CHAPTER THREE
MEREDITH HAD BROUGHT some old clothes with her, so that she wouldn’t arouse Cy’s suspicions by looking too prosperous. Now, as she dressed for her new job, she was glad.
She stepped into a neat denim skirt that matched her white cotton long-sleeved blouse. She put on soft-soled loafers and discarded her Gucci purse for a brown vinyl one. Then she put up her hair in a neat French braid at the back of her head and left the house to catch a bus to work.
Billings was gorgeous first thing in the morning, Meredith thought as she savored the cool morning air. This spacious city was a world away from the bustle of Chicago. She missed her son, and even Mr. Smith and Don, but the change had already revived her fighting spirit and made her feel less depressed. The incredible pressures she faced daily in her work had been getting to her lately.
Meredith stepped off the bus in front of the restaurant. It was a prosperous one, very large and attached to a hotel. She noticed through the window that all the waitresses wore spotless white uniforms. It had been a long time since she had felt nervous around people, but here, without the cocoon of her wealth to cushion her, she was ill at ease. She found the cashier and asked for the manager.
“Mrs. Dade is just through there,” the woman said pleasantly. “Is she expecting you?”
“I think so.”
Meredith knocked on the door and walked in, surprised to find the woman almost twenty years older than she was. Perhaps she’d been harboring the subconscious thought that Mrs. Dade might be one of Cy’s old lovers, but she had to revise that opinion now.
“I’m Meredith…Ashe,” she said hesitantly. The name sounded strange. She was so used to being called Kip Tennison.
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Dade said, smiling as she stood up behind her huge polished wood desk. She was a tall woman, her red hair mingling with silver above a broad, happy face. “I’m Trudy Dade. I’m glad to meet you. Cy said that you’d just lost your aunt and needed work. Luckily for both of us, we’ve got an opening. Have you had experience at waitressing?”
“Well, a little,” Meredith replied. “I used to work at the Bear Claw years ago.”
“I remember. I thought I recognized you.” Her gray eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “I’m sorry about your aunt.”
“I’ll miss her,” Meredith said softly. “She was the only real relative I had in the world.”
Mrs. Dade’s perceptive gaze swept over Meredith, leaving no detail untouched. She nodded. “It’s hard work, but the tips are good, and I’m not a slavedriver. You can start now. You’ll get off at six, but you’ll have to work some evenings. That’s unavoidable in this business.”
“I don’t mind that,” Meredith said easily. “I don’t need my evenings free.”
Mrs. Dade’s eyebrows arched. “At your age? For heaven’s sake, you’re not married?”
“No.” Meredith didn’t say it rudely, but there was something in her manner that made the other woman visibly uncomfortable.
“Off men, then?” Mrs. Dade smiled and didn’t pursue it, going on to detail Meredith’s duties and her salary, along with information about uniforms and territory.
Meredith was busy giving herself a lecture on keeping to the part she was playing. It wouldn’t do to assume Kip Tennison’s persona every time someone pried too deeply. She forced a smile and listened with every indication of interest, while at the back of her mind she wondered how long it was going to be before Cy Harden made his next move.
LATE THAT AFTERNOON, Cy walked into the gardens at the huge Harden estate. His eyes lingered halfheartedly on the Greek revival columns on the house’s wide front porch. He remembered playing on that porch as a child, with his mother nearby, watching him. She had always been far too possessive and protective of her only child, a condition that, in later years, had caused friction between them. In fact, their relationship had fallen apart with the departure of Meredith Ashe. Cy had changed, in visible and not-so-visible ways.
He hung his hat on the antique hat rack in the hall and wandered absently into the elegant living room, gathering the usual impressions of pastel brocades and thick neutral shag carpeting and the priceless antiques his mother loved.
She was sitting on her wing chair, crocheting. Her dark eyes lifted and she smiled at him a little too brightly. “You’re home early, aren’t you?” she asked.
“I finished early.” He poured himself a stiff whiskey and sank onto his own armchair. “I’ll be out for dinner. The Petersons are hosting a business discussion on some new mineral leases.”
“Business, business,” she muttered. “There’s more to life than making money. Cy, you really should marry. I’ve introduced you to two very nice young women, debutantes…”
“I won’t marry,” he said with a cold smile. He lifted his whiskey glass in a mock toast. “I took the cure. Remember?”
His mother went pasty white and dropped her eyes to her thin, nervous hands. “That…was a long time ago.”
“It was yesterday.” He threw down the rest of the whiskey and got up to refill the glass. Remembering was painful. “She’s back in town, did you know?”
There was a funereal stillness in the room. “She?”
The word came out sounding as if his mother had choked on it. He turned. “Meredith Ashe. I gave her a job at the restaurant.”
Myrna Harden had lived with her terrible secret, and her guilt, for so long that she’d forgotten anyone else shared it. But Meredith did. Ironically, the very information she’d used to get Meredith out of town could now be turned against her with even more devastating results. The ensuing scandal could ruin her by destroying the failing relationship she had with her son. She panicked.
“You mustn’t!” she said frantically. “Cy, you mustn’t get yourself involved with that woman again! You can’t have forgotten what she did to you!”
His face gave away nothing. “No, Mother, I haven’t forgotten. And I’m not getting involved with her. Once was enough. Her great-aunt died.”
She swallowed nervously. “I didn’t know.”
“I’m sure there are bills to pay, loose ends to tidy up. She came from somewhere. She’ll probably go back there as soon as she’s got it all together.”
Myrna wasn’t so sure. “She’ll inherit the house.”
He nodded, staring into his second whiskey. He swirled the liquid carelessly. “She’ll have a roof over her head. I have no idea where she’s been all these years, but I know she had nothing when she left town.” His face hardened and he tossed down the whiskey as if it were water.
“That’s not true,” Myrna said quickly. “She had money!” Myrna had given her a wad of bills which Meredith had promptly returned. Myrna had always refused to believe, however, that the girl hadn’t kept enough of it to get out of town. It eased her conscience to think it.
Cy stared at his mother over the glass, curious about her expression and about the fear in her normally calm voice. “Tony gave back the money that was supposedly stolen. Had you forgotten?”
Her face went even paler. “I’m sure she had some money,” she faltered, lowering her eyes with raging guilt. “She must have.”
Cy’s eyes were thoughtful and bitter. “I was never comfortable with her part in it,” he said. “Tony gave us the story as if he’d learned it by heart, and Meredith swore to me that he’d never touched her, that they’d never been lovers.”
“A girl like that would have many lovers,” Myrna said, flushing.
Cy’s eyes