True Colors

Henry was gone. But he’d been a good tutor, and Meredith had been an excellent student. She didn’t stop learning after he died and left her with control of the domestic operation. Possessed already of a keen, intuitive mind, she found the give and take of negotiating right up her alley. In her first month, she astounded the corporate directors with her ability to size up a potential acquisition and land it with a minimum of fuss. Despite their initial desire to kick her out, the directors became her greatest fans—to the chagrin of Henry’s brother, who was secretly nurturing a jealous resentment of Meredith’s power that grew by the day.

Unaware of that resentment, Meredith barreled through business like a velvet bulldozer. She was enjoying power for the first time in her life and loving her job as mother to Blake. All the while, as Meredith grew in strength, she never stopped thinking about Cy Harden and his venomous mother. Don had been right about one thing. Her interest in Harden Properties went far beyond mineral rights acquisitions. She wanted to back Cy into a corner and cut him to ribbons, while his arrogant mother stood by helplessly and watched. She wanted Myrna Harden to suffer along with her son. Meredith was so far gone with regard to the Hardens that revenge was the only thing that registered. Whether Don liked it or not—and of course, he didn’t—she wasn’t leaving Billings until she had the Hardens on their knees, no matter what it took to get them there.

She got up and dressed, taking time to pour herself a cup of coffee before she left the house. Mrs. Dade didn’t like her employees having breakfast on her time. She was a good boss, and a fair one, for all that.

The phone rang and Meredith yawned lazily as she answered it.

“Good, you’re home,” Mr. Smith said. “Don had me fly out with those Jordan papers for your signature. He said express mail was too slow. I’ll be with you in five minutes.”

“All right.” She hung up, surprised. It wasn’t like Don to send the corporate jet just for some routine papers. Perhaps the merger was more complicated than she’d realized.

She met Mr. Smith at the door with a cup of strong black coffee. He grinned as he took it.

“Here.” He handed her the papers, then produced in short order her computer and printer, the fax machine, and boxes of paper. Meredith had him put them in the library, which she then locked.

“Now, I’ve no excuse not to work.” She laughed, having only just realized how free she’d been until that dreaded equipment arrived. “How’s Blake?” she asked.

“Fine. I left him with Perlie just for the morning. I’ll be back before he misses me. I brought you this, too.” He handed her a case of fresh orange juice. “You’ll need plenty of vitamin C to help you build back up.”

She laughed. “Well, I guess this qualifies as necessary equipment.”

“Essential, if you’re going to live in Billings for a while.” He sipped coffee while she signed documents. “Heard from Harden?”

“Not today. He and his mother had dinner at the restaurant last night.”

“How’s it going?” he asked.

She glanced at him ruefully. “It’s painful. But I expect the end result will be worth it.”

His green eyes narrowed as they scanned her face. “Don’t get caught again. Mr. Tennison wouldn’t like having you hurt twice.”

She smiled at him, remembering how Henry had cosseted her. Mr. Smith did, too. It was almost like having Henry back again when Mr. Smith was around. “You’re good to me, Mr. Smith,” she said.

He looked uncomfortable and averted his eyes. “No trouble to be good to someone like you. Sign those papers, please, so I can get out of here. Your brother-in-law was impatient to get the merger finished.”

“So I see.” She took her time reading the documents, suspicious at Don’s eagerness. But the papers were just routine, no surprises. She didn’t understand why it was so urgent. Then it occurred to her that Don was literally taking the merger out of her hands, and it all made sense. He was showing her up.

“You look worried,” Mr. Smith remarked.

She shrugged as she handed the papers back. “I never credited Don with one-upmanship.”

“Competition runs in the Tennison clan.”

“Yes. Funny that I didn’t realize it before, isn’t it?”

“You’ve had a lot on your mind,” he replied noncommittally. “Don’t sweat it. Maybe the boss is just trying to give you a hand. God knows you could use one sometimes. You push yourself too hard.”

“Do I?” she mused.

“Too many long hours, too much time on the run. You’re several pounds light.”

She grinned. “Send me down to the gym and build me up, then.”

“Wish I could. Can’t keep you still long enough.” He went to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. “Watch your back. It gets dangerous up in the high altitudes.”

“I have noticed that,” she agreed.

Mr. Smith opened the door and walked out onto the porch, idly noting a car that hesitated as it passed the house. Nosy neighbors, he thought mockingly, motioning to the cabdriver.

“I’ll phone you tonight,” she said. “Tell Blake I love him.”

“He knows that.”

“It never hurts to tell him, all the same.”

He grinned and got into the cab. “Okay.”

Meredith watched the cab drive away. Mr. Smith was like family. When he was gone, she was alone again. Just like old times, she thought as she turned back into the house.

The knock on the door ten minutes later startled her. Perhaps Mr. Smith had forgotten something, she thought as she went to answer it.

Meredith opened the door to an unexpected visitor. Myrna Harden stood rigidly on her doorstep, dressed in black, her thin, pinched face hard with contempt and repugnance.

“I’ve been expecting you,” Meredith said with icy calm. “Come in.”

Myrna walked into the house, looking around with disdain. She took the best of the living room chairs and crossed her elegant legs, her purse clutched tightly on her lap.

“I’ll come straight to the point,” she said primly, producing a check. She held it out to Meredith. “That should make it worth your while to leave Billings for good.”

Meredith didn’t take it. She smiled vacantly. “Would you like coffee?”

“Thank you, no,” Myrna said stiffly. She waved the check. “It’s for ten thousand dollars,” she announced. “Take it and go away.”

Meredith eased down onto the sofa and crossed her jean-clad legs comfortably. “I went away, once.”

“Why didn’t you stay?” Myrna’s face stiffened even more. “What do you want? My son doesn’t care about you! He never did, or he’d have gone after you, surely you must realize that?” she demanded in an almost frantic high-pitched tone.

Yes, of course Meredith realized it, and almost winced at the old pain. “My great-aunt died,” she said with dignity.

Myrna’s inherent good manners flinched at the reminder. “I did know that. I’m sorry. But you must have been offered something for the house….”

“I don’t want to sell the house. It has pleasant memories for me. I don’t want to leave Billings just yet, either,” she added quietly, and some of the steely makeup Henry had taught her was coming into play. She looked straight into Myrna’s eyes, her posture open and threatening, her face giving away no weaknesses. “It will take more than ten thousand to get me out of Billings. It will take more than you’ve got.”

Myrna gasped. “You arrogant backwoods brat!”

“No name calling, if you please,” Meredith said easily. She studied the lined face without haste. “You haven’t worn well, have you? I’m not surprised. The guilt must have been terrible at times.”

Myrna actually paled. She clenched her purse tightly. “I don’t feel guilt.”

“You lied to your son, falsely accused me, cost me my home at a time when I desperately needed it…you don’t feel guilt for any of that?”

“You were a child, playing games,” Myrna rasped.

“I was a woman, deeply in love and pregnant with your grandchild,” Meredith said, the words delivered with the precision of a merciless scalpel. “You lied,” she accused, her eyes contemptuous.

“I had to,” Myrna cried. “I couldn’t let my son marry someone like you!”

“You never told Cy the truth, did you?” Meredith persisted.

Myrna swallowed. “I’ll give you twenty thousand dollars.”

“Tell him the truth.”

“Never!”

“That’s my price,” Meredith said, rising. “Tell Cy what you did to me, and I’ll go without a penny.”

The older woman looked frail. Damaged. She stood up, her lips trembling. “I can’t do that,” she said, shaken.

“You’ll wish you had, before I’m through,” Meredith said, her eyes as cold as Henry Tennison’s had ever been. “Did you really think you were going to get away with it forever?”

Myrna dug out a handkerchief with trembling fingers and dabbed at the corners of her mouth. She looked pasty. “Abortions are easy these days,” she said. “I gave you enough for one. I gave you enough to go away.”

“And I had it sent back to you, along with all Cy’s gifts, didn’t I?” Meredith challenged.

Myrna squirmed, but she didn’t answer.

“You told Cy I’d robbed the company of thousands, Tony and I. You had Tony tell him that we’d been lovers, that I’d betrayed him.”

“It was the only way I could get rid of you. He wouldn’t have let you go if I hadn’t. He was obsessed with you!”

Meredith laughed bitterly. “Obsessed, yes. But that was all. He didn’t love me. If he had, you and all your plotting wouldn’t have made the slightest difference.”

Satisfaction smoldered in Myrna’s eyes. “So you know that, do you?”

Meredith nodded, the heat building in her body from a temper suppressed too long. “I was naive, all right. I didn’t realize just how naive until you shot me out of here.”

“You haven’t fared badly, have you?” Myrna asked stiffly. “You look well. You’re still young.”

“There was a baby, Myrna.”

“Yes.” Myrna moved closer, her eyes calculating. “Did you have it? Did you put it up for adoption? I’ll give you anything. Cy never has to know. The baby will want for nothing!”

Meredith looked at the older woman incredulously. “Suppose someone had made you that offer when you were carrying Cy?”

Something happened in Myrna’s eyes. An expression came into them that Meredith had never seen there. An uncertainty. An anguish.

“All these years…You never knew where I was, or what I had to do to take care of myself, and you didn’t care,” Meredith said. “Now you waltz into my home and try to blackmail me out of town. You even have the audacity to try to buy a grandchild you didn’t give a damn about six years ago.”

“That isn’t true,” Myrna said, lowering her eyes. “I…tried to trace you.”

“Because you felt guilty about letting a Harden be put up for adoption?” Meredith said with a mocking smile when the older woman flushed guiltily. “Just as I thought.”

“You put him up for adoption, didn’t you?” Myrna persisted. “We could still find him. Or her. Which is it?”

“That’s something you can wonder about to your heart’s content,” Meredith said. “Whether I had an abortion, whether I had the baby and put it up for adoption, all of it. And you can take your offer of money with you. I’m afraid I still can’t be bought.” Meredith stood up.

Myrna rose from her chair looking nervous and shaken. “Everyone has a price,” she said. “Even you.”

“Oh, that’s true enough,” Meredith agreed. “But then, you know what my price is, don’t you?”

The older woman started to speak, but Meredith opened the door in a way that was more than a suggestion that she leave.

Myrna stopped in the doorway. “Your male visitor was very formidable, wasn’t he?” she asked. “Are you living with him?”

Meredith couldn’t find an answer fast enough. Myrna smiled venomously. “I’m sure Cy will be interested to hear that he’s been replaced in your affections. Good day.”

There was nothing she could say, nothing she could do, that would stop Myrna from taking news of Mr. Smith’s visit home to Cy. Not that she cared, really, she told herself. It would only fortify his opinion of her. Probably he couldn’t have a worse one. He’d accused her of being unfaithful many times, not just with Tony. Myrna Harden had said she was sleeping with Tony, and Tony had been paid not to deny it. Cy had thought of her as a tramp. She had no reason to suppose his attitude had changed over the years.

She went to work, and fortunately it was a busy day. She didn’t have to think. But dinner brought Cy back for the second night in a row, and his whole posture spelled trouble.

“May I get you something to drink?” she asked politely with carefully schooled features and a blank smile.

Cy’s dark eyes stared back at her from a face like a wall. “Who was the man your neighbor saw leaving your house early this morning?”

“It wasn’t a neighbor,” she replied carelessly. “It was your mother.”

He scowled. Apparently Myrna hadn’t shared her visit with him. Meredith smiled.

“Didn’t she tell you she came to see me? Pity. She offered me ten thousand dollars to leave town.”

“That’s a lie,” he said coldly.

She shrugged. “Okay. What would you like to eat?”

His face hardened. “My mother doesn’t need to pay you to leave town. I can get rid of you whenever I like.”

“Can you really?” she asked with genuine interest. “It would be fascinating to watch you try.”

“You don’t believe it?” His smile was calculating. “For instance, I could buy the mortgage on your aunt’s house and foreclose.”

“The house doesn’t have a mortgage,” she said easily. And it didn’t. Henry had paid it off, anonymously, through a Realty company in Illinois.

Cy was surprised. Something niggled at the back of his mind for just an instant before he dismissed it. “I could fire you.”

“I can get another job,” she said. “Even you can’t control quite every business in Billings. I seem to remember that you used to have enemies. I could go to one of them for work.”

His eyes flashed. “Try it.”

“Why don’t you ask your mother why she wants me to leave?” she asked quietly.

“I know why. She thinks you’ll worm your way into my life again and leave me bleeding, like you did years ago.”

She laughed softly. “You don’t bleed,” she said huskily. “If you did, it would be pure gold, or silver.”

“You cheated on me and helped another man steal from me. You’re the one who might bleed money, not me.”

“Think so?” The pain and anguish of the past contorted her features, made her eyes darker. “What you and your mother did to me didn’t count?”

“We did nothing to you,” he said tersely. “Although we could have. I could have sent you to prison for that theft.”

She shook her head. “Because a good attorney would have cut Tony to pieces on the witness stand. Where is the dear boy now?”

“I don’t know,” he said coldly.

“Don’t know, and don’t care.” She nodded. “Well, that’s too bad. I liked Tony, despite what he and your mother did to my life.”

“My mother did nothing to you!”

Her gaze was level and unflinching. “Nothing?” She leaned forward. “Ask her. I dare you. Ask her why I’m here, why I won’t leave. Ask her for the truth.”

His eyes glittered. “I know the truth. Don’t push me. You’re only here on sufferance.” He threw down his napkin and got up, towering over her. “You won’t find me as vulnerable this time.”

“The reverse is also true,” she said quietly. “And you can tell your mother that my price is now beyond her pocket.”

“Careful, honey,” he said softly. “You’re on my home ground now, and I fight to win.”

“Then you’d better start polishing your sword, big man,” she replied. “Because this time you’re going to have to make the first cut count. Have a nice evening.”

She turned and walked over to the next table without batting an eyelash.

CHAPTER FIVE

MYRNA HARDEN ATE NOTHING that evening. Her interview with Meredith hadn’t gone at all the way she’d planned it. She hadn’t wanted to make threats, but the younger woman had frightened her. This wasn’t the shy young girl who’d once cringed at her cold tone, who’d been beaten and sent packing. No. This new Meredith was an unknown quantity, and when Myrna hadn’t been able to ruffle her composure, she’d said things she never meant to say.

She’d wanted to tell Meredith how desperately she’d searched for her, how upset she’d been at her own irrational actions. She hadn’t wanted to leave a young, pregnant girl at the mercy of a heartless world, and when Meredith had sent back the small wad of bills she’d given her, along with all the expensive things Cy had tried to give her, she was even more afraid. Meredith’s people wouldn’t have had much to give her. The young girl, alone and pregnant in a large city, would have been at the mercy of any stranger who wanted to hurt her.

Shocked and horrified at what she’d done, Myrna had hired private detectives, unbeknownst to Cy, in a furious attempt to track Meredith down and provide for her. The thought of her own grandchild being aborted or put up for adoptions by strangers had haunted her for years. Her best efforts hadn’t produced one scrap of evidence that would point to Meredith’s whereabouts. The girl might have disappeared from the face of the earth.

Myrna gave up trying to eat and pushed the plate away. She was alone tonight, as she frequently was. Cy had business, he’d said. Even his attitude had changed over the years. He was no longer the loving, considerate son he’d once been. Meredith’s departure had twisted something inside him, made him hard and uncaring and cruel at times. He blamed the girl, when it was Myrna’s manipulating that had caused his pain. She closed her eyes. Meredith had accused her of feeling guilt, and of course, she had. Guilt, shame, anguish, all those things. She felt the weight of her villainy tonight, along with her memories. Meredith’s pleading face, Cy’s unyielding one, Tony’s innocent complicity, came back to torment her. Cy had stayed drunk for days afterward, refusing to leave his room, even to speak to his mother. When he regained his composure, he became a playboy of the worst kind, and for months the business suffered.

He’d weathered his storm, but he wasn’t the same. Myrna laughed bitterly. She wasn’t the same, either. Her plotting had caused so much tragedy that even the terrible fear that had triggered her actions couldn’t justify them. She thought of the child and wished she knew if Meredith had really had it. Was it safe? Was it happy? Was it in the hands of loving people and not sadists who might abuse it? The same thoughts had grieved her all the long years, had given her no peace. She got up from the table, leaving the maid to clear away, and she strolled aimlessly into the living room. A mausoleum, she thought, looking around at the exquisite decor. She was entombed in this luxury, with no real friends and no living relatives except her son. She was alone, as perhaps she deserved to be.

Her long fingers touched a Ming vase on a side table, caressing its beauty, its faded colors. She was like that, she mused. Old and faded and delicate, for all her bluster. Meredith hated her, and it was no more than she deserved. She hadn’t really expected to get away with her sins. Nobody did. Payment might take twenty years, but inevitably your trespasses ricocheted right back to you.

Myrna shivered as she felt the approaching storm. Meredith couldn’t be bought, she couldn’t be intimidated. There was no way to make her leave, and if she stayed, there was every chance that Cy would learn the truth. All of it.

Her eyes closed on a shudder. Her son would hate her when he learned what she’d done.

Restlessly, she walked over to the darkened window and looked out at the cold, bare silhouette of the trees on the horizon. Farther, in the distance, were the lights of the refinery near the Yellowstone, like beacons against the dark sky. She couldn’t confess her crime, not yet. She’d just have to bide her time. There was so much Cy didn’t know about her past, about the reasons she’d fought so hard for respectability. She’d even married Frank Harden for that, when she didn’t love him. The man she’d really loved had gone off to Vietnam shattered by her cold mercenary plotting, and he’d been killed there. That, too, was on Myrna’s conscience. She’d sacrificed love all her life in the pursuit of wealth and power, to arm herself with the things that would protect her son from the devastating childhood she’d had to suffer.

Nobody knew, not even the one great-uncle she had left, what she’d had to endure as a little girl because of her mother. No one would know, ever, she swore. She’d made her bed, now she had to lie in it. But what she’d done to Meredith, to Cy, to the man she’d loved—her soul ached with the bruises her actions had dealt it.

But there might still be time to spare herself the humiliation of having Cy know what she’d done. If she begged, she might gain Meredith’s compassion and get her out of Billings in time. The damage was done, the child was lost. She was almost certain now that Meredith had placed him or her up for adoption. The only possible course of action was to convince her that revenge was an empty pleasure, to ask her to spare them.

It would scorch her pride, but perhaps it was no less than she deserved. She’d hurt so many lives with her determination to have Cy marry into the proper bloodlines. She laughed mirthlessly. Myrna’s fierce need for social acceptance had probably cost her any hope of grandchildren, because Cy refused even to consider marriage anymore. The only grandchild she’d ever had was lost to her, through her own arrogance. She closed her eyes and shivered. Paradise lost, she thought. How cold were the dead dreams of the past. She turned slowly and wandered back into the living room to sit down.

IT WASN’T LATE WHEN Meredith left the restaurant. Cy had walked out just after their brief quarrel. How silly of her to expect that he might ask Myrna for the truth, when he’d believed his mother’s lies from the beginning.

If she felt any consolation at all, it came from Myrna’s uncertainty about the fate of her only grandchild. It was a bitter pleasure at that, because Meredith didn’t like hurting people—not even people like Myrna. All that pain, all that anguish, and for what? Myrna had wanted Cy to marry a local socialite he’d been dating infrequently, but that had obviously come to nothing. Cy was still single and showed no interest whatsoever in becoming anyone’s husband. There was a cold cynicism in him now that Meredith didn’t recognize, a hardness that completely overshadowed the sensitivity she remembered. He’d changed, as she had. Only Myrna remained the same: icy and arrogant and certain of getting her own way. But not this time, Meredith told herself. Oh, no, not this time. She wasn’t leaving town until Cy had the truth of it, no matter what it took. And she had a few surprises for him before that day came.

Meredith called the office as soon as she reached Mary’s house. Working eased her aching heart, made her whole again. She wanted to check with her contacts on the inquiries she was making into Harden Properties. Cy had to have an Achilles’ heel. She’d noticed that most of his executives ate at the restaurant where she worked. She smiled at that irony. He’d given her a job at the very best place to eavesdrop on his business. How would he feel, she wondered smugly, when he found out?

During the next few days, she made it her business to be especially courteous to his executives and become friendly with them. That being the case, they were much less guarded in their conversation, assuming that she wouldn’t know what they were talking about. But she did. From the information she gleaned, she gathered that one of Cy’s directors was quietly working against him, trying to obtain a majority of the stockholders’ votes to oust Cy from his own company. She mentioned that over the phone to Don the night she heard this. He agreed to find the director and cultivate him.

Little bits and pieces of conversation, small tidbits of gossip, fueled her secretive inquiries, provided her with insight into the best avenues to pursue as she sought a foothold in Cy’s company.