Judith McNaught - Remember When

A fresh surge of fury rocketed through Cole at that. "I don't know how he could possibly justify that to himself, or to me!"

The remark was rhetorical and he hadn't expected an answer, but Letty had one, and he realized that she was absolutely right, that she had seen through all the bluster and excuses, straight through to Calvin's real motivation: "Your uncle is not concerned with money now; he is concerned only with immortality," Letty said as she straightened a precariously high stack of reading material on the end table. "He desires immortality, and he realizes that immortality can only be his through his son."

"I am not his son," Cole pointed out impatiently.

Letty gave him one of her sweet smiles, but her reply was quietly emphatic. "He thinks of you as such."

"If immortality is what he's after, then Travis's two kids have already provided it for him. Travis and I are both his great-nephews. Even if I had children, they'd be related to him in exactly the same way that Travis's are."

Letty bit back a smile. "Travis's son is lazy and sullen. Perhaps he will outgrow that someday, but for now your uncle does not desire to risk his immortality on such as Ted. Donna Jean is shy and timid. Perhaps someday she will show spirit and courage, but for now," she trailed off, leaving Cole to conclude the obvious—that his uncle did not wish to "risk" his immortality on Donna Jean, either.

"Do you have any idea what brought on his sudden obsession with immortality?" Cole asked.

She hesitated and then she nodded. "His heart is growing weaker. Dr. Wilmeth comes often now. He says there is nothing more that can be done."

Cole went from shock to denial in the space of moments. He already knew it was futile to try to get Cal to go to Dallas to see other doctors. Once before, after months of arguing, Cole had finally accomplished that, only to have them all concur with Wilmeth. From then on, Cal had refused to even discuss having another consultation.

Across from Cole, Letty drew a deep, unsteady breath and looked at him with her brown eyes filled with tears. "Dr. Wilmeth says it is only a matter of time before..." She broke off, then got up and rushed from the room.

Leaning forward, Cole braced his elbows on his knees, overwhelmed by a terrible sense of fear and foreboding. With his shoulders hunched and his hands loosely linked, he gazed at his uncle's vacant chair while memories of the cozy nights and animated discussions they'd shared over the past three decades drifted through his mind. It seemed as if the only domestic warmth and happiness he'd ever known had been contained in this one shabby-cozy room. All of that would die when Cal died.

If Letty was correct, that time was not far away. His mind went black when he tried to contemplate a life without trips here to see his uncle. This man, this ranch, they were the original fabric of Cole's life. He had discarded the cowboy boots and jeans of his youth for supple loafers of Italian leather, custom-made suits tailored in England, and handmade shirts of Egyptian cotton, but underneath all that exterior polish, he was still as rough and rugged as the denim jeans and scarred leather boots he had worn. In his youth, Cole had hated his roots. From the day he went to Houston to college, he'd worked diligently to banish all traces of the "cowboy" he'd been. He'd changed the way he walked and the way he spoke, until there was no trace of the horseman's loping gait or a west Texas drawl.

Now fate was threatening to take away the last link he had to his roots, and the adult that Cole had become wanted desperately to preserve everything that was left.

Cal's threat to leave his half of the company to Travis and his family was forgotten as Cole tried desperately to think of some action that would forestall the inevitable, that would breathe life into his uncle and brighten his last remaining years. Or months. Or days. Cole's thoughts revolved in an unbroken circle of futility and helplessness. There was only one thing he could do for Cal that would make his remaining days happy.

"Son of a bitch," Cole said aloud, but the curse was one of resignation not defiancé. He was going to have to marry someone, and marriage in a community-property state like Texas brought with it a whole new set of financial risks for him. Whoever the "lucky" woman was, Cole decided sarcastically, a sense of humor and docile disposition were at the top of his list of requirements for her. Otherwise, he could envision a somewhat heated scene when she realized she was going to be required to sign a prenuptial agreement.

He considered hiring an actress to play the part, but his uncle was too clever and too suspicious to fall for that. No doubt, that had been why he was insisting on seeing the marriage certificate. Luckily, the old man wasn't also insisting on the birth of a boy child before he turned over his share of a company that was rightfully Cole's in the first place. The fact that he hadn't made that a stipulation, too, was proof he wasn't as sharp as he used to be.

He wasn't as well as he used to be, either.

Swearing under his breath, Cole straightened and reached for the mug of now cold chocolate, intending to take it into the kitchen. His gaze fell on the folded newspaper on the top of the pile. Diana Foster's face smiled back at him. She'd had all the promise of beauty to come when she was sixteen, but the longer he looked at her stunning features and confident smile, the harder it became for him to reconcile this glamorous businesswoman or the one he'd watched on CNN with the endearingly prim and quietly poised teenager he remembered. In his mind, Cole envisioned the loyal, intelligent, entrancing adolescent who'd perched on a bale of hay, either watching him in silence or chatting with him about everything, from puppies to politics.

Tonight, when his uncle first commented on the fact that a woman from Houston had been "dumped" by her fiancé, Cole hadn't realized who she was. After he'd read the story in the tabloid, the reality of Diana's embarrassing plight registered on him. Now he again felt a pang of sympathy and indignation for the girl he had known. With her looks and wealth, her kindness and intelligence, he had assumed that she'd enjoy all the best life had to offer. She'd deserved that. She had not deserved to be made a national laughingstock by Dan Penworth.

With a weary sigh, Cole dismissed that subject from his mind and stood up, no longer able to suppress his own concerns by concentrating on the fortunes of a beguiling teenager with unforgettable green eyes who'd become the head of a major company and the subject of an embarrassing scandal instead of the pampered fairy-tale princess he'd hoped she'd become.

Life, as Cole well knew, rarely turned out the way one wanted it to or hoped it would. Not his life, or Diana Foster's. or his uncle's.

He picked up the mug of cold chocolate and carried it into the kitchen; then he carefully poured out the remnants and rinsed the mug so that Letty wouldn't discover how he felt about hot chocolate and be hurt by the truth.

The truth was that he hated hot chocolate.

He also hated marshmallows.

He particularly hated illness and doctors who diagnosed problems without offering a cure.

For that matter, he wasn't particularly enthusiastic about a sham marriage that was doomed to failure before it began.

It had occurred to Cole that the most likely, and most agreeable, candidate for his wife was not the "princess" whom his uncle had referred to earlier that night, but Michelle. Besides genuinely caring for Cole, she had no problem with his hectic work and travel schedule. In fact, she'd been very eager to adapt to it—and that was going to be far more important to Cole in this "marriage." Considering his circumstances, his pressing need, and the haste required of him, Cole decided he was damned lucky to have such a viable candidate.