LITMIR.BIZ

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good life. Then I settled for friendship. We haven’t had the best of marriages, but I promise you I’ve loved her enough for both of us. I still do,” he said, smiling.

      Her big brown eyes searched his face. “Nita wants me to go down to the Caribbean with her.”

      “Your mother will have a fit.”

      “Yes, I know. I don’t really want to go anyway.”

      Frank Samson grimaced. “Yes, you do. You’re entitled to a life of your own. It’s just that your mother doesn’t realize how possessive she is. She leads you around like a puppy, and you let her,” he said, pointing a lean finger her way. “You’re a big girl now. Stop letting her run over you.”

      “She means well,” Bess began hesitantly.

      “Don’t wait too long,” he added. “Parents can do a lot of damage without realizing it.”

      “I’m not damaged,” she protested, although in a sense she was. She wanted Cade, and her mother would fight her tooth and nail if she knew how badly.

      “Where in the world have you been?” Gussie Samson muttered angrily as she came down the staircase in a delicately woven white-and-cream wool suit with pink accessories. Her tinted blond hair was elegantly coiffed and her makeup was perfect. In her younger days Gussie Granger Samson had had a brief career on the stage. Her roles had been supporting ones, not leading ones, but she still acted as if she’d been a full-fledged star, right down to the elegance of her carriage.

      “I stopped by Lariat to tell Elise some of their calves got out of the fence,” Bess said.

      Gussie glared at her with angry green eyes. “I suppose Cade was at the house?”

      “No, Cade wasn’t at the house,” Bess replied quietly.

      Gussie sighed angrily. “I don’t want you near that man. He’s a common cowboy...”

      “He’s an able and intelligent man with great potential,” Frank argued, putting an arm around his wife. “Stop riding him. All that is in the past, remember? And better forgotten.”

      Gussie flushed, darting a glance at Bess. “Never mind the past,” she told Frank quickly. “Shall we go?”

      Bess was more in the dark than ever after that statement. She wondered if she knew her parents at all, especially Gussie. But she wasn’t one to pry into people’s secrets, so she smiled and waved goodbye to her parents and went upstairs to change.

      That night she overheard an argument between her parents over money, and although they made up quickly, she couldn’t forget it. The next evening a man came to see her father.

      “Who is he?” Bess asked Gussie curiously.

      “I don’t know, darling,” Gussie said nervously. “Your father’s been in a terrible mood for two days. He snaps and snarls and his color is bad. I don’t know what’s wrong, but something is.”

      “Can’t you ask him?”

      “I did. He only stared at me. There’s a party tomorrow night at the River Grill. Want to come with your father and me?” she coaxed. “The Merrills will be there, and their son, Grayson, is going to be with them.”

      “Gray’s very nice, but I don’t want to be thrown at him, if you don’t mind,” she said softly. “I’m not in the market for a rich husband.”

      “You’ll enjoy yourself,” Gussie assured her, smiling. “Now, no more arguments. You know you love seafood, and Gray is just back from a month in Europe; he’ll be full of stories. You can wear your new gray crepe dress and that pretty fox cape I bought you for Christmas.”

      “But, Mother...”

      “Let’s have some coffee. Ask Maude to fix a tray, dear, and perhaps your father and his guest will join us. There’s a good girl,” Gussie added, patting Bess’s hand absently.

      Bess gave up. It was easier than trying to fight Gussie, but she knew that someday she was going to have to stand up to her. Giving in was a dead end. Her father was right. Odd, she thought, that her father should have made such a statement, when it was usually Cade who disliked Gussie’s overbearing maternity. She knew that Cade and her father talked a good deal when they had business meetings about the new real-estate investment. But surely Cade wouldn’t have talked to her father about so personal a subject. Would he?

      She came back from the kitchen still pondering, when Gussie came running toward her, wild-eyed and breathless.

      “Your father’s guest left, and now Frank’s locked the study door and I can’t make him answer me!” she cried. “Bess, something is terribly wrong!”

      “But...what could—”

      They heard the chilling, loud report of a pistol and they both froze in place. Then Bess turned and ran down the hall to the study, trying the door with both hands, banging on it, kicking.

      “Daddy!” she screamed. She turned to Gussie. “Call the police!”

      “The police?” Gussie just stood in place, white and shaking.

      Bess ran to the phone, ignoring her shocked mother, and her hands shook as she searched frantically for the number, dialed it, and gave her sketchy information to the man who answered the phone.

      Minutes later sirens wailed toward the house, and the nightmare began. The door to the study was finally forced open. Bess got a brief and all too good look at her father’s body, where it was sprawled on the carpet in a pool of blood. She shuddered and had to run into the guest bathroom as her stomach emptied itself. Gussie, in shock, had gone upstairs even before the police came and Bess phoned the doctor when she came out of the bathroom.

      The rest of the night went by in a blur of pain, grief, and numb shock. She answered questions until she wanted to scream, vaguely aware that Cade was suddenly there.

      He fielded the police, lifted Bess in his hard, strong arms and carried her up the staircase into her room. She was barely coherent and shaking all over with mingled horror and fear. “The police...” she whispered huskily.

      “I’ll cope with everything,” he said firmly, easing her down onto the bed. He removed her shoes and gently covered her quivering body with a sheet. “Try to sleep. The doctor is with your mother, but I’ll send him along when he’s finished.”

      “He killed himself,” she said, choking.

      “Lie still. Everything will be all right,” he promised. His dark eyes scanned her white face. “If you need me, just yell. I’ll be around for a while. At least until you’re asleep.”

      Her eyes searched his hard face and she reached up with a numb hand to touch it while tears escaped her eyes. “Thank you.”

      He clasped her hand for an instant and then laid it beside her on the coverlet. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

      The doctor came and gave her a sedative, murmuring comforting things. She was aware of Cade’s concerned gaze once or twice, but then the sedative took effect and she slept. When she woke, the house was empty, and the pain began.

      Gussie was no help at all. She wailed and moaned and had hysterics every two hours, and took sedatives by the handful. As the day wore on, Bess began to realize just what a headache she’d inherited. If this was any indication of what was to come, her life was going to be hell.

      Cade hadn’t come back. She found that curious since she knew he’d been there the night before, but apparently he’d made all the arrangements and had felt that Gussie wouldn’t welcome his presence.

      “I’m so glad you’re strong, Bess,” Gussie sniffed as they sat in the living room. “I couldn’t have coped.”

      “I didn’t. Cade did,” Bess said quietly. “He carried me upstairs and got the doctor. I caved in, too.”

      “You

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