own desk and concentrate on a problem or make a decision unless the top of her Louis XIV desk was perfectly neat, with each item in its proper place.
Last week, before leaving the building for a luncheon meeting with the corporation's attorneys, Diana had attended the regular Monday-morning budget meeting. While there, she ended up simultaneously arbitrating an argument between two extremely talented and temperamental artists, issuing instructions to the corporation's controller, and reviewing the contents of a contract Sally had brought her to sign. She managed all that without missing a written or spoken word, but when she was ready to sign the contract and reached into her briefcase for the gold pen she kept there and couldn't find it, she lost all concentration on everything.
She used the controller's pen to sign the document, but she continued to search through her briefcase and then her purse for her own pen, and when the two verbal combatants demanded to know if she had a compromise to suggest to settle the dispute, Diana glanced blankly at them and mumbled, "What dispute was that?"
As Sally had soon discovered, the "secret" Diana was a creature of habit with a need for orderliness in her personal surroundings. Each Friday morning at seven-thirty, come hell or hurricane, she had a massage at the Houstonian Hotel and Health Club, followed by a simultaneous manicure and pedicure at her favorite salon. She returned to the office at ten a.m., where a local car-care service picked up her car keys, washed her car, filled it up with gasoline, and returned it by noon, so that it would be available if she went out to lunch. She wrote checks for her personal bills on the first and fifteenth of the month, regardless of where she was or what day of the week the dates fell upon, and she went to church every Sunday morning at ten. And always, always, when Diana returned from lunch, she asked Sally to tell her, first, who had called while she was out and then what items were on her schedule for the afternoon.
Today, however, she'd done neither, and Sally's uneasiness grew as she looked at the newspaper Diana had tossed on her desk, on top of a treasured Steuben crystal frog, and at the red wool jacket that was hanging by only one shoulder over the back of her chair. "Diana?" Sally said hesitantly, "I don't mean to pry, but is something wrong?"
For a moment, Sally thought Diana either hadn't heard her or didn't want to answer; then Diana lifted her head and glanced over her shoulder, her green eyes bright with some emotion. "I think you could say that," she said in a shaky whisper. When Sally stared at her in helpless confusion, Diana tipped her head toward the newspaper. "I've just made the front page of the National Enquirer. "
Sally turned to the desk and reached for the newspaper, her apprehension already outweighed by outraged loyalty and indignation at whatever she was about to see that had so upset Diana. And even though she was braced for an affront, the headline and pictures that were sprawled across the front page had the effect of a punch in the stomach.
 
TROUBLE IN PARADISE
DIANA FOSTER IS JILTED BY FIANCÉ
 
Below the headline was a huge picture of Diana's handsome fiancé, Dan Penworth, who was lying on a beach beside a curvaceous blond. The caption read, "Diana Foster's fiancé, Dan Penworth, honeymooning with his new bride, 18-year-old Italian model and heiress Christina Delmonte." Sally scanned the story, her stomach churning. "Yesterday, in Rome, Christina Delmonte got the 'scoop' on Foster's Beautiful Living magazine's publisher, Diana Foster… Lately, the Foster Empire has been under siege from rival magazines who've scoffed at Ms. Foster's steadfast avoidance of matrimony and motherhood while her magazine preaches the bliss and beauty to be found in both.
"That weasel!" Sally breathed. "That sneak, that—" She broke off as Corey walked into the office, looking rushed but blissfully unaware of any disaster.
"I think we've got the problem with the layout settled," Corey said, peering at Diana's averted face and then at Sally's stricken one. "What's wrong?"
In answer, Sally held out the newspaper, and Corey took it. A moment later, she hissed, "That bastard! That—"
"Coward!" Sally provided.
"He's a scumbag," Corey added.
"A jerk—"
"Thank you both," Diana said with a teary, forced laugh. "At a time like this, loyalty counts for a lot."
Corey and Sally exchanged sympathetic glances; then Sally turned and left, closing the office door behind her, and Corey headed for her sister. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, wrapping her in a fierce hug.
"Me, too," Diana said, sounding as meek and bewildered as a child who has been punished for something they didn't do.
"C'mon," Corey urged, turning Diana away from the window and toward her desk. "Get your jacket and purse and let's get out of here. We'll go home and break the news to Mom and Gram and Gramps together."
"I can't leave early." Diana managed to lift her chin a notch, but her eyes were still wounded and glazed with shock. "I can't run away. By tonight, everyone in the office will have seen or heard about that article. They'll remember that I left early, and they'll think it's because I couldn't face people."
"Diana," Corey said very firmly, "there cannot be any other president of a large company who is as thoroughly liked and as much admired by their employees as you are by yours. They'll feel terrible for you."
"I don't want pity," Diana said, getting her voice under control and her features into a semblance of their normal expression.
Corey knew it was useless to argue. Diana had a great deal of pride and courage, and both those things would force her to brave out the day no matter how shattered she was. "Okay, but don't work late. I'll phone Mom and tell her we'll both be home for dinner at six-thirty. With any luck we'll be able to break the news to the family before they've heard it elsewhere."
She half expected Diana to proudly decline that offer of support, but she didn't. "Thanks," she said.

Chapter 14





By the time she left the office that night, word had already spread, making her the object of pitying glances from her employees, the security guards in the lobby, and even the parking lot attendant. While Corey waited outside in her car, Diana went into her apartment to change clothes. Her answering machine was full of messages from reporters, from friends, and from distant acquaintances who rarely called—all of them, Diana was certain, eager for more of the juicy details. She was furious with Dan and thoroughly humiliated.
As soon as Diana and Corey walked through the doorway of the River Oaks house, it was obvious from the indignant, dismayed expressions on the faces of their mother and grandparents that the rest of the family had also heard the news. "We heard it on the television, just before you got home. I can't believe Dan did this—not this way, not without a phone call or a telegram to let you know," Mrs. Foster said as they waited in the dining room for dinner to be served.
Diana stared bleakly at her hands, twisting the four-carat diamond engagement ring on her finger. "Dan called from Italy the day before yesterday, but we were on deadline and I couldn't take the call. Last night, we worked until midnight, and with the time difference, it would have been perfect for me to call him when I got home, but I fell asleep sitting up in bed, with my hand on the phone. This morning, I woke up late, and as soon as I got to work, I got involved with a half-dozen crises. He probably wanted to tell me about this, but I was too busy to call him back," she said bitterly. "It's my own fault for finding out about his marriage in the newspaper…"
"Don't you dare blame yourself for this, young lady," Diana's grandfather exclaimed loyally as he shifted in his chair, his left leg stiff from recent surgery. "He was engaged to you when he married someone else. He ought to be horsewhipped!"
"I never liked Dan Penworth!" Corey's grandmother announced.
Diana appreciated their steadfastness, but she was perilously close to tears. Oblivious to the fact that she was not easing Diana's burden, her grandmother continued bluntly, "Dan was too old for you, among other things. Why, what does a forty-two-year-old man want with a twenty-nine-year-old woman, anyway, I ask you?"
"Very little, obviously," Diana said bleakly, "and I'm thirty-one, not twenty-nine."
"You were twenty-nine when you got engaged," her grandmother argued.
"His new wife is eighteen. Maybe that will be his lucky number."
"Diana," Mrs. Foster interceded gently, "I don't know if this is the time to be philosophical or not, but I always wondered if the two of you were right for each other."
"Mom, please. You were very much in favor of Dan for a son-in-law when we got engaged."
"Yes, I was. But I began to have my doubts when you kept him dangling for two years."
"Dangling!" Diana's grandmother put in. "I'd like to see that young man dangling from the end of a rope for what he's done!"
"The point I was trying to make," Mrs. Foster said, "is that if two people truly love each other—if everything is really 'right' and there are no obstacles to getting married, it seems to me they should be in a little more of a hurry to be married than Diana was. I married your father within weeks of meeting him."
Diana managed a wan smile. "That's because he didn't give you a choice."
She sat at her place at the table, shaking her head as dinner courses were served. Her stomach was churning, and the others seemed to understand. "I wish I could just go away for a month until all this dies down," she said when dessert was over.
"Well, you can't," said Gram with unintentional ruthlessness. "That scoundrel pulled this trick only a few days from the Orchid Ball. It's a ritual that we all attend, and if you don't go, people will say you didn't show up because you were heartbroken!"
Diana felt physically ill at the thought of being subjected to public scrutiny at Houston's biggest, most lavish social event. "They'll think that no matter what I do!"
"A pity you couldn't arrive at the ball on the arm of a new fiancé!" said her grandfather with uncharacteristic impracticality. "That would stop the tongues from wagging!"
"Why don't I just show up with a new husband," Diana said, choking on an anguished laugh, "and make them all think I jilted Dan." Sliding her chair back, she said, "I'm going to change clothes and go for a swim. I think I'll spend the night here."
Corey's husband, Spence, was out of town, and Corey joined her in her after-dinner swim. Later, as they reclined in a pair of chaise longues beside the pool, Corey watched Diana's profile as her expression grew increasingly pensive. "I didn't expect you to get over today's news in a few hours, but you look as if Dan's defection is upsetting you more now than it did earlier."
"Actually," Diana admitted without shifting her gaze from the starry sky, "I was worrying about business, not my personal life. More correctly, I was worrying about the damaging effect of my personal life on our business."
Shifting onto her side, Corey propped her head on her hand. "What do you mean?"
"I haven't wanted to worry you with company economics when we agreed, at the outset, that you'd handle the artistic end and I'd handle the money side…"
"What's wrong—with the money side, I mean?" Corey prompted when Diana fell silent.
"As you know, we've come under fire several times this year because I don't personally live up to the 'Foster Ideal.' Each time it has happened, there's been a minor fall-off in advertisers and our new-subscription rate has flattened out or declined a little. We've rebounded every time, but thanks to Dan, there's going to be much more fallout this time."
"I think you're overestimating the influence and readership of the Enquirer, " Corey scoffed, but her voice lacked conviction. Diana was an astute businesswoman, perhaps even a gifted one, and although she was cautious, she never looked for trouble where none was to be found.
"There were several calls on my answering machine tonight. I listened to them while I was changing clothes after dinner. The story made CBS's and NBC's six o'clock news."
Corey's heart sank and she was filled with anger and regret for this assault on her sister's privacy and pride. Avoiding the personal implications for Diana, she tried to focus on the business ones that seemed to be concerning her sister far more at the moment. "And you think all this publicity about your fiancé breaking off your engagement will affect the magazine?"
"He didn't break off our engagement, Corey. He dumped me for someone else. Our readership is almost entirely female, and our entire success has been built on our readership's belief that the Foster way is the right way— that it brings beauty and harmony to the home and tremendous personal gratification to the women who try it."
"Well, it does do those things."
Diana rolled onto her side, finally facing Corey. "Tell me something, if you were a female who wanted to bring new spirit into her family life, would you be inclined to put your faith in the promises of a woman who just got jilted for an eighteen-year-old blond Italian model? Our competition is going to toss every sort of fuel onto the fire to keep this little scandal alive. I mean the fact that I am single, childless, and without a home of my own wasn't so inexcusable as long as I was engaged to Dan. The implication was that I intended to practice what we preach in Foster's Beautiful Living. Now, because of what's happened, we're going to look as if we're trying to put some sort of money-making fantasy over on an unwitting segment of the population, namely women. Our profits are going to dive, you watch."
Corey couldn't begin to try to judge the effect of Diana's personal loss on the bottom line of the corporation's profit-and-loss statement; her brain rebelled at the effort, and her artistic nature cried out its artist's protest that beauty and emotion always took a backseat when accountants got involved. Moreover, she was starting to suspect that Diana was more deeply alarmed about the magazine than about the loss of the man she supposedly loved. "Tell me something," Corey said hesitantly. "What worries you more right now—your unfaithful fiancé or company finances?"
"Right now?"
"Right now."
"I—I'm worried about business," Diana admitted.
"In that case, maybe you were lucky you didn't marry Dan."
"Because he probably would have cheated on me after we were married?" Diana assumed bleakly.
"No, because I don't think you were really, deeply in love with him. I've been thinking about Spence and about how I'd feel if he did to me what Dan just did to you. I'd be demented with pain and rage, but it wouldn't have anything to do with the business."
She expected Diana to argue or protest, and she didn't feel reassured when Diana did neither. Instead her sister sat up, drew her knees against her chest, and wrapped her arms around them as if she were drawing into a tight, protective ball. "I don't think I'm capable of loving anyone the way you love Spence."
Corey stared at her with growing concern.
That very first afternoon they'd met—when Diana returned from Europe to find she'd acquired a stepmother, a stepsister, and a set of grandparents—she'd responded to Corey's cool greeting with quiet warmth, instead of the temper tantrum Corey had expected from what she'd been sure was a "spoiled, rich brat."
Now, as she looked at Diana's beautiful profile, she remembered the words Diana had said long ago on that very first day. "You come with a grandma, too?" Diana had asked, after complimenting the hand-painted sweatshirt that Corey had thought she'd deride. When Corey described her grandparents, Diana had raised her eyes and hands skyward and turned in a slow circle. "A sister, and a mom, and a grandma, and a grandpa! This could be very cool!" It had certainly been "cool" for Corey; Diana had seen to that. Diana, with her fragile beauty and dazzling smile and innate gentility, had paved the way for Corey, standing by her at every turn. Diana was and had always been the most loving, supportive person Corey had ever met.
The idea that Diana's self-confidence and self-esteem were somehow low enough to make her doubt her capacity for loving was more than Corey could stand. It bothered her far more than Dan Penworth's defection or the possible business consequences of it. "Diana," she said very clearly and very firmly, "what you just said is garbage!"
"Maybe not."
"There's no 'maybe' about it! Has it occurred to you that you've been too busy since Dad died to do anything but work? That you haven't actually dated all that many men? That maybe, just maybe, you settled for 'liking' Dan instead of 'loving' someone else?"
Diana lifted her slim shoulders in a shrug. "Whatever I did wrong, it's going to hurt us badly at the magazine now."
"You were going to marry the wrong man; that's what you did wrong."
"I wish I were married to the right one now."

Chapter 15


" Dammit, Cole!" Calvin exploded as he shoved himself out of his chair and stomped across the small living room to the fireplace. "You're wastin' my time trying to talk about proxies and shareholders, when the only thing I'm interested in holding is your baby in my arms! I don't think that's asking too much from you—not when you consider all I've done for you." With ruthless determination and flawless timing, he switched tactics from coercion to guilt, while Cole listened in impassive silence and growing anger to a genuine tirade that far surpassed all previous discussions on this particular subject.
"Why, if it weren't for me, you'd be living out at your pa's place, just like his pa did and his pa before him, trying to eke out a living chasin' steers. Instead of that, you do your chasin' in a Rolls-Royce and a private jet." Jabbing his forefinger into his chest for emphasis, he continued, "I'm the one who always believed in you, Cole. I'm the one who encouraged you to go to college. I'm the one who went to bat for you with your pa, and when he wouldn't listen, I'm the one who gave you all my money from my wells so you could get a good education!" In the midst of his angry monologue, Cal stopped and headed for the kitchen. "It's time for my medicine," he announced, "but I'm not finished. You stay right where you are until I get back."
Cole watched him pick his way around an old overstuffed chair and a lamp table piled with magazines and said nothing. Cole hadn't had a good day, and so far, the evening wasn't an improvement. He'd finished his business on the West Coast several hours earlier than he'd expected, and in the happy expectation of having extra time with his uncle, he'd phoned one of his pilots and instructed him to fuel the plane and be ready to leave for Texas ahead of schedule. From then on, nothing had gone well.
The air was unstable, the flight was incredibly rough, and air traffic control advised them to go around a massive storm front over Arizona. Their new course took them an hour out of the way, which necessitated an unscheduled fuel stop in El Paso, where unusually heavy air traffic resulted in another hour's delay. Two hours behind schedule, Cole's pilots now began their final approach to Ridgewood Field, and Cole tried for the sixth time to reach Cal so that his uncle could pick him up at the airport. For the sixth time, he got a recording that the phone was out of order.
Since phone service in Cal's area was frustratingly undependable, and since Cal frequently struck back at the phone company by deducting one thirtieth of his monthly charges for each day his phone was unreliable, Cole assumed the phone company had retaliated as it usually did—by cutting off his service.
When he got off the plane, the heat and humidity seemed to plaster around him like plastic wrap, and Cole resigned himself to renting a car at the minuscule airport and driving out to the ranch.
Ridgewood was forty-five miles north of Kingdom City, which, in turn, was forty miles east of Cal's ranch. Built thirty years before and situated in the middle of nowhere, Ridgewood Field was primarily used by drilling companies who flew in special equipment for repairing the oil and gas wells that dotted the landscape. Most of the other planes that jolted down its washboard runway belonged to Texan Airlines, which flew in twice weekly with special air freight and an occasional passenger on board.
In addition to one concrete runway that was in bad repair, Ridgewood Field offered air travelers a white metal building that served as a terminal. Inside the terminal, which was not air-conditioned, amenities were limited to two rest rooms, one coffee counter, and one battered metal desk where stranded passengers could attempt to rent one of Ridgewood Field Car Rental's two available cars from a cheerful heavyset woman who was also the waitress and whose name tag identified her as "Roberta."
Roberta wiped her hands on her apron and took a rental agreement out of the desk while she politely inquired as to Cole's choice of rental cars. "Do you want the black one with the bad muffler, or the black one with the bad tires?"
Cole stifled an irate retort and scribbled his name on the rental agreement. "I'll take the one with the bad muffler."
Roberta nodded approvingly. "The air conditioning works in that one, so you won't swelter while you're getting where you're going. Good choice."
It had seemed so to Cole, too, at the time, but not now. When Cal returned to the living room and started pressing his point even harder, Cole began to wish he'd taken the other car and had a nice blowout on the way here to delay him.
"I'll make you a deal," Cal announced as he lowered himself into the chair across from Cole's. "You bring me a wife who's fit and willing to bear your children, and I'll sign those shares over to you on your first wedding anniversary. Otherwise, I'm going to leave all my worldly goods to Travis's kids. That's my deal; take it or leave it."
In stony silence, Cole returned his stare and began to slowly tap a rolled-up magazine he'd been reading on his knee. At thirty-six, he controlled a multinational corporation, 125,000 employees, and an estimated twelve billion dollars. Everything in his business and personal life was under his complete control… everything except this one seventy-five-year-old man, who was now actually threatening to leave half of Cole's company to Travis, who wasn't capable of running a small subsidiary of it without Cole's constant supervision. Cole didn't actually believe that his uncle would betray him by giving away half the corporation that Cole had slaved to build, but he didn't like the sound of his uncle's threat. He had just convinced himself that Cal was bluffing when he belatedly noticed that the fireplace mantel, which had always held a half-dozen framed family photographs, was now filled to overflowing with another dozen photographs—and all of them were of Travis's family.
"Well?" Cal said, abandoning his anger and leaning forward in his eagerness. "What do you think of the terms of my deal?"
"I think," Cole snapped, "that your terms are not only ridiculous, they're crazy."
"Are you saying that marriage is 'crazy'?" Cal demanded, his expression turning ominous again. "Why, the whole damned country is falling apart because of your generation and its lack of respect for good old 'crazy' notions like marriage and children and responsibility!"
When Cole refused to be lured into that debate, Cal gestured toward the large scarred coffee table, which was cluttered, like every other table in the room, with dozens of magazines that Letty, his housekeeper, fought a losing battle to keep orderly. "If you don't believe me, just look at what's in those magazines. Here," he stated, snatching up a copy of Reader's Digest from the pile on the end table beside his chair. Reader's Digest was a particular favorite of his. "Look at this!" He waved the small magazine with its blue cover and bright yellow print toward Cole; then he tipped his head back, in order to read through the lower part of his bifocals, and recited the titles of some of the articles: " 'Cheating in Our Schools—A National Scandal.' According to that article," he said, glaring at Cole as if it were his fault, "eight out often high school students say they cheat. It says in that article that moral standards are so low that many high school children no longer know the difference between right and wrong!"
"I don't see what that has to do with the topic at hand."
"Don't you, now?" Calvin retorted, closing the cover and tipping his head slightly back, peering again at the writing on the cover of the magazine. "Then maybe this article is more to the point. Do you know what it's called?"
The answer being obvious, Cole simply stared at him in resigned expectation.
"The article is called 'What Women Don't Know About Today's Men.'" Tossing the magazine on the table in disgust, he glared at Cole. "What I want to know is what is the matter with you young people that suddenly men don't understand women and women don't understand men, and none of you understand the need to get married and stay married and raise good, god-fearing children?"
Cole continued to tap the magazine on his knee while his anger continued to mount. "As I think I've mentioned to you in the past when you've brought all this up, you are hardly in a position to lecture anyone on the merits of marriage and children, since you've never had a wife or a child!"
"To my everlasting regret," Calvin countered, undeterred as he shoved some magazines aside and pulled out a recent copy of a tabloid. "Now, just look at this," he said, pointing a bony finger at the front page and holding it in front of Cole's face.
Cole glanced at the tabloid, and his expression turned derisive. "The Enquirer?" he said. "You're subscribing to the Enquirer?"
"Letty likes to read it, but that isn't the point. The point is that your generation has lost its collective mind! Just look at the way you young people do things. Look at this beautiful young woman. She's famous and she's a 'Houston socialite,' which means she's rich."
"So what?" Cole said, his angry gaze fastened on his uncle's face and not the newspaper.
"So, her fiancé—this Dan Penworth—just dumped her for an eighteen-year-old Italian girl who's lyin' on a beach with him, half-naked." When Cole continued to ignore the tabloid, Cal let it drop to his side, but he wasn't ready to drop his argument. "He dumped her without telling her, while the poor thing was planning her wedding."
"Is there a point to all this?" Cole demanded.
"You're damned right there is. The point is that Penworth is a Houston boy, born and raised, and so's the girl he jilted. Now, when Texans start mistreating women and stomping all over traditional values, the whole damned country is as good as down the toilet."
Cole reached behind his head and wearily massaged the muscles in the back of his neck. This discussion was going nowhere, and he had a critical business issue to discuss and settle with Cal, if he could only sidetrack him from his absurd obsession with Cole's marital state. In the past, Cole had always managed to accomplish that, but Cal was far more determined today than ever before, and Cole had an uneasy premonition that this time he was going to fail.
It occurred to him then that Cal might actually be getting senile, but he rejected that almost at once. Cal's personality wasn't changing. He'd always been as stubborn and as tenacious as the proverbial bulldog. As Cole had explained to John Nederly earlier in the week, nothing had ever swayed Cal from his course. When oil was first found on his land, he'd announced that money wasn't going to change his life, and, by God, it hadn't—not one bit. He still pinched pennies like a pauper, he still drove a twenty-year-old truck with a stick shift, and he still wore faded jeans and plaid shirts every day of the week except Sunday, when he went to church; he still pored over the Sears Roebuck circulars and still insisted that cable television was an expensive fad that was destined to fail. "Look," Cole said, "I'm not going to argue with you—"
"Good."
"What I mean is, I'm not going to argue with you about the decline of American civilization, the value of marriage, or the desirability of having children—"
"Good!" Cal interrupted, heaving himself out of the threadbare rocker-recliner. "Then get married and get your wife pregnant, so I can give you the other half of your company. Marry that Broadway dancer you brought home two years ago—the one who had red fingernails two inches long—or marry the schoolteacher you liked in the seventh grade, but marry somebody. And you'd better do it quick, because we're both running out of time!"
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It means we've been having this discussion for two years and you're still single, and I'm still without a baby to dandle on my knee, so I'm settin' a time limit. I'll give you three months to get engaged and three more months to get married. If you haven't brought me a wife home by then, I'm going to put my fifty-percent share of your company into an irrevocable trust in the names of young Ted and Donna Jean. I'll name Travis as administrator of the trust, which will make him your unofficial business partner, then when Ted and Donna Jean come of age, they can help you run the company themselves. That's assuming you still have a company left after Travis tries to help you run it." Cal tossed the Enquirer on the table and another warning into the charged atmosphere. "I wouldn't take all six months to get the thing done if I were you, Cole. My heart could give out at any time, and I'm changing my will next week so that if I die before you're married, my fifty-percent share of the company goes to Ted and Donna Jean."
Cole was so incensed that he actually considered trying to have the old man declared incompetent. Failing that, he decided he could try to have the will overturned… but that would take years after Cal's death and the outcome wouldn't be certain.
His thoughts were interrupted by Letty, his uncle's cook-housekeeper, who appeared in the kitchen doorway. "Supper's ready," she said.
Both men heard her, but neither acknowledged her presence. Cole had risen to face his uncle, and the two men stood in the center of the room, their gazes clashing—two tall, rugged, unyielding men separated by three feet, one generation, and a decision that one couldn't fight and the other wouldn't retract. "Are you capable of understanding that I may not be able to find a woman and marry her in six months?" Cole said between his teeth.
In reply, Cal jerked his thumb toward the stacks of magazines beside his chair. "According to the surveys in those magazines, you have five of the seven most important qualities that women want in a husband. You're rich," he said, listing the qualities in the order he remembered them, "you're intelligent, you're well-educated, you have a bright future, and Donna Jean says you're a 'hunk,' which I guess qualifies you as handsome."
Satisfied that he'd won the battle, Cal endured Cole's icy silence for a moment, then made an effort to discharge some of the animosity that he'd created. "Aren't you just a little bit curious about the two qualities you lack?"
"No," Cole snapped, so furious that he almost couldn't trust himself to speak.
Cal supplied the information anyway: "You lack a desire for children, and I'm afraid that even I would have trouble describing you as 'tender and understanding.' " When his half-hearted attempt at humor failed to evoke any reaction from his enraged nephew, Cal turned toward the kitchen and his shoulders slumped a little. "Letty has supper on the table," he said quietly.
With a feeling of utter unreality, Cole stared after him, so filled with bitterness and a sense of betrayal that he was actually able to observe his uncle's thinner frame and bent shoulders without feeling the shocked alarm that such a sight would normally have evoked. Cal looked far less frail a minute later when Cole strode into the kitchen, carrying a tablet and a gold fountain pen from his briefcase. Cole sat down across from him and slapped the tablet on the table in front of his uncle. "Write it down," he ordered icily while Letty stood at the stove, looking apprehensively from one to the other, a ladle full of chili forgotten in her hand.
Calvin automatically took the pen that was thrust toward him, but his brow wrinkled in confusion. "Write what down?"
"Write down the terms of the agreement and include any specific 'requirements' you may have for the woman I marry. I don't want any surprises if I bring someone home—no last-minute rejections because she doesn't meet some criterion you're forgetting to mention at the moment."
His uncle looked genuinely hurt. "I'm not tryin' to choose a wife for you, Cole. I'll leave all that to you."
"That's damned big of you."
"I want you to be happy."
"And does it look to you like all this is making me happy?"
"Not now. Not right now, but that's because you're riled."
"I'm not riled," Cole retorted with scathing contempt. "I'm disgusted!"
His uncle winced as the verbal thrust found its mark, but it didn't sway the stubborn old man from the course he'd set. He tried to shove the tablet back to Cole, but Cole slapped his flattened palm on it. "I want it in writing," he stated.
In a desperate attempt to soothe the situation before it erupted again into a battle, Letty rushed to the table with a steaming bowl of chili in each hand and plunked them down in front of the men. "Eat while it is hot!" she urged.
"You want what in writing?" Cal demanded, looking stunned and furious.
"Eat now," Letty interjected. "Write later."
"I want you to write down that you will turn over your fifty percent of the company to me if I bring home a wife within six months."
"Since when isn't my word good enough for you?"
"Since you stooped to extortion."
"Now, see here!" Cal exploded, but he looked a little guilty. "I have the right to decide who gets my fifty-percent share in the company. I have the right to want to know that someday your son will benefit from my money and my holdings."
"A son?" Cole countered in a dangerously low voice. "Is that part of the deal? A new condition? I'll tell you what, why don't I marry a woman who already has a little boy so you won't have to wait and you won't have to worry?"
Calvin glowered at him, then hastily scribbled out what Cole wanted written and shoved the tablet across the table with an indignant grunt. "There it is, in writing. No stipulations."
Cole would have left at that point, but he was held back by lack of knowledge of his pilots' whereabouts and by his own inability to believe Cal would actually betray him by carrying out his threat. Cole's mind easily provided him with dozens of examples of Cal's temperamental intractability that indicated he might indeed do the unforgivable, but Cole's heart rejected them just as swiftly.
They ate in uneasy silence, finishing quickly; then Cole returned to the living room, turned on the television set, and opened his briefcase. Working, he reasoned, was safer and far more rewarding than getting embroiled in another argument, and the television set made the silence between them seem less ominous.
Despite the agreement he'd made his uncle write out, Cole was still far from willing to yield to his uncle's bizarre demands as a way of regaining permanent control of his own damned businesses. At the moment he had no idea what he was going to do. All he knew was that his temper was still simmering and that thus far his options where Cal was concerned ranged from civil court battles to mental competency hearings to a hasty marriage he didn't want to some woman he didn't know. All of them were distasteful in the extreme, not to mention grotesque and even painful.
Across from him, his uncle lowered the newspaper he was reading and regarded Cole over the top of the Houston Chronicle's front page, his expression innocently thoughtful, as if everything were happily settled to both their satisfaction. "According to what I've been reading, a lot of young women are deciding not to have children nowadays. They'd rather raise 'designer pigs' and chase after careers. Be careful you don't pick a woman like that."
Cole pointedly ignored him and continued writing notes.
"And watch out that you don't pick some gold digger who pretends she wants you and only wants your money."
Cole's simmering temper rolled to a full boil. "How the hell do you expect me to find out what a woman's true motives are in six months?"
"I figured you must be an expert on women by now. Wasn't there some sort of princess who traipsed after you all over Europe a couple of years ago?"
Cole stared at him in frigid silence, and Calvin finally shrugged. "You don't have to know a woman inside and out to be sure she's not interested in marrying your money instead of you."
"Really?" Cole drawled with deliberate insolence. "And based on your own vast experience with women and matrimony, how do you propose I find out what motives some future wife may have?"
"If I were you, I guess I'd figure the best way to avoid being trapped by some gold digger is to look for a woman who already has money of her own." Having said that, he raised his brows and waited, as if he honestly expected Cole to applaud his solution, but Cole ignored him and returned his attention to the notepad.
For the next quarter hour the silence in the room was uninterrupted except for the occasional rustling of newspaper pages being turned and folded; then Cal spoke again, on the last subject Cole wanted to discuss. From behind the pages of his newspaper barrier, Cal remarked in a desultory voice, "It says here in Maxine Messenger's column that you're attending the White Orchid Ball on Saturday night, and that you donated the most expensive item to be sold at the auction. Maxine says the ball is 'Houston society's most glittering social event.' You won't have to worry about latching on to a gold digger at a thing like that. Why don't you take a look around, find a woman who appeals to you, and bring her right back here so I can have a look at her, and," he put in slyly, "at the marriage certificate. On your first wedding anniversary, I'll sign over my half of your company to you, just like I said I'd do on that piece of paper."
Cole didn't reply, and a short time later, Calvin yawned. "Guess I'll finish the newspaper in bed," he announced as he stood up. "It's ten o'clock. Are you going to work late?"
Cole was studying a letter of intent that John Nederly had drafted at his request. "I've worked late for the last fourteen years," he said shortly. "That's why you and Travis are as wealthy as you are."
For a moment Cal stood looking at him, but he couldn't argue the truth of that, so he started slowly out of the room.