Harper Allen - Covert Cowboy

“They haven’t come up with a thing, Elva.”

Marilyn heard the hopelessness in her voice as she answered the older woman—heard it, and hated herself for it. She pulled the sheaf of papers toward her, but instead of looking at them she glanced up at her secretary.

“I went to church on Sunday,” she said softly. “I can’t remember the last time I attended. Oh, Christmas and Easter, of course, and whenever I go back to Boston to pay Mother a visit. But just an ordinary Sunday? It’s been a while.”

“I don’t need to ask what you prayed for.” Elva sighed. “I haven’t mentioned anything to the rest of the staff, since the family wants to keep a lid on the publicity, but if you hear anything, Ms. Langworthy…”

“If I hear anything I’ll let you know right away,” Marilyn promised. “Although sometimes I think you’re more in the Langworthy loop than I am.” She’d meant it as a small joke. It hadn’t come out that way, she realized in embarrassment.

Elva didn’t pretend not to understand. “Your father’s a fine man in many ways,” she said evenly. “But he doesn’t like admitting he’s capable of failure, and rightly or wrongly, he sees the breakdown of his first marriage as a failure. When your mother got custody of you and went back home to Beacon Hill, the only way he could handle it was to close off that part of his life. It helped that he was so crazy about your stepmother,” she added dryly. “And to an empire-builder like Samuel a firstborn son like Joshua is a godsend.”

“Oh, Josh was always meant to fulfill Father’s political hopes, even when he went through his rebellious phase,” Marilyn said crisply. “Running for governor is just the start, and if I was ever jealous of my golden-boy brother I got over it long ago.”

“But coming back here to Colorado reminded you of how your younger half sister took your place?” Elva probed with characteristic bluntness. Marilyn grimaced.

“I was born on a Thursday. Holly is Sunday’s child.” She shrugged. “You ever hear the old rhyme?”

“I seem to remember the child born on the Sabbath gets the whole shebang, so to speak.” The older woman’s normally businesslike tones softened. “What about Thursday’s?”

“Thursday’s child has far to go.” Marilyn’s smile was one-sided. “That’s me all over, Elva. Sometimes I feel like I just have so darn far to go before I get to where I want to be. Or to who I want to be,” she added huskily. “I’m not sure I like the person I’ve become since I moved back here, so I can’t complain when the rest of the family make it clear they’d rather I’d stayed in Boston.”

She fell silent for a moment. Then she nudged her computer’s mouse so that the floral screen-saver disappeared.

“An absolutely perfect example of what I mean.” She forced a laugh. “I’m sitting here feeling sorry for my inner child when there’s a real baby missing. You’re right, Elva—Holly must be going through hell, wondering when the authorities will get a break in this case. Somehow her situation puts my little problems into perspective, doesn’t it?”

She sighed. “But meanwhile life at Mills & Grommett goes on, complete with the Wednesday morning meetings I got too used to leaving for Tony to handle when he was here.”

“I’ll inform security you’re working late.” Easily Elva slipped back into the persona of efficient secretary. She nodded pleasantly. “Good night, Ms. Langworthy.”

“’Night, Elva.” Feeling foolishly lonely all of a sudden, Marilyn flipped open the sheaf of papers, but even as she did she realized Elva had paused in the doorway. She looked up.

“Happy birthday, Ms. Langworthy.” The older woman’s tone was tentative. “At M & G we normally order in a cake for these kinds of occasions. I knew you wouldn’t feel like celebrating today, but I didn’t want you to think no one had remembered.”

A cake. As she heard Elva’s footsteps tapping through the outer offices and listened for the thunk of the dead bolt being turned in the reception area door leading to the fortieth floor hallway, a vision of what she’d been spared flitted through Marilyn’s mind. She gave a mental shudder. It was bad enough turning thirty-one. Turning thirty-one in a staff lunchroom had root canals and bikini waxing beat hands down in the excruciatingly painful category. And as Elva had surmised, this was one July twenty-second she had no desire to celebrate.

Coming to Denver was the biggest mistake of your life.

The thought dropped into her mind with the suddenness of unwelcome certainty. Unable to continue feigning an interest in the information in front of her, she got up and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows that took up one wall of her office. On the same unsettled impulse, she flicked off the overhead fluorescents so that only her desk lamp remained on. Below her the lights of the city spread out like diamonds on velvet.

Maybe coming here hadn’t been the biggest mistake, she told herself stonily. Maybe accepting her father’s far-from-enthusiastic invitation to take this position at his company had been. Or maybe breaking her own unwritten rule of not dating a co-worker took the prize—yet another reason cake in the staffroom wouldn’t have been a fun idea. Since that disastrously eye-opening final evening with Tony Corso and his abrupt resignation the next morning, she’d suspected she hadn’t been the first female at M & G he’d shown his true colors to. She had no desire to exchange girlfriend horror stories with Angie, the receptionist, or Leeza, the records clerk.

And none of that mattered a damn, Marilyn thought. Because everything else faded into insignificance beside baby Sky’s disappearance.

She’d had the chance to hold him. She’d turned Holly down. Regret, more corrosive than acid, spilled through her. As it had done a hundred times in the days since Sky’s kidnapping, the memory of the one and only occasion she’d allowed herself to visit her half sister and her newborn nephew came flooding back.

“Sweetie, it’s a Karan blouse and a Jacobs suit,” she’d said coolly. “Baby sick-up isn’t my idea of the perfect accessory. Here’s a little welcome-to-the-world gift for him, by the way. When I told the store clerk what I wanted engraved on it I’m sure he thought we were holdouts from the hippie era or something. Why would you pick Schyler as a name, when you must have known he’d be saddled with such an odd nickname?”

Holly’s only reply had been the annoyingly beatific smile Marilyn had privately told herself her half sister must have received along with the rest of the trappings of motherhood. That smile had been infuriating on more than one level, but at the very least it had been a clear indication that the status quo between them had changed, in Holly’s mind, anyway.

It had always been so easy to prick Holly’s perfect little bubble, she’d thought with a flash of irritation—easy and satisfying and…and justified. Except now it seemed her half sister’s lifelong lack of self-confidence where their father’s first daughter was concerned was gone. Incredibly, that smile seemed to indicate that Holly felt sorry for her.

“It’s beautiful, Marilee. Thank you.”

The use of the foolish pet name that had been the closest a baby Holly had been able to get to pronouncing “Marilyn” had set her teeth on edge. Her half sister had enclosed the solid-silver baby rattle in its nest of tissue paper and ribbon.

“Aren’t you going to let him play with it?” Her usual tone when speaking to Holly was a bored drawl. It had been disconcerting to hear a touch of sharpness in her voice, and she’d modulated it with a laugh. “It’s never too early to develop good taste, and hallmarked silver beats a chewed-up terry cloth toy any day. Take that disgusting rabbit thing away from him and give him the rattle.”