Читать книгу Billionaire Bachelors: Garrett - Anne Marie Winston - Страница 8

Garrett Holden strode up the cracking sidewalk and stepped onto the low front porch of the dilapidated half-house. He shook his head in disgust as he looked around the tiny dwelling. This was what he got for insisting that he be the one to notify the woman mentioned in his stepfather Robin Underwood’s will of Robin’s death.

This wasn’t an area of Baltimore he usually frequented, with its tiny, narrow duplexes all crammed together on the streets across from the far reaches of the Johns Hopkins University campus. The front yards were minuscule. The backs, as he’d discovered when he’d driven down the alley behind the house on his initial pass, consisted largely of concrete slabs, not a blade of grass in sight. He’d been relieved to find a parking space within sight of the address where he could keep an eye on his imported sports car. Though he hadn’t seen anyone suspicious, the area looked like a prime target for crime. He couldn’t imagine how on earth Robin had gotten involved with anyone from this locale.

The lady apparently had a green thumb, he thought as he surveyed her small square of earth. Late summer flowers were everywhere, blooming in great untidy bursts of color all around the border of the little yard, growing through the sagging picket fence. A pink rambler rose completely blotted out the sunlight from a full half of the rickety board porch that stretched across the front of the place. There were a few rotted boards on the porch floor that had broken through and he stayed close to her front door, hoping that the owner had had the sense to keep the main entry where people walked in better repair than the rest.

He put his finger on the bell and pressed hard. No answering sound alerted the occupants of a visitor. Pulling open the torn screen door, he rapped sharply at the wooden door. A surprisingly clean white lacy curtain blocked his view through the window in the upper part of the door. Still hearing no sound of anyone walking toward the door, he rapped again. “Hello? Anyone home?”

“Just a moment.” The voice was feminine, faraway and distinctly frustrated.

He waited impatiently, glancing twice at his watch before a rustling at the curtain preceded the opening of the inner door. A face stared out at him.

Garrett stared back. She wasn’t what he’d expected. At all. Actually, he hadn’t known what to expect, but this—this wood nymph wasn’t it. It was a fanciful thought for a man who dealt largely in numbers, but it was strangely appropriate.

For one thing, she wasn’t nearly as old as he’d expected any acquaintance of Robin’s to be. For another, she was one of the most strikingly beautiful women he’d ever seen. Even with her red-gold tangle of tresses jammed into a messy pile atop her head and corkscrew curls escaping to bob wildly around her small, heart-shaped face, she was beautiful. Her eyes were an arresting vivid blue-green, large and lushly lashed, with brows that rose above them on her high forehead like perfect crescents. Her cheekbones were slanted, her little chin almost too pointy. But her mouth was full and pink in contrast to the rest of her creamy satin complexion.

And for yet a third thing, she was, well, stacked was the only word that sprang to mind. Beneath a soft jade T-shirt that brought out the color in her eyes and the casual jean shorts was a lithe, curvaceous figure that even the baggiest of shirts couldn’t hide.

And hers wasn’t baggy. If anything, it had been washed once too often and had shrunk a size or two. The shirt was ripped across one shoulder, baring an expanse of silky-looking skin that made him want to reach through the torn screen and touch. In her hands she carried a handful of multicolored ribbon that fluttered and clung to her body as she moved. One silky strand had flipped upward to curl around her left breast, outlining the full, rounded mound and his gaze followed the path of the ribbon as he tried to fathom her connection to his stepfather.

Abruptly he faced the truth he’d been hoping hadn’t been true at all: this woman must have been Robin’s lover. Why else would he have been seeing someone so young and…unsuitable for him?

Belatedly he realized that he was staring at her. He flushed, annoyed with himself.

“May I help you?” Her gaze was direct and unsmiling, her words clearly enunciated in a prim British accent.

“I’m looking for Ana Birch.”

“You’ve found her.” Her voice was deliberate. “I’m on a bit of a schedule—” schedule came out “shedule,” in the British fashion “—and I’m really not interested in whatever it is you’re selling.” She began to turn away.

“Oh, I think you’ll be interested in this,” Garrett said in a grim tone, remembering why he had come to this dreary little neighborhood in search of her. “My name is Garrett Holden. Are you acquainted with Robin Underwood?”

“Garrett!” She held out a hand and her face altered immediately, breaking into a blinding smile that completely transformed her serious, intense expression into one of beauty and warmth. Lively intelligence and a hopeful light shone from her eyes as she opened the door and stepped onto the porch, looking past him. “Robin’s spoken of you often. Is he with you?”

Garrett stared at her for a moment, ignoring her offered hand as her smile faltered. She didn’t know. She didn’t know. A fierce wave of anger and grief roared through him like a wind-fueled fire. “Robin’s dead,” he said shortly.

“Wha…?” She put a hand to her throat as ribbons slithered to the floor. She shook her head slowly, speaking carefully. “I’m sorry. I believe I must have misunderstood.”

He stared at her coldly, not bothering to hide the contempt he felt. “You didn’t misunderstand.”

Her eyes widened, the pupils going black with shock. Every ounce of pink drained from her face, and he was absently surprised at just how much color she’d really had before. Now she was white as paper. She groped for the porch rail, then carefully lowered herself onto it in a seated position. The whole time, her gaze never left his. “Please tell me this is a very bad joke,” she whispered.

He shook his head. He suppressed the feelings of guilt and sympathy that rose within him, reminding himself that this woman didn’t need his sympathy. Unless it was to console her on the loss of the wealthy catch she’d been hoping to land.

“What happened?” Her voice was nearly soundless.

“Heart attack,” he said succinctly. “He just didn’t wake up. The doctor says he doubted he even felt anything.” He didn’t know why he’d added that last, except that he was human, after all, and the woman in front of him, whatever her motives, looked genuinely stricken by the news. Then again, maybe she was saying goodbye to the loss of the fortune she’d probably been expecting to harvest once she’d talked the old man around to marriage.

She was shaking her head as if she could deny the reality of his words. Straightening, she crossed her arms, hugging herself and appearing to shrink into a smaller presence. “When is the funeral?”

Nonplussed, it took him a moment to respond. Surely she hadn’t expected to be invited to attend. “It was yesterday.”

If it were possible for her to lose any more color, she did. She turned away from him and he could see her shoulders begin to shake. Then her knees slowly gave way and she sagged to the floor.

Garrett reacted instinctively. Leaping forward, he caught her as she crumpled. The essential male animal beneath the civility of centuries momentarily clouded his mind as his brain registered the close press of yielding female flesh, the rising scent of warm woman—

She squeaked and yanked herself away from him. She hadn’t fainted, as he’d first assumed. And now her face wasn’t white, it was a bright, unbecoming red as she flushed with embarrassment.

He only noted it with half his brain, because the other half was still processing the moment before.

Then sanity returned. God, he was disgusting. This woman had been his stepfather’s…plaything. His seventy-three-year-old stepfather and this…how old was she? Twenty? Twenty-one? And here he was, enthralled by her body as well. He was truly disgusting. And so was she. No way could she have been sexually aroused by, or satisfied by Robin. Yuck. It didn’t even bear thinking about.

She was backing away from him as his thoughts ran wild. “Excuse me, please. I have to…have to go inside.”

“Wait—”

But he was too late. She’d fled, yanking open the rickety screen and the door behind it with incredible speed and slamming both behind her. He was left staring at the undulating lace curtain that covered the door’s window. Ribbon still lay strewn across the porch.

He swore. “Miss Birch? I have to talk to you.” He raised his voice. “Miss Birch?”

No answer.

Then he heard the faint sound of weeping. Deep, harsh, stuttering sobs underscored with unmistakable grief. The kind of sounds it would have been unmanly for him to have made, though he’d felt like it a time or two since Robin’s manservant had come to him four days ago and reported that the master appeared to have passed away during the night.

Well, that killed any hope that she’d return. No woman with swollen eyes and a runny nose would willingly be seen in public. Dammit!

He pulled a business card and his gold pen from his pocket and scrawled a note across the back of it: You are mentioned in the will. Call me.

That ought to get results, he thought cynically as he strode back to his car, glad to be leaving the dingy, depressing area with its faint air of menace. In fact, he’d lay odds that he heard from her before the end of the day. If she thought there was money involved, the grief-stricken act would fly out the window in a hurry.

He unlocked his sleek bronze foreign car and drove back toward the beltway.

Thirty minutes later, he pulled into the quiet green oasis of the peaceful, shaded cemetery near Silver Spring where Robin had been buried the day before. Parking his car along the verge, he walked over the spongy earth to the fresh gravesite.

“Well, you’ve managed to surprise me, old man,” he said aloud, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. “How the hell you managed to keep up with something as young as that, I’ll never know. No wonder you had a heart attack.”

The flowers had wilted considerably just since yesterday in the humid July weather and he made himself a note to call the groundskeeper of the cemetery and ask him to remove them soon. He’d rather see bare earth than these pitiful reminders of mortality.

“I wasn’t ready,” he said gruffly. “I wasn’t ready for you to go yet.” It was the first time he’d allowed himself to think about what he’d lost. Dealing with the medical examiner, the funeral arrangements, and the never-ending calls from sympathetic well-wishers had helped him to avoid thinking about the loss of the man who had taken a rebellious teenage stepson in hand and given him self-respect and love. Now, the grief rose up and squeezed his chest until he could barely breathe, and he leaned heavily on the gravestone that had yet to have Robin’s date of death inscribed beside his first wife’s.

“Why?” he said. “What was so important about this woman that you put her in the will? Were you that lonely?”

It was possible, he supposed. Legions of aging men had been taken in by the solicitous attentions of glowing young beauties who professed devotion. He should know. Hadn’t it happened to his very own father? Of course, there was one significant difference between the current situation and the past. Robin hadn’t left a wife and a small child for the sake of a younger woman. Another was, of course, the age difference. Robin must have been nearly fifty years older than his paramour, a fact Garrett simply couldn’t seem to wrap his mind around.

Sighing, he laid a hand on the marble of the stone, still cool even in the heat of the summer. “I don’t begrudge you any happiness you might have found with someone who cared for you. But the thought of a woman taking deliberate advantage of your loneliness makes me damn mad.” He paused, wondering why he felt so guilty. “If I neglected you, I am sorry,” he said. True, he’d been busy in the past few years, but he’d always made time for Robin. Hadn’t he?

Yes. He had, he confirmed as he searched his soul, and he shouldn’t have regrets on that score. If anything, Robin had been the one who had been too busy recently for the several-times-weekly dinners they’d often shared. Robin had been the one who had had plans and had taken a rain check on a number of occasions. He’d been happier in the last year before his death than he’d been since Garrett’s mother had died, his step more youthful, his still-handsome features smiling even more than usual. Garrett even had teased him about having a woman on several occasions, but Robin simply had smiled and lifted his eyebrows mysteriously…until last week.

Last Tuesday, just days before his death, Robin had responded in a different way to Garrett’s teasing.

“I’ll introduce you to her soon,” he’d promised. “I believe you’ll like her.” The use of the feminine pronoun had confirmed Garrett’s hunch. But he’d envisioned someone, well, someone older, more mature, a dignified, pleasant matron. Not the very young woman with the cover girl measurements and flawless complexion who looked young enough to be his daughter. Or even more likely, his granddaughter. True, Robin had been good-looking and modestly wealthy, in great physical shape for his age, or so everyone had thought. And it also was true that any number of lonely widows had let him know his attentions would be welcome. But it was a little too much to believe that a fresh-faced girl in her twenties would find him irresistibly attractive.

Unless she had her eye on Robin’s fortune. That was a far more likely scenario. Robin’s assets might have been modest in comparison to the huge financial coffers he, Garrett, had amassed, but Robin was definitely a wealthier man than most. It was more than possible that a young woman would look at that money and consider a few years with an older man worth the price.

He supposed he should be glad Robin hadn’t married her. After Garrett’s mother, Barbara, his second wife, passed away two years ago, Robin had said he would never marry again. But still…a man in his early seventies might have physical needs to fulfill. Considering he hoped to reach that age someday, he surely hoped so.

He stirred and stood, straightening his shoulders and a deep shudder of revulsion worked through him. Don’t go there. He’d have to talk to Miss Ana Birch again, despite the deep disgust he felt at the mere thought of Robin with that nubile seductress. The lawyer who served as Robin’s executor had been very clear in his instructions. There would be no discussion of the terms of Robin’s will unless Miss Birch and Garrett both were present.

When he returned to the house he’d shared with his stepfather, he went straight to his study and reached for the telephone. “Miss Birch, this is Garrett Holden, Robin’s stepson,” he said when she answered the phone. “You are required to attend the reading of the will—”

“No.” Her voice was final. “You can have anything he left me. Send whatever you need me to sign and I’ll do it.”

And before he could even begin another sentence, she hung up. She was giving up an inheritance?

He stared at the phone he still held, torn between wishing that he wouldn’t have to see her again and annoyance at her attitude. He didn’t get it. Impatiently he punched the redial button. When she said, “Hello?” he said, “You don’t understand. You have to be there.”

“I do not.” She sounded belligerent now. “Please don’t call again.” And to his utter astonishment, she hung up on him a second time.

Once he’d gotten past the shock, he thoughtfully replaced the handset in its cradle. Fine. He’d go and see her again. He’d figured her out now. She must want money, and she was being coy and devious in an effort to disguise her greediness. Despite her protestations, he suspected that she already knew the provisions of the will, at least as they concerned her. Which meant she knew more than he did. He’d just have to promise her more than whatever sum Robin had already promised her and she’d get more agreeable.

He rested his elbows on his desk and speared his hands through his dark hair, massaging his scalp. He’d had a nagging headache for the past few days and it didn’t seem to be getting any better. It was probably all the stress.

Once the will was settled and he didn’t have so many urgent things to attend to, he promised himself a week at the cottage in Maine. The small cabin that looked out over Snowflake Lake in southern Maine had been a special place for Robin and his stepson. Garrett knew he’d built it about a quarter-century ago. He’d long suspected it had been Robin’s only indulgence, the single respite he had allowed himself from the burden his first marriage had become as his wife’s mental illness had progressed until she’d finally passed away.

Garrett’s own mother had had little interest in spending her vacations in a rustic cottage where the principal entertainment consisted of fishing and watching the sunsets. She’d always refused to come to Maine. So the cabin had become a place where Garrett and Robin went at least once a year for what Robin laughingly had called, “Boys’ Week.” They swam in the frigid lake, fished and canoed around its perimeter looking for wildlife, settled on the deck with drinks and plenty of insect repellent each evening, and gone for the occasional jaunt to the surrounding tourist locations.

Yes, a week at the cottage was just what he needed. It would be difficult without Robin, but in some ways, he felt he’d be closer to his stepfather than he was here in Baltimore where they’d spent the bulk of their lives together.

He drove back into the city in early evening, thanking the long hours of daylight that kept him from making the journey in the dark. This time when he knocked, the inner door opened almost immediately.

“Miss Birch,” he said before she could speak, infusing his tone with more warmth than he felt, “I apologize for the insensitive way I broke the news of Robin’s passing. It’s been a difficult time. May I come in and talk to you for a few moments?”

She hesitated. He couldn’t see her clearly through the screen, but she’d obviously changed clothes. Now she wore a sleeveless denim jumper with a short-sleeved top beneath. Her hair was still pulled up, but now it was in a tidier, thick ponytail that bounced behind her head. To his great relief, she pushed open the door. Wordlessly she turned and retreated into the house, leaving him to catch the door and follow her.

The room he entered was a living room, furnished with comfortably overstuffed furniture in a faded flower pattern, threadbare but clean. The small space somehow managed to look uncluttered and on the one sizable wall there was an unusual collection of hats. Old hats. Elegant, vintage hats.

She shut the door behind him and he heard the hum of an air-conditioner cooling the small half-house.

He raised one eyebrow and turned to her, forcing himself to ignore the leap of his pulse at the porcelain beauty of her features. Indicating the headgear displayed on the wall, he said, “You like hats, I take it?”

She nodded. “I went through a stage where I collected them. Those were a few of my favorites that I decided to keep when I sold the rest.” She waved a hand toward the sofa. “Please, have a seat. May I get you a drink?”

If this were any other occasion, he’d have been amused by her scrupulous manners. He shook his head. “No, thank you.” He took a seat on the far end of the couch, expecting her to join him, but she went across the room and sat in a rocking chair.

“Thank you for seeing me,” he said, though it grated that he had to be so civil. “Have you given any more thought to what I said about listening to the reading of the will?”

“I don’t care about the will,” she said tonelessly. “But I’d like to know where he’s buried so I can visit the—the grave.”

Right. And he was a little green man. “I care about the will,” he said, watching her closely, “since it involves me, too.”

“You can have everything.” Her accent was even more obvious as she clipped off the syllables, and she met his eyes without even a hint of guile. She was good; he’d have to give her that. “I’ll sign anything you wish.”

“Believe me, I’d like nothing better,” he told her curtly, abandoning his attempts to mollify her. What an act. “Unfortunately it’s not that simple. We both have to be present for the reading of the will.”

“Why?” she demanded.

He opened his mouth to answer her, but a hissing sound and a movement from his peripheral vision distracted him. Glancing over, he caught sight of a striped blur streaking up the stairs. “What’s that?” he said, startled, though he was pretty sure the animal had been a cat.

“It’s my cat. She’s not very friendly yet.”

“Yet?”

“I found her lying on the road. Someone hit her and drove away. She was still alive when I finally got to a veterinary clinic. So when she was well enough to come home, I brought her here. She’s good company.”

“She doesn’t seem overly tame.”

“She was wild, I think.” Ana Birch’s face had lost its impassive mask; her eyes brightened and she became more animated as she spoke of the animal. He felt an unwilling tug of attraction; she really was a beautiful woman. “But she’s getting used to me.”

“Why didn’t you just let her go where you found her if she’s so wild?”

“She needs seizure medication. She was struck in the head and the vet thinks the damage may be permanent. Besides, she’s missing half her teeth on one side and she can’t eat anything but very soft foods with any ease. She probably wouldn’t survive outdoors.” Then the soft loveliness faded and her features became set and unreadable once again. “So why is it so imperative that I attend this will-reading ceremony or whatever one calls it?”

He shrugged. “That’s the way Robin wanted it. He set it up with his lawyer and I’ve spoken with the man. He refuses to divulge anything unless we’re both present.”

She was frowning at him, her light brown eyebrows drawn into a slanting scowl. “So if I refuse to attend, you get nothing? Is that how it works?”

“Probably,” he told her, though he was certain of no such thing.

“That old rotter,” she muttered.

“I beg your pardon?” he said, startled.

“He knew I wouldn’t want anything. He knew I’d refuse, so this way at least I have to hear what he wanted me to hear or you’ll lose your inheritance, too. And he knew I wouldn’t let that happen.”

An unexpected pang of pure green-eyed jealousy squeezed his heart. There was no doubt in his mind now that whatever their relationship, she’d known—and understood—Robin quite well. Masking his thoughts behind an impassive expression, he focused on the only thing that mattered. “So you’ll come?”

She sighed. “I suppose. When and where?”

When Ana arrived the next morning, Robin’s stepson was already in the lawyer’s waiting area. He stood with his back to her, looking out the far window as Ana came down the hall, and she observed him through the plate glass of the office front before she entered.

The set of his shoulders looked as rigid as the man’s attitude. A lump rose in her throat as she thought of how certain Robin had been that Garrett would welcome her to the family. It was the only time in the short few years she’d known Robin that he’d been so completely wrong about something.

Robin. She tilted her face up to contain the tears that wanted to escape.

She couldn’t believe her father was gone. They’d had so little time together. Oh, she’d known he was older than he looked. In fact, she’d been shocked when he’d told her his age on his last birthday. He had been seventeen years older than her mother. She knew her mother had been more than thirty when they met, which would have made him in his late forties. A large disparity, but at those ages, still quite plausible.

Perhaps they had finally found each other again, her father and her mother. And that thought, strangely, calmed her as nothing else had.

She glanced again at Robin’s stepson, technically her own stepbrother, she supposed and as she did, he turned and saw her. When their eyes met, a small zing of awareness exploded along her nerve endings. She’d felt it the first time he’d come around, and the second. But now, as then, she’d brushed it away. So what if the man was attractive? He’d proven his beauty to be no more than skin-deep with his nasty attitude. Still, she couldn’t help wishing they’d met under different circumstances.

The sense of loss she’d felt since he’d told her of her father’s death intensified as she thought of the day he’d come to her house. For months, she’d imagined the day that Robin introduced her to Garrett. She’d built comfortable, civilized little images of a brotherly type, of the three of them sharing holiday dinners and warm, informal get-togethers.

She had never imagined that the first time they’d meet would be under these circumstances. She still couldn’t accept that she’d missed Robin’s funeral.

And Garrett couldn’t be less brotherly if he tried. He’d been so curt and obnoxious yesterday that she’d wanted only to ignore him and hope he’d go away. And to top it all off, she’d nearly fainted like a ninny and when he’d tried to help she’d acted like a skittish virgin. Could this get any worse?

That was probably spitting in the eye of fate, she decided. For the sake of Robin’s memory, she was going to try her very best to get along with Garrett.

Though they hadn’t been related, he actually looked more like her father than she did. And her father had been a handsome man. Garrett’s hair was dark, cut short and severe, and his face was long and leanly molded. He was dressed in an expensive-looking black suit and she suddenly realized that he strongly resembled the most recent actor to portray James Bond in the movies. Unfortunately the resemblance didn’t carry over to personality. Garrett’s stormy blue eyes regarded her with distinct animosity, and she wondered again what on earth she could have done to make him dislike her. As far as she knew, Robin hadn’t told him about her yet at the time of his death.

She wasn’t going to let his attitude cow her, though. He’d insisted she attend this ridiculous will-reading—how archaic was that, anyhow? Why couldn’t the lawyer simply have called her and told her whatever was so important? Garrett didn’t appear even to have considered the fact that she might have to work, or have plans of her own.

In fact, both were true. She had the day off from her job as a teller at a local bank, although she did have to work this evening at the restaurant where she was a waitress. But she had planned to work today anyhow, in another sense.

Two days ago, she’d received a call from the agent who had approached her about doing a book on the history of hats after she’d given a lecture at a local college’s textiles fair. The man had an editor at a New York publishing house who was very interested in seeing her ideas for the book.

The phone call had left her buoyant and giddy, although frustrated and apprehensive at the same time. She’d been thinking about the project ever since—and that’s about as far as she’d gotten.

It drove her crazy that she had so little time for anything other than simply making ends meet. Since her mother’s death three years ago shortly after Ana’s twentieth birthday, there had been more bills to pay and less time for designing the line of hats and handbags she’d started. Almost none, in fact.

Her accessories currently were sold at two exclusive boutiques in the Baltimore area and both retailers had told her they could sell anything she could give them. Some days her fingers itched for a pencil and a sketchpad when she was struck by yet another idea or theme for her unique creations. Invariably she was in the car on the way to work, or counting money, or carrying plates of food to a table when it happened. She didn’t know how she was going to do it, but she was determined to find more time to design and sew. If she had the smallest hope of becoming a serious artisan, even making a living from her work, she had to produce more. Acquire wider recognition.

Publishing a book would certainly help with that goal if she could find the time to fit it in.

She could have worked this morning. And yet, here she was, stuck in an office with a man who couldn’t stand her. The feeling was rapidly becoming mutual.

He strode toward the door before she moved to open it, yanking it wide. “Come in. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Irked by his inference, she made a show of checking her watch. “Goodness. You’re early, too. Here I thought I’d be the one cooling my heels.”

If she’d managed to irritate him, he didn’t show it. “Follow me. They’ve reserved a conference room for us.” Without waiting for her answer, he turned and swiftly moved off through the suite of offices, leaving her to follow or be hopelessly lost in the rabbit warren of corridors through which they passed. Feeling rebellious, Ana stuck out her tongue at his broad back as she hurried along behind him. Immediately she felt the urge to giggle. She’d been mocking Garrett Holden!

She would have known his name even if he hadn’t been her father’s stepson. He was extraordinarily wealthy, reputed to have parlayed a small stock market windfall into the immense assets he held today. In accordance with Americans’ vulgar fascination with piles of money, he often made the pages of both gossipy newsmagazines as well as more serious financial tomes. His name had been linked to some very high-profile ladies from the entertainment world as well as the young women whose families inhabited the rarified world in which he lived, but there had never been one who lasted more than a few months, according to Robin.

“He’s never confided in me,” Robin had said to her once, “but he wasn’t always so cynical about relationships. I suspect the change might have stemmed from a bad experience with a woman who wanted his money. It’s amazing what a whiff of wealth will do to supposedly decent people.”

Now that she’d met him, she couldn’t imagine a woman actually wanting to spend time with Grumpy Garrett on a regular basis. She’d rather be boiled in oil.