Wyoming Tough - By Diana Palmer Page 0,27
her parents had once been young like her. It was hard to think of them as a dating couple.
“I asked him to kiss me goodbye,” she continued, and actually flushed. “We got engaged in the car and we were married three long days later.” She shook her head. “You never really know somebody until you live with them, Morie,” she added gently. “Your father always seemed to be the hardest, angriest, most untamable man on earth. But when we were alone…” She cleared her throat. The flush grew as she recalled their tempestuous, passionate wedding night and the unbelievable pleasure that had kept them in the hotel room for two days and nights with only bottled water and candy bars to sustain them through a marathon of lovemaking that had produced their first child, Cort. They were so hungry for each other that precautions had never entered their minds. But they’d both wanted children very much, so it hadn’t been a problem. The memory was so poignant that it could still turn her face red.
Morie laughed. “Mom, you’re blushing.”
Shelby chuckled self-consciously. “Yes, well, your father is a class of his own in some ways, and I won’t discuss it. It’s too personal. I just hope that you’re half as lucky as I’ve been in your choice of husbands.”
Morie grimaced. “If I don’t get out of here, I’ll never get married. Everybody wants me because I’ve got a rich father.”
“Some man will want you just for yourself. The traveling accountant was a bad choice. You were vulnerable and he was a predator,” Shelby said with a flash of anger. “He was very lucky that he got out of town before your father could get to him.”
“I’ll say.” She studied Shelby. “Why won’t Dad let me work on the ranch like Cort?”
“He and his father are very similar in some ways,” she replied. “Jim Brannt raised him to have a great respect for women and to understand that they are much too delicate for physical labor.” She shook her head. “I suppose some of that is my fault, too. You know, I lived with my aunt, and she was much the same. She didn’t want me to lift a finger because ladies didn’t do that. On the other hand, she hated my mother. She didn’t want me to turn out like her, either.”
“They play some of Grandmother’s movies on television,” she said. “She really was a wonderful actress. They said she married four men.”
Shelby nodded. “The last was the best…Brad. He died in a car crash just after I married King.”
“Did Grandmother commit suicide or was that just malicious gossip?” she wondered aloud.
“I never knew,” Shelby confided. “Brad said she overdosed because the studio fired her. But my aunt had often said she wasn’t the suicidal kind at all. Maybe she just accidentally took too many pills to help her sleep. I’d like to believe that’s the case.”
“Perhaps it was.”
Shelby had hugged her. “Anyway, you don’t want to go around covered in mud and calf poop, really, do you?” she teased. “Even if you were muddy from archaeology, at least it was clean dirt.”
Morie had burst out laughing.
Her father had come into the room during the conversation. He wore a satisfied expression as he bent to kiss Shelby and hug her close.
“I got tickets,” he told her.
“To The Firebird?” Shelby exclaimed excitedly. “But they were sold out!”
“Old Doc Caldwell was persuaded to part with his. I thought his wife was going to kiss me to death since she hates Stravinsky,” he said, and produced the tickets out of his shirt pocket. He handed them to Shelby.
“When are we going?” she asked.
“Tonight.” He glanced at Morie and patted her cheek affectionately. “Sorry, kid, I couldn’t get an extra ticket.”
“Not a problem, Dad,” she’d replied with a smile. “Debussy is more to my taste. Stravinsky is a little too experimental for my tastes.”
“Want a new dress to wear to it?” King asked Shelby. “We can fly up to Dallas to Neiman Marcus.”
“I have a wonderful new dress in the closet that I’ve been saving.” She pressed close to him and was enfolded hungrily in his arms. “Thanks, sweetheart.”
He kissed her hair. “Nothing’s too good for my best girl.”
Watching them, Morie was suddenly aware that their love for each other had only intensified since they’d been married. They were still like newlyweds, often lost in each other and unaware of anything around them. She’d hoped for that sort of romance in her own life, and