Free To Love and Cherish by Diana Palmer Page B

apartment, tired and haggard, her eyes red-rimmed from crying. Edie was in the kitchen and came out smiling into the living room, but one look at Shelby’s worn face wiped the smile clean.
    â€œOh, Shelby, not again,” her friend wailed sympathetically, and threw her arms around Shelby. “I’m sorry!”
    â€œSo am I,” Shelby wept. “I wish I’d listened to you.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œIt’s a long story.”
    â€œI’ve got nothing but time,” Edie said. “Come have some coffee and tell me all about it.”
    It did take a long time, because Shelby couldn’t stop crying in between. And when she was through, Edie was muttering to herself.
    â€œThat horrible man,” Edie grumbled.
    â€œHe’s that,” Shelby agreed tearfully. She dabbed at her eyes with a paper towel. “I never knew I could hate anybody so much!”
    â€œWell, from now on, you let Danny come here, or you go to see him at the office, but don’t go back to that ranch.”
    â€œI never will. I swear I never will,” Shelby agreed miserably.“Oh, how could he!” she groaned, and the tears started all over again.
    The phone rang suddenly in the silence that followed, and Edie patted Shelby’s shoulder as she went to answer it. “You just sit there, honey, I’ll get it. It’s probably just Andy wanting to know if he can come over tonight. We kind of had a date.”
    â€œI can go out….” Shelby offered quickly.
    â€œNo, you can’t. We’ll work it out. Just drink your coffee, okay?” And she left her friend sitting at the table, looking lost and forlorn.
    Edie was back in scant minutes, her face troubled. “It’s for you, Shelby,” she said. “Sounds like long distance.”
    Shelby sat erect with a jerk. “It’s not King?”
    â€œNo. But it is a man,” came the quiet reply.
    Puzzled, Shelby went to the phoneand sank down on the sofa as she put the receiver to her ear. “Hello?” she asked tentatively.
    â€œShelby? It’s Brad. Your stepfather, remember?” he added kindly. “I…I don’t exactly know how to put this.”
    â€œIs it mother?” she asked quietly.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œIs it bad?” she persisted, feeling something heavy inside her.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œTell me, then,” she said gently. Her eyes darted to Edie, who was standing quietly in the doorway, watching.
    Brad hesitated, and Shelby pictured him—a tall, graying man with an inherent dignity who found her mother beautiful but just a little too flighty at times.
    â€œShe took an overdose of sleeping pills,” Brad said heavily.
    â€œShe…died ten minutes ago. Can you come?”
    Shelby’s fingers tightened on the receiver. Her mind whirled with memories. Her dark-eyed mother smiling in front of the cameras, a flash of black hair and olive skin, and dripping diamonds. Parties that never seemed to end with an ever-present glass in her mother’s hand and angry glances directed toward the little girl who was always in the way. That last fight…
    â€œDied?” Shelby repeated softly.
    â€œCan you come, Shelby?” Brad repeated, his voice suddenly breaking. “I…we need to make some arrangements. There are reporters all over the place.”
    â€œDo you know why she did it?” Shelby asked huskily.
    There was a harsh sigh on the other end of the line. “They canceled her contract. The studio said she was tooold and too temperamental to stomach any longer. They’d offered her the role of a grandmother in some new film, and she threw a fit in the studio head’s office. She forgot that the old days of the star system were long gone. They simply dropped her. She couldn’t take that. She wouldn’t even talk to me about it. The hurt went too deep.”
    How like Maria Kane, Shelby thought miserably, to put