Diamond Spur (19 page)

"We won't discuss it at all, Jason," she snapped, determined to fight for her rights. It was now or never. "If I bow down to you now, I'll be doing it for the rest of my life. You aren't going to make a slave of me. I have a right to choose what I do with my life!"

"Sure you do. But not while you've got my baby under your heart," he said with dark intent. "I haven't forgotten what you said about careers and babies not mixing, and I don't damned well trust you!"

"Jason, damn you...oh!" She bent over suddenly, racked with pain.

Jason forgot the argument. He picked her up and sat down with her, cradling her. "Do you need the doctor?" he asked quickly. "Just...let me sit...and breathe." "Oh, baby," Mary moaned. She sighed heavily, touching the dark head lying on Jason's broad

shoulder. She met his repentant eyes. "You can't upset her. Not now, of all times," she whispered.

"I should have known that," he said. He held her closer. "Honey, is it any better?"

"It's easing off." Only a little, but she didn't want him to know that. She'd had twinges like this before, and a good deal of spotting. She remembered with horror what Dr. Harris had said. She wondered if it was honest to withhold that information from Jason. Things were so strained between them that it seemed impossible to communicate with him at all, and she'd already made him doubt her intentions.

"We won't talk about the future," he said firmly. "There won't be any more arguments. The baby has to be our first concern."

She sighed, looking up. She wanted to tell him that she had no intention of risking the baby, career or no career. But the words wouldn't come. She relaxed against him, weary. "All right."

Mary smiled at the picture they made. She'd never felt so smug in all her life. "I'll make some coffee."

"Should she have coffee?" Jason asked, his tone deep and concerned.

Mary winked at Kate. "A little won't hurt. I drank two pots a day while I was carrying her, and nothing happened. I didn't get cancer, either." "Don't get her started," Kate moaned. "She's good for two hours on what she thinks of research studies."

"I'll remember that," he mused. Mary vanished into the kitchen, and Jason looked down into Kate's wan little face hungrily, although he hid it immediately. "I'm sorry," she said, searching his dark face. "I'm really sorry. I wasn't going to tell you at all...."

His face hardened. "I realize that," he said curtly. "No doubt you'd have gone away and put the child up for adoption if I hadn't found you out by accident. Your career would have suffered otherwise, wouldn't it?"

Let him think what he liked. "At least you want the child," she said coldly. "Yes," he agreed. "I want this child." She didn't know how desperately he wanted the child's mother as well. "Do you have an obstetrician?"

"Yes. Dr. Harris is getting me an appointment." She took a slow breath. "I'm a little scared," she confessed. "If anything went wrong..." She was going to add that Jason would probably blame her.

He interrupted. "Nothing's going to," he said shortly. He laughed bitterly. "My God, I'd go out of my mind if anything did, now." That stopped her from telling him about her symptoms. She couldn't She'd put the knife in her own back, with her taunt outside.

Her soft eyes searched his. "You do want this baby?" she whispered.

His gaze dropped to her waist and one lean, tender hand moved down past it to her flat abdomen. "I want it." He put more feeling into those three words that she'd ever heard in his deep voice.

Her fingers touched his hesitantly, and his hand turned to catch them, hold them.

"I won't fit into your world, Jason," she said suddenly. "You were right, I'll never manage...!"

He bent and kissed her forehead. "You'll learn. You said earlier that you could, now I'll let you prove it."

That was what bothered her. He'd tutor her and take her over, and the baby would be the wedge he used. He'd decide every move she made, every step she took and she'd have to fight for any inch of leeway she got from now on.

"I can't let you own me," she remarked. "You're a reactionary, Jason. You're the kind of man who won't let a woman breathe unless you tell her when and how. I can't bear being nothing but an extension of you."

He studied the warm hand in his. "I realize that," he replied. "You want fame and fortune, don't you? But that will have to wait, until this child is born. Afterwards," he added, searching her face coolly, "we'll discuss terms."

She drew in a slow breath. Now she knew that it was going to be a fight all the way. But marriage was an unexpected bonus, even if he hated her for trapping him. She and the baby might turn his life around. She might make him like captivity. So she gave in. "Okay."

He searched her eyes for a long moment. "There's one good thing, Kate," he said. "We know each other as well as two people ever do without actually living together. We've managed to get along for three years. Maybe we can regain the friendship we had." Was that all he had left to offer, she wondered miserably. She sighed. "Yes, but don't you see, that wasn't on an intimate basis." She looked, and felt, worried. "You said I'd never fit in." He stiffened. "You may need a little educating in social graces, not that Mary hasn't done well by you. But you'll handle yourself well enough. And once you join a few social groups...." It was getting worse by the minute. She felt trapped already. "Social groups?" "There are always coffees and teas and benefits," he said carelessly. "Things to welcome new people to the community or honor brides-elect, or help the poor. You'll learn all about that. Then there are the inevitable business conferences and business dinners. We do a lot of entertaining at the Spur, but Sheila will be a godsend when you start organizing them." "I don't know if I can cope," she confessed nervously. "You'll get the hang of it in no time. Now sit up. We've got some plans to finalize before I leave here. Stop worrying. Everything will work out," he promised. But it wasn't going to be that easy, Kate knew it even if he was trying to pretend differently.

She came from a totally different background than he did, from a different world. All the things he'd warned her about long ago, when he found out that she was ambitious, suddenly applied to their marriage. She wasn't the kind of woman he'd have chosen to marry, she was almost sure of it. But she was pregnant, and he wanted the baby, so he'd do whatever was necessary to get it.

She wondered as she heard him outlining the wedding ceremony what he really felt about having to marry her. He'd never tell her, she knew that. He wanted the baby, but she knew he didn't really want her.

Time passed all too quickly. Kate went into work the next day despite Jason's objections and her mother's pleas. She couldn't stay home and think about things or she'd go crazy. Dessie and the others were tickled about the forthcoming marriage, and their first question was about where was she going to get her gown. "I wanted to design it myself," Kate sighed, sitting down heavily in her chair. "But he wants to have it from Neiman-Marcus."

"A waste of good talent," Dessie scoffed. "Honey, you sketch that thing out and we'll donate the materials and the talent," she buffed her nails on her dress front with a haughty smile, "and we'll have you decked out in the prettiest outfit since Lady Di married the prince."

"But you don't have time...." Kate protested.

"We'll make it. Get busy," Dessie said.

The others seconded the offer. Kate gave in. Well, this was an act of rebellion, and it would irritate Jason. On the other hand, she had every right to design her own dress. At least this way, it would fit on the first try and there wouldn't be the inevitable alterations for her waistline from buying a perfect size at an exclusive store. She turned to her desk with a smile and opened a clean sheet on her pad.

Jason was there when she got off from work. She'd planned to wait until Mary finished her overtime, but now she could leave the car with her mother.

"Here," he said, "I'll take her the keys to the Tempo."

"But you can't go in, you're not an employee...."

Useless to tell him that. He just kept walking, towering over everyone as he went through

the door that said "employees only." He was back scant minutes later, looking smug. "Your mother thinks I'm the berries," he informed Kate as he slid into the front seat of the Mercedes beside her. "You knew that already," she sighed. She leaned her head back against the leather seat and turned it sideways to study Jason's sharp features. "Looking for male beauty?" he taunted. "Sorry, honey, ugly goes all the way to the bone, as the song says, so we'd both better hope that our boy takes after you."

"Our boy or our girl,'' she corrected.' 'And you're handsome enough."

He laughed softly, reaching into his shirt pocket for a cigarette as he drove. He was wearing suit slacks with a white silk shirt and tie. The jacket was helter-skelter in the back seat. He looked like a tired businessman, and Kate realized suddenly that she'd see him every day now.

"Why did you come after me?" she asked, curious.

"It seemed like a good idea. We're barely engaged. People might think it odd if I didn't."

"Oh. I see."

"No, you don't," he shot back. His dark eyes glittered across the seat at her. "You don't

know me at all, Kate."

"You won't let me," she replied softly, and even laughed a little. "Nobody's that privileged in

your life, Jason, not even me."

"People can hurt if they get close enough," he said. "I learned that the hard way, when I was

just a kid." He laughed coldly as he drove, his face hard with the memories. "My dad used to

put on a big show when I'd made him mad. He'd hold out his arms and smile at me, and talk

really sweet. And then, when I was close enough to catch, he'd beat the hell out of me. I never

knew when it was coming. I could never tell. It was safer to stay out of his reach—physically

and emotionally."

"And now you stay out of everybody's reach because of it," she said. Hers, included.

"That might have been different if my mother hadn't saved herself and left Gene and me at his mercy," he replied. His voice got even colder as he went on. "My mother, damn her soul, put her own needs first. He was a hellion when he drank, but it was because of her that he gave in to alcohol. He went over the line when she left. He missed her every day he lived."

"Is she still alive?"

He glanced at Kate with a curious expression. After a minute he smiled bitterly. "Oh, she's alive. She's very much alive. Every year, on my birthday, she sends me a card and another tearstained note begging me to come and talk to her. She never elaborates, and she never gives up. And I never go."

Kate stared at him without speaking. Jason sounded bitter and cruel, and the face she saw then frightened her. He never forgave people. Kate wondered if someday, somehow, she'd fail him. And he'd look at her with that cold smile and push her to one side without mercy. She shivered a little.

"Your birthday is in April," she recalled.

"When is yours? I keep forgetting."

"In January. I'll be twenty-one the next one."

"An old lady," he said, his dark eyes twinkling. They softened on her. "By then, you'll look very, very pregnant."

"You sound smug." He didn't elaborate, but he felt proud, too, that he'd managed to get her pregnant the first time he'd tried. He could talk about wanting his freedom, but he'd wanted Kate until she was his major obsession. While she was pregnant, she was his completely. No other man would look at her with desire or want her, and her career would have to take a back seat to motherhood. And she'd have to lean on him, just a little. That made him feel fiercely male, and he liked the feeling.

"Have you told Sheila and the others?" she asked.

"It was too late when I got home last night," he said, "and I was up and gone early to Dallas for a meeting. I thought we'd go tell them together."

"It will be embarrassing," she said nervously.

"Hell! They're family."

She thought about that, and relaxed a little. Yes. They were family, and none of them would ostracize her. If Jason had expected to surprise Sheila, he was doomed to disappointment. She was waiting at the front door with two skeins of pink and blue wool and her knitting needles under one arm. "Thought I'd get a head start," she told Kate, grinning wickedly. "Are we having a boy or a girl, or hasn't his lordship here decided yet?" she jerked her head toward Jason.

Kate burst out laughing and hugged Sheila warmly. "Oh, Sheila, you angel."

"Be careful that she doesn't stab you with her angelic pitchfork," Jason muttered. "She

overstarches my shirts and changes detergent every second week so that I break out all over...."

"Keep it up," Sheila glowered at him. "Just keep it up and I'll teach you the true meaning of

the term 'burnt offering,' because that's all you'll get from now on."

"And what do you mean, 'from now on'?"

"Where's my broom?" Sheila muttered, looking around.

"I think Barton borrowed it to fly to town on," Jason offered, and sidestepped as the bulky

woman swung, grinning at her. "Your brother and sister-in-law are watching a movie in the living room," Sheila called after him as he caught Kate's hand and guided her down the hall. "At least, she is. I think he's painting her." "When isn't he painting something?" Jason asked curtly. "Everything except those new fences we put up, and the wagon...."