what is that?”
Fiona’s blue eyes bored into him. Her hands fisted on the table. “Someone who wouldn’t take advantage of her. Someone who would make her happy.”
“She wasn’t happy with my father?”
Fiona gave an unladylike snort. “Not hardly.”
Faron waited for her to say more. He didn’t have to wait long.
“Wayne Prescott abused my sister. Oh, not so much physically. Although I know he hit her once or twice. But he crushed her spirit. Or at least he tried. Toward the end Belinda learned to hide what she was feeling, and he left her alone.”
Faron felt a rage such as he had never known directed at a man who was beyond his reach. “Why didn’t she leave him?”
“I asked her the same question. She said they had made a deal, and she owed him her loyalty.”
“What kind of deal?”
Fiona’s eyes were bleak. “Belinda sold herself to get the money to take care of us. Me and Dori and Tillie. When she married Wayne he established a substantial trust fund in each of our names. Dori went to UCLA and fell in love with Bill. Tillie married the doctor who put the cast on the broken leg she got skiing in Colorado. I bought a bed and breakfast in Vermont. Belinda got nothing. Except marriage to Wayne.
“Of course, all of us were too young to realize what she was doing when she did it. She told us she was in love with Wayne, and during the first couple of years they got along pretty well.”
“What happened then?”
“Wayne started to gamble. He lost big. He took it out on Belinda. He kept her like a prisoner here, wouldn’t let her go anywhere. I guess he was afraid she wouldn’t come back. If it hadn’t been for Madelyn, she probably would have left him.”
“What does Madelyn have to do with anything?”
“You’ve seen them together. Madelyn treats Belinda like the daughter she never had, and Belinda returns her affection. They both tried to curb Wayne’s excesses. Sometimes I think if Belinda hadn’t been there, Wayne might have taken out his frustrations on his mother.”
“Not the best father figure a man could have.”
“I’m sorry. I forgot he was your father. But he wasn’t really, was he? I mean, someone else raised you. You’re certainly nothing like Wayne from what I’ve seen today.”
“The question is whether Belinda sees my father when she looks at me,” Faron said.
“I don’t see how she could,” Fiona said. “You don’t look a thing like him. You don’t act like him, either. Wayne mostly thought about himself. From things Belinda has told me about you—”
“Belinda talked to you about me?”
Fiona shrugged. “She just told me you were Wayne’s son.” Belinda had revealed a whole lot more about her feelings for Faron Whitelaw through what she had not said. But Fiona wasn’t about to give away Belinda’s secrets to the cowboy. She would keep her eyes open over the next couple of days and make her own judgment about whether Faron deserved a chance with Belinda.
“Guess I’d better go see if I can help get things settled upstairs. I’ll be down later to help with the dishes,” Fiona said.
Faron looked around him and realized everything was still sitting on the table. With Rue sleeping off her latest binge there was no one to handle such details. “I’ll take care of it,” Faron said.
Thus, when Belinda came downstairs she found the table cleared, the leftovers put away and Faron wiping down the counters with a sponge.
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