Heiress (3 page)

Abbie didn't waste any time locating her mother, convincing her that it was time to leave, and hurrying her off to the waiting limousine. She didn't want to take the chance that her mother might run into this woman who claimed. . . It didn't matter what she claimed. The very idea was ludicrous, absurd. The woman was obviously crazy.

The snarl of departing cars on the narrow cemetery lane slowed all movement to a crawl. Her nerves tense and brittle, Abbie leaned back in her seat, wondering how many of their friends that woman had talked to, told her lies to. Texans dearly loved a scandal.

Covertly she glanced at her mother. "Babs—that's short for babbling brook"; supposedly that was the way R. D. Lawson had frequently referred to her, partly in jest and partly seriously. Abbie had to admit that it was a singularly apt description of her mother. Her mother was bubbly and bright, flitting from this thing to that. She could chatter for hours and not say anything. Her life seemed to be nothing more than one long stream of parties. She loved giving them as much as going to them.

Abbie felt that two people could not have seemed less suited for each other than her parents. Yet Babs had absolutely adored Dean. She didn't make a single decision, no matter how trivial, without consulting him. She believed in him totally. Any and everything he did, she thought was perfect.

Not quite everything, Abbie thought, frowning slightly as she recalled arguments that had taken place behind closed, doors: her mother's shrill voice and the sound of crying, her father's angry and determined, yet pained, look when he stalked out. Her mother always remained in the room, sometimes for hours, emerging pale and drawn, unusually silent, her eyes puffy and red. Some of the early memories were dim, yet Abbie had the impression that their arguments were always over the same thing—and that thing was somehow connected to the frequent business trips her father made to California to see one of his clients.

Once, shortly after she had gone off to college at the University of Texas, Abbie had suggested to her mother that she accompany him to Los Angeles. "After all," she had reasoned over, the telephone, "now that I'm not at home anymore, why should you stay in that big house all by yourself? This is the perfect opportunity for you to start going places and doing things with Daddy."

She could still remember the strangled yet adamant no that had come over the line.

"Momma—"

"I hate California," had come the retort, with uncharacteristic bitterness.

"Momma, you have never even been there."

"And I don't care to ever go, either." Abruptly Babs had changed the subject.

With anyone else, Abbie would have demanded to know why. She could become incredibly stubborn when confronted with a wall of any kind. If necessary, she'd take it apart brick by brick just to find out what was on the other side. But it had been obvious this was something Babs didn't want to face. Now Abbie wondered why.

That Rachel woman had said she was from Los Angeles, Abbie recalled unwillingly. Of course, that was just a coincidence—like the distinctive blue of her eyes. Lawson blue. Made uneasy by the thought, Abbie frowned, haunted by the memory of the way her father used to stare at her when he thought she wasn't watching, his expression vaguely wistful and pained, a look of sadness and regret in his eyes, eyes the same shade of deep blue as her own—and that Rachel Farr woman's.

She had always thought he looked at her like that because he wished she had been a boy. What man didn't want a son to carry on the family name and tradition? None, she was sure. He had tried to love her. And she had tried desperately to gain his love without ever fully succeeding.

Maybe that was her fault. Maybe if she hadn't argued with him so much. . . Half the time she had picked a fight with him just to make him look at her instead of through her. They had fought over everything from horses and homework to pot and politics. Their last major confrontation had been over her divorce.

"Abbie, I think you're being too hasty, as usual," he'd said when she told him she had left Christopher. "Every married couple has problems. If you would try to be a little more understanding—"

"Understanding!" she had exploded. "Tell me just how understanding a wife is supposed to be when she discovers that her husband is having affairs—even with women she knows!"

"Now that doesn't mean—"

"What do you expect me to do? Condone it? Are you suggesting that I should look the other way while he makes a fool of me in front of all our friends? I won't be humiliated like that—not again."

"I can understand how you would be hurt by his. . . indiscretions." He had chosen his words with care and slowly paced in front of his desk as if presenting his case to a panel of jurors. "I doubt that he meant for it to happen. Things like that can begin so innocently. Before he knows it, a man can find himself more deeply involved than he ever intended to be. It wasn't planned. It just happened."

"Is that the voice of experience talking, Daddy?" she had caustically shot back at him, only to notice the way he blanched and turned quickly to avoid her gaze. He had looked guilty. Never one to miss an opening that could give her the advantage, Abbie had charged in. "Have you been unfaithful to Momma? Is that why you are siding with Christopher against me, your own daughter? Don't you care that I'm unhappy?"

"Of course, I do," he had insisted forcefully.

"Do you? Sometimes I wonder." She had turned away from him, struggling to control the bitterness she felt. "Daddy, I know you think I should forgive and forget what has happened. But I can't—and won't. I can't trust him. Without trust, there's no love. Maybe there never was any. I don't know anymore, and frankly, I don't care. I just want out of this marriage and Christopher out of my life."

"Dammit, Abbie, no Lawson has ever gotten a divorce."

"In that case, I'll just have to be the first, won't I? It's time somebody set a precedent." On her way out of his study, she had paused at the door. "But don't worry, Daddy. I won't ask you to represent me. I'll get some other lawyer—one without your high scruples."

The subject was rarely broached again after that. Yet Abbie knew he had never truly reconciled himself to the divorce. She had returned home, conscious of the new tension between them and determined to outlast it. Only she hadn't. He had died first. She felt a choking tightness in her throat and tears struggling to surface.

Beyond the tinted glass of the limousine's rear windows, Abbie saw Rachel Farr standing among the gravestones. Had her father had an affair with another woman in the past? Was Rachel Farr the result of it? Was the possibility really as preposterous as she'd first thought?

Too many half-forgotten memories were making it seem more than just a string of coincidences. Snatches of arguments she'd overheard between her parents, the constant trips to Los Angeles, four and five times a year, the way he used to look at her as if seeing someone else—things she had never regarded as pieces to a puzzle were all fitting together now. Devoted husband and father. Had it all been an act? All these years, had he kept another child hidden away in Los Angeles?

Struggling against a sense of betrayal, Abbie stared at Rachel, again considering the startling similarities: the hair color, the shape of the face, and the blue eyes. The prepotency of the sire—that's what Ben would have called it, in horsemen's terms. The ability of a stallion to stamp his offspring with his looks.

It felt as if her whole world had suddenly been turned upside down and shaken hard. Everything she had ever believed to be true, she now questioned. All these years, Abbie thought she knew her father. Now he almost seemed like a stranger. Had he ever really loved her mother—or her? She hated the questions, the doubts. . . and the memories now tainted with overtones of deception.

"Abbie, look!" her mother exclaimed. Abbie instantly stiffened, certain her mother had noticed Rachel Farr. "Isn't that Lane Canfield?"

So consumed with Rachel, Abbie hadn't paid any attention to the man she was talking to. It was Lane Canfield, her father's closest friend. She hadn't seen him since her wedding six years ago, but he had changed very little. He was still trim, still a figure of authority, and still managed to look cool and calm in the afternoon heat despite the suit and tie he wore. If anything, his hair—always prematurely gray—now had more white in it, giving it the look of tarnished silver.

But what was he doing talking to Rachel Farr? Did he know her? He acted as if he did. If all this was true, wasn't it logical that her father would have confided in Lane? That logic became even more damning when Abbie remembered that her father had named Lane Canfield the executor of his will.

"It is Lane." Her mother pushed at the switch on the armrest, trying to open the limousine's automatic windows. Finally the window whirred down, and the humid heat of the June afternoon came rolling into the car. "Lane. Lane Canfield!"

Hearing his, name, Lane turned then walked over to greet them. "Babs. I'm so sorry I wasn't able to get here sooner. I was at a meeting in Saudi Arabia. I didn't receive the news of. . . the accident. . . until late yesterday. I came as quickly as I could," he said, warmly clasping her hand.

"It's enough that you're here. Dean valued your friendship so much, but I'm sure you know that." Babs clung to his hand. "You will ride back to the house with us, won't you?"

"Of course. Just give me a minute."

As he walked away, Abbie wondered if he was going after Rachel. But no, he walked to a black limousine parked several cars ahead and spoke to the driver, then started back. She felt numb, not wanting to believe any of this.

When Lane Canfield climbed into the back of the limousine and sat in the rear-facing seat opposite her mother, Abbie saw the way he looked at her, taking note of her every feature and obviously making the comparison with Rachel. He didn't seem surprised by the resemblance between them—which meant he must have expected to see it, Abbie realized.

"You will stay for dinner tonight, won't you, Lane? The Ramseys and the Coles will be there, and several others said they'd be stopping by. We'd love to have you join us" Babs insisted.

"I'd love to." With difficulty, Lane brought his attention back to Dean's widow, still an attractive woman at forty-eight. "Unfortunately I'll have to leave early. I have to get back to town tonight and attend to some business."

"I understand." Babs nodded, her voice quivering. For an instant, she appeared to be on the verge of breaking into tears, but she made a valiant effort to get hold of her emotions as she turned to Abbie. "Lane was best man at our wedding. But I guess you know that, don't you, Abbie?"

"Yes, Momma."

"I don't think I will ever forget that day." Babs sighed, her face taking on a nostalgic glow. "Do you remember, Lane, how our car wouldn't start? Dean must have worked on the motor for nearly an hour. He had grease all over his tuxedo, and I just knew we were going to have to leave on our honeymoon in that carriage. He tried everything, but he just couldn't get that car to run."

"I believe there were a few parts missing." Lane smiled, recalling how he and his cohorts had sabotaged the vehicle.

"No wonder." Babs laughed, a merry sound still infectious after all these years. "You loaned us your car, I think."

"Yes." He reminisced with her aloud as his mind wandered back to the start of that long-ago day.

Chapter 3

Guests had begun arriving at River Bend long before the wedding ceremony in the garden was scheduled to begin. Everything was pristine white for the occasion. The stately mansion, the ornately carved picket fence, the elaborately scrolled gazebo—all sported a fresh coat of whitewash, as did every building, barn, and fence on the place.

No expense had been spared: even the Spanish moss that naturally adorned the towering oak and pecan trees on the grounds had been sprayed with silver dust, leaving the guests in no doubt that R. D. Lawson wholeheartedly approved of his son's marriage to Barbara Ellen Torrence, the daughter of an old Texas family reputed to have the bluest blood despite the fact that financially they were in the red, victims of the stock market crash of '29; and leaving the guests in no doubt that the Torrences were not too proud to let the nouveau riche R. D. Lawson pay for this lavish and elaborate wedding. As far as R.D. was concerned, no other setting would do but River Bend, restored, virtually rebuilt, to its former glory.

Located on the Brazos River less than twenty miles southwest of the very center of Houston, River Bend was surrounded on three sides by croplands and rice fields, the flatness of the coastal prairie unbroken except by the occasional farmhouse or tree. But the one hundred acres that remained of River Bend conjured up images of the Old South. Here, the strongest and tallest of the oaks, pecans, and cottonwoods that grew in the thick woods next to the river were left standing, towering giants bearded by the lacy moss and strung with wild grape vines.

Set back from the main road, nearly hidden by the trees, the main house was a magnificent fourteen-room Victorian mansion. A wide veranda wrapped itself around three sides of the house, outlined by a handsome balustrade repeated as a parapet around a narrow second-floor balcony. A cupola crowned the third story, which contained R.D.'s billiard room, and provided a center balance point for the corner turrets.

Once this mansion had been the heart of a thousand-acre plantation founded back in the late 1820s by a Southern cotton planter, Bartholomew Lawson, who was drawn to the area, like so many others of his kind, by the rich alluvial soil along the Brazos River bottom. As R.D. liked to remind everyone, there was a River Bend long before there was a Houston. Lawson slaves were in the fields back in 1832 when a pair of land speculators from New York were peddling lots in the tract of land they had bought on Buffalo Bayou.

River Bend flourished for nearly half a century, but the Civil War and the abolition of slavery changed all that. During the years of Reconstruction, large parcels of the plantation were sold to satisfy old debts and claims for back taxes. When R.D. was born at the turn of the century, only three hundred acres of the original plantation were still in the family; not a trace remained of the slave quarters near the river that had once been home to nearly a hundred blacks; and the mansion was a hayshed, its vast lawn and surrounding pecan grove a pasture land for the cattle and hogs. R.D.—his momma called him Bobby Dean—lived with his parents in the cottage that had been built to house the overseer and his family.