Diana Palmer - Lacy

Why should that hurt so much? He turned on his heels and stalked out of the house. Cassie was crying softly as he went out the door.

The shock was almost too much for Marion Whitehall. She came home to a tearful Cassie and was hit with the news just as she put her purse down on the hall table.

Her elegant features contorted; her dark eyes filled with tears under their frame of curling, silvery hair. “Gone?” she exclaimed. “My Katy, gone? To—to live with a man? Why didn’t someone stop her?”

“Mr. Turk got here too late, and Mr. Cole ain’t come home yet, that’s why,” Cassie moaned. “And I was out in the garden. Nobody was here to stop her. Mr. Turk said she was of age—and he just stomped off somewhere in a temper. Mr. Cole going to be so mad!”

Marion sat down. She felt sick all the way to her shoes. Katy. Her baby. How could she do this? “Has Ben come home?” she asked.

“I doesn’t think so,” Cassie said, sobbing. “He didn’t come down for breakfast, so I looks in his room, and he ain’t been in it. So I reckon he ain’t here. Oh, Lord! What a terrible day this is! What a terrible homecoming for Mr. Cole!”

Marion felt the tears running down her cheeks. “Did she leave a message? A note? Anything?”

“I’ll go look,” Cassie said, ambling toward the staircase.

Just then, the front door flew open, and Ben Whitehall came rushing through it, his dark eyes wild, his dark hair disheveled like his once-immaculate gray suit. “I got it!” he burst out, “I got it! I got it! He hired me!”

He grabbed Cassie and spun her around in an impromptu dance, too exuberant to notice that nobody was smiling. “I’m going to work for a brand spanking new San Antonio newspaper.” He laughed. “They hired me to write news. I’ve been out with the owner and his daughter, and I have to go back—” He stopped, frowning as the somber faces of his mother and housekeeper penetrated his enthusiasm. He let go of Cassie. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Your sister just left for Chicago,” Marion said miserably, her face a study in desperation and shame. “To live with the owner of a speakeasy!”

Ben’s face froze. He straightened, running an idle hand through his thick, dark hair. He stared at his mother. “She left with that gangster?” he asked, as if he could hardly believe what he’d heard. “Why didn’t somebody stop her?”

“Turk apparently didn’t get here in time,” Marion said quietly, her eyes wet with tears. “My little girl…in that terrible place! Oh, Ben! What will become of her?”

“Now, Mama,” Ben said awkwardly. He knelt before her, rubbing her hands in his. “Mama, she’s a big girl. Are you sure they aren’t getting married?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Cassie’s looking for a note or something. Why did she do it?” she asked, lifting eyes as dark as his own to question him. “She’s been so wild lately, but I never expected her to do anything like this. Ben—” she leaned forward urgently “—Coleman will kill him.”

“Yes, I know,” he said. It was the truth, too. Cole had a hell of a temper, and he doted on Katy. He wouldn’t put it past his big brother to get on the first train North with a pistol on his hip.

“How are we going to tell him?” she persisted, gnawing on her lower lip.

Ben forced a smile. Just his luck, he thought miserably. Here he’d came home with the best news of his budding career, and there was nobody to listen. Sister Katy had stolen his thunder.

“Here,” Cassie called from the hall, waving a piece of paper. “She did leave us a note!”

Marion took it from her with trembling hands and read it. “Mama and all,” Katy had scribbled. “Danny and I are engaged. We are going to Chicago today to meet his parents. We’ll invite you all to the wedding! Wish us luck. Love, Katy.”

Ben met his mother’s dark eyes. “Do you believe it?”

She shook her head. “But it’s important that we make Coleman believe it…Do you understand me, Ben, Cassie?”

They both nodded. Cole’s temper wasn’t something to arouse unnecessarily. It was frankly dangerous.

MEANWHILE KATY WAS SITTING jauntily beside Danny in the spiffy Alfa Romeo, forcing herself to laugh gaily and pretend wild enthusiasm for the long trip North.

Beside her, Danny Marlone was grinning from ear to ear, his complexion even darker against his perfect white teeth. He gave his companion a warm glance and began to whistle.

“You’ll love the Windy City, baby,” he said. “I’ll show you all the best places. There’s a beach…You’ll love that. I’ve got this big house, all stone, on a hill overlooking the lake, chock-full of servants. You’ll have everything you want. Everything!”

“Darling, I did tell this one itty-bitty white lie,” she said, wanting everything aboveboard.

He caught her hand and pressed the palm to his lips. “What itty-bitty white lie?”

She swallowed, trying not to think about Turk and how it had been…“Well, so that my brother wouldn’t kill you, I said we were getting married.”

“Darling! But this is so sudden!” He chuckled, grinning at her.

She just stared, taken aback.

“It sounds great, doesn’t it? Mr. and Mrs. Danny Marlone,” he said, clasping her fingers closer. He laid her open palm on his thigh. “Yeah, I like that. We’ll go whole hog, too. Announcements in all the papers, only the best people at the wedding. Your family can come. Your big brother can give you away. Oh, it’ll be great, honey!”

Her breath lodged in her chest. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing! “But I thought you just—just wanted to have an affair!” she burst out, turning to face him.

“I want you,” he said, and the look in his eyes made her feel oddly humble. That wasn’t lust. That was love, pure and simple, and even while she marveled at being the recipient of it, she ached to have that look from Turk. She never would, now. Never.

“For keeps?” she whispered.

He nodded. He pulled the car to the side of the road and let the engine idle while he stared at her. “For keeps. Let’s get married.”

“I’m not a virgin,” she said straight-out, without going into detail.

“Neither am I. So what?” he asked bluntly.

Her cheeks went rosy. She smiled, feeling really shy. “Well…”

He bent and put his mouth over hers. It wasn’t unpleasant, letting him kiss her. He ran his hands slowly over her shoulders, down over her breasts, and that wasn’t unpleasant, either.

He laughed. “You’re not that experienced, either, chick,” he whispered as she flushed again. He winked at her as he moved back under the wheel and put it in gear. “We’ll get along okay. Now sit back and watch this baby run!” He hit the accelerator, and the car shot forward with a surge of pure power.

Katy, sitting beside him, suddenly felt as if she’d won a lottery. So there wouldn’t be any disgrace. She’d be a respectable married lady, and Cole wouldn’t come and kill Danny. She closed her eyes and smiled. She wondered what Turk would say when he found out. He’d probably be relieved to hear that she was out of his hair once and for all, she thought bitterly. She comforted herself with the hope that she wouldn’t be pregnant. Turk had tried to spare her that shame. It was one thing to go to Danny without her chastity, quite another to present him with another man’s child. She had too much character for that kind of dirty trick. But…what if Turk’s actions had been too late?

FAR AWAY, ON THE NORTHERN end of San Antonio, Lacy was clutching her husband’s sleeve as he helped her on board the morning train that ran down through Floresville and stopped on a siding near Spanish Flats.