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 mean that man was in my house all night?” Gussie raged. “I won’t have him here, I won’t!”
“This is no time for hysterics, Mama,” Bess said in a soothing tone. “I couldn’t attend to details, but Cade did. Whatever you think of him, Daddy liked him—they were friends.” She shuddered to think of Cade having to see what she’d seen through that opened door. He’d liked her father. “Why did he do it?” she asked huskily. “Why? I don’t understand what’s happened. Daddy was rational and strong...”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Gussie said. “Now, do get me some coffee, darling, please. We’ll sit and talk.”
Their attorney, Donald Hughes, came to the house just after lunch to tell them what was going on prior to the reading of the will, which would be the next day, after the funeral. Cade had arranged the funeral, too, thank God, with Donald’s help.
Bess listened to Donald’s quiet voice with a feeling of utter shock, and Gussie’s face went from white to red to paste.
“We’re what?” Gussie faltered.
“You’re bankrupt,” Donald replied gently. “The investment scheme your husband involved himself in was a fake. The perpetrators are already out of the country and can’t be extradited. Frank invested everything he had. That’s gone, along with Cade’s ten thousand dollars. And unfortunately Frank guaranteed Cade’s money back to the penny. I’m sorry. It’s all legal. There’s nothing you can do, I’m afraid.”
There was one thing Gussie could do, and she did it. She fainted.
Bess sat there with her eyes glued to the lawyer’s face, not moving, not speaking as she tried to absorb what Donald had said. Her father had been involved in an illegal operation, and it had failed. He’d lost everything and sold out his friends, and that was why he’d killed himself.
That was understandable, in a way. But now Gussie and Bess were left with his debts and they were going to lose everything. Worst of all, they were going to lose the house. It would mean having to move and being poor, and having to start again from scratch. Bess looked down at her mother, absently thinking that Gussie looked beautiful even when she was unconscious. Bess wished she could faint, too, and wake up to find that it was all just a bad dream. But Donald was very real and so was her mother. It was all real. And her problems were only just beginning.
BESS WAS A little calmer by nightfall. Except that Gussie was wearing on her nerves. She wondered how she was going to cope with everything. When the shock finally wore off, it would be much worse, she knew.
It had started to snow. The silent feathering of it in the darkness was almost reverent, but Bess only half noticed the white blanket covering the ground. A pickup truck, an old familiar one, pulled into the driveway, its headlights blinding her for an instant before it stopped and the engine was cut off. Cade. She relaxed, just a little. Somehow she’d known that he would come back.
“Who’s that outside, Bess?” Gussie asked, pausing on the landing upstairs to look down at her daughter.
“It’s Cade,” Bess replied and waited for the inevitable explosion.
“Again?” Gussie said wearily. “He’ll want his money of course.”
“You know very well he didn’t come for that,” Bess said gently. “He’s come to see about us. Can’t you be a little grateful for all he’s done already? Neither of us was able to cope with the funeral arrangements, and that’s a fact.”
Gussie backed down. “Yes, I’m grateful,” she said, wiping away more tears. “But it’s hard to be grateful to Cade. He’s made things so difficult over the years, Bess. Elise and I were once friends, did you know? It’s because of Cade that we aren’t anymore. No matter,” she said when Bess tried to question her. “It’s all over now. I’m going upstairs, darling. I can’t talk to him. Not now.”
She watched her mother move tiredly back into her bedroom with a sinking feeling that her life was going to be unbearable from now on. Her father’s unexpected suicide had shocked the small Texas community almost as much as it had astounded Frank Samson’s family. None of the scandal had been his fault. He’d been an innocent pawn in the fraud. Cade wouldn’t blame him, though, or his family. Cade had too much sense of family himself to do that.
She peeked out the lace curtain, her soft brown eyes hungry for just the sight of the man outside. She pushed the long honey-brown hair from her shoulders, idly tugging it into a ponytail that abruptly fell apart. Cade had that effect on her. He made her nervous; he excited her; he colored her life. She was twenty-three but still a sheltered innocent because her father had been unusually strict. Maybe that was why Cade wouldn’t have anything to do with her. He’d been raised strictly, too, and his family was staunchly Baptist. Seducing innocents would be unthinkable to such a man, so it hadn’t been surprising that Cade acted as if she didn’t even exist most of the time.
Of course he had a lot on his mind. But he was nothing like his younger brothers, Robert and Gary, whom she adored. Cade never flirted with her or asked her out. He probably never would—she wasn’t his type, as he’d told her once. She could still blush about that, remembering her shy worship of him the summer he’d taught her to ride and what he’d done about it.
Bess knew that he’d lost far more than he could spare because of her father, and she wondered how in the world she and her flighty, spendthrift mother were ever going to settle the debts. Oh, Dad, she thought with a bitter smile, what a mess you’ve landed us all in. She spared a thought for that poor, tortured man who hadn’t been able to bear the disgrace he’d brought on his family. She’d loved him, despite his weakness. It was hard giving him up this way.
Outside, the wind blew up, but it didn’t slow Cade’s quick, hard stride. She knew that a hurricane wouldn’t, once he set his mind on something. Bess shivered a little as she saw him heading toward the front door, his worn, dark raincoat brushing the high grass as he walked through it, snow melting as it fell against the brim of his gray Stetson. He walked as he did everything else, relentlessly, with strides that would have made two of hers. As he came into the light from the porch, she got a glimpse of cold dark eyes and a deeply tanned face.
He had very masculine features, a jutting brow and a straight nose and a mouth like a Greek statue’s. His cheekbones were high and his eyes were very nearly black. His hair, too, was very nearly black, and thick and straight, always neatly cut, very conventionally, and neatly combed. He was tall and lean and sensuous, with powerful long legs and big feet. Bess adored the very sight of him—worn clothes, battered Stetson, and all. His lack of wealth had never bothered her. Her mother’s frank dislike of him was the major stumbling block. That and Cade’s cold indifference. She thought sometimes that she’d never live down that long-ago confrontation with him, that he’d never forget she’d thrown herself at him. Looking back, her own audacity shocked her. She wasn’t a flirt, but Cade would never believe it now.
He