LITMIR.BIZ

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      “I know.” Edna stopped and hugged her, smoothing her long, soft hair. “But he was. You can’t go through life looking behind you. The future is bright and sweet, my darling. You have to look ahead.”

      Niki sighed and smiled against the older woman’s shoulder. “Dad and I are so lucky to have you,” she said. “I don’t know how either of us would have coped. Especially Dad. He loved my mother so much.”

      Edna drew in a long breath. “Yes. He was crazy about her.” She smiled sadly. “I loved my husband that way. When he died, I thought my life was over. Then Mr. Ashton offered me a job, and you were in grammar school...” She swallowed, hard. “You see, I was never able to have a child of my own. It was such a privilege, a blessing, to take care of you.”

      Niki drew back, her eyes soft and misty as she met those of the older woman. “You’ve been like a mother to me,” she said. “God knows how I’d have turned out if it had just been me and Dad,” she added with a laugh, lightening the atmosphere. “I guess I’d have learned to play poker and drink whiskey and get in fights with the cowboys.”

      Edna chuckled as she let Niki go. “He did a lot of that. Got stinking drunk and stayed that way for a whole month after the funeral. Most of the cowboys learned to hide in the barn until he had enough and passed out. To give them credit, none of them resigned.”

      “He’s calmed down a bit,” Niki said.

      “Not a lot. He and your friend Blair are cut from the same cloth.” She winced. “Hurts me, to see poor Mr. Coleman like that. His wife was a piece of work.”

      “He really loved her,” Niki said. “I remember when they were just engaged. When he talked about her, his face almost glowed, like his eyes.” She glowered as she finished rinsing a plate to go in the dishwasher and handed it to Edna. “Imagine a woman who thought going to some stupid party was more important than taking care of her sick husband.”

      “She had her priorities,” Edna said curtly. “Money and other men. What a shame. She’s ruined him for marriage. He’ll never take the chance again.”

      “He waited a long time to get married,” Niki said thoughtfully.

      “Yes. Your father said he took the loss of his mother particularly hard. He was vulnerable. That’s probably how that she-cat got her claws into him. Playing up to him, pretending to be concerned, vamping him.”

      “What’s vamping?” Niki asked curiously.

      “Tempting him,” Edna explained. “Most men are weak when a woman uses her body blatantly to tempt them. An experienced woman can make a plaything of a man, if he’s vulnerable.”

      “It’s hard to think of Blair Coleman being susceptible like that.”

      “He’s a man, honey,” Edna chuckled. “They’re all susceptible.”

      “I don’t know much about that.”

      “You’ll never learn, staying in this house all the time,” Edna continued. “You have to get out into the world and meet people. Meet men. Honey, you were made for a home and children.”

      Niki made a face. She couldn’t tell Edna about her hopeless passion for Blair, so she improvised. “I’m sick all the time. What sort of man wants a woman like that?”

      “Your mother was sickly, too,” Edna said. “But your father loved her madly. It made no difference to him, except that he spent a lot of time taking care of her.” She smiled gently. “You love people for what’s inside them. You live with the problems they have. That’s what a good marriage is all about.”

      “I’m not sure I’ll ever get married,” Niki said. “I don’t mix well with other people. Especially men.”

      “You get along fine with Mr. Coleman,” Edna pointed out.

      “Yes, but I’m not—what was that word you used, vamping? I’m not trying to vamp him.”

      “Just as well,” Edna chuckled. “He’d put you down pretty quick if you tried. He thinks you’re way too young for him.”

      “I know,” Niki said, averting her eyes so that Edna didn’t see the flicker of pain in them. “I guess I could get a job. There’s an opening at the company Blair owns in Catelow, that mining office. They were advertising for a clerk.”

      “You have a degree in geology,” Edna began. “I heard Mr. Coleman say they had an opening for a field geologist, too.”

      “Yes, they do,” she replied. “Can you really see me going out into the field and working? I’d have to wear masks and carry all sorts of inhalers and medications, and I’d probably still get sick.”

      Edna grimaced. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

      “It’s okay. I’m glad you don’t think of me as disabled. But in that sense, I am. My lungs won’t let me do a lot of things. I even have trouble sitting in church next to women who think wearing a bottle of perfume is the way to attract attention.”

      “Never have understood that,” Edna agreed. “I have a friend who has migraine headaches constantly. She never sees a connection between the thick perfume she wears and the headaches. She wears a layer of bath powder that’s as bad as the perfume. Even started me sneezing in church last week,” she laughed.

      “I suppose we’re all blind to our own faults,” Niki had to agree.

      “You going to Yellowstone with Mr. Coleman, then?”

      Niki shrugged. “I guess I am.” She didn’t add that she was nervous of being alone with him. Not because she didn’t want to be. But he was experienced, and she had no way to hide the effect he was starting to have on her. She’d have to try, though. It would just be too humiliating to have him know that he was the star in her sky.

      * * *

      THEY LEFT EARLY the next morning in the luxury car Blair had rented at the airport. He glanced at Niki to make sure she had her seat belt on. He smiled to himself at the picture she made in that soft yellow sundress with its spaghetti straps and long full skirt. She was wearing her beautiful blond hair down. It reached to her waist in back. She was very pretty. Very fragile. He frowned.

      “Got your meds?” he asked suddenly.

      She grimaced. “Yes.”

      “Sorry. I don’t mean to sound like an overprotective parent.”

      “It’s okay.” She didn’t mind if he treated her like a child. Of course she didn’t. She worried her shoulder bag in her lap and looked out the window.

      “I’m sorry that I said what I did yesterday, too,” he added curtly. “But I meant it, Niki. You can’t spend your life hiding from the world because of one stupid drunken date.”

      She drew in a long breath. “I guess not.”

      “A man who cares about you won’t be rough,” he added. “He won’t try to force you.”

      “I know.”

      She didn’t know. He wondered just how much experience with men she really had. She’d told him that she was still a virgin the night he saved her from the overbearing date. But that had been before she graduated, two years ago. He shouldn’t be curious. It wasn’t his business, but...

      “Have you ever been intimate with a man?”

      Her faint gasp told him everything. His teeth ground together. “Maybe that brooch I gave you was more accurate than I realized. You really are a little hothouse orchid, aren’t you?” he asked through his teeth.

      She bit her lower lip. She couldn’t look at him. “I go to church,” she began.

      “A lot of people do. It doesn’t mean that you have to live a life of total chastity,” he said curtly.

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