Fit for a King (25 page)

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"Of
course I went," he ground out with failing
patience. His dark
eyes flashed at her. "Bess falls
apart in a crisis. And if my little
brother can't take
care of her, I feel responsible for her," he added,
recognizing without quite realizing it that he was ar
ticulating
what had been his own feelings all along.
"Anyway, damn it,
you aren't making sense."

"On
the contrary, I'm finally making perfect sense.
I've finally opened
my eyes," she snapped. "I can see what's ahead, and I want no part of
it. Bess is
frail and helpless and needs protecting, is that right?
And I'm
tough and insensitive and I don't need any
body?"

"That's how it seems to
me, lady," he bit off, to
tally
confused now and losing his temper. "You handle yourself just fine
without help. You always have.
You're
too damned independent."

It
wounded, but she smiled so that he wouldn't see.
"It beats begging
people to notice you," she said
with a poisonous smile.

"When did you ever have to?" he demanded.

"The
minute Bess got within thirty miles of you,"
she shot back.
"And if you're bothered that I might
die of love for you,
you can forget that, too. I'm
un-
infatuated! Why don't
you go and let Bess cry on you
some more? I've got packing to do."

Elissa's
blind stubbornness was making him see
red. "What will you tell your parents?"
he asked
coldly.

She took a
deep breath. "That I got homesick.
What else?" She
closed the door behind her and, as
an afterthought, locked it. When she
heard him stomp
off down the hall, she blushed at her own conceit. As
if he'd try to come to her,
with Bess so handy. She
crawled onto her
bed, still dressed, and cried until
there were no tears left.

By
morning, she'd salvaged a bit of her pride. She dressed in one of her own
flamboyant creations, a stunning white pant suit with a red silk blouse. She
wore
heels, as well—red, to match the blouse—and
carried a stylish
white purse. Her long hair was pulled
back into a bun, her makeup carefully
applied. She
looked sleek and sophisticated, a woman of the world.
The
fantasy was finally real, but now that she had it,
she no longer wanted
it. She wore rose-tinted sun
glasses to camouflage the ravages of tears.

But she
was a trouper. She'd learned from her par
ents that it always
got darkest just before the dawn,
so she glittered like sunlight as she
joined Bess and
King
at the breakfast table.

"Well,
good morning, glories," she bubbled,
glancing from King's
dark, shocked face to Bess's
pale one. "Isn't it gorgeous traveling weather? Mar
garet, I'll just have toast and coffee, thanks. I
don't manage airplanes very well on a full stomach."

Margaret sighed. "You're
still going, then?" she asked, revealing that she knew what was going on.

"Of course," Elissa said brightly. "I made
reser-

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vations a half hour
ago. I've got two hours to get to the airport, and I've ordered a taxi to take
me there.
Fortunately Jack's Corner is large enough to have
one."

"I'll drive you to the airport," King said
curtly.

"You
will not," Elissa told him. She even smiled.
"Don't be
silly. You'll have to go to the hospital and
see your
brother."

"I'm
getting a divorce," Bess said quickly to
Elissa.

"Yes,
I heard," Elissa said, as if it didn't bother
her in the least.
"It's probably the best thing for both
of you, too. I'm sure
you'll find someone much more attentive than your husband. He did seem rather
too
busy for you."

"He
works very hard," Bess said defensively, and
King glanced at her
curiously.

Elissa
only smiled. She thanked Margaret, who had deposited a cup of black coffee and
two honey-brown
pieces of buttered toast at her elbow.

"Do you have a headache?" King asked Elissa.

"Yes,"
she replied, touching the sunglasses. "But nothing bad enough to prevent
me from leaving, if
that's what's bothering you."

"For
God's sake!" He hit the table with his fist, and Bess jumped. "I
haven't asked you to leave!"

"Like
hell you haven't!" Elissa gave as good as
she got, glaring
across the table at him. "I'm not

blind! I'm nothing
more than an embarrassment to
you now. You can't wait to get rid of
me!"

"I
asked you to many me!" he said shortly.

Bess's eyes widened, and her mouth flew open.

"Marry
you? I'd sooner have—have Blake Dona-
van!"

"Then go get him, honey. He's available!"

She got
up, shaking all over, wanting nothing more than to pick up a chair and hit him
over the head with
it. Black-eyed devil, sitting there as arrogant as an
Indian
chief, bursting with bad temper. Well, hers was
just as bad, and he
wasn't bulldozing over her ever
again.

"Thanks,
I might just do that," she said, her voice
shaking. She turned
and stormed back upstairs to finish packing. She'd left the coffee and toast
untouched,
unable to bear seeing King and Bess together again.

Margaret
came up to get her when the taxi arrived.
"I wish you
wouldn't go," she grumbled.

"I
can't fight her," Elissa said simply. "He cares about her in a way
he'll never care about me. It isn't
something he can help."

"But,
honey, what about you?" Margaret asked
gently, her eyes so
caring that Elissa burst into tears and was gathered up like a child to be
comforted.
"There, there," Margaret cooed. "He'll
come to his
senses one day. Men get a little blind sometimes, and
Bess has
always been special to all of us. He's a little

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sidetracked right
now, but once he's had time to miss
you a little, he'll be along—you mark
my words."

"Think
so? I don't." Elissa wiped her eyes and
nose on a
handkerchief and crumpled it back into her
purse before she
readjusted her dark glasses. "There.
Do I look
terrible?"

"Not
at all. Keep your chin up," Margaret advised.
"Don't let them
see you break down, even if you
have to bite your tongue through. Poor Bobby,
help
less in the
hospital..."

"Poor
Bobby may see the light if he can't get to
his business for
once," Elissa muttered. "What a pity
he didn't look
sooner; he might have saved himself
some heartache."

"I suppose so. Well, you have a safe trip."

"I will. Thank you for being so good to me."

Margaret
studied her quietly. "It's easy to be good
to nice people. I
hope we meet again someday."

"We
probably won't," Elissa said, "but thank you
for the wish."

She
grabbed up her carryall and started downstairs. When she reached the hall, she
heard voices in King's
study. They stopped, quite suddenly, as she
started past the open door, and a moan drew her attention. She glanced into the
room and saw Bess in King's arms, smiling up at him.

It hurt,
if possible even more than what had already
happened, and she
hurried past the room to the front
door.

"Who
was that?" King said, frowning as he heard
the front door slam.

He moved
away from Bess to open the curtain and
look out, just in
time to see Elissa dive into the wait
ing cab and slam the door before it
roared off down
the driveway.

"Oh, for God's sake," he grumbled. "I've
got to

go."

"Must
you?" Bess asked, uncertainty in the soft
eyes that looked up
at him. "We were just going to
talk."

"And
we will. Later," he replied. He let out a slow breath, sensing that she'd
already come to the same
conclusion that he had; that his near
involvement with
Bess had been a sense of responsibility and tender
affection on his part and desperate loneliness on hers.
They'd
work it out later, he was sure, without any
hard words being
spoken. He touched her blond hair
lightly. "You're a lovely woman, Bess," he said
gently, "but I've got a bad case on the
woman who
just walked out the
door."

Bess
sighed. "I guess I knew that already." She
looked up at him.
"It's just...well, I..." She faltered,
trying to explain her
own confused intentions.

"Don't
fret," he said, smiling at her. "When I get
back, we'll have that
nice, long talk, and then we'll
go see Bobby. Okay?"

She smiled wanly. "Okay."

He got into the Lincoln and proceeded to set new

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speed records
driving to the airport. Damn. Elissa had probably seen him with Bess and drawn
all the wrong
conclusions. He was going to have to do some fast
talking
to smooth over this misunderstanding. He
could only imagine
how much her conscience was
smarting over what they'd done together.
Vividly re
membering, he went hot all over.

Almost
two hours later he caught up with Elissa
while she was waiting
to board her flight.

She looked
up, her broken heart cracking all over again at the sight of him, ruggedly jean
clad and visibly impatient. The image almost shocked her into
smiling,
but the pain was still too sharp. She didn't
get up. She sat
there, her dark glasses in place, and
looked at him as if he were some
insect.

He sat
down beside her, glancing at the flight at
tendants who were
just entering the walkway to the
plane. "I have to talk to you," he said curtly.

"We've talked," she said calmly.

"What you saw wasn't what you think," he
began.

"Your
private life is none of my business," she said simply. "I'm not
interested."

"Will
you listen," he gritted. "We've only got a
few seconds."

"Then
you'd better make your speech short," she
replied.

He drew
in a steadying breath, gripping his temper
tightly to keep it
from exploding all over again. All
in all, his patience was being sorely
tried. He seized

upon the first thing
that came to mind. "If you won't
marry me, fine. But if you find
yourself pregnant, I
want to know immediately," he told her.
"Promise
me this minute that you'll get in touch with me, or
so help
me, I'll phone your parents and tell them the
whole sordid
mess."

Sordid. So
that's how he thought of it. Perhaps it was sordid. A little back-alley
overnight affair that
he'd forget soon enough when he and Bess
were mar
ried. Her heart was breaking. She had only a little
pride
left, and it was in tatters. He knew that she loved
him, and that hurt
most of all.

"I'll
get in touch if anything happens," she said finally, the words dragged
from her. "And in case
you're afraid I'll be eating my heart out
over you,
save your pity. Whatever I felt for you, it certainly
wasn't
love."

He
stiffened and felt himself going cold. "That's a
lie," he said,
his voice quiet and deep.

"Love
isn't part of sordid affairs," she said, her
voice starting to
break. "That's all it was, just a...a
cheap little roll in
the hay!"

"No," he said softly, his eyes fierce.
"Never that."

She turned
away, clutching her bag. They were
calling the first-class passengers
aboard. She was
next.
She got to her feet. "I have to go."

He caught
her arm, but she moved away and
wouldn't look at him. "Elissa, damn it..."

"I have to go," she repeated. "So long,
cowboy."