Judith McNaught - Remember When

"You're too good now," she said with a bright smile over her shoulder.

"Not for a cardshark like you, I'm not."

"I really do have to go."

"I understand." He sounded a little disappointed, and Diana fought against the temptation to stay awhile longer. She was still wavering when he turned and disappeared into his room. By the time he emerged to walk her out to her car, she'd put the dishes in the sink and her friendly, impersonal facade firmly in place. She was congratulating herself for resisting the temptation to stay as he reached out with his right hand to open her car door. "By the way—" he said as she turned to him to say good night, "I heard some of the girls talking about the sweet sixteen party your parents threw for you a couple weeks ago."

Diana was too preoccupied with the inexplicable smile hovering at the corner of his mouth to say anything intelligent. "It was my sixteenth birthday."

"I know," he said with a sudden grin at her flustered answer. "And where I come from it's customary to give a girl something special on her sixteenth birthday—"

A kiss! He was going to kiss her, Diana realized, and all her defenses and fears collapsed beneath the weight of her joy and nervous anticipation. She dropped her gaze from his gleaming silver eyes to his sensual mouth. "What do you give a girl back home," she breathed shakily and closed her eyes, "when she turns sixteen?"

"A present!" he exclaimed triumphantly as he took his left hand from behind his back. Diana's eyes snapped open, and she clutched the car door for balance as she stared in mortified surprise at his outstretched hand. In it was a large, oddly shaped item that he'd obviously wrapped himself in a sheet of newspaper and tied with what looked like a shoelace. Seemingly oblivious to her inner turmoil, he held it closer. "Go ahead, open it."

Diana recovered her manners, gave him an overbright smile, and pulled on the end of the broken white shoelace.

"It isn't much," he warned, sounding suddenly uncertain.

The paper fell away to reveal a stuffed toy—a life-size white cat with a pink tongue, green eyes, and a tag around its neck that said, "My name is Pinkerton."

"You've probably had dozens of really exotic stuffed animals," he added uneasily when she didn't immediately react. "In fact, you're probably too old for stuffed animals period."

He was right on both counts, but none of that mattered to Diana. To save money, he did without all sorts of things, including good food, but he'd actually gone out and gotten her a present. Speechless, she lifted the ordinary, inexpensive toy from his hands as carefully as if it were priceless porcelain; then she held it in front of her to admire it.

Cole looked at the toy and realized how cheap it would look to someone like her. "It's just something I picked up— a token—" he began defensively. He broke off in surprise as Diana shook her head to silence him, then clutched the stuffed animal to her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around it.

"Thank you, Cole," she whispered, laying her cheek against its furry head. Smiling, she lifted her glowing gaze to his. "Thank you," she said again.

You're welcome, Cole thought, but the incredible warmth of her reaction seemed to have momentarily melted his ability to speak and his ability to think. In silence he closed the car door after she'd settled into her seat, and in silence he watched her taillights vanish around a curve in the long drive that wound through the trees and along the side of the house.

Diana had been gone for three hours when Cole finally closed his economics textbook and shoved his notes aside. His shoulders ached from being hunched over his desk, and his brain felt saturated. There was no point in more studying; he was prepared enough to ace the final exam, but good grades had never been his goal. It was knowledge that he pursued, the knowledge he needed to achieve and enjoy his goals.

Absently, he rubbed his aching shoulders; then he leaned his head back and closed his eyes, resting them, while he thought about his uncle's letter. The letter had arrived in the morning's mail, and the news was so good, so unbelievably good, that Cole smiled as he rotated his shoulders trying to work the kinks out of them.

Four years ago, a drilling company had approached Calvin and offered him a contract and ten thousand dollars for the right to drill a test well on Cal's land. The first well hadn't produced, but the following year they tried a second time for an additional five thousand dollars. When the second well failed to produce enough natural gas to make operation profitable, they'd given up and so had Cal and Cole.

A few months ago, however, a much larger drilling company had paid a visit to Cal and asked to drill in a different area of his land. Cal said they were wasting their time, and Cole privately agreed with him, but the two of them had been wrong. In the mail today was a letter from Cal that contained the staggering news that the new well was hugely successful and that the "money's going to be pouring in."

Straightening, Cole opened his eyes and reached for the thick envelope that contained his uncle's letter and a copy of the contract that the drilling company wanted Cal to sign.

Based on Cal's own calculations, he would make $250,000 in the next year—more money than the old rancher had netted in a lifetime, Cole knew. It was ironic, Cole thought with amusement as he unfolded the bulky contract, that of all the Harrisons who might have struck it rich over the years, Calvin Patrick Downing was the least likely to spend or enjoy the windfall. He was, by nature and inclination, a miser, and a quarter of a million dollars wasn't going to change that.

Instead of spending two dollars to call Cole long distance and tell him the fantastic news, he'd sent him a letter and a copy of the contract by ordinary first-class mail. And the reason he'd sent Cole the contract, according to his letter, was because "the drilling company says these are standard contracts and they can't be changed. I figure there's no sense in paying a bloodsucking lawyer to read all this mumbo jumbo just so he can tell me the same thing, but you've got a law school right there at your university. Get one of those student bloodsuckers to look this over, will you —or else look it over yourself and tell me if you think Southfield Exploration has any tricks up their sleeve."

That was Cal—thrifty to a fault. Cheap. Miserly.

Cal clipped coupons out of the newspapers, cut his own hair, patched his jeans, and dickered furiously over an extra penny per foot for chicken wire. He hated more than anything to part with a dollar.

But he'd handed over his first ten-thousand-dollar check for the test well to Cole so he could go to college.

And one year later, Cal had handed over his second check for five thousand dollars.

As a lonely, rebellious youth, Cole had often hitchhiked the forty miles to Calvin's place, and there, with Cal, Cole found the understanding and warmth that his own father was incapable of feeling. Calvin alone had understood his frustration and believed in his dreams, and for that Cole loved him. But Calvin hadn't just given lip service and encouraging words to Cole; he'd given him his money so that Cole could have a real future, away from Kingdom City—a bright, promising future with unlimited possibilities. For that, Cole felt a sense of loyalty and indebtedness that surpassed all his other emotions.

The contract that Cal had sent him was fifteen pages long, covered with fine print and legalese. In the margins, Calvin had penciled in some comments of his own, and Cole smiled at the wily old man's astuteness. Calvin had dropped out of school after the tenth grade to go to work, but he was a voracious reader who'd educated himself, probably well enough to merit an honorary college degree. Cole, however, had no intention of allowing his uncle to sign these documents until they'd been reviewed by a competent, practicing lawyer—one who specialized in oil and gas leases. Cal was wily, but in this case Cole knew the older man was totally out of his league. After four years in Houston, Cole had heard, read, and seen enough to know how business really worked. He knew there was no such thing as a standard contract that couldn't be changed—and he knew whose interests were usually protected by the originator of any contract.