True Colors

“Doesn’t Mr. Smith have a first name?” he asked, frowning.

She laughed. “Nobody has the nerve to ask,” she whispered.

He laughed, too, his young voice delightfully carefree. Had she ever been that happy, she wondered, even as a child? The premature death of her parents had left scars. Thank God there had been Aunt Mary and Uncle Raven-Walking to look after her. They’d loved her, even if nobody else ever had.

Blake sighed. “I wish I could go with you.”

“One day soon,” she promised. “Then I’ll take you to the Crow reservation and you can meet some of your Indian cousins.”

“Real Indians?” he asked.

“Real Indians. I want you to be proud of your ancestry, Blake,” she said seriously, smiling at him. “One of your distant relatives actually scouted for General Custer before the battle of the Little Bighorn.”

“Wow!” he said, all eyes. He frowned. “Who was General Custer, Mommy?”

“Never mind.” She shook her head. “Time enough for that when you’re older. Now, I have to pack.”

“Blake!”

The thunderous voice echoed along the upstairs landing.

“In here, Mr. Smith!” Blake called.

Heavy footsteps echoed down the hall, and a tall, balding hulk of a man walked into the room. Mr. Smith had a Marine Corps tattoo on one brawny arm, and he wore khaki slacks with an olive drab T-shirt. He was the ugliest, and the kindest, man Meredith had ever known. He had to be in his middle or late forties, but nobody knew just how old he was. He had a spotless service record and had come from a successful career in the CIA to work for Henry Tennison. After Henry’s death, Meredith had inherited him, so to speak. From his big nose to his green eyes and square face, he was a treasure. He’d aborted the kidnapping attempt on Blake. And nobody bothered Meredith when he was with her. She raised his salary every year without his having to ask. Next to Blake, he was the most treasured person in her private life.

“Bedtime for you, mister,” Mr. Smith told Blake without cracking a smile. “Front and center.”

“Yes, sir!” Blake saluted, laughing, and ran to the big man, to be swung up on his shoulders.

“I’ll settle him for the night, Kip,” he told Meredith. His eyes narrowed. “You shouldn’t go. You need another week in bed.”

“Don’t fuss,” she said gently, and smiled at him. “I’m all right. I have to do something with Aunt Mary’s things you know. And it’s a dandy opportunity to reconnoiter the opposition.”

“Recon what?” Blake asked.

“Never mind,” she told him. She leaned forward and kissed his rosy cheek. “Sleep tight, my lad. I’ll be along to tuck you in.”

“Mr. Smith is going to tell me about Vietnam!” Blake told her excitedly.

Meredith grimaced. Vietnam War stories hardly seemed the proper bedtime tales for a young boy, but she didn’t have the heart to argue.

“I want to hear about the snake again.”

She frowned at Blake. “The what?”

“The snake. Mr. Smith is teaching me about all the animals and stuff in Vietnam,” he continued.

She flushed. She’d thought the stories were about something else entirely.

Mr. Smith saw the flush and almost smiled. “Fooled you, huh?” he asked smugly. “That’s what you get for misjudging innocent people.”

“You’re not innocent people,” she pointed out.

“I’m innocent of a few things,” he argued. “I never shot anybody twice.”

She looked toward the ceiling. “My bodyguard, the saint.”

“Keep that up and I’ll go back to the government,” he promised. “They treat a guy right.”

“I’ll bet they never bought you kidskin moccasins and your very own Jacuzzi,” she said haughtily.

“Well, no.”

“And they don’t give you three weeks’ paid vacation and offer you free hotel rooms and carte blanche at restaurants,” she continued.

“Well…”

“And they don’t hug you like I do,” Blake exclaimed, throwing his arms around Mr. Smith’s thick neck as hard as he could.

Mr. Smith chuckled, returning the hug. “Got me there,” he admitted. “Nobody in the CIA ever hugged me.”

“See?” Meredith asked smugly. “You’re well off and don’t know it.”

“Oh, I know it,” he said. “I just like to watch you squirm.”

“One of these days,” she began, pointing a finger at him.

“That’s our cue to leave, Blake,” Mr. Smith said, turning with the boy in his arms to head for the door. “She’s good for an hour on that subject.”

Meredith hid a smile and went back to her packing.

TWO DAYS LATER she arrived in Billings on the bus. She could have flown, but that was an admission that she had money. A bus ticket was considerably cheaper, and besides, the bus station was located next door to the office of Harden Properties, Inc.

She waited for her suitcase, her hair loose around her shoulders, wearing a pair of jeans and a faded denim jacket over a sweatshirt. She wore a pair of scuffed boots she’d used for riding back home, and she’d left off her makeup. By and large, she looked very much as she had the day she’d taken the bus out of Billings six years before. Except that she had a different secret now, one she was going to enjoy keeping until the proper time.

In an office building just catercorner to the bus station, a man sitting at a desk happened to notice the movement of passengers disembarking. He got out of his swivel chair and moved to the one-way window, staring down with dark eyes that seemed to burst with mingled emotions.

“Mr. Harden?”

“What is it, Millie?” he asked without turning.

“Your letter….”

He had to force himself to turn away from the window. Surely not, he thought. That couldn’t be her, not after all these years. He’d seen her in crowds before, only to get closer and find another face, the wrong face. But he felt as if it were Meredith. His heart began to beat with the fierce rhythm she’d taught it. He felt alive for the first time in six years.

He sat down, his tall, fit body in a dark blue suit so striking that even his secretary of many years stared at him. He was thirty-four now, but sometimes his lean, deeply tanned face seemed older than its years. There were lines around his eyes, too, and threads of gray in his thick, black hair. He had an elegant look for a man whose primary interest was agricultural properties and acquisitions and who had a ranch and spent time with cattle and horses.

“Forget the letter,” he said abruptly. “Find the address of Mary Raven. Her husband was Crow—John Raven-Walking, but they’re listed in the phone directory as Raven. They moved into town two or three years ago.”