True Colors

She smiled, because Don looked so much like Henry when he set his lips that way. He was ten years Henry’s junior and ten years Meredith’s senior. He was a good businessman, even if he wasn’t her best friend in the world. But Don was conservative, and Meredith was aggressive. More than once they’d locked horns over company policy. The domestic operation was her baby, and Don wasn’t going to tell her how to run it. Her steady, level gaze told him that.

“Let him fight, Don,” she replied. “It will give him something to do while I’m taking over his company.”

“You need rest,” he said with a sigh. “Blake’s a handful by himself, and you’ve been ill.”

“Flu is inevitable with a child in kindergarten,” she reminded him. “I didn’t expect it to go into pneumonia. Besides, the takeover bid is crucial to my expansion plans. Regardless of how much time or energy it takes, I have to give it priority. I can ferret out a lot of information while I’m deciding what to do with Great-Aunt Mary’s house.”

“There shouldn’t be a problem. She left a will. Even if she hadn’t, Henry paid for the house.”

“Nobody in Billings knows that,” she said. She turned from the window, arms folded over her high, firm breasts as she nibbled her lower lip thoughtfully. “I wrote to her, and she came out here to see me several times. But I haven’t been to Billings since—” She caught herself. “Not since I was eighteen,” she amended.

But he knew. “It’s been six years. Almost seven,” he added gently. “Time is a great healer.”

Her eyes darkened. “Is it? Do you think six years or sixty would be enough to forget what the Hardens did to me?” She turned toward him. “Revenge is unworthy of an intelligent person. Henry drilled that into me, but I can’t help what I feel. They accused me of a crime I never committed, sent me out of Billings in disgrace and pregnant.” Her eyes closed and she shivered. “I almost lost the baby. If it hadn’t been for Henry…”

“He was crazy about Blake, and about you.” Don grinned. “I’ve never seen a man so happy. It was a shame about the accident. Three years out of a lifetime isn’t long for a man to find and lose everything he values.”

“He was good to me,” she said, smiling with the bittersweet memory. “Everybody thought I married him because he was wealthy. He was so much older than I was—almost twenty years. But what nobody knew was that he didn’t tell me just how rich he was until he talked me into marrying him.” She shook her head. “I almost ran away when I knew what he was worth. This—” she gestured around the elegant room with its priceless antiques “—terrified me.”

“That’s why he didn’t tell you until it was too late,” Don mused. “He’d spent his whole life making money and living for the corporation. Until you came along, he didn’t even know he wanted a family.”

“He got a ready-made one.” She sighed. “I wanted so much to give him a child….” She turned away. Thinking about that would do no good at all. “I have to go to Billings. I want you to check on Blake and Mr. Smith every day or two, if you don’t mind. I’m so nervous, about both of them, after that kidnapping attempt.”

“Wouldn’t you like to take Mr. Smith with you?” he asked hopefully. “After all, there are Indians up there. Grizzly bears. Mountain lions. Crazed Winnebago drivers….”

She laughed. “Mr. Smith is worth his weight in gold, and he’ll take very good care of Blake. There’s no need to have much contact with him, since he disturbs you so much.” He didn’t look convinced. “Blake loves him,” she reminded him.

“Blake isn’t old enough to realize how dangerous he is. Meredith, I know he’s worth his weight in gold, but you do realize that he’s a wanted man…?”

“Only by the state police in that South African country,” she said. “And that was a long time ago. Mr. Smith is forty-five if he’s a day, and we did commandeer him from the CIA.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t the KGB?” He threw up his hands. “All right, I’ll try to keep watch. But if I were you, I wouldn’t have that animal of his near me.”

“Tiny lives in an aquarium,” she said defensively. “And she’s very tame.”

“She’s a giant iguana,” he muttered.

“Iguanas are vegetarians, and she’s not quite that big. Yet. Besides, he’s still grieving for Dano.”

“Dano was a five-foot iguana,” he said. “He actually petted the horrible thing. I think it ate my dog, that day you and Blake visited me and he brought the vile thing with him.”

“Your dog ran away. Iguanas don’t eat dogs.”

“And he’s raising a replacement for it,” he moaned. “Can’t he put it up if I have to come over here?”

“I’ll ask him. It’s just for a few weeks, until I see to Great-Aunt Mary’s property and organize a way to get those mineral leases away from the Hardens. I’ll have to do some scouting first,” she added. “I want to see how the Hardens are placed these days.” Her face darkened. “I want to see how he’s placed.”

“He probably knows who you are by now, so be careful.”

“No, he doesn’t,” she replied. “I made a point of finding out. Henry was very protective of me at first, so he never told people anything about me. Since he always called me ‘Kip,’ there’s very little likelihood that Cyrus Harden has any inkling about my connection with Tennison International. He only knows me as Meredith Ashe. If I leave the Rolls here and don’t flash my diamonds, he won’t know who I am. More important,” she added coldly, “his mother won’t know.”

“I’ve never thought of Cy Harden as a mama’s boy,” he mused.

“He isn’t. But Mama is a prime mover, a secretive manipulator. I was eighteen and no match for her shrewd mind. She got rid of me with ridiculous ease. Now it’s my turn to manipulate. I want Harden Properties. And I’m going to get it.”

He opened his mouth to warn her but after a second thought gave up. She’d known Cy Harden as a man, even as a lover. But she knew nothing about the business head on those broad shoulders, and if she pursued the takeover bid, she was going to find herself in over her own head. Others had tried to take on Harden, to their cost. He was a formidable foe, among the most ruthless of businessmen. He and Henry had butted heads several times. Probably Harden didn’t know why Tennison hated him so, or deliberately tried to foil deals for him. It had been a shock to everyone when Henry was invited to sit on the Harden Properties board of directors. Harden had engineered that move so that he could keep an eye on Tennison’s business deals, but it had worked to Henry’s advantage as well, so he’d accepted. Naturally Don went to the meetings, and Meredith’s name was never mentioned.

“You don’t think I can do it, do you?” she asked, narrow-eyed.

“No,” he said honestly. “His is a family-based company. He holds forty percent and his mother has five. That means you have to get his great-uncle’s ten percent and the fifteen percent held by his directors and the remaining shares from his unrelated stockholders. I don’t think any of them are brave enough to go against Cy, despite the financial rewards.”

“By the time their next board of directors meetings rolls around, I expect to have those proxies,” she told Don firmly. “And is Mr. Harden due for a surprise when I show up with them, and you, in his boardroom.”

“Just be careful that your surprise doesn’t backfire,” he cautioned. “Don’t underestimate him. Henry never did.”

“Oh, I won’t.” She stretched lazily. “What’s on the agenda for this afternoon? I have to do some shopping.” She indicated her expensive suit. “Little Meredith Ashe could never have afforded anything like this. I don’t want anyone to think I’ve prospered.”

“‘O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,’” he quoted dryly.

“And hell has no fury like a woman scorned,” she shot back. “Don’t worry, Don. I know what I’m doing.”

He shrugged. “I hope so.”

DON’S MOROSE TONE haunted Meredith all day. As she packed her new clothes that evening in Mr. Smith’s borrowed secondhand suitcase, Blake sprawled on her queen-sized bed in their Lincoln Park home, frowning.

“Why do you have to go away?” he muttered, his little face dark and sullen. “You’re always going away. You’re never here.”

She felt a twinge of guilt. Her son was right. But she couldn’t afford to give in to that stubborn determination of his. Blake was as formidable in his young way as she was.

“Business, my darling,” she replied, smiling. She stared at him lovingly. He looked nothing like her. He was his father, from his dark hair to his deep-set brown eyes and olive complexion. He was going to be tall like Cy, too, she guessed.

Cy. Meredith sighed heavily and turned away. She’d loved him so much, with all the passion of her young life. He’d taken her chastity and her heart, and in return he’d given her grief and shame. His mother had done her part to break up what might have been an honest love affair. God knew, he’d always felt guilty about her. Probably he’d have felt even more guilt if he’d known that she was only eighteen to his twenty-eight. She’d lied and told him she was twenty. He’d said even then that it was like robbing the cradle. But his passion for her had been a helpless, deeply resented one that had cost him his stoic self-control time and time again. She often thought that he’d hated her for that, for making him vulnerable.

His mother had hated her, certainly. The fact that Meredith had been living with her great-aunt and uncle on the Crow reservation—and the fact that her great-uncle was a respected elder at that—had been a scandalous shock to Mrs. Myrna Granger Harden. Myrna belonged to the social set and made no secret of her snobbery. That her son had dared to embarrass her by dating the niece of one of his employees had haunted her, especially when she’d already hand-picked a wife for him—one Lois Newly, a local debutante whose people had property in Alberta, Canada, and could trace their ancestry back to royal England. Myrna had never even bothered to ask Meredith if she was Indian. She’d taken it for granted, when actually Meredith was only related to Uncle Raven-Walking by marriage.

There were dark-skinned people in Cy’s background. Myrna swore they were French, but Meredith had once heard someone mention that Cy’s ancestors contained a full-blooded Sioux on his father’s side. Many Plains people had mixed ancestry, but most of them weren’t as prejudiced and snobbish as Myrna Harden.

Blake Garrett Tennison would someday have to be told the truth about his parentage, Meredith thought worriedly. She didn’t relish that at all. For now, he accepted that the tall, fair man who used to laugh and bring him things was his real father. In most senses, he was. Henry had spoiled Meredith shamefully, attended LaMaze classes with her, treated her pregnancy as if he’d been responsible for it, and showered her with luxuries when little Blake was born. He stayed with her through the delivery, and he cried when the child was placed in his arms. Oh, yes, Henry really was Blake’s father in so many ways. He’d earned the right.

She often wondered why Cy had apparently never considered the possibility of Meredith becoming pregnant during their brief affair. Presumably his women were usually on the Pill, because he’d never even asked if she was. Not that he’d been in any condition to ask, the first time or the others. She dreamed about him sometimes, about the fierce pleasure he’d taught her to share with him. But she never told Henry about the dreams or compared him with Cy. It wouldn’t have been fair. Henry was a gentle, skillful lover, but she’d never attained the heights with him that Cy had taken her to so effortlessly.

Blake cuddled his plush toy alligator. “Isn’t Barry the Alligator nice?” he asked. “Mr. Smith let me pet Tiny. He says you should let me have an iguana, too, Mommy. They make very nice pets.”

She laughed gently at Blake’s adult-sounding speech. He was almost six, and he already had a tremendous grasp of language. He would be ready to start first grade next year. This year he attended private kindergarten until one each afternoon, and he was learning fast. Meredith knew that Cy had never married. She allowed herself to wonder for one long instant what Myrna Harden would think of her grandson. It was unlikely that the elderly woman would covet him, of course, since he was Meredith’s. And a grandchild would tarnish the youthful image she tried so hard to project.

“Can’t I have an iguana?” Blake persisted.

“You can pet Tiny, when Mr. Smith lets you.”