Paper Rose (12 page)

“Well?” Holden asked, trying to sound as antagonistic as he usually did, despite the faint crack in his heart.

“Why did you send Cecily to South Dakota?”

Holden caught his breath. He looked around the room, certain that the office had at least one bug, even if he'd had some agents search it with sophisticated electronic equipment. He didn't dare say anything here.

Tate intercepted that concerned look. With a curt laugh, he retrieved some complicated electronic device from his inside pocket, opened it, activated it and put it on the desk in front of him.

He leaned back. “Set a spy to catch a spy, Holden,” he said easily. “You can talk. It's safe. That—” he nodded at the device “—will give anyone listening a hell of a headache.”

Holden relaxed a little. “I can't tell you much,” he said. “It's complicated, and there are innocent people involved.” Certainly there were; Tate was one of them.

“Tell me what you can,” Tate said after a minute. Odd, that hesitation in Holden, that utter lack of real hostility. He'd changed. Tate wondered why.

Holden sat back in his burgundy leather chair and stared at his son. “There's a little cloak and dagger stuff going on at the reservation. I promised someone I'd have a look around, so Cecily's asking a few questions for me.”

“That would be a tribal matter, so why are you sticking your nose in?” Tate said with a scowl, looking so much like his father that, to the man across the desk, it was like looking in a youthful mirror. “You don't have any influence there.”

Holden's high cheekbones flushed ruddy. He averted his dark eyes. His jaw tautened so that the muscles moved involuntarily. “It's a personal matter. A delicate personal matter. Cecily is…finding out a few things for me. Watching some people, that's all. Nothing dangerous.”

Tate leaned forward abruptly, eyes flashing with anger. “If you wanted somebody watched, why didn't you come to me? I've got contacts everywhere! I could have done an investigation for you, without involving Cecily.”

Holden closed his eyes. “You don't understand. I couldn't…have you involved.”

This was getting stranger and stranger. “Why not?”

He stared at a portrait of Andrew Jackson on the wall of his office. Absently he thought of the scandal Jackson had endured over his beloved Rachel. “I can't tell you.” He turned his attention back to his son. “You have to keep right out of this. You can't become involved in any way, not even casually!”

Tate's scowl grew blacker. “You aren't making sense.”

“Damn it…!” He pushed back a stray strand of silver hair and ran his hands over his face. “All right, it's a political threat,” he said slowly, choosing every word. “There's something in my past that I don't want known. It involves an innocent woman whose life would be destroyed. Some people are threatening to go public with it if I don't do…certain things for them.”

“I can be discreet,” Tate said, puzzled.

“I know that.” He drew in a breath that sounded painful. He searched the face of the other man with concern in every line of his own. “But I can't involve you. I won't. If you have any respect for me at all, honor what I'm asking of you. I want you out of this. As far out as you can get!”

The oddest sensation washed over Tate. He felt a sudden strong bond to this man, this enemy. He didn't understand it. It was almost as if Holden were trying to protect him. But why would he need protection?

“I worked for the CIA,” Tate pointed out. “I know how to take care of myself.”

“I know that. It has nothing to do with survival skills.” Holden put his broad face in his hands again. “I've never been in a situation like this, never had my hands tied like this. I deserve whatever I get. I brought it on myself. But I can't let her pay for my sins. I have to protect her, whatever the cost.”

Tate had never thought of the terse senator as a sensitive man. His voice was vibrant with pain, with loss. “You still love her.”

“Of course I still love her!” he bit off, raising his worn face. “I've always loved her. But I was so damned ambitious. I had to be powerful, rich, a world-beater. I married money and sacrificed everything for this office. Now, here I sit, with my sins spread out before me, waiting for the ax to fall. And I've got nobody to blame for it except myself.”

Tate stared at him for a long time. “Does this have something to do with the reason you backed out of the security upgrade you asked me to do for you?”

Holden didn't look at him, but he nodded, a quick jerk of his head.

“None of this makes sense.”

“I hope it never will,” Holden said solemnly. He leaned back wearily in his chair, his big hands gripping the arms until his knuckles went white. “I haven't sent Cecily into any danger, I promise you. I have friends she doesn't even know about who are watching out for her.”

This was puzzling. “You have friends at Wapiti?”

Holden's eyes averted again. “My mother taught school there when I was a boy while my father was serving in the military, so she wouldn't have to drag me all over the world to be educated. I grew up on the reservation.”

There was something. Tate could almost bring it out of his mind, but not quite. There was something he remembered hearing, something…

Holden got to his feet, interrupting the flow of thoughts. “Don't go to South Dakota,” he said. “Don't get mixed up in this. You may do irreparable damage if you do. It's a…delicate situation.”

Tate got up, but he didn't move toward the door. “It was a woman on the reservation,” he said suddenly.

Holden didn't answer him.

“Were you ashamed of her, is that why you kept it secret?”

Holden's dark eyes met his. “She isn't the sort of woman a man could be ashamed of,” he said softly. “Quite the contrary. But I made bad choices, and lost her.”

Tate was surprised that the man would confide in him. It didn't make sense. Of course, nothing else Holden had said made sense, either.

Tate lifted a hand to his forehead. The big silver turquoise ring caught Holden's eye. Funny, it was almost as if the man recognized it.

“My mother gave it to me after my father died,” Tate told the other man, who was obviously curious about the piece of jewelry. “She said it had been my father's. She gave it to him when they first started going together. I hated him. But I wear it to honor her. It was obviously something she cherished.”

Holden remembered the ring. She'd given it to him, the day before he was forced to confess to her that there was no chance for them to be together. He'd given it back to her when he confessed. She'd given it to their son. Their son. He could hardly bear the pain.

Tate wondered at Holden's reaction to the story. His eyes narrowed. “Did you know my mother?”

Holden looked at him with determined blankness. “Cecily talks about her. Her name is Leta, isn't it?”

He nodded.

“I knew a lot of people on the reservation, but at my age, names don't connect with faces anymore,” Holden said.

“Didn't you waste time campaigning at Wapiti Ridge?” Tate asked caustically.

Holden drew himself up to his full height. “No, I didn't,” he confessed coldly. “You see, my wife didn't like Native Americans. She was ashamed for people to even know that my mother had once taught school there.” Holden's eyes began to kindle with bad temper. “In case you don't recognize that attitude, you might ask your friend Audrey why she won't go out there with you. Or are you afraid of the answer?”

Tate stiffened and his eyes glittered at the older man. His fists balled at his lean hips. “Go to hell.”

Holden didn't back down an inch. “I was a battalion commander in Vietnam,” he said in a deceptively soft tone. “Special forces. Don't make the mistake of thinking I'd be a pushover in a fight with a younger man.”

Tate stared at Holden curiously, not intimidated, but recognizing something about the stance of the man, about the look of him. Odd, these flashes of intuition. This man was the worst enemy he had on the Hill. But he respected him. No. There was something more than respect, but he couldn't grasp what it was. “Bring Cecily home,” he said curtly. “I won't have her at risk, even in the slightest way.”

“I'll take care of Cecily,” came the terse reply. “She's better off without you in her life.”

Tate's eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?” he asked, affronted.

“You know what I mean,” Holden said. “Let her heal. She's too young to consign herself to spinster-hood over a man who doesn't even see her.”

“Infatuation dies,” Tate said.

Holden nodded. “Yes, it does. Goodbye.”

“So does hero worship,” he continued, laboring the point.

“And that's why after eight years, Cecily has had one raging affair after the other,” he said facetiously.

The words had power. They wounded.

“You fool,” Holden said in a soft tone. “Do you really think she'd let any man touch her except you?” He went to his office door and gestured toward the desk. “Don't forget your gadget,” he added quietly.

“Wait!”

Holden paused with his hand on the doorknob and turned. “What?”

Tate held the device in his hands, watching the lights flicker on it. “Mixing two cultures when one of them is all but extinct is a selfish thing,” he said after a minute. “It has nothing to do with personal feelings. It's a matter of necessity.”

Holden let go of the doorknob and moved to stand directly in front of Tate. “If I had a son,” he said, almost choking on the word, “I'd tell him that there are things even more important than lofty principles. I'd tell him…that love is a rare and precious thing, and that substitutes are notoriously unfulfilling.”

Tate searched the older man's eyes. “You're a fine one to talk.”

Holden's face fell. “Yes, that's true.” He turned away.

Why should he feel guilty? But he did. “I didn't mean to say that,” Tate said, irritated by his remorse and the other man's defeated posture. “I can't help the way I feel about my culture.”

“If it weren't for the cultural difference, how would you feel about Cecily?”

Tate hesitated. “It wouldn't change anything. She's been my responsibility. I've taken care of her. It would be gratitude on her part, even a little hero worship, nothing more. I couldn't take advantage of that. Besides, she's involved with Colby.”

“And you couldn't live with being the second man.”

Tate's face hardened. His eyes flashed.

Holden shook his head. “You're just brimming over with excuses, aren't you? It isn't the race thing, it isn't the culture thing, it isn't even the guardian-ward thing. You're afraid.”

Tate's mouth made a thin line. He didn't reply.

“When you love someone, you give up control of yourself,” he continued quietly. “You have to consider the other person's needs, wants, fears. What you do affects the other person. There's a certain loss of freedom as well.” He moved a step closer. “The point I'm making is that Cecily already fills that place in your life. You're still protecting her, and it doesn't matter that there's another man. Because you can't stop looking out for her. Everything you said in this office proves that.” He searched Tate's turbulent eyes. “You don't like Colby Lane, and it isn't because you think Cecily's involved with him. It's because he's been tied to one woman so tight that he can't struggle free of his love for her, even after years of divorce. That's how you feel, isn't it, Tate? You can't get free of Cecily, either. But Colby's always around and she indulges him. She might marry him in an act of desperation. And then what will you do? Will your noble excuses matter a damn then?”

Tate flicked off the switch of his device and walked out the door without another word or a backward glance. It didn't occur to him until much later that Matt Holden had called him by his first name.

Matt Holden sat back down at his desk, considering what he'd said to his son. Well, it wouldn't make Cecily any more miserable for Tate to understand why he kept pushing her away. And it had accomplished one important thing—it had diverted his son from asking any more questions about what Cecily was really doing in South Dakota.

T
he autumn sun was bright, even if the day was cold. Colby had put on a stylish jacket with his shirt and slacks, and Leta and Cecily introduced him to Tom Black Knife.

“You have much company these days,” the elderly, slight Tom said to Leta with a smile.

“Oh, these two are close,” Leta said with a grin at the couple near her. “Colby is between jobs, you see, so he spends a little time with Cecily where my son won't see them together. Tate is very protective of her, like a big brother.”

“I remember Tate,” Tom said. He studied Colby. “What sort of a job do you do?”

“I'm a croupier,” Colby lied glibly. “But I can deal faro and blackjack equally well. I worked for the Cherokee nation in their casino in North Carolina.”

Tom looked uncomfortable. “I see.”

“They're trying to get a casino here, I hear,” Colby said carelessly. “I just thought I might throw my name in the hat. I might get lucky, having a job in a place where Cecily spends a lot of time.”

Tom bit his lower lip. He moved close to Colby and took him by the arm. “The casino is…is not hiring outsiders. That is, if it even gets built. You should go away. You should not stay here. Nor should you,” he added, glancing at Cecily. “You could be in danger.”

Colby's eyes narrowed. “What sort of danger?”

“I can say nothing more,” the proud old man said miserably. He let go of Colby's arm. “I pray for guidance, but I am told nothing. It is as if everyone has deserted me.”

Colby suddenly drew the old man away from the women and spoke to him in a Lakota dialect, softly, so that none of the neighbors could overhear.

Tom Black Knife's eyes widened with surprise. “You speak my tongue!” he said in Lakota.

“Yours and my own—Apache,” Colby replied. “I will say nothing to Cecily, nor to Tate. You have my word. Tell me.”

The story came tumbling out. The gambling people knew of a murder that had been committed on the reservation during the time of the militant uprising on the Sioux reservations in the seventies. They could connect Tom with one of the unsolved murders. He could go to prison. There was enough circumstantial evidence to convict him. Although it had been a fair fight, he'd been drinking at the time and some of the details escaped him. Those men had brought evidence with them of his crime, gleaned from his own grandson who'd sold the casino idea to the syndicate as a way to save his life. He owed the men a huge gambling debt. He told them about his grandfather's past and the ideal location of the small reservation and the old notion of the casino. Then he turned them loose on the old man. They had dipped into the funds earmarked for the reservation and dared Tom to tell about it. They had even hired a surveyer and a builder, and they had started greasing political palms to get the casino approved.

“Their names,” Colby persisted.

“It is more than my life is worth to speak them,” Tom said.

“All right. Then tell me when they come again.”

“I cannot,” came the reply in a dead tone. “And you must not be here when they come. They are using our money to hire surveyors and do marketing studies. When I tried to stop them, they threatened to call the FBI.”

Colby knew the terror those threats would strike in the heart of an old man who'd lived free all his life. He wanted to get these men. “Say nothing to anyone,” he concluded. “I'll watch. I'll do something.”

Tom Black Knife looked older than the very hills. “You are not a gambler, I think,” he speculated.

“No, I'm not.”

“But you are a good man.”

“Not anymore,” Colby said grimly. “But I have friends who are.” He thought of something else. “There must be something on paper, some record of these funds…”

The old man looked worried. “Yes, but I keep them locked in my office. I cannot show them to you. They would know.”

Probably they would, Colby thought as the old man went on his way. But not until it was too late. He had a good idea of how to get his hands on the paperwork, without even Tom Black Knife knowing that he had.

 

“Tell me!” Cecily insisted later, shaking Colby by both arms.

“Cut it out, you'll dismember me,” Colby said, chuckling.

She let go of the artificial arm and wrapped both hands around the good one. “I want to know. Listen, this is my covert operation. You're just a stand-in!”

“I promised I wouldn't tell.”

“You promised in Lakota. Tell me in English what you promised in Lakota.”

He gave in. He did tell her, but not Leta, what was said, but only about the men coming to the reservation soon.

“We'll need the license plate number,” she said. “It can be traced.”

“Oh, of course,” he said facetiously. “They'll certainly come here with their own license plate on the car so that everyone knows who they are!”

“Damn!”

He chuckled at her irritation. He was about to tell her about his alternative method when a big sport utility vehicle came flying down the dirt road and pulled up right in front of Leta's small house.

Tate Winthop got out, wearing jeans and a buckskin jacket and sunglasses. His thick hair fell around his shoulders and down his back like a straight black silk curtain. Cecily stared at it with curious fascination. In all the years she'd known him, she'd very rarely seen his hair down.

“All you need is the war paint,” Colby said in a resigned tone. He turned the uninjured cheek toward the newcomer. “Go ahead. I like matching scars.”

Tate took off the dark glasses and looked from Cecily to Colby without smiling. “Holden won't tell me a damned thing. I want answers.”

“Come inside, then,” Cecily replied. “We're attracting enough attention as it is.”

She led the way into the house, which was empty.

“Where's my mother?” Tate asked at once.

“At her craft co-op, passing out new instruction sheets for the women to follow. They're making earrings and a buckskin dress for my exhibit.”

He sat his hands on his hips and stared at her.

Colby cleared his throat. “I'm going to drive down to Red Elk's trading post and get some soft drinks and stuff. Anything you want?”

Tate shook his head.

“Cecily?”

She shook her head, too.

“I'll be back in an hour or so.” He left.

“I want an answer,” Tate told Cecily.

She moved into the living room, avoiding the thick armchair she'd once shared with him to sit on the edge of the sofa. “You'll have to ask Matt Holden. I only know a little part of what's going on here. I was trying to shake another part out of Colby when you drove up and saved him.”

He put his sunglasses on the coffee table and sat down next to her. “What's he doing here?”

“I asked him to come. I needed someone who wasn't known on the reservation to pose as a…as a gambler and ask some questions. Why are you wearing your hair down?”

“Never mind my hair. Why a gambler?”

“Senator Holden was right about the gambling syndicate trying to move in here, I think. Tom Black Knife knows a lot about it, and he's scared. I can't speak Lakota, but I can read faces. Tom told Colby the whole story in Lakota.”

“That's what you were trying to get out of Colby.”

She nodded.

He looked at her in a way he never had before. “You asked him for help instead of me.”

She lowered her eyes to her lap uncharacteristically. “Yes. I did.”

He didn't say anything for a minute. He slid closer to her. His hands went up into the thick braid of her hair and began to unfasten it.

“Tate…!” she exclaimed, shocked and resisting.

“Don't fight me.” He unwound the braid and took out the pins, letting her long, silky hair fall to below her waist, all around her face. He reached for her glasses and took them off, placing them beside his dark ones on the table.

He got up from the sofa, still staring down at her, and went to close and lock the front door. As an afterthought, he put on the chain latch.

“How long will my mother be away?” he asked.

She could hardly speak. Her heart was beating her to death. “She only left a few minutes ago. She's having lunch with her group.”

He nodded and his eyes never left hers. “Colby won't be back for a while, either.”

He moved toward her with an intent that even a blind virgin would have recognized. She got to her feet and tried to back away, but he pulled her to him gently and held her there.

“Cold feet, Cecily?” he asked at her lips. “Or genuine fear?”

“I…don't know.” She rested her clammy, nervous hands on his chest.

He tilted her chin up so that he could see her eyes. “I would never try to force you,” he said solemnly. “Not in any way.”

Her breathing eased, but just a little. She dropped her eyes and stared at the top button of his shirt. A long strand of his black hair almost covered the pocket. She reached up and touched it, savoring its coolness.

He hadn't moved. Her posture, her skittishness, was giving away secrets. “You're afraid of me.”

She had to wait until she could get words past her dry throat. “No. Of course I'm not.”

His hand went hesitantly to her own loosened hair, weaving through it. He stared over her head, breathing deliberately, aware of her warmth against him, the soft, excited sigh of her breath at his throat.

“Why did you tell me Colby had had you?” he asked tightly.

“Now, listen here…!” she began heatedly.

He put a long, lean finger over her lips and met her angry gaze. “I beat the hell out of him over it. Did he tell you?”

“Not over me, you didn't,” she said. “I'm not that important to you.”

He laughed curtly. “You have no idea.”

“How's Audrey?” she asked deliberately.

“How would I know?” He caught the thick hair on both sides of her neck and used it to lever her face up to his. “I haven't seen her lately. And I've never slept with her.”

“That's a nice fairy tale,” she bit off.

“I mean it.”

“You never go around with anyone else,” she said.

“Have you ever taken a good look at her?” he asked quietly. “She's slight. Blond. Light-eyed.”

He was telling her something she couldn't believe. She lifted her eyes to his dark, intent ones.

“I thought I could have you,” he said in a haunted tone. “I've dreamed about it, ached for it, since I kissed you. I came all the way out here bristling with sexual tension, so jealous of Colby Lane that I could have used him as a brush broom. But even so, if he'd had you, you wouldn't still be innocent. I could have had you, without complications, without…guilt.” He sighed harshly and let her go. He moved away to the window and stood looking out it. “I must have been out of my mind. I should have realized that what happened to you would make intimacy a real obstacle, with any man.”

She didn't move. Her eyes were glued to his long, broad back. “He always liked to try to fondle me, even when Mama was alive. After she died…” She lowered her eyes. “That wasn't the only time he tried to rape me. I guess I was just lucky, that last time. I don't know what I would have done without you. You saved me.”

When he turned to stare at her, his eyes were terrible. He was almost shaking with rage. She'd never told him that.

“I wasn't sure what you would have done to my stepfather if I'd told you,” she continued. “I didn't want you to hurt him and get in trouble with the law. I figured I got off lucky. Anyway, it taught me not to trust men. And later on, I had a very bad reaction to boys who tried to grab me or get too intimate with me.” She managed a faint smile. “A couple of my dates in college got a little out of hand. I hurt one of them, with one of those defenses you taught me. After that, nobody wanted to go out with me. The therapist said that even with the sessions, it might take time for me to trust a man enough to let him make love to me completely. The memories I have of intimacy are warped and sickening, and there's still some guilt there. I should have run away sooner….”

“Don't.”

She looked up at him. His voice was harsh, choked with anger. “You have to know this,” she said firmly. “I can't talk to anyone else about it, least of all to your mother. When you kiss me, I get hot all over. I want you closer than I can get to you. I love it when your body swells against me and I know I caused it. But it's never been more than that between us.” She smoothed back her loosened hair. “It was funny that you believed I'd slept with Colby, although I'm sorry it made you hit him for something he didn't do.” She glanced at him with a rueful smile. “I don't know if I can function sexually. Not even with you.”