True Colors

The very idea that a man who looked like that should seem interested in her made her toes tingle. She’d approached him with a gentle smile, her face flushing with excitement when he looked up at her and smiled back.

“You’re new here,” he’d said. His voice was deep and slow, with delicious sensuality in it.

“Yes.” She’d sounded as breathless as she felt. She could still remember how cold her hands had suddenly become. “I just started this morning.”

“I’m Cyrus Harden,” he said. “I have breakfast here most mornings.”

She’d recognized the name instantly. Most people in Billings did. “I’m Meredith,” she said huskily.

He lifted an eyebrow, and the smile deepened. “Are you past the age of consent?”

“I’m…twenty,” she said at once, lying through her teeth. If she’d told him her real age, she knew instinctively that he’d have dismissed her.

“That’ll do. Bring me some coffee, please. Then we’ll discuss where we’re going tonight.”

She rushed back behind the counter to pour the coffee, running headlong into Terri, the older waitress who worked with her.

“Careful, chick,” Terri said under her breath when Cy wasn’t looking. “You’re flirting with disaster. Cy Harden has a reputation with women as well as in business. Don’t get in over your head.”

“It’s all right. He…he’s just talking to me,” Meredith stammered.

“Not when you look that flustered, he isn’t,” Terri replied worriedly. “Your great-aunt must live in a world all her own. Honey, men don’t automatically propose marriage to women they want—especially men like Cy Harden. He’s out of our league. He’s rich, and his mother would savage any woman who tried to get him to the altar unless she had money and connections. He’s upper crust. They marry among themselves.”

“But we’re just talking,” Meredith protested, forcing a smile while all her dreams crashed to earth.

“See that it stays just talk. He could hurt you badly.”

The sound of authority made her bristle, but she couldn’t really afford to antagonize a co-worker, so she just smiled and finished getting Cy’s coffee.

“Was she warning you off?” he asked when she put the cup and saucer in front of him on the red-and-white-checked tablecloth.

She gasped. “How did you know?”

“I took Terri out once,” he replied easily. “She got too possessive, so I broke it off. It was a long time ago. Don’t let her get under your skin, okay?”

She smiled, because now it all made sense. He was interested, and Terri was just jealous. She beamed. “I won’t,” she promised.

Remembering her own naiveté that day, Meredith groaned. She rose from the chair she’d been sitting in and went to put the groceries away. How could anyone have been so stupid? she asked herself. At eighteen, with a sheltered upbringing, she’d known nothing. To a man as worldly as Cy, she must have been a pushover. If she’d had any idea how things were going to turn out, she’d never have…

Who was she kidding? She laughed bitterly. She’d have done exactly the same thing, because Cy fascinated her. He still did, after all the grief and pain. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen in her life, and she remembered those long lovings in his arms as if they’d happened yesterday.

Now she’d landed herself back in his orbit again and taken a job that she had no business taking. She was living a lie. But as she remembered the reasons for her visit, her blood began to boil. Cy had discarded her like garbage, she and the child she’d been carrying. He’d turned his back on her and left her to fend for herself with a theft charge hanging over her head.

She hadn’t come back to rekindle an old love affair. She’d come back for revenge. Henry had taught her that everyone had a weakness that could be exploited in business. And some people were better at hiding their Achilles’ heels than others. Cy was a past master. She’d have to be very careful if she was going to locate his. But in the end she’d get the upper hand, and he’d be out in the cold. She meant to cost him everything, to put him in the same horrible position he’d put her in so long ago. Her eyes narrowed as she considered the possibilities, and a cold smile touched her disciplined mouth.

Meredith was no longer a naive eighteen-year-old deeply in love with a man she couldn’t have. She held all the aces this time. And when she played her hand, it was going to be the sweetest pleasure since Cy’s treacherous kisses.

CHAPTER THREE

MEREDITH HAD BROUGHT some old clothes with her, so that she wouldn’t arouse Cy’s suspicions by looking too prosperous. Now, as she dressed for her new job, she was glad.

She stepped into a neat denim skirt that matched her white cotton long-sleeved blouse. She put on soft-soled loafers and discarded her Gucci purse for a brown vinyl one. Then she put up her hair in a neat French braid at the back of her head and left the house to catch a bus to work.

Billings was gorgeous first thing in the morning, Meredith thought as she savored the cool morning air. This spacious city was a world away from the bustle of Chicago. She missed her son, and even Mr. Smith and Don, but the change had already revived her fighting spirit and made her feel less depressed. The incredible pressures she faced daily in her work had been getting to her lately.

Meredith stepped off the bus in front of the restaurant. It was a prosperous one, very large and attached to a hotel. She noticed through the window that all the waitresses wore spotless white uniforms. It had been a long time since she had felt nervous around people, but here, without the cocoon of her wealth to cushion her, she was ill at ease. She found the cashier and asked for the manager.

“Mrs. Dade is just through there,” the woman said pleasantly. “Is she expecting you?”

“I think so.”

Meredith knocked on the door and walked in, surprised to find the woman almost twenty years older than she was. Perhaps she’d been harboring the subconscious thought that Mrs. Dade might be one of Cy’s old lovers, but she had to revise that opinion now.

“I’m Meredith…Ashe,” she said hesitantly. The name sounded strange. She was so used to being called Kip Tennison.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Dade said, smiling as she stood up behind her huge polished wood desk. She was a tall woman, her red hair mingling with silver above a broad, happy face. “I’m Trudy Dade. I’m glad to meet you. Cy said that you’d just lost your aunt and needed work. Luckily for both of us, we’ve got an opening. Have you had experience at waitressing?”

“Well, a little,” Meredith replied. “I used to work at the Bear Claw years ago.”

“I remember. I thought I recognized you.” Her gray eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “I’m sorry about your aunt.”

“I’ll miss her,” Meredith said softly. “She was the only real relative I had in the world.”

Mrs. Dade’s perceptive gaze swept over Meredith, leaving no detail untouched. She nodded. “It’s hard work, but the tips are good, and I’m not a slavedriver. You can start now. You’ll get off at six, but you’ll have to work some evenings. That’s unavoidable in this business.”

“I don’t mind that,” Meredith said easily. “I don’t need my evenings free.”

Mrs. Dade’s eyebrows arched. “At your age? For heaven’s sake, you’re not married?”

“No.” Meredith didn’t say it rudely, but there was something in her manner that made the other woman visibly uncomfortable.

“Off men, then?” Mrs. Dade smiled and didn’t pursue it, going on to detail Meredith’s duties and her salary, along with information about uniforms and territory.

Meredith was busy giving herself a lecture on keeping to the part she was playing. It wouldn’t do to assume Kip Tennison’s persona every time someone pried too deeply. She forced a smile and listened with every indication of interest, while at the back of her mind she wondered how long it was going to be before Cy Harden made his next move.

LATE THAT AFTERNOON, Cy walked into the gardens at the huge Harden estate. His eyes lingered halfheartedly on the Greek revival columns on the house’s wide front porch. He remembered playing on that porch as a child, with his mother nearby, watching him. She had always been far too possessive and protective of her only child, a condition that, in later years, had caused friction between them. In fact, their relationship had fallen apart with the departure of Meredith Ashe. Cy had changed, in visible and not-so-visible ways.

He hung his hat on the antique hat rack in the hall and wandered absently into the elegant living room, gathering the usual impressions of pastel brocades and thick neutral shag carpeting and the priceless antiques his mother loved.

She was sitting on her wing chair, crocheting. Her dark eyes lifted and she smiled at him a little too brightly. “You’re home early, aren’t you?” she asked.

“I finished early.” He poured himself a stiff whiskey and sank onto his own armchair. “I’ll be out for dinner. The Petersons are hosting a business discussion on some new mineral leases.”

“Business, business,” she muttered. “There’s more to life than making money. Cy, you really should marry. I’ve introduced you to two very nice young women, debutantes…”

“I won’t marry,” he said with a cold smile. He lifted his whiskey glass in a mock toast. “I took the cure. Remember?”

His mother went pasty white and dropped her eyes to her thin, nervous hands. “That…was a long time ago.”