Cole Cameron's Revenge

JUNE had come to Georgia, bringing with it heat so fierce it might have been midsummer. Even now, at a little before nine in the morning, the air was thick and weighted with humidity.

Faith, sitting before her dressing-table mirror, all but groaned with despair. Any other morning, she wouldn’t have been bothered by the weather. She’d grown up in the South and she knew that the only way to deal with summer was to ignore it. You scraped your hair into a ponytail, put on shorts, T-shirt and sandals, and left your face scrubbed and bare.

But not today.

In just over an hour, she had a meeting with Sam Jergen, Ted’s lawyer. She had to look like Faith Cameron, not Faith Davenport. Jergen didn’t like her. He still thought of her as a seventeen-year-old tramp who’d trapped his client into marriage nine long years ago. She’d known that the minute she’d met him, but the lawyer wasn’t stupid. He’d been careful to treat her with respect while Ted was alive.

He gave up the pretense the day of the funeral.

“Sorry for your trouble, Miz Davenport,” Jergen had said as he took her hand, and then he’d smiled slyly. “Sorry about that. I meant Miz Cameron, of course.”

Of course, Faith thought, tightening her jaw.

What he’d really meant to call her was one of the names the town used for her, but she hadn’t given him the pleasure of reacting. She wouldn’t today, either, even though she figured he’d do his best to demean her.

Tears blurred Faith’s eyes.

Ted, gone.

She still couldn’t believe it, that her husband had lost his life in an automobile accident on a rain-slicked back road between Liberty and Atlanta. The weeks since then had gone by in a haze. There’d been people coming and going, supposedly to offer their condolences but really, she knew, to get a first good look at her now that nobody was around to protect her from gossip.

It was old gossip, but what did that matter? Gossip could linger for a lifetime in a place like Liberty, especially when it was juicy. And what could have been more juicy than her quick trip up the altar with one Cameron brother after she’d been ditched by the other…except, maybe, the speed with which she’d become pregnant?

Faith picked up her brush and stroked it through her hair.

Oh, if only she could cancel today’s meeting—but there wasn’t any point in putting off what had to be done. Jergen had made it clear this was important.

“It’s about your husband’s estate,” he’d said.

She’d almost told him to stop trying to sound so officious. What would take place this morning wasn’t any surprise. This was the formal reading of Ted’s will but she knew what was in it. Her practical husband had insisted on telling her the details of the document he’d suddenly decided to draw up a year ago.

He’d left everything to her, in trust for Peter. “It’s his birthright,” he’d said.

Faith had hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t want to leave something to…” She couldn’t say the name. “To your brother?”

Ted’s eyes had darkened, just enough so she knew that time hadn’t dulled the pain he felt. He hadn’t heard from Cole since he’d sent him the letter about their marriage. Though they never talked about it, she knew he was blind to the truth; he couldn’t or wouldn’t see Cole for what he was, but she understood that. Love could warp your judgment. Hadn’t she wept nights for Cole, even after he’d abandoned her? She, at least, had come to her senses.

“No,” he’d said softly, “there’s no point. Cole hated this house. He hated our father. He wouldn’t want anything that carries the Cameron name. But I know he’ll come back someday, Faith. And when he does, you have to tell him the truth. He’s entitled to know he gave you a child, just as Peter has the right to know the man who’s really his father.”

Faith stared into the mirror. Cole wasn’t entitled to anything. Not from her. As for Peter…She couldn’t imagine a time she’d want to hurt him by telling him that his real father had run out on her. Her child was better off going through life thinking of Ted as his father. He’d be happy that way, and her son’s happiness was all that mattered. It was why she’d agreed to marry Ted—and why she’d decided to leave Liberty, as soon as the formal reading of the will was over.

This morning, after the lawyer finished with all the legal rigmarole, she’d have the money to start life fresh and she was going to do it in a place far from here, a place where “Cameron” was just another name. Making the decision hadn’t been easy. Despite everything, Liberty was home. But there was that old saying, something about home being where the heart was.

Without Ted, this place had no heart. The sooner she left, the better.

Faith rose from the dressing table, walked briskly to the closet and opened it. She ran a hand along the clothing hanging from the rod, pausing when her fingers brushed over the pink suit she’d worn for Ted’s funeral. People had stared at her openly, condemnation glittering in their eyes. The hell with them, she’d thought. The suit was for Ted, who’d hated black.

But today wasn’t about her love and respect for Ted. It was about Peter’s future. She had no idea what it took—if, in fact, it took anything—to set in motion the things that would set the two of them free of Liberty. She knew nothing about the financial aspects of the life she’d lived as Mrs. Theodore Cameron. Ted had handled all of that.

She chose a cream silk blouse, then a black silk suit. Silk, on a day like this. She’d probably melt from the heat, but it was the right outfit to wear. She dressed quickly, grimacing as she pulled on panty hose, a bra, even a half-slip. The blouse stuck to her skin almost as soon as she slipped it on but at last she was ready, her skirt zipped, her jacket buttoned, her feet jammed into the confines of a pair of low-heeled black leather pumps.

She took a deep breath. “Ready or not,” she said softly, and turned to the mirror.

The suit was fine, businesslike and purposeful, and so long as she kept the jacket buttoned nobody would know that beads of sweat were already forming beneath the blouse. The shoes were okay, too. But her hair…

“Dammit,” Faith muttered.

It was reacting to the humidity the way it always did, by spinning itself into gold curls instead of lying in the soft, ladylike waves she wanted. Her face was shining, too, despite its unaccustomed dusting of powder.

So much for looking cool and confident. She looked the way she felt, uncertain and grief-stricken at the loss of the only person who’d ever truly cared for her. Perhaps, she thought wryly, the mirror was determined to reflect a portrait of the inner woman instead of the outer one.

“Mommy?”

Faith swung around. “Peter?”

Her son pushed the door open and came into the bedroom, his face solemn—too solemn for a boy his age. Her heart swelled with love at the sight of him. She squatted down and opened her arms wide. Peter walked toward her and when he was close enough, Faith reached out and drew him close, sighing as she felt the tension in his stiff body.

“Mommy? Alice says you’re going to town.”

Faith drew back, smiled and brushed his silky chestnut hair back from his forehead. “She’s right.”

“Do you have to go?”

“Yes. But I won’t be long, sweetheart. Just an hour or two, I promise.”

Her son nodded. He’d taken Ted’s death hard. Lately, he didn’t want to be away from her side.

“Would you like me to bring you something?”

Peter shook his head. “No, thank you.”

“A new game from the computer store?”

“Dad bought me one, just before…He bought me one.” Peter’s lip quivered. “I wish he was still here, Mommy.”

Faith gathered her son tightly into her embrace. “Me, too.” She held him for a minute, inhaling his little-boy scent. Then she cleared her throat, cupped his shoulders and held him out in front of her. “So,” she said briskly, “what are you going to do until I get home?”

Peter shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“How about phoning Charlie and asking him over?”

“Charlie isn’t home. Today’s Sean’s party, remember?”

Damn, Faith thought, of course. She was so wrapped up in her own worries that she’d forgotten her son’s distress at being the only boy who hadn’t been asked to his classmate’s party.

“Why wasn’t I invited, too?” Peter had said, and she’d come within a breath of telling him the truth, that the town was already reassessing her position and his in Liberty’s rigid social order.

“Because Sean’s a ninny,” she’d said with forced gaiety, “and besides, why would you want to go to his old party when we can have a party right here, all by ourselves?”