The Virgin Mistress (5 page)

Her tone was wistful—she could hear it in her voice—and she wasn't surprised when Austin heard it, too. Frowning, he said, “Don't you go on picnics now? You two seem so close.”

“We used to be,” she said. “I admired her so much. She was wonderful with the foster children, and I loved helping her with them. But after the accident, she didn't have time for picnics. Her priorities changed.”

“How?”

She shrugged. “There were little changes at first. She became totally devoted to Joe Junior—then she had Teddy and was the same way with him. Later, she got wrapped up in her social schedule, and she just didn't have time to do the things we used to do.”

She didn't have time for me anymore,
Rebecca added silently. And she didn't know why. She just knew Meredith was different, and they weren't as close as they'd once been. And the only explanation she had for it was the accident.

The thought saddened her, and the mood was somber as they returned to the house, where they found themselves guests at a small dinner party. Feeling underdressed in riding clothes, Rebecca felt her heart sink at the sight of a former congressman and a famous Hollywood producer who had joined the family in the courtyard for before-dinner drinks. Why, she wondered in frustration, did Meredith insist on inviting the entire world to dinner? When she'd first come to the ranch, one of the things she'd loved the most about living there had been the family suppers in the eat-in kitchen. They'd been homey and fun and intimate and given everyone a chance to catch up on each other's day.

But those times were, unfortunately, long gone, and now it seemed like there were always outsiders around. Meals were much more formal and in the dining room. And Rebecca hated it. Given the chance, she would have used the excuse that she had homework to grade and left. But she'd had so much fun with Austin that she hated to see the evening end. And one look at his resigned expression and she knew he wasn't any more thrilled than she at the idea of attending a dinner party. The least she could do was stick around and help him through it.

Fortunately, it didn't turn out to be as bad as Rebecca
had anticipated. The conversation shifted back and forth between politics and the movie industry, and the discussions on the future of both were lively and sometimes more than a little intense. But Joe was in his element, his blue eyes sparkling with interest, and for the first time since the shooting, he seemed like his old self. Rebecca could have sat there for hours, just listening to him talk.

Meredith, however, changed the entire mood with just a few carelessly chosen words. The meal was almost over—Inez was serving her fabulous praline cheesecake—when Meredith took advantage of a sudden lull in the conversation to turn her attention on Austin. “So, Austin,” she said brightly, “how is the investigation going now that you've had time to check out the guest list? You must have narrowed down some suspects.”

Just that easily, silence fell like a rock. For a moment, Austin didn't say a word. A muscle clenched in his jaw, and he just looked at her. But everyone at the table was waiting for his answer, and he finally said quietly, “I can't discuss that at this point. The investigation is ongoing, and I still have a lot of leads to follow up.”

“But what about suspects?” she pressed. “You must have some idea of who the shooter is by now. You've been talking to people all week.”

“This kind of case takes time to solve,” he retorted. “You don't do it overnight.”

“But—”

“That's enough, Meredith,” Joe growled. Glaring at her from the opposite end of the dining room table, he gave her a hard look that anyone who knew him well was familiar with. Without saying a word, he told her to shut up. Glancing at his guests, he smiled wryly. “I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't want to talk about
violence at the dinner table. It doesn't do a lot for the digestive system.”

Far from intimidated by his warning look, Patsy just barely resisted the urge to scream at him. How dare he correct her in front of guests! She could talk about anything she wanted to, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it!

“I would have thought you'd want to know who your enemies are,” she said coldly. “But if you want to live in a fairy tale and pretend everything is hunky-dory, go ahead. I know where you want to be buried.”

Urged on by that voice in her head that always seemed to get her in trouble, Patsy knew she may have gone too far, but she didn't care. He could be such a jackass sometimes. She didn't know what Meredith had ever seen in him. If he hadn't been so damn rich, she, herself, would have walked away from him years ago. But she'd been alone and poor before, and rich was better—even if that meant she did have to put up with Joe Colton.

Not, she silently amended with a secret smile, that she might have to do that for much longer. Somebody else out there wanted him dead. They'd tried to kill him once. They were bound to try to do it again. And next time they just might succeed. Then she'd have all that lovely money to herself, and she'd never have to deal with Joe Colton again.

T
he nightmare came out of the darkness like a thief in the night, grabbing her before she even thought to note the danger. Coming awake with a startled cry of horror, Louise Smith bolted up in bed, her brown eyes wide and unfocused, her heart slamming against her ribs. In her subconscious, vague, shadowy images rose up before her, terrifying her, and for a moment, she couldn't even have said where she was. Then she blinked, and the neat feminine decor of her bedroom came into focus and she realized she was safe and sound in her modest little home in Jackson, Mississippi.

It was then that the tears started.

Suddenly cold all the way to the bone in spite of the fact that it was a warm summer night, Louise wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth in her bed. The nightmares had become more frequent over the course of the last few months—and more terrifying. She'd
had them for years, ever since she'd woken up one morning at the St. James Clinic with no memory of who she was, but they'd never been so bad before. Every night for the past week, she'd hardly closed her eyes when she went to bed before the nightmares began. And they were always the same—a little girl crying out for her mommy in the dark. And
she
was the mommy the little girl cried out for.

A sob welled up from deep inside her, and she could no more hold it back than she could change the fact that she was Patsy Portman, a woman with a prison record and a history of mental disability, a woman who'd had a baby girl taken from her soon after her birth that was still, to this day, lost to her. Just thinking about that still made her cringe. What kind of monster was she?

When the hospital staff at the St. James Clinic had told her about her past, she was sure that there had to be some mistake. She wasn't that kind of person. She couldn't be! She might not remember who she was, but surely she would know if she'd killed a man! But then her doctor had shown her her prison record, and there was no denying that she was as amoral as she'd been told she was. Horrified, she'd vowed to change her life right then and there.

The first thing she'd done was return to Mississippi and her last known address, where she'd changed her name to Louise Smith so she could start her new life with a clean slate. But putting the past behind her hadn't been that easy. She'd had no references to get a job, no education that she knew of, no skills. Finally she'd gotten a job at the University of Mississippi. She'd worked hard, and with time, she'd eventually risen through the ranks to become the head of administration services.

She was proud of that and all that she'd accomplished, but there were some things she couldn't change regardless
of how hard she tried. Her past was still lost to her. And then there were the nightmares that haunted her nights. Inexplicably, they'd first started nearly five years ago, and had never gone away. Losing weight and sleep, she'd finally sought out Dr. Martha Wilkes, a therapist who specialized in repressed memory, and for a while, she'd felt like she was making real progress. Then she'd started having migraines, and her nightmares had gotten progressively worse. Even with Martha's continued help, she still couldn't say what her dreams were about. She just knew she was scared to death, and she didn't know why.

The dreams had to be related to her past—she and Martha both agreed on that. But what had she done that was so awful that she couldn't face it? After all, she'd murdered a man, for heaven's sake, and had a baby stolen from her arms. What could be more terrible than that? What had Patsy Portman done?

Scared, her heart aching with a hurt she couldn't put a name to, she huddled under the covers and told herself whatever it was, she couldn't keep running from it. With Martha's help, she had to find a way to face and accept whatever was haunting her dreams. Because if she didn't, it was going to slowly destroy her, and she was determined not to let that happen.

But when she lay back down and closed her eyes, the specter of her nightmare was right there beside her in the dark, towering over her like the devil himself. Her eyes flew open, and in the deep silence of the night, she would have sworn she could hear the thundering of her heart. With the covers pulled tight around her, she stared at the darkness. It was a long time before she fell asleep.

 

Rebecca woke with a smile on her face the next morning and didn't have to ask herself who put it there. Austin.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd enjoyed herself so much with a man. He was just so easy to be around. There'd been no pressure like there was on a date, no expectations of anything romantic. They'd just gone riding like two friends who'd known each other forever, then had dinner with the family and a few guests. It couldn't have been more perfect.

A kiss on the cheek wouldn't have hurt, she thought with a smile, but then again, she'd accepted the fact that there wasn't going to be any romance in her life. If friendship was all she could have with Austin, then she'd take it.

Happier than she'd been in a long time, she pulled on one of her favorite dresses, a white cotton sheath with an embroidered neckline, and stepped into flat white sandals. Feeling very feminine, she French-braided her hair in a single braid that hung down her back, then applied a minimum of makeup and a spritz of perfume. And when she looked in the mirror, she couldn't stop smiling. She felt pretty this morning and it showed.

The glow of the morning stayed with her all the way to work and well into her first class. There must have been something in the air, because her students were all alert and eager, and everything seemed to flow as smooth as silk. Then there was a knock at her classroom door and she turned to find Mildred Henderson, an aide from the school office, hesitating at the threshold with a note from the principal.

Surprised, Rebecca took the note and arched a brow at the curtly written message instructing her to report to the office immediately. “Mr. Foster wants to see me now?” she asked Mildred. “During the middle of class?”

The elderly, grandmotherly woman nodded somberly. “I don't know what happened, dear, but he seemed very
upset. Run along now. I'll stay with the class while you're gone.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you.” Shaken, Rebecca hurried down the hall to the office, worry eating at her stomach. Had the shooter gotten to Joe? Was that what this was about? Was he hurt? Dead?

The blood draining from her face, Rebecca gave a perfunctory knock at the principal's door and hardly waited from him to respond before she barged inside. “Is something wrong with my family?”

Richard Foster knew all about the shooting at Joe's birthday party—the story had been all over the newspapers and covered extensively on both the local and national news programs on TV—so he knew what she was really asking. “As far as I know, Joe Colton is fine, Ms. Powell,” he said stiffly. “You've been called here on school business.”

It wasn't until he gave her a pointed look that Rebecca realized they weren't alone. Standing to the right of Richard's massive oak desk was a tall blond man who was glaring at her with intense dislike. “Oh, I'm sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn't realize I was interrupting.”

She would have excused herself, but the principal stopped her in her tracks. “This is Mr. Bishop, Rebecca,” he said coldly, introducing her to the other man. “His son, Hughie, is in your fifth period class.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” she replied. “I've talked to your wife several times at our parent-teacher conferences. It's nice to meet you.”

She would have held out her hand, but nothing in Mr. Bishop's hostile demeanor encouraged that kind of courtesy. When both men just glared at her, she looked at Richard Foster hesitantly. “I presume this is about Hughie. Is something wrong?”

“You tell us,” the principal retorted. “Did you take a slingshot away from Hughie yesterday?”

Until that moment, Rebecca had completely forgotten about it. “As a matter of fact, I did. It was a carved wooden gun, and he was threatening Tabitha Long with it. I took it away and put it in my desk. I know I should have turned it in to the office, Mr. Foster, but yesterday was so hectic, I forgot.”

Not the least impressed with her explanation, Hugh Bishop snapped, “Go get it. I want it back.”

Confiscated weapons were never returned to the students or their families. That was standard school policy, and Rebecca expected Richard to tell Mr. Bishop that. Instead, he just looked at her with steely blue eyes and said, “You heard the man. Go get it.”

Rebecca couldn't have been more surprised if he'd slapped her. “But that's against school policy—”

“When I want your advice on how to run this school, Ms. Powell, I'll ask for it. In the meantime, I suggest you do as you're told.”

If you value your job.
The words weren't spoken, but Rebecca heard them, nonetheless, and had never felt more like a chastised schoolgirl. And it hurt. She was a good teacher and she'd done the right thing by taking that gun away from Hughie. And Richard knew that. Aside from the fact that it was school policy, it was her duty as a teacher to take away anything from a student that could be used to hurt or intimidate someone. So why hadn't he backed her up? Didn't he realize that
he
could get in trouble with the school board for not carrying out his duty as a principal? What was going on here?

She wanted to ask, but he had that look on his face, the one that he always wore whenever he was thinking of his impending divorce, the one that she and the other
teachers had learned to avoid like the plague. There was no point in arguing further.

“I'll be right back,” she said stiffly, and turned and marched out of the office without saying another word.

Later, she didn't know how she did it. She'd never been so humiliated in all her life, but she walked down the hall to her classroom with her head held high and even managed a smile for Mildred Henderson when she quietly stepped into the classroom to find her reading to the class. “If you could stay just a little longer, Mrs. Henderson, I'd appreciate it. The meeting with Mr. Foster isn't quite over.”

“Of course,” the older woman replied easily. “Take as long as you need.”

Rebecca would have loved to make both men wait the rest of the afternoon, but she'd never blatantly defied an authority figure. And in spite of the fact that she considered Richard a friend, he was, first and foremost, her boss. Insubordination of any kind wasn't tolerated, so she was left with no choice but to hurry back to the office once she retrieved the slingshot from her drawer.

Even then, she hadn't moved fast enough for Hugh Bishop. The second she stepped into the office, he growled, “You took your time getting back here, didn't you? Are you always this slow? No wonder Junior's having trouble in school.”

Outraged, Rebecca almost told him off, but she bit the words back just in time. No, she thought, dragging in a calming breath. She wouldn't stoop to Hugh Bishop's behavior. And surely this time Richard would defend her. After all, as the principal, any slander of the teachers was a direct reflection on him and the school.

She looked at him expectantly, only to drop her jaw
when he said, “I'm sorry for this unfortunate incident, Hugh. I promise you it won't happen again.”

Far from satisfied, the obnoxious man said, “See that it doesn't.” And with one last look of dislike for Rebecca, he stormed out, making sure he slammed the door behind him.

He'd actually apologized for her behavior! Furious, Rebecca hardly noticed the silence left by Hugh Bishop's leavetaking. How dare he! she fumed. She hadn't done anything wrong, and she damn sure intended to tell him that.

But before she could even open her mouth, he turned to her with the same degree of hostility Mr. Bishop had and coldly lifted a dark brow at her. “Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

Taken aback, she couldn't believe he was serious. At the very least,
he
owed
her
an explanation! “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me,” he retorted. “Why did you blatantly ignore the school weapons policy?”

“Me?” she gasped. “I didn't ignore anything. I took the weapon away from Hughie, just as I was supposed to. You're the one who gave it back to that awful man just so he can bring it right back to school!”

“Because you didn't do what you were supposed to do!” Enraged, he glared at her with intense dislike. “
You
did this! You didn't do your job. You didn't turn that weapon in, so I was left with no choice but to take Mr. Bishop's side.”

“But that makes no sense—”

That was the wrong thing to say. If he'd been angry before, he was absolutely livid now. “I don't have to explain myself to you, Ms. Powell. Do you understand that? I'm in charge around here, and I can do whatever I damn
well please. You, on the other hand, are on very thin ice. One more episode like this and you may find yourself looking for another job. Do I make myself clear?”

She wanted to tell him no. She didn't understand why she was the bad guy for taking the weapon away when he'd been the one who'd given it back! But she knew he was looking for someone to blame, and she was obviously it.

“Perfectly,” she said coolly. “This is an argument I can't win. If we're finished here, I need to get back to my classroom.”

His curt nod was her dismissal, and with a sigh of relief, Rebecca hurried out of the office and down the hall, her cheeks stinging with embarrassment and her eyes hot with tears she refused to shed. She would not take this personally, she told herself fiercely. He was just going through a rough time. He needed her understanding now, not her anger. With time, he'd be back to his old, likable self. She just had to be patient…and pray that it would be soon.