“I just can’t believe he’s that bad. He was always so nice when he worked at the Haywards’.”
Spence leaned forward, rinsed off his hands, and wiped them on a towel, his expression grim. “I doubt that he was all that ‘nice’ even then.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because among his many enemies are Charles and Doug Hayward. They hate him thoroughly.”
Corey’s hands went still over the salad bowl. “Doug’s never given any indication of that.”
“He gave you one last night. When the auction was over, Diana brought Harrison over to the table. Do you remember what happened?”
“Yes, of course. Doug said something that I thought was tactless and unlike him, but he’d seemed strange all during dinner.”
“He was perfectly normal until Diana walked into the ballroom with Cole Harrison. Later, he deliberately avoided shaking Harrison’s hand.”
“But—”
“Listen to me, honey. Last night you were so euphoric because Harrison had ‘charged to Diana’s rescue’ that I didn’t want to spoil it for you, but the truth is that Doug and Charles Hayward thoroughly despise him. I’m only telling you now so you don’t set yourself or Diana up for a fall by dreaming that this marriage might turn into anything more than it is.”
“Despise him?” she whispered. “Why? What could Cole possibly have done?”
“I’ve told you everything I know, and the only reason I know that much is because Doug visited me in Newport several years ago right after he’d gone to visit Barbara in the hospital in New York. He was upset because she wasn’t doing any better, and I took him sailing and then out to dinner, hoping to cheer him up.” Spence walked over to one of the cabinets and retrieved bottles of white wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, which he opened and began pouring into measuring cups. “We’d had some wine, and we decided to spend the rest of the evening at my house. We went into the library to watch the news, and the latest issue of Newsweek was on the coffee table. Harrison’s picture was on the cover and when Doug saw it, he launched into a diatribe against Harrison that was so filled with malice you wouldn’t have believed Doug was doing the talking.”
Spence looked up from whisking the oil and vinegar together. “He ranted about revenge and how long he and his father have been waiting for the right chance. Somehow Barbara came up, and then I thought the man was going to break down and cry. The next thing I knew he’d gotten himself under control and he went to bed. The next morning he apologized and said he’d had too much to drink the night before, and that I shouldn’t pay any attention to his ‘drunken ramblings.’ ”
“Maybe that’s all they were,” Corey said hopefully as she gave a final toss to the undressed salad. “Doug has never been able to drink.”
“Believe me, I know,” Spence said with a reminiscent smile. “When I was at SMU, he used to stay with me at the fraternity house whenever he came to Dallas. To this day, I’ve never seen anyone but Doug turn into Superman and try to leap tall buildings in a single bound—on three rum and Cokes.”
Corey nodded, but her attention had returned to the couple on the lawn. She watched Cole closely as he listened intently to whatever Diana was telling him. Beside her, Spence observed the same scene. Without meaning to, Corey spoke her thought aloud. “I just don’t believe it.”
Spence wisely refrained from reminding Corey that she hadn’t believed a carpenter’s assistant was stealing tools from their garage a month ago, even when she saw a wrench sticking out of his back pocket.
Corey refrained from pointing out to Spence that he had liked Dan Penworth, who had turned out to be a world-class rat. That wouldn’t have done any good anyway, because the whole family had liked Dan. “Can you at least try to give Cole the benefit of the doubt? It would make everything so much easier.”
Spence looked at her worried face and gave in with a deliberately suggestive leer. “Okay, beautiful, but it’ll cost you,” he said; then he turned to leave. Corey caught his arm. “Cute loincloth,” she teased, reaching around his waist to free the towel.
Spence returned the compliment by turning toward her, reaching behind her, and playfully cupping her derriere. “Cute butt,” he said and nipped her ear.
To their left, Glenna marched in on her silent, rubber-soled orthopedic shoes. “I’ll just get the duck off the grill before it turns into a chunk of charcoal,” she volunteered in a long-suffering voice.
Corey stiffened and Spence froze; then he pulled her tighter to him and, laughing, kissed her anyway.
Chapter 36
WHEN COLE WALKED INTO THE formal dining room beside Diana, he assumed from what he saw that her family had decided to try to pretend Diana’s sudden marriage was a reason for celebration instead of homicide.
A large bowl of yellow roses in the center of the dining room table was flanked by candelabra aglow with tapers; the table was laid with formal china and gleaming silver flatware. A large china platter contained succulent slices of roasted duck breast, a large plate was piled high with fluffy buttermilk biscuits, and two serving bowls held new potatoes roasted with olive oil and rosemary, and steamed young asparagus.
The ladies made gallant attempts to smile at him, and even Grandpa managed a polite nod as he took his place at the head of the table and indicated Cole should take the seat at his right. Diana’s grandmother sat on her husband’s left, directly across from Cole, but when Diana started around the table to sit beside Cole, Gram said, “Corey, dear, why don’t you sit next to Mr. Harrison and let Spence sit next to me so we can all have a chance to get to know each other.”
Mrs. Foster took her place at the foot of the table and Diana sat between her mother and Spence. Cole saw Mrs. Foster register confusion at the peculiar emphasis on an even more peculiar seating arrangement, but one glance at the lineup Gram had neatly arranged showed him that Gram had managed to put him squarely in the “hot seat.” Grandpa was on his left, Gram and Addison were directly across from him, Corey was on his right, and Diana—his only ally—was well removed.
Nothing could have made Cole feel like a bigger hypocrite than thanking an imaginary God he didn’t believe in for things He hadn’t accomplished in the first place, and then compounding the idiocy by asking for favors He had neither the power—or perhaps the inclination—to grant. Hypocrisy was not one of Cole’s many faults, and so he bent his head less than an inch and studied the hand-embroidered yellow rose on his napkin while he waited for the official inquisition to begin.
Henry Britton was not a man given to procrastination. He finished the prayer and said, “Amen. Cole, what are your plans?”
Before Cole could phrase an answer, Diana looked squarely at Corey and said, “Corey’s dying to hear about the wedding, and I made her wait until now, when I could tell all of you at once.”
Corey unhesitatingly picked up her cue. “Let’s hear about the wedding first, Grandpa. After we catch up on the present, Cole and Diana can tell us all about the future.” To Cole she added, “Will that be all right?”
In those few moments, Cole arrived at several meaningful conclusions: Gram was not, as he had earlier supposed, merely elderly, outspoken, and endearingly eccentric, she was elderly, outspoken, possibly eccentric, and probably wily as hell.
Corey was an unswerving ally of Diana’s, and possibly neutral where he was concerned, while Diana—Diana with her lovely features and soft voice—was skilled enough in diplomacy to be a tremendous asset at any table, be it dinner table or boardroom table.
He watched her give an enthusiastic accounting of an abrupt, unromantic wedding she barely remembered and flavor it with the sort of details guaranteed to interest both sexes.
“We left the hotel in Cole’s limousine and went to the airport. Cole’s plane is a Gulfstream, Grandpa, and much larger than a little Learjet. You could add it to the model airplane mobile you’ve designed for boys’ bedrooms. Anyway, there was a magnum of champagne in a cooler when we got on board, an
d one of the pilots was already in the cockpit doing—whatever pilots do before the plane takes off,” she said, dismissing the preflight ritual with a wave of her graceful fingertips. “A few minutes later, the other pilot, whose name is Jerry Wade, arrived. Oh, and, Gram—” she added, turning to include that lady in the conversation, who had been frowning intently at Cole until then, “in the dark, he’s a dead ringer for your favorite movie star! I told him he has to drop by and visit you some evening.”
Fascinated by the way that remark pulled Rose Britton’s attention away from him, Cole waited to discover who her favorite movie star was. “He does! Really?” Grandma said with a mixture of doubt and delight. “He looks like Clint Eastwood?”
“Clint Eastwood is practically bald,” Grandpa put in irritably, “and he whispers when he talks!”
Corey leaned sideways and answered Cole’s unspoken question as she handed him the platter of asparagus, “Gram is crazy about Eastwood, and it makes Grandpa jealous. It’s so cute.”
“Mom, you’d love what Cole has done to the inside of the plane. You feel as if you’re walking into a beautiful living room, furnished in platinum leather, with touches of brass and gold. There were two curving sofas that faced each other, with an antique coffee table between them, a matching buffet with brass hinges, and several chairs.”
She’d neatly captured her artistic family’s attention, and as Cole listened to her colorful descriptions of everything from the Waterford crystal lamps to the oriental carpet in the plane’s main cabin, he made two more interesting observations about Diana: first, she had an indisputable talent for using words to create a vivid picture, and second, she was not mentioning the plane’s second-most important feature—its bedroom.
In his mind, he could still see her startling beauty as she lay across the bed’s gleaming silver satin comforter, propped up on an elbow, draped in a vivid purple silk gown that provided him with an erotic glimpse of her full breasts above her bodice. Her face had been turned up to his, inviting his kiss, but as he’d bent over the bed, he’d hesitated. Cold reason and hard logic went to battle against his desire, and they won out over everything else, just as they always did with Cole. Regretfully but resolutely, he’d whispered, “No”; then he’d started to draw back.
Her hand lifted, sliding over his shoulder and behind his nape, her fingers gliding into the short hair above his open shirt collar, and he’d looked into eyes as green as wet jade and as vulnerable as a hurt child’s. “No,” he repeated, but he heard the hesitation and regret in his voice. So had Diana.
Diana switched to a description of the plane’s cockpit, and he wondered whether she’d not mentioned the bedroom out of delicacy, embarrassment, or actual lack of memory. It was hard to believe she could remember that the interior of the plane was upholstered in pale gray leather and forget that one-third of the plane’s cabin was a bedroom. On the other hand, she hadn’t seen the bedroom until after they were married . . . after the stress of a ceremony in a garish, neon-lit chapel, a stop at a casino, and more champagne provided by him to eliminate the stress. She’d forgotten much about the wedding ceremony and the casino; Cole supposed it was equally possible she’d forgotten about the time they’d spent in the plane’s bedroom.
Diana paused in her story to serve herself some of the roasted duck that had just been passed to her, and Diana’s grandmother seized the opportunity to proceed where her husband had left off: “Tell us about yourself, Mr. Harrison,” she said.
“Please call me Cole, Mrs. Britton,” he said politely.
“Tell us about yourself, Cole,” she corrected, though he noticed she did not suggest he call her by anything other than Mrs. Britton.
Cole deliberately referred to his present, not his past. “I live in Dallas, but I travel a great deal on business. In fact, I’m gone about two weeks out of every four.”
She dismissed that, peered at him intently above the rim of her glasses, and bluntly inquired, “Do you go to church on Sunday?”
“No, I do not,” he informed her without hesitation or apology.
A disappointed look creased her brows, but she persevered. “I see. Well, then, what about your family?”
“They don’t go to church either,” he retorted with cool finality.
She looked completely taken aback. “I was asking about your family, not whether they went to church.” She broke off a small piece of buttermilk biscuit and buttered it. “Won’t you tell us a little about your background?” she invited quietly. “Tell us about where you’re from and about your family.”
The suggestion that he do so was so impossible, so abhorrent that Cole stalled for time by taking a bite of his salad while he glanced at the people gathered around the table—nice people who believed there was nothing unusual about sharing Sunday dinner or sitting at a gleaming wood table or having knives and forks that matched or a carpet beneath their feet instead of filth.
He glanced at Diana, who looked as fresh and perfect as an American Beauty Rose, at Addison, who’d never done anything more “demeaning” than lose a tennis game at the country club, and at Mary Foster, who subtly managed to exemplify dignity and grace and unaffected kindness.
On his left, Diana’s grandfather smelled of fresh soap and Old Spice, instead of sweat. Across from him, Diana’s grandmother gazed at him with alert, hazel eyes, her brows slightly raised in hopeful expectation, her face set off by wavy, white hair cropped jauntily and sensibly short, and gold wire-rimmed glasses that looked very nice on her. She looked proper and decent.
Cole would have found it easier and kinder to describe to her the lurid details of his most erotic sexual encounter than to tell her the truth about his early life and origins. Rather than spoil her illusions about her temporary grandson-in-law, he answered the questions with the same evasions that always served his purpose: “I’m from a small town in west Texas called Kingdom City. I had two older brothers, who are dead now, and a few cousins, who eventually moved away and with whom I’ve lost touch—except for one of them. My only other living relative is my great-uncle, who I told you about earlier. My father expected me to stay and work the ranch. Cal believed I had the brains to make it through college, and he badgered me until I began to believe it. He’ll like Diana very much. I’m eager for him to meet her next week.”
“I’m eager to meet him, too,” Diana put in, but she had picked up on the sudden chill, the aloof reluctance in Cole’s entire demeanor at the questions involving his background, and she remembered that years ago, he’d been exasperatingly vague when she tried to find out more about him.
“My uncle lives west of Kingdom City, which is about one hundred eighty miles from San Larosa. It’s not quite the hill country, but it’s beautiful and unspoiled.” Cole paused and ate a bite of duck.
“San Larosa,” Rose Britton said to her daughter. “Wasn’t that one of your stopping places when you and Robert took the girls on their first camping trip to Yellowstone?”
“It’s a popular place for campers,” Cole said, anxious to change the subject. “Although I understand that much of the area’s only suitable for experienced hikers and campers.”
For some reason that comment evoked laughter from the entire family.
“We weren’t exactly ‘experienced,’ ” Mrs. Foster explained. “Corey and I had camped out a few times, and Robert had been a Boy Scout. His only other ‘camping experience’ was limited to ‘tennis camp’ in Scottsdale. But the girls and I thought it would be fun, so off we went on a three-week trip, each of us confident we knew all there was to know about ‘roughing it.’ ”
Cole found it hard to imagine Diana as an avid camper when, even as a fourteen-year-old, she had seemed to be very fastidious about everything from her white tennis shoes to her short, neatly filed fingernails. “Somehow, I never thought of you as someone who would like roughing it, even when you were young.”
“We all had a great time. I loved it,” Diana lied, straight-faced.
Som
ething about that didn’t ring true, and then a hazy memory snapped into focus. “Didn’t we once have a conversation at the Haywards’ stable about things we disliked the most?”
Because Diana had been so infatuated with him at the time, each of their conversations had seemed like earthshaking events to her, and she realized almost at once what he was referring to. Surprised that he remembered it, she took advantage of an unexpected opportunity for lighthearted banter. “Did we?” she asked with a look of innocent bewilderment, before taking a bite of roasted potato.
Cole wasn’t fooled. “You know we did,” he countered with a lazy smile. “Your top two least-favorites were dirt and camping.”
“No, they were snakes and camping,” Diana corrected him, her eyes sparkling with merriment. “Dirt was third on my list.” She looked at Corey and jokingly said, “Even so, we were very well organized and prepared for every eventuality, weren’t we?”
Corey realized immediately what Diana wanted her to do, and she complied at once, eager to help Diana lighten the mood at the table. “Our father wanted the trip to be a joint family effort, so before the trip, we all had assignments. Dad was in charge of transportation and finances; Mom was in charge of food and beverages; Diana was in charge of safety manuals and safety items. I was in charge of first aid and photography. And we were both supposed to have whatever items we felt we needed to be comfortable and safe. I figured Band-Aids and some sunblock would cover first aid, so I started reading up on wildlife photography, but Diana had a much different approach to preparedness. Weeks before we left, she began poring over The Camper’s Guide to Survival in the Wilderness, and The Camper’s Companion.”
“And,” Diana emphasized laughingly, “the L.L. Bean catalogs, from which I had selected and ordered what I felt were absolute necessities for Corey and me.”