Remember When - Judith McNaught

Chapter 31



A half hour later, she'd changed into a pair of white linen slacks, white sandals, and a lilac silk shirt that she'd knotted in the front at the waist, and they were on the way to the family house on Inwood Drive.
Because she still was feeling a tad under the weather, Cole took the wheel of her car, and as he drove along familiar boulevards lined with gracious mansions set back among the trees, he felt a strong sense of déjà vu combined with a feeling of total unreality. Of all the bizarre, unpredictable twists and turns his life had taken in the years since he'd last driven down these streets, the oddest by far was to return here with Diana Foster sitting beside him—as his wife.
Oblivious to the direction of his thoughts, Diana was concentrating on the best way to break the news to her family. Somehow, she had to portray an optimism she didn't completely feel and simultaneously convince them that last night's marriage was not only sane but ideal.
She was working out her strategy, rehearsing her opening speech, and deciding on the right location to give it when Cole reached into the inside pocket of his navy blazer and extracted a folded sheet of hotel stationery. As he handed it across to her, he said in a businesslike voice, "While you were sleeping this morning, I wrote out a summary of the terms of our verbal agreement. Basically, it sets out that our marriage will last for one year. At the end of that period, we will obtain a quiet, amicable divorce with neither of us making any financial claims against the other."
A bicyclist was in the middle of their lane when they rounded a curve, and Cole paused as he went around her; then he continued, "Naturally, any gifts we give each other, such as our wedding rings or the necklace I bought you last night, will remain the property of the recipient."
"Wedding rings?" Diana echoed blankly. "What wedding rings?"
He reached into the outside pocket of his jacket and extracted two plain, wide gold bands, holding them toward her in his palm. "These wedding rings."
"When did you get those?"
"The Silver Bells Wedding Chapel is a fully equipped, full-service establishment. I bought them there from the owner, and we exchanged them during the ceremony." With a sigh of mock dismay he chided, "How quickly some of us forget the tender, poignant moments in life."
Diana took the smaller of the two rings from his palm and held it between thumb and forefinger, puzzled by his description of the event as poignant and tender. "Was it a tender moment?" she asked, peering at his profile.
A smile quirked his lips. "You seemed to think it was. You cried during most of the ceremony."
"I always cry a little bit at weddings," Diana admitted ruefully.
"At your own wedding," he ungallantly said, "you cried so hard you had to stop twice to blow your nose."
Diana's initial horror gave way to a sudden burst of hilarity at the picture of a drunken bride in a purple gown bawling her heart out and blowing her nose. She slumped down in her seat, her body quaking with laughter. "Before the ceremony, you were deeply distressed about the decor." Diana laughed harder.
A few moments later, however, Cole's brisk words made her sober and straighten. "Look over my list, and see if you have any questions or comments," he instructed.
Diana unfolded the sheet of paper and read what he'd written. His handwriting was a bold scrawl, and yet it was remarkably legible.
"It's pretty straightforward."
"Very," Diana murmured.
"Your attorney can use it to draw up the formal document. As soon as it's drafted, have it faxed to me at my home in Dallas."
With his left palm on the steering wheel, he took a slender wallet out of his pocket and extracted a white business card from it. He handed his card to her, and Diana realized with a twinge of alarm that she'd actually married a man whose phone number and address she did not know.
"Do you have an attorney whom you can trust to handle your end of this discreetly and quickly?"
Diana couldn't possibly turn this over to the sedate law firm that represented Foster Enterprises. Lawyers gossiped among themselves, and even if she had the nerve to confess what she'd done to one of those lawyers, she couldn't trust them to keep the titillating information completely confidential. The only attorney she could trust, personally and professionally, was Doug Hayward. Doug had given up law for politics and in a real legal battle, he'd be no match for the kind of attorneys Cole was likely to have, but this wasn't a battle, this was a simple agreement.
Postnuptial agreements had become fairly common, she knew, though she was pretty certain they were usually preceded by prenuptials. According to what she'd read and heard, wealthy middle-aged people with children from an earlier marriage, or charitable bequests to protect, frequently used them when they remarried because they held up much better than prenuptials in court.
Charles Hayward, Doug's father, would probably know lots of friends who'd used them, and he'd have good advice to offer Diana and Doug. His advice and help had been invaluable to Diana after her father died.
"I know someone," she said after a prolonged moment.
Cole turned off Inwood onto the long tree-lined drive that led to the house Diana had lived in when he knew her as a young girl, and he saw several cars in front of the house. "It looks like your family has a lot of company."
"The Explorer is Corey's and the BMW is Spence's. Spence is here because we try to have Sunday dinner as a family when we can. The other cars belong to Corey's assistants. Corey's redoing a shoot she wasn't happy with."

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 32


The Fosters' home was a stately place, much like many others Cole had been in that were built in the late fifties and early sixties, but the rooms he glimpsed as she led him across the foyer and down a hall toward the rear of the house had a subtly different ambience. Some of the rooms were formal and beautiful, some were casual and cozy, but all of them were inviting.
The kitchen was huge and had obviously been redesigned for very serious cooking projects, with two commercial stoves, two sinks, an oversize refrigerator and freezer, and an abundance of copper pots and pans hanging overhead.
A middle-aged woman who Cole assumed was either cook or housekeeper or both was slicing summer squash at a chopping block, and she nodded toward the back door. "Everyone is still working in the back," she told Diana, and then in a mildly irritated voice she added, "Your grandpa told me his new organic fertilizer is producing much bigger squash. Why does he keep growing squash, squash, and more squash? We don't have enough space or enough recipes for more squash. The freezers are full of squash casseroles and squash-everything-else. Unless your mother and grandma can come up with a recipe for squash ice cream, we can't use any more squash!"
"We can always paint it," Diana replied imperturbably.
Cole was still trying to adjust to the idea of painting squash when he followed her outside into another world. The back lawn was at least three acres in size, and every segment of it was charmingly designed to please the eye and yet be of use in the family business. People were everywhere.
While two photo assistants waited on the sidelines with lights and reflectors, Corey was in the middle of a vast vegetable garden, posing her grandmother, who was dressed in a parka and holding a huge pumpkin in her hands. Piles of dried oak leaves were spread about her feet. Mary Foster, with a jar of paint in one hand and brush in the other, was touching up the face of a scarecrow. All three women seemed startled to see Cole with Diana, but not displeased, he noted. Which meant they hadn't heard the news yet.
"We'll be finished in two minutes," Corey called. "I just want one more shot."
Spence was standing beside a blanket, dividing his attention between his wife and the identical twins who were working their way to the blanket's edge in pursuit of a huge ball. He turned and smiled at Diana. Then he looked at Cole and nodded, but he did not smile.
"We're working on the October issue right now," Diana explained, nodding toward the garden.
"Your grandmother must be roasting in that parka," Cole observed.
Tables had been set out on the right side of the lawn near a workshop that looked more like a storybook cottage. At one of the tables, two women were putting down wreaths and centerpieces made of pinecones, berries, and what looked to Cole liked painted vegetables. Vegetables, he realized with some amusement, actually were very attractive when painted.
At another table a young man and woman were vigorously removing tarnish from a pile of large, old, brass door knockers. Three doors in various stages of refinishing were leaning against the side of the workshop. "We're doing a feature on 'Giving Doors a Personality,' " Diana provided. As she spoke, two more young men with paint-stained clothes emerged from the workshop and began carrying the doors inside.
"Be careful with those doors, boys," Henry Britton called out from his worktable in front of the cottage workshop. The space on top of the table and below it was covered with drawings anchored against the breeze by wooden boxes of various shapes and sizes with no particular use that Cole could discern.
When Henry saw Diana and Cole, he called to them to come over. He wiped off his hand to shake Cole's; then he turned to his granddaughter, his weathered face and light brown eyes intent on what he had to tell her. "I've been thinking about this for weeks, Diana, and I'm certain I'm right. Take a look."
Diana peered at the drawings and then at the small wooden boxes he was making. "What are they?" she asked, trying very hard to concentrate.
"They're birdhouses! Birdhouses would be a big hit!" Henry predicted. "Not just ordinary ones, Diana, but birdhouses that look like little castles and cottages with thatched roofs and miniature barns and Southern plantation houses. I could fix up some modern-looking ones, too, that look like town houses and apartment buildings."
Corey and her mother and grandmother had finished in the garden and were close enough to hear the last of his words. "Henry Britton," his wife exclaimed, "did I just hear you actually say you intend to build apartment buildings for birds?"
"I said no such thing. I was talking to Diana about drawing up a bunch of designs for birdhouses."
"We already featured birdhouses two years ago, Dad," Diana's mother said, sounding a little stressed out by the constant need for originality.
"These aren't birdhouses for birds, Mary," he said, sounding a little frustrated himself. "These would look like birdhouses, only they're ornamental. You set them in your garden for decoration. Hell's bells," he said, slapping his leg in enthusiasm. "They'd be cute as the dickens all lined up in a row in a garden—"
His wife was unimpressed. "Sort of like a suburb for birds, you mean?"
He gave her a testy look. "Corey could set them around in just the right way, with some of my pink and orange impatiens behind them and little green shrubs here and there. Corey could get some great photographs for the magazine out of a setup like that."
"I just don't think miniature birdhouses that birds can't use would go over very well with Diana's subscribers."
"Yes, they would. Every Christmas, you spend two days under the Christmas tree, lining up miniature ceramic houses so they look like one of those Norman Rockwell towns, but nobody's going to live in those either. I can't see why my little houses wouldn't look just as nice outdoors in the summertime."
Everyone paused and looked at Diana for a deciding opinion.
Although Corey was responsible for the artistic presentation of the magazine, and the others were responsible for coming up with the projects that were featured in it, it was Diana who carried the full weight of responsibility for satisfying their subscribers, which, in turn, directly affected the ultimate financial success or failure of the magazine, ergo the family business.
Diana had to force herself to concentrate on this instead of the announcement of her marriage. "Actually," she said after a pause, "I think Grandpa is right. We might even want to use garden ornaments and decorations as the main feature in one of the issues."
Satisfied with that, Henry returned to a more pleasant subject and looked hopefully at Diana. "Last night you and I talked about doing another issue featuring organic gardening. Organic gardening is always popular. Maybe we could combine my birdhouses and some other garden ornaments, like you suggested, with organic gardening.
"Well," her grandfather said, interrupting her mental wanderings, "if you like the idea, I'll start putting together a list of article ideas tomorrow."
Diana was trying to decide where to assemble the family for the meeting. "That sounds good, Grandpa," she said. "Let's do that," she added, which made her mother and her grandmother and Corey all stop and gaze at her in amazement.
"But we already featured organic gardening not long ago," Corey said.
"Oh, that's right. I forgot," Diana said absently. "That was for vegetables and fruits. We can do this one on flowers." She looked at the group and plunged in. "I'd like to talk to all of you in the living room for a few minutes."
Corey glanced up at the angle of the sun. "I've been waiting all afternoon to catch the sunlight coming through those branches the way it is now. Give me ten minutes to get Spence and the twins under the tree on a blanket. This shot is for me."
"Take thirty minutes," Diana said, realizing that it would be that long before the crew left and her family had time to get cleaned up.
"By the way," Corey added as she headed off' toward her camera and tripod, "Cindy Bertrillo called and Glenna took the message. Cindy said to call her as soon as you can. She has to confirm something with you. She didn't say what it was."
Cindy was in charge of the magazine's public relations department. She was the person the press called whenever they wanted to confirm something, and Diana was very certain what it was that Cindy was being asked to confirm. "I'll call her later," Diana said.
Cole had stopped to watch the controlled bustle on the lawn as the crew from the magazine began putting the equipment away. "I've heard the terms 'family business' and 'cottage industry' before," he said with quiet admiration, "but I've never seen or imagined anything like this. You should be very proud of what you've created."
"I capitalized on it and marketed it," Diana corrected him, "but I didn't create it." She tipped her head toward her family. "They created it."
He didn't believe her, Diana knew, and it would take too long to explain to him that long before Diana's father had married Henry Britton's daughter and whisked her and his new stepdaughter off to his white-pillared mansion in Houston, the entire Britton family had been the consummate do-it-yourselfers.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 33


‘’All right," Diana said with a nervous smile as she led the small contingent into a formal living room with a grand piano at one end and a large fireplace with a raised marble hearth at the other. "Everyone get nice and comfortable."
In the middle of the room, separated by a carved mahogany coffee table, stood two long sofas upholstered in a rich burgundy and gold stripe, strewn with an assortment of plump pillows covered in jewel-toned plaids that made the sofas, and the room, seem more inviting and warm. With an expansive wave of her arm, Diana gestured toward the sofas and the pair of chairs beside them that faced the piano; then she walked over and stood near the keyboard.
Cole positioned himself at the opposite end of the piano, where he could participate in the proceedings if necessary without actually being in the middle of them; then he watched with amusement as Diana leaned against the piano for support, nervously rubbed her palms together, and generally behaved as if she genuinely dreaded the effect of her announcement on her family. From Cole's point of view, which was based on his own upbringing and adult experiences, Diana was a grown woman who had weighed the risks, made her decision, and shouldn't expect either support or even any real interest from her family.
Diana's mother and grandmother sat on one of the sofas, and Corey and Spencer Addison seated themselves on the opposite one. Diana's grandfather elected to remain standing, however, and rested his hands on the back of one of the chairs facing Diana. "No, no, Grandpa—please sit," she said.
"I'd rather stand."
"You'd better be sitting when you hear this," Diana mumbled.
"This must be one great big surprise you have in store for us," Henry teased her as he sat on the chair. Having followed her wishes, he beamed an expectant smile at her, clearly harboring the mistaken belief that Diana's visible nervousness came from excitement and that whatever she had to say couldn't possibly be anything but pleasing. "Okay, we're all here, and we're all sitting down," he pointed out. "Fire away."
Diana looked around at the attentive faces of her assembled family, rubbed her palms against her thighs, and admitted with a choked laugh, "I haven't felt this nervous since I was sixteen and had to stand here and tell everyone that I'd wrecked the new car Dad had just given me for my birthday."
Corey realized that Diana's normally unshakable composure was failing her badly, and she made a quick effort to give her more time to compose herself. "Actually, Diana didn't wreck the car," she confessed with an impenitent smile. "I wrecked it that time."
Diverted, the family turned and gaped at her in confused disbelief, but Diana's grandmother was more interested in the present. Trying to make a connection between wrecked cars and family meetings in the living room called by Diana, she furrowed her brow and said, "Is your car wrecked again, Diana? Is that why you've called us in here?"
"My car is fine," Diana said. My life is a wreck, she amended silently, then glanced sideways at Cole. He lifted his brows in a challenge to her to get down to business, and Diana automatically obeyed. "Okay, here goes," she said, directing her full attention to her mother and grandparents. "Last night, after the auction, I introduced Cole to you for the first time, remember?"
Her mother and grandparents nodded in unison.
"However, even though you hadn't met Cole before, the fact is that Corey and Spence and I have known him for a long time. A long, long time," Diana emphasized in a lame attempt to lessen the implausibility of her hasty marriage by emphasizing the length of time she'd actually known him. "To us—to Corey and me at least—Cole is actually an old family friend!"
"We know all about that, dear," Diana's mother said. Turning to Cole with a pleasant smile, she said, "Last night, on our way home, Corey told us all about who you are. Who you were, I mean. She told us you used to work for the Hayward family, and that she and Diana and Spence all used to see you there when they visited."
Cole noted that she discreetly avoided connecting him with the Haywards' stable, but Diana's grandmother evidently saw no reason for half-truths or evasions: "Diana used to talk about you when she was a teenager," she added enthusiastically. "She told us you lived in the Haywards' stable and took care of their horses, and that you didn't have enough food to eat and were always hungry. I used to help Diana pack up those bags of food she brought you whenever she went to the Haywards'."
To Cole's amusement, the other occupants of the room were so distressed by her tactlessness that they all leapt to his rescue in a rushed flurry of compliments and justifications that flew around the room like a volleyball during a tournament, with Corey making the opening serve: "Gram, the Haywards' stable is much grander than most people's homes!" She looked expectantly at her husband.
Spence fielded Corey's conversational ball: "When I was in college," Spence said, "I used to come over here and stuff myself on whatever they were having for dinner. I think an enormous appetite goes along with being male and under twenty, don't you, Henry?" Spencer asked, slapping the ball to his wife's grandfather.
Henry was older and a little clumsy, but he lunged manfully for the ball and managed to keep it in play: "No doubt about it. I've never been able to resist Rose's cooking myself. Not only that, but I've slept in our barn with a horse, too. When our old mare got sick and stopped eating, Corey and I slept out there together one night, because we didn't want Pearl to die alone. Rose brought our dinner down to us, and we shared some of our dessert with Pearl. The taste of that baked apple must have given her a reason to go on living, because after she ate it, she got to her feet and stayed there.
"After that, she was so partial to apples that she'd start nickering the moment she saw one, and she lived to be twenty-two!"
Greatly satisfied with his effort, he slapped his knee and beamed at his unsuspecting daughter, sending the conversational ball flying straight at her. "Well, Mary?" he prodded when she looked flustered. "Remember how partial Robert was to whatever Mother cooked or canned? He just couldn't eat enough of whatever it was."
"That's true!" Mrs. Foster said, belatedly rushing forward to assist the home team. "My husband gained twenty pounds after we came to live here with him. He used to have a big dinner and then sneak down for midnight snacks, even though he wasn't truly hungry. Diana knew that, and I'm sure that's why she wanted to bring you all that extra food, Cole."
Having made her successful play in the verbal volleyball game, she looked about for someone who hadn't participated yet, realized her mother was the only possibility, and quickly decided it was wiser to send the ball out of bounds instead. She aimed it straight at Cole on the sidelines. "You know how fanciful teenage girls can be," she told him with a smile. "You were probably stuffed to your ears and wishing Diana would stop bringing those bags of food, while Diana was convinced she was rescuing you from starvation. You were being polite and Diana was being… an overimaginative teenage girl."
Everyone looked expectantly at Cole, as if waiting for an official decision on the success of the game. When he realized it, he quickly declared an end to the match and issued his ruling: "Diana was very kind, and I appreciated her kindness."
Until then, Rose Britton had observed the entire scene with the innocent impartiality of an uninvolved spectator, but she shook her head in amused disagreement with Cole's verdict. "Diana has always been thoughtful and kind, but the truth is, she had a crush on you! That's why she lugged all those sacks of groceries and leftovers to you all the time. We all knew how she felt about you. Although," she confided with a reminiscent smile as she leaned a little forward, "Diana wasn't nearly as obvious as Corey was about Spencer. By the time Corey was sixteen, she'd wallpapered her bedroom with Spencer's pictures and turned the place into a shrine! Diana was much more secretive, but it was my opinion that she was probably as crazy about you as Corey was about Spencer. She had all the symptoms of a girl in love, and we thought—"
"Mother!" Mrs. Foster said in a low, imploring voice. "This isn't the time or place for that."
"The truth's the truth, right occasion or not," Rose Britton said; then she looked to Diana, of all unlikely people, for support. "Was I mistaken, dear?"
Diana's initial dismay over her grandmother's commentary had already given way to relief. She'd been trying for hours to think of something to say to make her abrupt marriage to Cole seem less unjustifiably impulsive, and she seized on the fragile excuse Gram had just inadvertently provided her. "No, you were absolutely right, Gram!" she exclaimed in a voice that sounded too eagerly enthusiastic for what was, after all, ancient history. "In fact, I had a tremendous crush on him!" she added, stealing a quick glance at Cole to see how he was reacting to that piece of news, but his expression hadn't altered by so much as a flicker. Completely impervious, he stood with his arms loosely folded over his chest, his feet planted slightly apart, watching her. A little startled by his lack of response, she returned to the main issue. "Now that you all remember how I felt about Cole when I was young, then what I have to tell you might not come as such a—a gigantic surprise…" The people she loved most in the world gazed at her in happy expectation of hearing something nice, and Diana faltered.
"Go ahead," Spence urged with an encouraging grin. "What's your surprise?"
Diana drew a steadying breath and plunged in. "Well, last night, after the auction, Cole and I danced for a little while. And then… and then…"
"And then?" Grandpa prodded when she seemed to choke on the end of the sentence.
"And then we went up to Cole's suite, and we had a drink, and… we talked… about things." Diana glanced at the coffee table between the sofas, wishing it would rise up on end on its legs and rush forward to shield her.
"And then what happened?" Gram prodded, looking expectantly from Diana to Cole.
Diana confessed the rest in a halting torrent of words: "And then… we… left the hotel… and we… flew to Las Vegas… and we… got married!"
The taut silence that followed her announcement tore through Diana's nervous system like nails scraping over a chalkboard. "I know you're all a little shocked right now," she told the five faces that were staring at her in incredulous horror.
Her grandfather was the first to recover and react. Aiming a look of pure, undiluted loathing at Cole, he said bitterly, "Mister, you must be some great talker. Especially when you get a lady alone in your hotel room. Especially if the lady's heart's just been broken and if she's had more to drink than she's used to having."
"No, now wait!" Diana interrupted, stunned by her mild grandfather's unprecedented anger and determined to take matters in hand. "It wasn't like that at all, Grandpa. Cole and I made a business arrangement that will benefit both of us personally as well as benefiting Foster Enterprises. By marrying Cole, I salvaged a little of my personal pride, but more important, I salvaged our magazine's public image. Cole has a problem, too, that being married to me will solve. He realized how beneficial a quick marriage would be for both of us, and then we discussed the terms and agreed on a temporary arrangement that would suit us both."
"What sort of 'temporary arrangement'?" Spence demanded of Cole in a hostile voice.
"Marriage for one year—in name only—for business purposes," Cole retorted, matching Spence's tone.
"That's it?" Spence said, sounding more confused now than angry.
"That's it," Cole said.
"Just exactly what is your problem that marriage to Diana is supposed to solve?" Spence asked.
"It's none of your damned business."
"Maybe not," Grandpa said tersely, "but it is my business, young man."
Diana had never imagined things would go this badly, and she opened her mouth to plead for calm, but to her surprise, Cole capitulated to her grandfather with glacial courtesy, but courtesy nonetheless. "To put it succinctly, I have an elderly uncle—a surrogate father, actually—who is seriously ill and desperately, obsessively, determined to see me become a husband and father before he dies."
"And just how do you intend to become a father in a name-only-for-business-purposes marriage?"
"I don't," Cole stated flatly. "But he doesn't need to know that, and unfortunately, he won't live long enough to discover it on his own."
"You've got everything all figured out, haven't you?" Grandpa said with biting disdain; then he looked at Diana. "What I can't understand is how you let this conniving schemer talk you into going along with all this."
"He didn't talk me into anything, Grandpa. I told you, I agreed to marry Cole because it will solve some very difficult problems—his problems, and mine, and ours," she emphasized, lifting her hand and gesturing toward all of them.
"Having you marry some conniving, smooth-talking cad you haven't seen in years isn't going to benefit your family one damn bit!" Grandpa fired back.
"Yes it will!" Diana insisted, so caught up in her explanation that she failed to notice she was inadvertently agreeing that Cole was a "conniving, smooth-talking cad."
"Anything that benefits Foster Enterprises benefits all of us, because we are Foster Enterprises. That's the way the public sees it, too. We've all had so much media exposure that the public feels like they know all of us. They watch you and Gram and Mom and Corey on cable television on The Foster Way, and they love not only what you do, but who you are. Their letters prove it. They write about how much they enjoy seeing you tease Gram and call her 'Rosie.' They love seeing Mom work with you and the affection you all have for each other. And their favorite program of all time was when Corey brought the twins on the show to demonstrate techniques for photographing babies. They enjoyed the demonstration and learned some tricks, but they loved it when Molly reached out her arms for Gram to be held, and when little Mary made a grab for one of Mom's cookies. However, if you suddenly gave Gram a black eye, or Corey got arrested for drunkenness, or Mom got busted for shoplifting—and the media found out and turned it into a circus—then your program's ratings would fall like a rock. For the same reason, when Dan jilted me and it hit the news media, it made me, and everything I represent, look pathetic and foolish. Do you understand now?"
"No, I don't!" Grandpa retorted impatiently.
"Then let me make it clearer: the public associates the four of you mostly with The Foster Way, but they associate me almost exclusively with the magazine, and no matter how you look at it, the theme behind every article in Foster's Beautiful Living magazine, and every one of Corey's wonderful photographs in it, is always the same: domestic beauty and harmony. And that's where the problem lies for me. As the magazine's publisher and spokesperson, I should believe in that theme and live up to it, but I don't have a husband or a baby and, as one reporter discovered somehow last year, I spend more time at our offices than at my apartment. If you'll remember, at the end of that newspaper piece, the reporter remarked that I'd make a better representative for Working Woman or Vogue or Bazaar than for Foster's Beautiful Living. And that's while I was still engaged to Dan. Once he jilted me—and for an eighteen-year-old—for an Italian heiress, my credibility and prestige with the public took an enormous blow, aided of course by a whole lot of humiliating media conjecture, and that would have directly affected the magazine. First we'd lose subscribers and, soon after, we'd lose advertisers." Finished, she looked at her grandfather, who didn't hesitate to voice his personal opinion about that possibility.
"If we've got subscribers and advertisers who are fickle enough to drop the magazine just because you picked the wrong man to trust and love, then the heck with them. There's plenty more out there where they came from. Just let the old ones go and get some new ones!"
"Let them go? Get some new ones?" Diana sputtered in disbelief as frustration and turmoil finally drove her to tell them things she'd hidden from them for nearly a decade: "None of you realize how hard it's been for me to keep Foster Enterprises thriving and growing, because I didn't want you to know. My God, I've invested my entire adult life in that company. I was only twenty-two and right out of college when Daddy died." She looked up at the ceiling for a long moment to keep herself from crying. "I didn't know anything about anything, except that, somehow, I had to find a way to maintain our standard of living and keep us all together. I know all of you thought I was brilliant and capable and confident when I convinced you that we could handle a catering business and then branch out into related businesses right away, but I wasn't. I was scared and I was desperate!"
Diana was so intent on making them understand what led up to her decision to marry Cole that she didn't notice the growing sorrow and regret in her family's expressions. Gentling her voice, she held out her hands as if asking for understanding. "I know you've always assumed that because Daddy and his friends were all wealthy and successful, and because I grew up among them, that I had inherited some sort of instinctive ability to start up a successful business, but I didn't."
When she paused for a moment, her grandmother reminded her in a quiet, gentle voice, "And yet, that's exactly what you did."
Diana's overwrought emotions veered from near-tears to near-laughter. "It was a fluke!" she said. "What I 'inherited' from my upbringing was a healthy fear of poverty. That, and a firsthand knowledge of how callous and cold wealthy people can become when one of their own goes broke. There's a stigma associated with it, and I didn't want Corey to discover it the hard way. I didn't want any of you to experience it. I wasn't some sort of daring entrepreneur, I was scared of the alternative, and so I took a risk, an enormous risk. All we had was this house, and I was so scared when I mortgaged it to start up the business that I threw up when I got home. I just couldn't think of any other way to keep us together and go on living as we had."
She paused and took a deep breath before she confessed the true extent of her youthful incompetence. "I made some costly mistakes, particularly in the beginning, that I will always regret. In order to raise money from private investors, I sold them stock in the company, stock that's now worth a fortune in comparison to the money I got for us. I've made other mistakes, too, like holding us back out of fear several times when I should have pushed forward."
Finished with the worst of her admissions, she said ruefully, "Everything I've achieved with Foster Enterprises hasn't been the result of genius; it's been the result of endless worry and work, combined with a whole lot of luck!"
The only person who didn't look completely taken aback by Diana's revelations was Cole, yet he was the most stunned of all. He'd assumed that Foster's Beautiful Living magazine had started out as a hobby, a whim when Robert Foster was still alive—a self-published vanity magazine that the Foster family had originally used to show off the family's unusual living style, showcase Corey's exceptional photographic ability, and give Diana a chance to dabble at being a publisher when she graduated from college. Never, ever, would he have imagined that the magazine had been created out of financial necessity and daring, not boredom and unlimited wealth. Until that moment, he'd also assumed that Diana was probably Foster Enterprises' figure head, not its founder.
What astonished him most of all was that she'd undertaken the enormous risk and responsibility when she was only twenty-two. Twenty-two. He'd been the same age when he struck out on his own, but he'd already led a hard life by then; he was used to scandal and hardship and opposition. Diana, on the other hand, had always struck him as being delicate and sheltered and endearingly prim.
In the uneasy silence that occurred while the family came to terms with the second major shock of a decade, they seemed to have forgotten that Cole was there, and normally he would have preferred not to be. He knew he could put an end to the discussion by either excusing himself or politely reminding them that such personal family matters were better discussed with family and not outsiders. He had, in fact, perfected that tactic and used it often, whenever a woman he was seeing attempted to draw him into a discussion about her children, her parents, or her ex-husband and his family. Discussions among family members or about family members invariably made him feel like an alien being who had sprung from a rock in a cave and had spent his first two decades on some uninhabited planet.
His own youth hadn't given him the slightest insight into normal family dynamics nor even a glimpse of how members of a loving family interacted.
Henry Britton finally spoke, his words springing from guilt and hurt. "Diana, you didn't need to put yourself through all that for our sakes. We weren't your dependents, after all. Your grandmother and mother and I could have gone back to Long Valley and lived as we used to live. Corey could have gone to college nights and worked for a photographer during the day."
Cole expected Diana to indulge in some sort of righteous outburst at having her efforts and sacrifices treated as unnecessary, but although her voice was teary, she smiled softly and shook her head. "You don't understand, Grandpa. I couldn't let that happen without at least putting up a fight. Corey has a rare gift, but she had to have a chance to show it off, and she might never have gotten that chance if she'd had to support herself by taking candid wedding shots for some local photographer who'd take all the credit and pay her peanuts in return."
Diana transferred her gaze to her mother and grandparents, and her voice grew heavy with emotion. "None of you realize how remarkably talented you are. You all have such amazing gifts that millions of people have fallen in love with you and everything you represent. The three of you still think of what you do as sort of a hobby, as 'puttering' in the gardens or in the workshop or in the kitchen, but it's much more than that. You see beauty in simple things and show other people how to see it, too. You prove to people that there's pleasure and harmony to be found in the creative act. You've reminded people that the job of a true hostess isn't to show off her home or her possessions, but rather to make each and every one of her guests feel special and important. People watch you on television, working together and laughing together, and they believe in you."
Diana's voice shook with feeling as she added, "The four of you have made a real difference in the attitudes and priorities of a huge number of people—men and women, young and old. The politicians all talk about a return to traditional values and getting back to basics, but you have shown people a lovely, simple route that will take them there."
Finished with every explanation and argument she could think of, she returned to the original reason for the meeting: "Whether or not you believe all that, you have to believe me when I tell you that Cole did not coerce me into marrying him. In my opinion, marrying him was the best of all possible alternatives, and I'm glad he trusted me enough to ask me. I know he'll live up to his part of the bargain, and I intend to live up to mine."
Diana sensed instinctively that the best thing to do for now was to let her family discuss the matter among themselves and come to terms with it. She looked at Cole and said, "We'd better go now."
Still grappling with his surprise over Diana's gentle but emphatic support of him in opposition to her family, Cole followed right behind her, but when they neared the doorway, Diana's grandmother issued an invitation in the form of a gruff challenge: "Do you intend to at least stay for Sunday dinner, young man?"
Diana refused in an attempt to spare Cole any more of an ordeal. "Not today," she said. "Another time, maybe," but to her surprise, Cole turned to Gram with an equally challenging smile and said, "I wasn't aware that I'd been invited."
"You are now," she announced.
Mary Foster seconded the invitation with quiet firmness. "Please have dinner with us."
Henry made it unanimous, though his voice was gruff. "You haven't had any of Rose's cooking in a long time."
"Thank you," Cole said to all of them. He glanced at Corey, and he thought he saw in her eyes a tentative offer of friendship. "In that case, I'll be happy to stay."
Diana decided it was still best to take Cole outside so that her family could talk freely among themselves and come to terms with her unorthodox marriage. They had already begun to change their attitude in the living room and the proof was their invitation to Cole to stay for dinner. She had every reason to think that the meal would be a pleasant one for Cole, but since he had had no way of knowing that, she'd been both surprised and pleased when he accepted their invitation.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 34


Outside, the worktables and equipment had all been put away, and without their presence to distract the eye, the back lawn had been restored to its normal state of manicured, semitropical splendor.
Palm trees surrounded by fragrant gardenias leaned gracefully over chaise longues at poolside, their giant fronds rustling softly in the breeze. Stately clumps of crepe myrtle dripping with blossoms added dignified splashes of light pink and white, while the pink and red asters covered themselves in exuberant glory and the hibiscus bushes flaunted exotic flowers the size of salad plates in colors ranging from tangerine to yellow to red.
Since Diana knew that men were usually enthralled by her grandfather's workshop, with its array of tools, equipment, millwork, and fine woods, she took Cole there first. He pretended to be interested in everything she showed him, but she could tell that he wasn't, so she invited him to stroll through the greenhouse and then the cutting gardens tucked into the back corners of the lawn.
When he still seemed distracted, she decided that the scene in the living room had darkened his mood far more than he'd let show. In view of some of the things that had been said, she couldn't blame him. Deciding to bring it out in the open, Diana stopped on the lawn near the pool. Leaning her shoulders against a palm's smooth, thick trunk she said simply, "I'm sorry about what was said inside. Please try to make allowances for my grandfather's age."
"I did," he said dryly.
"But you're still embarrassed," Diana surmised.
He shook his head. "I'm not embarrassed, Diana."
"Are you angry?" she asked, studying his features for a clue.
"No."
"Then what are you?"
"I'm impressed."
"By what?" Diana asked, taken aback.
"By you," he said solemnly.
She rolled her eyes in laughing disbelief. "For a man who's impressed, you've been looking awfully grim."
"Probably because it doesn't happen very often, and I'm not used to the feeling."
He was serious, Diana realized, and she was momentarily speechless with pleasure and surprise.
"By the way," he added, "that isn't my 'grim' look."
"It isn't?" she said, still glowing from the compliment. "What's your 'grim look' like?"
"I don't think you want to know."
"Oh, go ahead. Let me see it—"
Cole was so unaccustomed to being treated with teasing impertinence that it startled a shout of laughter from him, and Diana thought there was a rusty quality to it.
"You haven't asked me what about you impressed me…
She pretended to ponder that. "Well, I know it wasn't Grandpa's workshop. You called a beautiful piece of mahogany 'a board.' And I don't think you know a hybrid rose from a hibiscus either."
"You're right on both counts. But I do know a little bit about business. I realized your magazine was a success, but I had no idea you'd managed to create national personalities out of your stepmother and her parents. At the very least, that's an amazing feat!"
"I didn't create personalities for them," Diana said with a shake of her head and a wry, affectionate smile. "They were unique when I met them, and they haven't changed a bit. They were forerunners of a coming trend."
"What do you mean by that?"
"About a month after my father and stepmother were married, they took Corey and me to Long Valley, and I met my grandparents for the first time. Although I wasn't familiar with the term at the time, they were the consummate 'do-it-yourselfers.' During the day, my grandfather was a surveyor for a town with a population of about seven thousand. But he spent his evenings and weekends in his garden, where he experimented with ways to grow the biggest and best flowers and vegetables in west Texas without resorting to chemical fertilizers or insecticides.
"When he wasn't poring over seed catalogs or searching through books for new or ancient methods of controlling garden insects and diseases, he spent his time in the little workshop behind their house, where he built everything from dollhouses and scaled-down furniture for Corey, to wooden jewelry boxes and rocking chairs for my grandmother. I loved everything about my grandfather's workshop, from the wood shavings on the floor to the smell of the wood stains he used. I remember on that first visit, I stepped on a little piece of wood about an inch square lying beside his workbench. I picked it up and started to toss it into a trash can beside his workbench. He laughed and stopped me and asked me why I wanted to throw away a kiss. I was fourteen at the time and although he was only in his late fifties, he seemed very old to me. So when he described a little chunk of soft wood as a kiss, I was horribly afraid that he was old and—" With her forefinger Diana made a circular motion near her ear, a child's pantomime for crazy.
"But he wasn't," Cole ventured with a smile, enjoying her tale and the way the sun glistened in her hair and the way her eyes glowed when she spoke of the people she loved. She was part of America's aristocracy, but there was a wholesomeness and gentleness about her that had always appealed to him—now more than ever, because he realized how rare that combination really was.
"No, he wasn't crazy. He picked up a little carving knife and whittled it into a rounded triangle; then he reached on the shelf and tore off a piece of old silver foil. He wrapped it in the foil and dropped it into my palm. And there it was— a Hershey's 'kiss.' One with no calories, he told me, laughing. There was a bowl of them, I later realized, on a coffee table in the living room."
"How did your grandmother and mother fit into the picture?" Cole asked when Diana turned aside to study a large gardenia bush beside them.
She glanced at him, then returned her attention to the fragrant bush. "My mother worked as a secretary for a manufacturing company when my father met her, but she spent her free time as my grandmother did—cooking and canning and baking to her heart's content."
She snapped off a stem from the bush and turned back to him, her hands cupped around a mound of glossy, dark green leaves with one perfect blossom in the center that looked as soft and white as whipped cream.
"Go on," Cole urged, watching her lift the blossom to her nose.
"My grandmother used the fruits and vegetables that my grandfather grew, and she experimented with recipes that had been handed down in her family from mother to daughter for generations. Every recipe had a name that conjured up friendly ancestors and bygone events along with wonderful tastes and delicious smells. There was Grandma Sarah's three-bean salad and Great-grandmother Cornelia's cherry cinnamon pie. There was harvest-moon cake and wheat-threshers ham biscuits."
Ruefully, she admitted, "Until my first trip to Long Valley, I actually thought strawberries grew on trees and that 'canned goods' meant tin cans with labels on them that said Libby and Green Giant, and that the cans belonged out of sight in a pantry. You can imagine, then, how I reacted to the sight of bright yellow peaches in a glass jar with a label on it depicting a peach tree with a baby sitting beneath it on a blanket, framed in a border of peach blossoms and leaves. To me, it was more than wonderful, it was positively exotic."
He eyed her with amused fascination. "Did you really believe strawberries grew on trees?"
"Why wouldn't I?" she replied, batting her lashes in a comic imitation of a dopey femme fatale. "I thought chicken was created in a carton with plastic wrap. Actually," she admitted sheepishly, "I still prefer to think of it that way"; then she finished her tale: "I thought my grandparents' house was magical. When they came to live with us in Houston, our house began to change in the same wonderful ways, from the back lawn, which had only had a swimming pool and some palm trees when they got there, to the rooms in the house."
Finished, she lifted her hands and offered the flower to him, cradling it in her palms as if it were a priceless treasure. "It's exquisite, isn't it?" she said softly.
You're exquisite, Cole thought, and he shoved his hands into his pockets to avoid the temptation to cradle her hands in his and lift the flower to his face, and then see how her fingers would taste against his lips. Lack of control over his sexual urges had never been a problem for him. Neither had sentimentality, lack of concentration, or the urge to protect a member of the opposite sex beneath the age of sixty. Annoyed with himself for his unprecedented failings in all three of those areas in the last twenty-four hours, he said curtly, "And so you managed to create a market for their talent and philosophy. You were very clever."
She looked a little taken aback by his brusque tone, but she shook her head and her voice remained soft yet firm. Like her body, Cole decided, and glowered at the tree trunk in self-disgust for the direction of his thoughts. "I didn't need to create a market; it was already there and growing bigger each year, though no one seemed to recognize it at the time."
"What do you mean the market was there and growing?"
"We live in a time when Americans are feeling more and more rootless and more separated from each other and their natural surroundings. We live in an impersonal world; we come home to huge subdivisions filled with near-identical houses that are filled with mass-produced everything, from furniture to accessories. Nothing seems to give us a sense of timelessness, of stability, of roots, of real self-expression. People feel a desire to personalize their immediate surroundings, even though they can't personalize the world beyond. The Foster Ideal is about rediscovering the pleasure of, and depth of, one's own creativity."
"I thought women were more interested these days in discovering how high they can climb on the corporate ladder."
"We are, but unlike men, we're learning early that we can't define ourselves by our success or lack of it at work. We want more from life than that, and we have more to give than that."
Cole frowned in confusion. "Are you implying that career-oriented women make up a significant part of your magazine's readership?"
She nodded, clearly enjoying his misguided notions. "The demographics are going to surprise you. Based on our market surveys, sixty-five percent of our readers are college-educated women who have, or have had, successful careers. There's been a growing trend among American career women to postpone having children until they're in their thirties, then to take a hiatus and stay home during their children's formative years. Once they stay home, they throw themselves into raising children with the same dedication and zeal they brought to their former careers. They're high achievers, used to taking charge and making a difference. Some of them worked in creative areas, others in business and finance. They bring all that creative and organizational ability with them to their new roles, except they don't have any outlet for it—other than their homes. They start looking at ways to improve on their homes, to personalize them, and make them more functional or more beautiful. Their need for self-expression combines with a natural desire to conserve money, and presto—they discover Foster's Beautiful Living. And through us, they discover themselves."
"That's a pretty tall order for one magazine," Cole said, annoyed with himself for noticing how beautifully she spoke. And moved. And looked.
"Foster Enterprises does much more than publish a monthly magazine. We also publish coffee-table books and market a line of environment-friendly, all-natural cleaning products. We also market do-it-yourself 'kits'—those usually are created either by my grandfather or under his supervision. We started out doing seasonal television specials around the holidays on CBS, and the ratings were so high that CBS wanted to sign us to an exclusive contract for six specials a year. I turned it down because I think we're better off financially, and from an exposure standpoint, doing a weekly program and syndicating it. Our production costs are relatively low, so CBS's offer to underwrite them in return for an exclusive contract didn't appeal as much to me as it would to someone with a more costly show, such as a sitcom or even a talk show."
"It sounds like you've got it made."
"That's how it sounds, but that's not how it is. The truth is, we're under tremendous pressure all the time, not only because competitors have been springing up everywhere, trying to carve out a piece of our reputation and our profits for themselves, but because the public seems to hold us to higher standards than our competition, and we have to live up to that. The pressure is intense to constantly come up with newer and better ideas for every issue, every book, every television program than we've done before. We have to look better, be fresher, and offer more than everyone else. That was a lot easier to do before, when we were virtually the only game in town, than it is now. We've actually fired two 'spies' who were planted by competitors."
Cole stared at her in shock. "Somehow, I always associate corporate spying with the areas of electronics or defense."
"I know, so did I—until that happened. The other problem is our public image," Diana said, bringing up Dan without actually referring to him, "and keeping that intact can be a public relations nightmare, not just for me, but for all of us. We have to be careful about everything we say and do, no matter where we are or who we're with."
"All of you?" Cole repeated. "I thought you had the biggest problem in that area because you're primarily identified with the magazine."
"I gave you that impression in the living room, but it wasn't completely accurate. We're all identified with it. The thing that made Foster's Beautiful Living unique from the very beginning is that it was, and is, a family endeavor, and the public has always been attracted by that. So, unfortunately, has the press, which means we can't even disagree on some minor point when we're filming a program without later reading in some gossip column that There's trouble in the Foster paradise' or some other idiotic catchphrase.
"My mother writes a column for the magazine that's one of its most popular features. In it, she reminisces about her girlhood recollections of holidays at her grandparents' homes, the things her mother taught her, and jokes about some of her fears when she gave early parties. She tells stories about Grandma and Grandpa and Corey and me when we were young. All of us have appeared in the photo layouts from time to time, and our readership has come to feel that they know us. The public who buys our magazine, regards all of us as friends. When Corey married Spence, handmade congratulatory cards arrived by the truckload. When the twins were born, readers sent thousands of baby gifts, all handmade. We ended up featuring some of them in a baby issue. When Grandpa broke his leg, more gifts and get-well cards arrived. To the public, we have to remain one big, happy family, living the good life that we expound upon in our issues."
While he listened, Cole was reassessing the extent of her achievements. It truly bothered him that someone who'd accomplished what she had, with very little help, and not much money behind her, thought so little of her accomplishments.
Cole moved forward and braced his hand on the tree trunk above her head. "Tell me something," he said sternly. "Why do you think your mistakes are so enormous that they override your incredible success? In the living room, you downplayed all your own talent and achievements and made your successes seem like nothing more than dumb luck."
She flinched and looked away. "You don't realize how damaging my mistakes have been, or how many I've made."
"Tell me what they were and let me be the judge of that. I promise to be impartial."
Diana was glad of the opportunity to spend time with him, getting reacquainted, but she wished he weren't so insistent about this topic. With a reluctant sigh, she leaned her shoulders against the trunk and gave in. "You got the gist of it in there. I passed up some wonderful opportunities over the years because I didn't want to take a chance—I was afraid of growing too fast."
Cole gazed down at her upturned face, marveling that Diana seemed as genuine and unaffected now as she had been when she was sixteen, and almost wishing that she wasn't. This marriage of theirs was not foolproof, and he didn't want to succeed in what Penworth had failed to do— turn her into a cold cynic.
"I think," she joked, "I'm seeing your grim look right now."
"No," he replied with a half-smile. "That was my impressed look again." Before she could question him about its cause, he replied to her earlier comment. "Businesses fail all the time because someone lets their dreams outpace their financial resources. It's much wiser to err on the side of conservatism."
"I erred on the side of foolishness. The largest of my mistakes was waiting until two years ago to market our own line of gardening and crafts products. When we finally did that, they sold like we were giving them away."
"You must have had reasons for waiting, reasons that seemed sound at the time," Cole pointed out.
"I did. Basically, I was concerned about quality control and start-up and warehousing costs. When we finally launched the product line, it was a huge success, which means we lost a lot of revenue while I was dragging my feet."
"That's hindsight," Cole scoffed.
Diana refused to be patronized. Crossing her arms over her chest, she countered tartly, "Would you have waited and deliberated while all the competition was getting a head start?"
At the beginning of the discussion Cole had promised to be truthful. He kept that promise. "No," he admitted.
"There, you see? You have daring and foresight."
"No, I don't 'see.' There's one major difference between my circumstances and yours. When I started Unified Industries, I had sufficient money behind me and more available if I needed it."
She brightened, but just a little. "I did other things I wish to heaven I could undo."
"Like what?" Cole persisted, reacting to some inner need to give her honest consolation even though he knew he was prying.
"As I said in the living room, I practically gave away shares in our new company to raise money to get us started, and later to keep us going."
Cole felt a sudden desire to reach out and touch her cheek, and when he answered her, his voice was unaccustomedly gentle. "I'm amazed that at twenty-two you could talk a bank into investing in your scheme, let alone round up individual investors."
Diana shrugged. "The bank wasn't taking much of a risk, because we put this house up as collateral."
Refusing to let her denigrate her accomplishments, Cole said, "Really? Then how did you get private investors to put up their hard-earned cash on a high-risk, no-potential-profit deal?"
"Oh, that," she said with a rueful laugh. "I packed up my briefcase with official business plans and projections and called on my father's friends. They all thought we were probably going to fail, but they felt sorry for me, so they patted my head and gave me five thousand or ten thousand—figuring all along that they'd at least end up with a tax loss they could use to offset profits on their income taxes. In return for that, I gave them stock certificates in the new company." She sighed and looked away. "In short, I gave away so many pieces of our business that when they were added up, we were down to fifty percent for ourselves."
"Diana, did you have any other choice?"
"If I had dreamed how profitable and successful we'd be now—"
"I'm talking about before, when you were starting up," he said sternly. "Did you have any other way to raise the money you needed?"
She hesitated and then shook her head. "None."
"Then stop blaming yourself for not being psychic and give yourself credit for overcoming hundreds of hurdles all by yourself—hurdles that would eliminate all but the most gifted and flexible entrepreneurs!"
Diana gazed up at his stern, handsome face and realized he was completely serious. "Coming from you, that's high praise indeed."
He grinned then. "Just remember that. I can't have my wife going around belittling her accomplishments. It might reflect badly on my judgment," he joked, "and cause Unified's stock to drop."
"And Wall Street to collapse," Diana put in, her spirits lifting crazily beneath the warmth of his sudden smile.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 35


Standing at the kitchen sink, where she was tearing red leaf lettuce into small pieces, Corey studied the couple in the backyard. She was so absorbed with the scene and its possibilities that she jumped when her husband came up behind her and put his arms around her waist. "Where is everyone?" Spence asked.
"I suggested they relax before dinner. Glenna and I have everything under control in here."
"I tucked the girls into bed and gave them a kiss from Mommy. That's where I'd like to be—" he whispered as he nuzzled the side of her neck, "—in bed. With you."
Corey turned her face up for his kiss just as the housekeeper bustled into the kitchen, and they automatically moved apart like guilty teenagers. "Go ahead with what you were doing," Glenna said. "Don't let me interrupt. I'm just trying to get a six-course meal for seven people on the table."
Scowling, Spence watched her bustle off. "Why does she always say something that makes me feel guilty?" Automatically, he picked up a knife and began slicing green peppers into thin strips. "She's been doing that for fifteen years."
Corey smothered a laugh, but her attention was on the scene beyond the window. "She does it because it works so well. You're helping with the salad, aren't you?" She handed him a clean dish towel. "If you tuck this into your waistband, you won't get anything on you."
The former star quarterback from Southern Methodist University eyed the towel askance. "Real men don't wear aprons," he joked.
"Think of it as a loincloth," she suggested.
They worked in companionable silence for several moments, both of them watching the couple in the backyard. Diana was leaning against a palm tree and Cole was in front of her, with his hand on the trunk above her head. Whatever she was saying to him made him laugh. "When we were teenagers," Corey said with a reminiscent smile, "I was so completely infatuated with you that I didn't understand why all the other girls thought Cole Harrison was so incredibly sexy."
"But now you do?"
Corey nodded. "I'd love to photograph him someday. He has a marvelous face—it's all hard planes and tough angles."
"He doesn't look like GQ or Brooks Brothers material to me."
"Oh, he isn't! There's way too much raw masculinity about him for a men's clothing model. There's almost a… a predatory quality about him."
She dropped a fistful of curly lettuce into the bowl and picked up some long, damp spinach leaves, shredding those as she continued thoughtfully. "I'd photograph him in a setting that suits his looks."
Spence scowled out the window, piqued by Corey's fascination and lavish praise of another man's face. "What sort of setting?" he asked as he began slicing a red onion.
"I think I'd choose some sort of rugged terrain. A desert in the hot sun, maybe, with barren mountains in the background."
Mountains without trees or snow struck Spence as ugly. He nodded agreeably. "That'd work. Suits him perfectly."
Blithely unaware of the negative reason behind his affirmative comment, Corey stopped tearing spinach for a moment and continued studying her subject.
"Tell me something," Spence challenged. "How would you hide his eyes?"
"Why would I want to hide his eyes?" she asked, looking over at her husband.
"Because they are as cold and hard as granite. I watched him in the living room this afternoon, and I don't think there's an ounce of warmth or feeling in him."
"He does seem a lot harder than I remember him being," Corey admitted, "but I don't think he's cold. Think of the way he bought her that necklace at the auction and made everybody think it was love at first sight for him. Now look at the two of them together out there. When I do that, I see Prince Charming who rushed forward at the ball to rescue Cinderella."
In skeptical silence, Spence gazed out the window. Realizing his lack of response was disagreement, Corey said, "What do you see when you look at them?"
"I see Little Red Riding Hood smiling at the Big Bad Wolf."
She laughed at the storybook images, but her smile faded as he continued, "Based on everything I've read and heard, I can tell you that the man you're rhapsodizing about is probably the most unfeeling son of a bitch you've ever encountered, as well as being the most ruthless entrepreneur of this decade."
Corey forgot the greens she was shredding. Although she wasn't nearly as astute about the stock market as Spence was, she certainly kept up on national news. "I don't understand why you would say that. Not long ago, it was all over the news that he'd 'masterminded' some sort of buyout of a computer company and they kept calling it 'a major coup.' They didn't say he'd done anything illegal."
"He bought Cushman Electronics, Corey," Spence said flatly. "They called it a coup because, just before Harrison bought it, there were rumors all over Wall Street that Cushman's new computer chip had problems in the testing phase, and Cushman's stock plunged from twenty-eight dollars a share to fourteen dollars. As soon as it fell to fourteen dollars, Unified Industries moved in and Harrison got himself a company worth three hundred million dollars for half that much."
"What's wrong with that? Aren't you supposed to buy stock when it's low, in hopes it will go higher?"
"Who do you think started the rumors? And guess who is said to own the independent testing facility that Cushman used to test their chip?"
Corey's jaw dropped. "Has anyone proved that Cole's people falsified test results or started the rumors?"
"If someone can prove either thing, he'll go to jail."
Corey felt a shiver of apprehension, but it was offset somehow by her memory of Cole at the Haywards' stable, gently soothing a sick colt, and the way he seemed to soften now when he looked at Diana in the backyard. "Until someone proves it, it's really nothing but an ugly rumor," she announced.
"Rumors seem to follow him everywhere," Spence pointed out sarcastically. "Whatever Harrison does, he always has some sort of intricate hidden agenda in mind. Last night," he said, "he was in need of a suitable wife to pacify his uncle. He saw the perfect opportunity with Diana, so he played Sir Galahad at the auction—with the press there to record his performance—and while she was glowing with champagne and gratitude, he flew her to Nevada and married her—another 'major coup' for his record. In less than twelve hours, he coerced his way into this family, and now he's driving all of us crazy trying to second-guess him."
Corey smiled at the last part of what he'd said and started putting everything they'd sliced, shredded, or chopped into a beautiful wooden bowl, burnished from years of use. "Besides being handsome and sexy, Cole's a billionaire, and he's been seen with lots of beautiful women. Believe me, Spence, Cole didn't have to go to all that trouble last night, just to get a beautiful wife."
"Harrison didn't just get himself a beautiful wife when he married Diana," Spence scoffed bitterly. "Last night, Cole Harrison also accomplished the nearly impossible: he got himself a shiny new public image."
"How?"
"When those pictures from last night hit the news, the public is going to believe Cole Harrison took one look at the woman Dan Penworth discarded—a woman who also happens to be one of America's sweethearts—and in true fairy-tale style, he rescued their beautiful damsel in distress, showered her with jewels, whisked her off in his private jet, and married her that same night. By the end of this week, Cole Harrison will become the most noble, romantic hero of the decade."
"I just can't believe he's that bad. He was always so nice when he worked at the Haywards'."
Spence leaned forward, rinsed off his hands, and wiped them on a towel, his expression grim. "I doubt that he was all that 'nice' even then."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because among his many enemies are Charles and Doug Hayward. They hate him thoroughly."
Corey's hands went still over the salad bowl. "Doug's never given any indication of that."
"He gave you one last night. When the auction was over, Diana brought Harrison over to the table. Do you remember what happened?"
"Yes, of course. Doug said something that I thought was tactless and unlike him, but he'd seemed strange all during dinner."
"He was perfectly normal until Diana walked into the ballroom with Cole Harrison. Later, he deliberately avoided shaking Harrison's hand."
"But—"
"Listen to me, honey. Last night you were so euphoric because Harrison had 'charged to Diana's rescue' that I didn't want to spoil it for you, but the truth is that Doug and Charles Hayward thoroughly despise him. I'm only telling you now so you don't set yourself or Diana up for a fall by dreaming that this marriage might turn into anything more than it is."
"Despise him?" she whispered. "Why? What could Cole possibly have done?"
"I've told you everything I know, and the only reason I know that much is because Doug visited me in Newport several years ago right after he'd gone to visit Barbara in the hospital in New York. He; was upset because she wasn't doing any better, and I took him sailing and then out to dinner, hoping to cheer him up." Spence walked over to one of the cabinets and retrieved bottles of white wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, which he opened and began pouring into measuring cups. "We'd had some wine, and we decided to spend the rest of the evening at my house. We went into the library to watch the news, and the latest issue of Newsweek was on the coffee table. Harrison's picture was on the cover and when Doug saw it, he launched into a diatribe against Harrison that was so filled with malice you wouldn't have believed Doug was doing the talking."
Spence looked up from whisking the oil and vinegar together. "He ranted about revenge and how long he and his father have been waiting for the right chance. Somehow Barbara came up, and then I thought the man was going to break down and cry. The next thing I knew he'd gotten himself under control and he went to bed. The next morning he apologized and said he'd had too much to drink the night before, and that I shouldn't pay any attention to his 'drunken ramblings.' "
"Maybe that's all they were," Corey said hopefully as she gave a final toss to the undressed salad. "Doug has never been able to drink."
"Believe me, I know," Spence said with a reminiscent smile. "When I was at SMU, he used to stay with me at the fraternity house whenever he came to Dallas. To this day, I've never seen anyone but Doug turn into Superman and try to leap tall buildings in a single bound—on three rum and Cokes."
Corey nodded, but her attention had returned to the couple on the lawn. She watched Cole closely as he listened intently to whatever Diana was telling him. Beside her, Spence observed the same scene. Without meaning to, Corey spoke her thought aloud. "I just don't believe it."
Spence wisely refrained from reminding Corey that she hadn't believed a carpenter's assistant was stealing tools from their garage a month ago, even when she saw a wrench sticking out of his back pocket.
Corey refrained from pointing out to Spence that he had liked Dan Penworth, who had turned out to be a world-class rat. That wouldn't have done any good anyway, because the whole family had liked Dan. "Can you at least try to give Cole the benefit of the doubt? It would make everything so much easier."
Spence looked at her worried face and gave in with a deliberately suggestive leer. "Okay, beautiful, but it'll cost you," he said; then he turned to leave. Corey caught his arm. "Cute loincloth," she teased, reaching around his waist to free the towel.
Spence returned the compliment by turning toward her, reaching behind her, and playfully cupping her derriere. "Cute butt," he said and nipped her ear.
To their left, Glenna marched in on her silent, rubber-soled orthopedic shoes. "I'll just get the duck off the grill before it turns into a chunk of charcoal," she volunteered in a long-suffering voice.
Corey stiffened and Spence froze; then he pulled her tighter to him and, laughing, kissed her anyway.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 36


When Cole walked into the formal dining room beside Diana, he assumed from what he saw that her family had decided to try to pretend Diana's sudden marriage was a reason for celebration instead of homicide.
A large bowl of yellow roses in the center of the dining room table was flanked by candelabra aglow with tapers; the table was laid with formal china and gleaming silver flatware. A large china platter contained succulent slices of roasted duck breast, a large plate was piled high with fluffy buttermilk biscuits, and two serving bowls held new potatoes roasted with olive oil and rosemary, and steamed young asparagus.
The ladies made gallant attempts to smile at him, and even Grandpa managed a polite nod as he took his place at the head of the table and indicated Cole should take the seat at his right. Diana's grandmother sat on her husband's left, directly across from Cole, but when Diana started around the table to sit beside Cole, Gram said, "Corey, dear, why don't you sit next to Mr. Harrison and let Spence sit next to me so we can all have a chance to get to know each other."
Mrs. Foster took her place at the foot of the table and Diana sat between her mother and Spence. Cole saw Mrs. Foster register confusion at the peculiar emphasis on an even more peculiar seating arrangement, but one glance at the lineup Gram had neatly arranged showed him that Gram had managed to put him squarely in the "hot seat." Grandpa was on his left, Gram and Addison were directly across from him, Corey was on his right, and Diana—his only ally—was well removed.
Nothing could have made Cole feel like a bigger hypocrite than thanking an imaginary God he didn't believe in for things He hadn't accomplished in the first place, and then compounding the idiocy by asking for favors He had neither the power—or perhaps the inclination—to grant. Hypocrisy was not one of Cole's many faults, and so he bent his head less than an inch and studied the hand-embroidered yellow rose on his napkin while he waited for the official inquisition to begin.
Henry Britton was not a man given to procrastination. He finished the prayer and said, "Amen. Cole, what are your plans?"
Before Cole could phrase an answer, Diana looked squarely at Corey and said, "Corey's dying to hear about the wedding, and I made her wait until now, when I could tell all of you at once."
Corey unhesitatingly picked up her cue. "Let's hear about the wedding first, Grandpa. After we catch up on the present, Cole and Diana can tell us all about the future." To Cole she added, "Will that be all right?"
In those few moments, Cole arrived at several meaningful conclusions: Gram was not, as he had earlier supposed, merely elderly, outspoken, and endearingly eccentric, she was elderly, outspoken, possibly eccentric, and probably wily as hell.
Corey was an unswerving ally of Diana's, and possibly neutral where he was concerned, while Diana—Diana with her lovely features and soft voice—was skilled enough in diplomacy to be a tremendous asset at any table, be it dinner table or boardroom table.
He watched her give an enthusiastic accounting of an abrupt, unromantic wedding she barely remembered and flavor it with the sort of details guaranteed to interest both sexes.
"We left the hotel in Cole's limousine and went to the airport. Cole's plane is a Gulfstream, Grandpa, and much larger than a little Learjet. You could add it to the model airplane mobile you've designed for boys' bedrooms. Anyway, there was a magnum of champagne in a cooler when we got on board, and one of the pilots was already in the cockpit doing—whatever pilots do before the plane takes off," she said, dismissing the preflight ritual with a wave of her graceful fingertips. "A few minutes later, the other pilot, whose name is Jerry Wade, arrived. Oh, and, Gram—" she added, turning to include that lady in the conversation, who had been frowning intently at Cole until then, "in the dark, he's a dead ringer for your favorite movie star! I told him he has to drop by and visit you some evening."
Fascinated by the way that remark pulled Rose Britton's attention away from him, Cole waited to discover who her favorite movie star was. "He does! Really?" Grandma said with a mixture of doubt and delight. "He looks like Clint Eastwood?"
"Clint Eastwood is practically bald," Grandpa put in irritably, "and he whispers when he talks!"
Corey leaned sideways and answered Cole's unspoken question as she handed him the platter of asparagus, "Gram is crazy about Eastwood, and it makes Grandpa jealous. It's so cute."
"Mom, you'd love what Cole has done to the inside of the plane. You feel as if you're walking into a beautiful living room, furnished in platinum leather, with touches of brass and gold. There were two curving sofas that faced each other, with an antique coffee table between them, a matching buffet with brass hinges, and several chairs."
She'd neatly captured her artistic family's attention, and as Cole listened to her colorful descriptions of everything from the Waterford crystal lamps to the oriental carpet in the plane's main cabin, he made two more interesting observations about Diana: first, she had an indisputable talent for using words to create a vivid picture, and second, she was not mentioning the plane's second-most important feature—its bedroom.
In his mind, he could still see her startling beauty as she lay across the bed's gleaming silver satin comforter, propped up on an elbow, draped in a vivid purple silk gown that provided him with an erotic glimpse of her full breasts above her bodice. Her face had been turned up to his, inviting his kiss, but as he'd bent over the bed, he'd hesitated. Cold reason and hard logic went to battle against his desire, and they won out over everything else, just as they always did with Cole. Regretfully but resolutely, he'd whispered, "No"; then he'd started to draw back.
Her hand lifted, sliding over his shoulder and behind his nape, her fingers gliding into the short hair above his open shirt collar, and he'd looked into eyes as green as wet jade and as vulnerable as a hurt child's. "No," he repeated, but he heard the hesitation and regret in his voice. So had Diana.
Diana switched to a description of the plane's cockpit, and he wondered whether she'd not mentioned the bedroom out of delicacy, embarrassment, or actual lack of memory. It was hard to believe she could remember that the interior of the plane was upholstered in pale gray leather and forget that one-third of the plane's cabin was a bedroom. On the other hand, she hadn't seen the bedroom until after they were married… after the stress of a ceremony in a garish, neon-lit chapel, a stop at a casino, and more champagne provided by him to eliminate the stress. She'd forgotten much about the wedding ceremony and the casino; Cole supposed it was equally possible she'd forgotten about the time they'd spent in the plane's bedroom.
Diana paused in her story to serve herself some of the roasted duck that had just been passed to her, and Diana's grandmother seized the opportunity to proceed where her husband had left off: "Tell us about yourself, Mr. Harrison," she said.
"Please call me Cole, Mrs. Britton," he said politely.
"Tell us about yourself, Cole," she corrected, though he noticed she did not suggest he call her by anything other than Mrs. Britton.
Cole deliberately referred to his present, not his past. "I live in Dallas, but I travel a great deal on business. In fact, I'm gone about two weeks out of every four."
She dismissed that, peered at him intently above the rim of her glasses, and bluntly inquired, "Do you go to church on Sunday?"
"No, I do not," he informed her without hesitation or apology.
A disappointed look creased her brows, but she persevered. "I see. Well, then, what about your family?"
"They don't go to church either," he retorted with cool finality.
She looked completely taken aback. "I was asking about your family, not whether they went to church." She broke off a small piece of buttermilk biscuit and buttered it. "Won't you tell us a little about your background?" she invited quietly. "Tell us about where you're from and about your family."
The suggestion that he do so was so impossible, so abhorrent that Cole stalled for time by taking a bite of his salad while he glanced at the people gathered around the table—nice people who believed there was nothing unusual about sharing Sunday dinner or sitting at a gleaming wood table or having knives and forks that matched or a carpet beneath their feet instead of filth.
He glanced at Diana, who looked as fresh and perfect as an American Beauty Rose, at Addison, who'd never done anything more "demeaning" than lose a tennis game at the country club, and at Mary Foster, who subtly managed to exemplify dignity and grace and unaffected kindness.
On his left, Diana's grandfather smelled of fresh soap and Old Spice, instead of sweat. Across from him, Diana's grandmother gazed at him with alert, hazel eyes, her brows slightly raised in hopeful expectation, her face set off by wavy, white hair cropped jauntily and sensibly short, and gold wire-rimmed glasses that looked very nice on her. She looked proper and decent.
Cole would have found it easier and kinder to describe to her the lurid details of his most erotic sexual encounter than to tell her the truth about his early life and origins. Rather than spoil her illusions about her temporary grandson-in-law, he answered the questions with the same evasions that always served his purpose: "I'm from a small town in west Texas called Kingdom City. I had two older brothers, who are dead now, and a few cousins, who eventually moved away and with whom I've lost touch—except for one of them. My only other living relative is my great-uncle, who I told you about earlier. My father expected me to stay and work the ranch. Cal believed I had the brains to make it through college, and he badgered me until I began to believe it. He'll like Diana very much. I'm eager for him to meet her next week."
"I'm eager to meet him, too," Diana put in, but she had picked up on the sudden chill, the aloof reluctance in Cole's entire demeanor at the questions involving his background, and she remembered that years ago, he'd been exasperatingly vague when she tried to find out more about him.
"My uncle lives west of Kingdom City, which is about one hundred eighty miles from San Larosa. It's not quite the hill country, but it's beautiful and unspoiled." Cole paused and ate a bite of duck.
"San Larosa," Rose Britton said to her daughter. "Wasn't that one of your stopping places when you and Robert took the girls on their first camping trip to Yellowstone?"
"It's a popular place for campers," Cole said, anxious to change the subject. "Although I understand that much of the area's only suitable for experienced hikers and campers."
For some reason that comment evoked laughter from the entire family.
"We weren't exactly 'experienced,'" Mrs. Foster explained. "Corey and I had camped out a few times, and Robert had been a Boy Scout. His only other 'camping experience' was limited to 'tennis camp' in Scottsdale. But the girls and I thought it would be fun, so off we went on a three-week trip, each of us confident we knew all there was to know about 'roughing it.' "
Cole found it hard to imagine Diana as an avid camper when, even as a fourteen-year-old, she had seemed to be very fastidious about everything from her white tennis shoes to her short, neatly filed fingernails. "Somehow, I never thought of you as someone who would like roughing it, even when you were young."
"We all had a great time. I loved it," Diana lied, straight-faced.
Something about that didn't ring true, and then a hazy memory snapped into focus. "Didn't we once have a conversation at the Haywards' stable about things we disliked the most?"
Because Diana had been so infatuated with him at the time, each of their conversations had seemed like earth-shaking events to her, and she realized almost at once what he was referring to. Surprised that he remembered it, she took advantage of an unexpected opportunity for light-hearted banter. "Did we?" she asked with a look of innocent bewilderment, before taking a bite of roasted potato.
Cole wasn't fooled. "You know we did," he countered with a lazy smile. "Your top two least-favorites were dirt and camping."
"No, they were snakes and camping," Diana corrected him, her eyes sparkling with merriment. "Dirt was third on my list." She looked at Corey and jokingly said, "Even so, we were very well organized and prepared for every eventuality, weren't we?"
Corey realized immediately what Diana wanted her to do, and she complied at once, eager to help Diana lighten the mood at the table. "Our father wanted the trip to be a joint family effort, so before the trip, we all had assignments. Dad was in charge of transportation and finances; Mom was in charge of food and beverages; Diana was in charge of safety manuals and safety items. I was in charge of first aid and photography. And we were both supposed to have whatever items we felt we needed to be comfortable and safe. I figured Band-Aids and some sunblock would cover first aid, so I started reading up on wildlife photography, but Diana had a much different approach to preparedness. Weeks before we left, she began poring over The Camper's Guide to Survival in the Wilderness, and The Camper's Companion."
"And," Diana emphasized laughingly, "the L.L. Bean catalogs, from which I had selected and ordered what I felt were absolute necessities for Corey and me."
Cole's gaze shifted to her the moment she spoke, and Corey saw his smile grow warm before he turned his attention back to Corey, who continued, "The day before we left, Dad went to get the motor home he'd rented, and Diana and I started carrying down the rest of our 'personal provisions' that she'd been storing in the attic as they arrived. Then we started with her 'campers' safety essentials' that the guidebooks had recommended, and then with the first-aid stuff."
Gram joined in the story with a smile. "The girls had to make at least fifteen trips to get it all downstairs," she told Cole.
"And then," Grandpa added, chuckling, "Robert had to hitch a U-Haul trailer onto the camper to get it to Yellowstone. The problem was—" he continued, his shoulders starting to shake with laughter, "Robert had never driven anything longer than his daddy's Cadillac in the fifties. When he pulled out of the driveway, he knocked over his mailbox with the trailer, and he drove off down the street, dragging the pole and box behind him—"
"Henry and I laughed so hard we could hardly chase after the mail."
Cole was so entertained by the story and this additional glimpse into Diana's past that he forgot he was in hostile territory. "What did Diana take along that took up so much room?" he asked, but Corey hesitated.
"Go ahead and tell him," Diana told her with a laughing look. "He's part of the family now, so, technically, he has a right to know."
"It wasn't all Diana's stuff, it was for me, too," Corey loyally pointed out before she went on. "If she hadn't planned for both of us, I'd have left on a two-week trip with a torn sleeping bag, a couple pairs of shorts and T-shirts, my camera equipment, twenty rolls of film, and some Band-Aids. Period. Anyway," she continued, "Diana had an entirely different sense of what we needed in order to camp out in comfort and safety. She'd ordered a white tent for us with a red, white, and blue awning over the flap; then she'd coordinated our sleeping bags, our clothes, and even our lanterns and flashlights with the trim on the tent. Diana's were blue. Mine were red. We even had red, white, and blue plastic bottles filled with lotion and aspirin and everything."
Uneasy about making fun of Diana's preparations, Corey stopped and poured herself more iced tea.
"You forgot the repellents," Diana prompted, laughing. "To be on the safe side, I'd brought a dozen cans each of mosquito repellent, wasp repellent, crawling-insect repellent, and flying-insect repellent. I also had several jumbo containers of snake repellent, which I diligently sprinkled around the outside perimeter of our tent every time we put it in a new place."
"Snake repellent?" Cole said to Diana with a choked laugh. "What did you think of Yellowstone?"
"It depends on who you ask," Diana said dryly, and the rest of the family burst out laughing. Mrs. Foster wiped her eyes and said, "The first day in Yellowstone, we all went hiking. Corey got pictures of mountain goats, and I got some lovely sketches. Diana got poison ivy and Robert got an allergy attack."
"The nights were fun though," Corey argued. "We cooked out and roasted marshmallows and sang songs."
"And after we went to bed, the raccoons raided our trash containers and the bears waited for a chance to dine on us," Diana put in as she cut a bite-sized piece of duck. "I don't think there was a raccoon within ten miles of our camp that went to bed hungry while we were there."
"Looking back," Corey said with an impenitent grin, "it was a very one-sided vacation. While I hiked through the woods, oblivious to everything except getting a perfect photograph, Diana trooped behind me lugging a first-aid kit and reading in her manual about the danger of surprising elk in rutting season and what to do if you encountered an unfriendly bear."
"You were lucky she did," Mary Foster pointed out, sobering a little.
"That's true," Corey told Cole. "You see, on the day we were supposed to leave to come home, I sneaked out of camp with my camera and tripod just before dawn—strictly against Daddy's orders, which were that no one left camp alone. The thing was, I wanted to enter a photography contest in the Youth/Outdoors category, but I hadn't gotten anything that I felt was really outstanding. Then, on the last day in Yellowstone, I saw something that I just knew would be a winning shot. We were about a mile and a half from camp, hiking, when I spotted several elk crossing a stream near a waterfall that was streaming out of a steep wooded hill. I knew if I could get that shot, with the sun rising over the hill in the background, I'd have a chance to win that contest. I asked Daddy to go with me, but by then his allergies were so bad that he said my elk would hear him wheezing and coughing and they'd take off before we could get close enough for a photograph. So I decided to go alone."
"You didn't ask your mother to go, instead?" Cole asked.
"Mom spent most of the evening cooking dinner and packing up, and she said she was exhausted."
"What about Diana?"
"I didn't have the heart to ask Diana. She was covered with poison ivy, sunburn, and pink calamine lotion. Besides, she'd twisted her ankle the day before. Anyway, she heard me sneaking out of the tent before dawn, and she started itemizing all the dire things that can happen to an inexperienced camper alone in the wilds, but I headed off anyway with only a flashlight and my camera gear.
"A few minutes later, I heard something crashing through the woods behind me, and I smelled the calamine lotion, so I figured it had to be Diana. Sure enough, there she was, limping down the trail with her ankle wrapped in an elastic bandage, carrying her trusty emergency kit in one hand and her blue flashlight in the other. What a morning," Corey finished with a reminiscent laugh. "When we got to the spot I'd picked out, I realized the angle of the light was going to be all wrong on this side of the stream, so we had to find a shallow place to cross the stream, work our way through the woods on the side of the hill above the waterfall, and then back down."
"Did you get your picture of the elk at sunrise?"
"No, I got lost instead. The light wasn't very good yet, and I didn't know we'd ended up on the bank of another stream near a different hill, so I set up my tripod and attached my telephoto lens. The sky was turning bright pink, and there still weren't any elk, so I left Diana with the camera, in case the elk showed up, while I walked a few yards to the edge of the clearing. I crouched down on my hands and knees so I wouldn't be at the elk's eye level, and crawled out of the woods onto the bank, waiting for my eyes to adjust from the gray shadows to the pink light reflecting off the water. With the sun where it was, I couldn't see the waterfall at all yet, so I sat down and dug out of my pocket the bag of leftover marshmallows I'd brought for breakfast. And then I saw it—he was coming out of the water and heading straight at me."
"The elk?" Cole ventured, while passing the plate of biscuits to Diana's grandfather.
"No, the bear. He was quite young, several inches shorter than I, which I didn't realize because he was running on all fours. I thought he was charging me, and I jumped to my hands and knees, but before I could stand up, he was there. I screamed, he stopped, and we stared at each other, eyeball to eyeball, both of us startled and frightened. He came up on his hind legs and I sprang to my feet and threw my marshmallows at him; then I ran as fast as I could in one direction, while he fled in the other.
"To top everything off," she said, laughing, "when we started back, we realized we were lost, and the further we walked, the more lost we became. Diana kept insisting that her books on camping safety said we should stay put, but I wouldn't listen, until she finally pretended she couldn't walk any further on her ankle. At nightfall, she used the matches in her emergency kit to build a little fire to help the searchers find us.
"I'd forgotten to change the battery in my flashlight, and it gave out before I heard what I thought were wolves howling. Diana wouldn't let me use her flashlight, even though it had a fresh battery. She said we needed it to signal search planes if any flew close, and I knew she was right. Instead, I built a bigger fire for more light, but every time I heard that howling sound, I got closer to hysteria," Corey admitted and took a sip of iced tea. "I was shivering so hard I could hardly talk, and I had to keep my face turned away so Diana wouldn't see the tears running down my face. I felt like such a fool, particularly because I'd teased Diana about being afraid of snakes and picking a bouquet of poison ivy and lugging that emergency kit with us everywhere—and there I was, crying like a baby while she calmly took care of all the practical matters of survival. I'd ignored all the camping manuals, but Diana had read them from cover to cover, which was why she was able to make me laugh about the threat of wolves. Finally we went to sleep by the fire. Even after we were rescued the next morning, she never teased me about being so stupid. In fact, we never discussed those imaginary wolves again, until now."
When Corey showed no indication of explaining her last sentence, Cole said, "Imaginary wolves? I don't understand."
"Obviously," Corey informed him, "you haven't read the Yellowstone Camping Manual either." She smiled infectiously. "You see, there weren't any wolves in that part of Yellowstone back then. The park service had corralled them in a distant part of the park, far from the campers. Those were the ones we were hearing."
Cole thought that seemed virtually impossible, as well as counter to the wildlife philosophy of the national parks. "Do you mean that the park authorities rounded up all the wolves in that gigantic parkland and then put them behind fences?" He looked at Diana for an answer, but she seemed to be engrossed with tracing the pattern on the handle of her knife with her forefinger.
"No, of course not!" Corey explained. "The wildlife commission realized that the wolf population was out of control in Yellowstone because the wolf's natural predator, the Rocky Mountain black ocelot, was almost extinct there, so they imported them from California. The ocelots hunted the wolves and ran them deep into the mountains."
Diana could feel Cole's gaze leveled on her, and when she couldn't avoid it any longer, she finally lifted her eyes from her silverware and saw the knowing amusement in his expression. "Very tidy explanation," he said dryly.
"I thought so," Diana said, swallowing a giggle.
Corey looked from one to the other of them, her own thoughts on the long-ago explanation she'd accepted without question at the time. Now that she'd repeated it aloud, it sounded very odd. "Diana—" she said suspiciously. "It was a total lie, wasn't it?"
"It was a whopper!" Henry Britton hooted. "Surprised you bought it, Corey girl."
Privately, Cole thought Diana's solution had been ingenious, but as a new and temporary family member, he didn't feel entitled to voice a dissenting opinion. Instead, he concluded, "So you spent a terrifying night alone and never got to enter the photography contest, after all?"
"On the contrary, I won second place in the Candid Series division," Corey informed him with a grin.
"Congratulations," Cole said.
"Don't congratulate me," she countered wryly. "I didn't take them, I was in them."
"Who took them?"
"Diana did. When I saw the bear and tried to scramble up on my hands and knees, she thought I'd seen the elk and was trying to stay out of the frame, so she pressed the shutter release as I'd told her to do, and the automatic camera started shooting in rapid sequence. After we got back, I tossed the roll of film out, but Diana retrieved it for laughs. When it was developed, she selected three shots—as required by the contest—and sent them in."
"Yes," Mary Foster said with a reminiscent smile, "and National Photographic magazine even used the captions Diana had sent in when they featured the pictures."
"What were your captions?" Cole asked.
"The first picture was when the bear and I first met, nose to nose. Both of us were crouched on all fours, staring at each other, startled and scared." Corey laughed. "Under that one, Diana had written 'On your mark—' The second picture was of the bear and me rearing up on our feet, ready to run. Beneath that, Diana had written 'Get set—' The last picture was the funniest of all, because we were both fleeing for our lives in opposite directions. Diana called that one 'Go!'"

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 37


Diana and Corey had set the tone with their camping story, and by the time dessert was over, each person at the table had become the subject of an amusing and sometimes revealing anecdote, including Spencer Addison. And somewhere, midway through the meal, Cole began to be treated as a welcome audience, rather than a mistrusted intruder.
The last tale concerned Rose Britton's irate response to a fan on Oprah Winfrey's show who gushed about how much she'd like to be married to Henry. At the end of the good-natured laughter that followed the recounting, Mary Foster looked at Cole with a smile. "I'm afraid you're discovering all our dark family secrets," she told him.
"They're safe with me," Cole assured her with an answering smile, but privately he found a certain grim amusement in the comparison of this family's "dark secrets" to those of his own. Nevertheless, he was grateful and surprised that the meal had gone off so smoothly, that no more prying questions were directed at him, and that everyone seemed to have accepted him for the time being as a new family friend.
Everyone except Addison.
Addison wasn't neutral. Every instinct Cole possessed warned him that Addison was solidly opposed to Diana's marriage. Not that he made it obvious. Addison was much too well-bred to disturb his wife's family with any sort of unpleasant coldness at their table. In Cole's experience, men like Addison invariably sided with their own kind, no matter how stupid or shortsighted or evil their socially prominent friends might be. By virtue of birth and upbringing, Addison was already a natural foe of Cole's in any situation that pitted Cole against another member of "the privileged class," and Cole knew it. He understood it. In business, Cole always made it a practice to force adversaries like Addison out into the open, where they couldn't hide their feelings and intentions beneath the nearly impenetrable layers of social custom and ritual. Cole did that because it made them feel awkward, exposed, and uncomfortable, which made any contest of wits more equal.
In this case, Cole saw no reason to force Addison from his position of passive opposition into one of open enmity. Diana had already married him, and for some reason, Cole knew she would not back out of the agreement she'd made with him.
He trusted her, Cole realized, as he watched her talking to Corey.
He trusted her, and this realization was profoundly disturbing. And then he pictured her trooping through the woods after Corey with an emergency kit and a bandaged ankle, and his alarm turned to mirth.
 
Despite the harmony and gaiety during dinner, the farewells in the foyer were understandably awkward.
Normally newlyweds left the bride's home under a shower of rice, with family and friends shouting good wishes. Since that was inappropriate, Diana's family tried to improvise, and to Cole, the results were as endearing as the family itself.
Diana's mother held out her hand to her new son-in-law, hesitated, and then blurted uneasily, "It was very nice to meet you after all these years, Cole. Will we see you again?"
"I'm sure you will."
Grandpa shook his hand. "Welcome to the—You're welcome here anytime."
"Thank you."
Spencer Addison did not pretend this was a meaningful occasion, but he seemed more amused than hostile. "I never knew Diana hated dirt and snakes. What did you do about the big blacksnake that lived in the Haywards' stable?"
Anxious for the opportunity to show Spence how kind Cole had been, even then, Diana answered before Cole could. "Cole trained him to stay away when I was there so I wouldn't be afraid."
"Really?" Spence said to Cole, his brows raised in amused challenge as he reached out to shake Cole's hand "How did you manage that?"
"I brought in a Rocky Mountain black ocelot to drive him up into the rafters," Cole replied drolly.
"You lied to me?" Diana demanded, laughing.
Corey gave Cole a hug.
Grandma gave him a dozen cookies and a loaf of freshly baked bread.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 38





The awkwardness in the foyer grew stronger in the car as Diana wondered how she and Cole could part on some sort of appropriate and, preferably, uplifting note. Cole had checked out of the Balmoral when they left, his luggage was in her trunk, and his pilots were waiting for Cole to call them with a departure time.
If the local television stations hadn't already run the news clips of Cole giving her the necklace, the story and pictures would surely hit the Monday morning paper and the announcement of their marriage would have to follow immediately. In Diana's exhausted state, the immediate future seemed perilous and overwhelming.
The clock on her dashboard showed 7:15, and the prospect of being alone in her apartment with nothing to do but anticipate tomorrow's siege of phone calls, comments, and stares from friends, associates, employees, and newspeople was depressing and overwhelming.
She turned onto San Felipe and decided to ask Cole up to her apartment for a drink. There were probably many details they needed to go over.
Beside her, Cole watched her expression go from thoughtful to somber to unhappy, and he guessed the reason. "Why don't you invite me up for a drink?" he suggested.
That startled a laugh from her. "I was just going to do that."
 
Diana's high-rise apartment had glass exterior walls that provided a beautiful view, and the spacious interior was clearly the work of a good designer. Filmy white draperies with graceful swags and valances complemented the thick white carpeting and inviting groupings of white sofas and chairs. Silk flower centerpieces and throw pillows provided splashes of mauve, light green, and white. Earlier, Cole had thought her apartment luxurious and well done, but now he noticed it lacked the profusion of homey touches that had been so much in evidence at the River Oaks house, and that surprised him.
On a table beside the sofa her pager was beeping and the light on her answering machine was flashing. She went directly to the pager. "Make yourself comfortable," she said, dialing the telephone with one hand and holding her pager in the other. "There's a call on here from Cindy Bertrillo, who handles public relations for us," she explained.
"Why don't I make the drinks," Cole suggested.
She sent him a brief smile of gratitude, listening to the phone ringing. Tipping her head toward the right, she said, "There's a liquor cabinet in the island in the kitchen. Plain Coke for me, please." No one answered at Cindy's house, so she hung up the phone and pressed the playback button on the answering machine.
She had eleven messages, ten of which were from friends and acquaintances wanting to ask her about Cole Harrison. The last few calls referred to a newscast at six p.m. that showed a videotape of Cole Harrison presenting her with the forty-thousand-dollar necklace. She skipped through those as soon as she got the gist of the call.
The last one was from Cindy Bertrillo, twenty minutes ago: "Diana, this is Cindy. I just got back from my sister's in Austin, and I had some really weird calls from the media on my machine. I tried to reach you at your folks' house, and they said you were on your way home. I need to give you the press release on the new Holidays by Hand kits we'll be offering soon, so I'll run over there now and tell you about the messages in person. I didn't say anything to your parents," she added with a smothered laugh, "but wait until you hear the stories that are going around! If you aren't there, I'll leave the press release with the doorman. Bye."
The buzzer at the door sounded before Diana could touch the rewind button, and Diana braced herself. Cindy and she traveled together whenever Diana did television or radio appearances, and they had more than a formal employer-employee relationship; they had become friends over the years. Cindy knew perfectly well that Diana had been engaged to Dan for two years; she also knew the names of most of the men Diana had gone out with before that, and Cole Harrison hadn't been one of them.
Cindy rushed in like a fresh breeze, tanned, smiling, and brimming with inexhaustible energy. "The rumor mill has outdone itself," she announced cheerfully, shoving her sunglasses up onto her head and following Diana over to the sofa. Diana was too tense to sit, and Cindy was clearly too wound up to sit, so they faced each other across the cocktail table as Cindy burst out with her news: "You are not going to believe this!" she began. "What did you do last night— dance with Cole Harrison, or did you just smile at him?"
"Yes," Diana said weakly, unable to summon the courage to make her announcement a moment sooner than she had to. "I mean, I did both."
"Well, wait until you hear what the press is making out of that!" she said, choking back a laugh so she could go on. "The business editor at the Chronicle, an Associated Press reporter, and a producer at the Financial News Network all left messages on my machine wanting confirmation of the rumor that Foster Enterprises wants to merge with Unified Industries!" She threw her hands up in laughing disbelief. "That's as absurd as a guppy trying to merge with a shark!"
She saw Diana's gaze shift toward the kitchen. "Wait, you haven't heard the best part," she said. Diana's attention returned to her, and she announced with a laugh, "Some woman, who said she was you, called CNN and Maxine Messenger and said she'd just married Cole Harrison! Can you believe it?"
"No," Diana admitted truthfully. "Not yet."
"The producer at CNN said the woman sounded like she might have been drinking. Also, all four of our local stations want the true story. Now, what shall I say when I call them back?"
In the doorway, Cole watched with amused admiration as a becoming pink blush tinted Diana's porcelain cheeks, then deepened when Cindy said, "Shall I call the rumors of your marriage to Harrison 'ludicrous' or 'simply ridiculous'? Or do you want to take a softer approach?"
A deep baritone voice made Cindy's head jerk toward the doorway as a dark-haired man raised his glass to his mouth and suggested blandly, "Personally, I'd take the softer approach."
Shock momentarily overcame her manners. "You'd what? Who are you?"
The glass lowered, revealing a very familiar face. "I am the shark who married the guppy last night," he said drolly.
Cindy sank down on the arm of the sofa. "Hanging is too good for me," she murmured in a small, meek voice.
She recovered and stood up as he came to stand beside Diana and slid his arm around her waist. "I'm Cindy Bertrillo," she said gravely, offering her hand across the table. "I used to be public relations director for Foster Enterprises."
Cole had expected Diana to voice some sort of sharp reprimand, which was what he would have done in similar circumstances, but as he silently shook the publicist's hand, he wasn't completely indifferent to her misery or her humor.
Diana and Cole spent a few minutes bringing Cindy up to date with the fact of their marriage, after which the publicist turned her considerable talents toward dealing with a public announcement. It soon became apparent that the best method for all concerned was to give a short press conference midmorning the following day. Although the publicist never said it, Cole sensed that, from a public relations standpoint, she was delighted to have Diana free of the stigma of Penworth's desertion, and she positively lit up when she realized that Diana and Cole had known each other for years.
When the meeting was concluded, Diana showed her out. Then Diana walked into the kitchen, where Cole was filling a water glass from the faucet. "Where would you like to sleep tonight?" she asked.
His gaze swerved to her. "What are my choices?"
"Here," Diana said innocently, "or the Balmoral."
"Here."
She nodded. "Why don't you call your pilots and tell them of the change of plans and then bring your suitcase up, and I'll get the guest bedroom ready."

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 39



For some reason, memories of last night's dream began to play through Diana's mind as soon as she went to work putting fresh sheets on the bed in the guest bedroom. It had seemed so real, and yet… not. That strange, floating bed, the demon lover who made her behave in ways she never normally would. Insistent mouth—gentle hands… tender… rough.
She shook her head and reached for a pillowcase, embarrassed by the direction of her thoughts, but as she shoved a pillow into the case, the memories came back again, hovering at the edges of her mind. Blue lights. Small room, low ceiling, filled with steam or smoke or something that made everything look gray. Gray.
Behind her, Cole strode silently into the room, carrying a black garment bag in his right hand and a briefcase in his left. "Could I—"
With a stifled cry, Diana whirled around, her hand clutching a fistful of silk shirt over her heart, then she laughed. "Oh, it's you…"
He eyed her worriedly as he put his briefcase down at the foot of the bed. "Who were you expecting—Jack the Ripper?"
"Something like that," she said dryly, pulling the spread up and then folding a corner back.
"Am I making you nervous?" he asked.
She turned and watched him slowly strip off his jacket, hypnotized by the unexpected intimacy of the ordinary act. "No, of course not," she untruthfully assured him. His eyes held hers as he dropped the jacket over a chair, loosened his tie, and pulled it free of his shirt collar. For one anxiety-filled moment, Diana thought he was going to undress right in front of her.
A knowing smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he loosened the top button of his white shirt. "I am making you nervous."
She thought quickly for something to blame her reaction on, and came up with a partial truth. "It has nothing to do with you, really. While you were getting your luggage out of the car, I started thinking of a dream I had last night. It was—well—a very um ... graphic… dream in some ways. It seemed so real."
He unbuttoned the second button on his shirt, an odd gleam lighting his eyes. "What sort of a dream was it?"
"Do you remember an early thriller movie called Rosemary's Baby?"
Cole thought back and remembered something about demonic possession, and then he nodded. "The woman in it was drugged and then forced to have sex with the devil."
Diana nodded and turned away, snapping on the lamp beside the bed. "Well," she explained as she turned and headed toward the door, "last night, I was that woman."
Cole's fingers froze on the third button of his shirt.
Blithely unaware of the verbal blow she had just delivered, she sailed out of the room, turning in the doorway with her hand on the light switch. "Your bathroom is right through there. Can I get you anything before I go to bed?"
"A large bandage might be nice," he said sardonically.
Diana's eyes widened, sweeping quickly down the length of him, from his broad shoulders and white shirt to his black trousers and black loafers. "For what?"
"For my ego, Diana."
Diana's brain simply shut down. It blocked the pathways between hearing and logic. She nodded and backed out of the room. "Well. Good night."
 
Safe behind the door of her own bedroom, Diana, like an automated machine, went about the routine of getting ready for bed. In the shower, she mentally recited the names of all the articles in the last three issues of Beautiful Living. As she blew her hair dry, she felt a compulsion to remember all the names of the students in her seventh-grade class. As she put on her pajamas, she began preparing her Christmas list.
As she walked over to her dresser to change the wake-up time on her clock radio, she burst into tears.
Snatching a handful of tissues from a box beside her bed, she marched over to the chaise longue at the far end of the room, flopped onto it, and gave free rein to the tears that had been building up inside her for days. For the first time since she'd picked up the Enquirer and read about Dan's marriage, she gave in to self-pity. She wallowed in it. With her hands over her face and the tissues pressed to her eyes, she drew her knees up against her chest and rocked back and forth, sobbing.
She thought about the way Dan had complimented her mind and her looks and used silence to criticize her body and her performance in bed. "Bastard," she whispered, crying harder.
She thought of the years she'd wasted, trying to juggle her schedule to suit his, only to have him marry a child bride. "Monster!" she wept, rocking back and forth.
She thought of her insane marriage to Cole Harrison, and she cried harder. "Lunatic."
She thought of herself during her own wedding, swaying drunkenly on her feet and leaning back trying to mentally redecorate an arched trellis, and she moaned. "Idiot!"
She thought of Cole this morning, gallantly nursing her through a hangover and grinning good-naturedly as he recounted her drunken antics of the night before.
She thought of the dream that wasn't a dream, of a bedroom in shades of misty gray aboard a private jet as it hurtled through the sky and finally slammed onto a runway, racing past blue lights.
She thought of a man who tried to refuse her idiotic attempt at seduction. And didn't. He'd made it very clear, and she'd agreed, that sexual and emotional intimacy were not to be part of their agreement. Then at the first possible moment, she'd thrown herself at him, and because Cole had always been kind, he'd overridden his personal aversion to the idea and made love to her.
In return for his kindness, his thoughtfulness, his self-sacrifice, she had just delivered the ultimate insult by likening his lovemaking to a terrifying scene out of Rosemary's Baby. He had so much pride and he was so sensitive to the disparity between their backgrounds that he must have been twice as much hurt by her remark as he'd been by her having forgotten the incident.
A fresh stream of guilty tears poured from her eyes, and Diana leaned her forehead on her knees, her shoulders shaking with shame and sorrow.
She wept until her head ached and the well of tears and regret finally ran dry; then she wiped her eyes and blew her nose. The minutes ticked past as she stared thoughtfully at the picture on the wall across the room, reevaluating the past and considering new plans for the future. She was going to hire more management personnel, delegate responsibility, and take time for herself—beginning with a long, relaxing vacation of about eight weeks. She'd go to Greece, she decided, take a luxury cruise around the islands, visit friends in Paris, explore Rome, see Egypt. She might even have a meaningless sexual fling. Maybe two. By contemporary standards, she was practically a nun. She was entitled to all of that, more than entitled. She would be careful not to violate her agreement with Cole by embarrassing him in any way.
Cole. She thought through that situation for another minute, then got off the chaise longue and resolutely went to her closet for a robe. She owed Cole the most abject, sincere apology.
 
With his shoulder propped against the wall and his jaw clenched, Cole listened to the heartbroken sobs coming from the next room, punishing himself with the sound of her weeping. He was a pariah, Cole thought with a blaze of self-loathing, a devil who destroyed anyone he touched. He was a Harrison; he wasn't fit to be around decent people. He'd had no right to think he could climb higher than any of the other Harrisons. He could make money, buy better clothes, clean himself up, get rid of his accent, but he couldn't get rid of the filth of Kingdom City that was stuck to his soul—it thrived in his genes.
There were any number of women he could have made his bargain with, actresses, waitresses, or one of the bored, brittle socialites who were as morally and spiritually bankrupt as he was. Diana Foster wasn't one of them; she was special. Exquisite. Alluring. Untouchable.
Irresistible…
He'd had no right to go near her last night, let alone convince her to marry him, and he'd been a filthy bastard to have sexual intercourse with her. He'd never meant for that to happen. He'd convinced himself it wouldn't happen. His convictions and self-control had lasted less than one damned day! He'd said she'd hurt his ego. He had no right to an ego where she was concerned.
He thought of her accomplishments and he was so damned proud of her it made his chest ache. He looked around at the sound of a soft knock on the door. "Cole, may I speak to you for a minute?"
He told her to come in, and she entered his room wearing a simple white silk robe with her monogram in navy blue on the pocket, a handkerchief clutched in her hand, and Cole's long-dead conscience reared up with a vengeance. Twenty-four hours ago, she walked into a hotel with the proud carriage of a queen. After one day of marriage to Cole Harrison, she looked like a woebegone waif. A year from now, if she stayed married to him, she'd probably look as bedraggled and hopeless as his mother.
"Diana—" he said, his voice carefully expressionless.
She shook her head to silence him and her hair glowed like copper in the lamplight. "Please sit down," she said shakily, walking over to a pair of overstuffed chairs angled toward each other with a reading lamp between them. "I have some things I need to tell you," she said, waiting until he'd sat down beside her.
She was going to try to call the whole deal off. "I think I already know what you want to say," he said, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees.
"First of all, I want to apologize for the childish way I've behaved about this whole thing. I've been absurdly concerned about what people will think, and I'm ashamed of that. I'm very proud of being married to you, and beginning tomorrow, no one will have reason to ever think otherwise."
Cole stared at her pale face, his dark brows drawn into a frown of utter disbelief.
She lowered her eyes to her lap and studied her folded hands; then she looked up and met his gaze directly. "Next, I want to tell you how much I regret what happened in the plane last night."
"I don't want to run the risk of looking too far afield for explanations," he said wryly, "but is it possible that last night happened because we are attracted to each other? I sure as hell wanted you. And I know you wanted me." The sudden glamour of his lazy smile was almost as effective as his admission. "In fact," he said softly, "I have it from an unimpeachable source that you used to want me, a long time ago."
She stood up slowly and so did he. "I refuse to regret or apologize for what happened last night," he said. "We wanted each other. It was as simple as that. We're about to spend a week together. We're married."
Diana felt herself falling under the spell of that rich baritone voice.
"More importantly, we like each other, and we're friends. Is there any part of that you don't agree with?"
"No," she said, searching his somber face. "What are you suggesting?"
"I'm suggesting that you consider having a real honeymoon with me when we're at the ranch. Don't answer me now," he said. "Think about it. Will you?"
Diana hesitated. "Yes."
"In that case," he said, pressing a brotherly kiss to her forehead, "I suggest you get out of here, before I decide to try to rush you into another major step in your life."

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 40


Cole had become accustomed to being watched by members of both sexes if they recognized him when he walked into an office building, but he had never been subjected to a frank scrutiny anything like the one he was treated to when he arrived at Foster Enterprises that morning. Within minutes, it became obvious that Diana had a much freer relationship with her staff than he had with his own, and it was also apparent that she was far better liked by the people who worked for her than was usual. Particularly in his case.
Cole was used to being treated with awe, with fear, and even with veiled hostility, but he was always treated with respect, and he was never, ever treated with relaxed cordiality, let alone impertinence. Diana introduced him to everyone in all the departments, where Cole was subjected to everything from stern admonitions to take care of Diana to smiling remarks about the difference in their height ensuring that he would be head of the family to flagrant comments about his physical attributes. At first he was astonished, and then he found it amusing. A perky twenty-year-old in the layout department complimented his tie, and a wheelchair-bound artist asked him how long he had to work out each day to stay in such great shape. When they left the sales department, another woman made a remark about his build that made him glance at Diana in disbelief.
"What did she just say?" he demanded in a whisper.
Diana kept her laughing face lowered. "She said you have 'great buns.' "
"That's what I thought she said." After a moment he glanced at her. "The woman in the last department—the one with the ink on her hands—liked my tie. Thank you for loaning it to me."
That morning he'd realized the only tie he'd brought along as a spare had a black background, not dark blue, as he'd thought. Diana solved the problem by going into her bedroom and emerging with a tie box. "I loved this when I saw it," she explained, "so I bought it for—someone."
Cole assumed from her pause that she'd bought it for Penworth, and even though it was a little brighter than the conservative ones he normally wore, he was glad to have it.
"It isn't a loan, it's a gift," Diana said simply. "And it wasn't for Dan. When I see things I like, I buy them to have on hand."
The press conference was scheduled to take place in Diana's large office, where thirty reporters and photographers had already crowded. Outside the door, Diana stopped and turned, straightening the knot in his tie in an ordinary wifely gesture that seemed so much more intimate under their unusual circumstances. "Perfect," she announced.
Cole thought she looked "perfect" in her lemon silk dress with its jaunty white collar and wide white cuffs, and the bold admiration in his gaze told her that. The unspoken compliment made her fingers curl inside his handclasp as she stepped forward and opened the door to her noisy, crowded office.
The first thing Cole noticed was that Diana's grandparents, her mother, and Corey were near the front by her desk. It was a show of family solidarity that shocked and touched Cole as he walked to the front of the room while cameras flashed and Minicams whirred.
The next thing he noticed was that the atmosphere at this press conference was vastly different from that of any other of his experience. There was no hostility or suspicion in evidence. Instead of shouting loaded questions at him that were filled with innuendo, they joked about his longstanding bachelorhood and teased Diana about a woman's right to change her mind—a remarkably gallant way of ignoring Penworth's defection that surprised and pleased Cole. Diana bore it with unflappable serenity, her smile never wavering.
"How long have you known each other?" someone called.
"We first met when Cole was in college," Diana replied, each of them taking a turn with an answer, as Cindy had suggested they do.
"When's the honeymoon?"
"Later this week, when we can both clear our schedules," Cole answered, referring to their trip to visit Cal.
"Where are you going?"
Diana opened her mouth to reply, but Cole interceded. "You are the last people on earth we'd tell," he replied with a joking affability that was in complete opposition to his hostile reputation with the press.
The whole thing went off without a hitch until the very last question was called out to Cole by a thin, bespectacled man in the first row. "Mr. Harrison, would you care to comment on the rumor that the Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing an investigation into possible improprieties in connection with the Cushman deal?"
He felt, rather than saw, Diana stiffen, and Cole had an almost uncontrollable impulse to yank the little weasel off his feet and throw him through the window. To everyone's astonishment, particularly Cole's, it was Diana's grandmother who waded in with her verbal fists raised. "Young man," she warned the forty-year-old journalist in an irate voice, "I can tell you've been eating chemical fertilizers on your food and they're affecting your disposition!"
The entire room erupted with laughter that lingered as the news people filed out of Diana's office. Cole's limousine was waiting outside to take him to the airport so that he could be at his Dallas office for a meeting in an hour and a half. He was furious with the reporter and touched by the presence of his temporary relatives, particularly Diana's grandmother. He looked at the Fosters and was at an utter loss for what to say. For lack of knowing any other way to handle it, he sent a general smile in their direction; then he leaned down and pressed a brotherly kiss to Diana's cheek. "I'll see you on Thursday."
He closed the door behind him, leaving the family alone in Diana's office. Henry Britton was the first to speak. "I wonder," he said, staring thoughtfully at the closed door, "how long it's been since anyone spoke up for that boy."
 
Corey stayed behind to help Diana straighten up her office. Spence's negative remarks about Cole's allegedly questionable business practices revolved in her mind in tandem with the reporter's alarming reference to an SEC investigation.
She picked up a gum wrapper and a scrap of paper from the pale blue carpet. As she pushed four chairs back into place at the far end of the room, Diana walked over to her desk and perched a hip on the edge of it, watching her. "Corey?"
Corey looked up with a bright smile as she carefully lifted one of the pieces of Steuben crystal from Diana's collection, a beautiful peacock, off a bookshelf and returned it to its rightful place in the exact center of a small conference table. "Hmm?"
"What's wrong?"
Corey stepped back to check the position of the peacock in relation to the crystal candy bowl and moved the bowl two inches to the left. "Nothing's wrong. Why do you ask?"
"Because I'm the compulsive organizer, remember? You're the gerbil who likes clutter."
Corey jerked her hand away from the pieces of glass candy she'd been about to sort by shapes and swung around. "It's just that reporters always make me feel uneasy."
"Particularly," Diana speculated with a knowing smile, "when they make insulting innuendoes about your new brother-in-law?"
"Particularly then," Corey admitted with a sigh. She couldn't bear to tell Diana that Spence had his own doubts about Cole's integrity, but she couldn't leave Diana without some sort of warning either. "Spence said yesterday that Cole has made a lot of enemies over the years."
"Of course he has," Diana replied without concern. "The only way to avoid making enemies is not to succeed in anything."
That made perfect sense, but what impressed Corey most, as she looked at Diana, was her sister's ability to be calm and logical at such a time. Perched on the edge of her desk with every shining hair neatly in place and her trim figure set off by a bright silk dress, she looked more like a fashion model than a CEO.
She had founded a thriving corporation and she managed to run it without losing any of her femininity or humanity.
Corey smiled and spoke her thought aloud. "You do us women proud, Sis," she said softly, then she vanished with a cheerful salute.
 
When she left, Diana stared dreamily into space, remembering the tender, unforgettable things Cole had said last night and thinking of the honeymoon that would begin on Thursday. By the time she surfaced to reality and glanced at her watch, she realized she wouldn't have time to call Doug until after the production meeting. She didn't want him to hear about her marriage on the news; she wanted to tell him herself.
Doug was pacing back and forth in her office when she returned from her meeting, and judging from the ominous look on his face, he was not happy for her. As a precaution, Diana closed her office door, and the instant the latch clicked into place, he exploded in a low, incensed voice, "Of all the stupid, irrational—I can't believe you actually married that—that piece of slime! You've lost your mind! God, I could shake you!"
Diana had intended to try to reason with him, but she was so annoyed by his description of Cole that she walked behind her desk instead. In angry silence, she stood there while Doug paced back and forth in front of her, raking his hands through the sides of his hair like a man demented. "You have to unload him, now. Today. Make an announcement that he drugged you, do anything, but get away from him and stay away from him. He's not fit to be in the same room with you. Shoveling manure is all he's fit to do!"
"Why, you snob!" Diana burst out.
"If despising a corporate mobster makes me a snob, then I guess I am one."
"How dare you talk like this!" Diana burst out. "Who do you think you are, anyway?"
Instead of quieting him down, her obstinance sent him over the edge. Slapping both hands on her desk, he leaned across it, his teeth clenched. "I am your friend. Now, do this for me—get rid of that sonofabitch!"
"You're being completely irrational."
He started pacing again. "What does it take to make you understand?" He stopped and turned to her again. "His days of wheeling and dealing on the stock exchange are over! The SEC is going to shut him down, and that's only the beginning. When the federal government is done with him, he'll go to jail where he belongs, just like Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken. The state of Texas will shut him down here, too. When everyone is finished with him, he's going to be a broke ex-convict!"
Diana was shaken, but she managed to sound reasonably calm. "Why do you say that?"
"Because the Cushman deal was dirty. He's a cheat and a manipulator. He's an animal!"
"Tell me why you're saying this. Give me one piece of evidence, instead of just gossip."
"I can't!" he bit out.
"Then, please," she said softly, holding out her hand to him, "don't start believing in rumors. Trust my judgment. Be happy for me."
At last, he calmed down, but his sudden sadness was worse than his anger. "Diana, I would have walked in front of a truck for you if you'd asked me to do it, but I cannot be happy for you, and I cannot help you if you stay married to him."
"I intend to stay married to him," she said with a quiet conviction that surprised even her.
His face paled as if she had slapped him. "That bastard really has a way with females of all ages, doesn't he? Even you. He can get you to do anything."
Diana assumed Doug had known that all of Diana's teenage girlfriends had crushes on Cole, and she refused to respond to that or his parting shot. Her throat hurt with tears as her lifelong friend stalked to the door of her office.
"Doug?" she said, her voice strained with hurt.
He turned, his face set. "Yes."
"Good-bye," she whispered achingly.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 41


Cole could hardly believe it had been only a few days since he'd walked through the doors of Unified's executive office building. He had married Diana Foster. He had actually done that. The thought made him smile as he walked past the startled receptionist.
To add to his feeling of unreality, everything seemed to have changed since he last was here. When he drove onto the grounds a few minutes ago, the manicured grass suddenly reminded him of emerald velvet, and the lake, shimmering blue crystals. He'd commented on the remarkably fine day and unusually bright sky to his chauffeur, and although the driver agreed at once, he had been shocked that his normally silent employer had taken a moment for idle conversation.
They didn't really notice the difference in the surroundings, Cole knew.
Because they hadn't just married Diana Foster. They didn't know how sweet she was, or how funny, or how brave and beautiful. Their wives had probably never packed up snake repellent to take on a camping trip or sobbed during their own wedding and then sat on their lap and told them jokes in a plane. Their wives had probably never worn a royal purple silk gown and walked through a ballroom like a queen, then gotten tipsy on champagne and called CNN to announce their marriage…
An executive staff meeting was just breaking up as Cole walked past secretarial cubicles and neared his office. A dozen of his executives filed out of the conference room, including Dick Rowse and Gloria Quigley from public relations, and Allan Underwood, the vice president of human resources. They looked at him with uncertain smiles, and finally Allan Underwood broke the ice. "What a surprise!" he said to Cole, referring, Cole knew, to his marriage to Diana. The others immediately chimed in with a chorus of remarks.
"Congratulations, Cole."
"It's great!"
"So nice!"
"Terrific!"
"Wonderful."
Cole was in a hopelessly lighthearted mood. "Oh—so you all like my new tie that well?"
"Your new what?" Gloria said blankly.
"My tie," Cole said, but he couldn't quite control the smile that lifted a corner of his mouth or gleamed in his eyes. "It's brighter than the ones I usually wear."
"I meant your new—"
"Yes?"
"Wife."
"Oh, yes," Cole replied, losing the battle to hide his smile. "She gave me the tie."
He turned and headed off to his office.
Behind him the executives gaped at each other. "Was he serious about the tie?" Underwood asked the others.
Gloria rolled her eyes at him. "No, it was a joke!"
"Cole never jokes," Dick Rowse said.
"He does now," Gloria said and sauntered down the hall to her own office.
 
"Congratulations, Mr. Harrison," Cole's secretary said with a formal smile as she followed him into his office, notepad in hand. "I'm a great fan of the whole Foster family," Shirley Forbes confided.
"So am I," Cole said with an answering smile as he opened his briefcase on the desk and began removing the files he'd taken with him. Unable to dwell any longer on Diana, he turned his attention to pressing business matters. "Tell John Nederly I want to see him."
Shirley nodded. "He's called twice already, asking to see you."
"Congratulations on your marriage, Cole," Nederly said as he walked in. "My wife called me with the news an hour ago. She's excited about the prospect of meeting Miss Foster someday. She's a big fan."
Cole wasted no time on niceties. "Close the door," he replied curtly. "Now, what the hell is going on?" he demanded, leaning back in his chair and studying one of Harvard Law School's most gifted graduates with a frown of extreme displeasure. "This morning a reporter informed me during a press conference that I'm under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission."
Nederly shook his head. "You're not."
Cole's frown cleared, but only for a moment.
"The SEC has asked the New York Stock Exchange to investigate the Cushman buyout, which is the first step, and that's what's happening now."
"Then what?"
"The SEC reports directly to Congress so they have oversight powers, which means that regardless of what the NYSE finds, the SEC will review it and make their own decision.
"If they think there's evidence of probable wrongdoing, you'll be subpoenaed to appear at a hearing before an administrative law judge of the SEC. If the SEC judge rules against you, he'll turn it over to the federal courts, and you'll probably be subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury. There's no way of knowing what they'll try to charge you with—stock manipulation is a sure thing, so is general fraud. They won't hit you with providing false information unless they can prove we falsified the testing information."
"Tell me something," Cole said in a low, furious voice, "don't you think the last part of that recitation is a little premature?"
Nederly looked down at his suit and flicked a speck off his trouser leg. "Maybe I was showing off my superior knowledge," he tried to joke.
"Or?" Cole snapped.
Nederly sighed. "Or maybe I don't have a good feeling about this, Cole. The NYSE investigation is moving forward at an unusually fast pace, and I've already heard a rumor from a semireliable source that the NYSE investigation is just a routine formality. The SEC already thinks there's reasonable cause to subpoena you before their own judge."
"What 'reasonable cause'?" Cole said scornfully.
"One week, Cushman's stock is selling at twenty-eight dollars a share and rising because they're working on a new microprocessor. The next week rumors start circulating all over Wall Street and the media that the new chip is unreliable. The stock drops to fourteen dollars, and you offer to buy the whole company. It looks suspicious as hell!"
"Let's not forget I paid nineteen dollars a share, not fourteen dollars."
"Which you had to do in order to buy the entire company. I'm not denying that Cushman's shareholders got a good deal when you exchanged their stock for ours. They got an even better deal because you arranged a tax-free exchange."
"Then what the hell are they bitching about?"
"I said, it looks bad on the surface."
"I don't give a damn about how things look—"
John shook his head, his expression solemn. "I think you'd better start."
"Is that your best legal advice?"
"There's nothing else you can do right now."
"Like hell," Cole said in a savage voice; then he pushed his intercom button. "Shirley, get me Carrothers and Fineberg in Washington on the phone. I'll talk to either one of them."
The name of the most expensive and most influential law firm in Washington made John smile a little. "I've already got them working on your behalf. Maybe they can persuade the SEC in advance that they're acting recklessly."
Cole instructed his secretary to cancel the call. Satisfied that a combination of expensive legal talent and lack of proof would cause the SEC to drop the whole thing, he leaned back in his chair again and subjected Nederly to a thoughtful scrutiny.
"Anything else you want to talk about?" the lawyer asked.
"Your tie," Cole said blandly.
Nederly seemed to be as alarmed by the potential slur on his perfect appearance as he'd been by the various threats to Cole and Unified that they'd just discussed. "What's wrong with my tie?"
"It's very conservative."
"You always wear conservative ties, too."
"Not anymore," Cole said, amused by the discovery that the immaculately groomed lawyer had apparently been imitating him.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 42


Although it was nearly seven-thirty, several of Unified's executives were working late, and Cole could hear them moving around outside his office door. He still had another hour's work, and he wanted to call Diana, but from his house, where he could talk to her at leisure. He'd left her less than eight hours ago and he was already looking forward to talking to her again. The fact that he reminded himself of an infatuated teenager was amusing to him, rather than disturbing.
Cal had called early that afternoon, when he heard about Cole's marriage on the news, and demanded that Cole's secretary get him out of a meeting to talk to him. Instead of being thrilled, Cal had been furious that Cole had "actually gone right out and married just anybody" so he could get Cal's signature on the stock transfer. To Cole's amused astonishment, the elderly man had announced that such an act was a violation of their agreement, since the intent of it—in his mind—was to see Cole settle down with a mate. It had taken several minutes to calm him down and make him understand who Diana actually was.
On the coming Wednesday morning, Cal had an appointment with his heart specialist in Austin, and Cole intended to fly him there and hear what the doctor had to say himself. He'd hoped to be able to pick Diana up in Houston after the appointment, but she had an impossible schedule that day and couldn't leave until Thursday, which meant he had to wait another day to see her—another day before they could be together. In bed. Thinking of taking her to bed—sober and willing—was enough to make him rigid, and he forced his attention back to the contract he was reading.
He'd just signed his name on the bottom line when Travis walked into his office wearing a polo shirt and a pair of casual pants. "You're here!" Travis burst out, closing Cole's door. "Thank God!"
In his early forties, Travis had a face that was pleasant when he didn't look worried—which was not often—and the athletic body of a man who exorcised his anxieties by running six miles every morning before dawn. He was a hard worker, and although he wasn't the intellectual giant that many of the scientists who reported to him were, he was a good choice for head of research and development. He had common sense and a tight fist, usually at appropriate times, when it came to spending the corporation's assets, and he was extremely loyal. For that reason, Cole trusted him more than anyone else who worked at Unified.
"I'm here," Cole agreed with a wry smile and watched Travis walk restlessly over to the bar. "But if you have to thank something for that fact, then thank the preparer of this contract, because it's taken me nearly an hour to wade through it."
Travis stared blankly at him as he splashed bourbon into a glass. "Oh, that's a joke, right?"
"Evidently not a good one," Cole replied dryly, tossing his pen aside. "Now, what's wrong?"
"I don't know. That's why I'm here, and that's why I'm having a drink."
Even for Travis, this degree of uneasiness was unusual. "I thought maybe you were celebrating my marriage."
Travis turned with the glass in his hand and walked over to Cole's desk looking like he'd been punched. "You got married and you didn't even tell Elaine and me? You didn't even invite us?"
Touched that Travis was actually hurt by that, Cole shook his head. "It was completely unplanned. We decided to do it on Saturday evening, and we flew to Las Vegas—before she could change her mind," he added truthfully. "Now, what has driven you to drink?"
He took two deep swallows of the bourbon. "I'm being followed."
Even though logic told Cole that was extremely unlikely, he couldn't suppress the vague feeling of disquiet that trickled through him. "What makes you think such a thing?"
"I don't think it, I know it. I noticed the guy yesterday when I left the house. He was parked down the street in a black Chevrolet, and he followed me all the way here. When I left tonight to go home for dinner, I spotted the car parked on the side of the highway outside our main gates. He followed me home. So I changed clothes tonight and ran over here on foot, cross-country, so he couldn't follow me. He tried, though. I saw him."
Cole studied him closely. "You aren't, by any wild chance, having an affair, are you?"
"I don't have the time or inclination for one, and besides, Elaine would kill me."
The last part of that was essentially true, so Cole accepted it. "Is it possible thieves are planning to break into your house and trying to learn your habits first?"
Travis finished his drink in two more gulps. "Not unless they're looking for a challenge instead of loot. We have two guard dogs, a state-of-the-art security system with cameras watching the place, electric gates—the works."
"Then why else would anyone be following you?"
Travis sank into a chair. "Could it have anything to do with the investigation by the NYSE?"
The feeling of dread Cole had felt earlier solidified into anger. "If that's the case, they're wasting their time."
 
Cole watched the rearview mirror when he left the office that night. A dark blue, late-model Ford followed him almost to the gates of his estate; then it disappeared around a curve.
Cole's phone was ringing when he walked into the house. The voice on the other end was a trembling whisper, scarcely recognizable as Travis's. "We've got trouble, Cole. Something's going on."
"What are you talking about?" Cole said, frowning. "Where are you? Why are you whispering?"
"I'm in my office, but I'm not sure I'm alone up here."
Frustrated, Cole shrugged out of his suit coat. "What do you mean, you aren't sure?" Travis's office was in the research and development building, on the same floor as the main laboratory, and he had a clear view of the area.
On the other end of the line, Travis drew a long, audible breath, and his voice sounded a little more normal, though still panicky. "After I left you, I was too keyed up to go home, so I decided to come over here and do some paperwork. I turned on the main ceiling lights in the lab, and while they were coming on, I thought I saw a shadow moving around the corner; then it disappeared. I ran to my office and out into the hall behind it, but I didn't see anyone. He must have gone down the exit stairs on the south end of the building."
Cole paused in the act of loosening the tie Diana had given him. "Are you sure you actually saw someone?"
"No."
Relieved, Cole started to reach for the messages his housekeeper had left for him beside the telephone.
"—But I'm damned sure I locked my file cabinets, and one of them is open."
"I'll take care of it," Cole said shortly. Corporate espionage was always a possibility, but Unified had considerable security precautions in place as a safeguard. "Was there anything in the cabinet that a competitor would find especially enlightening?"
"No, not really."
"Good. Then go on home. I'll handle it."
When Travis hung up, Cole called Unified's chief of security, Joe Murray, and waited impatiently while Murray's wife called him away from the ball game on television. In his mid-fifties, Murray was a balding ex-marine and built like a halfback, with a deep gravelly voice that suited his physical image perfectly. He chewed gum and guffawed over his own jokes while he ambled around peering over everyone's shoulder, managing to give the impression of being an ordinary ex-security guard who'd somehow been promoted to a desk job that was way beyond his capabilities.
In truth, he was a former FBI undercover agent with a list of major criminal arrests that were owed to his ability to look innocuous and not too bright while he insinuated himself into the inner circles of his prey. His salary was $225,000 a year, plus stock options and a benefits package.
When he answered Cole's call, the deceptive jocularity was absent from his manner. "Do we have a problem?"
"A little over a half hour ago, we had an intruder on the sixth floor of R and D," Cole told him. "Travis had left for the day and decided to go back to his office to do some work. He found a file cabinet that was unlocked. Nothing in it was vital to us, even if it was taken."
"Did he see anyone?"
"He thought he saw a shadow move around the corner before the lights came on all the way."
"Could he have forgotten to lock the cabinet before he left?"
"Travis is unlikely to forget something like that."
"You're right. I'll go over there right away and check it out. If the security guard at the desk on the main floor saw anything, or if I find out anything, I'll get back to you right away."
"Do that," Cole said. "And starting tomorrow, I want a regular security guard posted at the main entrance around the clock."
"I told you we should have put electric gates up there, instead of that cutesy little gatehouse."
During the day the gatehouse was manned by an elderly man wearing a blazer with the company insignia on the pocket. He was there primarily to give directions to visitors. The actual security was handled by men in similar blazers who sat at reception desks on the ground floor of each of the buildings on campus. The executive office building was the exception. In keeping with the illusion of elegance and luxury, the receptionist in Cole's building was a woman, but there was always a man in a blazer unobtrusively present in the area.
Cole reconsidered the philosophy behind all that and overruled Murray again. "I spent a fortune to make Unified's property one of the most beautiful in the world. I'm not going to gate it off, put uniformed guards with guns down there, and make it look like a minimum-security prison instead."
"It's your call, Cole," he said, but he was already distracted, eager to get going while the trail of the intruder was still fresh. "Anything else?"
"Yes—Travis and I are both being tailed. A black Chevrolet is on him. Mine's a dark blue Ford."
"Any idea why or who?"
"None," Cole said, because it didn't make sense that the SEC would resort to that. Abduction for ransom was a possibility, but too far-fetched to take seriously. That left only one other possibility, and Cole wasn't willing to discuss that, even with Murray. "They're wasting their time, whoever they are. They won't find out anything useful or incriminating by tailing me."
"Do you know how to shake them if you need to?"
"I watch the movies," Cole said sardonically. "I can figure it out."
After he hung up, Cole fixed himself a drink and carried it into the living room, where glass walls overlooked a gigantic free-form swimming pool with a gazebo and arched bridge that spanned it in the center. At the far end, a rock waterfall was created by two thousand strands of colored fiber-optic lights that were inserted into long tubes the diameter of plastic straws. Water flowed through the tubes and tumbled over the rocks like colorful fireworks tumbling down to earth.
Cole propped his feet up on the coffee table and dialed Diana's number. She answered on the second ring, her soft, musical voice soothing and cheering him. "How was your day?" he asked her.
Diana refused to think about Doug's visit. "It was lovely. How was yours?"
Cole discounted annoyances like SEC investigations, the threat of subpoenas, an intruder, and being tailed by someone in a dark blue Ford. "Great. Everybody liked my new tie."

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 43



The blue Ford was still five cars behind when Cole's chauffeur swung the limo into Unified's entrance the next morning. As it drove past, Cole got the license number. Whoever was following him obviously didn't want to press his luck by following Cole onto Unified's campus. "Be here at five o'clock, Bert," he told his chauffeur, who also shared household tasks with his wife, Laurel. "If I'm not out by five-thirty, go directly back home."
"Right, Mr. Harrison."
Murray was already waiting outside Cole's office, entertaining Shirley and Gloria with some sort of story about his days as a Little League baseball "hero." He followed Cole into his office, and when the door was closed, he observed casually, "Gloria Quigley is secretly convinced you walk on water, and Shirley would testify to it, to uphold your image."
"Really?" Cole was mildly surprised by that since he'd never cultivated their good opinion or any sort of personal relationship, with either woman. "I wonder why."
"Loyalty," Murray stated flatly. "They give it unconditionally to people they respect. Identical personality types, by the way."
Instead of answering, Cole scribbled something on a notepad and tore off the sheet. "This is the license number of the blue Ford."
"I'll check it out right away," Murray said, tucking it into the pocket of his nondescript charcoal gray suit jacket. "Speaking of personality types," he continued, idly studying his fingernails, "your cousin seems unusually jumpy. Do you know any reason why that might be?"
"I can think of several reasons," Cole said with mild sarcasm. "The New York Stock Exchange is investigating us at the request of the SEC, he's being followed wherever he goes, and last night, somebody was trying to go through his files."
"I see what you mean. By the way, as you've probably guessed, the security guard at R and D saw nothing unusual last night. No one entered the building after six p.m., and the people he saw leaving it after that time were all employees known to him by sight. We turn on alarms at the stairwell entrances from the inside at seven, which means no one can leave the building that way without using a security card or setting off alarms, and no one at all can get in."
"Then how did he get inside?"
"He could have slipped past the guard at the reception desk when the employees were coming back from lunch and then whiled away the afternoon in the building without a visitor's badge, which I doubt. On the other hand, he couldn't have gotten onto Travis's floor without a security card to open the door, which makes me think he was already on the floor."
Cole drew the obvious conclusion. "An employee?"
"Possibly. It could also have been a woman, since Travis isn't certain what he saw. Or it could have been an illusion, a trick of the lights going on, and when Travis realized a file cabinet was unlocked, he jumped to conclusions. As I said earlier, he's jumpy. I've dusted the file cabinet and desk for fingerprints, and I'm running a check on them right now. I'll follow up on this license number as soon as I get upstairs, but it may take a day or two to get a make on it."
He started for the door and stopped when Cole said irritably, "Why a day or two? Why not an hour or two?" Murray's slight, uneasy hesitation had already set off warning bells in Cole's brain before the security chief answered. "You and Travis spotted the Ford and Chevrolet without much trouble. In both cases, the cars were parked down the street from your homes, but pretty much in plain view, right?"
"Right."
"Unfortunately," he said with an apologetic sigh, "that sort of amazingly clumsy technique is usually limited to law enforcement officials—either state or local. They always seem to think they're invisible."
Cole's brows snapped together over eyes like shards of ice. "Are you telling me," he enunciated in a low, incensed voice, "that the police are tailing us?"
"That's my hunch. I'll confirm it as soon as I can check this out."
When he left, Cole made three phone calls in rapid succession. The first was to a car-rental agency, who promised to deliver a plain, four-door sedan to his office by noon.
The second call was to a private, unlisted phone number in Fairfax, Virginia, belonging to a senior member of the United States Senate who had the ear of the president, a seat on the Appropriations Committee, and a great deal of political clout. He had also received three hundred thousand dollars in campaign contributions from a fund-raiser held by Cole Harrison and was hoping for another such event before the next election.
According to his wife, Edna, Senator Samuel Byers was attending a meeting of the Appropriations Committee that morning. Cole left word with her, but he had to wait until she finished exclaiming over how much she loved Foster's Beautiful Living magazine and had extracted a promise from him to bring Diana to Fairfax for their annual Christmas party.
His next call was to a number that only Cole knew existed. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk, and when Willard Bretling answered, Cole said simply, "I'll be there tonight at six."
"Who is this, please?" Bretling asked, his voice distracted and scratchy from lack of use.
"Who the hell do you think it is?" Cole snapped.
"Oh, of course, I am sorry. I have been playing with our toy all night," the seventy-year-old said in a gleeful voice.
Senator Byers called on Cole's direct line at four o'clock, just after Cole hung up from Diana. "I'm sorry to hear about your trouble, Cole," Sam said, and he sounded sincere. "I'm sure it will all blow over in a week or two."
"I am not so sure," Cole countered.
"What can I do?"
"You can find out who the hell is behind it and how far it's already gone."
"I'll find out what I can," Sam promised, but before he hung up, he added awkwardly, "Until this little tempest in a teapot blows over, it might be best if you don't call me at the office or at home, son. I'll call you. Oh, and give your new wife a great big hello from me," he added.
Cole swore in disgust at that last piece of hypocrisy, then leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He tried to conjure an image of Diana to calm the chaos of the day, and she appeared in his mind, walking with him in the backyard just after they'd announced their marriage to her family.
"For a man who's impressed, you've been looking awfully grim, " she'd said.
"That isn't my 'grim' look."
"It isn't? What's your 'grim look' like?"
"I don't think you want to know."
"Oh, go ahead, " she'd teased. "Let me see it—"
The memory made Cole chuckle out loud.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 44


Corey pointed to the eight-by-ten glossy photographs she'd arranged across the conference table in Diana's office. "What do you think? Should we use this one or that one?"
"What?" Diana said, staring out the window and watching a big jet make a slow turn and begin heading west.
Leaning forward, Corey put her hand on her sister's arm. "Diana, your mind isn't on any of this, and if you're not going to be able to concentrate, why don't you join Cole at his uncle's today instead of waiting until tomorrow?"
Diana shook her head. "No, I told him I couldn't leave today. I've taken next week off, but I have too many things to do before I can leave. He's going to fly in and pick me up tomorrow."
"Don't you think he'd be happier if you went today instead?"
"I know he would," Diana said with a quiet smile. Cole had been disappointed that she couldn't join him until tomorrow, but he'd understood. "Anyway, he's on his way to Austin with his uncle right now. Even if Cole's secretary could reach him and tell him that I could leave today, I doubt his uncle would be up to the flight here and then all the way back to where he lives."
Corey could tell Diana was wavering, and it made her happy. All her instincts told her that Cole Harrison was exactly the man for her sister. "You could find out Cal's address from Cole's secretary, fly there yourself, and call Cole to come and get you when you land."
"Don't tempt me," Diana warned. She got up and wandered over to the window, so distracted by the desire to leave right now for Jeffersonville that at first she didn't pay any attention to the black Mercedes convertible pulling up in front of the building. When she did notice it, the young woman who got out of the car captured her attention first. In her late teens or early twenties, she was wearing a thigh-high pink skirt that displayed long, beautiful legs, and a pink strapless knit top stretched taut over full breasts. Everything about her was voluptuous, from her clothing to her full lips, flowing hair, and pouty expression. The man who was driving reached across from inside, tugged her hand, and drew her back into the car, as if he didn't want her to go inside with him, then got out himself.
Diana's voice dropped to a dazed whisper. "Dan's here. And he's brought his bride."
"What!" Corey said, racing to the window. The new wife got out of the car again, in obvious defiance of his wishes, and while Dan laughed and tucked her back into the car, Corey got a good look at her. "Can you believe that!" she exploded. "She looks like a—an oversexed teenager."
Diana felt a stab of jealousy and hurt that vanished in moments. "She's perfect for him," she decided aloud. "She's obviously jealous and insecure about him coming up here, and he loved it! He was laughing."
"He's a pig!" Corey said angrily. "He obviously needs constant reassurance of his virility. What can he possibly talk to her about?"
Diana thought back to her relationship with him and realized that while he had said he was proud of everything Diana had achieved in her career, he had always given her the subtle feeling that she was lacking in other areas. "Your career takes so much out of you, Diana." He'd said that a thousand times. On the other hand, even without a career, she'd never have had his new wife's breasts or long legs. And if she had had them, Diana wouldn't have been caught dead in that outfit. "How could I have been so blind?" she murmured. Then she turned from the windows and walked over to her desk.
"Are you going to see him?"
"Just for a moment," Diana said, pressing the intercom button that buzzed on her secretary's desk.
"Do you want me to stay?" Corey asked.
"It's up to you. He wants to absolve himself of guilt by creating some sort of friendly relationship with me." Sally answered the intercom, and Diana asked her to call Cole's secretary and get specific information about Cal's address and phone number. Sally was also to ask her to tell Cole that Diana was on her way, and then to make the flight arrangements for today. As soon as she was finished, Sally's voice dropped to an apprehensive whisper. "Mr. Penworth is walking down the hall," she warned.
"Diana!" he exclaimed a moment later, looking windblown and suntanned and charmingly embarrassed. "I got back yesterday, and I came straight here as soon as I could."
Diana leaned back against her desk and folded her arms over her chest. "I see that," she said mildly, filled by the strangest feeling of relief mixed with disgust. She hadn't lost someone wonderful. He was weak and selfish, and he was a coward. Cole had been right when he made that toast the first time she encountered him on the balcony.
"I wish you'd say something to make this a little easier," Dan said, looking genuinely disappointed in her lack of helpfulness. "Look, I know you were hit hard by what happened between us."
"Of course I was," Diana said. He actually looked flattered and pleased by her admission. "After all," she added with an irrepressible smile as she quoted Cole, "I was jilted by 'the scum of the earth.' "
In a fit of righteous indignation, he turned on his heel and stormed out of her office. After a moment, Diana looked over at Corey, who was leaning against the wall opposite Diana's desk. Her face alive with mirth, Corey shoved away from the wall. Very slowly and very loudly, she clapped.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 45


Diana had to change planes in Austin and again in San Larosa. She wasn't naïve enough to expect the flight from San Larosa to Ridgewood Field near Kingdom City to be aboard a 747, but neither had she anticipated that she would have to hike a half mile in high heels across the tarmac to board a miniature plane that she might have thought was "cute" if it had a solid coat of paint in one color and jet engines instead of old-fashioned propellers.
The closer she got, the smaller the Texan Airline plane looked. She picked up her pace to a near run, trying to keep up with the baggage handler, who had also taken her ticket and checked her in at the gate.
Evidently, the young man noticed the rapid clicking of her high heels, because he stopped and turned. "Right this way, Miss Foster—or is it Mrs. Harrison?" he said with a grin. "I saw you and your husband on the news."
Diana's attention was riveted on the small dilapidated aircraft she was expected to board. "Is that fit to fly?"
"I trust it," he said with a smile.
"Yes, but would you fly in it?"
"I do it all the time."
The interior of the plane was shabby and dirty. Her seat tipped from side to side when she sat in it, so she felt around on the floor, located both ends of the seat belt and buckled it snugly in place, using it to anchor herself and the wobbly seat to the floor of the plane. The ticket agent-baggage attendant winked at her as he bent in half and squeezed into the cockpit; then he slid a pair of aviator sunglasses onto his nose, and assumed a new role. Pilot.
The plane lumbered down the runway, bumping and clanking, engines straining, swaying from left to right with enough force to jar Diana's seat partially loose from its seat belt mooring; then at the last moment the plane heaved itself into the air with an audible groan and began straining toward the sun.
Satisfied that having made it up, the old plane could make it down, she opened the envelope to look over the instructions to Cal's ranch. Unfortunately she made the mistake of glancing into the cockpit just as the pilot raised his hand to shade his eyes and he began scanning the horizon. Right to left. Left to right. No radar.
Diana could not believe it! Gripping the sides of her little seat, she watched the pilot's head make its slow, constant swivel, and without realizing it, she began to help him. Leaning forward, she peered out through the tiny windshield, compulsively scanning the horizon with her heart in her mouth… left to right… right to left… left to right.
An hour later the aircraft slammed onto the landing strip at Ridgewood Field and galloped to the terminal. The pilot smiled at her as he unbuckled his seat belt, opened the plane's door, and put down the steps. Then he turned to offer her a hand. "Did you enjoy your flight?" he asked.
Diana stepped onto hot solid pavement and drew her first easy breath of the past hour. "If you're taking up a collection for radar, I'd like to contribute," she said wryly. He laughed and nodded over his shoulder. At the end of the airstrip, surrounded by an assortment of small planes, Cole's jet gleamed in the sun, a sultan among peasants.
"After you've flown in that, everything else is a letdown. Is your husband going to pick you up?" he added.
"I have to call him first."
Inside, the little metal terminal building was hot and stuffy. Across from a desk with a Car Rental sign on it was a vending machine. A woman in a waitress uniform whose name tag said "Roberta" was chatting with two elderly men who were drinking coffee from paper cups at a small lunch counter. On the opposite wall between two restrooms was a pay phone.
After twenty minutes of busy signals, Diana had the operator check the line and was informed there was no one on the line. Diana assumed Cole's uncle's phone was out of order and decided to rent a car.
"I'm sorry, miss," Roberta said, looking as if she truly was, "but we only have two rental cars. The one with the bad muffler was rented this morning by a drilling company man who came in on that red plane. The car with the bad tires got wrecked last week and it's being fixed."
"In that case, where can I find a taxi?"
That brought a guffaw from one of the elderly men at the lunch counter. "Girlie, this ain't St. Louis, Missouri, nor even San Angelo. We ain't got no taxicabs standin' around here."
Diana was frustrated but undeterred. "When's the next bus into Kingdom City?"
"Tomorrow morning."
She decided to appeal to the gallantry of the male native Texan. "I'm here to meet my husband. We were married last weekend, and this is our honeymoon."
A honeymoon touched a responsive chord in Roberta's heart. "Ernest," she pleaded, "you could take the lady to Kingdom City, couldn't you? It's only a few minutes out of your way. Do it and I'll give you free coffee every time you come by for the next two weeks!"
The man named Ernest chewed thoughtfully on his toothpick and then nodded. "Make it three weeks and you got yourself a deal, Bobbie."
"Okay, three weeks."
"Let's go then," said Ernest, shifting off a stool at the counter and sauntering toward the front door.
"Thank you very much," Diana said, relieved. She held out her hand to the man. "My name is Diana Foster." He gave her outstretched hand a quick shake and introduced himself as Ernest Taylor. His gallantry clearly didn't extend to suitcases, because he glanced over his shoulder at her luggage and said, "I'll meet you at the curb so you don't have to lug them things out to the parking lot."
"That's very kind of you," Diana said with concealed sarcasm as she turned to get the first of the three cases. She'd nearly completed her third and final trip when she shoved the hair out of her eyes and saw the vehicle that was going to take her into town, and if she hadn't been so tired and frustrated, she'd have sat down on the nearest piece of Louis Vuitton luggage and laughed till she cried. Gliding up to the curb was a dusty dark blue pickup truck with a Ronald Reagan bumper sticker and a mountain of oil drums, fishing gear, toolboxes, and cable piled in the bed. "The latch on the tailgate is broke. Just hoist them suitcases over the top of it into the back," Ernest suggested from the corner of his mouth that wasn't clamped on the toothpick.
Diana knew there was no way she could lift the heavy luggage over the tailgate, into the back of the truck. "I wonder if you could possibly give me a hand?" she asked.
Ernest opened his door, but stopped with one booted foot on the ground. "You thinking of giving me something for my trouble?" he asked. "Like five bucks, maybe?"
She'd intended to give him twenty dollars for the ride, but she was no longer feeling quite so charitable. "Fine."
Ernest swung down from the truck and proceeded to toss five thousand dollars' worth of Louis Vuitton luggage on top of dirty toolboxes and filthy rags, but when he aimed the third piece for the oil drums, Diana's voice burst out in a desperate cry. "Could you handle that a little more carefully? Those suitcases are very expensive."
"What, this thing?" he said with a disdainful expression as he held the suitcase at arm's length as if it were weightless. "Can't see why. Looks to me like it ain't nothing but canvas with a plastic coating on it—"
Knowing it would be futile to try to debate this point with a man who willingly drove such a filthy vehicle, Diana chose not to comment. Unfortunately, Ernest misconstrued her speechlessness as sudden recognition of the truth, which drove him to press his point. "Nasty-lookin' color combination—brown with kinda greenish tan letters all over it saying 'LV.' " That said, he tossed the last case onto the oil cans, then slid behind the steering wheel and waited, watching Diana clear a stack of road maps, fishing tackle, and a can of WD-40 off her seat. "'LV,'" he pointed out, "ain't even a word."
Since he seemed unwilling to put the truck into gear until she said something, Diana reluctantly replied, "They are initials."
"Secondhand stuff, huh?" he concluded sagely as the truck's gears cranked and they headed down the short gravel driveway toward the highway. "You know how I figured that out?"
Diana's mood went from mild irritation to mirth. "No, how did you guess?"
"'Cause your initials ain't LV. Right?"
"Right."
"Who'd that ugly stuff belong to before it got foisted off on you?"
"Louis Vuitton," Diana said straight-faced.
"No kidding?"
"No kidding."
He slammed the brake pedal to the floor along with the pedal beside it and shifted gears at the stop sign. "He a boyfriend of yours?"
Perhaps it was the exhilarating effect of the mountains and Cole's nearness, but Diana suddenly felt in complete charity with everything. "No, he's not."
"Sure glad to hear it."
She turned her head and gazed in fascination at Ernest's profile. He had skin the color and texture of dried leather, brown eyes, hollow cheeks, and a toothpick hanging out of the side of his mouth. "Really, why are you glad?"
" 'Cause there ain't no red-blooded American male alive who'd be caught dead carrying suitcases with his initials pasted all over them, and that's a fact."
Diana tried to remember details about the men she'd seen in the Louis Vuitton store making purchases for themselves. After a moment she stifled a smile and nodded. "You're right."

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 46


Here we are. Kingdom City on the left," Ernest said as he stuck his arm out the window, giving a hand signal for a left turn. "This is Main Street."
A thrill went through Diana. This was Cole's home, and she tried to absorb everything about it. The downtown district comprised ten blocks of businesses and stores, including the Capitol Theater in the center, which was flanked by a drugstore and a hardware store. Across the street was The Hard Luck Café, a Farmers Insurance agency, the Kingdom City Bank, a bakery, and three variety stores that seemed to carry everything from tape recorders to horse saddles.
Ernest let her off at The Hard Luck Café to use their pay phone, but to Diana's disappointment, Cal's line was still busy. She'd already ascertained that Kingdom City had a taxi service, so she resigned herself to that.
As they pulled up at a stop sign in front of Wilson's Feed and Grain, however, Ernest shifted his toothpick to the other side of his jaw. "You got any other ideas about how to get where you're going?"
"Yes, I'm going to take a taxi."
"It's busted." As proof, he nodded meaningfully toward the parking lot in front of Gus's Repair Shop, which was nearly blockaded by vehicles waiting to be repaired. In the front row, parked parallel to the curb, Diana saw a white Mercury sedan with its hood up and the word TAXI printed in black on the door.
Ernest had already made it clear that he wasn't available to take her to Jeffersonville, so at the moment, Diana's choices seemed to be limited to hitchhiking or standing on a corner with a fistful of money in her hand, asking passing vehicles to give her a ride. Neither one seemed safe. "Ernest," she said in a voice of helpless femininity, "I'm really desperate, and I just know you can think of something. Is there someone around here who would rent their car to me?"
"Nope."
"I'd be willing to pay very generously."
Until then, Ernest had not seemed to fully comprehend the magnitude of the problem or to be personally concerned with finding a solution, but at the words "pay" and "generously," his entire demeanor underwent a distinct change. "How much does a regular rented car cost you?" he asked, slanting her a speculative sideways glance.
Diana remembered signing a charge slip for a Lincoln Town Car she'd rented in Dallas for several days. "Two or three hundred dollars, I think. Why? Have you thought of a car I could rent?"
"I know just the ticket!" he announced with startling enthusiasm as he slammed down on the clutch and brake pedals, and swung the old truck into Gus's repair yard, stopping behind the taxi and blocking part of the driveway with his back fender. "I'll go see what kind of deal I can make for you."
Diana was so grateful she nearly patted his arm as he slid out of the truck, leaving the door swinging on its hinge.
In a gratifyingly short time, a man emerged from the cinder-block building. He was wearing a light blue shirt and dark blue work pants with a grimy rag dangling out of a back pocket. The oval patch on his shirt pocket proclaimed in red letters that he was "Gus." As he walked, he pulled the rag from his pants and began wiping his hands. "Pleased to meet you, miss," Gus said a little uneasily. "Ernest says you're interested in the Ford, and he's bringing it around."
From the rear of the building, Diana heard an engine crank followed by a mechanical cough and sputter, then silence. Another attempt to start it brought success, and Diana opened her purse, hoping Gus took credit cards. "There he is," Gus said.
Laughter and horror left Diana gaping at a rusted orange pickup truck that was, if possible, in even worse shape than the blue truck she'd ridden in to Kingdom City. It was coated in a thick layer of dirt, with the front bumper tied on with a rope and the passenger window held together with duct tape. Speechless, she watched Ernest climb out of the truck, his expression pleased. "You're joking," she told him. "What am I supposed to do with that?"
"You buy it!" Ernest exclaimed as if that should have been obvious as well as exciting. Stretching his arms out, he lifted his hands palms up in a gesture of absolute jubilation. "You buy it for five hundred bucks; then you keep it or sell it back when you leave."
Diana knew she was trapped, but she couldn't believe this was her only solution, and the idea of paying five hundred hard-earned dollars for a rusty, filthy, disreputable pile of orange junk was almost more than she could bear. "I can't believe that thing is worth five hundred dollars."
"She's solid as a rock," Ernest said, displaying a remarkable ability to overlook details such as loose bumpers, a headlight that was hanging by its electrical wires, and the taped-together glass.
Diana had no choice and she knew it. "I'll take it," she said in a small, miserable voice, reaching into her purse for her credit card. Still silent, Gus took the card and walked into the shop. He returned a few minutes later with a charge slip for her to sign and a handful of cash. While Diana signed the ticket, Ernest pitched her suitcases into the back of the orange derelict in the driveway; then he came around to make certain the proceedings were successfully concluded. "That does it, then," he said, and to Diana's confusion, she saw him hold out his hand to Gus, who then counted out $490 in bills into it.
"Where's my other ten bucks?" Ernest said, scowling.
"You still owed me for that tire."
Belatedly sensing a scam, Diana rounded on both men. Since Gus had never urged her to buy the damned truck in any way, she put the blame solely on Ernest and shifted her narrowed gaze to his impenitent, leathery face. "Do you mean to tell me," she said in a low, indignant voice, "that you just managed to foist your own car off on me?"
"Sure did," he said with a grin. Then he added insult to injury by nudging her in the side and confiding, "I'd have taken two hundred and fifty dollars and been glad to get it."
Inwardly humbled, Diana looked him straight in the eye and told the larcenous old man a lie she hoped would keep him awake nights. "Yes, but I'd have paid a thousand dollars." The expression of dismay on his face was so comical and so satisfying that Diana's temper cooled considerably even before she heard Gus's choked laugh.
Ernest followed her around to the driver's door and held it open while Diana climbed gingerly onto a filthy, torn, vinyl seat; then he closed the door for her. The steering wheel seemed enormous, but Diana got a good grip on it; then she felt for the brake pedal with her toe and the gearshift with her hand. Her foot encountered three pedals, not two, and when she looked at the gear lever, she saw a diagram instead of nice little letters indicating Drive, Park, and Reverse. A stick shift. Her heart sank.
"Betcha can't handle a standard transmission, can you?"
"Certainly," Diana lied, looking over her shoulder while her heart bumped nervously. The only way out of the crowded lot was to back down the driveway, which sloped downward to the street. Pretending to wait for two mothers carrying babies to walk behind and past her, Diana glanced at the diagram and tried to remember the trick associated with using the clutch and the brake that Doug had taught her when she was sixteen.
Satisfied that no one was behind her, she shoved at the clutch and yanked on the gearshift, wincing at the metallic screech of gears; then she released the clutch with a jolt that made the truck shake and she slammed down on the accelerator. As the truck careened backward and gathered speed, Diana steered frantically, and Gus yelled a warning over Ernest's roar of laughter, but somehow the truck landed safely on the street, pointed in the opposite direction. Pride and common sense made Diana decide to circle the block, rather than turn it around.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 47


When the truck actually held together for five full miles, Diana relaxed enough to take note of the scenery. This was a part of Texas she rarely saw but that everyone who watched westerns automatically identified with the state. Behind miles of fencing that separated vast pastures from winding county roads, newborn calves frolicked beside their mothers and gangly foals with flying tails scampered in short bursts on unsteady legs while watchful mares looked on.
She could imagine how it would look in springtime, when the bluebonnets and buttercups and Indian paintbrush would burst into bloom, spreading their blossoms like a fluffy patchwork quilt over the rumpled hills and shallow valleys.
She had to stop once at a filling station to make certain she hadn't passed the turnoff to Cal's house, because the addresses were usually painted on rural mailboxes that were partially covered by tall grass.
Up ahead, she saw what had to be the right place, and she gingerly slowed the truck, praying it wouldn't die when she navigated the turn. It backfired when she slowed down, and the gears screeched horribly when she tried to shift into a different gear, but she made the turn. Once she had done that, she was confronted with a new series of problems in the form of a hilly gravel drive a mile long that twisted in and out among trees that no one had wanted to cut down apparently, and then rose sharply again.
 
"She should be here any minute," Cole told Cal, glancing at his watch. "If she's not, I'm going to go look for her." He'd called his office, learned that Diana was on her way, armed only with Cal's address, and he'd phoned the airfield immediately. The woman who worked there said Diana had arrived and gotten a ride with a local man who, she assured Cole, was "pretty respectable."
"You should have gone after her," Cal told him worriedly. "You can't have a wife wandering over the countryside, lost and alone. That's no way to treat a wife."
"If I knew which road the man she's with had taken, I would try to intercept her," Cole explained patiently, surprised by the signs of unprecedented nervousness his uncle had been exhibiting ever since he realized Diana was on her way.
Cal's next words were interrupted by a loud boom that cracked like thunder from the direction of the driveway. "What the hell is that?" he said, following quickly after Cole, who was already heading for the front porch.
"I assume it's Diana's ride," Cole said, staring in disbelief at an orange pickup truck with a loose bumper and a drooping headlight that was slowly lurching its way toward them, accompanied by the rhythmic screech of grinding gears and deafening backfires.
Cal watched for a moment, but he was more concerned with making a good first impression on his new niece. He smoothed his hair back carefully at the temples with both hands, squared his shoulders, and checked his tie. "Cole," he said with a strange hesitation in his voice, "do you think Diana will like me?"
Surprised and touched by his uncle's unprecedented nervous uncertainty, Cole said with absolute certainty, "Diana will love you."
Satisfied, Cal directed his attention to the approaching vehicle just as it gave one more earsplitting screech and then shot forward in a burst of speed. "Looks like he finally found second gear." Squinting, he added, "Can you tell if Diana's with him?"
Cole was younger and his eyes were better. As the truck reached the level spot that led directly to the front door, Cole stared with widened eyes at the face of his wife. "It's Diana," he uttered, hurrying down the porch steps to the drive with Cal right at his heels.
When they stepped out in front of her, Diana was so glad to see them that she mixed up the clutch with the brake and stepped down on the accelerator.
"Look out!" Cole shouted, jumping out of her path and dragging Cal with him. The truck missed them by inches, rolled to a stop, backfired, and died.
Shaking with fear at having nearly run over both men, Diana dropped her forehead on the steering wheel while Cole ran around the truck to help her out. She straightened just as he grabbed the handle to open her door. "Who owns this pile of sh—junk?" Cole demanded. The door handle came off in his hand, and he reached through the open window, groping for the handle on the interior.
He got hold of it, yanked the door open, and held his hand out to Diana to help her down. Like the elegant young woman she was, his wife accepted his hand, daintily removed her derriere from a tear in the vinyl seat as deep as a canyon, and then gracefully alighted.
Pausing for a brief moment to brush the dirt off her clothes, she flashed a warm smile at Cal, who was standing at Cole's elbow; then she looked at Cole with a sheepish smile. "We do."
Cal gave a sharp bark of laughter.
 
"This is my house," Cal explained, ushering her in the front door and insisting that she sit on his chair because it was the most comfortable; then he rushed off to the kitchen to get her a glass of fresh lemonade. Neat stacks of magazines and books on a vast array of topics were everywhere, and on the coffee table, in plain view, he had carefully placed the latest copy of Foster's Beautiful Living.
Diana could hardly believe that the gallant, endearing man who beamed at her as if she were the sunshine of his life was the same ferociously determined man who had forced his powerful nephew into marriage by blackmailing him with half of his own corporation—albeit for "Cole's own good."
"We'll just stay here for a little while," he explained, handing her a glass of lemonade and then standing in front of her as if she might need help drinking it. Finally, apparently satisfied that she could handle it, he sat down across from her on the sofa beside Cole and continued with the schedule for the day. "In a little bit, we'll go over to the other house. We'll eat supper there, and then you and Cole will stay there and I'll come back here."
Diana had come to adore him in less than five minutes. "Oh, but I thought we were going to stay with you," she said, shooting a confused look at Cole, "so we could get to know each other while I'm here."
"The other house is right here on the ranch," Cal assured her, positively beaming with pleasure that she wanted to see more of him.
After showing her around his home, he decreed that it was time to leave.
 
Cal's house was on flat ground in a wide clearing, situated for convenience not the view, but the other house, a mile further down the road and around a sharp bend, was positioned for view and setting, and it had both. "How beautiful!" Diana exclaimed as she slid out of Cole's station wagon.
Perched on the edge of a wooded hilltop that faced out across a shallow valley was a cozy house of stone and rough-cut cedar surrounded on three sides by a huge cantilevered deck that hung suspended in midair over the edge of the hill. Inside, it was rustic, with a huge fireplace at one end and rows of sliding doors at the other that opened onto the deck. Two large bedrooms opened off the living room, and the kitchen looked out over the hills in the opposite direction from Cal's house.
"This is Letty," Cole said fondly, leading a plump woman with her hair pulled back in a bun out of the kitchen and into the living room. Letty seemed almost as happy to know Diana as Cal was.
"Supper will be at six," she said, already retreating back into the kitchen. "It is nothing fancy. And nothing like the beautiful pictures in your magazine, either."
"I'm not much of a cook," Diana admitted.
"Good," she replied with a twinkle in her eyes.
Diana turned around and through the doorway saw Cole putting her suitcases at the foot of a king-size bed. He turned and caught her watching him, and a bolt of electricity seemed to shoot from his body straight into hers. He'd put his arm around her shoulders in a casually possessive gesture when he'd introduced her to Cal. But nothing in that gesture, or anything else he'd done, indicated what he felt about whether this was going to be a honeymoon or not.
She wasn't certain if that meant he took for granted that it was, or that he wasn't overly concerned one way or another.
All that began to change when dinner was over.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 48


Sunset had painted the sky in wild streaks of lavender, purple, and red by the time they'd finished dinner and Letty had cleared away the plates.
The initial nervousness that Cal had displayed when she first got there had vanished. In its place was the assumption that she was part of the family and always would be. Besides making Diana feel like a fraud, it led to several questions about motherhood, such as how she would run her company and still have a baby. To make matters worse, she had the distinct feeling that Cal was aware that she'd not considered any of that and was suspicious about why not.
Annoyingly, Cole didn't seem to suffer any of her guilt or self-consciousness. In fact, he was making her uncomfortable, and she had a feeling he was doing it deliberately. While appearing to pay attention to the conversation, his heavy-lidded dark silver eyes were making a leisurely appraisal of her features that made Diana self-consciously reach up to lift a strand of hair off her cheek.
He was leaning back in his chair with his long legs stretched out in front of him and his feet crossed at the ankles, ignoring the sunset in favor of her. Without moving a muscle or saying a word, he was emanating an aura of predatory virility that was tangible enough to cut with a knife.
And to cap everything off, both men were completely unself-conscious about other things that made Diana acutely uneasy, things that seemed to creep into the conversation with nerve-racking regularity. Diana's simple compliment about the hand-wrought-iron table they were sitting at led Cal to provide her with the information that Cole had actually had a king-size bed shipped down four days ago to replace the double-size one that had been in the bedroom. And then he remarked that among other new furniture that had arrived by truck was the big L-shaped sofa in the living room, which had more pillows on it than any three beds he'd ever seen.
When she said that she thought the landscaping around the house was very pretty, she discovered that Cole had had an army of workmen up there manicuring the place until an hour before she arrived. "It wasn't fit to bring a bride to," Cal informed her. Then he tipped his head to a double chaise longue on the deck a few yards away. "Cole had that sent down from Dallas for your stay," he confided. "I've never seen the likes of it, have you?"
She turned and looked at the double chaise and nodded with a smile. "Once before."
"Shows you what I know. Looked to me like he was putting a bed right there on the front porch! I've seen beds on porches before," he joked, "but they usually have box springs tossed out beside them, along with an old wringer-washer."
Diana's heart jumped. Maybe it did look like a bed.
"Cal," Cole said mildly.
Diana thought his objection to the topic of beds too late and too little.
If she agreed to "honeymooning" here, which she had rather expected to do, she'd envisioned something that started a little later and progressed a little slower.
At exactly 8:30 Cole looked at Cal and Cal looked at his watch, quickly stood up, and announced, "Well, it's time I get back to work." Since he didn't have work, and since it was only now fully dark, Diana leapt to the obvious conclusion that Cole thought it was time to use one of the many new, fully padded, horizontal surfaces in the house, and Cal wanted them to get busy making him a great-great-nephew.
Diana stood up almost as abruptly as he did. "I think I'll take a shower and change into something… cleaner!"
Cole watched her back through the door, puzzled by her reaction to being alone with him. He was certain she intended to go to bed with him. He was fairly certain…
He wasn't certain at all.
A few minutes later, he went into the kitchen for a glass of iced tea and noticed his bedroom door was open. One of her suitcases was missing and the bathroom she was using was the one in the second bedroom. He tipped the pitcher up, considering the ramifications of that. Separate bathrooms in Diana's circle, and his own now, were a practical and convenient accoutrement. She was being civilized and sophisticated. Or shy. Or evasive.
Normally, Cole could size up the most complex situations in a matter of minutes. Tonight, he couldn't seem to second-guess the intentions of his own wife. Frowning, he went into his bedroom, intending to take a shower. He pulled off his shirt and belatedly remembered he'd taken a shower an hour before she got here. Now he was acting like a nervous bride.
He went back to the kitchen, dumped out the iced tea, and decided to have a drink instead. He carried it onto the porch and stretched out on the double chaise.
He knew damned well Diana wanted him.
They were attracted to each other. Wildly attracted.
He'd offered to let her make the decision. She was either having a hard time making one—or she'd made one he wasn't going to like and was trying to avoid telling him.
The stars came out, one by one, and the sky darkened until they twinkled like bright jeweled paths across the sky.
In the guest bedroom, Diana finished brushing her hair at the dresser and debated over what to wear. It was really too early to be in a robe, not to mention transparently suggestive. She decided to put on a pair of white shorts and a bright green silk shirt instead. Cole was probably expecting her to appear in something filmy and revealing. A negligee. Something fragile and lacy.
She put on a touch of lipstick and thought of Cole expecting a replay of their wedding night, only much more so, and her hand trembled so hard she dropped the lipstick tube. She'd been so intoxicated then that she hadn't known where, or who, she was, but she knew now, and her stomach cramped with nervous uncertainty.
What was she doing, letting herself in for this! She picked up the brush and brushed her hair again. Husband or not, Cole was a stranger. An unknown entity who stepped over barriers the size of mountains without qualm or difficulty and showed no concern for repercussions.
She was concerned enough for both of them. There was no point in denying that after he had left Houston, she had thought of him a thousand times a day, and every thought was sweeter than the last one. And there was no denying that the idea of "honeymooning" here with him had made her knees weak and still did. But now that she was here, there was something wrong with the picture. Although they were legally married, it was clearly understood between them that was temporary. So what Cole had actually suggested in Houston was that they compound and complicate the farce by indulging in an orgy of sex for a week.
When he presented the idea, he had offered it as a suggestion and left the decision to her. She had decided to do it.
Now that she was here, it was obvious he'd made assumptions, acted on them, and intended to have things his way. She decided not to do it. At least, certainly not tonight.
She was not going to relinquish control. She liked being in control of her life, her present, her future, and she normally handled it very well. Except when Cole got involved, and then he turned everything upside down. It was a pattern that needed to stop. It was a lesson he needed to learn.
Emboldened by that resolve, Diana put the hairbrush on the dresser and left the guest bedroom.
The rest of the house was dark, but the light was on in Cole's room, and she assumed he was showering, so she decided to wait for him on the porch.
She walked outside and closed the door behind her, then she walked over to the railing, looking out at the hills bathed in moonlight. She'd been standing there a full minute when a low-pitched, seductive voice said, "Would you like to join me?"
Diana whirled around. He was stretched out on the longue, wearing loafers and pants, but his chest was bare, and in her state of mind, the fact that he'd taken off his shirt struck Diana as a deliberately provocative maneuver.
Her gaze riveted on the bronzed skin that covered an acre of muscled chest and sinewed shoulders; then it shifted nervously to his eyes. He wanted her to join him on the chaise. He'd been out here waiting for her. Her treacherous heart began to beat a little faster.
Very firmly, Diana reminded herself of her decision. "I don't think so," she said with a smile that made her refusal seem, unintentionally but distinctly, flippant and blasé. Unable to fix that, she stayed with it. "I think I'll get a glass of lemonade, though."
As she walked past Cole's chaise, he caught her hand and forced her to stop and turn. In silence, he studied her face as if he were searching for an answer, and while she was distracted by that, he was slowly pulling her forward. His tone was so gentle that it disturbed her balance as much as his action. "Don't play games with me, Kitten." He took her other arm and tugged.
Diana landed on top of him, her forehead at his chin, his left hand on her upper arm. Bracing her palms beside his shoulders, she levered her chest off of his and stared at him in irate disbelief. His right hand lifted, and his knuckles stroked softly up her bare arm in a patient caress while his gaze held hers. The message in those compelling gray eyes was as clear as if he were whispering it: Make up your mind.
Diana gazed at the sensual mouth only inches from hers. Inviting mouth. Tender smile. Make up your mind.
Without volition, her lips moved closer to his, and her heart began to race with excitement. Decide.
Her eyes drifted closed, and her breath came out in a sigh. She kissed him softly and felt his lips answer, moving on hers, moving with them, while his hands slid up her arms and tightened. She broke the kiss, and he let her, but the body beneath hers was hardening and the gray eyes were beginning to smolder. He laid his palm against her cheek, slowing running it back, curving it around her nape, urging her closer. Again.
Her arms went weak, and her breasts flattened against his hard chest as his mouth opened on hers in a deep, hungry kiss. His fingers shoved into her hair, holding her mouth imprisoned, while his arm slanted over her hips and he rolled her onto her side, leaning over her.
His tongue tasted and urged and slowly drove into her mouth while his thighs pressed into her. Rigid thighs. Demanding.
Her hands pressed him closer; her body strained nearer. He tore his mouth from hers long enough to unbutton her shirt and spread it open, and what he saw nudged him another step closer to the edge. Pert nipples hardened to tight buds tipped two exquisite pale globes that were in perfect proportion to the rest of her.
He touched the nipple and it tightened more. He bent his head and kissed it, and she moaned aloud and arched her back in a burst of pleasure that startled him with its intensity. Trying to slow himself down, he kissed the other nipple, drawing it into his mouth, and her fingers tightened reflexively in his hair, her back arching higher.
Stimulated by the expression of her pleasure, his body surged in an urgent desire to do more. With an effort, he made himself slow down and rolled her back on top of him. To his surprise, she pulled her shirt closed and started to get up. He stopped her at the exact moment when she was straddling his erection.
Diana thought she knew exactly why he'd slowed down. She bent her head to avoid his gaze and self-consciously started to button her shirt over her small breasts.
A hoarse word stilled her fingers. "Don't!"
Her gaze snapped to his, her hands holding the edges of her shirt closed. Cole pulled her hands away so that he could see. "Beautiful," he whispered, spreading her shirt all the way off her shoulders. He cupped his palms over her breasts, caressing them.
Diana's heart began to thunder with a mixture of shock, embarrassment, and exquisite pleasure.
Cole was so attuned to her that his own heart began to hammer, and he suddenly realized that he was actually feeling her reactions in his body. He rubbed his thumbs over her nipples and his own nipples hardened. "Touch me," he whispered to her, half afraid of what would happen when she did.
The shaken sound of his voice made Diana's hands tremble as she bent low over him and covered his nipple with her lips, teasing it with her tongue. When he drew in his breath sharply, Diana felt the sudden jerk of his hips beneath her as if he were inside her, and suddenly she was yanked forward onto the chaise and immediately was pinned beneath him. Together they were caressing hands and eager mouths and urgent limbs shedding clothes to give more pleasure.
Her breasts were beautiful, his body a sculpture, he was master, he was enslaved. His groan was her music and her sigh his benediction. They clung together unmoving, while her body welcomed the slow thrusting heat of him, and what began as a gentle rocking became fierce, demanding thrusts. She strained toward him in trembling need and he drove into her again and again in a desperate desire to take her with him all the way. She cried out and held him when she found it, and he joined her there.
Afterward, as she lay crushed tightly in his arms, the tears falling softly on his chest were hers. He felt them there as he stared beyond, where stars once bright and clear wavered and shimmered before gray eyes now strangely blurry.
He closed his eyes and knelt beneath the heavens, head bowed.
He offered bargains, bribes, and promises.
And when no answer came, he whispered fiercely, "Please."
He laid his hand against her wet cheek; she turned her face into his palm. "I love you," she whispered. He was blessed.
 
Lying in the king-size bed with her head resting on his chest, Diana smiled in the darkness as she waited for Cole to say something. She had a very strong suspicion he was, at that very moment, calmly reinventing the rest of her life, and probably with the same forcefulness and speed he had handled matters thus far.
She was intensely curious as to how he would try to navigate around some of the obstacles to their fledgling marriage. He loved her and she loved him, which was all that truly mattered, but there were some little complications. She counted them off in her mind:
She lived in Houston and ran a big business there.
He lived in Dallas and ran an even bigger business there.
She wanted to bear his children.
He didn't want children.
Obviously, she decided as she traced the line of a hard muscle over his rib cage, this was going to take more than navigation; it was going to take a miracle.
Closing her eyes, she decided to count on one more of those. She dozed, and when she awoke a few minutes later, the little lamp on the night table was on. His fingers were threaded through hers and he was holding her hand. "I've been thinking," he said tenderly, "and I've arrived at some conclusions."
She smiled to herself at that unsurprising announcement. She could not seem to stop smiling. Turning her face up to his, she braced herself to find out how far he'd taken the decision-making process without consulting her.
"We have a logistics problem," Cole began. He saw her eyes begin to shine with laughter, and he cuddled her closer. He could not be close enough to her. "I think you'll have to move to Dallas, darling. I can't move Unified to Houston. It's a bad idea for several reasons, not to mention fiscally suicidal."
She feigned a sigh. "Under the terms of our original agreement, we're to maintain separate residences in the two cities. That was the deal."
Cole thought she was serious. "That's impossible."
"That was our agreement. We had an iron-clad verbal agreement."
He brushed that aside with amused male arrogance. "You can't have an iron-clad verbal agreement. It's a complete contradiction in terms."
"So all bets are off?"
Cole looked down sharply, studying the deceptive innocence of wide jade eyes fringed in long russet lashes beneath gracefully winged brows. "Diana," he whispered, "you are beautiful. And you are getting at something. What is it?"
"I would be willing to move the administrative and business divisions of Foster Enterprises to Dallas and leave the art and production staff in Houston under Corey."
"Then that settles everything," he said with satisfaction, bending his head to kiss her. His body was already thrilling to the idea of making love to her again.
She splayed her fingers and ran her hand down the plane of his stomach, her eyes turning hopeful and full of appeal.
"Whatever it is you're asking for with that look in your eyes," Cole said mildly, "the answer is yes."
"I'm asking for babies. Your babies."
He tipped his chin down, frowning warily. "How many?"
Her smile dawned like sunshine, her eyes sparkled like the eight-carat oval diamond he'd slipped on her finger while she dozed. He'd brought the ring here, hoping this would happen. No, he'd never dared to hope this would happen.
"I'd like three children," she replied.
"One," he countered sternly.
She looked at him. "I'll give you Park Place and Boardwalk and all my rental properties if I can have two."
"Done!" he said with a chuckle.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 49


Cal's front door was open, so Diana went on inside. Cole had let her sleep late and had left her a note to come down to Cal's when she was up. She could hear Cal talking to Cole in the kitchen while Letty served breakfast. "Was I wrong not to tell you before?"
"No," Cole said flatly. "And now that you've told me, I couldn't care less."
Cal sounded relieved. "Do you mind doing those errands for me? You could stop by the old place and see if there's anything you want. It's on your way."
Diana walked into the kitchen, just as Cole added in a chilly voice, "I remember where it is."
They were sitting at the table, and Cal gave her a quick smile of greeting; then he returned his full attention to the discussion under way. Diana moved around the table to help Letty carry plates of scrambled eggs and biscuits smothered with white country gravy to the table. "You remember where what is?" she asked.
"My ancestral home." There was a snide, toneless quality to his voice when he said that, and Diana noticed it as she put one hand on his shoulder and leaned around him with his plate. "I'll go with you. I'd love to see it."
"No!" he said so sharply that Diana paused as she put the plate in front of him. He apologized for his tone by reaching up and catching her hand, pressing it to his shoulder for a moment.
The two men waited until Diana slid into her chair, then Cal picked up his cause again, and Diana had a glimpse of where Cole had gotten his tenacity. "If you'd read something besides financial statements and stock prospectuses once in a while, you'd know about grieving and getting resolution after a loss. Deal with it now or deal with it later, that's what the psychologists say. It's right there in the living room in books and magazine articles written by the experts."
"Last year," Cole said wryly to Diana, "he was on a campaign to have me 'get in touch with my feminine side.' "
Diana choked on her coffee.
She had already gathered that someone who lived in the general area had died, but since Cole seemed completely indifferent to the person's death, she didn't pursue the subject. Moreover, when Cal tried to return to the topic again, Cole said tersely, "I do not want this subject discussed in front of Diana."
Cole left right after breakfast to do a series of errands for Cal in town that he expected to take two hours at most, but he insisted that Diana stay with Cal. When he got up from the table, he rumpled her hair, leaned down, and pressed a kiss to her cheek, then walked forward… without letting go of her wrist. Laughing, Diana was hauled out of the house onto the porch, soundly kissed, then sent back inside.
Cal observed the little vignette with an expression that struck Diana as somber at best and disapproving at worst. Feeling a little hurt and a little self-conscious, she walked over to the fireplace mantel, where framed pictures, mostly quite old, were lined up in rows. With her hands linked behind her back, she studied each one, while Cal's gaze bored through her from behind.
"Is this Cole?" She lifted a frame off the mantel, brought it over to the sofa, and sat down beside him.
He flicked a glance at the picture and then pinned her with a look that was disturbing and was meant to be. "Why don't you and I have a little talk about something besides pictures," he said in a no-nonsense tone that proved two things very clearly: Calvin Downing was far more astute than he seemed, and he was no pushover.
"What," Diana said warily, "do you want to talk about?"
"You and Cole. That all right with you?"
She nodded, and he said, "Good, because we were going to do it anyway."
Diana was not a pushover either. "Mr. Downing, maybe we'll wait until Cole comes back."
Oddly her tart retort did not offend him. "You got more than looks. You got spunk, too, and that's good. Now, do you have a heart?"
"What!"
"And if you do have one, who does it belong to?"
Diana stared at him, riveted by the topic if not his tone. "I don't understand."
"Well, I'll grant you, it's a little complicated to me, too. Because less than two weeks ago, I picked up the Enquirer, and there was your picture, smack dab on the front page, with a story that says you got jilted by your fancy beau. A week later, you're married to my nephew, Cole."
Five days ago, she'd have been humiliated by the mere mention of that article. Instead a wayward smile curved her lips. "Well, yes," she admitted, "I can see how that would look a little odd."
"That's the only part makes sense," he contradicted bluntly. "Cole was mad and I showed him the picture to make a point, and I figured he made a point right back by marrying you to get his stock back. But then he told me you're the little girl he used to talk about when he was in college, and I remembered your name was Diana Foster, so I know it's really you. Are you following me?"
"So far, yes."
"Okay. So I figured the two of you are old friends, and you just got jilted, and Cole needed a wife to get his stock back—so you two struck a deal. How am I doing so far?"
Diana eyed him askance. "Pretty well," she admitted with a trembling smile.
"Now, I also know Cole worries about my heart. So after he got over being boiling mad over the bargain I stuck him with, he decided it would be better, for my sake, if the two of you pretended you actually give a damn about each other. Are you with me?"
She nodded warily.
"Good, because now we're coming to the part that scares the hell out of me."
"What's that?"
"Yesterday he was up at the house driving everybody crazy about every little detail so it would be as nice for you as it could be. He was giving a damned good imitation of a man who thought a whole lot of his wife. I got real excited to meet you. Last night, he couldn't keep his eyes off you. But I've gotta tell you straight out, Diana, I didn't get the idea you shared his feelings. Yet, this morning, he's wearing his heart on his sleeve, so I figure you had something to do with that last night."
He paused for emphasis, his voice turning insistent as he reached the real issue: "Don't go playing around with his heart, girl. Either take all of it or leave it alone. Don't go taking little bits and pieces, when it suits you—and if it suits you. I don't think it's in you to be mean or cruel, but sometimes, if a woman doesn't know how a man feels, that could happen."
Diana collapsed back against the sofa, laughing softly, hugging Cole's picture to her chest. She turned her face to the elderly man who loved her husband, too, and said, without shame or pretense, "Cole isn't wearing his heart on his sleeve. That is my heart."
He looked fifteen years younger… and belatedly embarrassed. Looking around for some way out of the situation he'd brought on himself, he got up and went over to the fireplace. "That picture you have is Cole when he was sixteen. Here's two others."
He presented them to her with great care, and Diana held them that way, but her smile began to fade and her heart began to ache. She'd looked at enough photographs at the magazine to notice things quickly, and the dark-haired little boy with his fingers shoved into the heavy coat of a mixed-breed collie at his side was looking at the camera with a very solemn expression. Much too solemnly for a six- or seven-year-old. She took the other picture.
"He was nine there," Cal said. The collie was on one side of him, and another mixed-breed dog was on his left. Diana scarcely noticed the dogs; she noticed that although he was trying to smile, he didn't look happy. And his pants were several inches above his ankles in both pictures. He was standing beside an old tire swing in one shot and in front of a shack of some sort in the other.
She forgot about all that when she suddenly realized that Cal could give her tidbits of information about Cole. "Even when I knew him before," she confided with a smile, "he was frustratingly secretive about his past." She patted the seat beside her. "Tell me everything. Tell me what he was like when he was little and what his mother was like and— everything."
"What's he told you?" Cal asked warily.
"Nothing! I know he had a brother who was two years older than he and another brother who was three years older, and they both died in an accident right after Cole went to college. I know his mother died of cancer when he was in his first year of college. He never told me when his father died. He's had so much tragedy," she added quietly.
She waited for Cal to talk after he sat down, but he seemed deeply troubled and genuinely at a loss. He kept looking over at the piles of reading material. "I like psychology," he said, seemingly apropos of nothing. "Do you believe in it?"
"Of course."
"Do you believe it's good for a person to keep bad things bottled up inside of him, and to hide those things from the woman who loves him—And go on doing so for as long as he lives?"
Diana knew with absolute certainty and grave foreboding they were talking about Cole. She wanted to help, but she didn't want to pry.
"I—I wouldn't want him to feel I pried into anything."
"I'd call it lancing a wound, not prying."
"I don't like wounds that don't heal," Diana said. "The question is, can I help them heal?"
"You couldn't hurt."
She looked at the picture she was holding and thought about lying in Cole's arms last night. He had so much love to give, and she wanted it all. She didn't want to risk losing any of it. "If what you're going to tell me is really bad, then how will Cole feel if he knows I know it?"
"He won't have to worry that you'd change if you found out. He won't have to wonder how you really feel. Dr. Richenblau calls it 'cathartic' It won't take long to tell. What you do about it is up to you."
Diana drew a deep breath and nodded. "Tell me."
"Well, you said he's had a lot of tragedy in his life. The biggest tragedy was that he was born with the name Harrison."
That was the last thing Diana expected him to say. "Why?"
"Because in Kingdom City, where Cole grew up, that name is a curse. For as long as anyone can remember, the Harrisons have been wild and worthless. They're drunkards and cheats and hell-raisers, the whole worthless lot of 'em, and Cole grew up with that stigma. When Cole's mama eloped with Tom Harrison, my brother cried. He couldn't believe his baby girl had done it. Turned out Tom had gotten her pregnant, and in that day and age, in these parts, girls who got pregnant had to get married. No two ways about it."
Diana watched him bend down and straighten magazines and generally stall; then he straightened and said, "Cole's two brothers got killed the year after Cole went away to college. They were in Amarillo, and they were drunk, and they wanted to get even drunker, but they didn't have any money. So they beat an old lady half to death for her purse; then they jumped in their car and took off. They ran a red light, and the cops went after them. They were going over a hundred miles an hour when their car hit a lamppost. Good riddance to 'em, I said then and I say it now, too.
"Cole's daddy liked those two boys of his, though. They were chips off the old block."
When he paused, Diana said flatly, "But Cole wasn't."
"Never was. Never could be. He was smarter than all three of them put together, and they knew it. They hated him for it. About the only friends Cole had in those days were his dogs. Dogs and horses and cats—Animals just loved that boy and he loved them right back. They understood each other. Guess maybe it was because they all knew how it felt to be helpless with no one to turn to."
"So Cole was the only one who went to college," Diana said aloud.
Cal gave a mirthless laugh. "He was the only one to make it past the tenth grade." Tipping his head back, he said, "You know the collie that was with Cole in the picture?"
"Yes."
"About a week before Cole left for college, his brothers gave him a little going-away present."
Diana knew it wasn't going to be good, but she wasn't prepared for what she heard.
"They hung the dog in the barn."
Diana moaned and clamped her hand over her mouth, half rising from her seat; then she made herself sit back down.
"They disappeared afterward and didn't come back until after Cole left. If they had, I think he'd have killed them."
"Wasn't there somewhere else he could live?"

"He could have lived here, but his pa wanted him right there, doing a man's work. He said a thousand times that if Cole moved away from home, Cole's mama would pay for it. And Cole's mama—poor, weak soul that she was— wouldn't leave that bastard. By the time Cole left for college, she was so sick she didn't know where she was half the time, and she wasn't worth abusing for Tom."
Diana was still a little sick from the thought of the collie. "And what about Cole's father. How long ago did he die?"
"Last week."
Diana slowly made the connection between the conversation at breakfast and this piece of information.
"I told Cole he has to go back to the old place in case there's something of his mama's there for him. Truth is, I wanted him to see it as a man. In one of my books, it said that when adults confront the 'evils of their childhood,' they often feel better. I think, whether he's there or not, it would be a good idea if he knew you'd seen the place and it didn't matter. Personally, I think he'll go there."
"Will you draw me a map?" she said, pressing a kiss on his cheek and startling him. "I'll run up to the house and get the keys to the truck."
Cal started to offer her Letty's car since Cole had his, but Letty had left to do the grocery shopping.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 50


Cole stood near the front yard of the place of his birth, a four-room shack with rotting boards for a floor—an ugly scab on a piece of barren earth.
His birthplace. His heritage.
He wasn't certain why he had come. His mother hadn't survived this place, so there was no reason to think anything of hers would be here for him. Perhaps he'd come to confront its ghosts and then to burn it down…
There were no happy memories to preserve here; the only bearable ones were of his mother. She had died just after her forty-second birthday, while he was in his first year of college. He'd been with her for the birthday before that, though. He'd hitched a ride to town to buy her a birthday present, and he was late getting back. The house had been quiet, and for a minute, he'd harbored the false hope that his father was drunk in the barn or preferably further away than that. He'd almost reached his mother's room when his father's voice had uncoiled like a bullwhip from a darkened corner of the front room. "Where the hell you been, boy?"
He had reached for a light switch to dispel the gloom while mentally gauging his father's mood as ugly but not physically brutal. He'd been an expert at gauging his father's moods, because any mistakes in that regard would have dire results, not just for Cole, but for his mother.
"I had to go to town."
"You're a ****ing liar. You've been over to Jeffersonville with your asshole uncle, lettin' him fill your head with all his fancy notions. I told you what I'd do to you if I caught you hangin' around with him again. You're just askin' for a lesson, boy!" Cole downgraded his mood to potentially brutal. As a child, he'd thrown up from sheer terror at moments like these. Later, his primary fear was that someday, he'd kill the man and spend his life in prison for it.
His father's attention was diverted by the flower-printed gift wrap on the box Cole was holding. "What the hell is that?"
"It's a present for Ma. It's her birthday."
Amused by the sentiment, his father reached for it. "What'd you get her?"
Cole held it back, out of his reach. "Nothing you'd want—a fancy brush and mirror."
"You bought her a fancy brush and mirror?" he taunted. "A fancy brush and mirror for that skinny old crow? That's even funnier than you thinkin' you're gonna become a fancy ****ing college boy." His disposition improved by that, he picked up the bottle of whiskey from the table beside him, and Cole went into his mother's room.
She was dozing, propped up on pillows, her face turned away from him. On the scarred table beside her was a plate with a half-eaten sandwich. Cole turned on the lamp and sat down beside her hip. "Is this all you had for dinner?"
She twisted her head on the pillows and looked at him, blinking her eyes to adjust to the light. She smiled, but even her smile was somber. "I wasn't hungry. Was that your father yelling a few minutes ago, or did I dream it?"
"He was yelling."
"You shouldn't upset your father, Cole."
Her continual, lifelong submissiveness to his father's ugly disposition and vile temper was something that Cole had never understood. He hated the fact that she continually tried to placate the man, to make excuses for him. Sometimes he had to stop himself from berating her for not standing up for herself and defying him. She wouldn't leave him, and Cole wouldn't leave her there.
"I brought you a birthday present."
She brightened, and for a moment he could almost imagine the dark beauty that his Uncle Cal said had once been hers. She lifted the present and shook it a little, prolonging the excitement; then she carefully removed the wrapping paper and opened the box. "It's so beautiful!" Her gaze flew to his face. "How did you pay for it?"
"Why should I pay for it when I can steal it?"
"Oh, Cole, no!"
"I was joking! C'mon, Ma, if I stole it, do you think I'd wait around to get it gift-wrapped?"
She relaxed back onto the pillows and held the mirror up to study her face. With girlish embarrassment, she confessed, "I used to be very proud of how pretty I was, did you know that?"
"You're still pretty. Listen, Ma. Things are going to get a whole lot better in a couple years after I get out of college. I've got big plans, and Cal thinks they'll happen if I want them bad enough to work hard. In a few years, I'll build you a special house out at Cal's place—one that's made of stone and cedar with lots of windows—and I'll put it over on the side of that hill with big porches all around it, so you can sit up there and look out all day."
She seemed to press back into the pillows as if she were trying to hide, her fingers clutching at his arm. "Don't go dreaming dreams! When they don't come true, that's when you end up like your pa. That's why he's like he is. He used to have dreams."
"I'm not him!" Cole said, appalled by her reaction. "I'm nothing like him." The only time his father ever talked about "dreams" was when he was looking for an excuse to go on a drunken tirade and he couldn't think of any other reason.
 
The orange truck died when she turned off the road, and Diana left it there and walked, picking her way through deep ruts that constituted a driveway. She saw Cole ten minutes later when she rounded a sharp bend—a tall, solitary man standing with his shoulders squared, completely motionless except for a breeze that ruffled his hair. A few steps more and she had a clear view of her husband's birthplace, the home of his youth. What she saw made Diana feel like retching. She'd expected something unappealing; she hadn't been prepared for squalor. The house was a rotting wooden shanty that crouched at the base of a hill and was surrounded by broken fences and decades of accumulated litter. In blinding contrast to his surroundings, Cole was immaculately groomed, with brown loafers polished to a mirror shine, pressed khaki slacks, and a pristine white oxford shirt with the cuffs folded back on his tanned arms. He reached behind his neck to massage the muscles at his nape, and his shirt stretched taut across his broad shoulders. Shoulders that Diana wanted to put her arms around and lay her cheek against.
He didn't seem aware that she was there until she was right beside him, and then he said in a dead voice, "You shouldn't have come here." He looked at her then, and Diana swallowed in shock at the transformation. His face was completely expressionless; a face made of stone, with a jaw of iron and eyes of cold steel. And now she understood where that hard core had been forged. It had been here. It had given him the strength to break free of this place. "I had to come," she said simply, watching his face begin to relax as he broke free of the grip of this place. "You had to know I had been here and seen it."
"I see," he replied, his heart aching with tenderness. "And now that you've seen it," he added with an attempt to sound indifferent, "what do you think?" He turned to walk away, expecting her to come with him.
What did she think? In response, Diana did the only thing she could think of to vent her wrath and express her opinion. Looking around on the ground, she picked up a heavy rock and with all the force of her raging animosity, she hurled it. Cole turned to look at the exact moment the rock blasted through the front window. In open-mouthed shock, he stared at her beautiful, irate face and then at the broken window of the hellhole he had lived in. "That," she informed him, daintily dusting off her hands after having thrown a pitch that would have done credit to Sandy Koufax, "is what I think of it."
Cole's shout of laughter exploded louder than the window. In a sudden burst of exuberant freedom, he swooped her up into his arms and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of flour. "Put me down," she laughed, wriggling.
"Not until you promise."
"Promise what?" she giggled, squirming.
"That you will never, ever, get mad enough to throw anything at me."
"I cannot make a promise I may not keep," she advised him solemnly.
He whacked her on the backside and continued down the road. He started to whistle. She started to laugh.
The merry sounds rolled backward to the hovel he had lived in. The only remaining piece of glass left in the window frame in the house crashed to the dirt floor inside it.
 
The lighthearted days and passionate nights became a routine during the rest of their stay at Cal's.
When the time to leave arrived, Cal drove them out to the airstrip and watched while the plane took off, his hand lifted in a wave. His heart felt heavy in his chest because they were leaving, but it did not feel weak. It felt very strong.
Diana's heart did not feel quite as strong when Cole left her at her apartment so that he could continue on to Washington. "I miss you already," she said. "This two-city living arrangement isn't going to work."
Cole tipped her chin up. "We'll work things out in a couple of days, as soon as I get things settled in Washington. The time in between will pass very quickly."
She furrowed her forehead. "How can you say that?"
"I'm trying to convince both of us."
"It isn't working."
Cole crushed her against his length. "I know."
"Don't forget to call me."
He smiled at that absurdity and held her tighter. "How could I possibly forget to call you, darling?"

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 51


Sam Byers was sitting in his car with the engine idling and the windshield wipers running when the Gulfstream streaked out of the sky and touched down on the rainswept runway at Dulles International Airport. He watched the plane taxi to a stop at a junction of the runways, waiting for instructions from the tower, then it finally executed a ninety-degree turn and rolled right past him. When the pilots got off, he pulled his raincoat up around his ears and ran forward through the puddles.
"It's a damn shame we have to meet this way," Byers announced breathlessly as the heavy-set sixty-year-old trudged up the last step and nearly collapsed onto the sofa, "but I wanted to give you this stuff in person, and it's a bad idea for us to be seen together." He reached inside his raincoat and removed a large brown envelope.
Cole took it and handed him a glass with vodka, ice, and a lemon twist—Senator Byers's drink of preference, he knew.
The senator noted the brand of vodka his host had just served as he glanced around at the luxurious, pale gray leather interior with its chrome-and-brass-trimmed lamps and tables. "You've got style and you've got taste, Cole," he said. "Unfortunately," he added as Cole sat down on the sofa across from him, "you've also got yourself a powerful enemy."
"Who is it?" Cole snapped.
He lifted the glass in a parody of a toast and said, "The junior senator from the Great State of Texas—Douglas J. Hayward. He's taken a very personal interest in putting you out of business and into the penitentiary." Without rancor, he added, "That boy has serious presidential aspirations. He'll probably make it, too. He has the look and the charisma of a young Jack Kennedy." Belatedly realizing that his audience seemed to be in a state of angry shock, he said, "Did you do something to aggravate him, or is he just out to get you on principle?"
The only possible explanation Cole could think of involved Jessica Hayward and a long-ago night when her husband, Charles, came home unexpectedly; yet it seemed insane that young Hayward would go to all this trouble after more than a decade to defend his mother's nonexistent honor. "The only reason I can think of is lame as hell," Cole replied curtly.
"That's not likely to concern him," Sam said dryly. "Every presidential hopeful needs a cause, a dragon he can slay for the public good. That's what gets them publicity, and publicity is what gets them elected. Reagan had the Ayatollah, Kennedy had Hoffa—you get my meaning?"
"I get the meaning, but I don't like the analogies," Cole said icily.
"Hear me out before you act on your impulse to beat the shit out of me," Sam said with a chuckle. "I was about to say that when high-reaching politicians can't find a legitimate public enemy to slay, they frequently create their own. For some reason, Senator Hayward has singled you out for that honor."
He paused to sip his drink; then he continued, "Cushman's board of directors is right behind Senator Hayward, urging him on in this quest for 'justice,' and they have some political allies of their own on the team. Between them, they've managed to convince the New York Stock Exchange, the SEC, and themselves that you started those nasty rumors that their microprocessor was faulty so that the value of their stock would drop and you could buy their company for half its worth. You already know most of that. Here's the part you don't know: The Cushman people are going to file a class-action lawsuit. In addition to a few hundred million dollars in damages, Cushman wants the court to grant them the rights to all profits Unified makes on the processor when it's marketed—and—they are also demanding that you hand over all future profits resulting from any other device, design, or formula of theirs that you may eventually use. My sources tell me that Cushman is particularly emphatic about the last part of that."
He took another sip of his drink and studied Cole's unreadable expression; then he shrugged. "I thought that was a little odd, but then I'm just a country boy. But even a country boy like me can figure out the obvious—If you are found guilty of any of the criminal charges in federal court, then Cushman's class-action suit is as good as won in circuit court."
"What's in the envelope?" Cole said, his mind on solutions and countermeasures.
"Nothing that will enable you to neutralize him, if that's what you're hoping, but it will give you an idea of where you stand. William C. Gonnelli, the administrative judge for the SEC who's going to hear your case, is already so sure you're guilty of something that he's helping the federal prosecutor decide whether the next step should be to haul you up before the grand jury and get an indictment, or take the short route and ask the judge for a warrant for your arrest. There's a copy of an SEC subpoena in there. Your lawyer will be served with it the day after tomorrow. Naturally, it will be leaked to the press. They'll be waving microphones in your face when you walk out your front door from that day on, I'm afraid."
Cole hadn't expected this much information or cooperation from Byers, and he was strangely touched that he'd gone to as much effort as he had—particularly because it appeared unlikely that Cole would be sponsoring any more fund-raisers for anyone.
As if he knew what Cole was thinking, the politician stood up and shook Cole's hand. "I liked you when I met you, Cole, and I liked you better later." With a grin, he said, "Nobody's ever laid a check for three hundred thousand dollars in my hand and told me to my face that they'd have handed it to a gorilla if he were the Republican candidate."
"I apologize for that, Senator," Cole said formally, and he meant it. "And I also appreciate your help."
"I thought your blunt honesty was refreshing. I'm not used to it." He turned and squeezed between the sofas, then stopped again in the open doorway of the plane and pulled the collar of his raincoat up. "I also think you're innocent. Unfortunately," he finished, "I won't be able to talk to you anymore after this. You understand, don't you?"
"Perfectly," Cole said unemotionally.
He didn't feel unemotional, however. As he looked at the subpoena with his name on it, he felt a rage that was beyond anything he'd ever experienced. He wasn't afraid of subpoenas or trials or groundless accusations or the damage to his good name. The problem was that in two days, his name was going to be synonymous with fraud.
And by association, so would Diana's.
A laugh welled up inside of Cole, then turned to anguish. Diana had married him to save her pride and dignity. Now he was going to destroy all that, along with her reputation, in a way that Penworth never could have.
Last week, Diana loved him and believed in him.
Next week, she was going to despise him.
Cole leaned his head against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes, trying to think of a way to keep her safe… of a way to keep her at all. When he couldn't think of any, the unfamiliar constriction in his throat grew until it was painful.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 52


Diana looked at her watch and then at the telephone, willing it to ring. By now, Cole would surely be finished with his meeting in Washington and either home or nearly there, but he hadn't called her, and she knew instinctively the news wasn't good. She'd turned the television set on to banish the silence, but she couldn't concentrate on it or anything else.
"And now for business news. The stock market closed up today, with mixed trading on a volume of…"
Although she believed completely in Cole's innocence, her overwrought imagination continually presented her with pictures of Cole standing trial, being hounded by reporters and accused of vile crimes. He said that wasn't going to happen, but she had a horrible feeling that it was all beyond his control. He'd worked so hard to rid himself of the stigmas of his youth, and now he was facing the same fate his brothers had faced… only his would become a worldwide scandal.
"The biggest loser of the day was Unified Industries, whose stock closed at a fifty-two-week low. Analysts blame the plunge on rumors that Unified's president and CEO, Cole Harrison, is about to be subpoenaed to appear before an administrative judge of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Reliable sources say that the SEC hearing will be a mere formality and that Harrison will be called before a grand jury…"
She had a sudden, insane impulse to call Doug and ask him for advice. No, what she really wanted to do was beg him to intercede somehow. He wouldn't help either her or Cole now. On the subject of Cole, he was completely irrational. She thought about his incensed tirade… You have to unload him, now!… That bastard really has a way with females of all ages… even you! The remark about Cole's way with "females of all ages" made her wonder if years ago Cole had stolen some girl that Doug had imagined he was in love with. Whatever the reason, Doug's loathing for Cole went so deep that he even hated Diana by association. He wouldn't be sympathetic to any sort of appeal from her now, not after he'd warned her. He'd predicted exactly what was going to happen.
Slowly, Diana straightened, a possibility taking shape that was almost too obscene to consider. Doug had warned her… He had told her what was going to happen. He despised Cole with a virulence that was palpable.
She grabbed her purse and car keys and went to find the one person who was likely to know, and to tell her if he did know.
 
Corey opened the front door, and Diana realized from her dejected expression that she'd also heard the news. "Corey, I have to ask you something. It's terribly important. Has Spence ever told you that Doug hates Cole?"
"Yes. He told me that when you and Cole told us you'd gotten married the night before. You liked Cole and so did I, so I didn't think Doug's opinion mattered that much."
"I need to see Spence."
"He's out by the pool."
Spence was tightening the bolts on a ladder in the deep end of the pool. "Diana, what's wrong?"
"That's what I want to know from you. A few hours after the news conference to announce that Cole and I had married, Doug came to see me and he made it clear how he feels about Cole, but he wouldn't tell me why he feels the way he does. You two have been friends forever. You must know why he hates Cole."
"Honey, you have enough problems without worrying about Doug Hayward." He gave his wrench one last firm tug and stood up.
"I think Doug is the problem," Diana said.
"What are you talking about?"
She pulled him over to a chaise longue. "That day when Doug came to see me, he was furious because I'd married Cole. He ranted about how dishonest Cole's business practices are, but Doug wasn't just angry about principles, he took it personally!"
"What are you getting at?"
"I'm getting at something else he said. He told me that the stock exchange was investigating Cole. But, he also said the SEC would turn Cole over to the federal courts for prosecution."
For a split second, Diana thought Spence didn't realize what she was getting at, but then he said quietly, "He knew all that and it hadn't happened yet?"
"Exactly. He was completely certain of everything he said, and it's all coming true! Do you know why Doug feels the way he does about Cole?"
To her surprise and relief, Spence didn't try to tell her she was being ridiculous. "Charles Hayward is probably the only one outside of Doug who knows the real answer to that. Doug was drunk the one time he brought it up with me, but I got the feeling that somehow Barbara was involved in it."
"Barbara?"
"He wasn't making sense, so I'm not sure."
Diana got up. "Well, I intend to find out from Charles Hayward."
Spence stood up, too. "I'll go with you."
Diana bit her lip, considering whether Spence would be an asset or a liability. "I think I might get further with Charles if I am alone."

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 53


Charles Hayward was in his study, sitting in a leather wing chair with the VCR's remote control in his hand— rewinding and playing the CNN news story about Cole when Jessica took Diana in to see him. "Diana would like to talk to you, Charles."
Charles looked round from his chair and nodded; then he pressed the rewind button on the remote again. "Hello," he said, beckoning to the sofa across from him. "Sit down." He pressed the play button as Diana sat on the sofa, and to her disbelief, he watched the news clip again right in front of her, smiling a little as he did.
There was something almost ghoulish about what he was doing, and it was made worse by Jessica hovering in the doorway. Diana drew a careful breath, knowing this would be her only chance to find out what she needed to know and to try to neutralize it. "I wonder if I could talk to you privately, Charles."
"Of course," Jessica said and backed out of the doorway.
"Certainly, my dear," Charles said, stopping the tape then laying the remote control on the coffee table. He looked at her in expectant silence, his face devoid of any of the cruel satisfaction she'd seen when he watched the television screen.
Diana felt her way forward very carefully. "Charles," she began quietly, "after my father died, it was you I always turned to for advice."
He nodded as if pleased by that.
"And when I decided to start the company, you were one of the people who loaned me money to do it."
"I invested in a promising venture," he said tactfully. It was what he'd always said whenever she tried to thank him.
"Now I need help again. Only this time it's much more important. It's about Cole."
His face turned as cold as his eyes. "In that case, I will give you the best advice I have ever given you. Get rid of him!"
"I won't do that."
He surged to his feet, towering over her until Diana stood up, too. "Right now, I'm trying to think of you as an innocent victim, Diana. But if you don't get rid of him and get out of the way, you're going to be covered with the same dirt he is. Congress has control over the SEC, and we have enough on Cole Harrison to hang him."
" 'We'?" Diana burst out. " 'We'? You've not involved with Congress, Doug is."
"We are going to hang him, and then we're going to bury him," Charles lashed back.
"Why are you doing this?" Diana cried. "What has Cole done to you to make you hate him so?" With an effort she forced herself to sound willing instead of combative. "Help me understand—then I can decide whether to do as you say."
The control Charles had been exerting over his temper suddenly snapped. "You want to know what he did to me?" he jeered in an awful voice. "I'll tell you what he did—He destroyed my family! That filthy son of a bitch was the real stud in my stable. God knows how many other of Barbara's little friends he molested—"
" 'Molested,' " Diana said weakly.
He grabbed her shoulders. "You wanted to know and now you're going to know all of it. Do you remember my beautiful little daughter? Do you?" he demanded with a shake.
Diana jerked free and stepped back, but she couldn't make herself leave without hearing it all. "Of—of course I remember," she said shakily.
"That animal got my little girl pregnant. I almost walked in on them at the stable one night, and I ran him off, but I never dreamed he'd actually had sex with that child."
Diana shook her head. "Oh, no, Charles, you're wrong—"
"I'm not wrong!" he shouted. "I'm the one who has been wronged. When Barbara realized she was pregnant—almost five months pregnant—she told her mother and Jessica took her to have an abortion. I'd have never known anything about it except for three things. Do you know what they are?" he bit out.
Diana swallowed and shook her head.
"I found out because Barbara almost died, and because she had to have a hysterectomy to prevent it, and because my little girl has spent the rest of her life in the care of one shrink after another because of it! And do you know what reminds me of it every day?"
"No."
"Grandchildren! I don't have any. That ****ing son of a bitch you married deprived me of a daughter and my daughter of children and me of grandchildren."
He pointed to the door and his voice shook with wrath. "Now, you get the hell out of my house and don't ever come back!"

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 54


Diana drove home without any conscious effort or any awareness of doing so. At eleven, she was still sitting in the same chair, her legs tucked beneath her, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and spread over her lap to ward off a chill that had turned her hands to ice and made her shiver convulsively.
Corey was calling every fifteen minutes. Diana let the answering machine pick up because she could not move.
Cole was not calling at all.
She was incapable of shedding a single tear or of throwing up another time. She was completely empty.
Cole was not calling at all.
At eleven-fifteen, Corey called again, and this time she wasn't worried, she was frantic and angry. "Diana, if you don't pick up the phone right now, I'm coming over."
Diana actually made an effort to answer it, but Corey had already hung up. She arrived with Spence in record time and used her key to get into Diana's apartment.
"Diana?" Corey said soothingly, approaching her with great caution, Diana noticed—as if they both thought Diana had gone insane. Spence crouched down in front of her, handsome and caring. "Diana," he said gently.
"What did Charles Hayward say to you, honey?"
Corey crouched beside him, clutching his shoulder tightly, a brace against whatever hideous thing they were about to hear that had reduced Diana to such a mindless state.
Diana looked at both of them. "Oh," she said thoughtfully, "he said Cole molested Barbara and got her pregnant and Barbara had an abortion. Now she can't have any more children and that's why she's always been so unstable."
"Whaat!" Corey exploded, shooting to her feet.
Diana's gaze automatically followed her motion, and she tipped her head back. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Isn't that amazing?"
"—'Amazing'?" Corey said, shooting a hesitant look at Spence as he slowly stood up beside her. "Is that what you think it is?"
It happened then, the thing that Diana had subconsciously feared for hours—she started to laugh and she couldn't stop. "Cole wouldn't have laid a hand on Barbara! He lived in daily fear of us coming on to him. Remember how hard we all worked to get him to notice us?"
"I remember," Corey admitted, but her brows remained pulled together in a watchful frown.
"It's so funny… so hideously funny."
"Is it? Funny?" Corey said cautiously, but she was beginning to believe Diana was thinking far more clearly than she'd first imagined when she saw her curled up in that chair.
"Yes, it is!" Diana said, nodding emphatically. "It's hilarious. I know, because I was the one who kept the bets."
"What bets?"
"The bets!" she laughed. "Everyone, including Barbara, put money into a box, and the first one to get Cole to kiss her was the winner." Diana laughed harder. "I was the treasurer. And no one won!" Suddenly she turned her face into the chair and the laughter turned to wrenching sobs. "No one won!" she sobbed. "They're destroying him… and no one ever won!"

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 55


Diana tried to call Cole at home the next morning, but the man who answered his phone said that Mr. Harrison was at work. At his office Mr. Harrison's secretary said he wasn't in. Diana arrived at the obvious conclusion that she was a very dispensable commodity to men, and that Cole had just been amusing himself when they were together with Cal, playing with marriage. When other matters in his life became pressing, either he didn't want to be bothered with her or he forgot that she existed! Her brain accepted that, but her heart rejected it and went on aching.
Somehow she made it through the day at work. In keeping with her resolution to delegate more responsibility, she spent most of the afternoon working closely with two of her executives, to be certain they were all thinking alike. No matter where she went or whom she saw in the building, she maintained a cheerful and pleasant face. Cole's name and his current predicament actually came up several times in her presence, but it was simply a thoughtful effort by the people who worked for her to avoid acting as if he had either done something wrong or else died.
In retrospect, it was comical that she'd thought Dan's defection such a disaster. This was a disaster.
She left the office at five-thirty and, at her family's insistence, she drove to their house for dinner. Being there was even harder than being at the office. Unlike her employees, her family didn't hesitate to voice their opinions about Cole's situation or to insist that Diana talk about it, although Corey and Spence remained silent and supportive. Even Glenna had an opinion to express, but she, too, was part of the family. Besides, she was a flagrant eavesdropper. Everyone was sitting outside by the pool before dinner, when Glenna came out to tell Diana that she had an urgent call. The entire family brightened, thinking it was Cole.
"It's a reporter," Glenna said, holding a cordless phone in her hand with the hold light flashing.
"I don't want to talk to any reporters," Diana replied, and added to her family, "I don't know how they're getting this number, but we're probably going to have to change it."
"He wants to ask you about your divorce."
Everyone stopped talking and stared at the housekeeper. "My what?"
"He says he wants a comment from you on the 'grounds' you're going to use."
Diana took the phone, said hello, and then listened for a moment. "Where did you hear that?" she demanded. "Well, I don't think it's actually 'public knowledge,' Mr. Godfrey," Diana replied, slowly standing up, "because I don't know anything about it. Good-bye," she said, but a small feeling of hope was slowly dawning in Diana's heart. She turned and ran to the nearest television set with her family in close pursuit. The screen lit up just in time for a local Houston newscast team to confirm what the newspaper reporter had just told Diana.
"There's been a side development in the Cole Harrison-Unified Industries uproar," the woman on the screen told her male counterpart. "Diana Foster, his wife of less than two weeks, is filing for divorce on unspecified grounds."
"That didn't last very long," he said to the camera.
His coanchor nodded. "Sources close to Cole Harrison confirmed the rumor less than an hour ago. It seems that Diana Foster has chosen to disassociate herself and her company from the scandal brewing in Washington over Harrison's takeover of Cushman Electronics."
Henry Britton looked almost accusingly at Diana. "Is that what you're going to do, Diana?"
Diana slowly shook her head, her eyes glowing with relief and happiness. "That's what Cole wants me to do. Charles and Doug Hayward warned me to get rid of Cole so the scandal won't spill over onto me. Now Cole is trying to make sure it won't."
Corey looked at her husband and quietly pointed out, "So much for the theory that Cole married her to help his public image. He just blew it to pieces for her."
Diana didn't hear that; she was thinking and planning.
"What are you going to do?" Gram asked, but Mary Foster already knew the answer to that. Putting her arm around Diana's shoulders, she said with a soft laugh, "Diana is going to Dallas."
Diana was definitely going to Dallas, and for a woman who once couldn't function without a detailed schedule or leave on a short trip without lining every article of clothing with tissue paper, she accomplished that feat with amazing expediency. With Corey and her grandmother helplessly standing by, she stuffed whatever clothes she had at the house into two suitcases she owned; then she threw all her toiletries in on top of them. "That's that," she said, closing the last piece of luggage. After that she phoned her two top executives and told them they were in charge and to call her at Cole's numbers if they had questions or problems.
She took care of the items on her filled calendar by turning to Corey and saying, "Tell Sally to cancel all my appointments."
"What reason should she give everyone?"
"Tell everyone," Diana said as she dragged the two heavy cases off her bed, "that I'm in Dallas. With my husband."
By seven forty-five, Corey had dropped her off at the airport and Diana was in line to board her eight o'clock flight when she realized that the man who was sprinting past the rows of gates toward her was Spence. "Give this to Cole," he said, taking an envelope out of his pocket. "Tell him I said it's a belated wedding present and to use it if he absolutely has to as an equalizer."
"What is it?" Diana asked, moving forward as the boarding process continued.
"It is the end of Doug's political career," Spence said somberly.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 56


The man who answered the intercom and looked at her through a tiny camera located at the gate of Cole's estate was surprisingly easy to convince that Mrs. Harrison should be allowed to surprise her husband by being admitted without advance notice. In fact, the middle-aged man was positively beaming with delight as he showed her through the silent house to the back door that opened onto the patio surrounding the mammoth free-form swimming pool.
Cole was standing alone in the dark, his hands shoved deep into his trouser pockets, his head tipped back as if he were looking up at the stars. Diana opened the door and silently slipped outside, watching him, trying to think where to begin when all she wanted to do was fling herself into his arms. She'd rehearsed a dozen opening speeches on the flight there, all of them designed to let her stay and face his trouble together with him. She'd thought of pleading, of reasoning, of demanding. She'd considered trying tears to weaken his resistance. But when the moment was finally upon her, she couldn't seem to begin. She took a step forward and saw him stiffen with resistance the instant she spoke. "Cole?" He didn't even turn his head or look at her. "What are you doing out here?"
"Praying."
Tears stung her eyes when she remembered the way he had dismissed the idea as the last resort of fools—dreamers who won't face the fact that they cannot have something. "What are you praying for?"
"I've been praying for you," he said in a hoarse whisper.
Diana walked into his arms. They closed around her, yanking her against him, while he buried his lips in hers. When he finally ended the kiss, he kept her crushed against his length, his jaw resting against her head, as if he were afraid to let her go for fear she would vanish. Content to stay there, she rubbed her cheek against his hard chest. "I love you."
His hand slid up her back in a caress, and he brushed a kiss against her temple. "I know you do. The proof is in my arms."
"I know why you're having so much trouble with the SEC. Charles Hayward told me."
He went very still. "He told you what?"
"I went to see him last night. He told me you got Barbara pregnant and she had to have an abortion. She can't have children because of complications from it. She's been in and out of intensive therapy programs for years."
"He told you all that," Cole said, leaning back and studying her with puzzlement and disbelief, "and you came here, to me?"
She smiled at him in the moonlight and nodded; then she cuddled closer in his arms again. "I know it isn't true."
"Because you believe in me?" he speculated, confused.
"Yes. And because back then we all had bets about who would get you to kiss them."
A low chuckle rumbled in Cole's chest beneath her ear. "And no one won," he stated, understanding at once where she was going with that. With a smile in his voice, he whispered, "How much did you bet?"
His wife opened his shirt button and pressed a playful kiss on his chest. "Nothing. I only make idiotic bets in Las Vegas."
They were on their way to the bedroom when Diana remembered what she'd brought to give him. "What's this?" Cole asked, setting her suitcases at the foot of his bed. She handed him an envelope and a hand-decorated sack. He opened the envelope first and then the sack. Spencer Addison had sent him a brief history of Doug Hayward's drunk-driving arrests, the last of which was while he was in law school and had resulted in serious injury to the face of the female passenger with him at the time.
Rose Britton had sent him a bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies.
 
Even after they had made love, Diana couldn't sleep. With her head resting in the crook of his arm, she stared out at the colorful waterfall beyond the bedroom's glass wall.
"I used to wear you out," Cole teased gently. "Now you lie awake pretending to sleep. That doesn't bode well for the next fifty years."
"What's going to happen at the SEC hearing?"
She sounded wide awake and very worried. "Would it do any good to tell you not to worry?" he asked.
"None at all."
He hesitated, hating to talk to her about the details of the snare that held him powerless right now, but she had a right to know and to understand. Based on his recollection of her camping trip stories and the way she ran her business, she had a greater fear of the unknown than of a visible threat.
"I know how stupid this sounds," she murmured in the darkness, "but you had a thriving company without the Cushman microprocessor. After everything that's happened, I wish you could just give it back to them along with their whole company."
"I didn't buy Cushman to get their chip. Intel is the leader at the high end. The low-end market is already being carved up into smaller and smaller pieces by a lot of foreign producers. In my opinion, the world doesn't need another computer-chip provider."
Diana rolled over onto her side and propped her head on her hand, facing him. 'Then why in God's name did you go to all that trouble to buy them?"
"I wanted some patents they held and didn't know how to use. They owned a tiny piece of a puzzle that we needed in order to produce the most desired commodity in the world right now. We had everything else put together."
"Which is?"
"Which is an ultra-long-life battery that would power laptop computers and cellular phones for days instead of hours. Everyone is working on one, and everyone is getting closer, including us, but whoever brings that battery to market first wins the game—and the stakes are almost beyond comprehension. The scientist who's heading the project for me used to work for Cushman and he knew about the patent. He works off-site, in secret, in a lab he runs with a few assistants who don't completely understand what he's doing. Neither do I, for that matter. His assistants think he's working on a super-thin computer monitor/television set, which he is—in his spare time."
"Could you possibly sell Cushman back their chip and keep the patents?" she asked helpfully.
"Not a chance," Cole said sardonically. "They don't want that chip. Based on what I learned from a friend the other night, Cushman wants the profits we'll make from that battery. The only chance they have of getting their hands on those profits is if they can convince the court that I cheated them by forcing the value of their stock down before I bought it.
"The patents were and are a matter of public record, so they can't accuse me of having insider information or anything like that."
Diana smoothed her fingers over the muscles of his stomach and chest. "What do you need to get out from under this right now?"
"I have a team of lawyers working on it. We'll find a way," Cole said with absolute conviction.
Satisfied that he would, Diana curled up against him and promptly fell asleep.
Cole was awake until dawn, because he already knew there wasn't going to be "a way." His lawyers had already told him to expect to be charged with fraud and to stand trial. Nothing short of a miracle would keep that from happening, he thought grimly. But then, Diana was lying in his arms, in his bed… and that was a miracle. She had come to be with him when everything she heard and saw should have made her run like hell. That was a bigger miracle.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 57


At noon the next day—two days before Cole was to leave for his hearing in front of the SEC administrator—he made certain he wasn't being followed and took Diana with him to see Willard Bretling's laboratory.
Located in an old part of the city, it looked like a derelict warehouse surrounded by old Cyclone fencing and guarded by snarling dogs. The few cars that were parked outside looked older than the building.
Inside, it was antiseptically clean with every kind of state-of-the-art electronics equipment.
"This is right out of—of a James Bond movie," Diana exclaimed excitedly. Willard Bretling was thin and tall with slightly bent narrow shoulders, wire-rimmed glasses, and a perpetual, absentminded frown. He was standing at a table in a corner of the lab, arguing with his two assistants about how to use their new toaster oven.
"Ah, Cole!" he exclaimed. "Do you know how these damned things work?" He apologized to Diana, who was trying not to show her reaction to his dilemma. "Such knowledge is limited to those with lesser minds than ours," he said. He smiled at her, and it was the first time Cole had ever seen the eccentric old man grin.
"If that's the case," Diana said, downplaying her own excellent mind, "it should be right up my alley." The most important scientific brain in the world stood back and watched—his Pop-Tart in hand—in tense expectation as she fiddled with a knob and pressed a lever. Nothing happened.
"Useless gadget," Bretling stated.
"There we go," Diana declared. She pressed down all the way on the lever, and the smell of a new electric appliance being put into use emanated from it.
"What did you do?" Bretling demanded, looking a little affronted.
Diana leaned very close to him and put her hand on his sleeve; then she whispered in his ear as if she had sensed how sensitive he was about being made to look foolish.
He'd left Cushman Electronics because they'd made him look foolish by refusing to let him work on his patents and ultimately assigning him to work under a younger, less gifted scientist. Diana's simple action made the temperamental Bretling into a teddy bear, right before Cole's amused eyes.
While Bretling wandered around the lab, he chatted endlessly with her. Cole couldn't imagine what they had to talk about. He could barely spend an hour with the man without feeling as if his brain were overloaded with scientific mumbo jumbo.
On a table off to their left was another of Bretling's pet projects, an ultrathin television set with a perfect picture that Cole was determined to announce very soon and thus put to shame Mitsubishi's latest introduction. At the moment, Unified Industries' candidate for Television of the Century was a flickering, white screen.
Tables at the far end of the gigantic room were cluttered with rows of would-be ultra-long-life rechargeable batteries.
Willard Bretling watched Cole's restless movements from the corner of his eye; then he looked at Diana as he said, "Your husband is not a patient man. He is a man of vision, though."
Diana nodded, watching Bretling's arthritic fingers handle a wire as fine as a human hair. "He thinks very highly of you, too."
The fingers stilled, faded blue eyes stared sharply over the rim of his glasses. "Why do you say that?"
Diana told him all the things Cole had told her on the way there, and he seemed genuinely astonished. "He thinks you are going to 'save the universe' with that battery someday very soon," Diana said.
"The thin television first, then the battery," the old man announced stubbornly. "The Japanese already have one out, but the picture is not the same as a regular set. Ours will be."
Diana had the oddest impression that the scientist, and not Cole, was determining the order in which the two products were developed. "He needs the battery very badly."
Without replying, Bretling bent over a microscope, examining something Diana couldn't see or imagine. "Every entrepreneur has his favorite thing to want. Cushman wanted their stupid computer chip and took the people I needed to work on my projects to work on it. They put me in charge of testing. I am a creative genius, and they put me in a testing lab."
Diana had been around a few people with genius IQs before, and like Willard Bretling, they had seemed exceptionally sensitive to any kind of opposition. She answered with the answer she would have used to calm a frustrated child. "That must have been very embarrassing for you."
He changed slides without looking up. "I told them it was not reliable. So they fired me. The founder was a good man, but his sons, they are pigs. I had worked for them for forty years, and they fired me. They escorted me out of the building as if they thought I would steal something if I stayed longer."
Diana slid off the stool beside him and clutched his sleeve, unable to draw breath through her lungs. "You tested their chip and it's no good?"
"Yes."
It was all she could do not to scream or shout. "Did you tell my husband that?"
"I told him it was no good, yes."
"But did you tell him you had tested it?"
"Why would I boast at being reduced to a—a flunky? I told him it was no good."
"Mr. Bretling, don't you read the newspapers or watch television or listen to the radio?"
"No. I prefer classical music on disk. It is soothing to the creative spirit." He lifted his head and glanced at her; then he looked at her again, and his mouth fell open. "Why do you have tears on your face?"

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 58


For the next two days, Cole stayed home, but Diana hardly saw him when he wasn't on the telephone or meeting with people. The visitors arrived and departed from the house under the watchful eye of a new security guard posted at the gate to keep reporters and everyone else out.
Cole was a man with a mission now; he was mobilizing his own forces and he was awe-inspiring to see in action. She watched him sitting behind his desk in the library, his fingers steepled in front of him, as he listened to advice from his Dallas lawyers, discarded most of it, and issued orders of his own. He worked out strategies with attorneys from Washington, made plans with Murray, the chief of security, and simultaneously ran his company from his home. When she least expected it, he would suddenly materialize at her side, pull her into his arms for a long kiss, and then go back to the next meeting, the next phone call.
Diana loved to watch him, and she hadn't been entirely idle either. She had made some phone calls of her own, and she had finally located Barbara Hayward in Vermont and spoken to her. Diana spent the rest of her time talking to her own office and reassuring Spence and Corey, her grandparents and mother, that all was well. And then reassuring them again. She even called Willard Bretling twice on a wild hunch that he was lonely and that with a little gentle urging and sincere compliments he could be hurried up with his projects.
Diana and Cole were to leave for Washington the following morning, and they expected to be there for two days at the most.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 59


Willard Bretling, Joe Murray, Travis, Cole, and Diana flew to Dulles in Cole's private plane; he made the attorneys fly commercial. It was a funny little quirk of his, Diana had discovered. Cole didn't like lawyers. Even his own. Also on board were four well-dressed men whose fashion accessories included concealed weapons, for which they had licenses.
Cole told her it was just a whim of Joe's, but Diana knew better. Joe was certain that Cushman had hired people to find Bretling, and within the next forty-eight hours, Cole was determined to give the Cushman brothers a reason to want him dead.
The Washington law firm that specialized in SEC matters met with Cole in his hotel suite at eight the next morning, before they went to his eleven o'clock hearing. They argued with each other, and with Cole, about Cole's nonnegotiable request for a hearing that would be open to members of Congress and the SEC.
 
Twenty miles away from the hotel, Barbara Hayward was walking into her brother's town house in Washington, D.C. Her father opened the door. "Barbara!" he exclaimed. "Honey, what are you doing here?"
She looked around him for Doug and saw him walking into the room, buttoning the cuffs of his shirt. He stopped cold, his pleasure in her visit shaking her resolve a little. "Is Mother here?" she asked, looking about the spacious town house.
"I'm here, darling," Jessica said as she floated downstairs in one of the silky, clingy peignoirs she always preferred. "The more important question is, why are you here?"
Barbara had the horrible feeling that of the three other people in the room, Jessica was already arriving at the correct conclusion. Barbara was sure of it when her mother began talking to her in a way that was calculated to make her sound feebleminded, even now, when she'd finally put her life together and built a good marriage with a husband who loved her.
"Why aren't you at your beautiful, peaceful place in Vermont?" Jessica said, rushing over to pour her a cup of tea. "You know how the big cities always upset you. Why are you in Washington?"
Barbara sat on the sofa and realized she'd finally arrived at the moment she had dreaded since she was fifteen years old. Her mother was going to despise her and make her sound like a maniac or a liar. Doug and her father were going to lose faith in her, no one was going to love her, she'd be abandoned— With an angry shake of her head, Barbara silenced that panicky inner voice that had chanted that same chant until she was nearly crazy with it.
"I'm here to have some tea," Barbara said with a calm smile as she took the cup and saucer and patted the seat on the sofa beside her. Doug sat down there. Her father and mother sat down in chairs facing them. "And I'm here to right a wrong that I helped Mother commit fifteen years ago."
Jessica shot to her feet. "You're having one of your spells again. I have some tranquilizers in my purse."
"Take one by all means if you need it," Barbara said, deliberately misunderstanding her. "Daddy," she said firmly. "Cole Harrison never, ever laid a finger on me. Mother was at the stable that night, and she ran up to my room and begged me to change clothes with her."
"Can you believe this!" Jessica shrieked. "You're completely insane!"
Her father wearily rubbed his forehead. "Barbara, don't do this to yourself. It happened, honey. That bastard got you pregnant."
Perhaps it was Barbara's calm that chipped away at her father's and brother's disbelief. Perhaps it was her sad smile. "The father of that baby was a boy I met at a rock concert, Daddy. I never even knew his name. I just wanted to see if I could seduce him. I just"—she transferred her gaze to her mother's white face—"wanted to be like you."

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love

Chapter 60


‘’How did it go?" Diana asked when he returned alone, late in the afternoon.
Cole pulled her into his arms. "It was a trade-off," he said with a grin. "We gave a little and we won a little. And then we insisted the actual hearing be postponed until tomorrow morning at eleven."
"What did you win?"
"We persuaded the judge that since the SEC reports to Congress, I should have the right to request that members of Congress and members of the SEC be allowed at the proceedings if they wish to attend. I will also be allowed to make a brief opening statement."
She reached up and straightened the knot of the tie she'd given him.
"I just don't understand why an open hearing like that is so important to you."
"It's important because my name and my company's name have been dragged through the dirt over the Cushman deal." Steel threaded his voice as he added, "I don't like the reasons for it. I don't like the methods that were used. And I don't like the participants."
Making an effort to soften his voice, he said, "The Cushmans are an old and powerful American family, and they've used enormous political pressure and social influence to make certain I take a fall on this. The IRS has already been nudged to get into the act. I'm being tried by politicians and the media, and I don't like it. Most of all, I despise the hypocrisy behind it."
If there was one thing she had learned about her husband in the last few days, it was that, for a man who was supposedly ruthless and unscrupulous, Cole Harrison had some very strong personal convictions about which he was not willing to negotiate.
"And somehow," she speculated with a twinge of fear, "you think you can do something about all that tomorrow?"
"I may be able to demonstrate all that."
Diana didn't know how, and she was afraid to find out for fear it would worry her even more.
Instead she said, "You told me what you won this morning; what did you give up?"
"If I insist on making an opening statement, I have to give up my right to plead the Fifth Amendment."
"'Plead the Fifth Amendment,'" Diana said with a shudder. "It makes you sound like some mobster."
That made him grin. "I've been treated like a mobster. And that," he whispered, nipping her ear, "is what happens when nobodies from nowhere make it into the major leagues and start playing with the guys in the Brooks Brothers suits."
"You don't wear Brooks Brothers suits," she chided with a giggle as he continued to tease her ear.
"I know," he said with an unabashed grin. "And that's what pisses them off. They don't know how to deal with us. We're unpredictable. We're out of uniform."
In his place, Diana would have been frantic at the possibility of a trial and of being wrongfully convicted on some sort of circumstantial evidence and sent to prison. But Cole had such strength of purpose that it empowered him. He generated his own force and it swept people along with it.
Diana smoothed her fingers over his hard jaw. "Do you really know what's going to happen tomorrow?"
"No. I only know what can happen, and what I want to happen."
"What do you want to happen?"
He turned her face up for a kiss and said with a somber smile, "What I want to happen is this: I want to see your face on the pillow beside mine when I go to sleep and when I wake up. And more than anything else in the world right now, I want to give you everything you want."
"You?" she suggested and watched his gray eyes darken with tenderness.
"That, too," he whispered.
The phone rang and Diana reluctantly pulled out of his arms and reached out to answer it. Still in a lighthearted mood, she said, "You're the expert on human nature, tonight. Use your powers and tell me who this is."
Cole threw out the first name that came to mind. "Hayward," he guessed; then he had to hide his shock when he turned out to be right.
Diana covered the mouthpiece with her hand. "He wants to come up."
In answer, Cole shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded curtly.

Thân,
NHDT

Peace is the way of love