Page 37 of Texas Honor

“Aren’t you going to drive her?” Lillian asked him.

“He’s soaking wet, poor thing,” Mari reminded her. “You wouldn’t want him to get worse.”

“No, of course not!” Lillian said quickly. “But should you go alone, Mari, with your bad experience.”

“She’s tough,” Ward told his housekeeper, and his eyes were making furious statements in the privacy of the hallway. “She’ll get by.”

“You bet I will, big man,” she assured him. “Better luck next time,” she added under her breath. “Sorry I wasn’t more...cooperative.”

“Don’t miss your bus, honey,” he said in a tone as cold as snow.

She smiled prettily and went past him to kiss Lillian goodbye.

Lillian frowned as she returned the hug. “Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”

“Not a thing,” Mari said and smiled convincingly. “He’s just trying not to show how hurt he is that I’m leaving,” she added in a whisper.

“Oh,” Lillian said, although she was feeling undercurrents.

“See you soon,” Mari promised. She walked straight past Ward, who was quietly dripping on the hall carpet, his fists clenched by his side. “So long, boss,” she drawled. “Don’t catch cold, now.”

“If I die of pneumonia, I hope your conscience hurts you,” he muttered.

She turned at the doorway. “It’s more likely that pneumonia would catch you and die. You’re dripping on the carpet.”

“It’s my damned carpet. I’ll drip on it if I please.”

She searched his hard eyes, seeing nothing welcoming or tender there now. The lover of an hour ago might never have been. “I’ll give Georgia your regards.”

“Have you got enough money for a bus ticket?” he asked.

She glared at him. “If I didn’t have it,” she said under her breath, “I’d wait tables to get it! I don’t want your money!”

He was learning that the hard way. As he tried to find the right words to smooth over the hurt, to stop her until he could sort out his puzzling, disturbing new feelings, she whirled and went out the door.

“She sure is in a temper.” Lillian sighed as she hobbled out of the living room and down the hall. “Sure is going to be lonesome around here without her.” She stopped and turned, her eyes full of regret and resignation. “I guess you know what I told her.”

“I know,” he said curtly. “Everything.”

She shrugged. “I was getting older. She was alone. I just wanted her to have somebody to care about her. I’m sorry. I hope both of you can forgive me. I’ll write Mari and try to explain. No sense trying to talk to her right now.” She knew something had gone badly wrong between them, and the boss didn’t look any more eager to discuss it than Mari had. “I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“I already have.”

She looked up with a wan smile. “She’s not a bad girl. You...will let her come back if I straighten things out and stop trying to play cupid?”

He studied her quietly. “You heard what was said out here, didn’t you?”

She stared at the floor. “I got ears that hear pins falling. I was all excited about it, I thought you two were... Well, it’s not my business to arrange people’s lives, and I’ve only just realized it. I’ll mind my own business from now on.” She looked up. “She’ll be all right, won’t she? Thanks to us, she doesn’t even have a job now.”

He was dying inside, and that thought didn’t help one bit. He didn’t want her to go, but he was going to have to let her.

“She’ll be all right,” he said, for his own benefit as well as Lillian’s. Of course she’d be all right. She was tough. And it was for the best. He didn’t want to get married.

What if she went back and married someone else? His heart skipped a beat and he scowled.

“Can she come back, at least to visit?” Lillian asked sadly.

“Of course she can!” he grumbled. “She’s your niece.”