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  “Terel,” Nellie said, kissing her sister’s cheek, “I was able to come after all.”

  Terel looked at the diamonds around Nellie’s throat and in her ears, and at the pearls on her dress. “I’m so very glad. Did a man buy you that dress?” There was an insinuation in her voice that Nellie had traded “favors” for the dress.

  “I gave Nellie the dress,” Houston said before Nellie could speak, and she gave Terel a hard look.

  Terel was aware of people watching her, as though daring her to say or do something.

  “May I have this dance?” Jace asked Nellie. He didn’t give Terel a chance to say another word before he swept her away.

  After that, the ball lost all excitement for Terel. Nothing meant anything to her—not the invitations she received, not the compliments of the men—nothing. She could not take her eyes off Nellie. How? Terel thought. How could someone as fat and as boring as Nellie cause so much interest? Nearly everyone at the ball was swarming around Nellie. There were young men around Terel, yes, but there were no women, neither young nor old.

  But everyone was speaking to Nellie. Old women, young women, men, even the Taggert children, allowed into the ball for a few minutes, went to see their Cousin Jace and ended by kissing Nellie good night. Terel grimaced when she heard the oohs from people at the children’s kissing of Nellie.

  Nellie’s presence might have been bearable if it had been only older people paying attention to her, but it was the men’s attention that infuriated Terel. All the boys asked Terel to dance, but all the men asked Nellie to dance. She saw Dr. Westfield dancing with Nellie, then laughing uproariously at something she said. Edan Nylund and Rafe Taggert, men who’d never so much as looked at Terel, asked Nellie to dance.

  “I never looked at Nellie before,” the young man dancing with Terel said. “I guess I thought she was old, and maybe a little—well—fat, but she doesn’t look fat tonight. She moves like a goddess.”

  Terel stopped dancing and left the man standing alone on the dance floor. She left the ballroom and went outside into the cool night air.

  “Couldn’t bear to see how much people like Nellie?”

  She jumped, then turned to see Jace standing in the shadows. “I have no idea what you mean, Mr. Montgomery. I am very pleased to see my sister so happy.”

  “You’re not pleased to see anyone have more than you do.”

  “I’ll not stand here and be insulted like this.” She started to go back to the ballroom, but Jace caught her arm.

  “I know what you’re up to, you don’t fool me one bit. You’re a spoiled brat who’s had everything given to her all her life, and you think Nellie was put on this earth to give to you. Tonight you’re eaten alive with jealousy because you know that everyone in there likes Nellie, and you know that not one of them likes you.”

  She jerked her arm from his grasp. “You should talk of liking! All you want from my old maid sister is our father’s money. I am merely trying to protect my sister from—” She stopped because Jace was laughing at her.

  “Your father’s money,” he said with a sneer. “Before you go accusing people you should do a little research. I want Nellie because she’s everything a woman should be—everything that you’re not.” He leaned over Terel in a threatening way. “I’m warning you, you’d better leave Nellie alone. No more ink on her dresses, no more telling her she’s fat. You understand me? You keep making her cry and you’ll have to answer to me.”

  At that he turned and walked back into the ballroom.

  For a while Terel was too stunned to move. No one had ever talked to her like that before, and as she watched him go to Nellie and saw the two of them start dancing together Terel’s anger turned to something deeper. Research, he’d said, and he’d said it as though there was something she should know about him.

  She went back to the ballroom and began to ask questions. It didn’t take many questions to find out that Jace Montgomery was one of the heirs to Warbrooke Shipping. Terel had no doubt that her father knew all about Warbrooke Shipping, and that that was why he’d hired Jace in the first place—and the man had accepted employment just to be near Nellie.

  As Terel danced and smiled and chatted her mind worked. Under no circumstances on earth was she going to allow her fat, old-maid sister to catch one of the richest men in America. Was she, Terel, to marry some boy from Chandler and settle for a small house while Nellie lived in a mansion in New York? Or Paris? Or wherever she wanted to live? Was she supposed to spend her life reading about Nellie in the society pages of the newspaper? Maybe Nellie would feel sorry for her little sister’s poverty and send Terel her cast-off clothing. Was Nellie to have everything that Terel wanted in life just because she happened to meet Jace Montgomery first? If Terel had gone down first to greet the man that night he came to dinner, no doubt he’d be in love with her now.

  She is taking everything that should have been mine, Terel thought. My own sister has betrayed me by taking everything I’ve ever wanted.

  Well, she can’t have it, Terel thought. What is mine is mine, and she can’t take it away from me.

  She looked at Nellie, standing near Jace, drinking a cup of punch and listening to Kane Taggert. The man had never so much as given the time of day to Terel.

  “I’ll get her,” Terel whispered. “If I die trying, I’ll keep her from taking what’s mine.”

  She turned away from Nellie and smiled at the young man near her. For all the world she seemed to be enjoying herself, but in her mind she was concocting a plan.

  Chapter Eight

  The Kitchen

  Berni stepped out of the bathtub and once again looked at her list. She didn’t know how long she’d been in the Luxury room, but it was long enough to have chosen three things from the list.

  After having given Nellie her three wishes, Berni entered the Luxury room and was given a long list of pleasures from which to choose. Since she’d spent the previous fourteen years partying, the first thing she chose from the list was “videos.”

  Following golden lights through the fog, she entered an enormous room filled with shelves of videos of every movie ever made, plus every episode of every TV show. She had merely to look at the titles and they were chosen for her. After choosing a few hundred movies and old TV shows—everything Mary Tyler Moore had ever done and all the early “Bonanza” episodes—she followed the lights to a beautiful bedroom. The bed, covered with two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar sheets and pillowcases trimmed with handmade lace, was high off the floor and as soft as down (there were no “good for you” orthopedic mattresses in the Kitchen). She lay in bed for a very long while, eating endless bowls of buttery popcorn and watching one video after another. She didn’t even have to get out of bed to change the tapes, and when Mel Gibson was kissing someone the tape automatically slowed its speed.

  After many, many videos she got out of bed and looked at her list. The next luxury she chose was “friendships with women.” On earth Berni had never had any women friends, but she had always heard and even believed that other women had solid, loving friendships with each other. So, for a long period of time, Berni had women friends. They went shopping together, giggled together, had lunch. Her friends gave her a birthday party, and they were always there to listen to her. When one of her friends broke up with her boyfriend, Berni stayed up all night with her.

  But Berni grew tired of listening to other people, so she looked at her list again. This time she chose “bubble bath.” She sat in a large, soft bathtub full of hot water and lots of bubbles, read trashy novels, ate chocolate-covered cherries, and drank pink champagne. The water never grew cold; the bubbles never burst; the books were always good and the candy and champagne delicious.

  Now, leaving the tub, she was looking at her list again. “New clothes” intrigued her. On earth she’d realized that the only clothes she really liked to wear were new ones. She would have liked to wear something only once, then discard it. “Kids who behave like those on TV” also