THE SURGERY TOOK several hours. Lack of sleep finally drugged Meredith into semiconsciousness. Her dreams were wild and disturbed, and she jerked when a gentle hand shook her.

“Meredith, he’s out of the operating room,” Myrna said, her eyes bright and her face smiling. “And it went well!”

“Oh, thank God.” Meredith put her face in her hands and sighed heavily, fighting tears. “Thank God, thank God.”

Myrna sat down beside her, her own eyes bloodshot and her face wan and drawn. “We won’t be able to see him until he comes out of the recovery room, but Dr. Danbury says he’s almost certain he’s repaired most of the damage. At least Cy won’t be totally paralyzed.”

Meredith sat up slowly, her eyes widening as that last remark registered. “What do you mean, totally?”

Myrna hesitated. She took Meredith’s hands in hers. “He may not be able to walk,” she replied.

Tears slipped unnoticed down Meredith’s cheeks, and her fingers clenched around Myrna’s. “But the surgery…!”

“It depends on how well he mends,” Myrna said wearily. “They won’t know for several days.”

That was frightening. Cy was so vital and alive, so much an outdoorsman. Being confined to a wheelchair would cripple his mind more than his body.

“He can’t be told that,” Meredith said quickly. “He mustn’t be told that there’s any chance of paralysis.”

“I’ve already made that clear to the doctors,” Myrna agreed. “I know him as well as you do, you see. Even if I’ve been less of a mother than I should be, he’s my son and I love him very much.”

“I never doubted that,” Meredith said.

Myrna hesitated, looking for sarcasm, but she didn’t find it. Like herself, Meredith was far too drained for arguments.

When they were finally allowed into the intensive care unit to see Cy, Meredith was all but asleep on her feet. She stood by his bedside, watching Myrna smooth back the dark hair from his broad, pale forehead. His eyes were closed, long dark lashes lying thick on his cheek, his high cheekbones emphasized by the drawn appearance of his face. He was so pale, she thought. Like death. He was hooked up to wires and tubes so profuse that he seemed almost part of the machinery around him.

“Cy, can you hear me?” Myrna asked in a whisper. “Dear, can you hear me? It’s Mother.”

There was no reply. Not even the flutter of an eyelash. His chest rose and fell very slowly, shallowly. Meredith watched him with quiet despair. He was a strong man, but would he want to live, knowing the condition he might have to spend the rest of his life in? Even if they hadn’t been able to tell him, might he not sense it? She remembered reading somewhere that even comatose patients could hear what was going on around them.

She moved closer to the bed, her fingers lightly touching his chest. “You’ll walk again,” she said, her voice strong and carrying, surprising his mother. “You’ll get back on your feet, because you’re a fighter. You’ll need to be, unless you want me to walk off with Harden Properties.”

“Meredith!” Myrna gasped.

But the younger woman put a finger to her lips. She was watching Cy’s face. He didn’t stir, but his heavy eyebrows drew together and he grimaced.

“Yes, you can hear me, can’t you?” she asked, bending closer. “You have to fight your way out of this. You can, if you want to. And you want to, don’t you? A Harden doesn’t lie down and die when there’s a war on.”

“Fight,” he mouthed the word. Then he drew in a slow breath, grimaced again and seemed to sink back into unconsciousness.

Myrna followed Meredith out the door, her face worried. “Should you have said that to him?”

“Oh, yes.” Meredith nodded, facing her. “Didn’t you notice that he responded to the challenge? He had to have a reason to live. I’ve given him one.”

“Will you really take the company?” Myrna asked.

“I haven’t decided if I want it,” Meredith mused. “I do want those mineral leases. Cy and I are evenly matched. The domestic operation of Tennison International and the scope of Harden Properties are about equal. It all comes down to who controls the most votes.”

“He’d never forgive you,” the older woman reminded her.

Meredith shrugged. “He’ll never forgive me for Blake. What’s one more sin on my conscience?”

“I’m the one he’ll hate.” Myrna sighed wearily. “Not you.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Meredith said. “He’ll come out from under the anesthesia and remember everything, including the fact that I played him for a fool while I gathered those proxies from under his very nose. That won’t sit well. Neither will my married name, and my business acumen. Cy remembers an eighteen-year-old girl who never discussed anything more important than food or the weather with him. I’m not that woman anymore.”

Myrna picked up her purse and coat. “Cy didn’t know you were eighteen, that day at the house when I…sprang my surprise on you.”

Meredith stared at her frowning. “What?”

“You’d told him you were older, hadn’t you?”

She hesitated. “Yes. I knew he wouldn’t have anything to do with me if he knew I was just turning eighteen.” She moved restlessly. “I didn’t know he’d ever found out the truth. After we became involved, I was too afraid of losing him to say anything.”

“He told me that he was stunned when he knew the truth. It was one reason he let you go. Barely two days later, he was certain that Tony had lied, but by then I had Tony safely out of the country and he couldn’t find him.” Myrna’s face showed every year of its age. “I was so thorough. I knew you weren’t eating breakfast, because I had spies at the café. I knew your uniform was too tight in the waist, and that you were fighting bouts of nausea. It didn’t take much guesswork to assume you were pregnant, and your expression when I confronted you confirmed it. I tried to justify what I did, but it wasn’t easy. It was one thing to shoot you out of the city. It was quite another to cold-bloodedly push my grandchild away.” She brushed at a spot on her jacket with eyes that didn’t see. “I must have been mad. I didn’t even know you. I wouldn’t make the attempt. I closed my mind to everything except arranging a suitable marriage for Cy, to insure that he never had to go without money.”

“Money was something of an obsession with you, if I remember,” Meredith said stiffly.

Myrna lifted her eyes. “I grew up in poverty,” she said in a tight whisper, and managed a smile. “My mother was a…a prostitute.” She closed her eyes, groaning. “I can’t talk about it. Let’s go. I’ll drop you off at your house on my way home.”

Meredith was staggered by what Cy’s mother had said. She wondered if the other woman had ever told Cy that, or anyone else. Perhaps it was lack of sleep and worry that had lowered her formidable barriers. Meredith was certain that she’d regret it and that she’d have them firmly back in place the next time they met. She couldn’t afford to give in to sympathy. This woman wanted her child. That made her dangerous.

“I can phone Mr. Smith to come for me….” Meredith hesitated.

Myrna stopped as they reached the lobby and stared at Meredith blankly. “Meredith,” she said. “I’ve just realized, I don’t have a car. I came here with the police.”

Meredith smiled. “Well, in that case, it’s definitely Mr. Smith.”

He came driving up in the limousine minutes later, glaring as Meredith and Mrs. Harden got into the back seat with a bright, laughing Blake.

“All night and half the day,” he grumbled. “You need your head read. You can’t go without sleep and food.”

“I had other priorities,” Meredith informed him, hugging Blake to her. “I hope you were good for Mr. Smith?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“No more flushing rubber ducks down the commode?”

“Oh, no,” he promised. “Just washcloths.”

Meredith groaned.

“Cy used to do that,” Mrs. Harden murmured. “And once, he put the car in gear and rolled down the hill in it. We were frantic when we got to him, and he laughed and said he wanted to do it again.”

Meredith smiled, trying to picture Cy as a child. She knew less than nothing about his private life or his past. They’d never really talked. He’d been too hungry for her in those days. He took her to bed and out to eat and rarely anyplace else. Even when they talked, it was always about something impersonal. They never talked about themselves or the future. He seemed to think it didn’t exist. Perhaps it hadn’t.

“You said that Cy didn’t know I was eighteen. That…mattered to him?” she asked Myrna.

“It mattered a great deal.” She turned on the seat, facing Meredith. “Young women of eighteen are notorious for falling in and out of love. There was also the matter of your ignorance about men. He’d assumed you were experienced, I gathered.”

Meredith averted her eyes. “Yes. I…wanted to go out with him. The other girls said that he wouldn’t have anything to do with good girls.”

“Oh, Meredith,” Myrna said heavily.

“Hindsight is a marvelous thing, isn’t it?” she asked, absently kissing Blake’s dark hair. “I made so many mistakes. I did love him, so much.”

“He didn’t know that.”

“He didn’t want to know it. He told me time and time again that he wanted no part of commitment. Marriage meant fidelity, and he didn’t believe in it.” She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. “I’m so tired.”

“So am I. You…will come back?”

“How could I stay away?” Meredith mused. “He’ll need a scapegoat.” She glanced at Myrna. “In fact, Mr. Smith said earlier that you and I had better find a nice, deep hole now that he knows the whole truth.”

Myrna managed a smile in return. “Well, I suppose I could buy the shovel, if you’ll help me dig.”

Meredith laughed. “As long as he’s fit enough to throw us into it, I guess I won’t mind.”

“Yes indeed.”

They dropped Myrna off at her house, and Mr. Smith drove Meredith back to Great-Aunt Mary’s.

“How is he?” he asked her when Blake was settled in front of the television watching a program on the educational channel.

“Critical, but they think he’ll live. I went in and dared him to let me take over his company. I think that did it. He was fighting when I left.”

“Good incentive,” he mused.

She smiled ruefully. “Wait until he comes to. I don’t want to be within earshot. And his mother is going to catch hell for certain.”

“You haven’t gotten over him at all, have you?” he asked.

She turned away, refusing to answer him. “I need a few hours’ sleep. Will you call me about five?”

“Sure thing. I’ll look after the little one. Don called.”

“Did you tell him about Cy?”

“No. That’s your business.”

She grinned at him. “I like your sense of loyalty, Mr. Smith.”

“I worked for Henry, not his brother.” His green eyes narrowed. “Don’s up to something.”

“I’m not blind,” she replied. “I’ve caught bits and pieces of conversation for weeks, and I found out plenty the last time I flew to Chicago. I know what he’s up to.” She pursed her lips. “I’ll bet you ten cents to a dollar that he’s dealing behind my back. When I’m less sleepy, I’m going to double-check on those proxies. If he’s trying to cut me out with Cy, he’ll have to have firm promises of support for his position.”

“Do you think any of his contacts will talk?”

“Most of them wouldn’t dare. But Cy’s great-uncle is a man of his word, and he will. He likes me.”

Mr. Smith smiled at the picture she made, even disheveled and half-asleep. “I don’t blame him. I like you, too.”

She frowned. “Cy never did. He wanted me. He was obsessed with me. But he never really knew me. I know more about your past than I know about his. I don’t think we ever talked about a single personal thing.”

“You were a different person six years ago,” he suggested.

She nodded. “Yes. I’m not the woman he remembers. I wonder if he realizes that.”

“Give him time and he might.”

She lifted her eyes. “I hope he has time. I hope he can walk again.”

“Time will tell.”

“Yes.”

She went up the staircase, her steps dragging a little. But when she lay down and tried to sleep, memories kept coming back to haunt her.

The first time they made love, Cy had taken her out riding on the family ranch that was located outside town. They lived in town because Myrna refused to “rough it” in the country. She had no taste for that kind of life, Cy had mentioned once. It wasn’t, apparently, a socially acceptable kind of setting for her. Cy loved it. He kept Arabians, and it was two of them that he’d saddled for an outing.

Meredith had met Myrna Harden for the first time that morning, at the big Harden mansion in Billings where Cy had gone to change clothes. The older woman had been instantly cold and hostile, hardly acknowledging Meredith on her way to a bridge club meeting. She’d made it patently obvious that she had no interest in one of her son’s women, and she’d made a pointed reference to a date Cy had that evening with a local debutante.

The incident had left a bad taste in Meredith’s mouth. In the past few days she and Cy had gone on a picnic, and he’d taken her out to eat one night. They’d hardly had any time to be completely alone. Now she began to see that he might have other irons in the fire, and she knew she could never compete with a debutante. She didn’t have the clothes or the money or the poise. She only had a body that he wanted. But if she gave in to him—and she knew all too well how badly he wanted her—it might be the last time she ever saw him. She wished she had a woman she could talk to about sex. Her great-aunt Mary wouldn’t have been able to discuss the subject at all, and her great-uncle, well, that was out of the question. She was on her own, and she didn’t know how to handle her blatant hunger for Cy or his for her.

Cy had tied the horses to nearby trees and led Meredith to a grove of huge cottonwood by the banks of the stream that cut through his property. He was wearing jeans, as she was, with a chambray shirt and a gray Stetson. Meredith had on a pink blouse. It was summer and hot, and the stream sounded cool. The area was deserted, miles from the house or anything else. There wasn’t even a line cabin around.

“I thought you said this was a small ranch,” Meredith murmured dryly, smiling at him as he leaned back against the tree trunk with his hat over his eyes.

“It is small, honey,” he murmured. “Barely a thousand acres. That’s a thimbleful of land by Montana standards.”

“Well, it looks awfully big to me.” She looped her arms over her updrawn knees and rested her chin on them as she watched the water flow. The wind blew her long blond hair all around her face. She didn’t notice the tug on it at first, until Cy’s hand buried itself in the tangled mass and dragged her backward, throwing her off balance so that she fell to the ground.

He flung a powerful leg across both of hers and looked down at her with glittering dark eyes.

It was like every dream she’d ever had of him. She could smell the expensive aftershave he wore, the scents of smoke and leather that clung to him. He was muscular, and she felt his warm strength and savored it. The press of his leg over hers was intimate, like the way his hard chest crushed her soft breasts. She loved the position. She loved him. For days she’d wanted so desperately for him to touch her, but he’d carefully kept his distance. This was the first time she’d been close to him, and it made her body throb in a new and frightening way.

Cy was feeling something similar. His hunger for her had kept him on the rack, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He needed her. She was submissive and sweet and old enough to know her mind. There was no reason to hold back anymore.

“I’ve waited days for this,” he said huskily. His eyes fell to her mouth. “Afraid of me, Meredith?”

“No. Not ever of you,” she whispered, even though she was. A man’s passion was something she’d never experienced, and in their present position she could feel the strength and heat of his arousal against her leg. It occurred to her that some men were much more generously endowed than others, and she had a moment’s panic as she wondered if she could even accommodate him, with her lack of experience.

He didn’t know that she was innocent, because she’d led him to believe otherwise. He thought she was twenty, when she was just eighteen. So many lies, and now the moment of truth was catching her unawares.

He bent to her mouth and brushed it open with his in lazy, smiling movements. “Soft,” he whispered. “And sweet as sugar. Open it.”

His tongue penetrated the dark recesses of her mouth with a slow, sensual rhythm that had a strange effect on her body. The rhythm seemed to call up something from her blood, because it made her nipples harden and kindled heat in her loins. She dug her fingers into his hard arms and heard him laugh softly under his breath.

His long leg insinuated itself between both of hers and began to move with the same rhythm as his tongue. And instantly the teasing stopped. Seconds later he stripped the blouse and bra from her, and his hard, hungry mouth fastened on her naked breast with a ferocity that almost convulsed her with pleasure. She never had time to be embarrassed about his eyes on her bare breasts, because he enmeshed her in a passion so sweeping that nothing mattered except the pleasure he was giving her.

After that, everything blurred into headlong ecstasy. He had their clothes off before she realized it, his hair-roughened body on hers, his thighs forcing hers apart.

He lifted his head and his dark eyes looked straight into hers as he went into her with one furious thrust.

The sharp pain was overshadowed by the incredible shock of penetration, so stark and raw that she felt him and only then realized that they were completely joined. Even so, she was vaguely aware that she couldn’t quite absorb all of him.

“God, you’re like a virgin,” he said through his teeth. But his eyes closed as the heat of her burned around him, her involuntary movements triggering his desire to explosive force. He drove for satisfaction, barely lucid enough to catch her hips and ease her into the rhythm with him. He convulsed almost at once, groaning harshly at the most complete ecstasy he’d ever experienced in his life. He shuddered against her forever until his tense muscles gave, all at once, and left him shaken and sweating, dead weight on her soft body.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered after a minute. His mouth found her eyes wet, but he smiled, thinking the tears were because he’d left her hanging. He nibbled gently at her mouth. “I’ll wait for you this time, little one.”

And he did. The second time, he kissed her and touched her in ways she’d only read about. Her body was on fire long before he drew her to him, lying on her side, and set about reducing her to tears and helpless ecstasy. She cried out, because the pleasure was so terrible she thought she might die of it, lost in the shivering oblivion of being so completely filled that she seemed to exist only as part of him.

Afterward he held her for a long time, her cheek pillowed on his damp, hairy chest while he smoked a cigarette and savored the silken brush of her bare skin against his chest, his hips, his legs, in the still afternoon. They didn’t dress, because there was no need. His enjoyment in her nudity was obvious, even if he hadn’t softly described her body with exquisite pleasure. He finished his cigarette and lay looking at her. Just looking, as if he found a beauty in her that he’d never thought to experience, from her long legs to the thrust of her soft pink breasts with their dark rose tips that grew slowly hard as he looked at her. She hadn’t been embarrassed, she recalled. His delight in her had chased away all her inhibitions. Her first time had been sheer bliss. She wondered if he knew, but she didn’t have the courage to ask.

At last he kissed her, with slow tenderness, and helped her dress. That had been the first of many long, sweet lovings. He never spoke of his feelings or made promises. Meredith in her naiveté assumed he took for granted that they would be married, since she’d given herself to him. She had no way of knowing that it was only her body he wanted, not forever.

Finally, she was reduced to tears after he took her to the penthouse and spent the day making love to her, that last time after they left the Custer battlefield. She accused him of making her his mistress, of being ashamed of her, of making her feel cheap.

Perhaps his conscience was hurting him even then, because he said that they’d get married, if that was what she wanted. But he didn’t say it with pleasure, and there was no mention of a ring. He put off naming a date, even though he took her home to Myrna and mentioned to his mother in an offhand way that he and Meredith were thinking of marriage. His mother murmured something and left the room. She’d come around, Cy promised. Then he took her home and left her there.

It was three days later, early in the morning, that Myrna Harden phoned and asked her over to the house. She even sent a car for her. Meredith hoped it was an olive branch. She was so excited, waving to all Great-Aunt Mary’s Crow neighbors on the reservation as the limousine wove around the small, pastel-painted houses and occasional backyard teepee on her way to the Harden estate. She was smiling.

The smile soon vanished when she got inside the house and found a cold-faced Myrna waiting for her.

“I know you’re pregnant, you little tramp,” Myrna whispered fiercely. “But it won’t do any good to tell him, because your hold on him is about to be royally broken!”

She led a shocked Meredith into the waiting room. Cy was in there, quietly condemning her with his eyes. Tony Tanksley, who worked for Cy, was there as well, a nice young man whom Meredith liked. She smiled at him. She didn’t know him well, but they’d talked often when he’d come to the café where she worked.

That smile helped tighten the noose around her neck.

In a cool, cultured voice, Mrs. Harden began to state the case against her. She’d helped Tony rob a safe in Cy’s office. Meredith had been there frequently, and Cy knew that she’d seen him open it. She began to turn pale as she realized suddenly what was being done to her. She tried to protest, but Cy silenced her in a quiet, curt voice that had as much impact as a vicious shout.

Mrs. Harden went over the theft with a fine-tooth comb, prompting Tony, who said that Meredith had helped him get into Cy’s office with a skeleton key made of a wax impression from the keys in Cy’s pocket. Not only that, he and Meredith had been intimate, he said, many times when Cy was out of town on business.

Myrna didn’t give Meredith a chance to say anything. She dragged up Meredith’s real age, hoping that Cy didn’t know the truth, and added a rider to the effect that Meredith had been bragging at the café about her rich suitor and how she was going to take him to the cleaners.

Cy cut Meredith off immediately when she started speaking, his eyes black with fury, his fists clenched at his sides in almost demonic rage and sexual jealousy. She was nothing but a two-timing tramp, he accused. She could get out of his life and take her lover with her, but she wouldn’t get money for it. He was going to have her arrested for the theft and watch her rot in prison!

At last, Myrna’s whispered warning hit home. She could tell him she was innocent, but she was damned in his eyes. She didn’t dare even tell him about the baby, because now he’d think it was Tony’s. Oh, how could Myrna Harden have been so cruel, and to someone she didn’t even know!

She ran. It was the hurt of having him believe such lies about her that made her run. Myrna Harden caught up with her at the back door and pressed a wad of bills into her hand. Get out quick, she told Meredith, and leave Billings. She’d try to hold Cy off long enough for her to get away, but she must never think of coming back again, as long as she lived. She’d be arrested if she even thought of it.

Meredith was hysterical, scared to death, completely at the mercy of her emotions. What if Cy called the police? Tony had already confessed and blamed her. If he testified against her, how would she manage in jail and pregnant? And what would it do to Great-Aunt Mary and Great-Uncle Raven-Walking—especially since her great-uncle worked for Harden Properties?

She ran and kept on running. She let the limousine take her back to Great-Aunt Mary’s house, where she said nothing. She simply packed and kissed the worried old lady goodbye, telling her tearfully that she’d write and explain everything very soon. She gave Mary the things Cy had given her as presents, all neatly wrapped up, along with the wad of money Myrna had given her, and asked her aunt to make sure it got back to Cy Harden. Then she went to the bus station and caught the first outbound bus, which happened to be headed to Chicago. There, fate caught her up and changed her life.

Meredith opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. Full circle, she thought numbly. Her life had started here. Now it was all but ending here. Cy might never stand again. Not that it would matter, because she could have accepted him even without legs. But bitterness and regret were poor foundations for a relationship, and pity was even worse. She still couldn’t resist him physically. He was, as usual, bulldozing over her wishes. Now he’d have to ease off, while he healed. After he was back in good health again, she could begin sorting out her feelings.

Then, too, there was Blake. He was the one wild card in the deck. She didn’t know how Cy was going to react to being a father. He might blame Myrna and Meredith, or he might blame himself for those six years of Blake’s life he’d lost. There was also the possibility that he’d meant what he said years ago about not wanting children, and he might reject the boy entirely.

Meredith closed her eyes again and tried to force her working brain to relax. She’d just have to face those problems as they arose. Meanwhile she was Kip Tennison and she couldn’t just give up the corporation because her nerves were shot. She had work to do.

Work. That brought Don to mind. She pursed her lips and smiled. So her brother-in-law was making a play for Henry’s legacy and Cy’s company all at once. Good enough. Perhaps Don was entitled to Tennison International, but he wasn’t going to get it without a fight, not even if Meredith had to take on her brother-in-law and Cy at the same time.

If a challenge was what it took to get Cy in fighting shape, it might as well serve Meredith, too, by honing her own combat skills. She felt suddenly equal to anything fate threw at her, and she gave a silent nod of gratitude to Henry, who’d taught her a great deal about how to come out ahead.