To Love and Cherish by Diana Palmer

her own interests first. Her beauty had been shallow like her personality. There’d been no strength in it, no steel to temper that delicate beauty. All of it had been surface. But in spite of that, she was Shelby’s mother, and Shelby still cared.
    â€œI’ll be on the next plane. Are you at the house?” she asked Brad.
    â€œYes.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll meet you at the airport.”
    â€œI’ll be on the next flight out. I’llcall you from this end and let you know which flight I’ll be on. Brad…thank you for calling.”
    She placed the receiver down gently, and new tears replaced those she’d cried over King.
    â€œYour mother?” Edie asked.
    She nodded. “Suicide,” she whispered, admitting it, hating the word, hating the implication of it. “I’ll have to go.”
    Edie put a comforting arm around her. “You poor kid,” she murmured. “All at once…Shelby, I’ll come with you.”
    But Shelby shook her head. “This is something I have to do alone. I don’t need anyone,” she lied convincingly. “Thank you, anyway, but I’ll go by myself. And don’t tell Danny,” she added. “He’d want to come, and just being connected with me right now could destroy his career. The reporters will have a fieldday. A scandal like this isn’t the best publicity for an up and coming conservative young lawyer. Even his monied background wouldn’t save him, and you know it.”
    â€œDon’t you ever think about yourself?” Edie grumbled. “Danny wouldn’t mind.”
    â€œThat’s why we’re not going to tell him,” she smiled. “I’m right, Edie. You know I am.”
    â€œKnowing it won’t make Danny any happier.”
    â€œHe won’t know until he reads it in the papers, and then it’ll be too late. And when King reads about it, he’ll stop Danny from going.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. “He won’t let his brother get mixed up in that kind of scandal. It might damage his merger with the Culhanes.”
    â€œHis what?”
    â€œNever mind. I’ve got to get mysuitcase. How lucky,” she added quietly, “that I hadn’t unpacked.”
    Â 
    Brad met her at the airport and took her to the palatial estate outside Hollywood, in the hills that overlooked the city. He carried her suitcase inside, leaving her alone in the blue and white decor of the living room, with its chrome furnishings. It was like her mother somehow. Stark and lifeless. She closed her eyes briefly.
    â€œI’ve moved into town, into my old apartment,” Brad said quietly. “I thought you might rather have the place to yourself, and there are two daily maids, Melissa and Gerrie—you saw them as we came in. Melissa’s the little blonde, Gerrie’s the brunette. They’ll take care of you. Melissa’s been doing the housekeeping, too, since Mrs. Plumer quit. She’ll see you get meals while you’rehere.” He perched himself on the edge of the sofa. “There are things we need to talk about. Burial…”
    â€œShe had a plot,” Shelby said idly, naming a local funeral home and cemetery. She picked up a picture of her mother, a flashy publicity shot in a gilded frame that showed her perfectly capped teeth.
    â€œWe set the funeral for day after tomorrow,” Brad said. “Is it all right with you if we have her friends as pallbearers?” He named six of her mother’s closest male friends from years past.
    She nodded quietly. “I don’t mind.” She looked up into his pale eyes. “Brad, did…did she go easily?”
    He smiled. “She never regained consciousness. She just went to sleep,” he said, his voice fading away. He bit his thin upper lip and the shimmer of tears dampened hiseyes. “Went to sleep. She looked so