Reflected Pleasures (12 page)

There couldn't be…

“Just think of it,” one of the men said with a wistful grin. “We ambush the infamous Merrill Davis-Ross and we'll be famous, too. And rich. What a kick. We must be living right for a change.”

Merrill Davis-Ross. Merri Davis?

Ty's breath whooshed out of his chest, leaving him stunned and sick to his stomach. He felt as if the ground had opened up and was about to swallow him whole.

He fisted his hands at his side and fought for clarity. No wonder she looked so much like a danged fashion model in that dress. No wonder she had seemed so familiar to him the last few days and especially this morning.

It wasn't because she was the missing piece in his life and his heart had recognized her spirit. It was because she
was
a fashion model—a tabloid queen he'd remembered from the front pages at the grocery store—and a damned liar.

Wanting to hit something, Ty fought the pain in his chest and shoved away from the wall. How could he have let himself be taken in—again?

He stalked around the idiot reporters in silence. Gritting his teeth, he made his way toward the back entrance that had been turned into the model staging area for today.

This time he wasn't going to back away and let the pain take over his life for years to come like the last two times he had been fooled by women. No way.

Ms. Merrill Davis-Ross was going to have to explain herself. If she could find some excuse for lying, that was.

Ty's whole body shook with rage. There was no excuse for lying. And, by God, she was going to hear him tell her so before he ran her out of town and sent her packing back to her plastic life forever.

T
rying to ignore the deepening premonition that something terrible was about to happen, Merri stepped out the back door of the arena and into the heat. The place was packed and they were bound to raise a lot of money for the kids at the ranch. Still the uneasy feeling persisted, making her check over her shoulder every ten minutes.

She'd heard that reporters were out front waiting to take publicity pictures after the luncheon. But she knew how to duck them. That couldn't be where this strange feeling was coming from.

Dressed in her last outfit of the day, Merri looked around for the little girl who would be wearing a matching lilac linen tea dress. As she recalled, this girl was the tiniest one of the bunch, a mere four years old with
big wide eyes and as cute a smile as could be. Merri spotted one of the matrons from the ranch but the little girl was nowhere in sight.

The Mexican-American matron waved her over. “If you're looking for Lupe, we had to take her back to the ranch,” she said with a chuckle. “I'm sorry, but it was a mistake to let you schedule her for last.
Pobrecita.
She's too little to understand and too young to wait around for an hour without getting her dress all dirty.”

“Oh, no.” Merri felt like a moron for not thinking of that. “I'm the one who should be sorry. I'll have Janie send her another dress, and I'll come out to the ranch to try and make it up to her.”

The other woman shook her head and smiled. “She'll be fine. Don't worry. They were planning on getting her an ice-cream cone on the way back. She'll never be disappointed with her day after ice cream.”

Merri nodded but she still felt like a jerk. How could she be so stupid?

Sighing, she chalked it up to yet another example of her selfish ways. “The show is nearly over. Our models are about to be served lunch. Then we can get them all back to the ranch.”

The other woman opened her mouth to reply, but stopped as her attention was drawn to something over Merri's shoulder. A shadow fell across Merri from behind and the cold wind once again raised goose bumps on her arms.

“You can't leave until they take the publicity photos, Ms. Davis-Ross.”

She didn't need to turn around to know that was the
voice of her beloved. Only his tone carried an edgy, bitter sound that she'd never heard before.

And he'd called her—Davis-Ross.
Oh. My. God.

No!

Merri spun on her toes to face him. “Ty…”

“Excuse us a second, will you?” He glared at the matron, who quickly walked away.

“You
know,
” Merri mumbled as her heart sank.

Ty drove his hands through the short strands of his hair and frowned. “Of course, I know. You didn't think I could be fooled forever, did you? Regardless of what you must think of me, I'm not a completely backward redneck.”

His voice was flat, the look in his eyes was dead. She had never seen him like this. Always when he gazed at her in the past, there had been a sexy glimmer in the depths of those steel blue eyes. This afternoon all of that was gone.

“I'm sorry…I tried to tell you this morning. I didn't want you to find out this way.”

“Gee, thanks,” he said in a voice that dripped of sarcasm. “How kind of you to worry about me.”

“Ty…”

“You lied to me, dammit! To Jewel, and to all of us. And for no good reason except to make us look like fools. Was this all some kind of publicity stunt?”

She raised her chin and straightened up. “Never. If anything, it was exactly the opposite.” Her voice caught and she had to swallow hard to go on. “At first, I was just trying to escape from my empty, useless life. I wanted to do something worthwhile…I wanted to physically help others instead of throwing money at the
world's problems like my parents had always done. I wanted to find out for myself what it was like to lead a normal life—no servants—no fuss. I…”

“You lied to
me
. Why? I would've understood. I would have let you be normal. Why did you have to hide the truth from me?” His voice cracked and he scowled.

His pain was killing her. This was what she had dreaded the most. This was what she'd tried so hard to avoid. And yet, she'd let her selfishness override her good sense and here she was after all, facing devastation.

“I wanted to find out if anyone could like me for just me. So I did something really ironic and stupid and became someone else. Someone kinder, more real.

“But by the time…other people…befriended me, it seemed so hurtful to confess the truth that I…”

“Continued lying?” he said through gritted teeth. “After you lied your way into our lives—and our hearts—you kept on lying?

“Was everything a lie?” Ty turned, paced a few feet away then swung around for one more bitter dart. “You've been acting…fooling everyone. I don't give a rip about your previous useless life, but did you lie again this morning when you said you loved me? Are you that good an actress?”

She shook her head violently, but the words backed up in her throat as she fought not to break down.

He turned and paced again, hands fisted by his sides. “Damn you,” he muttered. “I trusted you. I thought I knew who you were. I wanted to make you the public face for the Foundation and promote you to Chairman.”

“You do know me,” she sobbed into her hands.

“Now,” he continued right ahead as if he hadn't heard her words. “Instead of publicity photos with the kids, the reporters will all be trying to catch a shot of the famous runaway tabloid queen. Thanks a lot. For nothing.”

The reporters? So that's how he found out. They must've spotted her.

“Oh, Ty, I'm so sorry.” The pain was searing through her chest, the tears blinding her eyes. “I never meant for this to happen. I really tried to keep you and Jewel out of the glare of the spotlight I've always hated. Let me try to fix things with the paparazzi, and then I'll just go.”

“Fix things?” he exploded as he paced back. He wanted to strangle her, cause her as much hurt as he felt. His own naive stupidity at letting yet another woman get to him was beyond belief. Had he learned nothing about women in his life?

She stiffened and winced at his tone. “Let me try, I can…”

“You can just get out,” he growled. “Go back to jet-setting and leave us be. We don't need your kind here. I'll have someone pack your bags and fly you wherever you want to go.”

The pain in her eyes nearly made him reach for her, but he held himself back. His own pain was too overwhelming.

“No, thanks,” she said tightly. “I've found out I can take care of myself. And for that I'll always be grateful to you and this whole town.”

He couldn't stand watching her. She was trembling and holding herself together with her arms crossed over
her waist, as if one wrong move would break her in two. Turning his back on her, he squeezed his eyes shut and held onto the last vestiges of self-control.

“Goodbye, Tyson,” she whispered. “And…I wasn't lying when I said I loved you.”

Ty couldn't move. He wanted to scream “liar” at her one more time, but his wounds were too great to speak.

Hearing her steps as she walked away drove nails into the empty space that used to be his heart. This time it would definitely kill him. She was the last one to punish him this way by taking his soul with her as she left.

Never again, he swore silently—never again.

 

Several hours later, as purple dusk crept over the range, Ty found himself still pacing. But this time he was pacing up and down the main aisle of the foaling barn, the one place that should've been able to soothe his battered heart.

But nothing was working. All he could think of was never having Merri in his arms again. Never being able to touch or stir or taste her. It was driving him crazy.

He'd made a mad dash back here after he'd walked away from her at the arena, hoping to rid himself of the scent of her, of the sound of her pain in his ears. But he could still smell her. Still hear her in his heart. Still feel her on his fingers and his tongue.

Dammit. To top that off, he'd had to shut off his phone because all of a sudden every tabloid in the world wanted to interview him. He'd even been forced to post ranch hands as guards along the main gate to keep the fool reporters out. Idiots.

He used the toe of his old comfortable boots to kick
violently at the dirt. This pacing wasn't making him feel a bit better, so he started out across the barnyard heading for the house. Maybe he would try to work in his office for a while. Anything to take his mind off of Merri and what might be happening to her right now.

When he'd almost reached the house, Jewel drove up and parked. Odd. She rarely came out to his ranch except for parties or emergencies.

Jewel got out of her car and stormed toward him, her eyes shooting sparks and her whole body tensed for a fight.

“What brings you all the way out here?” he asked warily when she got close enough.

“I have something to say to you, Tyson Adams Steele. And I'll say it inside. Now.”

He followed her as she stalked through his kitchen, down the hall and into his office. When he walked into the room, she slammed the door behind him and rounded on him with such a furious expression across her normally sweet face, it made him take a step back.

“What's the matter? What did I do?”

“Give me a minute to get over that mob out at the front gate,” she said as she hissed in a breath. “Jackals. The whole lot of them.”

“I'm sorry, Jewel. If you'd let me know you were coming, I would've sent someone to help you through.”

With one hand, she reached out and gingerly patted his arm while putting the other hand against her breast. “Not your fault. At least not
that
particular part of this mess isn't.”

Underneath the glaring look she was giving him, Ty could still see the love and concern shining in her eyes.
It hit him out of the blue that here was a woman who had never lied to him. A woman he could trust completely never to betray him. He'd always known he loved her, but now he could see why he'd clung to the idea that somewhere out there was another woman he would be able to count on.

Another woman just like Jewel. Too bad it wasn't the woman that he'd stupidly fallen in love with.

“I love you, Jewel,” he told his aunt before she could say anything else.

“Don't go saying sweet things to me, son,” she said with a scowl. “Not until you explain why you felt it necessary to destroy that gentle young woman.”

“Merri? But I was the one…”

“I'm so disappointed in you I could just spit,” Jewel told him. “Merri never did anything but work hard to please you and the whole community. And you turned all that on its head and made her out to be some kind of pure evil. She made a mistake. Get over it.”

“She lied to me,” was all he could manage to say.

“Tell me I didn't raise such an idiot,” Jewel frowned and gave him a backhanded shot across the upper arm. “She loved you, and you sent her out alone to face the dreadful hordes by herself.”

“Merri should be used to the paparazzi by now,” he said coldly. “After all, her whole life before she came here was one stunt after another. Let her get herself out of whatever mess she's in.”

Jewel narrowed her eyes at him and frowned. “If you'd taken a moment to let her explain instead of running home with your feelings hurt, you might have learned that the reason she was hiding from the lime-
light in the first place was because she'd tried to help a friend. But when the going got rough, that so-called friend betrayed her. Used her to take the heat off himself and then turned her over to the jackals so they could pick her clean.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Some of it,” Jewel replied. “The rest I bribed out of one of them no-good reporters.”

“Bribed?”

“With a couple of the garden club's raffle cakes. No better way to get the truth out of a man.”

A tender shift in Ty's heart took him by surprise as thoughts of Merri wound through his mind. She had worked hard at learning things she probably had no idea how to do. She'd charmed the Foundation's donors, made sense out of the office and gave the kids at Nuevo Dias Ranch a reason to smile. Everyone who knew her loved her. Including him.

“But she didn't have to lie to me,” he whined in spite of everything else. “Not to me.” The hurt and betrayal were still strong in his heart. Too strong for forgiveness.

“Argh,” Jewel muttered. “How can you be so foolish? You hurt her bad, boy. And stubborn pride is going to hurt you, too. Maybe worse than ever before.

“I can't stand to watch you behave like this and ruin a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be happy,” Jewel said with a snort. “If you're determined to sit here pouting and suffering, you're going to do it by yourself. I'm going home to bake and garden. And hope to hell I can get the sour taste of your bitterness out of my mouth.”

Ty rubbed at his temples as Jewel stormed out of the
house, slamming doors behind her. Damn it. He wasn't the bad guy here. He hadn't lied.

He took a deep breath of cleansing air, but stopped when he smelled the sugar scents of lavender and vanilla. Those weren't Jewel's scents. Hers were almost always the tangy smells of Ivory soap and cinnamon.

No, the soft scents he'd just noticed were all Merri's. Ty looked around his office. She had told him she'd been in here while he was out of town. Maybe the musky smells of her had lingered until now.

Or maybe he was really going insane and would never get her out of his mind completely. Oh, God.

Starting around his desk toward his heavy high-backed chair, Ty ran his fingers lightly around the edges of his polished wood desk. Thinking that Merri might've touched these same places, he could just imagine feeling her touch still warm through the mahogany.