Free Denim and Lace by Diana Palmer Page A

lay back, sipping her tea.
    Nice , Bess thought as she went to her own room. Nice , but thick as a plank. She was going to have to do something to shake Gussie out of her tearful, clinging mood. Perhaps that would work itself out in time. She had to hope it would.
    Meanwhile she didn’t dare tell her mother anything about going to see Cade with Great-aunt Dorie’s pearls. It would be the final straw, to have to hear Gussie ranting about that.
    That was unkind, Bess told herself as she put the pearls away in her drawer. Gussie did try, but she just didn’t have many maternal instincts. Bess looked at the sheen of the pearls against their black velvet bed and touched them lightly. Save them for her eldest child, Cade had said. Her eyes softened as she thought about a child. Cade’s child, dark-eyed and dark-haired, lying in her arms. It was the sweetest kind of daydream. Of course that’s all it would ever be. Although his hunger for children was well-known, and he made no secret of the fact that one day he wanted an heir very much, Cade seemed in no rush to involve himself with a woman. And now there would be no money and no time for romance. He was going to spend the next few months trying to save his inheritance, and Bess felt terrible that she’d had even a small part in seeing him brought to his knees. She only wished there was something she could do.
    The things he’d said to her still hurt. Even though she could understand that he was frustrated about the financial loss, and her defense of her mother, his bitter anger had wounded her. Especially that crack about not wanting her. What made it so much worse was that it was true. He knew how she felt about him now, and maybe it was just as well that she and Gussie were leaving town. It would be hell to live near Cade and have him know how she felt.
    He’d seemed for just a few seconds to want her as badly as she’d wanted him. But that was probably just her imagination. He’d been angry. Of course he’d started to come after her. She spent most of the night trying to decide why.
    That night was the longest she’d ever spent. She couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her father’s face. He’d been a wonderful father, a cheerful, smiling man who did anything Gussie wanted him to without protest. He had loved her mother so. But even that love hadn’t been enough to make up for the disgrace of what he’d done. He’d betrayed his friends. He hadn’t meant to. It had sounded like a perfectly respectable financial investment, but he’d been played for a fool, and that was what had driven him to suicide.
    Bess cried for all of them. For the father she no longer had. For her mother, who was so weak and foolish and demanding. For Cade, who stood to lose everything on earth he loved. Even for herself, because Cade was forever beyond her reach.
    She was up at the crack of dawn, worn and still half-asleep. She dressed in an old pair of designer jeans and a long-sleeved pink shirt with her boots to go riding. It was cold, so she threw on a jacket, as well. Gussie wouldn’t awaken until at least eleven, so the morning was Bess’s. She felt free suddenly, overwhelmed with relief because she could have a little time to herself after days of grief and mourning.
    She went down to the stable for one last ride on her horse. Tina was a huge Belgian, a beautiful tan-and-white draft horse and dear to Bess’s heart. She’d begged for the animal for her twentieth birthday, and her father had bought Tina for her. She remembered her father smiling as he commented that it would sure be hard to find a saddle that would go across the animal’s broad back. But he’d produced one, and despite his faint apprehension about letting his only child have such an enormous horse, he’d learned, as Bess had, that Tina was a gentle giant. She was never mean or temperamental, and not once had