“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 didn’t answer her. She went down the hall to her room and closed and locked the door behind her.
* * *
“I TOLD YOU it was a mistake to tell her that,” Carly said plaintively. “You’ll be sorry tomorrow when you sober up.”
“Mistake to tell her what?” Ella muttered. “I need another drink.”
“No. You need to go to bed and sleep it off. Come on.” Carly led her down the hall to her own bedroom, pushed her inside and closed the door behind them. “How could you tell her that, Ella?” she asked softly as she helped her friend down onto the big double bed with its expensive pink comforter.
“I don’t care,” Ella said defiantly. “She’s in my way. I don’t want her here. I never did.”
“She does all the housework and all the cooking,” Carly said in one of her rare moments of compassion. “She works all day and sometimes half the night for her boss, and then she comes home and works like a housekeeper. You don’t appreciate how much she does for you.”
“I could hire somebody to do all that.” Ella waved the idea away.
“Could you afford to pay them?” Carly retorted.
Ella frowned. She was hard put just to pay utilities and buy groceries. But she didn’t reply.
Carly eyed her quietly. “If you push her, she’ll leave. Then what will you do?”
“I’ll do my own housework and cooking,” Ella said grandly.
Carly shook her head. “Okay. It’s your life. But you’re missing out.”
“On what?” Ella
