Texas Proud and Circle of Gold (Long, Tall Texans #52) - Diana Palmer Page 0,79
other. I know his world and I love it. Unlike you, I don’t mind being seen with him and his criminal friends,” she drawled sarcastically.
Bernie felt shocked. “What do you mean?”
Jessie had slipped again. She shrugged. “Nothing at all. Goodbye.”
She went out the door and closed it behind her.
* * *
Bernie didn’t say a word. She brooded, though. Mikey was already involved with that vicious woman, but perhaps he liked that sort of person. Maybe he was frustrated because he’d wanted Bernie and she wasn’t the sort to sleep around. But it still hurt to think of him in bed with Jessie. It hurt terribly.
“She was lying,” Sari said gently.
Bernie looked up. Her eyes were sad and wise. “No, she wasn’t,” she said quietly. “And like I said, it doesn’t matter. We were mismatched from the start. Opposites attract, don’t they say, but the divorce rate for marriages like that is pretty dismal. I’d better get back to work.”
Sari didn’t say any more, but she was livid.
* * *
“Mikey did what?” Paul Fiore asked at supper, his fork poised in midair.
“He slept with Jessie,” Sari said angrily.
He whistled, aware of Mandy’s curious stare. “Well, damn, that’s the end of it all.”
“I know.” Sari picked at her food. “Jessie was poison. I’m glad Mr. Kemp fired her. It was all an act, that sweetness and light attitude.”
“No surprise, there.”
“She let something slip when we were talking about families and how they mattered,” Sari continued. “She said the only family she cared about was the one she took orders from.”
Paul dropped the fork. “Families. Like Cotillo’s.”
“Maybe,” Sari replied, watching him retrieve the utensil from the floor and carry it to the sink before he got another and returned to the table. “Don’t you have somebody checking her out?”
“I do. I’ll call him after we finish eating. Damn the luck! If she’s involved with Cotillo, then her friend Billie may be, too. It’s been right under our noses.”
“What about that cook at Barbara’s?” Mandy asked as she refilled coffee cups. She made a face at Sari. “And you should be drinking milk, not caffeine!”
Sari flushed. “Mandy...”
Mandy was grinning.
Paul, caught unaware, looked at Mandy’s twinkling eyes and his own darted to his wife, looking flushed and guilty.
“Okay, spit it out,” he told Sari. “What’s going on that I don’t know about?”
She cleared her throat and glared at Mandy. “I was going to tell you later.”
“Tell me now,” he persisted.
She drew in a breath. “I’m pregnant.”
Paul sat very still for just a minute, then he rose, picked her up in his arms, and kissed her and kissed her, whooping in between at the top of his lungs.
Mandy pursed her lips. “Well,” she said to nobody in particular, “I guess it’s no secret that he’s happy about it.”
* * *
Bernie went home to a lonely apartment, her heart down in her shoes. Mikey was sleeping with that rat, Jessie. Mikey was a rat, too, she told herself. He’d taken her in, pretended to care about her, then backed off because she had an incurable disease.
If he’d been that concerned about her illness, why hadn’t he stopped seeing her in the beginning? Why had he spent almost every day with her? Why had he bought her a ring and then asked her to marry him?
None of it made sense, unless he’d truly thought he could make it work and then decided he couldn’t live with her limitations. She felt miserable. She couldn’t help what was wrong with her. She couldn’t cure it. Maybe she could have adjusted to travel, to his friends, to flashy places, if she’d been given the chance. But what did it matter now? She would never get over the fact that he’d promised to marry her and then cheated on her with another woman. She had too much pride.
* * *
“Are you out of your mind?” Paul demanded of Mikey the next day when they were having a quick lunch at the house.
Mikey blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Sleeping with Jessie. My God!”
Mikey’s lips fell open. “Sleeping... Good Lord, do I look crazy to you? I wouldn’t touch her with a pole!”
“You took her out on the town, didn’t you?” he persisted.
Mikey grimaced. “I was feeling pretty low. I needed to feel like a man again.”
“Great job.”
“Bernie didn’t want me!” he burst out. “She said she couldn’t live with a man who’d been a criminal most of his life!”
“She told you this, huh?” Paul asked.
Mikey sighed. “No. She’d never want to hurt my feelings like that.