LITMIR.BIZ

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him lose control the way Meredith had. He wasn’t sure he was even capable of it now. He felt dead inside. That was how Meredith had looked the last time he’d seen her, standing with her head bent in the hall of his home. She’d looked as if something inside her had died, and her accusing eyes had burned indelibly into his mind. He could see them even now.

      He turned. “It’s all past history. There’s nothing left to build on, even if I were tempted. She was a fling. Nothing more.”

      Myrna relaxed a little. “I’m glad to hear it. Really, Cy, a waitress with a full-blooded Crow Indian for a great-uncle. Not our kind of people.”

      Under his heavy brows, his eyes glittered. “Isn’t that a little snobbish for descendants of a British deserter?”

      Myrna actually gasped. “We don’t speak of that!”

      He shrugged. “Why not? Everybody has a black sheep in the family tree.”

      “Don’t be absurd. Sheep don’t climb trees.” She put down her crocheting. “I’ll tell Ellen that you won’t be in for dinner.”

      She walked past him, her mind whirling with fear and new complications. She didn’t know what she was going to do. She couldn’t have Meredith Ashe in Billings, not now, when she was doing her best to get Cy married. Dragging up an old love affair was the last thing he needed. She’d have to get Meredith out of town, and fast, before she had time to play on Cy’s sympathy or make any hints about what had happened.

      The baby…had she kept the baby she was carrying? Myrna ground her teeth at the thought of Cy’s child being put up for adoption. The baby would have been a Harden, her blood. She hadn’t allowed herself to think of that at the time. She only considered what was best for Cy, and she knew Meredith wasn’t. She’d cut that woman out of his life with surgical precision, and if Myrna could help it, she wasn’t coming back into it now. But she did want to know about the child. If Meredith hadn’t had an abortion, there might be a way to get the child. She’d think about that, and about how to explain it to Cy without involving Meredith in his life again. Having successfully coped with the menace once, she was confident of her ability to do it again.

      

      THE DAY PASSED QUICKLY for Meredith. She gained confidence as she worked, and she liked the people she worked with. They all accepted her at face value, helping her learn the routine and covering for her when she was slow at getting orders to customers. She especially liked Theresa, who was twenty and a raven-haired brunette, a Crow, like Meredith’s late great-uncle.

      Mealtime, however, meant crowds. The food was of sufficient variety and price to attract local people as well as out-of-towners. Many conferences were held in Billings, and not only in the cattle industry. The visitors liked the simple but elegant fare provided—even the southerners. That morning she’d waited on a gentleman from Alabama who was disappointed that grits weren’t served for breakfast this far north. She noticed that he was back for dinner, though, and giving her frankly interested looks. She fended them off politely. Men had no part in her life anymore.

      He was persistent, however. Meredith was busy warding him off once again while he ordered his evening meal when a familiar face came into view at a nearby table. Cy. And not only Cy. Myrna Harden, too.

      Meredith used all of her skills at diplomacy to release herself from the Alabama gentleman and quickly turned in his order. As she did, she remembered that once she’d have switched tables with another waitress to avoid Myrna Harden. Those days were over. She turned and walked over to the table—one of hers—with easy pleasantness, belied only by the cold cruelty of her eyes as they met Myrna Harden’s for the first time in years.

      “Good evening. Would you like something to drink before you order?” she asked politely.

      Myrna’s dark eyes flickered. “I don’t drink,” she said flatly. “As you might remember, Meredith.”

      Meredith looked straight at her, ignoring Cy altogether. “It might surprise you what I remember, Mrs. Harden,” she said quietly. “And my name is Miss Ashe.”

      The older woman laughed, too high pitched and much too mocking for pleasant amusement. “My, aren’t you arrogant for a waitress?” She toyed nervously with the utensils in the place setting. “I’d like to see a menu.”

      Meredith produced two. “I’ll have a glass of white wine,” Cy told Meredith, shifting back on his chair to gauge her reactions. His mother’s hostility disturbed him. Surely he was the one with the grudges.

      “Coming right up,” Meredith said. As she stood at the bar waiting for the drink, she took the opportunity to study her two antagonists. Cy was wearing a dark suit with a conservative tie. His creamy Stetson was parked on a chair at the table, and his thick dark hair was swept back neatly. He didn’t look as if anything would ruffle him, his lean face completely without expression, his deep-set brown eyes staring straight ahead. But his mother was fidgeting beside him. Meredith could see her eyes dart nervously from left to right.

      That body language was revealing. Meredith found it as explicit as a confession. She smiled, slowly and with cold malice, and at that moment Myrna looked at her.

      Her well made up face went pasty. There was something in the expression on that girl’s face, Myrna thought, something in that cold stare that made her backbone turn to jelly. This wasn’t the same girl she’d sent packing. No. There was something very different about Meredith now, and it made her begin to feel nauseated.

      Meredith took Cy’s drink back to the table and placed it before him. She then produced her pad and pen with perfectly steady fingers, mentally thanking Henry for the poise and self-confidence he’d engendered in her.

      “These aren’t necessary,” Cy said curtly, pushing the menu away. “I’ll have a steak and salad.”

      “So will I,” Myrna said stiffly. “Rare, please. I don’t like well-done meat.”

      “Same here,” Cy replied.

      “Two rare steaks,” Meredith murmured, letting her eyes slide sideways to meet Cy’s.

      “Rare, not raw,” he said, uncannily reading the thought in her mind. “I don’t want it to get up and moo at me.”

      Meredith had to fight down a smile. “Yes, sir. It won’t be long.”

      She left them to give in the order, then served it minutes later with cool courtesy.

      “She’s very efficient, isn’t she?” Myrna said icily as they ate. “I can remember one time when she spilled coffee all down my dress, when you took me to that horrid little café for lunch.”

      “You made her nervous,” Cy said tersely. He disliked the memory. His mother had gone out of her way to make Meredith uncomfortable, sniping at her constantly.

      “Apparently I don’t anymore,” Myrna said with faint apprehension. She cut a piece of steak very delicately and raised it to her thin lips, chewing it deliberately before she swallowed. “Maybe she’s married. Did you ask?”

      Cy glared at her. “I didn’t have to. She obviously isn’t.”

      Myrna smiled. “If you say so. Odd, though, isn’t it? A pretty girl of her age, still single.”

      “Maybe I’m a hard act to follow,” Cy said cuttingly, and smiled in that unpleasant way that made Myrna shift on her chair.

      “Don’t be crude, dear. Pass me the salt, please.”

      Cy obliged her. He finished his meal, but he hardly tasted it. Watching Meredith move around the restaurant disturbed him. She was as graceful as ever. More so. There was a new carriage about her, a new confidence combined with a total lack of inhibition. She was nothing like the shy, loving, uncertain girl he’d taken to bed so many years ago. But she still made him burn. His reaction to her was as potent as ever, and he was fighting it with everything in him. Regardless of his mother’s inexplicable hostility toward Meredith, he knew that he couldn’t let the younger

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