Silent Night, Sinful Night Page 17

  The overblown cowboy sucked on his cigar, sizing up his competition . . . now her bodyguard, apparently. “And you would be . . . ?”

  “Mr. Penney’s representative, protecting his many interests.” Johnny eyed her with a secretive grin. “I’m also the artist who draws his advertisements. Doing my part to sell Mr. Penney’s confections as we promote his charitable contributions during this season that’s all about love and joy.”

  “I’ll just bet you are,” the fellow muttered. When he spotted a cohort across the crowded room, he excused himself, leaving Tess to gaze at the newspaper page.

  “I had no idea you could draw so—”

  “I’m an artist, honey. I sketch out every stained-glass or mosaic design before I commit it to glass.” His smile warmed as he gazed at her. “You, however, are a far more exciting subject than bags of candy. Sweeter, too—and I’m trying to make my way back into your good graces, if you’ll—”

  “Needy, are we?” she purred.

  Across the room, the first group of children burst through the double doors to this large parlor. She felt their excitement as they spied the cookies hanging on the tall pine trees and smelled the mulled cider. Their cheeks were pink with the cold, and they seemed so precious, so hopeful, at this young age that a second set of parents would love them enough to take them home.

  I want a home where love lives again.

  Her earlier words haunted her as she looked from Johnny’s dark eyes to the expectant faces of the children who crowded around Daphne for their stockings. “Better get to work,” she murmured.

  Immediately she felt better. Surrounded by those eager eyes and such appreciative grins, Tess lost herself in greeting yet another group of orphans who wouldn’t have food and shelter were it not for the generosity of men like Edgar Penney. Here again she saw a little blonde so like her Claire she had to look away for a moment. When would this sadness end? When could she see slender, innocent little girls without feeling a chasm widen in her heart?

  “Ha! I knew I’d find you, Tess. You’re coming with me—now!” Before that familiar voice registered or her eyes could find him, a man grabbed a strap of her overalls and nearly yanked her off her feet. “Of all the disgraceful—What on God’s earth are you trying to prove, having your likeness in the newspaper, dressed this way for all the world to see? Henry would be appalled!”

  Terror galloped off with her pulse before she could catch it, before she could collect her thoughts to outmaneuver him. “Reed!” she gasped. “Let me go. I’m handing out—”

  “I’ve already told one fellow to keep his hands to himself,” Johnny warned as he rushed to her side. “So if you’ll kindly—”

  “I didn’t come here to be kind,” Reed jeered. “I’m claiming my runaway fiancée!”

  Tess stopped breathing. With Johnny staring at Reed Mahaffey as though he might punch both his eyes out, she was in a dangerous place . . . and not just because both men were snarling like territorial dogs. What might Reed say that would reveal her real circumstances? Already he was lying, trying to control this situation by pushing her around rather than requesting her cooperation. He hadn’t changed a whit. If anything, he’d grown more determined to force his wishes upon her.

  “I am not your fiancée!” she replied, shrugging to free herself. This only tugged her green straps suggestively over her breasts, however—something neither man missed. “And this is not the place to have this conversation. The children are watching.”

  Indeed, the spacious hall had gone silent as all eyes focused on her, Reed, and Johnny Gazara—a dramatic, fascinating triangle. Except she didn’t intend to remain between these two opposing sides for long.

  Johnny smacked Reed’s fingers away from her, glaring. “We shall remove ourselves from this party before we make a shambles of it. Daphne!” he called over to the blonde who watched them as though fixed to the floor. “Please proceed! Our young guests are eager for their gifts.”

  As he steered Tess toward a door at the rear of the room, however, Reed was having none of it. “You cannot tell me. Unhand her!” he demanded shrilly. “This is none of your affair.”

  “Oh, but Tess and I are involved in quite a nice affair, and we don’t need you ruining it,” Johnny replied in a dangerously low voice. As he guided her through the door, he remained between her and Reed. They entered a narrow service hallway the catering staff used, and then her raven-haired escort turned to confront her uninvited guest. “Who are you?” he demanded. “And what gives you the right to barge in and—”

  “I have no reason to answer that until you do, sir,” Reed retorted. “And as for your affair with Tess—”

  “Oh, stop it! Both of you!” Tess stepped away from them, crossing her arms over breasts that felt lewdly loose. “Johnny Gazara, this is Reed Mahaffey, my deceased husband’s partner. Reed, Mr. Gazara is employed by the Penney Candy Company—as I am—and your intrusion—”

  “If there was ever a woman on God’s earth who didn’t need to work for money, it’s you, Tess. We’re gathering your things and going home.”

  Her cheeks tingled with heat. A blind woman couldn’t miss the questions in Johnny’s eyes as his obsidian gaze lingered on Reed’s face.

  Then he looked directly at her. “Please explain what you’ve just said, Mr. Mahaffey,” he said quietly. “We circulate among many powerful, wealthy men as we accept their donations. Most of these gentlemen inquire about keeping company with our lovely Penney Candy girls, so I’m sure you’ll understand my hesitation—my concerns—about letting her go with you, sir. Especially since she seems none too eager to see you.”

  Never had Johnny sounded more eloquent . . . or more damning. After all the ecstasy and dreams they had shared, in bed and during the long rides to these charity events, he was letting Reed explain this situation—giving Reed the benefit of the doubt. Her stomach knotted. Mahaffey would inflate the details to make her look disreputable: the runaway, deceptive, ungrateful widow who didn’t have sense enough to know how good her life was.

  I want a home where love lives again.

  And she’d come here to chase that dream, hadn’t she? What exactly had she done wrong?

  The answer to that was damning yet undeniable: She’d fallen for Johnny and he’d surely fallen for her, too, so why was it her problem that she had money?

  Because Reed wants it and Johnny despises it.

  It was as simple yet as complicated as that, wasn’t it?

  “Mrs. Bennett is my late partner’s widow,” Reed repeated in a solicitous voice. “As the wife of the South’s most successful cotton factor, she has enjoyed all the benefits—all the privileges and luxuries—that come with the wealth and power you’ve already spoken of, Mr. Gazara.”

  Johnny’s eyes blazed with her apparent betrayal, even though discretion about her wealth had been her best defense against another man taking advantage of her. No sense in dodging the issue any longer, was there? She focused on her lover, refusing to cower. “Reed wants to marry me so he won’t have to buy out Henry’s share of the business.”

  “Tess, that’s the most inappropriate, absurd—” Again Reed grabbed her to shake some sense into her.

  And again she jerked away, while Johnny stepped between them. He shoved his competition to the wall. “Take the hint, pal! She wants nothing to do with you,” he snarled. “Tess came all the way to Colorado to—”

  “If you think I’ll let her take up with the likes of you—”

  Disgusted, Tess threw open the door to the reception room. “Gentlemen!” she called out. “We’ve got a brawl brewing out here!”

  Within seconds, every man in the reception room had surged into the hallway: witnesses, as she saw them. “This man is trying to take me home—”

  “Yeah, well, if the little lady ain’t goin’ home with me, she ain’t goin’ with nobody!”

  “You’re not from around these parts, are you, pretty boy? The lady’s told you to—”

  “Tess!
” Reed protested when a burly businessman on each side of him lifted him from the floor. “What the hell’s this about? You and I have business to discuss!”

  She stood amid the suited Denver tycoons, feeling awkwardly underdressed and wishing she could just walk away from this fiasco. But running from Reed hadn’t gotten her where she needed to go. “Escort this man to the train, please,” she asked the Texan who’d first invited her home. Then she sighed wearily. “Get your affairs in order at the office, Reed. I want nothing more to do with you, and since you can’t hear me saying that, Henry’s lawyer will be contacting you. To dissolve the partnership.”

  His boyish face turned the color of raw beef. “You can’t just dismiss me like that,” he said with a sharp snap of his fingers. “Henry always said the business would be mine if—Any way you look at this, I’m entitled to my half—”

  “I beg your pardon.” Tess despised conflict, whether private or in the presence of men she didn’t even know, but it was time to stand her ground. “Henry was the senior partner who took you under his wing. Doesn’t take a business wizard to figure your share of Bennett and Mahaffey as the smaller of the two.

  “And mark my words,” she continued, sensing every gentleman present would enforce her threat, “if you come to my house again or lay another hand on me, you’ll receive nothing, Reed. I saw through your schemes before we prayed over Henry’s grave.”

  “You tell him, Tess!”

  “Atta way, little lady. Come on, Mahaffey. You’ve got a train to catch.”

  13

  The coach ride back to Cascade was painfully quiet. Edgar had elected to sit up with the driver, which left Tess to sit on the seat between Daphne and Blythe, who held their questions for later. Johnny slouched across from them, his arms crossed tightly as he stared out the window to avoid looking at her.

  Tess regretted using her money to put Reed Mahaffey in his place, but it was a language he understood. Johnny Gazara understood it, too. How ironic that he’d left his former lover because she was well married and duplicitous—and today she had acted much the same, hadn’t she? She had no husband coming home, but her dark-haired lover was leaving her because he associated moneyed women with desertion and betrayal, and she’d given him no reason to believe differently.

  When they arrived at the candy factory, Johnny hopped down from the carriage to carry in the boxes of extra candy and their orders from the day’s event. No whispered hints of meeting in his room, no exchange of heated glances or enticement to spend the next several hours with him. Tess’s heart thudded. She stepped down first and then helped Daphne and Blythe to the snow-lined walkway.

  “Tessie, can we do anything to help?” Daphne whispered, glancing toward the carriage’s boot, where Johnny talked tersely with their driver. “That was the most awful scene in the hotel hallway.”

  “Thank goodness Johnny sent that other fellow packing,” Blythe remarked. “But now he’s acting as if—”

  “It was my doing that Reed left, after I delivered an ultimatum about dissolving my partnership with him. Then our Denver benefactors ushered him to the train station,” Tess corrected. She sighed as the three of them started for the door. “Johnny found out about my money and watched me use it as a weapon—like his former lover did—so he wants nothing more to do with me.”

  “But it was self-defense against that . . . that self-serving bully!” Blythe protested. “I suspected you weren’t telling us everything, but we all have our secrets. I . . . I hope you and Johnny can patch this up.”

  “If either of you leaves, well”—Daphne’s face withered and she sniffled loudly—“it’ll be so deadly dull around here, won’t it, Blythe? Edgar treats us wonderfully, but . . . it’s been so nice to have Johnny here making his stained-glass murals and to have you for a new friend, too, Tessie! After Christmas, the factory remains busy, but we Penney Candy girls . . .”

  “We must make our own entertainment, that’s for sure.” Blythe sighed. “Maybe I can convince Johnny you deserve another chance, Tess. The moment you arrived, it was love at first sight for him. We all saw that. Only a man would mess up such magic.”

  That evening, Tess winced at the sound of shattering glass. In his studio, Johnny sorted sheets of colors into the open trunks around him. So engrossed in his packing he was, muttering that women were all lying bitches, he didn’t notice her standing sadly in his doorway. When a large piece of shiny green glass landed in the trunk with a loud whack! a cry escaped her.

  He looked up. The section of cranberry glass in his hands shimmered like bright blood. “Don’t bother begging or trying Blythe’s provocative ploys to make me stay, Tess. I should’ve left long ago.”

  Her brow furrowed with irritation. “So why didn’t you?”

  “Beats the hell out of me!” The sheet of red glass shattered atop the other pieces in the trunk. “Maybe it was Penney’s peppermint incense fogging my mind. Or maybe I thought all these visions of sugarplums would provide a pleasant retreat from conniving women. But, no!” he exclaimed vehemently. “You had to come along, saying you were so alone. Pretending to be destitute, with only one black gown to your name!”

  Tess stood straighter. She’d borrowed Blythe’s most conservative dress for this conversation so she’d be appropriately covered, but sex was not going to happen no matter what she wore. Johnny was wallowing. And in his way, he sounded every bit as spoiled and self-centered as Reed Mahaffey, didn’t he? Maybe it was best to state her case and be done with it.

  “I am alone,” she pointed out in a low voice. “And, as I told Reed, I have no interest in marrying him. And yes, I am a wealthy woman, Johnny, but my husband’s money didn’t protect him or our little girl from yellow fever. And now it’s made me a target for fortune hunters.”

  Johnny’s eyebrow rose like a raven’s wing. “No danger of me chasing after your money, my dear. I’ve always worked for my living, and I’m proud of it!”

  “As well you should be. Your work is glorious. Unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

  “Well, enjoy it to your heart’s content. I choose to move on.” He tossed another sheet of red glass into an open trunk. “Time to return to reality. Time to end these trips down Candy Cane Lane and take on serious projects. At cathedrals and museums.”

  “Good for you! I sincerely hope you find what you’re searching for.” Tess refrained from sinking to his level, despite the despair that threatened to engulf her as he locked his big trunks. Where was that magic everyone else here believed in? It appeared she’d have to make her own, because everything she’d come to love these past few weeks was shattering like Gazara’s glass.

  “For me, this job with Penney Candy has been the most fun I’ve had since Henry and Claire died. And you know what?” she challenged, her voice rising. “If my money bothers you, Johnny, well, that’s your problem, isn’t it? I have no intention of handing over my share of Henry’s business to Reed, just because he thinks I owe him—or to satisfy your starving artist’s ideals and temperament. If you can’t love me because we’re happy together, fine! Better to find out now rather than after I’ve lost my heart and soul to you.”

  Despite her best efforts, a sob escaped her as she left his room.

  Within the hour, Johnny informed Edgar Penney he was leaving. In the room next to Tess’s, the candy magnate wheedled and pleaded, appealing to Johnny’s sense of wonderment—displayed in every room of his home—but to no avail. Gazara seemed determined to make all of them as miserable as he was. After he’d hauled the last of his trunks outside to await the stagecoach, the slam of the door reverberated throughout the house. Like the closing of a crypt, Tess thought glumly.

  The halls rang with silence as the evening stretched on. The potent aroma of peppermint seeped out of Edgar’s bedroom, accompanied by none of the usual sounds of sex play. Not wanting to think about how Blythe, Daphne, and Edgar were consoling each other, Tess wandered the house’s mazelike halls to drink in the details of Johnny’s artwork
, the joy and childlike spirit that shone in each of his sparkly murals and friezes. While she understood his desire to stretch his abilities, to have his work seen rather than buried here beneath the Colorado snow, it saddened her that he’d left under such a cloud.

  A cloud of his own making.

  Tess fingered the curlicues of an ornate stained-glass ribbon tied around a Pinwheel Pop. The coils of candy seemed to spin as she watched, like a never-ending rainbow, even though reason told her the image wasn’t moving. It was Johnny’s mastery of blending colors and glass facets to create the illusion of movement. She could practically taste the grape, cherry, orange, lemon, and lime.

  And what flavor would the blue be?

  Tess blinked. She’d heard that question spoken quite plainly, yet no one stood anywhere near her.

  A giggle bubbled up from deep inside her. This place was magical, and it had taught her something very valuable, too. Never in her life had she stepped outside the social expectations of the Memphis elite, yet she’d run away from a businessman who coveted her money, traveled to a place totally unknown, on a whim, and had fallen for an artist who’d seduced her with the rise of an eyebrow. And today she’d told both of them she didn’t need them.

  What a liberating thought!

  Tess realized then that her time and her future were her own. She missed Claire and Henry, yes, but she’d gotten beyond their loss, had shed her widow’s weeds for an outrageously revealing elf costume, to entertain children far needier than she. She’d blazed a new trail without a staff or a husband to direct her. And it felt good. It felt damn good.

  Something primal shifted within her. Tears trickled, but this time it was sheer joy at her own accomplishments that made her swipe at her eyes and head for her room. Why remain here, in a house without windows, to endure the endless boredom Daphne and Blythe had described? She had a mansion in Memphis, sunny and comfortable even in December. And if she left tomorrow, she could be home for Christmas.