and get a better job,” Ella retorted. “Working as a technician for a veterinarian,” she added haughtily. “What a vulgar sort of job.”
“The senior veterinarian where Keely works is very good-looking,” Carly interrupted, shifting in her chair. She chuckled. “I tried to get him to take me out, but he gave me an icy glare and went back into his office.” She shrugged. “I guess he’s got a girlfriend somewhere.”
Keely was surprised at the remark. Carly was in her mid-forties and Bentley Rydel was only thirty-two years old. Bentley had mentioned, only once, that he couldn’t stand Carly. He probably didn’t like Keely’s mother, either, but he was too polite to say so. Not that they had pets that would need his services. Ella hated animals.
“Keely’s boss is a cold fish, like Boone Sinclair,” Ella said. She leaned back in her chair and studied her daughter with a cold expression. “You’ll never get anywhere with that man, you know,” she added in a slow drawl. “He may take his ex-fiancée around with him, but he’s no passionate lover.”
“How would you know?” Keely returned, stung by the comment and the way her mother aimed it at her.
Ella smiled mockingly. “Because I tried to seduce him myself, on more than one occasion,” she said, enjoying the look of horror on her daughter’s face. “He’s ice-cold. He doesn’t respond normally to women, not even when they come on to him physically. No matter what people say about his hot relationship with his ex-fiancée, I can assure you that he isn’t all that responsive to women.”
“Maybe he just doesn’t like older women,” Keely muttered icily, her eyes sparkling with temper as she pictured her mother using her wiles on Boone.
A cruel look passed over Ella’s face. “Well, he certainly doesn’t like you,” she retorted with deliberate sarcasm. “I told him you’re hot for your veterinarian boss and sleeping with him on the side.”
Keely was horrified. “What!” she burst out. “But, why?”
Ella laughed at her expression. “I wanted to see what he’d say,” she mused. “It was a disappointment. He didn’t react at all. So I asked him if he hadn’t noticed what a nice figure you’ve got, even if you aren’t pretty, and he said he didn’t feel attracted to children.”
Children. Keely was nineteen. That wasn’t childish. She didn’t think of herself as a child. But Boone did…
“Then I said that you might look like a child, but you knew what to do with a man, and he just walked away,” Ella continued. She saw Keely’s stricken expression. “So I suppose your little fantasy of love isn’t going to be fulfilled.” Her face took on a wicked cast. “I did mention in the course of conversation, before he left so rudely, that you had a crush on him and he could probably cut you out with your boss if he tried. He said that you were the last woman on earth he’d want.”
Keely wanted to sink through the floor. Some of Boone’s antagonistic behavior began to make sense. Her mother was feeding him lies about Keely, and he was swallowing them whole. She wondered how long Ella had been doing it, and if it was revenge because Boone wouldn’t touch her. Maybe she saw Keely as a rival and wanted to make sure there was no chance that Boone would weaken toward her daughter. Either way, it was devastating to the younger woman. She left the rest of her food untouched. She couldn’t choke down another bite.
“You might get somewhere with him if you stopped dressing out of thrift shops and wore a little makeup,” Ella chided.
“On my salary, all I can afford are clothes from thrift shops,” Keely said.
There was a hot silence. “Is that a dig at me?” Ella demanded, eyes flashing. “Because I give you a roof over your head and food to eat,” she added curtly. “You only have to do a little cooking and housework from time to time to earn your keep. That’s more than fair. I’m not obligated to dress you, as well!”
“I never said you were, Mother,” Keely replied.
“Don’t call me ‘Mother’!” Ella shot back, weaving a little in her chair. “I never wanted you in the first place. Your father was hot to have a son. He was disappointed when you turned out to be a girl, and I refused to get pregnant again. It ruined my waistline! It took me years to get my figure back!
“I wanted to give you up for adoption when you were eleven and your father divorced me, but he said he’d take you if I’d loan him enough money to open that game park. So I loaned him the money—which he never repaid, by the way—and he took you off my hands. He didn’t want you, either, Keely,” she added with a drunken smile. “Nobody wanted you. And nobody wants you now.”
“Ella,” Carly interrupted uneasily, “that’s harsh.” Keely’s face was as white as flour.
Ella blinked, as if she wasn’t quite aware of what she was saying. She stared blankly at Carly. “What’s harsh?”
Carly winced as Keely got to her feet and began clearing the table without saying a word.
She carried empty plates into the kitchen, trying desperately not to let the women see her cry. Behind her, she heard murmuring, which grew louder, and then her mother’s voice arguing. She went out into the cold night air in her shirtsleeves, tears pouring down her cheeks. She wrapped her arms around herself and walked to the front yard, stopping at the railing that looked out over Comanche Wells, at the rolling pastureland and little oasis of deciduous trees that shaded the fenced land where purebred cattle grazed. It was a beautiful sight, with the air crisp and the moon shining on the leaves on the big oak tree that stood in the front yard, making it look as if the leaves had been painted silver. But Keely was blind to the beauty of it. She was sick to her stomach.
She heard the phone ring in the house, but she ignored it. First Boone’s fierce antagonism and the argument over Bailey and the ex-fiancée’s taunts the night before, and then her mother’s horrible assertions tonight. It was the worst two days of Keely’s recent life. She didn’t want to go back in. She wanted to stay out in the cold until she froze to death and the pain stopped.
“Keely?” Carly called from the back door. “It’s Clark Sinclair. He wants to speak to you.”
Keely hesitated for a moment. She turned and went back inside without meeting Carly’s eyes or looking toward the dining room where her mother sat finishing her drink.
She picked up the phone and said “Hello?” in a subdued tone.
“The old girl’s giving you hell, is she?” Clark mused. “How about going out? I know it’s late notice, but I just got in from Jacksonville and I want to talk to somebody. Winnie’s working late at dispatch, and God knows where Boone’s off to. How about it?”
“Oh, I’d really like that,” Keely said fervently.
“Need an escape plan, do we? I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“I’ll be ready. I’ll wait for you on the front porch.”
“God, it must be bad over there tonight!” he exclaimed. “I’ll hurry, so you don’t catch cold.” He hung up. So did Keely.
“Got a date?” Ella drawled, coming to the doorway in a zigzag with her highball glass still in her hands. It was empty now. “Who’s taking you someplace?”
Keely
