Texas rich (50 page)

"If you weren't so busy defending and protecting that child all the time, things wouldn't be this way. I found it reprehensible that you tried to keep it a secret, Maggie's being with that man in that sleazy motel. If you'd gone to Moss or Seth when it happened, the gossip could have been squelched there and then." Of course, that had been Seth's reaction, too. Moss had turned from Maggie in disgust and shot accusations at Billie.

Billie felt a tightness in her chest. "Funny how you're always quick to point out where I've been wrong. Mother. Seth and Moss are innocent in your eyes. But you're right. I am her mother and I'm going to do the best I can for her. I'll always be here for her, just the way you were for me," she finished bitterly.

"Feisty this morning, aren't we?" Agnes said blandly. "It must be this wretched storm. We're all out of kilter. Were you writing a letter? Did I come at an inopportune time? Thad, is it? You do correspond regularly, don't yoi^ How does Moss feel about that?"

"Full of questions this morning, aren't we?" Billie mimicked. "Since when must I ask Moss's permission to write an old friend?"

"Feisty and testy." Agnes's eyebrows shot up. "Why are you so defensive?"

"Because I don't like the drift of your questions. I really don't owe you any explanations. Thad's always been a good friend and I plan to keep it that way."

"Yes, well, I suppose you could use a friend along about now," Agnes said ofifhandedly as she prowled Billie's room, touching objects and sniffing perfume bottles.

"If you've got something to say. Mother, come out with it."

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"I didn't want to say anything, dear, but I think I should. You should have taken more interest in your husband. You never should have allowed him to move downstairs to that stuffy little room. I wonder if you know that Moss has been having... uh... I don't know quite how to say this, Billie."

"You mean am I aware that Moss has had affairs? Is that the word you're looking for,.Mother?"

Agnes's face was pure shock. "You knew?"

"Contrary to what you may believe or have heard. Mother, the wife is not always the last to know. Yes, I knew."

"Does Moss know that?"

"Yes," Billie said shortly.

"And?"

"And what, Mother?"

"That's the beginning and the end of it? Did you talk it out? Did he promise to stop his..."

"Philandering? Now there, Mother, I am the last to know. My husband doesn't care to take me into his confidence when he makes decisions."

"His... past infidelities are one thing. All men go through that phase at some time or other. But I understand his current affair has been going on for close to three years. It could be serious, Billie."

Billie felt as if one of the packhorses in the bam had kicked her in the stomach. But she'd be damned if she'd let her mother know of her ignorance. "What do you propose I do. Mother?" Billie asked coolly.

"I must admit you've taken all of this rather well—I expected hysterics. Now, we have to map out a strategy. We cannot allow this to go on. The longer an affair goes on, the worse the marriage is. Now that's a pure, hard fact, Billie."

"Mother, strategy? Really! We're talking about my marriage. If Moss isn't interested in preserving it, why should I torture myself? I've come to terms with it."

Agnes reeled a little but recovered herself. "Surely you aren't thinking of divorce? What about the children, Billie? Moss would never let you have Riley. The girls, yes, but not Riley. He's your baby, your only son." Your only bargaining point, she wanted to add, but she held her tongue. "What are you going to do?"

"Not do. Mother, did" Billie lied. "Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."

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"Billie Coleman!" Agnes said. "Are you telling me that you... that you ... my very own daughter... No, I refuse to believe it. Not youV

"Believe what you want, Mother."

"It's Thad Kingsley, isn't it?"

Billie looked her mother straight in the eye. "No, Mother, it isn't Thad Kingsley. Thad is too noble to take advantage of his friend's wife. I would have thought you'd realize that."

"Then who is it—I demand to know."

"Demand all you want, Mother. My privacy is my own."

"How ever do you keep a straight face when you see Alice. Forbes at the club?" Agnes asked savagely. "Knowing she's been sleeping with your husband, doing the same things you did with him?... How can you bear it?"

"That's enough, Mother. I don't want to discuss this any further."

Alice Forbes, the giri in the photograph hanging in Moss's boyhood room. Billie felt sick to her stomach. Alice Forbes, playwright. Broadway playwright. Backed by Forbes money. Forbes money was right up there next to Coleman money. A real threat. Three years was a long time, almost an eternity. Did Thad know? It was suddenly important for her to know. As soon as her mother left she would call Thad and ask him. He would tell her the trtith. Thad would never He to her. Three years! A wife could possibly forgive, never forget, a one-night stand, a chance encounter where two people were caught up in a moment of passion. But three years? All the planning, all the lies, all the covering up.

Her sense of betrayal was so strong that she ordered her mother out of her room, actually pushed her through the doorway. She only felt safe and calm when she heard the tiny click of the lock shooting home.

A planned affair was when you slept in each other's arms. Overnight. An entire weekend. Vacations. Moss had gone to Europe not too long ago. Now that she thought about it, Alice had been absent from the last two club meetings. Alice and Moss in Europe. Tasting and exploring all the newness. Laughing and sharing as they made their way around the countryside.

Billie paced the room like a nervous filly. Angry tears rolled down her cheeks. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year for three years. What had she been doing on some of those days while her husband was making love to another woman? How many times during all those hours had they made love? You

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bastard, you miserable rotten bastard! she thought. How could you do this to me?

What did Alice have that she lacked? Was it Alice's money? Her profession? Was it their similar backgrounds? The shared childhood memories? Was her body better? Of course it was— Alice Forbes had no children. But she had given her husband a son. Alice Forbes could never say that, but she didn't need to. Alice Forbes wasn't insecure, plagued with a Seth or an Agnes. She was her own person. She had a career. She was interesting. A stunning-looking woman, more sophisticated than Billie, recognized in the entertainment world, a pleasing personality. She liked to ride horses. And she could pilot her own plane.

Billie cried till she was spent. She blew her nose lustily and then washed her face. The little address book that Riley had given her for Christmas last year was in her hand. This would be the first time she had ever called Thad at his office. Thad wouldn't lie.

"CO's office, secure line," a voice said briskly.

"I'd Uke to speak to Admiral Kingsley, please. This is Mrs.— this is Billie Coleman."

"Just a minute, ma'am, the admiral is on another line. Will you hold?"

"Yes."

Two minutes later Thad came on. "Billie, to what do I owe this pleasure?"

Billie cleared her throat and then apologized. "Thad, I have to ask you something. Are you aware of Moss's affair with Alice Forbes? The affair that's been going on for three years?"

Thad didn't know what he had expected, but this question was like a thunderbolt. How in the name of God could he answer? "Billie, that's not a fair question to ask me."

"I apologize, Thad. You just gave me your answer. You shouldn't always be so kind. People take advantage of you when you do that. Good-bye, Thad."

Billie dragged herself into the pretty bathroom that only she used. She looked at the floor-to-ceiling mirror without really seeing her reflection. The sight of the thick plum-colored towels hanging against the powder-blue tile was comforting, in a way. Moss had always rolled up his towel and tossed it either on the floor or in the tub. The toilet seat was down. He had been notorious for leaving it up all the time. The one bright yellow toothbrush in the holder looked particularly lonely. Without

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thinking, Billie opened the medicine cabinet and took out a new red toothbrush. She slipped it through one of the small openings. Two. As in couple. A small jar of Pond's Cold Cream, a bottle of Seconal, and some toothpaste were all that was in the cabinet. Billie's eyes lingered for a long time on the bottle of sleeping pills. She reached for it. It would be so easy. All she had to do was take a glass of water and swallow the pills. Lie down and go to sleep. No one would miss her until dinnertime. How many pills were in the bottle? She shook it and tried to count. Fourteen, she decided.

A vision of Seth at Jessica's funeral swam before her weary eyes. If she knew for certain that Moss would truly mourn her, it might be worth it to die. But the thought of him attending her funeral the way Seth had Jessica's made her dump the contents of the bottle into the toilet bowl. The sound of the flush was loud in the quiet, pretty room. She wouldn't end up like Jessica. The glass vial made a loud thump when she tossed it into the white wicker basket.

Billie's step was firm when she walked from the bathroom. The storm was still raging but it didn't seem as bad. The inky blackness was now a sooty gray. The rain was still coming down in great splashes against the window, but the wipers on her car were powerful. If she took the main highway to the studio, she might make it before serious flooding occurred. She threw on a bright yellow slicker with matching hat.

She wasn't going to Jordan Marsh's studio. She was going to Jordan Marsh.

{{{{{(Hi . 9.^^T^^.„ }»}tm}

TWENTY-FOUR

Billie maneuvered her car along the rain-slicked highway, her mood and thoughts as threatening and oppressive as the thick gray clouds scudding above. Rain pelted the windshield. Matching the beat of her heart, the wipers beat a furious rhythm. "Shavers," Maggie called them when she was young. God, wasn't a girl of thirteen young? Or was it that since that June

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night in the police station she'd ceased thinking of Maggie as a child? The dreadful experience she'd seen on her daughter's face that night was that of an older, jaded woman. A woman who knew men's ways, as Agnes would have put it.

Billie drove the curves of the highway automatically, as though her car knew the way. Automatically. Autopilot. That's what Moss had been working on for this past year and he'd never mentioned it to her. Why? Did he think she was too stupid to comprehend? When they were first married he'd tell her not to worry her pretty little head about this or that. Then she'd found security in leaving the worrying to him, or so she'd thought.

Billie's foot pressed down on the accelerator, sending a sudden surge of power through the Italian-made engine. Even this damn car was one of Moss's choosing. He was the one who understood engineering and machines; this was the car she was to have. Billie regretted that she hadn't insisted on the Chevrolet she so admired. Italian sports cars were for women like Alice Forbes. Chevys were for the Billie Ameses of Philadelphia. Moss made every decision on every aspect of her life, even the aesthetic ones like choosing cars and travel plans, and even the vital ones concerning the children, like where they should go to school. She'd followed Moss's "suggestions" for so long that she hadn't even realized how long it had been since she'd made a choice of her own, a decision of her own, for herself.

Billie bit down on her lower lip and veered her car around the bend. Well, she was making one today in going to Jordan. And this was her own choice and it was entirely for herself.

When she pulled into the small parking lot adjacent to Jordan's studio, she was gratified to see his Oldsmobile parked near the door. No other cars were present; the storm had probably kept the other students away. For a long moment Billie sat in the shelter of the car, her hand gripping the steering wheel. It would be so easy to just restart the engine and leave. He'd never even know she'd come. She could forget it herself. Before she had time to reconsider, Billie swung open the door and stepped out into the rain, skipping across puddles as she made her way to his door.

"Jordan! It's me, Billie! Jordan?" She rapped on the glass pane.

"Billie? Billie, come in! You're drenched! I wasn't planning on holding class today; I thought the storm would keep my

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students away. At least the less devoted of them." He smiled, the warmth in his eyes chasing away the gloom of the day.

Billie stepped inside and let him help her off with her slicker; small puddles formed on the floor around her. "I didn't come for lessons, Jordan. I came to be with you." The words were out, but she was afraid to look into his face. Her hands groped for him blindly. She was in his arms. He felt so good. Smelled so good. The soft, well-worn shirt and faded jeans followed the lines of his body, making him accessible to her touch. His shoulder was against her cheek, his lips in her hair, and when he spoke her name with a sense of awe and wonder, she knew she'd been right in coming here. She was a wounded soul, pushing away thoughts of Moss's betrayals. Jordan could heal her.

Jordan tipped her face up to his with a gentle touch of his long, artistic fingers. When his lips met hers, his kiss was gentle, moving across her mouth slowly, meltingly. Then he pulled away, looking deeply into her eyes, and whimpered, "Are you certain?"

Her answer was to step back into his embrace, holding to him tightly, offering her mouth again to the tenderness of his. She needed this, needed him. A great wrenching of her heart brought a sob to her lips. It had been so long since she'd been held this way, wanted this way. Even when Moss did come to their room, their lovemaking had become mechanical, a greedy self-serving act to satisfy themselves. An act. Gone was the spontaneity, the great yearning desire to give and share.

"Billie? What's wrong?" Jordan asked, searching her eyes for the answer.