True Colors

She lifted her chin and stared at him with pure bravado. “Aren’t you, Cy? That isn’t how I remember it.”

He turned away, his eyes glancing down the wide street. “You were eighteen. Too young. Years too young. I never asked, but I’d bet I had your chastity.”

Meredith flushed. Cy watched the stain in her cheeks with faint amusement, the first he’d felt since he’d seen her get off the bus.

“So I did,” he murmured, tingling all over at having his suspicions confirmed.

“You were the first,” she said coldly. She smiled. “But not the last. Or did you think you were going to be an impossible act to follow?”

His pride bristled, but he didn’t react. He finished the cigarette and flipped it off the porch. “Where have you been for the past six years?”

“Around,” she said simply. “Look, this bag is getting heavy. Do you have anything to say, or is this just a friendly visit to see how fast you can shoot me out of town?”

“I came to ask if you needed a job,” he said stiffly. “I know your aunt left nothing except bills. I own a restaurant here. There’s an opening for a waitress.”

This was really too much, Meredith thought. Cy offering her a job waitressing, when she could easily afford to buy the place. Guilty conscience? she wondered. Or renewed interest? Either way, it wouldn’t hurt to accept it. She had a feeling she’d see a good bit of the Hardens that way, and it fitted in nicely with her plans.

“Okay,” she said. “Do I need to apply?”

“No. Just report for work at six sharp tomorrow morning,” he said. “I seem to remember that you had a job in a café when we first met.”

“Yes.” Her eyes met his, and for an instant they both shared the memory of that first meeting. She’d spilled coffee on him, and when she’d gone to mop up his jacket, electricity had danced between them. The attraction was instant and mutual…and devastating.

“So long ago,” he said absently, his eyes dark with bitterness. “My God, why did you run? I came to my senses two days later, and I couldn’t find you, damn you!”

Came to his senses? She didn’t dare dwell on that. She glared at him. “Damn you, too, for listening to your mother instead of me. I hope the two of you have been very happy together.”

His eyebrows arched. “What did my mother have to do with you and Tanksley?”

He didn’t know! She could hardly believe it, but that blank stare of his was genuine. He didn’t know what his mother had done!

“How did you get him to confess?” she asked.

“I didn’t. He told Mother that you were innocent. She told me.”

Her heart trembled in her chest. “Did she tell you anything else?” she asked with affected carelessness.

He scowled. “No. What else was there to tell?”

That I was pregnant with your child, she thought darkly, that I was eighteen and had nowhere to go. I couldn’t risk staying with Great-Aunt Mary with a theft charge hanging over my head.

She lowered her eyes so that he wouldn’t see the fury in them. Those first few weeks had been the purest hell of her life, despite the fact that they’d strengthened and matured her to a frightening degree. She’d had to take complete charge of her own life and fate, and from that time she’d never been afraid again.

“Was there anything else?” he persisted.

She lifted her face. “No. Nothing else.”

But there was. He sensed it. Her eyes held a peculiar gleam, almost of hatred. He’d accused her unjustly and hurt her with his rejection, but her anger went deeper than that.

“The restaurant is the Bar H Steak House,” he said. “It’s off North Twenty-seventh past the Sheraton.”

Meredith felt her body go hot at the mention of the hotel, and she averted her eyes quickly. “I’ll find it. Thanks for the recommendation.”

“Does that mean you might stay for a few weeks, at least?” he asked, frowning.

Her eyes fenced with his. “Why? I do hope you don’t entertain any thoughts of taking over where we left off. Because frankly, Cy, I’m not in the habit of trying to superglue broken relationships back together.”

He went very still. “Is there someone?”

“In my life, you mean?” she asked. “Yes.”

His face showed nothing, but a shadow seemed to pass over his eyes. “I might have known.”

She didn’t reply. She simply stared at him. She saw him glance at her left hand, and she thanked God that she’d remembered to take off her wedding band. But the engagement ring Henry had given her—a diamond-cut emerald with small diamonds—was still there. She remembered how Henry had laughed at her choice, because the ring was so inexpensive. He’d wanted to give her a three-carat diamond, and she’d insisted on this ring. How long ago it seemed.

“You’re engaged?” he asked heavily.

“I was,” she corrected. True enough, she was, before Henry married her a week after the engagement.

“Not now?”

She shook her head. “I have a friend, and I care about him very much. But I don’t want commitment anymore.” She wished she could cross her fingers behind her. She’d told more lies and half-truths in two minutes than she had in two years.

His features were more rigid than usual. “Why isn’t your friend here with you, then?”

“I needed a breathing space. I came alone to dispose of Aunt Mary’s things.”

“Where were you living?”

She smiled. “Back east. Excuse me, I have to get these things in the refrigerator.”

He stood aside, hesitating. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Presumably he ate at the restaurant where she was going to work. “I suppose so.” She glanced at him. “Are you sure they won’t mind giving me work without references?”

“I own the damned restaurant,” he said shortly. “They can’t afford to mind. The job’s yours, if you want it.”

“I want it,” she said. She unlocked the door and hesitated. Since he didn’t know her circumstances, he was probably doing it out of pity and guilt, but she felt obliged to say something. “You’re very generous. Thank you.”

“Generous.” He laughed bitterly. “My God, I’ve never given anything in my life unless it suited me or made me richer. I’ve got the world. And I’ve got nothing.” He turned and walked to his car, leaving her staring after him with wide, sad eyes.

Meredith let herself into the house. It had shaken her to see him again after so many barren years. She dropped the groceries on the kitchen counter and sat down, her mind going back to their first meeting.

She’d been seventeen then, a week shy of her eighteenth birthday. But she’d always looked older than she was, and the uniform she wore as a waitress molded itself lovingly to every soft curve of her slender body.

Cy had stared at her from the first, his narrow eyes following her as she waited on one table and then another. She’d been nervous of him instantly, because he radiated self-confidence and a kind of bridled arrogance. He had a way of narrowing one eye and lifting his chin that was like a declaration of war every time he studied someone. Actually, she found out later, it was because he had a slight problem focusing on distant objects and was too stubborn to go to an ophthalmologist. She wondered if any of the people he’d intimidated with that level glare ever knew what caused it.

His table drew its regular waitress, and she’d seen him frown and ask the girl something. Seconds later, he’d moved to a table that was in Meredith’s territory.