Winter Roses. Diana Palmer

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      DIANA PALMER

      Winter Roses

      Master storyteller Diana Palmer delights again

       in March next year with

      Iron Cowboy

      A LONG, TALL TEXANS story,

       only from Silhouette Desire™

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      IT WAS late, and Ivy was going to miss her class. Rachel was the only person, except Ivy’s best friend, who even knew the number of Ivy’s frugal prepaid cell phone. The call had come just as she was going to her second college class of the day. The argument could have waited until the evening, but her older sister never thought of anyone’s convenience. Well, except her own, that was.

      “Rachel, I’m going to be late,” Ivy pleaded into the phone. She pushed back a strand of long, pale blond hair. Her green eyes darkened with worry. “And we’ve got a test today!”

      “I don’t care what you’ve got,” her older sister snapped. “You just listen to me. I want that check for Dad’s property, as soon as you can get the insurance company to issue it! I’ve got overdue bills and you’re whining about college classes. It’s a waste of money! Aunt Hettie should never have left you that savings account,” she added angrily. “It should have been mine, too. I’m the oldest.”

      She was, and she’d taken everything she could get her hands on, anything she could pawn for ready cash. Ivy had barely been able to keep enough to pay the funeral bills when they came due. It was a stroke of luck that Aunt Hettie had liked her and had left her a small inheritance. Perhaps she’d realized that Ivy would be lucky if she was able to keep so much as a penny of their father’s few assets.

      It was the same painful argument they’d had for a solid month, since their father had died of a stroke. Ivy had been left with finding a place to live while Rachel called daily to talk to the attorney who was probating the will. All she wanted was the money. She’d coaxed their father into changing his will, so that she got everything when he died.

      Despite the fact that he paid her little attention, Ivy was still grieving. She’d taken care of their father while he was dying from the stroke. He’d thought that Rachel was an angel. All their lives, it had been Rachel who got all the allowances, all the inherited jewelry—which Rachel pawned immediately—all the attention. Ivy was left with housework and yardwork and cooking for the three of them. It hadn’t been much of a life. Her rare dates had been immediately captivated by Rachel, who took pleasure in stealing them away from her younger, plainer sister, only to drop them days later. When Rachel had opted to go to New York and break into theater, their father had actually put a lien on his small house to pay for an apartment for her. It had meant budgeting to the bone and no new dresses for Ivy. When she tried to protest the unequal treatment the sisters received, their father said that Ivy was just jealous and that Rachel needed more because she was beautiful but emotionally challenged.

      Translated, that meant Rachel had no feelings for anyone except herself. But Rachel had convinced their father that she adored him, and she’d filled his ears with lies about Ivy, right up to accusing her of sneaking out at night to meet men and stealing from the garage where she worked two evenings a week keeping books. No protest was enough to convince him that Ivy was honest, and that she didn’t even attract many men. She never could keep a prospective boyfriend once they saw Rachel.

      “If I can learn bookkeeping, I’ll have a way to support myself, Rachel,” Ivy said quietly.

      “You could marry a rich man one day, I guess, if you could find a blind one,” Rachel conceded, and laughed at her little joke. “Although where you expect to find one in Jacobsville, Texas, is beyond me.”

      “I’m not looking for a husband. I’m in school at our community vocational college,” Ivy reminded her.

      “So you are. What a pitiful future you’re heading for.” Rachel paused to take an audible sip of her drink. “I’ve got two auditions tomorrow. One’s for the lead in a new play, right on Broadway. Jerry says I’m a shoo-in. He has influence with the director.”

      Ivy wasn’t usually sarcastic, but Rachel was getting on her nerves. “I thought Jerry didn’t want you to work.”

      There was a frigid pause on the other end of the line. “Jerry doesn’t mind it,” she said coolly. “He just likes me to stay in, so that he can take care of me.”

      “He feeds you uppers and downers and crystal meth and charges you for the privilege, you mean,” Ivy replied quietly. She didn’t add that Rachel was beautiful and that Jerry probably used her as bait to catch new clients. He took her to party after party. She talked about acting, but it was only talk. She could barely remember her own name when she was on drugs, much less remember lines for a play. She drank to excess as well, just like Jerry.

      “Jerry takes care of me. He knows all the best people in theater. He’s promised to introduce me to one of the angels who’s producing that new comedy. I’m going to make it to Broadway or die trying,” Rachel said curtly. “And if we’re going to argue, we might as well not even speak!”

      “I’m not arguing…”

      “You’re putting Jerry down, all the time!”

      Ivy felt as if she were standing on a precipice, looking at the bottom of the world. “Have you really forgotten what Jerry did to me?” she asked, recalling the one visit Rachel had made home, just after their father died. It had been an overnight one, with the insufferable Jerry at her side. Rachel had signed papers to have their father cremated, placing his ashes in the grave with those of his late wife, the girls’ mother. It was rushed and unpleasant, with Ivy left grieving alone for a parent who’d never loved her, who’d treated her very badly. Ivy had a big, forgiving heart. Rachel did manage a sniff into a handkerchief at the graveside service. But her eyes weren’t either wet or red. It was an act, as it always was with her.

      “What you said he did,” came the instant, caustic reply. “Jerry said he never gave you any sort of drugs!”

      “Rachel!” she exclaimed, furious now, “I wouldn’t lie about something like that! I had a migraine and he switched my regular medicine with a powerful narcotic. When I saw what he was trying to give me, I threw them at him. He thought I was too sick to notice. He thought it would be funny if he could make me into an addict, just like you…!”

      “Oh, grow up,” Rachel shouted. “I’m no addict! Everybody uses drugs! Even people in that little hick town where you live. How do you think I used to score before I moved to NewYork? There was always somebody dealing, and I knew where to find what I needed. You’re so naive, Ivy.”

      “My brain still works,” she shot back.

      “Watch your mouth, kid,” Rachel said angrily, “or I’ll see that you don’t get a penny of Dad’s estate.”

      “Don’t worry, I never expected to get any of it,” Ivy said quietly. “You convinced Daddy that I was no good, so that he wouldn’t leave me anything.”

      “You’ve got that pittance from Aunt Hettie,” Rachel repeated. “Even though I should have had it. I deserved it, having to live like white trash all those years when I was at home.”

      “Rachel, if you got what you really deserved,” Ivy replied with a flash of bravado, “you’d be in federal