Paper Rose by Diana Palmer Read Free Book Online Page B

intimidating as Holden’s. “That’s strong talk from a big shot Washington bureaucrat who rides around in chauffeured limousines and has his meals on china plates! What the hell do you know about children whose parents can’t even afford heat in the winter, who live on a reservation that hasn’t even got a damned ambulance to take injured people to the clinic?”
    â€œI know more about it than you think you do,” Holden shot back. “Listen here…”
    Cecily walked between them, just as Colby had gotten between her and Tate minutes earlier. She smiled at Holden. “My boss at the museum told me that you had a collection of projectile points dating back to the Folsom point,” she said. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of your showing them to me?”
    Holden stood for a moment vibrating with unexpressed anger, but as he looked at Cecily, his rigid features relaxed and he smiled self-consciously. “Yes, I do have such a collection. You really want to see it?”
    â€œPaleo-Indian archaeology is still my first love,” she replied. “Yes, I’d very much enjoy that.”
    He took her arm. “If you’ll excuse us?”
    Cecily didn’t look back. She went right along with the senator, apparently hanging on every word.
    â€œWhy do you do things like that?” Audrey asked snappily, glancing around to find some people still watching them in the wake of the very audible disagreement. “He’s a very powerful man, you know. And I think he’s right about casinos.” She tossed back her shoulder-length blond hair. “There shouldn’t even be any reservations in the first place,” she muttered, missing Tate’s angry stare. “We’re all Americans. It’s stupid to support a bunch of people who’d rather live with bears than in cities. They should just phase out the reservations and let everybody live together.”
    Colby pursed his lips and glanced at Tate. He spoke a few words, softly, in a gutteral language that the other man understood very well.
    â€œWhy are you dating Cecily?” Tate asked instead of answering the question he’d been asked in Lakota.
    Colby looked nonchalant. “She’s single. I’m single. I like her.”
    â€œI can’t imagine why you’d agree to be seen with her in public,” Audrey sniffed. “She has no breeding and she’s a social disaster.”
    â€œListen, she didn’t pour crab bisque all over me,” Colby said with a deliberately provoking glance at Tate. “She wouldn’t have poured it on you if you’d told her the truth from the beginning. Cecily hates lies. I can’t imagine that you’ve known her for eight years without realizing that.”
    â€œShe has the pride of Lucifer,” he returned. “She’d never have gone to college in the first place if I hadn’t paid for it. She’s self-supporting and able to take care of herself. It was worth every penny.”
    â€œShe is going to pay you back, now that she knows, isn’t she?” Audrey asked. “You don’t owe her anything, Tate. You were stuck with her, and you’re certainly not a relative or anything.”
    â€œThere are things about my obligation to Cecily that you don’t understand,” Tate told the woman. He drew in a short breath as he watched Cecily cling to Holden’s arm on the way out of the room.
    â€œLike what?” Audrey persisted. “Don’t tell me you were lovers!”
    â€œOf course not,” Tate said irritably. “And that’s all I’m going to say on the subject.”
    â€œShe’s not much to look at even now.” Audrey was also staring after Cecily and Holden. “He does like her, doesn’t he?” she drawled. “He could afford to keep her. They must spend a lot of time together now that he’s involved in that