Regan's Pride (4 page)

“Hell, of course it matters! Someone needs to talk some sense into her! She could sue for a widow's allowance.”

“I doubt that she will. Money was never one of her priorities, or didn't you know?”

He didn't reply. His eyes were narrow and introspective.

“She looks odd, did you notice?” Sandy asked worriedly. “Really odd. I hope she isn't going to do anything foolish.”

“Let's go,” Ted said as he got in behind the steering wheel, and he sounded bitter. “I want to talk to that lawyer before we go home.”

Sandy frowned as she looked at him. She was worried, but it wasn't about Coreen's money problems, or the will. Coreen was hopelessly clumsy since she'd married Barry. She said that she liked to skydive and go up in sailplanes, especially when she was upset, because she said it relaxed her. But she'd related tales of some of the craziest accidents Sandy had ever heard of. Sometimes she thought that Barry had programmed Coreen to be accident-prone. The few times early in their marriage that she'd seen her friend, before Barry had cut her out of Coreen's life, he'd enjoyed embarrassing Coreen about her clumsiness.

Ted didn't know about the accidents. Until the funeral, he'd walked away every time Sandy even mentioned Coreen, almost as if it hurt him to talk about her. He had the strangest attitude about her friend. He didn't care much for women, she knew, but the way he treated Coreen was intriguing. And the most curious thing had been the way he'd looked, holding Coreen in the living room earlier. The expression on his face had been one of torment, not hatred.

She was never going to understand her brother, she thought. The violence of his reaction to Coreen was
completely at odds with the tenderness he'd shown her. Perhaps he did care, in some way, and simply didn't realize it.

 

Sandy insisted on staying with Coreen overnight, and she offered her best friend the sanctuary of the ranch until she found a place to live. Coreen refused bluntly, put off by even the thought of having to look at Ted over coffee every morning.

Coreen got her friend away the next morning, after a long and sleepless night blaming herself and remembering Ted's accusation of the day before.

“We're just getting moved in. Remember, Ted leased the place, along with the cattle farm, and we moved to Victoria about the time you married Barry. Ted's away a lot now, over at our cattle farm on the outskirts of Jacobsville, that Emmett Deverell and his family operate for him. We're going to have thoroughbred horses at our place and some nice saddle mounts. We can go riding like we used to. Won't you come with me? I'll work it out with Ted,” Sandy pleaded.

“And let Ted drive me into a nervous breakdown?” came the brittle laugh. “No, thanks. He hates me. I didn't realize how much until yesterday. He would rather it had been me than Barry, didn't you see? He thinks I'm a murderess…!”

Sandy hugged her shaken friend close. “My brother is an idiot!” she said angrily. “Listen, he's not as brutal as he seems when you get to know him, really he isn't.”

“He's never been anything except cruel to me,” Coreen replied, subdued. She pulled away. “Tell him to do whatever he likes with the trust, I won't need it. I can take care of myself. Be happy, Sandy. You've got a
great career with that computer company, even a part interest. Make your mark in the world, and think of me once in a while. Try to remember all the good times, won't you?”

Sandy felt a chill run up her spine. Coreen had that restless look about her, all over again. There had been two bad accidents over the years because of Coreen's passion for flying and skydiving: a broken leg and two cracked ribs. Sandy had gone to see her in the hospital and Barry had been always in residence, refusing to let Coreen talk much about how the accidents had happened.

“Please be careful. You really are a little accident-prone,” she began.

Coreen shivered. “Not really,” she said. “Not anymore. Anyway, the people I skydive with watch out for me. I'll get better. I'm not suicidal, you know,” she chided gently, and watched her friend blush. “I wouldn't kill myself over Ted's bad opinion of me. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.”

“Ted wouldn't want to see you hurt,” Sandy said gently.

“Of course not,” she said placatingly. “Now, go home. You've got a life of your own, although I really appreciate having you here. I needed you.”

“Ted came voluntarily,” she said pointedly. “I didn't ask him to.”

Coreen's blue eyes darkened with pain. “He came to make me pay for hurting Barry,” she said. “He's always found ways to make me pay, even for trying to care about him.”

“You know why Ted won't let anyone close,” Sandy said quietly. “Our mother was much younger than Dad.
She ran away with another man when I was just a kid. Dad took it real hard. He gave Ted a vicious distrust of women, and I was the scapegoat until he died. Ted's kind to me, and he likes pretty women, but he wants no part of marriage.”

“I noticed.”

Sandy watched her closely. “He changed when you married. For the past two years, he's been a stranger. After he came back from that visit with you and Barry, he took off for Canada and stayed up there for a month and then he moved us to Victoria. He couldn't bear to talk about you.”

“God knows why, I never did anything to him,” Coreen said. “He knew Barry wanted to marry me and he thought I was after Barry's money, but he never tried to stop us.”

Sandy let it drop, but not willingly. “Send me a postcard from wherever you move. I'll phone you then,” she suggested. “We could meet somewhere for lunch.”

Coreen's eyes were distracted. “Of course.” She glanced at Sandy. “The birthday card…”

“Surprised, were you?” Sandy asked. “So was I. Ted had just talked to Barry. A day or two later, he saw a photograph of you and Barry in the Jacobsville paper he got in Victoria. He became very quiet when he saw it. You weren't smiling and you looked…fragile.”

Coreen remembered the photograph. She and Barry had been at a charity banquet and he'd been drinking heavily—much more so than usual. She'd been at the end of her rope when the photographer caught them.

“Then Ted remembered that your birthday was upcoming,” Sandy continued, “and he picked out a card
to send you. For a man who hates you, he's amazingly contradictory, isn't he?”

She wondered at Ted's motives. Had he known how jealous Barry was of him? Had he done it to cause trouble? She couldn't bear to believe that he had. It was the card that had provoked Barry to threaten her that last night. Had it only been a week ago? She shivered mentally. She hugged Sandy and watched the other woman leave. When the car was out of sight, she picked up the telephone receiver and dialed.

“Hello, Randy?” she asked with a bright laugh. “When's the next jump? Tomorrow? Well, count me in. No, I'm not afraid of storms. It probably won't even be cloudy, you know how often they miss the forecast. Besides, I need a diversion. I'll see you out at the airfield at eight.”

“Sure thing, lovely” came the teasing reply. She put the phone down and went to make sure her borrowed skydiving outfit was clean. She wouldn't think about getting out of the house right now. Tomorrow afternoon would be soon enough to start searching for an apartment and a job.

 

It was overcast, but not enough to deter the enthusiastic crowd of jumpers. The jump from the plane was exhilarating, and even the sting from the faint pull of the stitches below her collarbone didn't detract from the pleasure of free fall. Coreen had always loved the feeling she got from it. Earthbound people would never experience the rush of adrenaline that came from danger, the surge of emotion that rivaled the greatest pleasure she'd ever known—an unexpected glimpse of Ted Regan's face.

She pulled the cords to turn the parachute, looking for her mark below. Two other skydivers were heading down below her. But a gust of wind began to move her in a direction she didn't want to go, and when she looked up, she saw a gigantic thunderhead and a streak of lightning.

It was all she could do not to panic, and in her frantic haste to get her parachute going in the right direction, she overcontrolled it.

She was headed for a group of power lines. She'd read about ballooners who went into those electrical lines and didn't live to tell about it. She could see herself hitting them, see the sparks.

With a helpless cry as the thunder echoed around her, she jerked on the cord and moved her body, trying to force the stubborn chute to ignore the wind and bend to her will.

It was a losing battle, and she knew it. But she had nerve, and she wasn't going to give up until the last minute. The lightning forked past her and she closed her eyes, gritted her teeth and tried again to change direction.

The power lines were coming up. She was almost on them. She pulled her legs up with bent knees and jerked the chute. Her feet almost touched them, almost…but another gust of wind picked her up and moved her just a few inches, just enough to spare her landing on those innocent-looking black cables.

She let out a heavy sigh of relief. Rain had started to fall. She closed her eyes and through the thunder and lightning, she gave a prayer of thanks.

When she opened her eyes again, aware of the terrible darkness all around her as the unpredicted storm
blew in, she saw what her fear had caused her to miss just minutes ago. There was a line of trees ahead, a thick conglomeration of pines and a few deciduous trees. They were right in the way. There was no cleared field, no place for her to land. She was going to go into those trees.

What if she landed in the very top of one? Would it take her weight, or would she fall to her death? And what about that huge oak? If she got caught in those leafy limbs, she could still be there when the first frost came!

The thought would have amused her once, but now she was too bent on survival to make jokes.

She didn't try to change direction. There was no use. Lightning streaked past her and hit one of the trees, smoke rising from it.

She thought that this was going to make an interesting addition to the obituary column, but at least she wouldn't go out in any dull manner.

She allowed herself one last thought, of Ted Regan's face when he read about it. She hoped that whoever planned her funeral wouldn't ruin it by letting Ted stand over her and make nasty remarks about her character.

The trees were coming closer. She could see the branches individually now, and with a sense of resignation, she let her body relax. If the fall didn't get her, the lightning probably would. She'd chosen her fate, and here it was.

It hadn't been a suicide attempt, although people would probably think so. She'd only wanted the freedom of the sky while she tried to come to grips with the rest of her life. She'd wanted to forget Ted's accusations and the cold way he'd looked at her.

What she remembered, though, was the rough, hungry clasp of his arms around her. Had he felt pity, for those few seconds when his embrace had bruised her? Or had it been a reflex action, the natural reaction of a man to having a woman in his arms? She'd never know.

She could picture his blue eyes and feel his mouth on hers, all those long years ago. She closed her own, waiting for death to come up and claim her. Her last conscious thought was that in whatever realm she progressed to, perhaps she could forget the one man she'd ever loved. And once she was gone, perhaps Ted could forgive her for everything he thought she'd done.

The impact was sudden, and surprisingly without pain. She felt the roughness of leaves and limbs and a hard, rough blow to her head. And then she felt nothing at all.

T
ed Regan had been sitting at his desk trying to make sense of a new prospectus. Sandy had only just gone out the door, after spending the night at the ranch. Suddenly, the front door was opened with force and his sister came running back in, red-faced and shaking.

“What is it?” he asked quickly, putting the papers aside.

“It's Corrie.” She choked. Tears were running down her cheeks. “It was on the radio…she's been in a terrible accident!”

His heart stopped, started and ran away. He jerked out of his chair and took her by the arms. It wasn't pity for her that motivated him; it was the horror that made him go cold. “Is she dead?” She couldn't answer and he actually shook her. “Tell me! Is she all right?”

His white, desperate face shocked her into speech. “She was taken to the Jacobsville General emergency
room.” She choked out the words. “The radio said she was skydiving and fell into some trees or power lines or something. They don't know her condition.”

He didn't stop to get his hat. He shepherded her out the door at a dead run.

Later, he didn't even remember the ride to the hospital. He marched straight to the desk, demanding to know how Coreen was and where she was. The woman clerk didn't try to deny him the information. She told him at once.

He walked straight into the recovery room, despite loud objections from a nurse.

Coreen was lying on a stretcher there, clad in a faded hospital gown. There were cuts and bruises all over her face and arms, and she was asleep.

“How is she?” he demanded.

The middle-aged nurse who was checking her vital signs nodded. “She'll be fine,” she told him. “Dr. Burns can tell you anything you want to know. You're a relative?”

Technically he was, he supposed. If he said no, they wouldn't let him near her. “Yes,” he said.

“Dr. Burns?” the nurse called to a green-gowned man outside the door. He excused himself from the doctor to whom he was speaking and came into the recovery room.

“This gentleman is a relative of Mrs. Tarleton.”

Ted introduced himself and the doctor shook his hand warmly.

“I hope you know how much we all appreciate the pediatric critical care unit you funded here, Mr. Regan,” the doctor said, and the nurse became flustered as she realized who their distinguished visitor was.

“It was my pleasure. How's Corrie?” he asked, nodding toward the pale woman on the bed.

“Minor concussion, a cracked rib and a burst appendix. We've repaired the damage, but someone should tell her not to skydive during thunderstorms,” he said frankly. “This is her second close call in as many months. And we won't even go into the damage she sustained in the glider crash or her most recent brush with a sheet of tin…”

Ted went very still. “What glider crash?”

Dr. Burns lifted an eyebrow. “You said you were a relative?”

“Distant,” he confessed. “Her husband was buried yesterday.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I'm from Victoria. I've just moved back here, into my grandfather's house.”

“Oh, yes, the old Regan homeplace.”

“The same,” Ted continued. “I'd lost touch with Barry in the past few weeks, but we were cousins and fairly close. Funny, he never told me about any of Corrie's mishaps.”

“That's surprising,” the doctor said coolly, a sentiment that Ted could have seconded. He glanced down at Coreen's still form. “She's got two left feet. Her husband told me that a woman friend of Coreen's let her take up the glider and she flew it too close to the trees. Good thing it was insured. She needs to be watched. And I mean watched, until she's past this latest trauma. Then I'd strongly suggest some counseling. Nobody has so many accidents without an underlying cause. Perhaps she's running from something. Running scared.”

Ted thought about that later when he and Sandy were
drinking black coffee in the waiting room, waiting for them to move Corrie down into a private room. She was conscious, but barely out from under the anesthetic.

“Did you know that she'd had this sort of accident before?” Ted asked his sister.

She nodded. “I went to see her in the hospital. Or tried to. Barry didn't like it that I was there, and he wouldn't let me do more than wish her a speedy recovery. He kept everyone away from her, even then.”

“Why didn't you say anything?”

“You didn't want to know, Ted,” she replied honestly. “You hate Corrie. That was the last thing she said to me before I left, and there was a look in her eyes…” She grimaced. “She said something about my trying to remember the good times she and I had. It was an odd way of putting it, and I was afraid then that she planned to go up. She loves skydiving, but she's clumsy.”

“I only remember Coreen ever being clumsy one time before she married,” he said curtly. “How long has she been acting this way?”

She looked at him levelly. “Since about a month after she married Barry…about the same time he decided that Corrie and I shouldn't spend so much time together.”

He was shocked. His white face told its own story, added to the way he was smoking. He wondered if his attitude at the funeral had driven Corrie into that airplane. Had he made her feel so much guilt that she couldn't even live with it? He hadn't really meant to, but he'd been fond of his young cousin, who'd always looked to him for advice and support, even above that of his own parents. And Coreen had let Barry drive drunk. That was the thing that haunted him. It was as if she'd condemned him to death.

“Well, I'll go over to the house in a day or so and have Henry open it up for me, so that I can get her clothes and things,” Sandy said heavily. She finished her coffee. “Tina will probably have the locks changed soon and Corrie will have no place to go at all. I'll take her up to the apartment in Victoria with me….”

“We'll bring her to the ranch,” Ted said firmly. “We can watch her, without letting her know that we are.”

Sandy searched his face. “You won't be cruel to her?”

His jaw tautened. “I'll keep out of her way,” he said, angry at the implication that he could hurt her now, when she could have been killed. His blue eyes impaled her. “That should please her.”

He got up and moved down the corridor. Sandy stared after him with open curiosity.

 

Coreen was lying quietly in bed, feeling the bruises and cuts and breaks as if they were living things. The door opened and a familiar man walked in.

“Hello,” she said groggily, and without smiling. “Did you come to gloat? Sorry to disappoint you, but one funeral is all you get this week.”

He put his hands into his pockets and stood over her. Bravado, he concluded when he saw the faint fear in her eyes that underlaid the anger.

“How are you?” he asked.

She put a hand to her bruised forehead. “Tired,” she said flatly.

“Jumping out of airplanes,” he said with disgust, his eyes flaring at her. “In a damned thunderstorm! You haven't grown up at all.”

Her dark blue eyes stared into his pale ones with
weary resignation. “Leave me alone, Ted,” she said in a drained voice. “I can't fight you right now.”

He moved closer to the bed, his heart contracting at the sight of her lying there that way. “You little fool!” he said huskily. Suddenly he bent, one lean hand resting beside her head on the pillow, and his mouth covered hers so unexpectedly that she flinched.

He felt her involuntary movement and quickly lifted his lips from hers. His eyes stabbed into her own. He didn't know what he'd expected, but her rigid posture surprised him.

“That's new,” he said, frowning absently.

She couldn't breathe. “Don't do that,” she whispered.

“Why not?” he asked angrily. His chest rose and fell raggedly. “You wanted it once. Your eyes begged me for it every time you looked at me. But you don't feel that way now, do you? Did you know that Barry cried when he told me how frigid you were, that you wouldn't let him touch you… Corrie!”

She was crying, great tearing sobs that pulsed out of her like blood out of a wound.

“That was a low thing to say.” He ground out his words. “I'm sorry. Corrie, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…” He bent, his face contorting with self-contempt, and his mouth traveled over her wan face in soft, tender kisses that sipped away the tears and the pain and the hurt, finally ending against the soft trembling of her mouth. “Corrie,” he groaned as he nibbled at her lips.

She put her hand up to his face and pressed it hard against his mouth. “Don't,” she pleaded.

The hand was trembling. He warmed it in his own and brought it hungrily to his mouth, palm up.

“How could you take such a risk?” he demanded huskily, lifting his mouth from her hand. She tried to pull it away, but he didn't let go of it even then, and his face was hard, like the glittery eyes that watched her without even blinking.

“You don't care if I die,” she accused shakenly.

He winced. “Do you think I want you dead?” he asked roughly.

Her eyes were sad and bitter. “Don't you?” she asked on a harsh laugh. “Would you forgive me for Barry's death if I died, too?”

He drew in a harsh breath. It had become painfully clear to him that he could hurt her badly.

There was a soft knock on the door and Sandy walked in, raising her eyebrows at the sight of Ted standing by Coreen's bed, holding her hand.

“Did Ted tell you that you're coming home with me?” Sandy asked gently.

“That isn't necessary…!”

“Yes, it is,” Ted said curtly. “We'll get a nurse for you.”

Coreen panicked. “No!” she said. “No, I won't!”

“You will,” he replied coldly. “If I have to pick you up and carry you in my arms every step of the way!”

Coreen felt the words in her heart. She averted her eyes. He hadn't meant it personally, of course. But the phrasing touched her deeply.

“You need to get some sleep,” Sandy said gently. “I'll be back later.”

“We'll be back later,” Ted corrected, his eyes daring Coreen to argue with him. He glanced at Sandy. “She's on the fifth floor, and she might try to tie a few sheets together and parachute out of here.”

Sandy laughed. Coreen's eyes were so tragic that it didn't last. “It's all right,” she told her friend. “You'll be fine.”

“Will I?” she asked, looking at Ted with open fear.

Sandy saw the way they were staring at each other, made an excuse and left them alone.

“What is it?” Ted asked softly.

She didn't reply. She simply shook her head, confusedly.

He stood beside her, watching her eyes. “It was only a kiss,” he said quietly. “I know I shouldn't have done it, but you frightened me.”

She searched his lean face. “Frightened you?”

He pushed his hands deep into his pockets to keep from reaching for her. His emotions were teetering on a knife-edge. “We thought you were dying until we got here.”

“I'm not suicidal,” she said firmly, “regardless of what you think. I love skydiving. I only wanted to get away from the world for a little while.”

“You almost got away permanently. Skydiving in a thunderstorm!”

“It wasn't raining when I went up. Haven't you ever done anything the least bit dangerous?” she asked.

“Why, yes,” he replied, holding her eyes. “I kissed you,” he said dryly, and walked out of the room before she could respond.

 

Ted lifted a rigid Coreen out of the wheelchair and carried her to the car, while Sandy held the door open. Coreen thanked the nurses and hesitantly linked her arms around Ted's neck.

“I'm heavy,” she protested when he picked her up.

His face was very close to hers, so close that his eyes filled the world. “You hardly weigh anything at all,” he said bitterly.

She grimaced. “That isn't what that tiny intern said when he had to heft me onto the cart.”

He laughed. It was a sound that Coreen had never heard before, and her expression said so.

Her eyes were drowning him in warm, unfamiliar feelings. He shifted her a little roughly as he turned and started toward the car, still holding her eyes. “Is this how you got your claws into Barry?” he asked under his breath. “Looking at him with those soft, hungry eyes?”

She averted her face and stiffened even more in his arms. “Think what you like about me, Ted. I don't care.”

“Yes, you do,” he said through his teeth. “That's what makes it so damned unforgivable.”

“What?”

He glared down at her. “You were married and you still lusted after me,” he said harshly. “You denied your husband because of it, and he knew it. It was why he drank. It was why he died,” he added, growing colder inside as the guilt ate at him. “He told me, didn't you know? Do you think I could ever forgive you for that?”

The bitterness in him was damning. She couldn't deny it now because they were within Sandy's earshot. It wouldn't have mattered regardless, because he had his own opinion and he wouldn't change it. She hadn't used him to hurt Barry, it was the other way around. But he liked his opinion of her. It reinforced his warped view of women.

He put her in the backseat, so that she could stretch out, and she didn't say another word. She left all the conversation to him and Sandy. There wasn't much.

 

The bedroom they gave her was done in soft beiges and pinks, and the bed was a huge four-poster.

“The bed was Ted's once,” Sandy said when she'd tucked her friend up, “but he wanted something less antiquated when we redecorated the house.”

Coreen tingled all over, thinking that Ted had once slept where she was lying. It would probably be the closest she ever got to him, she thought on a silent laugh. Now he had even more reason to blame her for Barry's death. He would feel guilty that Barry was denied a happy marriage because his wife didn't want him, she wanted Ted.