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Jack, struggling through his second year in law school, was in love with Dorothy Rae, too, but he couldn't even think about marriage until after he finished school. His daddy expected him not only to graduate, but to rank high in his class. His daddy also expected him to be chivalrous where women were concerned.

So when Jack finally succumbed to temptation and relieved Dorothy Rae Hancock of her virginity, he was in a quandary as to which had priority—chivalry toward the lady or responsibility toward parental expectations. Dorothy Rae spurred him into making a decision when she weepily told him that she was late getting her period.

Panicked, Jack figured that an untimely marriage was better than an untimely baby and prayed that Nelson would figure it that way, too. He and Dorothy Rae drove to Oklahoma over the weekend, wed in secret, and broke the glad tidings to their parents after the fact.

Nelson and Zee were disappointed, but after getting Jack's guarantee that he had no intention of dropping out of law school, they welcomed Dorothy Rae into the family.

The Hancocks of Lampasas didn't take the news quite so well. Her elopement nearly killed Dorothy Rae's daddy. In fact, he dropped dead of a heart attack one month after the nuptials. Dorothy Rae's unstable mother was committed to an alcohol abuse hospital. On the day of her release several weeks later, she was deemed dried out and cured. Three days later, she ran her car into a bridge abutment while driving drunk. She died on impact.

Francine Angela wasn't born until eighteen months after Dorothy Rae's marriage to Jack. It was either the longest pregnancy in history or she had tricked him into marriage.

He had never accused her of either, but, as though in self-imposed penance, she had had two miscarriages in quick succession when Fancy was still a baby.

The last miscarriage had proved to be life-threatening, so the doctor had tied her tubes to prevent future pregnancies. To blunt the physical, mental, and emotional pain this caused her, Dorothy Rae began treating herself to a cocktail every afternoon. And when that didn't work, she treated herself to two.

"How can you look yourself in the mirror,'' she demanded of her husband now, "knowing that you love your brother's wife?"

"I don't love her."

"No, you don't, do you?" Leaning close, she poisoned the air between them with the intoxicating fumes of her breath. "You hate her because she treats you like dirt. Shewipes her feet on you. You can't even see that all these changes in her are just—"

"What changes?" Instead of hanging his pants on the hanger in his hand, he dropped them into a chair. "She explained about using her left hand, you know."

Having won his attention, Dorothy Rae pulled herself up straight and assumed the air of superiority that only drunks can assume. "Other changes," she said loftily. "Haven't you noticed them?"

"Maybe. Like what?"

"Like the attention she's showering on Mandy and the way she's sucking up to Tate."

"She's been through a lot. She's mellowed."

"Ha!" she crowed indelicately. "Her? Mellowed? God above, you're blind where she's concerned." Her blue eyes tried to focus on his face. "Since that plane crash, she's like a different person, and you know it. But it's all for show," she stated knowingly.

"Why should she bother?"

"Because she wants something." She swayed toward him and tapped his chest for emphasis. "Probably, she's playing the good little senator's wife so she'll get to move to Washington with Tate. What'U you do then, Jack? Huh? What'H you do with your sinful lust then?"

"Maybe I'll start drinking and keep you company."

She raised a shaky hand and pointed her finger at him. "Don't get off the subject. You want Carole. I know you do," she finished with another sob.

Jack, once more bored with her inebriated rambling, finished hanging up his clothes, then methodically went around the room, switching off lamps and turning down the bed. ''Come to bed, Dorothy Rae," he said wearily.

She caught his arm. "You never loved me."

"That's not true."

"You think I tricked you into marrying me."

"I never said that."

"I thought I was pregnant. I did!"

"I know you did."

"Because you didn't love me, you thought it was okay to go after other women." Her eyes narrowed on him accusingly.

"Iknow there have been others. You've cheated on me so many times, it's no wonder I drink."

Tears were streaming down her face. Ineffectually, she slapped his bare shoulder. "I drink because my husband doesn't love me. Never did. And now he's in love with his brother's wife."

Jack crawled into bed, turned onto his side, and pulled the covers up over himself. His nonchalance enraged her. On her knees, she walked to the center of the bed and began pounding on his back with her fists. "Tell me the truth. Tell me how much yon love her. Tell me how much you despise me."

Her anger and strength were rapidly exhausted, as he had known they would be. She collapsed beside him, losing consciousness instantly. Jack rolled to his side and adjusted the covers over her. Then, heaving an unhappy sigh, he lay back down and tried to sleep.

SIXTEEN

"I thought she would be in bed by now."

Tate spoke from the doorway of Mandy's bathroom. Avery was kneeling beside the tub, where Mandy was worming her fingers through a mound of bubbles.

"She probably should be, but we went a little overboard with the bubble bath."

"So I see."

Tate came in and sat down on the lid of the commode. Mandy smiled up at him.

"Do your trick for Daddy," Avery told her.

Obediently, the child cupped a handful of suds and blew on them hard, sending clumps of white foam flying in all directions. Several landed on Tate's knee. He made a bigdeal of it. "Whoa, there, Mandy, girl! You're taking the bath, not me."

She giggled and scooped up another handful. This time a dollop of suds landed on Avery's nose. To Mandy's delight, she sneezed. "I'd better put a stop to this before it gets out of hand." She bent over the tub, slid her hands into Mandy's armpits, and lifted her out.

"Here, give her to me." Tate was waiting to wrap up his daughter in a towel.

"Careful. Slippery when wet."

Mandy, bundled in soft pink terry cloth, was carried into her adjoining bedroom and set down beside her bed. Her chubby little feet sank into the thick rug. Its luxuriant nap swallowed all ten toes. Tate sat down on the edge of her bed and began drying her with experienced hands.

" Nightie?" he asked, looking up at Avery expectantly.

"Oh, yes. Coming right up." There was a tall, six-drawer chest and a wide, three-drawer bureau. Where would the nighties be kept? She moved toward the bureau and opened the top drawer. Socks and panties.

"Carole? Second drawer."

Avery responded with aplomb. "She'll need underwear, too, won't she?" He unwound the towel from around Mandy and helped her step into her underwear, then pulled the nightgown over her head while Avery turned down her bed. He lifted Mandy into it.

Avery brought a hairbrush from the bureau, sat down beside Tate on the edge of the bed, and began brushing Mandy's hair. "You smell so clean," she whispered, bending down to kiss her rosy cheek once she'd finished with her hair. "Want some powder on?"

"Like yours?" Mandy asked.

"Hmm, like mine." Avery went back to the bureau for the small music box of dusting powder she'd spotted there earlier. Returning to the bed, she opened the lid. A Tchaikovsky tune began to play. She dipped the plush puff into the powder, then applied it to Mandy's chest, tummy, and arms. Mandy tilted her head back. Avery stroked her exposed throat with the powder puff. Giggling, Mandy hunched her shoulders and dug her fists into her lap.

"That tickles, Mommy."

The form of address startled Avery and brought tears to her eyes. She pulled the child into a tight hug. It was a moment before she could speak. "Now you really smell good, doesn't she, Daddy?"

"She sure does. 'Night, Mandy." He kissed her, eased her back onto the pillows, and tucked the summer-weight covers around her.

"Good night." Avery leaned down to softly peck her cheek, but Mandy flung her arms around Avery's neck and gave her mouth a smacking, moist kiss. She then turned onto her side, pulled a well-loved Pooh Bear against her, and closed her eyes.

Somewhat dazed by Mandy's spontaneous show of affection, Avery replaced the music box, turned out the light, and preceded Tate through the doorway and down the hall toward her own room.

"For our first day—"

She got no further before he grabbed her upper arm and shoved her inside her bedroom and against the nearest wall. Keeping one hand firmly around her biceps, he closed the door so they wouldn't be overheard and flattened his other palm against the wall near her head.

"What's the matter with you?" she demanded.

"Shut up and listen to me." He moved in closer, his face taut with anger. "I don't know what game you're playing with me. What's more, I don't give a shit. But if you start messing with Mandy, I'll kick you out so fast your head will spin, understand?"

"No. I don't understand."

"The hell you don't," he snarled. "This sweetness and light act is a bunch of crap."

"Act?"

"I'm an adult."

"You're a bully. Let go of my arm."

"I recognize your act for what it is. But Mandy is a child. To her it's real, and she'll respond to it." He inclined his body even closer. "Then, when you go back to being your old self, you'll leave her irreparably damaged."

"I—"

"I can't let that happen to her I won't."

"You give me very little credit, Tate."

"I give you none."

She sucked in a quick, harsh breath.

He looked her over rudely. "Okay, so this morning you dazzled the press on my behalf. Thank you. You took my hand during the press conference. Sweet. We're wearing matching wedding bands. How romantic," he sneered

"You've even got members of my family, who should know better, speculating that you had some kind of conversion experience in the hospital—found Jesus or something."

He lowered his head to within inches of hers. "I know you too well, Carole. I know that you are at your sweetest and kindest just before you go in for the kill." Increasing the pressure on her arm, he added, "I know that for a fact, remember?"

Distressed, Avery said fervently, "I have changed I am different."

"Like hell You've just changed tactics, that's all But I don't care how well you play the part of the perfect candidate's wife, you're out. What I told you before the crash still stands. After the election, no matter the outcome, you're gone, baby."

His threat of dispossession didn't frighten her. Avery Daniels had been dispossessed of everything already—even her identity. What stunned Avery was that Tate Rutledge, on whose integrity she would have staked her life, was a phony after all.

"You would manipulate the public that way?" she hissed. "You'd go through this campaign with me playing your devoted wife, standing at your side, waving and smiling and delivering silly speeches that are composed for me, only as a means of getting more votes?" Her voice had risen a full octave. "Because a happily married candidate has a better chance of winning than one caught up in a divorce procedure. Isn't that right?"

His eyes turned as hard as flint. "Good try, Carole. Shift the blame to me if it makes you feel better about your own manipulations. You know damn good and well why I didn't kick you out a long time ago. I want this election for myself and for the following I've cultivated. I won't let those voters down. I can't do anything that might prevent me from winning, even if it means pretending to live in wedded bliss with you."

Once again he subjected her to a contemptuous once-over. "Your surgery made the packaging look fresher, but you're still rotten on the inside."

Avery was having a difficult time keeping the aspersions he was casting on Carole separate from herself. She took each insult to heart, as though it were aimed at her and not his late wife. She wanted to defend herself against his criticism, to fight back with a woman's weapons. Because, while his fierce temperament was intimidating, it was also arousing.

His anger only intensified his sexiness. It emanated from him as potently as the scent of his after-shave. His mouth looked hard and cruel. It became Avery's goal to soften it.

She raised her head, defying his resentful glare. "Are you sure I'm the same?"

"Damn sure."

Sliding her arms over his shoulders, she clasped her hands behind his neck. "Are you sure, Tate?" Coming up on tiptoes, she brushed her parted lips across his. "Absolutely sure?"

"Don't do this. It only makes you more of a whore." "I'm not!"

The insult smarted. In a way, she was prostituting herself with another woman's husband for the sake of a story. But that wasn't motivating her as much as a growing sexual need more powerful than any she had ever experienced. With or without her story, she had a genuine desire to give Tate the tenderness and love that had been missing from his marriage to Carole.

"I'm not the woman I was before. I swear to you I'm not."

She tilted her head to one side and aligned her lips with his. Her hands cupped the back of his head, her fingers curling through his hair and drawing him down. If he really wanted to, he could resist, Avery assured herself.

But he allowed his head to be drawn closer to hers. Encouraged, she daintily used the moist tip of her tongue to probe at his lips. His muscles tensed, but it was a sign of weakness, not endurance.

"Tate?" She gently nipped his lower lip with her teeth.

"Christ."

The hand bracing him against the wall fell away. Avery was propelled backward when she absorbed the weight of his body, becoming sandwiched between him and the wall. One arm curled hard and tight around her waist. His other hand captured her jaw, almost crushing it between his strong fingers. It held her head in place while he kissed her ravenously. He sealed her open mouth to his with gentle suction, then burrowed his tongue into the silky wet cavity.