Texas rich (15 page)

A thick rattly cough came over the wire. Moss could just picture the speculations, the choices, that were running through the old man's head. The baby was going to clinch it. Seth would never chance alienating his son and grandchild. "What's the mother like?" Pap asked.

Moss almost laughed. How could he tell Pap that Agnes was a ring-tailed bitch? "Just like you. Pap. You're going to love her, too."

"Your mother wants to speak with you," Seth said coldly. "Don't hang up when you're done talking to her. We aren't finished yet."

"Yes we are. You just haven't accepted it yet." Moss grinned down at Billie and drew her close. It was done. The old man wouldn't cross him now, not with the heir to the Coleman empire in the offing.

"Mam! It's good to hear your voice. You feeling all right?"

The voice was wavery and tearful. It saddened Moss. "We miss you, son. I'm so happy for you. I'm certain Billie is a wonderful girl and we're going to love her just the way we love you. When will we get to meet her?"

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"Soon. Pap will explain it all. Billie and her mother are coming to Austin. Take care of them for me, Mam. Promise me.*'

"I promise, darlin'. What does this mean? Are you being reassigned? I thought your father took care of that "

"He did, Mam, but I undid it." Before she could ask any more questions, he handed the phone to Billie.

Startled, Billie swallowed hard. "Mrs. Coleman. This is Billie Ames. No, I mean Coleman." Moss grinned down at her flustering. "It's so nice to talk to you. I'm looking forward to meeting you and Mr. Coleman. I just hope our coming to Austin isn't going to be an imposition."

"Dear child, I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm delighted. In fact, I can hardly wait to get everything ready for you. Billie, I do want us to get on together, for Moss's sake."

"Thank you, Mrs. Coleman. I'll put Moss back on. He wants to talk to his father again."

Moss took the phone. This time there was something different in Pap's voice. Was it acceptance of his reassignment? Never. It was the baby. He'd probably enrolled it in Texas A&M by now. A trust fund and the kid's first pony were akeady on order. Seth would handle it all. "Send your family on, son. We'll take care of them for you. Take care of yourself, son. You're a damn fool. You know that, don't you?"

"I had a hell of a teacher. I love you. Pap."

"I know you do, son. Knock them on their ass for all of us."

The connection was broken.

In Austin, Texas, Seth Coleman rose abruptly from his oversized desk in the library and went to stand before the long windows that overlooked the back gardens of Sunbridge and the rolling hills of the cattle range beyond. He deliberately turned his back on his wife so she wouldn't see his defeat. The call from Moss had come as a crushing blow. The boy was going off to war and the sudden news of a grandchild was a trade-off.

Jessica Coleman watched her husband, wringing her hands in sympathy. Seth's love for Moss was obsessive and the thought of losing his son to the war was crippling. Jessica loved her son no less, and her fears were just as great; but her love was tender and maternal, without the driving power and posses-siveness of Seth's. It was the way Seth loved—or hated—and

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she had come to accept it years ago, had learned to live with it. And what Seth neither loved nor hated did not exist for him. She, Jessica, did not exist.

"You've got yourself a daughter-in-law, Jess," Seth told her. He turned to face her and she saw he'd come to terras with Moss's decision. "But I've got myself a grandson!"

Billie lay beside Moss, watching him sleep. She needed to commit him to memory, so when she closed her eyes she could bring him back to her and conjure every hne, every detail of him. She wanted to remember how his hands felt on her body as he loved her, slowly, completely. Her heart was breaking at the thought of his leaving, but it was a burden she wouldn't ask him to take to war.

She snuggled down against him, taking his warmth, resting her head against his shoulder. It was impossible not to touch him, not to smooth her hand over the breadth of his chest and the flatness of his belly. She loved him, and for this time at least, he was hers.

He stirred beneath her touch and turned his face to kiss her brow. His arms wrapped her in his embrace and he murmured her name. Billie's hand slipped lower, brazenly awakening him, sliding beneath him as he rolled toward her. At least she would have this to take to Texas with her.

{{{{{{{{{ CHAPTER SEVEN )}))}}})}

The week-long train trip to Austin, with its stopovers and delays and bone-rattling clackety-clack, was pure tormre for Billie. Morning sickness, which continued for most of the day, had struck again within an hour of Moss's leaving. She was nauseated from waking till midaftemoon, and then was so debilitated and exhausted that she spent the entire trip in her lower berth with a bucket provided by a kindly conductor. Agnes fussed and clucked for the first two days but gave it up after Billie cried to be left alone to die in misery.

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Agnes absented herself somewhat gratefully and dined in style three times a day in the luxurious dining car, where she made it her business to tell anyone who'd listen that she belonged to the Coleman family of Austin. She never considered this a direct lie, leaving it to the listener to assume she was a blood Coleman or to wonder just who or what a Coleman was. Her entire attention was taken up by the adventure of it all; this trip was like an overture to the opening act. Not once did Moss Coleman enter her mind; from the moment he had stepped aboard the transport that would take him to San Diego and then on to Hawaii, he had been forgotten. Moss Coleman had served his purpose.

The Southern-Pacific superliner pulled into the Austin station the morning of August 25, 1942. Billie held her mother's arm and fought down the bile that waS"rising in her throat. Her eyes were rimmed with purple shadows. Her legs trembled from lying in her berth for almost seven straight days, jarring her spine and increasing her queasiness. She looked gaunt and sick.

"Mrs. Coleman?" A white-jacketed porter approached them, smile gleaming.

"Yes," Agnes answered for Billie, who sank down again on the edge of the lower berth.

"If you'll follow me, Mrs. Coleman, I'll take you to your party. They're waiting on the platform. If you give me your stubs, I'll get your bags and bring them out to the car."

Obviously, the Colemans tipped generously, Agnes thought; this explained the porter's toothy grin. She dug into her purse and extracted the baggage claim stubs. "Come along, Billie. We mustn't keep everyone waiting."

The porter led them to the back of the train and positioned a little stepstool to help them disembark. The capped head and uniformed shoulders of a chauffeur were visible behind a white-haired woman and a tall, bulky-shouldered man leaning on a cane. They stood apart from the station throng.

Billie's eyes met those of her father-in-law and she was sure of what she read in them: So this was the fragile, sickly female that Moss had the misfortune to marry! She turned to Moss's mother and saw compassion and understanding in the soft gray gaze. Billie found herself heading for the woman's outstretched arms.

"You're ill, child," Jessica Coleman said. "You come along

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with me. Tita—that's our housekeeper—has a cure for everything, and that includes morning sickness. We'll have you right as sagebrush in a few days." She didn't even have to look at her husband to know he must be thinking that Moss had gotten himself an ox in a ditch when he'd chosen this ashen-faced child to produce the Coleman heir.

Jessica turned to Agnes. "I hope you'll enjoy Sunbridge as much as we do, Mrs. Ames," she said quietly, and Billie recognized the soft drawl that was Moss's.

Agnes's polite response was designed to make perfectly clear right from the beginning that her coming to Texas had been Moss's idea entirely—it had seemed to ease his mind before he went away, and so, of course, she'd been prompted to oblige. This Agnes said without gushing, without any display of emotion. Her manner was subdued, exactly correct. Seth observed the performance and remembered Moss's remark when asked what the mother was like: "Just like you, Pap." Well, here she was. Agnes Ames in her severely tailored suit and small black hat atop her chestnut curls. A woman of few words and with a no-nonsense look about her. Seth approved. He looked at Billie and thought how unfortunate it was that Moss's tastes didn't run along the same lines.

"Why don't you take the little gal to the car, Jess," Seth suggested. "Poor li'l thing looks about done in. Mrs. Ames and I will be along shortly. Carlo," he addressed the chauffeur, "take care of the baggage."

Seth took Agnes's arm as they walked behind Jessica and Billie. "I wonder if you'd mind if we let Jess and your daughter go ahead to Sunbridge. I'm going to the office and we can take a company car home from there." Seth had no intention of riding forty miles in a car with a retching mother-to-be and this was as good a time as any to get to know Agnes.

"I wouldn't mind at all. Billie is hardly tit company these days. The baby, you know."

Seth forced a smile and his blue eyes beneath the thick gray hair glittered in a way remarkably like Moss's. Agnes watched to see if he carried the cane for effect or out of need. He did walk with a slight limp, but not enough, she thought, to warrant the cane. There was nothing of the invalid about this tall, powerful man, whose eyes seemed to see everything and whose words said only half of what he meant. Agnes already felt completely coniifortable with him but she knew instinctively

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that hers was the exceptional reaction: Seth Coleman would be intimidating to most women and especially someone as young and naive as Billie.

Agnes missed nothing, from the uniformed chauffeur to Seth's white custom Stetson to Jessica's expensive silk-blend suit and Stone Marten stole. When the baggage had been stowed in the trunk of the luxurious black Packard, Agnes climbed in the backseat, beside Jessica and Billie; Seth sat in front, with Carlo.

"Jess, Carlo will drop Mrs. Ames and me at the office. There's something I have to sign. We'll follow you in one of the company cars."

"Perhaps Mrs. Ames is tired and would prefer to go directly to Sunbridge," Jessica said, offering Agnes the opportunity to decline Seth's arrangement.

"Nonsense!" Seth declared.

"Actually, I had a very good night, Mrs. Coleman. I'd be delighted to accompany Mr. Coleman to the office and follow later."

Jessica smiled and nodded.

"She's Jessica and I'm Seth," her husband growled from the front seat.

"And I'm Agnes," she replied, mimicking his tone.

In spite of himself, Seth grinned. So the old girl could give as good as she got. Perhaps there was hope for the daughter after all. Perhaps in a few years she'd lose that soft edge and smarten up, be more like her mother. He was going to enjoy having Agnes about, Seth decided, as he decided most things, instantly. The women in his household were just too soft, too easily brought to tears. Agnes would be a refreshing change.

Agnes had been expecting Austin to be a frontier town, like in a western movie, but she couldn't have been more wrong. They drove down wide-paved streets, between sidewalks almost as wide. The downtown shopping area, while less developed and hectic than New York, certainly could rival Philadelphia's. The long black Packard came to a stop before a tall building with a pink Italian marble fagade. Engraved in the lintel over the brass-and-glass revolving doors was the name Coleman. Agnes was impressed but kept her counsel, as though she were used to associating with people who owned their own skyscrapers. Remembering BiDie, she said, "You will be all right, won't you, dear? I'm certain I'll be joining you before long."

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Billie, her eyes closed against the bright sunhght and the motion of the car, simply nodded. She'd be glad when Agnes left the car, taking the overpowering scent of her Tabu perfume with her.

"Billie will be fme, Agnes," Jessica reassured her. "We're heading straight home and I'll put her right to bed. Seth, why don't you take Agnes out to lunch? It will be well past noon before you'll be able to get out to Sunbridge, anyway."

"I'll do that, Jess," Seth said politely. Why did Jess think people needed three squares a day to survive? He could remember a time when if he ate once a day, he could consider himself lucky.

Billie slept the forty-odd miles to Sunbridge and Jessica found herself patting Billie's arm. She wanted to gather the young girl close to her but was afraid to disturb her.

Billie Ames Coleman, Moss's wife, her son's wife, and within her she carried Moss's child. Her own honest-to-good-ness grandchild. There was a time, so long ago, when she was as bright and hopeful and young as Billie. Time and Seth had changed that.

She was being bitter, something she usually reserved for the early hours of the morning when she awoke in her bed, alone. A body had a right to feel bitter at such times. Was it too much to ask to have affection and tenderness and perhaps just a tiny dose of companionship at her age? She wished fervently she could point to a time, a place, when things had changed between herself and Seth. If she had to choose, it would be the day of Moss's birth. She'd done what was expected, given him a son. His first son, he'd declared, the first of many! When Amelia had been bom it was a disappointment that had turned bitter when it was discovered Jessica could bear no more children. Yes, that's when things went wrong, when Seth no longer came to her bed....

Jessica had been wildly in love with the larger-than-life, rawboned Seth Coleman. She always laughed when he told her she was just what he needed, a refined gentle lady to upgrade the Coleman bloodline. "Jess, you have class," he would tell her, sweeping her into his arms. He knew what he wanted and he wanted her. He made no secret of his desires, telling anyone" who would listen. She couldn't resist the handsome, aggressive yoang man, though he had worked with his hands in the oil fields and still had the dirt under his fingernails two years after