Dream's End (3 page)

I
t was like dying, Eleanor thought suddenly. Just exactly how it must feel to die. The quick, sharp blow vibrating through her body and all of life and love and color draining out in an invisible pool on the floor beside her chair. The cruel words she'd heard last night were nothing compared to this. Nothing!

She knew her face would be pale, but she kept her eyes from showing anything,
hoping he was far enough away that he wouldn't see the sudden wounding in her quick pulse and unsteady breathing.

His eyes narrowed. “Didn't you hear what I just told you?” he asked curtly. “I'm getting married.”

Her eyebrows went up. “I heard you,” she said carelessly, and forced a smile onto her lips. “Give me time, I'm trying to think up some condolences to send to Amanda.”

He made a half smile at that, but something was troubling him. It showed in the turbulence of his silver eyes as he studied her through wisps of gray, curling smoke.

“Eleanor,” he said quietly, “you won't leave me?”

She licked her pink lips nervously and dropped her eyes to her typewriter. “I…I've been trying to find some way to tell you,” she faltered, “that I've had…another offer.”

“You've had other offers ever since I brought you here,” he said roughly.
“From Batsen, Boster, even from Jim Black. Which one is it? Black?” he asked ominously.

“Yes,” she replied calmly, lifting her face to catch the flare of anger in his dark eyes. “Please,” she said softly, “I've been here three years. You can't really expect me to stay forever. There's a whole world out there, Mr. Matherson, and all I've ever seen of it is my parents' home and then yours. I've never been out on my own, I've never had the kind of freedom that you and other people take for granted. I've got to decide what to do with my life. I can't do it here!”

His eyes narrowed, and she saw his square jaw lock and she knew she was going to be in for a fight. “You've been doing it,” he snapped. “What's the matter, honey, don't I pay you enough? Do you think you're worth more?”

He studied her insolently, his eyes whipping over her slender body in the shapeless dress as she rose to stand un
steadily beside the desk. “My God, you wouldn't bring five dollars on auction, you little chicken! What do you think you're going to find out there, some man blind enough to want you?”

Nothing, ever, had hurt her as much as those last cold words. It was just Curry, furious and meaning to hurt, to get even. But that didn't register, not on top of what she'd overheard last night. She felt as if he'd put a knife into her and twisted it. She couldn't stop the tears that welled hot and flooding in her eyes.

She turned and walked toward the door, not looking at him, not speaking.

“Where are you going, you scrawny ostrich?” he growled. “To hide your head in the sand?”

She opened the door and walked out into the hall, blind to the appearance of Bessie, who stood there as if she'd been struck dumb. There had never been a cross word between Eleanor and Curry, not in three years.

“What about those reservations for my Miami trip, Miss Perrie?” he said from the doorway of the living room, his voice harsh and unpleasant.

Eleanor had her hand on the banister and she turned, with tears running down her cheeks, her slender body shaking with mingled rage and humiliation.

“If you want the damned reservations, you call for them,” she told him fiercely. “And you've got my two weeks' notice right now!”

She whirled, ignoring the shock on his face, and ran upstairs.

She stayed in her room for the rest of the day. All day, without moving from the chair by her window, from which she could watch the Appaloosas dancing in their paddocks, the prize black Angus cattle grazing on the meadows that stretched flat and green to the horizon.

She wanted to go downstairs and throw something heavy at the arrogant cattle rancher. Three years of putting up with
his temper and his tirades, of standing between him and the whole world, of smoothing his path, making his stupid reservations, sending flowers and cards and gifts to his women, keeping up with his correspondence, being dragged out of bed at two in the morning to write a letter about a bull he wanted to buy. All that, for three years, and in five minutes he'd forced her out of his life. Perhaps, she thought miserably, he'd even done it on purpose.

With his uncanny knack of reading her, it was possible he'd guessed how she felt and was making it easier for her to go. She'd rather have thought that than to have thought he'd cared so little about her that he could insult her so easily.

Chicken. Ostrich. Wouldn't bring five dollars at auction. Find a man blind enough to want her. Her eyes closed on the painful words. He'd never spoken to her like that before. He'd ranted and raved, and lost his gunpowder temper,
and growled at her slowness when he was pacing the room waiting for some typing. But he'd never made his remarks personal, he'd never touched her, or tried to. It had been a non-physical relationship from the very beginning. It had been a comradeship. Until today, when he finally decided to tell the truth and let her know what he really thought of her as a woman.

Fighting tears, she reached for the telephone and dialed Jim Black's number.

When he answered, a sob involuntarily tore out of her throat. “Jim?” she asked huskily.

“Norie, is that you?” he asked incredulously, and she remembered that he'd never seen her cry. Very few people ever had.

She fought to control her voice. “It's me. I…I've just had an awful blowup with Curry. Could you…I shouldn't ask you to come here after what he said last night, but…”

“Give me five minutes,” Jim said curtly. “He's welcome to try to throw me off the place if he wants to.”

The line went dead. With tears still in her eyes, Eleanor sat down at her vanity table and tried to do something about her face. What she saw in the mirror made her angry. The same owlish face, the same screwed-up bun of hair, the same pale and lifeless look. It made her hungry for the different person she'd been last night, when men looked at her and smiled. She'd never known what it was to be admired before, and she found that it was like a drug. She put her mother's scoldings in the back of her mind and went to work.

She tore the pins out of her long hair and let it fall around her shoulders, brushing it vigorously until it began to shine and bounce back in perfect waves. She took off the unsightly glasses and put them aside. She fixed her face with a hint of makeup, the way she had for her date with Jim.

Then, riffling through her closet for something that looked leisurely, she found a patterned green skirt with a solid green terry top that just matched her eyes, and changed into them.

She slipped her feet into a pair of white sandals and went downstairs to wait for Jim, all traces of tears removed, her heart pounding hard because she was unsure of herself, of what she'd say if Curry…

Before she could finish the thought, the door to his den opened and he walked out into the hall, his face hard and lined, his stride uncompromising. She stood there like a slender young statue, dreading the confrontation she knew was yet to come.

Just then, he looked up and saw her, frozen there against the banister, and an expression she'd never seen before swept across his arrogant face.

He looked at her as if he'd never seen her before, at the slender young body whose gentle curves were no longer hidden in shapeless dresses, at the waving
dark hair flowing around her shoulders, the green eyes so pale and wide that looked back at him like those of a frightened kitten.

“My God,” he whispered in a voice that barely carried to her ears.

She'd never seen Curry shaken, not in all the time she'd worked for him, but he was shaken now. It puzzled her. It even frightened her a little. Her hand clenched on the banister as all the hurtful things he'd said came flooding back all at once.

“Jim's coming for me,” she said in a strained voice. “I…I'll make up my time, later,” she added unsteadily, “but I've got to go somewhere….” She bit her lip to stem the tears rising in her eyes.

“Eleanor…” he began hesitantly. His eyes glittered over her again, like quicksilver. “I didn't mean what I said to you,” he growled, as if the words came hard, and she knew they did. “God knows, I never meant to…Will you come in here and sit down? I've got to talk to you.”

She swallowed down the hurt in her throat. “There's nothing left to say,” she whispered huskily. “You've already said it all.”

“It was you with Black last night, wasn't it?” he asked suddenly. His eyes narrowed as they traced her young face. “I knew there was something familiar about that ramrod-straight little back, but I couldn't place it. My God, why the camouflage all these years? What was it for, Jadebud?” he demanded.

She stiffened at the familiar nickname as she recalled what he'd told Jim last night. “What do you want, Mr. Matherson? Or is it just to…keep my efficiency up?” she added bitterly.

Realization clouded his eyes and he scowled. “You heard every damned word, didn't you?”

“As you say, every damned word,” she bit off. “You might tell Mandy I appreciate her taking up for me. She's better than you deserve.”

“No doubt,” he said quietly, and still he watched her, as if he'd never seen her before. “You never answered me. Why the disguise all this time?”

“You know what my mother was like,” she said bitterly. “I don't have to remind you what she thought of painted women who flaunted their bodies. But last night was special, and Jim asked me to…I did it for him because…”

“Never mind,” he said curtly. “I can guess. So that's why you're going to work for him. The little girl's got a crush,” he sneered, making it sound like a sin. “My God, he's old enough to be your father!”

“You're nearly old enough to be Amanda's!” she returned fiercely.

“There's a difference…”

“I'll bet there is,” she retorted, her eyes contemptuous. “If I slept with Jim, there'd be a difference there, too.”

“You little tramp!”

She raised her hand and moved for
ward, but he caught her wrist in a steely grasp before she could connect with his firm, arrogant jaw.

Her pale eyes blazed at him like chips of Colombian emerald. “Don't you ever call me that again,” she whispered furiously. “I may deserve some names, but I don't deserve that one, and you keep your foul mouth to yourself, Mr. Matherson!”

His eyes flashed at the green glitter of her own, at the little figure so tense and battle-ready, defying him, and he almost smiled. “You little hellcat,” he breathed. “Do you really think you're up to fighting me?”

Something in the way he said it, in the look he was bending down at her, made her go trembly inside.

“I…I'm not afraid of you and a dozen like you!” she said with false bravado.

His darkening eyes dropped to her mouth. “Yes, you are,” he murmured. “You were afraid of me the first day you came here. You still are.”

“Words don't frighten me, Mr. Matherson,” she replied tightly.

“You aren't afraid of anything I might say, or my temper,” he agreed. “But,” his voice dropped, low and caressing, “you're terrified of me in a physical sense. Or didn't you think I could feel you trembling, Eleanor?”

With a start, she realized that she was, and her cheeks blistered red. With a cry, she tore away from him, and he let her escape, standing there like some proud conqueror, confidence glittering out of his eyes as he pinned her with them.

What might have happened then, she never knew, because the sound of a car purring up the driveway claimed their attention. Eleanor turned and went quickly out the door with Curry right behind her. Jim got out of his big Buick and faced the taller man, his eyes blazing.

“I'm taking Norie out for the day,” he told Curry flatly. “If you've got any objections, I'll be glad to listen.”

Curry glanced back. “I told you last night that I didn't want you near this spread!” he said in a low, dangerous tone.

“Then I'll send one of the hands after her from now on,” Jim replied, “but until she works out her notice, I'll see her every damned day if I want to.”

“Then you'd better send one of your boys,” Curry replied hotly, “because I'll have you shot if you drive through the gate!”

Eleanor gaped at her boss, barely able to believe what she'd just heard. She'd never seen Curry in such a temper before, nor had she ever heard him make an irrational threat.

“What's the matter, Curry?” Jim probed sharply. “Jealous?”

Curry's eyes caught fire and burned. Eleanor got in the car and slammed the door, her eyes pleading with Jim to let it go before something violent happened. She didn't recognize Curry in this strange
mood, and she was afraid of his unpredictability.

“Jim, let's go, let's go now, all right?” she pleaded softly.