Jack looked confused as he took the telegram. With shaky fingers, Lucy reached for it. “Don’t...” He evaded her attempt to snatch it from him. She groaned, covering her face with unsteady hands. She had to leave town immediately. But where could she go? They didn’t have relatives anywhere. That didn’t matter. She couldn’t stay. Not now.
There was absolute quiet in the room for such a long time she had to peek through her fingers to see what was going on. The world was blurry and she blinked, focusing on Jack as he stared at the telegram, his expression grim. When his glance caught Lucy’s, something raw and violent flashed in his eyes. “Who does this piece of crap think he is?”
Lowering his glance to the page again, he gritted out the written words.
“‘Dearest Lucy,
I know my letter must have come as a shock, and I apologize. After thinking about it, I know it is my duty to see you face-to-face and smooth things over.
“‘By the time you receive this, my fiancée and I will be winging our way to Branson, arriving on March 20. The first day of spring. Appropriate for my mission, for I’ve decided we must begin again. As great chums.
“‘You must meet my fiancée. You are both lovely, compliant women, and you will become fast friends. I know from your gentle temperament that you will agree that life is too short to harbor hard feelings between two people so sublimely simpatico as we two.
Yours forever,
Stadler”’
Jack made a guttural sound that sounded suspiciously like a curse. “That egotistical jackass.” When he lifted his gaze to Lucy’s face, his cinnamon eyes held a blaze that had nothing to do with the fire in the hearth. “I’ll show him a brand of simpatico he won’t find quite so sublime.”
Lucy touched his arm. She appreciated his anger on her behalf, but shook her head. “You mustn’t get involved, Jack.” She struggled up on her elbows. “Besides, I don’t plan to be here when he arrives.”
“What?” Elissa bent over her sister. “Where are you going?”
Lucy ran a trembly hand through her hair. “I don’t know. But I can’t be here. I couldn’t face him and—and his new fiancée. Surely you understand that.”
Elissa straightened to her full five foot seven, looking offended. “I understand nothing of the kind.” Plopping her fists on slender hips, she glowered at her sister. “You’re going to meet him at the door with a two-by-four and pound him into dust. That’s what you’re going to do.”
Lucy grimaced, slipping her legs over the side of the couch and coming up to sit. As she did, Jack seated himself beside her, his expression compassionate, his eyes telegraphing concern. “You’d leave before the twins and Helen are even out of the hospital? When she came all this way to be with you for your birthday?”
Lucy flinched at the reminder. It would be cruel to leave, abandoning Helen and the babies when her sister had come especially to see her. But what else could she do? She wasn’t an aggressive person, loving a fight like her ex-lawyer sister, Elissa. Lucy hated confrontations, had spent her life trying to keep everyone calm and happy. People had always called her the sensitive one, the conciliatory one—“the sweet sister.” Confrontation wasn’t part of her character.
There was no way she could face Stadler and his new love. She shuddered at the thought, unable to look at either Elissa or Jack. “I can’t stay.” With her forlorn sigh, Jack took her hands in his big, warm ones, but she pulled away from his touch, too upset with her sniveling cowardice to allow herself to be comforted. “I—I’ll go pack.”
“No, you won’t,” Elissa warned. Lucy rose to her feet, but her older sister’s hands clamped down on her shoulders, halting her. “You’re not bolting like a jackrabbit, young lady. If you go, there will be nobody here to keep me from leaping on Stadler’s back and strangling him. Do you want that? Do you want me to spend my best years behind bars just because I dispatched a worthless toad to Worthless-Toad Hell?”
Lucy winced, not so much from her sister’s empty threat, but from the pressure of her blunt fingernails biting into her flesh. “Elissa, please don’t belabor this. I’m leaving.” She ducked out of her grasp. “Besides, I know you’re itching to tell him off yourself.”
“What I’m itching to do is beside the point.” She took Lucy’s face between her palms, forcing her to look into determined green eyes. “It’s what you must do that we’re talking about.”
Tears welled and Lucy blinked them back. “I—I can’t.”
With a frown furrowing her brow, Elissa dropped her arms to her sides. “Coward!”
Lucy fought to keep from trembling. “Don’t be mean, Elissa,” she whispered.
There was movement beside her and she knew Jack had stood. “Your sister’s right, Luce. Don’t run away. Stay and show the jerk you don’t care a damn about him.”
Gulping around a knot of tears, Lucy faced him. “But—but I do care.”
There was a brief slitting of his eyes, a fleeting sideways stirring of his jaw, an odd reaction. Almost as though he’d been slapped. The expression lasted only a millisecond before he offered a sympathetic smile. “Luce, the man has a tremendous ego, thinking his two women must meet. Hell, he probably has visions of a catfight over him right here in the parlor. The only thing he could hope for that could be more flattering than that would be if you ran.” He reached out as though he was going to touch her cheek, then seemed to think better of it. With a slow fisting of his hand, he dropped it to his side. “Don’t you have the smallest desire to avenge yourself for what he did to you?”
She stared, confused. “Avenge myself?”
“Great idea!” Elissa clapped her hands together with enthusiasm. “Make him think you’re so bored to see him you can hardly remember his name.” She sat down on the leather chair as Lucy pivoted to look at her. There was a frightening gleam in her older sister’s eyes. “Now, Jack,” Elissa was saying, “since Lucy’s so rotten at plotting revenge, it’s up to us. What would make Stadler hang by his thumbs, twisting in the wind, screaming in agony?”
Lucy sank to the sofa. What was going on? Her mind was too numbed to grasp what they were plotting. But it didn’t really matter what they were talking about. She only needed another minute to get her strength back and she would tell them to forget it, then she’d go to her room and pack a bag and be gone.
“Being a man, I know what would put a gaping hole in my ego.”
“What?” Elissa sat forward, expectancy stamped on her pretty face. “I hope it involves a ‘kick me’ sign on Stadler’s back.”
Jack grinned wryly. “Psychologically, yes.”
“Please, you two, I—”
“Hush, sweetie!” Elissa waved a dismissal. “Jack has an idea.”
Lucy shifted to stare at him, afraid she wasn’t going to be thrilled by his idea—if it had anything to do with being in town when Stadler got here. She was sorry to have to admit it, even to herself, but she was as terrified of facing her ex-fiancé and his lady love as she had been of thunderstorms when she was a child.
She watched Jack’s face. He surveyed her gently, his eyes narrowed with worry or possibly pity. She couldn’t be sure which, and squirmed. She didn’t want Jack’s pity! She’d never thought about it until this minute, but for some reason, she couldn’t bear the idea of Jack’s feeling sorry for her. She wanted him to smile his teasing smile, not watch her solemnly, his eyes stricken. Unable to deal with what she saw and how that sight made her feel, she twisted away.
Her uneasy movement seemed to affect him, and he cleared his throat. “Okay, how’s this for an idea? His ego would be exploded all to hell if you met him with a fiancé of your own.”