Cole Cameron's Revenge

“It’s about your husband’s estate,” he’d said.

She’d almost told him to stop trying to sound so officious. What would take place this morning wasn’t any surprise. This was the formal reading of Ted’s will but she knew what was in it. Her practical husband had insisted on telling her the details of the document he’d suddenly decided to draw up a year ago.

He’d left everything to her, in trust for Peter. “It’s his birthright,” he’d said.

Faith had hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t want to leave something to…” She couldn’t say the name. “To your brother?”

Ted’s eyes had darkened, just enough so she knew that time hadn’t dulled the pain he felt. He hadn’t heard from Cole since he’d sent him the letter about their marriage. Though they never talked about it, she knew he was blind to the truth; he couldn’t or wouldn’t see Cole for what he was, but she understood that. Love could warp your judgment. Hadn’t she wept nights for Cole, even after he’d abandoned her? She, at least, had come to her senses.

“No,” he’d said softly, “there’s no point. Cole hated this house. He hated our father. He wouldn’t want anything that carries the Cameron name. But I know he’ll come back someday, Faith. And when he does, you have to tell him the truth. He’s entitled to know he gave you a child, just as Peter has the right to know the man who’s really his father.”

Faith stared into the mirror. Cole wasn’t entitled to anything. Not from her. As for Peter…She couldn’t imagine a time she’d want to hurt him by telling him that his real father had run out on her. Her child was better off going through life thinking of Ted as his father. He’d be happy that way, and her son’s happiness was all that mattered. It was why she’d agreed to marry Ted—and why she’d decided to leave Liberty, as soon as the formal reading of the will was over.

This morning, after the lawyer finished with all the legal rigmarole, she’d have the money to start life fresh and she was going to do it in a place far from here, a place where “Cameron” was just another name. Making the decision hadn’t been easy. Despite everything, Liberty was home. But there was that old saying, something about home being where the heart was.

Without Ted, this place had no heart. The sooner she left, the better.

Faith rose from the dressing table, walked briskly to the closet and opened it. She ran a hand along the clothing hanging from the rod, pausing when her fingers brushed over the pink suit she’d worn for Ted’s funeral. People had stared at her openly, condemnation glittering in their eyes. The hell with them, she’d thought. The suit was for Ted, who’d hated black.

But today wasn’t about her love and respect for Ted. It was about Peter’s future. She had no idea what it took—if, in fact, it took anything—to set in motion the things that would set the two of them free of Liberty. She knew nothing about the financial aspects of the life she’d lived as Mrs. Theodore Cameron. Ted had handled all of that.

She chose a cream silk blouse, then a black silk suit. Silk, on a day like this. She’d probably melt from the heat, but it was the right outfit to wear. She dressed quickly, grimacing as she pulled on panty hose, a bra, even a half-slip. The blouse stuck to her skin almost as soon as she slipped it on but at last she was ready, her skirt zipped, her jacket buttoned, her feet jammed into the confines of a pair of low-heeled black leather pumps.

She took a deep breath. “Ready or not,” she said softly, and turned to the mirror.

The suit was fine, businesslike and purposeful, and so long as she kept the jacket buttoned nobody would know that beads of sweat were already forming beneath the blouse. The shoes were okay, too. But her hair…

“Dammit,” Faith muttered.

It was reacting to the humidity the way it always did, by spinning itself into gold curls instead of lying in the soft, ladylike waves she wanted. Her face was shining, too, despite its unaccustomed dusting of powder.

So much for looking cool and confident. She looked the way she felt, uncertain and grief-stricken at the loss of the only person who’d ever truly cared for her. Perhaps, she thought wryly, the mirror was determined to reflect a portrait of the inner woman instead of the outer one.

“Mommy?”

Faith swung around. “Peter?”

Her son pushed the door open and came into the bedroom, his face solemn—too solemn for a boy his age. Her heart swelled with love at the sight of him. She squatted down and opened her arms wide. Peter walked toward her and when he was close enough, Faith reached out and drew him close, sighing as she felt the tension in his stiff body.

“Mommy? Alice says you’re going to town.”

Faith drew back, smiled and brushed his silky chestnut hair back from his forehead. “She’s right.”

“Do you have to go?”

“Yes. But I won’t be long, sweetheart. Just an hour or two, I promise.”

Her son nodded. He’d taken Ted’s death hard. Lately, he didn’t want to be away from her side.

“Would you like me to bring you something?”

Peter shook his head. “No, thank you.”

“A new game from the computer store?”

“Dad bought me one, just before…He bought me one.” Peter’s lip quivered. “I wish he was still here, Mommy.”

Faith gathered her son tightly into her embrace. “Me, too.” She held him for a minute, inhaling his little-boy scent. Then she cleared her throat, cupped his shoulders and held him out in front of her. “So,” she said briskly, “what are you going to do until I get home?”

Peter shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“How about phoning Charlie and asking him over?”

“Charlie isn’t home. Today’s Sean’s party, remember?”

Damn, Faith thought, of course. She was so wrapped up in her own worries that she’d forgotten her son’s distress at being the only boy who hadn’t been asked to his classmate’s party.

“Why wasn’t I invited, too?” Peter had said, and she’d come within a breath of telling him the truth, that the town was already reassessing her position and his in Liberty’s rigid social order.

“Because Sean’s a ninny,” she’d said with forced gaiety, “and besides, why would you want to go to his old party when we can have a party right here, all by ourselves?”

“It’s a good thing you reminded me,” Faith said. “That means today is our party, too. I’ll pick up some goodies on my way home.”

“Uh-huh,” Peter said, with polite disinterest.

“Let’s see…I’ll get some liver…”

“Liv-er! Yuck. I hate liver.”

“And some Brussels sprouts…”

“Double yuck!”

“Or maybe lima beans. That’s it. Liver, and lima beans, and tapioca pudding for dessert—”

“The stuff with the eyeballs in it?”

“Sure. Isn’t that your favorite meal?”

“No way, Mommy! Lima beans and liver and eyeball pudding isn’t a party!”

“Isn’t it?” Faith grinned. To her delight, her son grinned back. “Well then, I guess I’ll have to pick up some yucky stuff like hamburgers and French fries and chocolate malteds at the Burger Pit.”

It was a bribe, she thought a few minutes later, as she drove out the gates of the Cameron estate and turned her station wagon onto the main road, but so what? It had brought a smile to her little boy’s face. His happiness was everything to her.

Ted had felt the same way.

Ted, Faith thought, and she felt the sorrow welling inside her heart again. What a wonderful man he’d been. The people of Liberty thought so, too, even if they also thought he was a fool to have married her.

Her hands tightened on the wheel. What had made him come to see her, that fateful day nine long years ago? Cole had been gone just a little over seven weeks when he’d knocked at the trailer door. Her mother had opened it, then stepped back with a little gasp.

“My word,” she’d said. “You must be…Faith? It’s—it’s Mr. Cameron.”

Faith had been in the tiny kitchen. Her heart had leaped into her throat at the sound of those words. “Cole,” she’d said, “oh, Cole…”

But it was Ted she saw, when she came racing to the door. She knew him by sight, though they’d never spoken. Ted was years older than Cole. He worked in the bank his father owned. The only other thing she knew about him was that Cole said the two of them were as different as night and day.

“What do you want?” she’d said, disappointment sharpening her tone. Ted had smiled and said he’d come to see her, acting as if he made visits to trailer parks all the time, and saying, “Yes, thank you very much,” to her flustered mother’s offer of a cup of tea.

“Are you okay?” he’d asked quietly, once he and Faith were alone.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Look, Faith, I know you and Cole…I know he meant a lot to you—”

“Cole?” Faith tossed her head. “I hardly remember him.”

“Faith. Please. I know you’re hurt—”

“You don’t know anything!” Without warning, she started to weep. “I hate your brother. You hear what I’m saying? I hate him!”

Ted’s gaze went from her face to her hand. She looked down and realized that she’d inadvertently placed her hand protectively over her still-flat stomach. Heat rushed to her face as she looked up and her eyes met Ted’s.

“You’re pregnant,” he said softly.

“No!” Her face turned white. “I’m not…pregnant,” she said, the word hissing softly from between her teeth. She shot a nervous glance over her shoulder. “You go home, you hear me? Just—just get out of here and—”

“Don’t lie to me, dammit. You’re carrying my brother’s child.”

The fight went out of her like air from a collapsing balloon. She sank down on the stained sofa and he sat down beside her, his eyes never leaving hers.

“What are you going to do?”

“Keep your voice down!”

“Faith.” Ted took her hand. “You have to tell me what you’re going to do.”

“I’m not getting rid of my baby,” she said, jerking her hand from his, “if that’s what you were thinking.”

“I don’t know what I’m thinking,” he said honestly. “Aren’t you still in high school?”

“So?”

“So, how can you hope to take care of a baby?”

“I’ll do what I have to do.”

“Meaning, you’ll quit school, take a job at the Burger Pit, have your baby and bring him home to this place.”

Faith felt her cheeks flame. “‘This place,”’ she said, trying to sound offended but knowing she probably only sounded defensive, “is my home.”

Ted was blunt. “Sure,” he said, “and that’s what you want for your baby, right? And for yourself?”

How she’d despised him that day! He’d forced her to see that cramped, ugly little room; to smell the stink of beer rising from the sagging furniture; to hear her father’s snores coming through the pressboard walls while he slept off a drunk.

Cole used to hold her in his arms and tell her he’d take her away from all this someday but Cole had lied. Now she sat beside his brother while he told her, in painfully bleak terms, that she’d never escape this life, that, worse still, her child would never escape it.

“Let me help you, Faith.”

“I don’t want Cameron charity.”

“I’m not talking about charity, I’m talking about doing the right thing for Cole’s child. What are you going to tell people, when they see that you’re pregnant?”

“I don’t have to tell them anything,” she said, even though it was a lie. Liberty wasn’t the kind of town where you could tell people to mind their own business.

“You mean, you’d rather keep your pride and let people play guessing games about who put that baby inside you?”

“They’ll do that anyway.”

Ted shifted closer to her. She could still remember the sound of the ancient springs in the sofa creaking as he did.

“You’re right,” he said softly. “That’s why I’m not offering you money.”

“Well, that’s something. I meant it when I said—”

“I want you to marry me, Faith.”

She’d gaped at him, certain he’d lost his mind. “Marry you?”

“That’s right.”

“Are you crazy? I don’t want to marry you. I don’t love you. I don’t even know you.”

“That makes two of us. I don’t love you or know you and, frankly, I don’t want to marry you, either.”

“Then, why…”

“For the child, that’s why. You owe him a decent life.” Ted took a long, dismissive look around the trailer before locking eyes with her again. “Unless you prefer this.”

“I grew up just fine without your big house and all your money,” she replied fiercely.

“Yes,” Ted said, “you did. But don’t you want your child to have more? Don’t you want him to be legitimate?” He leaned forward, reached for her hand. “Tell me you love that baby enough to let me do the right thing for you both.”

“You think what you’re suggesting is the right thing?” Faith tried to tug her hand from his again but he wouldn’t let her. “I’d sooner marry the devil than marry a Cameron.”

Thinking back, she knew she hadn’t quite pulled it off. Her words had tried for bravado but her voice had quavered with despair.

“Cole asked me to look after you,” Ted said quietly.

To this day, she hated herself for the way her foolish heart had jumped at those words.

“Did he?” she whispered, then answered her own question. “No. No, he didn’t. Cole doesn’t give a damn about me. He proved it by leaving without so much as a goodbye. He never even tried to get in touch with me, right after the night we’d—the night we’d—”

“Faith.” Ted stood up. “My brother did what he had to do.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, rising to her feet. She gave a quick laugh. “He certainly did.”

“And so will you, if you’re half the woman I think you are. You’ll marry me, take the Cameron name, raise your baby as a Cameron—”

“And what about you?” She stared at Ted in bewilderment. “Assuming I were to agree to such an insane thing—which I won’t—but if I did, what would happen to your life? I—I’d never live with you as a wife should. Never, no matter how—”

“I know that. And I wouldn’t expect it.” Ted cleared his throat. “I’m going to…I’m going to trust you with something. Something you should know.” He swallowed hard. “I’ve—I’ve never been interested in women. Not the way a man should be.”

The truth took a long moment to sink in. When it finally did, Faith stared at him, speechless.

“Nobody knows,” he’d said quickly, “not even Cole. And nobody ever will, not in Liberty. I’ll be an exemplary husband. And, I promise you, I’ll love Cole’s child as if it were my own. Just don’t make this baby pay for what you feel toward my brother.”

“I hate your brother,” she’d said, and despite everything, the enormity of the lie had clutched at her heart.

“But you don’t hate your baby.” Ted had flashed the gentle smile she’d come to know so well over the ensuing years. “You’ll be doing me a favor, letting me enjoy a child I’d never otherwise have. No, don’t say anything. At least agree to think it over.”

She’d thought it over, trying to concentrate on the logic of it instead of on the pain of her broken heart. Then, one morning her mother found her retching into the toilet. She whispered the question Faith had feared for weeks, and Faith nodded her assent.

“Your father mustn’t know,” her mother had said, trembling. “You’ll have to do something, Faith, but not in this town. You’ll have to do it far away from here.”

A day later, she’d phoned Ted and accepted his proposition.

They’d been married at Town Hall while her mother stood by sniffling into a fistful of tissues. Ted put a thin platinum band on her finger, kissed her cheek and moved her into his house. He sent Cole a letter telling him about the marriage, but Cole never replied. And Isaiah never said a word to her, right up until his death.

Neither did anyone else in town, but she saw their knowing smiles. When she began to show, their smiles grew more obvious. She knew people were counting the months and assuming she’d managed to snare a Cameron in the oldest way possible.

“Don’t mind those busybodies,” Ted would say when she’d come home from the market or the library with her face red and her temper high. “Just go on with your life.”

She had. And, once Peter was born, her days were filled with the sweet joy of caring for him. He was the love of her life, the one good thing Cole had given her, and when Ted suggested finding Cole to tell him he had a son, Faith’s “no” was adamant. Cole hadn’t wanted her; why would he want to know he had a son?

“I don’t ever want him to know about Peter,” she’d said. “Promise me that, Ted.”

Ted had promised, though reluctantly. “It’s wrong,” he’d say. “A man has the right to know he’s a father.”

Now, turning onto Main Street and pulling into the lot behind Sam Jergen’s law office, Faith thought again, as she had so often in the past, that fathering a child was easy. Raising one was the hard part although the truth was, Ted hadn’t been all that involved in raising Peter. He had his own life but he’d always been good to her and to her son. Thanks to that goodness, she could look forward to a fresh start for the two of them.

Damn. There was a car, a shiny black Jaguar, parked under the only shade tree. It gave her a jolt to see it, considering the memories swirling through her head. When Cole daydreamed about their future, he used to say that someday he’d trade his Harley for a Jaguar…

She shut off the engine.

Why was she wasting time thinking about Cole this morning? The past was dead. The future was all that mattered.

The day was heating up. She could feel the asphalt give under her shoes as she walked across the parking lot. A merciful blast of frigid air enveloped her as she stepped inside the marble foyer of the old building. Five to nine, said the big clock on the wall. She was right on time.

The cool air evaporated as she made her way up the steps to the third floor and down the corridor to Sam Jergen’s office. Faith could feel her hair curling, her blouse wilting. She paused outside the office, wiped her hand down her skirt, tugged at her jacket, patted her hair…

“Just stop it,” she said under her breath, and she opened the door and stepped inside.

The empty reception area was hot, almost airless. Faith glanced at her watch. It was precisely nine o’clock. Where was the iron-jawed secretary who normally sat at the desk?

“Hello?” she said, after a couple of minutes crept past.

There was no reply. Faith sat down on the sofa, put her purse in her lap and folded her hands over it. She looked at her watch again, frowned and got to her feet.

“Hello?” she said again, in a louder voice.

A sound drifted down the short corridor that led to the inner offices. Laughter? Yes, that was what it was, a peal of feminine laughter. Faith looked around, huffed out a breath and started down the hall.

She could hear voices now, though she couldn’t make out the words. A man and a woman were talking. The woman was Jergen’s secretary. Faith had spoken with her enough times lately to know that. But the man wasn’t Sam Jergen. He was younger, and his voice was deeper, huskier, maybe even a little sexy…

Goose bumps prickled her arms under the silk blouse. She jerked to a stop. Something in the way the man sounded was familiar.

The woman laughed again, and so did the man. Faith began to tremble. She turned on her heel, started back down the corridor. Obviously, she’d made a mistake. Come on the wrong day, maybe, or at the wrong time…

“Mrs. Cameron?”

Whatever, she’d go home, call and ask when she was supposed to have shown up for this meeting…

“Mrs. Cameron?”

Faith stumbled to a halt. She was breathing hard and her pulse was racing, which was silly.

“Yes?” she said brightly, and turned toward the secretary. “I’m awfully sorry to have bothered you. I’m afraid I’ve showed up at the wrong—” The other woman was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Actually, I—I just remembered something I have to—to—”

Faith fell silent. The open door to Jergen’s private office was just ahead. She could see a man standing near the windows. He was tall, well over six feet; his hair was a sun-streaked brown, perhaps a little longer than it should have been, and curled just over his collar. He was wearing a pale gray suit that surely had been tailored to his wide-shouldered, leanly muscled frame. His feet were slightly spread and his hands were in his trouser pockets.

His stance was casual but something about it suggested that he knew he owned the world.

Faith’s heartbeat slowed to a sluggish crawl. She forced her eyes from the man to Jergen’s secretary.

“Why don’t I come back later?” she said in a breathless voice that didn’t sound a bit like her own. “Say, at ten? Or this afternoon? I mean, I thought I had a nine o’clock appointment but obviously—”

“You do. Mr. Jergen had to step out for a minute. He asked you to wait for him in his office.”

“No! I can wait in the reception area—”

The woman took her arm. Faith wanted to grab for the wall and hang on but the secretary drew her forward, through the door and into the office.

“No,” she said again, but it was too late. The man turned from the window and looked at her.

“Hello, Faith,” Cole said.

And everything went black.

CHAPTER TWO

COLE had wondered how Faith would react when she saw him.

He’d thought about it through the long flight home—not that Georgia was home anymore. He had offices in Caracas, London and New York, a condo in Aspen and a penthouse in New York but when the news of Ted’s death reached him, he was deep in the Orinoco basin. It had taken him more than a week just to get back to civilization.

She was such a clever actress. Who knew what routine she’d try and pull?

He’d imagined her offering a cool smile and a handshake.

Hello, Cole, she’d say, as if he’d never left. As if there’d never been anything between them. As if they’d never made love on a soft summer night.

Or she might try the ingénue act again. He’d fallen for it years ago. So had his brother. Why wouldn’t she stick with something that had been successful? Sweet Faith. Innocent Faith. Oh yeah. That had always worked.

Maybe she’d play the grieving widow. Stare at him through big eyes, weep as if her heart were breaking. Actually, he’d doubted she’d be foolish enough to try that. She had to realize that he, of all men, would know she didn’t have a heart.

A swoon was the last thing he’d figured but that was exactly what she did. Looked at him, rolled up her eyes and went down in a heap. Cole cursed, moved fast, and caught her just before she hit the floor.

“Get some cold water,” he snapped at Sam Jergen’s secretary.

The woman flew down the hall. Cole headed in the other direction, elbowed open the conference room door and unceremoniously deposited Faith on the couch. He looked at her dispassionately and wondered if he might have walked past her on the street. The girl he’d known had lived her life in shorts and T-shirts. The woman he was looking at was dressed in designer silk.

“I suppose you know all about your brother’s marriage,” Jergen had said carefully, when the call had finally reached him. “That he and Faith Davenport…”

“Yes,” Cole had said, interrupting the man. Surely, the lawyer hadn’t phoned to give him old news. “I know all of that. Why are you calling me, Mr. Jergen?”

There’d been a long silence over the satellite phone. “Your brother’s been in an accident,” Jergen had finally said. “I’m afraid it was a bad one. He was driving to Atlanta. It was dark and the rain was heavy…”

It was funny, what adversity could do to a man. Nine years of rage had disappeared in a heartbeat. This was Ted, his brother. And Cole loved him.

“What hospital is he in?” he’d demanded, glancing at his watch. “I can be in the States by—”

“He’s not in a hospital,” Jergen had said softly. “He’s gone.”

Ted, gone? That couldn’t be. “No,” Cole had whispered, “God, no…” And then his heart had almost stopped beating. “Faith? Is she…?” His hand had tightened around the phone. “Tell me what happened to her. Is she—did she—”