House of Strangers (Harlequin Super Romance) (11 page)

She and David had talked about moving to Europe so he could become an artist. For Karen it had been one of those dreams she’d never considered a real possibility.

He must have fallen for the woman after he’d left the army, because Karen had visited him in France six months before he was due to be let out, or whatever it was they did to drafted soldiers. They’d had a marvelous time making love in little inns hanging off the sides of mountains in Alsace and picnicking beside chateaux in the Loire Valley. They’d even spent a weekend seeing the museums
in Paris. David was his old self. Then he told her that when he got out of the service, he was staying in France.

That gave her some worry, but she figured he’d work it out of his system and come home in six months.

When he begged her to leave Rossiter, come to France and marry him, she should have jumped at the chance. Instead, she let her mother and Maribelle Delaney talk her into a big wedding at home.

So he must have met the woman in Paris. He didn’t have money enough to leave the city. Karen had never known who the woman was, but the moment David stepped off the airplane in Memphis on his way to see his sick father, the moment she threw her arms around him and felt his shoulders stiffen, she knew he’d fallen in love with someone else.

Maribelle had known, too. Karen would never forget that interminable drive with Maribelle from Rossiter to pick up David at the airport. She remembered every word, every nuance, every gesture of Maribelle’s.

“Do you still want to marry him?” Maribelle had asked.

“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

“He’s in love with somebody else. Somebody he met in Paris.”

Karen flinched. The words, so baldly stated, had a chilling effect.

“I read between the lines of his letters and I heard it in his voice. I know the signs. I’ve recognized them often enough in the men in my life.”

That startled Karen even more. The only man she was aware of in Maribelle’s life was her husband, Conrad. She’d never seen any evidence that he strayed. Maribelle would have flayed him alive if she’d caught him with
another woman. Yet apparently he had been unfaithful and lived to tell the tale.

“So do you still want to marry him?” Maribelle asked.

“I want him to be happy.”

“He will be, once he gets this infatuation out of his system. He’s always loved you. The two of you belong together.”

“David may not agree.”

“I doubt he does, at least at the moment. It’s up to you to convince him he wants you more than some little French trollop who probably only got her hooks into him because he’s a ticket to a cushy life in America.”

Karen felt that Maribelle was probably right. She doubted that nice French girls were allowed to run around with ex-GIs who’d turned into starving artists.

“How am I supposed to convince him to stay?” Karen asked.

“He’s going to stay here if I have to chain him to the wall. But I want him to embrace his chains. Like you, I want him to be happy.”

Karen thought, but only the way
you
want him to be happy. Screw what he wants.

“So you have to make him happy. What does he like to do in bed?”

If Karen had been driving, she’d have crashed the car. “I beg your pardon?”

“You won’t shock me, dear. Adam and Eve invented most of the sexual permutations known to man. The rest of us have merely been embellishing their basic construct. So what does he like?”

“Maribelle, I can’t talk about this to you.”

“Whatever it is, do it. Quickly and often. A man sated by a woman is much more likely to think he’s in love
with that woman than one who is keeping a friendly arm’s length away.”

“What if he doesn’t want to…you know?”

“David is twenty-five years old. Trust me. Get him in the right setting, he’ll want to. The rest is up to you.”

So she had. She’d gone carefully to work seducing him, though he obviously hadn’t wanted to make love to her. Maribelle and Karen’s mother threw them together in ways he could not avoid, and finally, after a romantic movie, she’d persuaded him to park in their old lovers’ lane “just to talk.”

She went home with her underpants in her purse and a pleasurable ache between her legs that she hadn’t experienced in far too long.

Their marriage hadn’t all been her doing, of course. She had no idea what his father had said to David in those long talks on the sleeping porch of the Delaney house, nor what layers of guilt Maribelle had covered him with when she was with him. He’d fought his parents—and Karen—for almost a month.

At one point she’d even offered to grab her passport and go back to France with him.

He’d simply shaken his head.

As the weeks dragged by, he took over more and more of the family business.

He was good with the men. Better than his father ever had been. He obviously enjoyed the life of Southern planter into which he’d been born. The mantle of power settled on his shoulders easily. He might have shrugged a few times, but as the days passed, he talked less and less about Paris and his art, and more and more about the extra cattle they could run once the Delaney ranch merged with the acreage Karen’s mother had inherited from her husband.

Maribelle and Karen’s mother had covertly resurrected the wedding plans, but had scaled them down. Just a small wedding. Even Maribelle didn’t think David would hold still for a twelve-bridesmaid affair. And her husband’s health couldn’t tolerate the strain of a big wedding.

The day David and Karen bought their marriage license in Somerville, he’d practically shoved her out of his convertible at her front door and laid rubber getting away from her. She didn’t see him for two days.

She found out later that he’d spent most of those two days closeted with his father and riding his hunter across the fields like a madman.

Not quite the reaction she’d hoped for.

Maribelle said it was only premarital jitters.

Karen wasn’t sure he’d be able to go through with the wedding, but when the morning dawned, he was there waiting for her at the altar of the small Episcopal church. He looked green, and when he kissed her she smelled alcohol on his breath. But he was there. She was now Karen Bingham Delaney. She had her dream.

She couldn’t have guessed how quickly it would turn into a nightmare….

It wasn’t until after his death that she’d climbed out of that nightmare and found peace with an indulgent new husband and a couple of children who would probably do well in the world.

Then Paul Bouvet got out of his car and walked into her house.

One look was all it took.

For years she’d dreaded that the woman David had had an affair with in France would show up. Worse, that they had produced a child.

But as the years passed her fears had seemed more and more groundless. She began to relax. When no one ap
peared to claim a portion of David’s estate after his death, she felt certain she and Trey had escaped, that the woman had been childless. The woman had probably married someone in France and might have grandchildren of her own by now.

Now Paul Bouvet was here and her world collapsed.

David’s eyes had been blue like Trey’s, but much darker. This man had dark eyes, but they were set like David’s. David’s hair had been much darker than Trey’s. Actually, this man looked much more like David than Trey did. He had David’s fine bone structure. He moved with the same athletic ease. He even had the tiny hitch in his walk. Despite his Yankee accent, he spoke to her in David’s voice, used his hands like David.

She could barely look at those long, fine hands—so like her husband’s. Hands that had caressed and wounded her.

Maybe someone who hadn’t known David so intimately wouldn’t have seen the resemblance, but she knew. She would have guessed this man was Paul David Delaney’s son if she’d met him walking down Fifth Avenue. Even the name Paul was no coincidence. She wondered if he, too, had a middle name.

She prayed she was wrong about his background. She’d have to find out from her doctor how to get a DNA test done secretly. She must not frighten Trey until she was certain.

If the DNA results proved Paul Bouvet was a Delaney, she’d have to sit down with Marshall and Trey to decide how best to proceed to save both the family honor and the family fortune.

Until then, she didn’t dare let the possibility that he might have a bastard half brother occur to Trey. He might very well want to throw his arms open and welcome the man. That would be just like Trey. He wouldn’t realize
until later that Paul Bouvet could be legally entitled to a hefty portion of the money Trey and Sue-sue spent so cavalierly. He might also realize that he would become a laughingstock, having a father who’d dishonored him.

Dammit, her husband had dishonored
her,
never mind Trey.

If she was right about Bouvet, he must be stopped before he could damage Trey or her grandchildren. He must be stopped before the revelation of her husband’s affair could destroy
her.

He must be sent politely away.

And if not sent, then driven away before he could open his foul French mouth.

“A
RE YOU COMING
to dinner Sunday?” Nancy Jenkins asked her daughter when she called that evening.

“At Gram’s or at home?”

Nancy sniffed. “You act like I can’t cook. Your grandmother has kindly invited everyone after church.”

“Then sure, but I don’t think I’ll go to church. I’m behind on refinishing the trim on those bookcases at the mansion.”

“I have an idea. Why don’t you bring that nice young man with you? He’s all alone and the café is closed Sundays. I’m sure he’d appreciate a home-cooked meal.”

“I’ve barely seen him to speak to in more than a week,” Ann told her mother. “He’s either flying that plane of his or off doing research of some kind.”

“Really? What? Why?”

“How would I know?”

“Your grandmother says he’s nice as pie. And a hunk.”

“My grandmother is a lecherous old biddy, and you can tell her I said so.”

“You tell her yourself. Is he a hunk?”

“I suppose so.”

“Buddy likes him, too. Bring him to dinner Sunday so I can check him out.”

“Mother, I’m not interested in another relationship. Certainly not with a hunk. I
had
a hunk. They make lousy husbands.”

“Not all of them do. Just because you had a bad experience—”

“Mother, stop it. I didn’t have a bad experience. I had a six-year train wreck of a marriage.”

“This man apparently has money. He’s not going to ask you to support him the way Travis did.”

“He is definitely not going to because I’m not going to marry him. Or anybody else. Not for a long, long time.”

“I want grandchildren.”

“Then adopt.”

“Ann, sometimes I could throttle you.”

“Then we’re even. Bye, Mother dear.”

“Wait. What about Sunday dinner?”

“Oh, Lord. All right.”

“Fix yourself up a little. You might even consider wearing a dress. The last time I checked, you had legs, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen them I’m really not sure. You haven’t developed thick ankles, have you?”

Ann took a deep breath. “My ankles are fine, Mother, thank you for asking. I don’t think I own a dress, but if you promise never to mention the subject again, I will dig out a skirt. And if I see Paul, I’ll invite him.”

“Good, because if you don’t, I’ll have Buddy do it.”

With that parting shot, her mother hung up.

In the minds of most of the women of Rossiter, a woman needed a husband even if she had a career of her own. Almost any husband was better than none. Ann’s mother and grandmother had changed their minds on that score after Ann eloped with Travis Corrigan and moved to Washington so that he could become a theater director.

Ann’s master’s degree in art history wasn’t enough to get her an assistant-assistant-curator position at any of the myriad museums and galleries. But her schooling in art
restoration got her a job cleaning and restoring paintings and art objects for a chic gallery in Foggy Bottom. The work was tedious and painstaking. But she didn’t mind devoting herself to a six-inch square at the corner of some giant sixteenth-century landscape. The painter might be unknown, but he deserved as much care as she’d take with a Rembrandt.

She occasionally made a major discovery when the layers of grime came off. The gallery owner paid her a handsome commission for uncovering a missing hand that had been painted over in a seventeenth-century Spanish madonna.

She spent most of her nights helping to build sets and create furnishings and props for her husband’s theater. She’d fall into bed at night completely exhausted, but happy.

Until she discovered Travis’s first infidelity. Travis denied anything was going on at first. Then he said that he’d gone hunting for another source of sex because his wife was never home, always working, and when had she gotten a new hairstyle or put on eye shadow lately, anyway?

He was right, of course. She hadn’t been seductive enough or inventive enough in bed. She and Travis both ended up in tears, protestations of love and bed in that order. The greatest sex they’d ever had.

Each time it happened, Ann withdrew into herself a little further, became a little quieter, buried herself even more in her work.

After he was fired for messing around with the producer’s wife, Ann missed the theater. It didn’t seem fair that she should be kicked out when she was the best set painter and designer they had.

Then one day he met her at the door, waltzed her into their galley kitchen and kissed her fiercely. “We’ve mov
ing to New York!” he said gaily. “We’ll sublet this apartment, get a place in the Village or Soho or somewhere. I’ll get a job as a stage manager on Broadway and do some directing off-off Broadway.”

She was too stunned to answer.

“I thought I’d take some acting lessons. At the Actors’ Studio or somewhere. I’ve got the face for it, you have to admit, and I was great in
Hedda Gabler
in college.

She started to tell him that the male roles in
Hedda Gabler
weren’t exactly showcases.

“It’ll be great, babe! Just like honeymooners!” He grabbed her around the waist and danced her around the tiny living room.

When she finally managed to free herself, she asked, “What about me?”

“You can do what you do anywhere. With the references they’ll give you, you can probably go to work restoring stuff for the Frick Gallery or someplace.”

“So I quit my job—which is paying the bills, by the way—pack up and move to New York with no prospects for either of us?”

He frowned down at her from his six foot three. “All right, so you’re paying the bills right now. Throw that in my face, why don’t you?” He whipped away from her, his hands in the air. “God, I thought you’d be thrilled! Talk about your selfish…”

She fell in love with New York just as she’d fallen in love with Washington. She found a job quickly with a big firm that did full restorations—furniture, houses, sculpture—anything that was broken or needed attention. She spent six months learning more techniques. She became the most expert restorer the company had. She did jobs in the Hamptons, Vermont, Philadelphia and country
houses in between. Clients began asking specifically for her.

With Travis usually either rehearsing or playing in some avant-garde thing in some church basement, she was on her own most nights. And, if the truth be known, she enjoyed having the apartment to herself.

When she felt like some company, she sought out her four co-workers. They made a team that was unbeatable. Marti, two hundred pounds of wild Barnard graduate who did kick-ass wood carving, became the sister Ann had never had. Marti’s mother even taught Ann to make liver knishes and gefilte fish.

Then there was Zabo, a transplant from Benin, who knew how to work metal with as much skill and art as his sixteenth-century ancestors. Next came Sebastian, tall, thin, gay, with eloquent hands. He knew everything there was to know about period architecture.

The last of the group, Tonio, was whipcord thin with flashing dark eyes and a smile that melted female (and male) hearts in every direction when he turned it on. He was the marble expert, having been born and raised in Carrara.

Zabo taught Ann to use a lathe to re-create missing wood pieces. Marti taught her to carve. Sebastian taught her the wonders of plaster, and Tonio tried to take her to bed.

She and Travis lived like roommates.

Then one afternoon Travis burst into the apartment with a bottle of champagne in one hand and a bouquet of roses in the other.

“Babe! Pack your bags! We’re off to L.A.!”

Half-asleep over a new detective story, Ann jerked awake. “Huh? What?”

“The big H., babe! Holl-y-wooood.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“It’s the promised land, babe. I got the face for it, I got the body for it, I got the star quality for it.”

What could she say to that?

“I’m flying to the Coast—God, how great that sounds—on the red-eye tomorrow night. Sid’s got me two auditions and one commercial already.” He turned to her with a puzzled expression on his face. “Hey, babe, what’s the matter? This is what we’ve been working for. Two years and we’ll be living in a mansion in Malibu.”

“No.” She was as stunned as Travis when the word came out of her mouth.

“What?”

“I’m not going.”

“Sure, not right away. I got to find us a decent place to live first, get a few residual checks under my belt.”

“I don’t want to leave my job.”

“What job? That glorified carpentry work you do down in Soho? This is what we’ve always wanted.”

“Not what I wanted, and until a year ago, it wasn’t what you wanted, either.”

“I always wanted to be in theater.”

“Not as an actor.”

He dropped the roses on the battered coffee table. “You’ve always resented my aspirations. You’re the one who’s been holding me back.”

She sat down so hard she felt the broken spring in the sofa poke her rear end. “I’m responsible for the women, too, am I?”

“The truth is I’ve outgrown you. I understand why all those guys in Hollywood dump their wives when they get to be stars. You think I’d want to be seen walking down the red carpet with you on my arm?”

“You’re right. You’ve outgrown me.” She began to
giggle. “How about we crack the champagne and drink to our pending divorce?”

“What?” He looked stunned. He’d obviously not expected things to go this far. He would need the money from her paycheck for acting classes and a new portfolio and a pleasant apartment. “One remark and you want a divorce?”

“You’re much better off divorcing me in New York before you get rich, you know. California is a community-property state. Once you establish residency there and make your first million, I can really take you to the cleaners with alimony.”

“Don’t joke.”

“I’m not joking.”

“You’re angry.”

“I’ll call Marti tomorrow morning and get the name of a cheap divorce lawyer. We can split the CDs. You can have the furniture. Thank God we sold the car when we moved up here. We can pay the lawyer and split what’s left, I suppose. Is that agreeable to you?”

Travis really didn’t want a divorce. Did he feel safer not being able to continue an affair for very long because he had a wife?

“Come on, babe, let’s go to bed.” He held out his hand. She took it and let him lead her to the bedroom.

The next day he left for L.A., and she convened a meeting of her colleagues at her apartment to tell them what had happened.

The consensus was that it had taken her long enough to kick the bastard out.

Ann realized she wanted to go home.

They were all horrified when she told them. They didn’t want to lose her friendship. “And we damned well don’t want to lose your skill at crown molding,” said Sebastian.

“Maybe we won’t have to,” Marti said.

When Ann talked to her boss about moving home and taking commissions from him and any other restoration jobs as a freelancer, he hated the idea. Two days later he agreed. “But only if I get first crack at you,” he said.

She hugged him.

When she called her parents to say she wanted to come home to work for her father on restoration, her mother merely said, “It’s about time,” and burst into tears.

So here she was divorced from a man who so far hadn’t shown up in any major motion pictures, living in a pair of lofts, spending half her time in hotel rooms while she worked on jobs out of town and sharing her life with a big dog who, unlike her ex-husband, was loyal.

P
AUL CLIMBED OUT
of the Stearman biplane with a real sense of accomplishment. He’d forgotten how touchy the old tail-dragger could get in a crosswind. His Cessna practically flew itself. A very forgiving aircraft but not nearly as much fun to fly.

“You better not try them barrel rolls with weed killer in the tanks, son.”

Paul looked up from his logbook and grinned at Hack Morrison, the man who owned the Stearman, the man who’d be employing him part-time as a crop duster. Hack also owned a pair of Air Tractors and the local airfield.

“You’re the one who took me up and damn near made me toss my cookies,” Paul said.

He’d been horrified by Hack’s appearance the first time he’d met him. Hack walked with a slight limp he said he’d gotten from a piece of shrapnel in 1944. He wore filthy coveralls over a ragged white undershirt that exposed ropy sunburned arms and a barrel chest.

His disreputable cap featured the logo of one of the
high-priced cotton fertilizers. Oil and grime were deeply imbedded in his hands.

He wore boots that had been brown once, but were now permanently dirt-colored and would never take a shine. He lived in an aging trailer behind the first of six hangars where owners kept their private planes. To top off this country-bumpkin act, he always had the stub of an unlit cigar in his mouth.

After he and Hack landed from Paul’s ride in the Stearman, Paul turned to him. “You’re an old fraud, Hack Morrison. What’d you do? See an old geezer in some World War Two movie and decide you could out-character him?”

“I got no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I checked up on you before I parked my plane here. You graduated from West Point, you retired a bird colonel, and if I had as many hours in the air as you do, I could probably fly without a plane.”

“Now you listen, son. Don’t you go talking. I don’t want another soul in on the facts.”

“Sure, but why?”

Hack sighed. “I had twenty-five years of spit and polish. I got sick of it. After my wife died I decided I’d spend my declining years as an eccentric.” He grinned at Paul. “Most of the time it works.”

“Your secret is safe with me.”

“Good. Keep it that way. Now, we’re gonna start pre-emerge spraying in two weeks. You gotta be able to stroke that Stearman like a beautiful woman, or you’re gonna wind up wearing a couple of utility wires. When you gonna come do some more flying?”

“Do I have to take you with me?”

“Not necessarily. You’re a pretty fair pilot all told. The
Stearman’s a hell of a lot of fun to fly. Bring your girlfriend. Pay for the gas is all.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”