Beckett′s Cinderella
Beckett's Cinderella
Dixie Browning
Secret heiress Liza Chandler didn't want the money - or the rugged millionaire who'd suddenly come into her life.But Beckett had made a vow to get the job done and he wasn't the type to take no for an answer. Especially not when he discovered that beneath Liza's plain-Jane exterior hid a passionate woman just waiting to be protected. But would Liza trust Beckett enough to take his money and let him into her heart?
Praise for Dixie Browning:
“There is no one writing romance today who touches the heart and tickles the ribs like Dixie Browning. The people in her books are as warm and real as a sunbeam and just as lovely.”
—New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts
“Dixie Browning has given the romance industry years of love and laughter in her wonderful books.”
—New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard
“Each of Dixie’s books is a keeper guaranteed to warm the heart and delight the senses.”
—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz
“A true pioneer in romantic fiction, the delightful Dixie Browning is a reader’s most precious treasure, a constant source of outstanding entertainment.”
—Romantic Times
“Dixie’s books never disappoint—they always lift your spirit!”
—USA TODAY bestselling author Mary Lynn Baxter
BECKETT’S FORTUNE
Where the price of family and honor is love…
Don’t miss the continuation of this exciting new series from Silhouette Desire and Harlequin Historicals:
BECKETT’S BIRTHRIGHT
HARLEQUIN HISTORICALS 11/02
BECKETT’S CONVENIENT BRIDE
SILHOUETTE DESIRE 1/03
Dear Reader,
Dog days of summer got you down? Chill out and relax with six brand-new love stories from Silhouette Desire!
August’s MAN OF THE MONTH is the first book in the exciting family-based saga BECKETT’S FORTUNE by Dixie Browning. Beckett’s Cinderella features a hero honor-bound to repay a generations-old debt and a poor-but-proud heroine leery of love and money she can’t believe is offered unconditionally. His E-Mail Order Wife by Kristi Gold, in which matchmaking relatives use the Internet to find a high-powered exec a bride, is the latest title in the powerful DYNASTIES: THE CONNELLYS series.
A daughter seeking revenge discovers love instead in Falling for the Enemy by Shawna Delacorte. Then, in Millionaire Cop & Mom-To-Be by Charlotte Hughes, a jilted, pregnant bride is rescued by her childhood sweetheart.
Passion flares between a family-minded rancher and a marriage-shy divorcée in Kathie DeNosky’s Cowboy Boss. And a pretend marriage leads to undeniable passion in Desperado Dad by Linda Conrad.
So find some shade, grab a cold one…and read all six passionate, powerful and provocative new love stories from Silhouette Desire this month.
Enjoy!
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
Beckett’s Cinderella
Dixie Browning
DIXIE BROWNING
is an award-winning painter and writer, mother and grandmother. Her father was a big-league baseball player, her grandfather a sea captain. In addition to her nearly eighty contemporary romances, Dixie and her sister, Mary Williams, have written more than a dozen historical romances under the name Bronwyn Williams. Contact Dixie at www.dixiebrowning.com, or at P.O. Box 1389, Buxton, NC 27920.
To the wonderful and caring staff
at Britthaven Nursing Home in Kitty Hawk, N.C.
You’re the best!
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
One
Just before his descent into Norfolk International Airport, Lancelot Beckett opened his briefcase, took out a thin sheaf of paper and scanned a genealogical chart. In the beginning, all they’d had to go on was a name, an approximate birthplace and a rough time line. Now, after God knows how many generations, the job was finally going to get done.
“What the hell do I know about tracking down the descendents of an Oklahoma cowboy born roughly a hundred and fifty years ago?” he’d demanded the last time he’d stopped by his cousin Carson’s restored shotgun-style house outside Charleston. “When it comes to tracking down pirates, I’m your man, but cowboys? Come on, Car, give me a break.”
“Hey, if you can’t handle it, I’ll take over once I’m out of this.” Carson, a police detective, was pretty well immobilized for the time being in a fiberglass cast. Now and then, even the Beckett luck ran out. About two months earlier, his had. “Looks like something you can do on your way home anyhow, so it’s not like you’d have to detour too far off the beaten track.”
“You know where I was when Mom tracked me down? I was in Dublin, for crying out loud,” Beckett had explained. They were both Becketts, but Lancelot had laid down the law regarding his name when he was eleven. Since then, he’d been called by his last name. Occasionally, tongue-in-cheek, he was referred to as “The Beckett.”
“I had to cancel a couple of appointments in London, not to mention a date. Besides, I’m not headed home anytime soon.”
What was the point? Officially, home was a two-room office with second-floor living quarters in Wilmington, Delaware. It served well enough as a mailing address and a place to put his feet up for a few days when he happened to be back in the States.
As it turned out, the place where the Chandler woman was thought to be hiding out was roughly halfway between Wilmington and his parents’ home in Charleston.
Hiding out was probably the wrong term; relocated might be closer. Whatever her reasons for being in North Carolina instead of Texas, she’d been hard as the devil to track down. It had taken the combined efforts of Carson’s police computers, a few unofficial sources and a certified genealogist to locate the woman.
And with all that, it had been a random sighting—something totally off-the-wall—that had finally pinned her down. Grant’s Produce and Free Ice Water, located on a peninsula between the North River and the Currituck Sound, somewhere near a place named Bertha, North Carolina. Hell, they didn’t even have a street address for her, just a sign along the highway.
Beckett tried to deal with his impatience. He was used to being on the move while his partner stayed in the office handling the paperwork, but this particular job had to do with family matters. It couldn’t be delegated. The buck had been passed as far as it would go.
He’d allowed himself a couple of hours after leaving the airport to find the place and another half hour to wind things up. After that, he could go back to Charleston and tell PawPaw the deed was done. Any debt his family owed one Eliza Chandler Edwards, direct descendant of old Elias Matthew Chandler of Crow Fly, in what had then been Oklahoma Territory, was finally settled.
The genealogist had done a great job in record time, running into a snag only at the point where Miss Chandler had married one James G. Edwards, born July 1, 1962, died September 7, 2001. It had been police research—in particular, the Financial Crimes Unit—that had dug up the fact that the lady and her husband had been involved a couple of years ago in a high-stakes investment scam. Edwards had gone down alone for that one—literally. Shot by one of his victims while out jogging, but before he died he had cleared his wife of any involvement. She’d never been linked directly to any illegal activities. Once cleared, she had hung around Dallas only long enough to liquidate her assets before dropping out of sight.
Beckett didn’t know if she was guilty as sin or totally innocent. Didn’t much care. He was doing this for PawPaw’s sake, not hers.
In the end, it had been pure luck. Luck in the form of a reporter with an excellent visual memory who spent summer vacations on North Carolina’s Outer Banks and who had happened to stop at a certain roadside stand on his drive south.
He’d called Carson from Nags Head. “Hey, man, weren’t you checking out this Edwards woman a few weeks ago? The one that was mixed up in that scam out in Texas where all these old geezers got ripped off?”
And just like that, they’d had her. She’d holed up in the middle of nowhere with a gentleman named Frederick Grant, a great-uncle on her mother’s side. Check and double-check. If it hadn’t been for that one lucky break, it might’ve taken months. Beckett would’ve been tempted to pass the buck to the next generation, the way the men in his family had evidently been doing ever since the great-grandfather for whom he’d been named had cheated a business partner named Chandler out of his rightful share of Beckett money. Or so the story went.
At this point there was no next generation. Carson wasn’t currently involved with anyone, and Beckett had taken one shot at it, missed by a mile, and been too gun-shy to try again.
Although he preferred to think of it as too busy.
“Money, the root of all evils,” Beckett had mused when he’d checked in with his cousin Carson just before leaving Charleston that morning.
“Ain’t that the truth? Wonder which side of the law old Lance would’ve been on if he’d lived in today’s society.”
“Hard to say. Mom dug up some old records, but they got soaked, pretty much ruined, during Hurricane Hugo.” He’d politely suggested to his mother that a bank deposit box might be a better place to store valuable papers than a hot, leaky attic.
She’d responded, “It’s not like they were family photographs. Besides, how was I to know they’d get wet and clump together? Now stop whining and taste this soup. I know butter’s not supposed to be good for you, but I can hardly make Mama’s crab bisque with margarine.”
“Mom, I’m nearly forty years old, for cripes’ sake. While I might occasionally comment on certain difficulties, I never whine. Hmm, a little more salt—maybe a tad more sherry?”
“That’s what I thought, too. I know you don’t, darling. Just look at you, you’re turning grayer every time I see you.”
According to his father, Beckett’s mother’s hair had turned white before she was even out of her teens. All the girls in her high-school class had wanted gray hair. “It’s one thing to turn gray when you’re young enough to pass it off as a fashion statement. It’s another thing when you’re so old nobody gives it a second thought,” she’d said more than once.
For the past fifteen or so years, her hair had been every shade of blond and red imaginable. At nearly sixty, she scarcely looked more than forty—forty-five, at the most.
“Honey, it’s up to you how to handle it,” she said as he helped himself to another spoonful of her famous soup, which contained shrimp as well as crab, plus enough cream and butter to clog every artery between Moncks Corner and Edisto Island. “PawPaw tried his best to find these people, but then he got sick.”
Right. Beckett’s grandfather, called PawPaw by family and friends alike, was as charming an old rascal as ever lived, but at the age of one hundred plus, he was still putting things off. Cheating the devil, he called it. When it came to buck passing, the Beckett men took a back seat to none.
Which is why some four generations after the “crime” had been committed, Beckett was trying to get the job done once and for all.
“What’s the latest on the new tropical depression? You heard anything this morning?” Carson had asked.
“Pretty much stalled, last I heard. I hope to God it doesn’t strengthen—I’ve got half a dozen ships in the North Atlantic using the new tracking device. They all start dodging hurricanes, I’m going to be pretty busy trying to find out if any of them are being hijacked.”
“Yeah, well…take a break. Go play fairy godfather for a change.”
“Easy for you to say.”
When his mother had called to say that PawPaw had had another stroke, Beckett had been in the middle of negotiations with an Irish chemical tanker company that had been hijacked often enough for the owners to feel compelled to contact his firm, Beckett Marine Risk Management, Inc. “Just a teeny-weeny stroke this time, but he really would like to see you and Carson.” She’d gone on to say she didn’t know how long he could hang on, but seeing his two grandsons would mean the world to him.
Beckett came home. And, as Carson was still out of commission, it was Beckett who’d gotten stuck with the assignment.
So now here he was, chasing an elusive lady who had recently been spotted selling produce and God knows what else at a roadside stand in the northeast corner of North Carolina.
“PawPaw, you owe me big-time for this.” Beckett loved his grandfather. Hadn’t seen much of him recently, but he intended to rectify that if the old guy would just pull through this latest setback. Family, he was belatedly coming to realize, was one part anchor, one part compass. In rough weather, he’d hate to be caught at sea without either one.
So, maybe in a year or so, he thought as he crossed the state line between North Carolina and Virginia, he might consider relocating. He’d incorporated in Delaware because of its favorable laws, but that didn’t mean he had to stay there. After a while, a man got tired of zigzagging across too many time zones.
Pulling up at a stoplight, he yawned, rubbed his bristly jaw and wished he had a street address. He’d called ahead to rent a four-wheel-drive vehicle in case the chase involved more than the five-lane highway that ran from Virginia to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Having experienced back roads of all descriptions from Zaire to Kuala Lumpur, he knew better than to take anything for granted. So far it looked like a pretty straight shot, but he’d learned to be prepared for almost anything.
“We’re out of prunes,” came a wavering lament from the back of the house.
“Look in the pantry,” Liza called. “They’ve changed the name—they’re called dried plums now, but they’re still the same thing.” She smiled as she snapped her cash box shut and tied a calico apron over her T-shirt and tan linen pants. Uncle Fred—her great-uncle, really—was still sharp as a tack at the age of eighty-six, but he didn’t like it when things changed.
And things inevitably changed. In her case it had been a change for the better, she thought, looking around at the shabby-comfortable old room with its mail-order furniture and hand-crocheted antimacassars. A wobbly smoking stand, complete with humidor and pipe rack—although her uncle no longer smoked on orders from his physician—was now weighted down with all the farming and sports magazines he’d collected and never discarded. There was an air-conditioning unit in one of the windows, an ugly thing that blocked the view of the vacant lot on the other side, where someone evidently planned to build something. But until they could afford central air—which would be after the kitchen floor was replaced and the house reroofed—it served well enough. Both bedrooms had electric fans on the dressers, which made the humid August heat almost bearable.
Liza hadn’t changed a thing when she’d moved in, other than to scrub the walls, floors and windows, wash all the linens and replace a few dry-rotted curtains when they’d fallen apart in her hands. Discount stores were marvelous places, she’d quickly discovered.
Shortly after she’d arrived, Liza had broken down and cried for the first time in months. She’d been cleaning the dead bugs from a closet shelf and had found a shoe box full of old letters and Christmas cards, including those she’d sent to Uncle Fred. Liza and her mother had always done the cards together, with Liza choosing them and her mother addressing the envelopes. Liza had continued to send Uncle Fred a card each year after her mother had died, never knowing whether or not they’d been received.
Dear, lonely Uncle Fred. She had taken a monumental chance, not even calling ahead to ask if she could come for a visit. She hadn’t know anything about him, not really—just that he was her only living relative except for a cousin she hadn’t seen in several years. She’d driven all the way across the country for a few days’ visit, hoping—praying—she could stay until she could get her feet on the ground and plan her next step.
What was that old song about people who needed people?
They’d both been needy, not that either of them had ever expressed it in words. We’re out of prunes. That was one of Uncle Fred’s ways of letting her know he needed her. Danged eyeglasses keep moving from where I put ’em. That was another.
Life in this particular slow lane might lack a few of the amenities she’d once taken for granted, but she would willingly trade all the hot tubs and country clubs in the world for the quiet predictability she’d found here.
Not to mention the ability to see where every penny came from and where and how it was spent. She might once have been negligent—criminally negligent, some would say—but after the lessons she’d been forced to learn, she’d become a fanatic about documenting every cent they took in. Her books, such as they were, balanced to the penny.
When she’d arrived in May of last year, Uncle Fred had been barely hanging on, relying on friends and neighbors to supply him with surplus produce. People would stop by occasionally to buy a few vegetables, leaving the money in a bowl on the counter. They made their own change, and she seriously doubted if it ever occurred to him to count and see if he was being cheated. What would he have done about it? Threaten them with his cane?
Gradually, as her visit stretched out over weeks and then months, she had instigated small changes. By the end of the year, it was taken for granted that she would stay. No words were necessary. He’d needed her and she’d needed him—needed even more desperately to be needed, although her self-esteem had been so badly damaged she hadn’t realized it at the time.
Uncle Fred still insisted on being present every day, even though he seldom got out of his rocking chair anymore. She encouraged his presence because she thought it was good for him. The socializing. He’d said once that all his friends had moved to a nursing home or gone to live with relatives.
She’d said something to the effect that in his case, the relative had come to live with him. He’d chuckled. He had a nice laugh, his face going all crinkly, his eyes hidden behind layers of wrinkles under his bushy white brows.
For the most part, the people who stopped for the free ice water and lingered to buy produce were pleasant. Maybe it was the fact that they were on vacation, or maybe it was simply because when Uncle Fred was holding court, he managed to strike up a conversation with almost everyone who stopped by. Seated in his ancient green porch rocker, in bib overalls, his Romeo slippers and Braves baseball cap, with his cane hidden behind the cooler, he greeted them all with a big smile and a drawled, “How-de-do, where y’all from?”
Now and then, after the stand closed down for the day, she would drive him to Bay View to visit his friends while she went on to do the grocery shopping. Usually he was waiting for her when she got back, grumbling about computers. “All they talk about—them computer things. Good baseball game right there on the TV set and all they want to talk about is going on some kind of a web. Second childhood, if you ask me.”
So they hadn’t visited as much lately. He seemed content at home, and that pleased her enormously. Granted, Liza thought as she broke open a roll of pennies, they would never get rich. But then, getting rich had been the last thing on her mind when she’d fled across country from the chaos her life had become. All she asked was that they sell enough to stay in business, more for Uncle Fred’s sake than her own. She could always get a job; the classified ads were full of help-wanted ads in the summertime. But Fred Grant was another matter. She would never forget how he’d welcomed her that day last May when she’d turned up on his doorstep.
“Salina’s daughter, you say? All the way from Texas? Lord bless ye, young’un, you’ve got the family look, all right. Set your suitcase in the front room, it’s got a brand-new mattress.”
The mattress might have been brand-new at one time, but that didn’t mean it was comfortable. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and at that point in her life, she’d been a beggar. Now, she was proud to say, she earned her own way. Slowly, one step at a time, but every step was straightforward, documented and scrupulously honest.
“I’ll be outside if you need me,” she called now as she headed out the front door. Fred Grant had his pride. It would take him at least five minutes to negotiate the uneven flagstone path between the house and the tin-roofed stand he’d established nearly forty years ago when he’d hurt his back and was no longer able to farm.
Gradually he and his wife had sold off all the land, hanging on to the house and the half acre it sat on. Fred ruefully admitted they had wasted the money on a trip to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and a fur coat for his wife. He had buried her in it a few years later.
Now he and Liza had each other. Gradually she had settled into this quiet place, far from the ruins of the glamorous, fast-paced life that had suited James far more than it had ever suited her.
By liquidating practically everything she possessed before she’d headed here—the art, her jewelry and the outrageously expensive clothes she would never again wear—she had managed to pay off a few of James’s victims and their lawyers. She’d given her maid, Patty Ann Garrett, a Waterford potpourri jar she’d always admired. She would have given her more, for she genuinely liked the girl, but she’d felt honor bound to pay back as much of what James had stolen as she could.
Besides, her clothes would never fit Patty Ann, who was five foot four, with a truly amazing bust size. In contrast, Liza was tall, skinny and practically flat. James had called her figure classy, which she’d found wildly amusing at the time.
For a woman with a perfectly good college degree, never mind that it wasn’t particularly marketable, she’d been incredibly ignorant. She was learning, though. Slowly, steadily, she was learning how to take care of herself and someone who was even needier than she was.
“Good morning…yes, those are grown right here in Currituck County.” She would probably say the same words at least a hundred times on a good day. Someone—the Tourist Bureau, probably—had estimated that traffic passing through on summer Saturdays alone would be roughly 45,000 people. People on their way to and from the beach usually stopped at the larger markets, but Uncle Fred had his share of regulars, some of whom said they’d first stopped by as children with their parents.
After Labor Day, the people who stopped seemed to take more time to look around. A few even offered suggestions on how to improve her business. It was partly those suggestions and partly Liza’s own creativity she credited for helping revitalize her uncle’s small roadside stand, which had been all but defunct when she’d shown up. First she’d bought the secondhand cooler and put up a sign advertising free ice water, counting on the word free to bring in a few customers. Then she’d found a source of rag dolls, hand-woven scatter rugs and appliquéd canvas tote bags. She’d labeled them shell bags, and they sold as fast as she could get in a new supply. Last fall she’d added a few locally grown cured hams. By the time they’d closed for the winter, business had more than doubled.
Now, catching a whiff of Old Spice mingled with the earthy smell of freshly dug potatoes and sweet onions, she glanced up as Uncle Fred settled into his rocker. “You should have worn your straw hat today—that cap won’t protect your ears or the back of your neck.”
The morning sun still slanted under the big water oaks. “Put on your own bonnet, woman. I’m tougher’n stroppin’ leather, but skin like yours weren’t meant to fry.”
“Bonnets. Hmm. I wonder if we could get one of the women to make us a few old-fashioned sunbonnets. What do you bet they’d catch on?” Mark of a good businesswoman, she thought proudly. Always thinking ahead.
She sold three cabbages, half a dozen cantaloupes and a hand-loomed scatter rug the first hour, then perched on her stool and watched the traffic flow past. When a dark green SUV pulled onto the graveled parking area, she stood, saying quietly to her uncle, “What do you think, country ham?” When business was slow they sometimes played the game of trying to guess in advance who would buy what.
Together they watched the tall, tanned man approach. His easy way of moving belied the silver-gray of his thick hair. He couldn’t be much past forty, she decided. Dye his hair and he could pass for thirty. “Maybe just a glass of ice water,” she murmured. He didn’t strike her as a typical vacationer, much less one who was interested in produce.
“That ’un’s selling, not buying. Got that look in his eye.”
Beckett took his time approaching the tall, thin woman with the wraparound calico apron, the sun-struck auburn hair and the fashion model’s face. If this was the same woman who’d been involved in a high-stakes con game that covered three states and involved a few offshore banking institutions, what the hell was she doing in a place like this?
And if this wasn’t Eliza Chandler Edwards, then what the devil was a woman with her looks doing sitting behind a bin of onions, with Grandpaw Cranket or Crocket or whatever the guy’s name was, rocking and grinning behind her.
“How-de-do? Where ye from, son?”
“Beg pardon?” He paused between a display of green stuff and potatoes.
“We get a lot of reg’lars stopping by, but I don’t believe I’ve seen you before. You from up in Virginia?”
“It’s a rental car, Uncle Fred,” the woman said quietly.
Beckett tried to place her accent and found he couldn’t quite pin it down. Cultured Southern was about as close as he could come. She was tall, at least five-nine or-ten. Her bone structure alone would have made her a world-class model if she could manage to walk without tripping over her feet. He was something of a connoisseur when it came to women; he’d admired any number of them from a safe distance. If this was the woman he’d worked so damned hard to track down, the question still applied—what the devil was she doing here selling produce?
He nodded to the old man and concentrated on the woman. “Ms. Edwards?”
Liza felt a gaping hole open up in her chest. Did she know him? She managed to catch her breath, but she couldn’t stop staring. There was something about him that riveted her attention. His eyes, his hands—even his voice. If she’d ever met him before, she would have remembered. “I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake.”
“You’re not Eliza Chandler Edwards?”
Uncle Fred was frowning now, fumbling behind the cooler for his cane. Oh, Lord, Liza thought, if he tried to come to her rescue, they’d both end up in trouble. She had told him a little about her past when she’d first arrived, but nothing about the recent hang-up calls, much less the letter that had come last month.
“I believe you have the advantage,” she murmured, stalling for time. How could he possibly know who she was? She was legally Eliza Jackson Chandler again, wiping out the last traces of her disastrous marriage.
“Could I have a glass of that free ice water you’re advertising?”
On a morning when both the temperature and the humidity hovered in the low nineties, this man looked cool as the proverbial cucumber. Not a drop of sweat dampened that high, tanned brow. “Of course. Right over there.” Indicating the container of plastic cups, Liza fought to maintain her composure.
When he tipped back his head to swallow, her gaze followed the movement of his throat. His brand of fitness hadn’t come from any gym, she’d be willing to bet on it. Nor had that tan been acquired over a single weekend at the beach. The contrast of bronzed skin with pewter hair, ice-gray eyes and winged black eyebrows was startling, not to mention strikingly attractive.
The word sexy came to mind, and she immediately pushed it away. Sex was the very last thing that concerned her now. Getting rid of this man overshadowed everything.
But first she needed to know if he was the one who’d been stalking her—if not literally, then figuratively, by calling her in the middle of the night and hanging up. Just last month she’d received a letter addressed to her by name at Uncle Fred’s rural route box number. The return address was a post office box in South Dallas. Inside the plain white envelope had been a blank sheet of paper.
“I don’t believe you answered my question,” he said, his voice deep, slightly rough edged, but not actually threatening. At least, not yet.
“First, I’d like to know who’s asking.” She would see his demand and raise him one.
“Beckett. L. Jones Beckett.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re here asking questions, Mr. Beckett.” If that really is your name.
“The name doesn’t ring any bells?”
Liza turned away to stare down at a display of summer squash. Had any of James’s victims been named Beckett? She honestly couldn’t recall, there had been so many. With the help of her lawyer, she’d done the best she could to make amends, but even after liquidating everything there still hadn’t been enough to go around. Of course the lawyers, including her divorce lawyer, whom she’d no longer needed at that point, had taken a large cut of all she’d been able to raise.
He was still waiting for an answer. “No, I’m sorry. Should it?”
“My grandfather was Lancelot Elias Beckett.”
“He has my sympathy.” Her arms were crossed over her breasts, but they failed to warm her inside, where it counted. Uncle Fred, bless his valorous heart, had stopped rocking and stopped smiling. His cane was at the ready, across his bony knees.
Two
This was the one. Beckett was certain of it. Otherwise, why was she so skittish? A simple farmer’s daughter selling her wares on a country road, no matter how stunning she might be, would hardly slam the door shut on a potential customer.
And she’d slammed it shut, all right. Battened down the hatches and all but thrown open the gun ports. Guarded didn’t begin to describe the look in those whiskey-brown eyes. Frightened came closer.
But frightened of what? Being brought in for questioning again?
So far as he knew, that particular case had been closed when her husband had taken the fall. She’d been a material witness, but they’d never been able to tie anything directly to her—even though she’d still been legally married to Edwards when he’d been shot in the throat by a man who’d been bled dry by one of his shell games. The victim, poor devil, had returned the favor.
“Not from Virginia, are ye?” the old man asked, causing them both to turn and stare. His smile was as bland as the summer sky. The brass-headed cane was nowhere in sight.
“Uh…South Carolina. Mostly,” Beckett admitted. He’d lived in the state of his birth for exactly eighteen years. He still kept his school yearbooks, his athletic trophies and fishing gear at his parents’ home, for lack of space in his own apartment.
The old man nodded. “I figgered South C’lina or Georgia. Got a good ear for placing where folks is from.”
“What do you want?” It was the woman this time. Her eyes couldn’t have looked more wary if he’d been a snake she’d found in one of her fancy canvas bags.
Under other circumstances, he might have been interested in following up on her question. Her looks were an intriguing blend of Come Hither and Back Off. “Nothing,” he told her. “I have something for you, though.” What he had was a worthless, mostly illegible bundle of paper. He’d left the money in his briefcase in the truck. If she wasn’t the right one, the papers wouldn’t mean anything to her, and if she was…
She was. He’d lay odds on it.
But she wasn’t ready to drop her guard. “Something you want me to sell for you? Sorry, we deal only with locals.”
Irritated, he snapped back, “Just some papers for now. Look, if you’ll give me a minute to explain—”
She jammed her fists in her apron pockets and stepped back against the counter. “No. You can keep your papers. I refuse to accept them. You’re a…a process server, aren’t you?” She had a face that could be described as beautiful, elegant—even patrician. That didn’t keep her from squaring up that delicate jaw of hers like an amateur boxer bracing for a roundhouse punch.
For some reason it got to him. “I am not a process server. I am not a deputy, nor am I a bounty hunter. I’m not a reporter, either, in case you were worried.” In his line of work, patience was a requisite. Occasionally his ran short. “I was asked to locate you in order to give you something that’s rightfully yours. At least, it belonged to a relative of yours.” Might as well set her curiosity to working for him. “I might add that I’ve had one devil of a time tracking you down.”
If anything, she looked even more suspicious. Considering what her husband had been involved in, maybe she had just cause. But dammit, if he was willing to fork over ten grand from his own personal bank account, the least she could do was accept it. A gracious thank-you wouldn’t be too far out of line, either.
“Why don’t I just leave this packet with you and you can glance through it at your leisure.” He held out an oversize manila envelope.
Liza jammed her fists deeper into the pockets of her apron. At her leisure? No way. He might not be a process server—she’d never heard of one of those who suggested anyone examine their papers at her leisure—but that didn’t make him any less of a threat. Lawsuits were a dime a dozen these days, and there were plenty of aggrieved parties who might think they had a case against her, just because she’d been married to James and had benefited from the money he’d swindled.
Benefited in the short run, at least.
Before she could get rid of him—politely or otherwise—a car pulled up and two couples and three kids piled out.
“Mama, can I have—”
“I’ve got to go to the bathroom, Aunt Ruth.”
“My, would you look at them onions. Are they as sweet as Videlias, Miss?”
Forcing a smile, Liza stepped behind the homemade counter, with its ancient manual cash register surrounded by the carefully arranged displays of whatever needed moving before it passed its prime.
“Those are from the Lake Mattamuskeet area.” She gestured in the general direction of neighboring Hyde County. “They’re so sweet and mild you could almost eat them like apples.”
She explained to the round-faced woman wearing blue jeans, faux diamond earrings and rubber flip-flops that there were no bathroom facilities, but there were rest rooms at the service station less than a mile down the road. Uncle Fred still referred to the five-lane highway as “the road.”
While she was adding up purchases, two more customers stopped by. Uncle Fred engaged one of the men in a conversation about his favorite baseball team. Finding a fellow baseball fan always made his day.
“Does that thing really work?” One of the women nodded to her cash register.
“Works just fine, plus it helps keep my utility bills down.” It was her stock answer whenever anyone commented on her low-tech equipment. Although what they expected of a roadside stand, she couldn’t imagine. She weighed a sack of shelled butter beans on the hanging scales.
“I saw something like that once on the Antiques Roadshow,” the woman marveled.
From the corner of her eye, Liza watched the stranger leave. Actually caught herself admiring his lean backside as he sauntered toward his SUV. Curiosity nudged her, but only momentarily. Attractive men—even unattractive men—who knew her name or anything at all about her, she could well do without.
He started the engine, but didn’t drive off. Through the tinted windshield, he appeared to be talking on a cell phone.
Who was he? What did he want from her? Just leave me alone, damn you! I don’t have anything more to give!
After James had been indicted, one distraught woman had actually tracked her down to show her a picture of the home she had lost when her husband had invested every cent they had saved in one of James’s real-estate scams. She’d been crying. Liza had ended up crying, too. She’d given the woman a diamond-and-sapphire bracelet, which certainly wouldn’t buy her a new home, but it was all she could do at the time.
To her heartfelt relief, the dark green SUV pulled out and drove off. For a few blessed moments she and Uncle Fred were alone. The midday heat brought a bloom of moisture to her face despite the fact that she still felt cold and shaky inside. She opened two diet colas and handed one to her uncle. She was wondering idly if she should bring one of the electric fans from the house when she spotted the manila envelope.
Well, shoot. She was tempted to leave it where it was, on the far corner of the counter, weighted down with a rutabaga.
Uncle Fred hitched his chair deeper into the shade and resumed rocking. “Funny, that fellow wanting to give you something. What you reckon it was?”
“Some kind of papers, he said.” She nodded to the envelope that was easily visible from where she sat, but not from the other side of the counter.
“Maybe we won the lottery.” It was a standing joke. Every now and then her uncle would mention driving up into Virginia and buying lottery tickets. They never had. Uncle Fred had surrendered his driver’s license a decade ago after his pickup had died, and Liza didn’t want anything she hadn’t earned. If someone told her where a pot of gold was buried, she’d hand over a shovel and wish them luck.
“I guess I’d better start stringing beans while things are quiet. I’ll freeze another batch tonight.” She froze whatever didn’t sell before it passed its prime. Her uncle called it laying by for the winter. It had a solid, comfortable sound.
“Aren’t you going to see what’s in the envelope?”
“Ta-dah! The envelope, please.” She tried to turn it into a joke, but she had that sick feeling again—the same feeling that had started the day James’s so-called investment business had begun to unravel. At first she’d thought—actually hoped—that the feeling of nausea meant she was pregnant.
Thank God it hadn’t.
“Here comes another car.” She handed her uncle the envelope and moved behind the counter. “Help yourself if you’re curious.”
There wasn’t much choice when it came to a place to stay. He could’ve driven on to the beach, but common sense told Beckett that on a Saturday in late August, his chances of finding a vacancy weren’t great. Besides, he wasn’t finished with Queen Eliza. By now she would have looked over the papers and realized he was on the level, even if she didn’t yet understand what it was all about. The name Chandler was easy enough to read, even in century-old faded ink. Add to that the letter from his grandfather, Elias Beckett—funny, the coincidence of the names. Elias Chandler and Elias Beckett. Two different generations, though, if the genealogist had the straight goods.
At any rate, he would go back after she’d closed up shop for the day to answer any questions she might have and hand over the money. Meanwhile, he could arrange to see a couple of potential clients at Newport News Shipyard. Things had clamped down so tight after September 11 that it practically took an act of Congress to get through security.
Fortunately, he had clearance there. He’d make a few calls and, with any luck, be on his way back to Charleston by tomorrow afternoon. He would spend a few days with his parents before heading back to Dublin to wind up negotiations with the tanker firm.
The important thing was to set PawPaw’s mind at ease. If, as he’d been given to understand, the Becketts owed the Chandlers money, he would willingly pay it back. In exchange, however, he wanted a signed receipt and the understanding that any future heirs would be notified that the debt had been settled. A gentleman’s agreement might have served in PawPaw’s day—not that it had served the original Chandler very well. But in today’s litigious society, he preferred something more tangible.
After that, he didn’t care what she did with the money. She could buy herself a decent cooler and a cash register that didn’t date back to the thirties or get herself a grind organ and a monkey for all he cared. He’d been given a mission, and he’d come too far not to carry it out. But he could hardly ask for a signed receipt for ten thousand dollars while she was busy weighing out sixty-nine cents’ worth of butter beans.
“Over to you, lady,” he said softly, setting up his laptop on the fake mahogany table in his motel room. He placed his cell phone beside it, tossed his briefcase on the bed, set the air-conditioning for Arctic blast and peeled off his sweat-damp shirt. He’d stayed in far better places; he’d stayed in far worse. At least the room was clean and there was a decent-size shower and reasonably comfortable bed. Slipping off his shoes, he waited for the phone call to go through.
“Car? Beckett. Yeah, I found her right where your friend said she’d be. Tell him I owe him a steak dinner, will you?” He went on to describe the place, including the old man she was apparently living with. “Great-uncle on her mother’s side, according to the genealogist’s chart. Looks like he could use a few bucks. The house is listing about five degrees to the northeast.”
Carson congratulated him. “When you headed back this way?”
“Tomorrow, probably. I’d like to handle some business in the Norfolk area as long as I’m this close. Maybe stop off in Morehead City on the way and be back in Charleston by tomorrow night.”
“Want me to call Aunt Becky and let her know?”
“Wait until I know for sure when I’ll be heading back again. I ran into a small snag.”
“Don’t tell me she’s the wrong Chandler.”
“She’s the right Chandler, I’m pretty sure of that. Trouble is, she doesn’t want to accept the papers.”
“Doesn’t want to accept ten grand?”
“We never got that far. I gave her the papers, but she needs to look ’em over before I hand over the money. Or at least as much as she can decipher.”
“Didn’t you explain what it was about?”
“I was going to, but she got tied up with customers before I had a chance to do any explaining. I didn’t feel like hanging around all day. I’ll go back later on, after the place closes down and explain what it’s all about. Listen, did it ever occur to you that if she starts figuring out the rate of inflation over the past hundred or so years, we might have a problem on our hands?”
“Nope, never occurred to me. Sorry you mentioned it, but look—we don’t really know how much money was involved originally, do we?”
Beckett idly scratched a mosquito bite. “Good point. I’m going to ask for a receipt, though. You think that’s going too far?”
“Hey, you’re the guy who deals with government regulations and red tape. Me, I’m just a lowly cop.”
He was a bit more than that, but Beckett knew what he meant. He didn’t want the next generation of Becketts to trip on any legal loopholes. Before he handed over the money, he would definitely get her signature on a release.
“You know, Bucket,” Carson mused, “it occurs to me that the way we’re doing this, we could end up in trouble if old man Chandler scattered too many seeds. Just because we were only able to locate two heirs, that doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t any more.”
“Don’t remind me. That’s one of the reasons I want things sewed up with lawyer-proof thread. You can handle the next contender however you want to. If any more turn up after that, we’ll flash our receipt and send them to Ms. Edwards and what’s-her-name—the other one. They can share the spoils…or not.”
After answering a few questions about various family members, Beckett stripped down and headed for the shower. He started out with a hot deluge and let it run cold. The hot water eased the ache caused by too many hours strapped into a bucket seat, while the cool water helped clear his mind. As he slathered soap from the postage-stamp-size bar onto his flat midriff and let the suds trickle down his torso, the image of Eliza Chandler Edwards arose in his mind.
Lancelot Beckett had known his share of beautiful women—maybe more than his share; although, ever since he’d been left at the altar at the impressionable age of twenty-two, he’d made it a policy never to invite a repetition. At this point in his life he figured it was too late, anyhow. Any man who wasn’t married by his midthirties probably wasn’t a viable candidate.
All the same, it had been a long time since he’d met a more intriguing woman than Ms. Edwards. Skilled at reading people, he hadn’t missed the flash of interest that had flickered in those golden-brown eyes just before wariness had shut it off. Pit that against the physical barriers she’d erected and, yeah…intriguing wasn’t too strong a word. Her hair was not quite brown, not quite red. Thick and wavy, with a scattering of golden strands that had a tendency to curl, she wore it twisted up on her head and anchored down with some kind of a tortoiseshell gadget. Her clothes were the kind deliberately designed to conceal rather than reveal. He wondered if she realized that on the right woman, concealment was a hell of a lot more exciting than full exposure.
Oh, yeah, she was something all right. Everything about her shouted, “Look but don’t touch.”
In fact, don’t even bother to look. Which had the reverse effect. Did she know that? Was it deliberate?
Somehow he didn’t think so.
He adjusted the water temperature again, trying for ice-cold, but only getting tepid. Not for the first time he told himself he should have waited and let Carson do the honors. Car was two years younger and didn’t have quite as much rough mileage on him as Beckett did.
But he’d promised. As his mother had stated flatly, time was running out, and it was time to lay this business to rest once and for all. “PawPaw’s worried sick, and Coley doesn’t need that kind of aggravation.”
Ever since Beckett’s father had been diagnosed with emphysema, his mother’s main purpose in life had been to spare him anything more stressful than choosing which pair of socks to wear with his madras Bermudas when he got up in the morning.
She’d been waiting at the airport when Beckett had flown in more than a week ago. She’d hugged him fiercely, then stepped back to give him her patented Inspector Mother’s once-over. Nodding in approval, she said, “You do this one thing for me, honey, then you come back here and tell PawPaw it’s finished. Just find somebody named Chandler and hand over that mess of old papers and whatever else you think the Becketts owe them, then you can go back to chasing your pirates. Honestly, of all things for a grown man to be doing.” She’d tsk-tsked him and slid in under the wheel.
Beckett had tried several times to explain to his mother that piracy on the high seas was as prevalent now as it had been in the days when Blackbeard had plied his trade off the Carolina coast. No matter. To her, it was still a kid’s game. She’d wanted him to go into politics like his state senator father, Coley Jefferson Beckett. Or into investment banking like his grandfather, Elias Lancelot Beckett, and his great-grandfather, L. Frederick Beckett—the man who had started this whole bloody mess.
A few years ago he had fallen hard for a sexy marine biologist named Carolyn. Fallen hard but, as usual, not quite hard enough. After about six months he’d been the one to call it quits. He’d done it as graciously as he knew how, but Carolyn had been hurt. Beckett had readily accepted his guilt. Fortunately—or perhaps not—his work made it easy to run from commitment.
The payback had come a year later when he’d run into a glowing and very pregnant Carolyn and her professor husband at a jazz festival. He’d had a few bad moments as a result, wondering if he might have made a mistake. Family had always been important to him. Even seeing that old man today, rocking away the last years of his life at a roadside produce stand, had reminded him a little too much of his own mortality.
True, the Beckett men were generally long-lived, but what would it be like to grow old completely alone, with no wife to warm his bed—no kids to drive him nuts? No grandkids to crawl up on his arthritic knees?
His only legacy was a healthy portfolio and a small, modestly successful firm he’d built from practically nothing—one that included a two-room office in Delaware, a partner and a part-time secretary. His will left whatever worldly goods he possessed at the time of his death to his parents. Who else was there? Carson? A few distant cousins he’d never even met?
Cripes, now he really was getting depressed. Maybe it was all this humidity—he was coming down with a bad case of mildew of the brain, he told himself, only half joking as he crossed the bedroom buck stark naked to dig out a change of clothes.
On the other hand, it could be due to the fact that he hadn’t eaten anything since the lousy chili dog he’d bought at the airport. One cup of free ice water didn’t do the job.
Liza washed her hair and towel dried it before fixing supper. Then she did something she hadn’t done in a long, long time. She stood in front of the fogged and age-speckled mirror on her dresser and studied her naked body. James had called her classy. Any man in his right mind would call her clinically emaciated. Her hipbones poked out, her ribs were clearly visible, and as for her breasts…
Tentatively she covered the slight swells with her hands. Her nipples, still sensitive from the rough toweling, nudged her palms, and she cursed under her breath and turned away.
That part of her life was over. Fortunately, sex had never played that large a role. After the first year or so, she had done her wifely duty once a week, sometimes twice, and then even that had ended. They’d gone out almost every night, entertaining or being entertained, and by the time they got home, they’d both been ready to fall into bed. To sleep, not to play. After a few drinks James hadn’t been up to it, and she’d felt more relief than anything else.
Dressing hastily, she hurried into the kitchen. There was a Braves game tonight; they were playing the Mets. Next to the Yankees, the Mets were her uncle’s favorite team to hate. Once the dishes were washed she could retire to her room and look through those blasted papers. It wouldn’t hurt. The envelope wasn’t sealed, just fastened with a metal clasp. If it had anything to do with James, she would simply toss it, because that part of her life was over and done with. She had repaid as much as she was able, although she hadn’t been obligated to do even that much. She’d been cleared of all responsibility after James had made it quite clear before he’d died that she’d never even known what was going on, much less been involved.
His last act had been one of surprising generosity, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been brought in for questioning. Nor did the fact that she hadn’t known what was going on mean she’d escaped feeling guilty once she’d found out. She’d lived high on the hog, as Uncle Fred would say, for almost eleven years on the proceeds of James’s financial shell games. The beautiful house in North Dallas, the trips to all those island resorts that James always claimed were for networking. Like a blind fool, she’d gone along whenever he’d asked her to; although, for the most part, she hadn’t particularly liked the people he’d met there.
When the dishes were done, she turned out the light. Uncle Fred called from the living room. “Game time. You want to bet on the spread?”
“A quarter says the Mets win by five points.” She knew little about baseball and wasn’t particularly interested, but he enjoyed the games so much that she tried to share his enthusiasm.
“You’re on! I know you, gal—you like that Piazza feller that catches for ’em.” His teasing was a part of the ritual.
Liza leaned against the door frame and watched him prepare for the night’s entertainment: fruit bowl nearby, recliner in position and a bag of potato chips hidden under the smoking stand. She was turning to go to her room when headlights sprayed across the front window. Traffic out on the highway didn’t do that, not unless a car turned in.
“Uncle Fred, did you invite anyone over to watch the game?”
But her uncle had turned up the volume. Either he didn’t hear or was pretending not to, so it was left to Liza to see who’d come calling. Occasionally one of the women who supplied the soft goods would drop off work on the way to evening prayer meeting. But this was Saturday, not Wednesday.
She knew who it was, even before he climbed out of the SUV parked under one of the giant oaks. She checked to be sure the screen was hooked, then waited for him to reach the front porch. He’d instructed her to look over the papers and said he’d see her later. She’d thought later meant tomorrow—or, better yet, never.
Doing nothing more threatening than sauntering up the buckled flagstone walk, the man looked dangerous. Something about the way he moved. Not like an athlete, exactly—more like a predator. Dark, deceptively attractive, moving silently through the deepening shadows.
Get a grip, woman.
“Let me guess,” she said when he came up onto the porch. She made no move to unhook the screen door. “You came to tell me I won the Publisher’s Sweepstakes.”
“Have you had chance to look over what I left you?”
“Not yet.” She refused to turn on the porch light because it attracted moths and mosquitoes. Besides, it wasn’t quite dark yet. But it didn’t take much light to delineate those angular cheekbones, that arrogant blade of a nose and the mouth that managed to be firm and sexy at the same time.
Listen to you, Eliza, would you just stop it?
“Then how about reading them now? It shouldn’t take long. Unfortunately, most of the pages have stuck together, but once you’ve skimmed the top layer or so, I’ll explain anything you don’t understand and hand over the money. Then you can sign a release and I’ll leave.”
“I’m not signing anything, I’m not buying anything, I’m not—” She frowned. “What money?”
“Give me three minutes, I’ll try to talk fast. Are you or are you not the great-granddaughter of Elias Matthew Chandler, of…uh, Crow Fly, in Oklahoma Territory?”
Her jaw fell. Her eyes narrowed. “Are you crazy?”
Beckett slapped a mosquito on his neck. “Man, they’re bloodthirsty little devils, aren’t they? Any reports of West Nile virus around these parts?”
She shoved the screen door open, deliberately bumping it against his foot. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, come inside. You’ve got two minutes left to tell me why you’re harassing me.”
He took a deep breath. Liza couldn’t help noticing the size and breadth of his chest under shoulders that were equally impressive. Not that she was impressed. Still, a woman couldn’t help but notice any man who looked as good and smelled as good and—
Well, shoot! “One minute and thirty seconds,” she warned.
“Time out. You still haven’t answered my question.”
“You haven’t answered mine, either. All right then, yes, I might be related to someone who might originally have been from Oklahoma. However, I don’t happen to have a copy of my pedigree, so if whatever you’re trying to prove involves my lineage, you’d better peddle your papers somewhere else. One minute and counting.”
“I have.” His smile packed a wallop, even if she didn’t trust him.
“You have what? Tried peddling your papers somewhere else?” And then, unable to slam the door on her curiosity, she said, “What money? Is this a sweepstakes thing?”
“You might say that.” The smile was gone, but the effect of those cool gray eyes was undiminished. “Would you by any chance have a cousin named Kathryn, uh—Dixon?”
Some of the wind went out of her sails. From the living room, her uncle cackled and called out, “Better get in here, missy—your team just struck out again.”
“Look, would you please just say whatever you have to say and leave? I don’t know much about my family history, so if you’re trying to prove we’re related, you’d do better to check with someone else who knows more about it than I do. And if you’re after anything else, I’m not interested.” Never mind the money. She knew better than anyone not to fall for the old “something for nothing” dodge.
The man who called himself L. Jones Beckett edged past her until he could look into the living room. “Is that the Braves-Mets game? What’s the score?”
“So you’re back, are ye? Thought ye might be. General Sherman’s not going to be taking Atlanta tonight, no siree. Score’s one to one, the South’s winning.”
Liza closed her eyes and groaned. If he could talk baseball, she would never get rid of him. Uncle Fred would see to that. She might as well read his damned papers and be done with it.
Three
“Bring Mr. Beckett a glass of iced tea, Liza-girl. Have some potato chips, son.” Suddenly Uncle Fred leaned forward, glaring at the screen. “What do you mean, strike? That pitch was outside by a gol-darn mile!”
Liza left them to their game and headed down the hall to her bedroom. She would skim whatever it was he insisted she read, hand it back to him and show him the door, and that would be the end of that. If he did happen to be peddling some kind of get-rich-quick scheme, he’d come knocking on the wrong door this time. Any junk mail that even hinted that she was a big winner got tossed without ever getting opened. She didn’t want one red cent unless she knew exactly where it had come from.
The papers slid out in a clump. For a moment she only stared at them lying there on her white cotton bedspread. They looked as if they’d been soaked in tea. The top sheet appeared to be a letter, so she started with that.
“My Dear Eli…”
Liza made out that much before the ink faded. The ornate script was difficult to read, even without the faded ink and the work of generations of silverfish. She squinted at the date on the barely legible heading. September…was that 1900? Mercy! Someone should have taken better care of it, whether or not it was valuable. Maybe the writer was someone important. If it had been a baseball card from that era—if they’d even had baseball cards back then—her uncle would have done backflips, arthritis or not.
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Dixie Browning
Secret heiress Liza Chandler didn't want the money - or the rugged millionaire who'd suddenly come into her life.But Beckett had made a vow to get the job done and he wasn't the type to take no for an answer. Especially not when he discovered that beneath Liza's plain-Jane exterior hid a passionate woman just waiting to be protected. But would Liza trust Beckett enough to take his money and let him into her heart?
Praise for Dixie Browning:
“There is no one writing romance today who touches the heart and tickles the ribs like Dixie Browning. The people in her books are as warm and real as a sunbeam and just as lovely.”
—New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts
“Dixie Browning has given the romance industry years of love and laughter in her wonderful books.”
—New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard
“Each of Dixie’s books is a keeper guaranteed to warm the heart and delight the senses.”
—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz
“A true pioneer in romantic fiction, the delightful Dixie Browning is a reader’s most precious treasure, a constant source of outstanding entertainment.”
—Romantic Times
“Dixie’s books never disappoint—they always lift your spirit!”
—USA TODAY bestselling author Mary Lynn Baxter
BECKETT’S FORTUNE
Where the price of family and honor is love…
Don’t miss the continuation of this exciting new series from Silhouette Desire and Harlequin Historicals:
BECKETT’S BIRTHRIGHT
HARLEQUIN HISTORICALS 11/02
BECKETT’S CONVENIENT BRIDE
SILHOUETTE DESIRE 1/03
Dear Reader,
Dog days of summer got you down? Chill out and relax with six brand-new love stories from Silhouette Desire!
August’s MAN OF THE MONTH is the first book in the exciting family-based saga BECKETT’S FORTUNE by Dixie Browning. Beckett’s Cinderella features a hero honor-bound to repay a generations-old debt and a poor-but-proud heroine leery of love and money she can’t believe is offered unconditionally. His E-Mail Order Wife by Kristi Gold, in which matchmaking relatives use the Internet to find a high-powered exec a bride, is the latest title in the powerful DYNASTIES: THE CONNELLYS series.
A daughter seeking revenge discovers love instead in Falling for the Enemy by Shawna Delacorte. Then, in Millionaire Cop & Mom-To-Be by Charlotte Hughes, a jilted, pregnant bride is rescued by her childhood sweetheart.
Passion flares between a family-minded rancher and a marriage-shy divorcée in Kathie DeNosky’s Cowboy Boss. And a pretend marriage leads to undeniable passion in Desperado Dad by Linda Conrad.
So find some shade, grab a cold one…and read all six passionate, powerful and provocative new love stories from Silhouette Desire this month.
Enjoy!
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
Beckett’s Cinderella
Dixie Browning
DIXIE BROWNING
is an award-winning painter and writer, mother and grandmother. Her father was a big-league baseball player, her grandfather a sea captain. In addition to her nearly eighty contemporary romances, Dixie and her sister, Mary Williams, have written more than a dozen historical romances under the name Bronwyn Williams. Contact Dixie at www.dixiebrowning.com, or at P.O. Box 1389, Buxton, NC 27920.
To the wonderful and caring staff
at Britthaven Nursing Home in Kitty Hawk, N.C.
You’re the best!
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
One
Just before his descent into Norfolk International Airport, Lancelot Beckett opened his briefcase, took out a thin sheaf of paper and scanned a genealogical chart. In the beginning, all they’d had to go on was a name, an approximate birthplace and a rough time line. Now, after God knows how many generations, the job was finally going to get done.
“What the hell do I know about tracking down the descendents of an Oklahoma cowboy born roughly a hundred and fifty years ago?” he’d demanded the last time he’d stopped by his cousin Carson’s restored shotgun-style house outside Charleston. “When it comes to tracking down pirates, I’m your man, but cowboys? Come on, Car, give me a break.”
“Hey, if you can’t handle it, I’ll take over once I’m out of this.” Carson, a police detective, was pretty well immobilized for the time being in a fiberglass cast. Now and then, even the Beckett luck ran out. About two months earlier, his had. “Looks like something you can do on your way home anyhow, so it’s not like you’d have to detour too far off the beaten track.”
“You know where I was when Mom tracked me down? I was in Dublin, for crying out loud,” Beckett had explained. They were both Becketts, but Lancelot had laid down the law regarding his name when he was eleven. Since then, he’d been called by his last name. Occasionally, tongue-in-cheek, he was referred to as “The Beckett.”
“I had to cancel a couple of appointments in London, not to mention a date. Besides, I’m not headed home anytime soon.”
What was the point? Officially, home was a two-room office with second-floor living quarters in Wilmington, Delaware. It served well enough as a mailing address and a place to put his feet up for a few days when he happened to be back in the States.
As it turned out, the place where the Chandler woman was thought to be hiding out was roughly halfway between Wilmington and his parents’ home in Charleston.
Hiding out was probably the wrong term; relocated might be closer. Whatever her reasons for being in North Carolina instead of Texas, she’d been hard as the devil to track down. It had taken the combined efforts of Carson’s police computers, a few unofficial sources and a certified genealogist to locate the woman.
And with all that, it had been a random sighting—something totally off-the-wall—that had finally pinned her down. Grant’s Produce and Free Ice Water, located on a peninsula between the North River and the Currituck Sound, somewhere near a place named Bertha, North Carolina. Hell, they didn’t even have a street address for her, just a sign along the highway.
Beckett tried to deal with his impatience. He was used to being on the move while his partner stayed in the office handling the paperwork, but this particular job had to do with family matters. It couldn’t be delegated. The buck had been passed as far as it would go.
He’d allowed himself a couple of hours after leaving the airport to find the place and another half hour to wind things up. After that, he could go back to Charleston and tell PawPaw the deed was done. Any debt his family owed one Eliza Chandler Edwards, direct descendant of old Elias Matthew Chandler of Crow Fly, in what had then been Oklahoma Territory, was finally settled.
The genealogist had done a great job in record time, running into a snag only at the point where Miss Chandler had married one James G. Edwards, born July 1, 1962, died September 7, 2001. It had been police research—in particular, the Financial Crimes Unit—that had dug up the fact that the lady and her husband had been involved a couple of years ago in a high-stakes investment scam. Edwards had gone down alone for that one—literally. Shot by one of his victims while out jogging, but before he died he had cleared his wife of any involvement. She’d never been linked directly to any illegal activities. Once cleared, she had hung around Dallas only long enough to liquidate her assets before dropping out of sight.
Beckett didn’t know if she was guilty as sin or totally innocent. Didn’t much care. He was doing this for PawPaw’s sake, not hers.
In the end, it had been pure luck. Luck in the form of a reporter with an excellent visual memory who spent summer vacations on North Carolina’s Outer Banks and who had happened to stop at a certain roadside stand on his drive south.
He’d called Carson from Nags Head. “Hey, man, weren’t you checking out this Edwards woman a few weeks ago? The one that was mixed up in that scam out in Texas where all these old geezers got ripped off?”
And just like that, they’d had her. She’d holed up in the middle of nowhere with a gentleman named Frederick Grant, a great-uncle on her mother’s side. Check and double-check. If it hadn’t been for that one lucky break, it might’ve taken months. Beckett would’ve been tempted to pass the buck to the next generation, the way the men in his family had evidently been doing ever since the great-grandfather for whom he’d been named had cheated a business partner named Chandler out of his rightful share of Beckett money. Or so the story went.
At this point there was no next generation. Carson wasn’t currently involved with anyone, and Beckett had taken one shot at it, missed by a mile, and been too gun-shy to try again.
Although he preferred to think of it as too busy.
“Money, the root of all evils,” Beckett had mused when he’d checked in with his cousin Carson just before leaving Charleston that morning.
“Ain’t that the truth? Wonder which side of the law old Lance would’ve been on if he’d lived in today’s society.”
“Hard to say. Mom dug up some old records, but they got soaked, pretty much ruined, during Hurricane Hugo.” He’d politely suggested to his mother that a bank deposit box might be a better place to store valuable papers than a hot, leaky attic.
She’d responded, “It’s not like they were family photographs. Besides, how was I to know they’d get wet and clump together? Now stop whining and taste this soup. I know butter’s not supposed to be good for you, but I can hardly make Mama’s crab bisque with margarine.”
“Mom, I’m nearly forty years old, for cripes’ sake. While I might occasionally comment on certain difficulties, I never whine. Hmm, a little more salt—maybe a tad more sherry?”
“That’s what I thought, too. I know you don’t, darling. Just look at you, you’re turning grayer every time I see you.”
According to his father, Beckett’s mother’s hair had turned white before she was even out of her teens. All the girls in her high-school class had wanted gray hair. “It’s one thing to turn gray when you’re young enough to pass it off as a fashion statement. It’s another thing when you’re so old nobody gives it a second thought,” she’d said more than once.
For the past fifteen or so years, her hair had been every shade of blond and red imaginable. At nearly sixty, she scarcely looked more than forty—forty-five, at the most.
“Honey, it’s up to you how to handle it,” she said as he helped himself to another spoonful of her famous soup, which contained shrimp as well as crab, plus enough cream and butter to clog every artery between Moncks Corner and Edisto Island. “PawPaw tried his best to find these people, but then he got sick.”
Right. Beckett’s grandfather, called PawPaw by family and friends alike, was as charming an old rascal as ever lived, but at the age of one hundred plus, he was still putting things off. Cheating the devil, he called it. When it came to buck passing, the Beckett men took a back seat to none.
Which is why some four generations after the “crime” had been committed, Beckett was trying to get the job done once and for all.
“What’s the latest on the new tropical depression? You heard anything this morning?” Carson had asked.
“Pretty much stalled, last I heard. I hope to God it doesn’t strengthen—I’ve got half a dozen ships in the North Atlantic using the new tracking device. They all start dodging hurricanes, I’m going to be pretty busy trying to find out if any of them are being hijacked.”
“Yeah, well…take a break. Go play fairy godfather for a change.”
“Easy for you to say.”
When his mother had called to say that PawPaw had had another stroke, Beckett had been in the middle of negotiations with an Irish chemical tanker company that had been hijacked often enough for the owners to feel compelled to contact his firm, Beckett Marine Risk Management, Inc. “Just a teeny-weeny stroke this time, but he really would like to see you and Carson.” She’d gone on to say she didn’t know how long he could hang on, but seeing his two grandsons would mean the world to him.
Beckett came home. And, as Carson was still out of commission, it was Beckett who’d gotten stuck with the assignment.
So now here he was, chasing an elusive lady who had recently been spotted selling produce and God knows what else at a roadside stand in the northeast corner of North Carolina.
“PawPaw, you owe me big-time for this.” Beckett loved his grandfather. Hadn’t seen much of him recently, but he intended to rectify that if the old guy would just pull through this latest setback. Family, he was belatedly coming to realize, was one part anchor, one part compass. In rough weather, he’d hate to be caught at sea without either one.
So, maybe in a year or so, he thought as he crossed the state line between North Carolina and Virginia, he might consider relocating. He’d incorporated in Delaware because of its favorable laws, but that didn’t mean he had to stay there. After a while, a man got tired of zigzagging across too many time zones.
Pulling up at a stoplight, he yawned, rubbed his bristly jaw and wished he had a street address. He’d called ahead to rent a four-wheel-drive vehicle in case the chase involved more than the five-lane highway that ran from Virginia to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Having experienced back roads of all descriptions from Zaire to Kuala Lumpur, he knew better than to take anything for granted. So far it looked like a pretty straight shot, but he’d learned to be prepared for almost anything.
“We’re out of prunes,” came a wavering lament from the back of the house.
“Look in the pantry,” Liza called. “They’ve changed the name—they’re called dried plums now, but they’re still the same thing.” She smiled as she snapped her cash box shut and tied a calico apron over her T-shirt and tan linen pants. Uncle Fred—her great-uncle, really—was still sharp as a tack at the age of eighty-six, but he didn’t like it when things changed.
And things inevitably changed. In her case it had been a change for the better, she thought, looking around at the shabby-comfortable old room with its mail-order furniture and hand-crocheted antimacassars. A wobbly smoking stand, complete with humidor and pipe rack—although her uncle no longer smoked on orders from his physician—was now weighted down with all the farming and sports magazines he’d collected and never discarded. There was an air-conditioning unit in one of the windows, an ugly thing that blocked the view of the vacant lot on the other side, where someone evidently planned to build something. But until they could afford central air—which would be after the kitchen floor was replaced and the house reroofed—it served well enough. Both bedrooms had electric fans on the dressers, which made the humid August heat almost bearable.
Liza hadn’t changed a thing when she’d moved in, other than to scrub the walls, floors and windows, wash all the linens and replace a few dry-rotted curtains when they’d fallen apart in her hands. Discount stores were marvelous places, she’d quickly discovered.
Shortly after she’d arrived, Liza had broken down and cried for the first time in months. She’d been cleaning the dead bugs from a closet shelf and had found a shoe box full of old letters and Christmas cards, including those she’d sent to Uncle Fred. Liza and her mother had always done the cards together, with Liza choosing them and her mother addressing the envelopes. Liza had continued to send Uncle Fred a card each year after her mother had died, never knowing whether or not they’d been received.
Dear, lonely Uncle Fred. She had taken a monumental chance, not even calling ahead to ask if she could come for a visit. She hadn’t know anything about him, not really—just that he was her only living relative except for a cousin she hadn’t seen in several years. She’d driven all the way across the country for a few days’ visit, hoping—praying—she could stay until she could get her feet on the ground and plan her next step.
What was that old song about people who needed people?
They’d both been needy, not that either of them had ever expressed it in words. We’re out of prunes. That was one of Uncle Fred’s ways of letting her know he needed her. Danged eyeglasses keep moving from where I put ’em. That was another.
Life in this particular slow lane might lack a few of the amenities she’d once taken for granted, but she would willingly trade all the hot tubs and country clubs in the world for the quiet predictability she’d found here.
Not to mention the ability to see where every penny came from and where and how it was spent. She might once have been negligent—criminally negligent, some would say—but after the lessons she’d been forced to learn, she’d become a fanatic about documenting every cent they took in. Her books, such as they were, balanced to the penny.
When she’d arrived in May of last year, Uncle Fred had been barely hanging on, relying on friends and neighbors to supply him with surplus produce. People would stop by occasionally to buy a few vegetables, leaving the money in a bowl on the counter. They made their own change, and she seriously doubted if it ever occurred to him to count and see if he was being cheated. What would he have done about it? Threaten them with his cane?
Gradually, as her visit stretched out over weeks and then months, she had instigated small changes. By the end of the year, it was taken for granted that she would stay. No words were necessary. He’d needed her and she’d needed him—needed even more desperately to be needed, although her self-esteem had been so badly damaged she hadn’t realized it at the time.
Uncle Fred still insisted on being present every day, even though he seldom got out of his rocking chair anymore. She encouraged his presence because she thought it was good for him. The socializing. He’d said once that all his friends had moved to a nursing home or gone to live with relatives.
She’d said something to the effect that in his case, the relative had come to live with him. He’d chuckled. He had a nice laugh, his face going all crinkly, his eyes hidden behind layers of wrinkles under his bushy white brows.
For the most part, the people who stopped for the free ice water and lingered to buy produce were pleasant. Maybe it was the fact that they were on vacation, or maybe it was simply because when Uncle Fred was holding court, he managed to strike up a conversation with almost everyone who stopped by. Seated in his ancient green porch rocker, in bib overalls, his Romeo slippers and Braves baseball cap, with his cane hidden behind the cooler, he greeted them all with a big smile and a drawled, “How-de-do, where y’all from?”
Now and then, after the stand closed down for the day, she would drive him to Bay View to visit his friends while she went on to do the grocery shopping. Usually he was waiting for her when she got back, grumbling about computers. “All they talk about—them computer things. Good baseball game right there on the TV set and all they want to talk about is going on some kind of a web. Second childhood, if you ask me.”
So they hadn’t visited as much lately. He seemed content at home, and that pleased her enormously. Granted, Liza thought as she broke open a roll of pennies, they would never get rich. But then, getting rich had been the last thing on her mind when she’d fled across country from the chaos her life had become. All she asked was that they sell enough to stay in business, more for Uncle Fred’s sake than her own. She could always get a job; the classified ads were full of help-wanted ads in the summertime. But Fred Grant was another matter. She would never forget how he’d welcomed her that day last May when she’d turned up on his doorstep.
“Salina’s daughter, you say? All the way from Texas? Lord bless ye, young’un, you’ve got the family look, all right. Set your suitcase in the front room, it’s got a brand-new mattress.”
The mattress might have been brand-new at one time, but that didn’t mean it was comfortable. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and at that point in her life, she’d been a beggar. Now, she was proud to say, she earned her own way. Slowly, one step at a time, but every step was straightforward, documented and scrupulously honest.
“I’ll be outside if you need me,” she called now as she headed out the front door. Fred Grant had his pride. It would take him at least five minutes to negotiate the uneven flagstone path between the house and the tin-roofed stand he’d established nearly forty years ago when he’d hurt his back and was no longer able to farm.
Gradually he and his wife had sold off all the land, hanging on to the house and the half acre it sat on. Fred ruefully admitted they had wasted the money on a trip to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and a fur coat for his wife. He had buried her in it a few years later.
Now he and Liza had each other. Gradually she had settled into this quiet place, far from the ruins of the glamorous, fast-paced life that had suited James far more than it had ever suited her.
By liquidating practically everything she possessed before she’d headed here—the art, her jewelry and the outrageously expensive clothes she would never again wear—she had managed to pay off a few of James’s victims and their lawyers. She’d given her maid, Patty Ann Garrett, a Waterford potpourri jar she’d always admired. She would have given her more, for she genuinely liked the girl, but she’d felt honor bound to pay back as much of what James had stolen as she could.
Besides, her clothes would never fit Patty Ann, who was five foot four, with a truly amazing bust size. In contrast, Liza was tall, skinny and practically flat. James had called her figure classy, which she’d found wildly amusing at the time.
For a woman with a perfectly good college degree, never mind that it wasn’t particularly marketable, she’d been incredibly ignorant. She was learning, though. Slowly, steadily, she was learning how to take care of herself and someone who was even needier than she was.
“Good morning…yes, those are grown right here in Currituck County.” She would probably say the same words at least a hundred times on a good day. Someone—the Tourist Bureau, probably—had estimated that traffic passing through on summer Saturdays alone would be roughly 45,000 people. People on their way to and from the beach usually stopped at the larger markets, but Uncle Fred had his share of regulars, some of whom said they’d first stopped by as children with their parents.
After Labor Day, the people who stopped seemed to take more time to look around. A few even offered suggestions on how to improve her business. It was partly those suggestions and partly Liza’s own creativity she credited for helping revitalize her uncle’s small roadside stand, which had been all but defunct when she’d shown up. First she’d bought the secondhand cooler and put up a sign advertising free ice water, counting on the word free to bring in a few customers. Then she’d found a source of rag dolls, hand-woven scatter rugs and appliquéd canvas tote bags. She’d labeled them shell bags, and they sold as fast as she could get in a new supply. Last fall she’d added a few locally grown cured hams. By the time they’d closed for the winter, business had more than doubled.
Now, catching a whiff of Old Spice mingled with the earthy smell of freshly dug potatoes and sweet onions, she glanced up as Uncle Fred settled into his rocker. “You should have worn your straw hat today—that cap won’t protect your ears or the back of your neck.”
The morning sun still slanted under the big water oaks. “Put on your own bonnet, woman. I’m tougher’n stroppin’ leather, but skin like yours weren’t meant to fry.”
“Bonnets. Hmm. I wonder if we could get one of the women to make us a few old-fashioned sunbonnets. What do you bet they’d catch on?” Mark of a good businesswoman, she thought proudly. Always thinking ahead.
She sold three cabbages, half a dozen cantaloupes and a hand-loomed scatter rug the first hour, then perched on her stool and watched the traffic flow past. When a dark green SUV pulled onto the graveled parking area, she stood, saying quietly to her uncle, “What do you think, country ham?” When business was slow they sometimes played the game of trying to guess in advance who would buy what.
Together they watched the tall, tanned man approach. His easy way of moving belied the silver-gray of his thick hair. He couldn’t be much past forty, she decided. Dye his hair and he could pass for thirty. “Maybe just a glass of ice water,” she murmured. He didn’t strike her as a typical vacationer, much less one who was interested in produce.
“That ’un’s selling, not buying. Got that look in his eye.”
Beckett took his time approaching the tall, thin woman with the wraparound calico apron, the sun-struck auburn hair and the fashion model’s face. If this was the same woman who’d been involved in a high-stakes con game that covered three states and involved a few offshore banking institutions, what the hell was she doing in a place like this?
And if this wasn’t Eliza Chandler Edwards, then what the devil was a woman with her looks doing sitting behind a bin of onions, with Grandpaw Cranket or Crocket or whatever the guy’s name was, rocking and grinning behind her.
“How-de-do? Where ye from, son?”
“Beg pardon?” He paused between a display of green stuff and potatoes.
“We get a lot of reg’lars stopping by, but I don’t believe I’ve seen you before. You from up in Virginia?”
“It’s a rental car, Uncle Fred,” the woman said quietly.
Beckett tried to place her accent and found he couldn’t quite pin it down. Cultured Southern was about as close as he could come. She was tall, at least five-nine or-ten. Her bone structure alone would have made her a world-class model if she could manage to walk without tripping over her feet. He was something of a connoisseur when it came to women; he’d admired any number of them from a safe distance. If this was the woman he’d worked so damned hard to track down, the question still applied—what the devil was she doing here selling produce?
He nodded to the old man and concentrated on the woman. “Ms. Edwards?”
Liza felt a gaping hole open up in her chest. Did she know him? She managed to catch her breath, but she couldn’t stop staring. There was something about him that riveted her attention. His eyes, his hands—even his voice. If she’d ever met him before, she would have remembered. “I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake.”
“You’re not Eliza Chandler Edwards?”
Uncle Fred was frowning now, fumbling behind the cooler for his cane. Oh, Lord, Liza thought, if he tried to come to her rescue, they’d both end up in trouble. She had told him a little about her past when she’d first arrived, but nothing about the recent hang-up calls, much less the letter that had come last month.
“I believe you have the advantage,” she murmured, stalling for time. How could he possibly know who she was? She was legally Eliza Jackson Chandler again, wiping out the last traces of her disastrous marriage.
“Could I have a glass of that free ice water you’re advertising?”
On a morning when both the temperature and the humidity hovered in the low nineties, this man looked cool as the proverbial cucumber. Not a drop of sweat dampened that high, tanned brow. “Of course. Right over there.” Indicating the container of plastic cups, Liza fought to maintain her composure.
When he tipped back his head to swallow, her gaze followed the movement of his throat. His brand of fitness hadn’t come from any gym, she’d be willing to bet on it. Nor had that tan been acquired over a single weekend at the beach. The contrast of bronzed skin with pewter hair, ice-gray eyes and winged black eyebrows was startling, not to mention strikingly attractive.
The word sexy came to mind, and she immediately pushed it away. Sex was the very last thing that concerned her now. Getting rid of this man overshadowed everything.
But first she needed to know if he was the one who’d been stalking her—if not literally, then figuratively, by calling her in the middle of the night and hanging up. Just last month she’d received a letter addressed to her by name at Uncle Fred’s rural route box number. The return address was a post office box in South Dallas. Inside the plain white envelope had been a blank sheet of paper.
“I don’t believe you answered my question,” he said, his voice deep, slightly rough edged, but not actually threatening. At least, not yet.
“First, I’d like to know who’s asking.” She would see his demand and raise him one.
“Beckett. L. Jones Beckett.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re here asking questions, Mr. Beckett.” If that really is your name.
“The name doesn’t ring any bells?”
Liza turned away to stare down at a display of summer squash. Had any of James’s victims been named Beckett? She honestly couldn’t recall, there had been so many. With the help of her lawyer, she’d done the best she could to make amends, but even after liquidating everything there still hadn’t been enough to go around. Of course the lawyers, including her divorce lawyer, whom she’d no longer needed at that point, had taken a large cut of all she’d been able to raise.
He was still waiting for an answer. “No, I’m sorry. Should it?”
“My grandfather was Lancelot Elias Beckett.”
“He has my sympathy.” Her arms were crossed over her breasts, but they failed to warm her inside, where it counted. Uncle Fred, bless his valorous heart, had stopped rocking and stopped smiling. His cane was at the ready, across his bony knees.
Two
This was the one. Beckett was certain of it. Otherwise, why was she so skittish? A simple farmer’s daughter selling her wares on a country road, no matter how stunning she might be, would hardly slam the door shut on a potential customer.
And she’d slammed it shut, all right. Battened down the hatches and all but thrown open the gun ports. Guarded didn’t begin to describe the look in those whiskey-brown eyes. Frightened came closer.
But frightened of what? Being brought in for questioning again?
So far as he knew, that particular case had been closed when her husband had taken the fall. She’d been a material witness, but they’d never been able to tie anything directly to her—even though she’d still been legally married to Edwards when he’d been shot in the throat by a man who’d been bled dry by one of his shell games. The victim, poor devil, had returned the favor.
“Not from Virginia, are ye?” the old man asked, causing them both to turn and stare. His smile was as bland as the summer sky. The brass-headed cane was nowhere in sight.
“Uh…South Carolina. Mostly,” Beckett admitted. He’d lived in the state of his birth for exactly eighteen years. He still kept his school yearbooks, his athletic trophies and fishing gear at his parents’ home, for lack of space in his own apartment.
The old man nodded. “I figgered South C’lina or Georgia. Got a good ear for placing where folks is from.”
“What do you want?” It was the woman this time. Her eyes couldn’t have looked more wary if he’d been a snake she’d found in one of her fancy canvas bags.
Under other circumstances, he might have been interested in following up on her question. Her looks were an intriguing blend of Come Hither and Back Off. “Nothing,” he told her. “I have something for you, though.” What he had was a worthless, mostly illegible bundle of paper. He’d left the money in his briefcase in the truck. If she wasn’t the right one, the papers wouldn’t mean anything to her, and if she was…
She was. He’d lay odds on it.
But she wasn’t ready to drop her guard. “Something you want me to sell for you? Sorry, we deal only with locals.”
Irritated, he snapped back, “Just some papers for now. Look, if you’ll give me a minute to explain—”
She jammed her fists in her apron pockets and stepped back against the counter. “No. You can keep your papers. I refuse to accept them. You’re a…a process server, aren’t you?” She had a face that could be described as beautiful, elegant—even patrician. That didn’t keep her from squaring up that delicate jaw of hers like an amateur boxer bracing for a roundhouse punch.
For some reason it got to him. “I am not a process server. I am not a deputy, nor am I a bounty hunter. I’m not a reporter, either, in case you were worried.” In his line of work, patience was a requisite. Occasionally his ran short. “I was asked to locate you in order to give you something that’s rightfully yours. At least, it belonged to a relative of yours.” Might as well set her curiosity to working for him. “I might add that I’ve had one devil of a time tracking you down.”
If anything, she looked even more suspicious. Considering what her husband had been involved in, maybe she had just cause. But dammit, if he was willing to fork over ten grand from his own personal bank account, the least she could do was accept it. A gracious thank-you wouldn’t be too far out of line, either.
“Why don’t I just leave this packet with you and you can glance through it at your leisure.” He held out an oversize manila envelope.
Liza jammed her fists deeper into the pockets of her apron. At her leisure? No way. He might not be a process server—she’d never heard of one of those who suggested anyone examine their papers at her leisure—but that didn’t make him any less of a threat. Lawsuits were a dime a dozen these days, and there were plenty of aggrieved parties who might think they had a case against her, just because she’d been married to James and had benefited from the money he’d swindled.
Benefited in the short run, at least.
Before she could get rid of him—politely or otherwise—a car pulled up and two couples and three kids piled out.
“Mama, can I have—”
“I’ve got to go to the bathroom, Aunt Ruth.”
“My, would you look at them onions. Are they as sweet as Videlias, Miss?”
Forcing a smile, Liza stepped behind the homemade counter, with its ancient manual cash register surrounded by the carefully arranged displays of whatever needed moving before it passed its prime.
“Those are from the Lake Mattamuskeet area.” She gestured in the general direction of neighboring Hyde County. “They’re so sweet and mild you could almost eat them like apples.”
She explained to the round-faced woman wearing blue jeans, faux diamond earrings and rubber flip-flops that there were no bathroom facilities, but there were rest rooms at the service station less than a mile down the road. Uncle Fred still referred to the five-lane highway as “the road.”
While she was adding up purchases, two more customers stopped by. Uncle Fred engaged one of the men in a conversation about his favorite baseball team. Finding a fellow baseball fan always made his day.
“Does that thing really work?” One of the women nodded to her cash register.
“Works just fine, plus it helps keep my utility bills down.” It was her stock answer whenever anyone commented on her low-tech equipment. Although what they expected of a roadside stand, she couldn’t imagine. She weighed a sack of shelled butter beans on the hanging scales.
“I saw something like that once on the Antiques Roadshow,” the woman marveled.
From the corner of her eye, Liza watched the stranger leave. Actually caught herself admiring his lean backside as he sauntered toward his SUV. Curiosity nudged her, but only momentarily. Attractive men—even unattractive men—who knew her name or anything at all about her, she could well do without.
He started the engine, but didn’t drive off. Through the tinted windshield, he appeared to be talking on a cell phone.
Who was he? What did he want from her? Just leave me alone, damn you! I don’t have anything more to give!
After James had been indicted, one distraught woman had actually tracked her down to show her a picture of the home she had lost when her husband had invested every cent they had saved in one of James’s real-estate scams. She’d been crying. Liza had ended up crying, too. She’d given the woman a diamond-and-sapphire bracelet, which certainly wouldn’t buy her a new home, but it was all she could do at the time.
To her heartfelt relief, the dark green SUV pulled out and drove off. For a few blessed moments she and Uncle Fred were alone. The midday heat brought a bloom of moisture to her face despite the fact that she still felt cold and shaky inside. She opened two diet colas and handed one to her uncle. She was wondering idly if she should bring one of the electric fans from the house when she spotted the manila envelope.
Well, shoot. She was tempted to leave it where it was, on the far corner of the counter, weighted down with a rutabaga.
Uncle Fred hitched his chair deeper into the shade and resumed rocking. “Funny, that fellow wanting to give you something. What you reckon it was?”
“Some kind of papers, he said.” She nodded to the envelope that was easily visible from where she sat, but not from the other side of the counter.
“Maybe we won the lottery.” It was a standing joke. Every now and then her uncle would mention driving up into Virginia and buying lottery tickets. They never had. Uncle Fred had surrendered his driver’s license a decade ago after his pickup had died, and Liza didn’t want anything she hadn’t earned. If someone told her where a pot of gold was buried, she’d hand over a shovel and wish them luck.
“I guess I’d better start stringing beans while things are quiet. I’ll freeze another batch tonight.” She froze whatever didn’t sell before it passed its prime. Her uncle called it laying by for the winter. It had a solid, comfortable sound.
“Aren’t you going to see what’s in the envelope?”
“Ta-dah! The envelope, please.” She tried to turn it into a joke, but she had that sick feeling again—the same feeling that had started the day James’s so-called investment business had begun to unravel. At first she’d thought—actually hoped—that the feeling of nausea meant she was pregnant.
Thank God it hadn’t.
“Here comes another car.” She handed her uncle the envelope and moved behind the counter. “Help yourself if you’re curious.”
There wasn’t much choice when it came to a place to stay. He could’ve driven on to the beach, but common sense told Beckett that on a Saturday in late August, his chances of finding a vacancy weren’t great. Besides, he wasn’t finished with Queen Eliza. By now she would have looked over the papers and realized he was on the level, even if she didn’t yet understand what it was all about. The name Chandler was easy enough to read, even in century-old faded ink. Add to that the letter from his grandfather, Elias Beckett—funny, the coincidence of the names. Elias Chandler and Elias Beckett. Two different generations, though, if the genealogist had the straight goods.
At any rate, he would go back after she’d closed up shop for the day to answer any questions she might have and hand over the money. Meanwhile, he could arrange to see a couple of potential clients at Newport News Shipyard. Things had clamped down so tight after September 11 that it practically took an act of Congress to get through security.
Fortunately, he had clearance there. He’d make a few calls and, with any luck, be on his way back to Charleston by tomorrow afternoon. He would spend a few days with his parents before heading back to Dublin to wind up negotiations with the tanker firm.
The important thing was to set PawPaw’s mind at ease. If, as he’d been given to understand, the Becketts owed the Chandlers money, he would willingly pay it back. In exchange, however, he wanted a signed receipt and the understanding that any future heirs would be notified that the debt had been settled. A gentleman’s agreement might have served in PawPaw’s day—not that it had served the original Chandler very well. But in today’s litigious society, he preferred something more tangible.
After that, he didn’t care what she did with the money. She could buy herself a decent cooler and a cash register that didn’t date back to the thirties or get herself a grind organ and a monkey for all he cared. He’d been given a mission, and he’d come too far not to carry it out. But he could hardly ask for a signed receipt for ten thousand dollars while she was busy weighing out sixty-nine cents’ worth of butter beans.
“Over to you, lady,” he said softly, setting up his laptop on the fake mahogany table in his motel room. He placed his cell phone beside it, tossed his briefcase on the bed, set the air-conditioning for Arctic blast and peeled off his sweat-damp shirt. He’d stayed in far better places; he’d stayed in far worse. At least the room was clean and there was a decent-size shower and reasonably comfortable bed. Slipping off his shoes, he waited for the phone call to go through.
“Car? Beckett. Yeah, I found her right where your friend said she’d be. Tell him I owe him a steak dinner, will you?” He went on to describe the place, including the old man she was apparently living with. “Great-uncle on her mother’s side, according to the genealogist’s chart. Looks like he could use a few bucks. The house is listing about five degrees to the northeast.”
Carson congratulated him. “When you headed back this way?”
“Tomorrow, probably. I’d like to handle some business in the Norfolk area as long as I’m this close. Maybe stop off in Morehead City on the way and be back in Charleston by tomorrow night.”
“Want me to call Aunt Becky and let her know?”
“Wait until I know for sure when I’ll be heading back again. I ran into a small snag.”
“Don’t tell me she’s the wrong Chandler.”
“She’s the right Chandler, I’m pretty sure of that. Trouble is, she doesn’t want to accept the papers.”
“Doesn’t want to accept ten grand?”
“We never got that far. I gave her the papers, but she needs to look ’em over before I hand over the money. Or at least as much as she can decipher.”
“Didn’t you explain what it was about?”
“I was going to, but she got tied up with customers before I had a chance to do any explaining. I didn’t feel like hanging around all day. I’ll go back later on, after the place closes down and explain what it’s all about. Listen, did it ever occur to you that if she starts figuring out the rate of inflation over the past hundred or so years, we might have a problem on our hands?”
“Nope, never occurred to me. Sorry you mentioned it, but look—we don’t really know how much money was involved originally, do we?”
Beckett idly scratched a mosquito bite. “Good point. I’m going to ask for a receipt, though. You think that’s going too far?”
“Hey, you’re the guy who deals with government regulations and red tape. Me, I’m just a lowly cop.”
He was a bit more than that, but Beckett knew what he meant. He didn’t want the next generation of Becketts to trip on any legal loopholes. Before he handed over the money, he would definitely get her signature on a release.
“You know, Bucket,” Carson mused, “it occurs to me that the way we’re doing this, we could end up in trouble if old man Chandler scattered too many seeds. Just because we were only able to locate two heirs, that doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t any more.”
“Don’t remind me. That’s one of the reasons I want things sewed up with lawyer-proof thread. You can handle the next contender however you want to. If any more turn up after that, we’ll flash our receipt and send them to Ms. Edwards and what’s-her-name—the other one. They can share the spoils…or not.”
After answering a few questions about various family members, Beckett stripped down and headed for the shower. He started out with a hot deluge and let it run cold. The hot water eased the ache caused by too many hours strapped into a bucket seat, while the cool water helped clear his mind. As he slathered soap from the postage-stamp-size bar onto his flat midriff and let the suds trickle down his torso, the image of Eliza Chandler Edwards arose in his mind.
Lancelot Beckett had known his share of beautiful women—maybe more than his share; although, ever since he’d been left at the altar at the impressionable age of twenty-two, he’d made it a policy never to invite a repetition. At this point in his life he figured it was too late, anyhow. Any man who wasn’t married by his midthirties probably wasn’t a viable candidate.
All the same, it had been a long time since he’d met a more intriguing woman than Ms. Edwards. Skilled at reading people, he hadn’t missed the flash of interest that had flickered in those golden-brown eyes just before wariness had shut it off. Pit that against the physical barriers she’d erected and, yeah…intriguing wasn’t too strong a word. Her hair was not quite brown, not quite red. Thick and wavy, with a scattering of golden strands that had a tendency to curl, she wore it twisted up on her head and anchored down with some kind of a tortoiseshell gadget. Her clothes were the kind deliberately designed to conceal rather than reveal. He wondered if she realized that on the right woman, concealment was a hell of a lot more exciting than full exposure.
Oh, yeah, she was something all right. Everything about her shouted, “Look but don’t touch.”
In fact, don’t even bother to look. Which had the reverse effect. Did she know that? Was it deliberate?
Somehow he didn’t think so.
He adjusted the water temperature again, trying for ice-cold, but only getting tepid. Not for the first time he told himself he should have waited and let Carson do the honors. Car was two years younger and didn’t have quite as much rough mileage on him as Beckett did.
But he’d promised. As his mother had stated flatly, time was running out, and it was time to lay this business to rest once and for all. “PawPaw’s worried sick, and Coley doesn’t need that kind of aggravation.”
Ever since Beckett’s father had been diagnosed with emphysema, his mother’s main purpose in life had been to spare him anything more stressful than choosing which pair of socks to wear with his madras Bermudas when he got up in the morning.
She’d been waiting at the airport when Beckett had flown in more than a week ago. She’d hugged him fiercely, then stepped back to give him her patented Inspector Mother’s once-over. Nodding in approval, she said, “You do this one thing for me, honey, then you come back here and tell PawPaw it’s finished. Just find somebody named Chandler and hand over that mess of old papers and whatever else you think the Becketts owe them, then you can go back to chasing your pirates. Honestly, of all things for a grown man to be doing.” She’d tsk-tsked him and slid in under the wheel.
Beckett had tried several times to explain to his mother that piracy on the high seas was as prevalent now as it had been in the days when Blackbeard had plied his trade off the Carolina coast. No matter. To her, it was still a kid’s game. She’d wanted him to go into politics like his state senator father, Coley Jefferson Beckett. Or into investment banking like his grandfather, Elias Lancelot Beckett, and his great-grandfather, L. Frederick Beckett—the man who had started this whole bloody mess.
A few years ago he had fallen hard for a sexy marine biologist named Carolyn. Fallen hard but, as usual, not quite hard enough. After about six months he’d been the one to call it quits. He’d done it as graciously as he knew how, but Carolyn had been hurt. Beckett had readily accepted his guilt. Fortunately—or perhaps not—his work made it easy to run from commitment.
The payback had come a year later when he’d run into a glowing and very pregnant Carolyn and her professor husband at a jazz festival. He’d had a few bad moments as a result, wondering if he might have made a mistake. Family had always been important to him. Even seeing that old man today, rocking away the last years of his life at a roadside produce stand, had reminded him a little too much of his own mortality.
True, the Beckett men were generally long-lived, but what would it be like to grow old completely alone, with no wife to warm his bed—no kids to drive him nuts? No grandkids to crawl up on his arthritic knees?
His only legacy was a healthy portfolio and a small, modestly successful firm he’d built from practically nothing—one that included a two-room office in Delaware, a partner and a part-time secretary. His will left whatever worldly goods he possessed at the time of his death to his parents. Who else was there? Carson? A few distant cousins he’d never even met?
Cripes, now he really was getting depressed. Maybe it was all this humidity—he was coming down with a bad case of mildew of the brain, he told himself, only half joking as he crossed the bedroom buck stark naked to dig out a change of clothes.
On the other hand, it could be due to the fact that he hadn’t eaten anything since the lousy chili dog he’d bought at the airport. One cup of free ice water didn’t do the job.
Liza washed her hair and towel dried it before fixing supper. Then she did something she hadn’t done in a long, long time. She stood in front of the fogged and age-speckled mirror on her dresser and studied her naked body. James had called her classy. Any man in his right mind would call her clinically emaciated. Her hipbones poked out, her ribs were clearly visible, and as for her breasts…
Tentatively she covered the slight swells with her hands. Her nipples, still sensitive from the rough toweling, nudged her palms, and she cursed under her breath and turned away.
That part of her life was over. Fortunately, sex had never played that large a role. After the first year or so, she had done her wifely duty once a week, sometimes twice, and then even that had ended. They’d gone out almost every night, entertaining or being entertained, and by the time they got home, they’d both been ready to fall into bed. To sleep, not to play. After a few drinks James hadn’t been up to it, and she’d felt more relief than anything else.
Dressing hastily, she hurried into the kitchen. There was a Braves game tonight; they were playing the Mets. Next to the Yankees, the Mets were her uncle’s favorite team to hate. Once the dishes were washed she could retire to her room and look through those blasted papers. It wouldn’t hurt. The envelope wasn’t sealed, just fastened with a metal clasp. If it had anything to do with James, she would simply toss it, because that part of her life was over and done with. She had repaid as much as she was able, although she hadn’t been obligated to do even that much. She’d been cleared of all responsibility after James had made it quite clear before he’d died that she’d never even known what was going on, much less been involved.
His last act had been one of surprising generosity, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been brought in for questioning. Nor did the fact that she hadn’t known what was going on mean she’d escaped feeling guilty once she’d found out. She’d lived high on the hog, as Uncle Fred would say, for almost eleven years on the proceeds of James’s financial shell games. The beautiful house in North Dallas, the trips to all those island resorts that James always claimed were for networking. Like a blind fool, she’d gone along whenever he’d asked her to; although, for the most part, she hadn’t particularly liked the people he’d met there.
When the dishes were done, she turned out the light. Uncle Fred called from the living room. “Game time. You want to bet on the spread?”
“A quarter says the Mets win by five points.” She knew little about baseball and wasn’t particularly interested, but he enjoyed the games so much that she tried to share his enthusiasm.
“You’re on! I know you, gal—you like that Piazza feller that catches for ’em.” His teasing was a part of the ritual.
Liza leaned against the door frame and watched him prepare for the night’s entertainment: fruit bowl nearby, recliner in position and a bag of potato chips hidden under the smoking stand. She was turning to go to her room when headlights sprayed across the front window. Traffic out on the highway didn’t do that, not unless a car turned in.
“Uncle Fred, did you invite anyone over to watch the game?”
But her uncle had turned up the volume. Either he didn’t hear or was pretending not to, so it was left to Liza to see who’d come calling. Occasionally one of the women who supplied the soft goods would drop off work on the way to evening prayer meeting. But this was Saturday, not Wednesday.
She knew who it was, even before he climbed out of the SUV parked under one of the giant oaks. She checked to be sure the screen was hooked, then waited for him to reach the front porch. He’d instructed her to look over the papers and said he’d see her later. She’d thought later meant tomorrow—or, better yet, never.
Doing nothing more threatening than sauntering up the buckled flagstone walk, the man looked dangerous. Something about the way he moved. Not like an athlete, exactly—more like a predator. Dark, deceptively attractive, moving silently through the deepening shadows.
Get a grip, woman.
“Let me guess,” she said when he came up onto the porch. She made no move to unhook the screen door. “You came to tell me I won the Publisher’s Sweepstakes.”
“Have you had chance to look over what I left you?”
“Not yet.” She refused to turn on the porch light because it attracted moths and mosquitoes. Besides, it wasn’t quite dark yet. But it didn’t take much light to delineate those angular cheekbones, that arrogant blade of a nose and the mouth that managed to be firm and sexy at the same time.
Listen to you, Eliza, would you just stop it?
“Then how about reading them now? It shouldn’t take long. Unfortunately, most of the pages have stuck together, but once you’ve skimmed the top layer or so, I’ll explain anything you don’t understand and hand over the money. Then you can sign a release and I’ll leave.”
“I’m not signing anything, I’m not buying anything, I’m not—” She frowned. “What money?”
“Give me three minutes, I’ll try to talk fast. Are you or are you not the great-granddaughter of Elias Matthew Chandler, of…uh, Crow Fly, in Oklahoma Territory?”
Her jaw fell. Her eyes narrowed. “Are you crazy?”
Beckett slapped a mosquito on his neck. “Man, they’re bloodthirsty little devils, aren’t they? Any reports of West Nile virus around these parts?”
She shoved the screen door open, deliberately bumping it against his foot. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, come inside. You’ve got two minutes left to tell me why you’re harassing me.”
He took a deep breath. Liza couldn’t help noticing the size and breadth of his chest under shoulders that were equally impressive. Not that she was impressed. Still, a woman couldn’t help but notice any man who looked as good and smelled as good and—
Well, shoot! “One minute and thirty seconds,” she warned.
“Time out. You still haven’t answered my question.”
“You haven’t answered mine, either. All right then, yes, I might be related to someone who might originally have been from Oklahoma. However, I don’t happen to have a copy of my pedigree, so if whatever you’re trying to prove involves my lineage, you’d better peddle your papers somewhere else. One minute and counting.”
“I have.” His smile packed a wallop, even if she didn’t trust him.
“You have what? Tried peddling your papers somewhere else?” And then, unable to slam the door on her curiosity, she said, “What money? Is this a sweepstakes thing?”
“You might say that.” The smile was gone, but the effect of those cool gray eyes was undiminished. “Would you by any chance have a cousin named Kathryn, uh—Dixon?”
Some of the wind went out of her sails. From the living room, her uncle cackled and called out, “Better get in here, missy—your team just struck out again.”
“Look, would you please just say whatever you have to say and leave? I don’t know much about my family history, so if you’re trying to prove we’re related, you’d do better to check with someone else who knows more about it than I do. And if you’re after anything else, I’m not interested.” Never mind the money. She knew better than anyone not to fall for the old “something for nothing” dodge.
The man who called himself L. Jones Beckett edged past her until he could look into the living room. “Is that the Braves-Mets game? What’s the score?”
“So you’re back, are ye? Thought ye might be. General Sherman’s not going to be taking Atlanta tonight, no siree. Score’s one to one, the South’s winning.”
Liza closed her eyes and groaned. If he could talk baseball, she would never get rid of him. Uncle Fred would see to that. She might as well read his damned papers and be done with it.
Three
“Bring Mr. Beckett a glass of iced tea, Liza-girl. Have some potato chips, son.” Suddenly Uncle Fred leaned forward, glaring at the screen. “What do you mean, strike? That pitch was outside by a gol-darn mile!”
Liza left them to their game and headed down the hall to her bedroom. She would skim whatever it was he insisted she read, hand it back to him and show him the door, and that would be the end of that. If he did happen to be peddling some kind of get-rich-quick scheme, he’d come knocking on the wrong door this time. Any junk mail that even hinted that she was a big winner got tossed without ever getting opened. She didn’t want one red cent unless she knew exactly where it had come from.
The papers slid out in a clump. For a moment she only stared at them lying there on her white cotton bedspread. They looked as if they’d been soaked in tea. The top sheet appeared to be a letter, so she started with that.
“My Dear Eli…”
Liza made out that much before the ink faded. The ornate script was difficult to read, even without the faded ink and the work of generations of silverfish. She squinted at the date on the barely legible heading. September…was that 1900? Mercy! Someone should have taken better care of it, whether or not it was valuable. Maybe the writer was someone important. If it had been a baseball card from that era—if they’d even had baseball cards back then—her uncle would have done backflips, arthritis or not.
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Dixie Browning
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Secret heiress Liza Chandler didn′t want the money – or the rugged millionaire who′d suddenly come into her life.But Beckett had made a vow to get the job done and he wasn′t the type to take no for an answer. Especially not when he discovered that beneath Liza′s plain-Jane exterior hid a passionate woman just waiting to be protected. But would Liza trust Beckett enough to take his money and let him into her heart?