Heart of Stone. Diana Palmer

worked with animals in a veterinary clinic, not in an exclusive boutique, and that men were thin on the ground. But it only amused them more if she fought back. She’d learned to keep her head down when she was under fire.

      The beef stew she’d had cooking all day in her Crock-Pot was fragrant and thick. She’d made yeast rolls to go with it, and a simple pound cake for dessert. Her efforts were unappreciated. The women hardly noticed what they were eating as they gossiped about a woman they knew in town who was having an affair. Their comments were earthy and embarrassing to Keely.

      They knew that, of course; it was why they did it. What the two women didn’t know was that Keely couldn’t sustain a relationship with a boyfriend, much less a lover. She had a secret that she’d never shared with anyone except the doctor who had treated her. It would keep her alone for the rest of her life. She’d made sure that her mother didn’t know what she was hiding. The older woman was bitter and miserable and she loved making a victim of her daughter. Keely’s secret would have been more fodder for her attacks. So Keely kept a good distance between herself and her coldhearted parent.

      She wondered often what had become of her father. She’d loved him very much, and she’d thought that he loved her. But he hadn’t been the same since he’d lost his game park. He’d turned to alcohol and then drugs to numb the pain and disappointment. He’d had no way to support himself, much less an adolescent daughter. He’d had to leave her with her mother. She’d done her best to make him let her stay, offering to get a job after school, anything! But he’d said that she needed security while she was growing up, and he could no longer provide it. Her mother wasn’t such a bad person, he’d said. Keely knew better, but she couldn’t change her father’s mind, so she rationalized that he’d probably forgotten what a cruel woman Ella could be. Besides that, she was terrified of his new friends; especially one of them, who’d slapped her around.

      Ella owned land that she’d inherited, along with a sizable amount of money from her late parents. She’d loaned her husband the money for his game park to get him out of her life, Ella said. She’d quickly gone through the money she’d inherited, spending it on luxurious vacations, fancy cars and a mansion while Keely was living in meager circumstances with her father. But her mother’s wealth or lack of it was no concern to Keely. As soon as she was settled comfortably in her job, she was going to get another part-time job so that she could afford to move into a boardinghouse. She’d had all she could take of living here.

      Her father had just left her on Ella’s front porch, crying and still pleading to go with him. Ella hadn’t been happy to find the adolescent back in her life, but she took her in, at least. At the age of thirteen, Keely had settled down slowly with the mother she barely remembered from childhood, who proceeded to make her life a misery.

      “Boone Sinclair is dating that ex-fiancée of his who threw him over when he got out of the Army,” Carly Blair drawled, with a quick glance at Keely.

      “Is he?” Ella looked at Keely, too. “Have you seen her?” she asked, because she knew that her daughter was friendly with Clark and Winnie Sinclair. “What does the woman look like?”

      “She’s very pretty,” Keely replied calmly between bites of stew. “Long black hair and dark blue eyes.”

      “Very pretty.” Ella laughed. “Nothing like you, Keely, right? You look like your father. I wanted a beautiful little girl who looked like me.” She wrinkled her nose. “What a disappointment you turned out to be.”

      “We can’t all be beautiful, Mother,” Keely replied. “I’d rather be smart.”

      “If you were smart, you’d go to college 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