Beloved (2 page)

Beloved

John Beck, like
Tira
, had
never said anything about the mar
riage. But
John had avoided Simon ever since the divorce, and once when he'd had too much
to drink at a party they'd both
attended, he'd
blurted out that Simon had destroyed his life, with
out explaining how.

The two men had been friends for several years until
John had
married
Tira
.
Not too long after the divorce, John had moved out
of
Texas
entirely and a year later that tragic oil rig accident had
claimed his life.
Tira
had
seemed devastated by John's death and
for a time, she went into
seclusion. When she came back into
society,
she was a changed woman. The vivacious, happy
Tira
of
earlier days had become a dignified,
elegant matron who seemed
to have
lost her fighting spirit. She went back to college and fin
ished her degree in art. But three years after
graduation, she
seemed to have done
little with her degree. Not that she skimped
on charity work or political fund-raising. She was a tireless
worker.
Simon wondered sometimes if she didn't work to keep
from thinking.

Perhaps she blamed herself for John's death and couldn't
admit it. The loss of his former friend had hurt Simon, too. He and
Tira
had become casual friends, but nothing more, he made
sure of it.
Despite her attractions, he wasn't
getting caught by such a shallow
woman. But if their
lukewarm friendship had been satisfying once,
in the past year, she'd become restless. She was forever mention
ing Charles Percy to him and watching his reactions with
strange,
curious eyes. It made him
uncomfortable, like that crack she'd
made about
kindling jealousy in him.

That remark hit him on the raw. Did she really think he
could ever want a woman of her sort, who could discard a man she professed to
love after only one month of marriage and then parade around openly with a
philanderer like Charles Percy? He
laughed
coldly to himself. That really would be the day. His heart was safely encased
in ice. Everyone thought he mourned
Melia
—
no one knew how badly she'd hurt him, or that her memory
dis
-

Diana Palmer
                                                                           
161

gusted
him. It served as some protection against women like
Tira
.
It kept him safe
from any emotional involvement.

Unaware
of Simon's hostile thoughts,
Tira
went to her silver
Jaguar and climbed in behind the wheel. She paused there for a
few minutes, with her head against the cold
steering wheel. When
was she ever
going to learn that Simon didn't want heir? It was like throwing herself at a
stone wall, and it had to stop. Finally
she admitted that nothing was going to change their shallow re
lationship. It was time she made a move to put
herself out of Simon's orbit for good. Tearing her emotions to pieces wasn't
going to help, and every time she saw him, she
died a little more.
All these years she'd waited and hoped and suffered,
just to be
around him occasionally. She'd
lived too long on crumbs; she had
to
find some sort of life for herself without Simon, no matter how
badly it
hurt.

Her first step was to sell the Montana property. She put
it on
the market without a qualm, and her manager
pooled his resources
with a friend to buy
it. With the ranch gone, she had no more
reason to go to cattle auctions.

She moved out of her apartment that was only a couple of
blocks
from Simon's, too, and bought an elegant house on the
outskirts of town on the Floresville Road. It was very Spanish,
with
graceful arches and black wrought-iron scrollwork on the fences that enclosed
it. There was a cobblestone patio complete
with
a fountain and a nearby sitting area with, a large goldfish
pond and a waterfall cascading into it. The place
was sheer magic.
She thought she'd
never seen anything quite so beautiful.

“It's the sort of house that needs a family,'' the real
estate agent had remarked.

Tira
hadn't said a word.

She remembered the conversation as she looked around the
empty living room that had yet to be furnished. There
would never
be a family now. There would only be
Tira
, putting one foot in

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Beloved

Diana Palmer

163

front of the other and living like a zombie in a world that no
longer contained Simon, or hope.

It took her several weeks to have the house decorated and
furnished. She chose every fabric, every color, every design herself.
And when the house was finished, it echoed her own
personality.
Her real personality, that was, not the
face she showed to the
world.

No one who was acquainted with her would recognize her
from
the decor. The living room was done in soft
white with a pastel
blue, patterned wallpaper. The carpet
was gray. The furniture was
Victorian, rosewood
chairs and a velvet-covered sofa. The other rooms were equally antique. The
master bedroom boasted a four-
poster bed in cherry
wood, with huge ball legs and a headboard
and footboard
resplendant
with hand-carved floral motifs. The cur
tains were
Priscillas
,
the center panels of rose patterns with faint pink and blue coloring. The rest
of the house followed the same
subdued
elegance of style and color. It denoted a person who was introverted, sensitive
and old-fashioned. Which, under the flam
boyant camouflage,
Tira
really was.

If there was a flaw, and it was a small one, it was the
mouse
who lived in the kitchen. Once the house was
finished, and she'd
moved in, she noticed him her first
night in residence, sitting bra
zenly on a cabinet
clutching a piece of cracker that she'd missed
when she was cleaning up.

She
bought traps and set them, hoping that the evil things would
do their horrible work correctly and that she
wouldn't be left nurs
ing a wounded
mouse. But the wily creature avoided the traps.
She tried a cage and bait. That didn't work, either. Either the
mouse was like those in that cartoon she'd loved,
altered by some
secret lab and made
intelligent, or he was a figment of her imag
ination and she was going mad.

She laughed almost hysterically at the thought that Simon
had
finally, after all those years, driven her
crazy.

Despite the mouse, she loved her new
home. But even though

she led a hectic life, there were still the lonely nights to get
through. The walls began to close around her, despite the
fact that she involved herself in charity work committees and was a tireless
worker for political action fund-raisers. She worked long
hours,
and pushed herself unnecessarily hard. But she
had no outside
interests and too much money to work a
daily job. What she
needed was something interesting to do
at home, to keep her mind
occupied at night,
when she was alone. But what?

It was a rainy Monday morning. She'd gone to the market
for
fresh vegetables and wasn't really watching
where she was walk
ing when she turned a corner and went
right into the path of
Corrigan Hart and
his new wife, Dorothy.

"Good Lord," she gasped, catching her breath.
"What are you
two doing in San Antonio?"

Corrigan grinned. "Buying cattle," he said,
drawing a radiant
Dorothy closer. "Which reminds
me, I didn't see you at the auc
tion this time. I
was standing in for Simon," he added. "For some
reason, he's gone off sales lately."

"So have I, coincidentally,"
Tira
remarked with a cool smile.
It stung to think that Simon had given up those auctions that he
loved so much to avoid her, but that was most certainly
the reason.
"I sold the Montana
property."

Corrigan scowled. "But you loved the ranch. It was
your last
link with your father."

That was true, and it had made her sad for a time. She
twisted
the shopping basket in her hands.
"I'd gotten into a rut," she
said. "I wanted to change my life."

"So I noticed," Corrigan said quietly. "We
went by your apart
ment to say hello. You weren't
there."

"I moved." She colored a little at his probing
glance. "I've bought a house across town."

Corrigan's eyes narrowed. "Someplace where you won't
see
Simon occasionally," he said gently.

The color in her cheeks intensified.
"Where I won't see Simon

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Beloved

Diana Palmer

165

at all, if you want the truth," she said bluntly. "I've given
up all
my connections with the past. There won't be
any more accidental
meetings with him. I've decided that
I'm tired of eating my heart
out for a man who doesn't
want me. So I've stopped."

Corrigan looked surprised. Dorie eyed the other woman
with
quiet sympathy.

"In the long run, that's probably the best thing you
could have
done," Dorie said quietly.
"You're still young and very pretty,"
she added with a smile. "And the world is full of men."

"Of course it is,"
Tira
replied. She returned
Dorie's
smile.
"I'm glad things worked out for you two, and I'm
very sorry I
almost split you up," she added
sincerely. "Believe me, it was
unintentional."

"
Tira
, I know that,"
Dorie replied, remembering how a chance
remark of
Tira's
in a local boutique had sent
Dorie running scared from Corrigan. That was all in the past, now.
"Corrigan explained
everything to me. I
was uncertain of him then, that's all it really was. I'm not anymore." She
hesitated. "I'm sorry about you and
Simon."

Tira's
face tautened. "You can't make people love you," she
said with a poignant sadness in her eyes. She shrugged
fatalisti
cally. "He has a life that suits
him. I'm trying to find one for
myself."

"Why don't you do a collection of sculptures and
have a
show?" Corrigan suggested.

She chuckled. "I haven't done sculpture in three
years. Any
way, I'm not good enough for
that."

   
"You certainly are, and you've got an art degree. Use it."

    
She considered that. After a minute, she
smiled. "Well, I do
enjoy sculpting. I
used to sell some of it occasionally."

"See?" Corrigan said. "An idea presents
itself." He paused.
"Of course,
there's always a course in biscuit-making...?"

Knowing his other three brothers' absolute mania for that
particular bread, she held up both hands. "You can tell Leo and
Cag
and Rey that I have
no plans to become a biscuit chef."

"I'll pass the message along. But
Dorie's
dying for a replace
ment," he added with a grin at his wife. "They'd chain her to
the stove if I didn't intervene." He eyed
Tira
. "They like you."

"God forbid," she said with a mock shudder.
"For years, peo
ple will be talking
about how they arranged your marriage."

"They meant well," Dorie
defended them.

"Baloney,"
Tira
returned. "They had to have their biscuits.
Fatal error, Dorie, telling them you could bake."

"It worked out well, though, don't you think?"
she asked with
a radiant smile at her husband.

"It did, indeed."

Tira
fielded a few more comments about her withdrawal from
the social scene, and then they were on their way to the
checkout
stand. She deliberately held back
until they left, to avoid any more
conversation.
They were a lovely couple, and she was fond of
Corrigan, but he reminded her too much of Simon.

In the following weeks, she signed up for a refresher
sculpting
course at her local community college,
a course for no credit since
she already had a
degree. In no time, she was sculpting recogniz
able busts.

"You've got a gift for this," her instructor
murmured as he
walked around a fired head of her
favorite movie star. "There's
money in this
sort of thing, you know. Big money."

She almost groaned aloud. How could she tell this dear
man
that she had too much money already? She only
smiled and
thanked him for the compliment.

But he put her sculpture in a showing of his students'
work. It
was seen by a local art gallery owner,
who tracked
Tira
down and
offered her an exclusive showing. She tried to dissuade him, but
the offer was all too flattering to turn down. She
agreed, with the
priviso
that the proceeds would go to an outreach program from
the local hospital that worked in indigent neighborhoods.

After that, there was no stopping her.
She spent hours at the