Читать книгу The Heiress - Cathy Gillen Thacker - Страница 13

IT TOOK JACK ONE MONTH, two days and sixteen hours to find out where Daisy had run off to, and another half day to travel to Nevada. When he finally made it to the crummy studio apartment she had rented at the edge of town, he was mad as hell, and exhausted to boot. And she didn’t look much better when she opened her door to him. Her fair skin held the golden glow of desert sun and she was dressed as sexily as ever, in snug, worn, navel-baring jeans, tangerine tank top and western boots. Her wavy hair was as clean and silky-looking as always and caught up in a clasp on the back of her head. But there were shadows beneath her eyes and a weariness in her body language that hadn’t been there before.

Not that she was about to let him know that, however, Jack noted as their eyes clashed. “I was wondering when you would show up.”

Jack took the open door for invitation and followed her inside. The place was a mess. Although it was nearly noon, what looked like a breakfast of a glass of milk and a sweet roll sat on the table. The sofa bed was still pulled out and unmade. There were clothes, shoes and toiletry items scattered all over the place. He shut the door behind them, noting the laptop computer, printer and digital camera that were hooked up together. Even as they spoke, what looked like color tourist photos were spitting out of the printer one after another. Which explained how she had been getting by once her cash ran out. “It would have been sooner if you’d let me know where you were,” he said.

“What? And take all the fun out of it?” Daisy plucked her glass off the table and took a sip of milk. Expression sobering slightly, she continued, “I was going to contact you soon anyway.”

Jack had expected as much—when Daisy was ready. She was too confrontational to let what had happened between them that night go by without being addressed. Not that he was taking the blame for everything. She was at fault here, too. Figuring she would want him to give as good as he got, he said back, just as dryly, “To return my car, repay the cash you stole and reimburse me for the $2358.29 in credit card charges you racked up the last two days?”

Daisy shook her head, took another sip of milk, and still holding his gaze, said, “To tell you I’m pregnant.”

Her matter-of-fact tone hit him like a sucker punch to the gut. Jack tensed, attempting to frame a retort, only nothing came out. Finally, he said, “That’s not funny, Daisy.”

An emotion he couldn’t quite identify glimmered in her eyes. “Oh, I don’t know.” She waved her hand through the air, some of her customary rebelliousness coming back to her stance. “There’s a certain irony to it, don’t you think? I mean, the bastard of Tom Deveraux having the love child of his most trusted employee slash henchman. If you ask me—” her lips curved with mocking pleasure “—it’s like something straight out of a trashy novel.”

He was beginning to realize she wasn’t kidding. “Except this is real life, Daisy.”

Daisy sighed and put down her milk. “Ain’t that the sad truth,” she agreed.

Jack came closer. Unable to help himself, he looked at her stomach—it seemed as flat as always, but then if the baby was his, and his gut was telling him that it was, she was only four and a half weeks or so along. He swallowed around the unaccustomed tightness in his throat and returned his gaze to her face. “You’re sure about this?”

Daisy wiped her hands on a napkin and walked down to the other end of the narrow kitchen countertop. She plucked a piece of paper out from beneath a little sample bottle of what appeared to be vitamins and handed it to him. “I went to the Lake Tahoe clinic two days ago.”

He noted that the receipt said the clinic had billed her for a pregnancy test, new patient exam and consultation.

In a bored tone, Daisy continued, “You can go check out the test results for yourself if you want. I told them you were the father and you might be coming by.”

Still struggling to absorb the fact that he was going to be a father—that he was going to have a baby with Daisy—never mind figure out what this was going to mean to him, his life and everyone around them, Jack handed back the receipt. “That’s not necessary,” he said stiffly, guilt—and his own sense of failed responsibility—along with the news of his impending fatherhood, combining to hit him with the force of a sledgehammer. He forced the words through numb lips. “I believe you.” Just as he now believed they were in one hell of a mess, that was likely only going to get worse as time went on.

Daisy tilted her head as she studied him with narrowed eyes. After a moment, she noted softly, “You haven’t asked if the baby is yours.”

No. He hadn’t. And why hadn’t he? Jack couldn’t say why he was so sure. He only knew his gut was saying it was his kid. And his street smarts about people, whether they were good, bad or somewhere in between, were never wrong. Daisy might act out wildly, but she would never lie to him about something like this, especially given the way she had grown up, not knowing to whom she had been born. “I’m sure because I know you,” he stated firmly, more sure of that with every second that passed.

For reasons Jack couldn’t understand, his faith in Daisy’s honor upset rather than reassured her. “And how do you know?” she retorted, the deeply cynical look returning to her face. “Oh!” She snapped her fingers as if something just hit her with amazing insight. “I forgot. You and my biological father have been tracing my movements ever since I decided to try and find my real parents a few months ago.” She trod closer, bristling with a mixture of indignation and contempt. “That’s kind of ironic, too, don’t you think? That I hired the same private investigator my biological father hired to keep me from finding out what the Templeton and Deveraux families would’ve preferred I not ever know?”

Yeah, it had been a sticky situation, all right. Hardest on the top-notch P.I. who had unexpectedly found himself at the center of the quandary, being asked to represent both sides. But that was neither here nor there now, Jack thought. He shrugged. “It’s not surprising you both hired Harlan. He’s the best private investigator in the city.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t refuse to help me, given the fact that Tom had signed him first,” Daisy said sulkily.

“Harlan did go to Tom. Told Tom that you wanted to hire him and why and wanted to know what Tom wanted him to do. Harlan said he could refer you elsewhere or help you himself, but he wouldn’t lie to you or take your money or try and stonewall you—do anything else unethical or underhanded.”

“Good for Harlan. If it weren’t for him finding out I had been born in a little convent in the Swiss Alps, instead of Norway as I had always been told, I still wouldn’t know the truth.”

Jack nodded, glad they agreed on this much. “Harlan Decker’s a good guy, all right. Although for the record—” Jack gave Daisy a stern look, letting her know she wasn’t completely off the hook for her actions, either “—Harlan thought I should’ve turned you in for stealing.”

Daisy shrugged. “What can you expect from a former cop?” she volleyed back. Silence fell between them, less tense this time.

Jack studied Daisy knowing he already had his own thoughts on the matter, but wondering where she wanted to go from here. “So what now?” he asked her casually.

Daisy bit her lower lip and regarded Jack uncertainly as her printer finally sputtered to a halt. “You’re really going to take me at my word on this pregnancy?” Clearly, Jack thought, she wasn’t used to being trusted.

Jack watched as Daisy went over, picked up the stack of finished photos from the tray and began thumbing through them. “I don’t have any reason not to believe you.”

Daisy went back to her computer and typed in another series of commands. “Nevertheless,” she said as calmly as if they were discussing the terms of a new photo shoot instead of the permanent interlinking of their lives, “I’d feel better if we went over to the clinic and let you see the results, and maybe have you take a paternity test or whatever it is they do these days to establish paternity.”

Jack pulled up a chair next to her and sat down. “I’d feel better if we just got married and got it over with,” he stated, wondering how long Daisy was going to be able to keep her cool, act as if this hardly mattered, when in reality it was the most earth-shattering revelation of both their lives.

Daisy continued typing in commands until her printer started going again. She turned to him, as yet another series of tourist pictures began spitting out into the tray, the only indication of her heightening emotions the tensing of her jaw. “And why would we want to do that?” she asked steadily.

That, Jack thought, was easy. Letting her know with a look that she and their baby would be able to count on him the way she had apparently never been able to count on anyone else in her life, he said, “So the baby you’re carrying will be born legitimate, and have a mother and a father.”

Once again, Daisy’s teeth raked across her soft, bare lower lip. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Tom Deveraux, would it? Because I don’t have to tell him we slept together. At least not yet,” Daisy amended hastily before Jack could get a word in edgewise. “When my baby is born, of course I’ll make his or her paternity a matter of public record—there’s no way I’ll ever lie to my child the way my parents lied to me all these years. But until then—I mean, no one has to know. We don’t have to put ourselves in a position where we’re both going to be getting a lot of grief.”

Jack supposed that was true, but he saw no reason in putting off the inevitable, either. “The worst thing we could do is let our kid think we’re ashamed of him or her,” Jack said. He had grown up that way, feeling the slings and arrows surrounding the scandal of his birth. There was no way he was doing it to his own child. Frowning, Jack continued humorlessly, “Tom already knows we slept together.”

Daisy did a double take. “You told him?”

“Not exactly.” Because it was clear she wasn’t going to just let this go, Jack continued reluctantly, “He figured it out when you disappeared the way you did.”

“Because you were acting so guilty, I bet.”

Knowing where she was going with this, Jack pushed the words through his teeth. “I’m not sorry we made love.” Especially now that they had a baby on the way because of it. He gave her a level look. “I’m just sorry about how and why and when it happened.”

The wall around Daisy’s feelings only became stronger and more inaccessible as Daisy scoffed in a cynical tone. “You would have preferred recreational sex, is that it?”

“It was more than that, and you know it.” Jack knew Daisy was trying to shock and turn him off. He wasn’t going to allow her to do it. Especially not now, when they had a child they were going to be responsible for.

“Exercise?”

“It was raw emotion and need—and you know it.”

“I don’t need anyone.”

Yes, Jack thought. You do. They all did. Maybe what he and Daisy had shared wasn’t love. Maybe it would never be love. But they could be there for each other and their child in other equally important ways. And whether she wanted that or not, he was going to see that it happened, because the two of them had more than just themselves to think about now. They had a baby to consider. A baby who would need the love and care and cooperation of both parents.

“But back to Tom Deveraux.” Daisy changed the subject to something safer. She studied Jack curiously. “What did he say when you told him about us?”

Jack recalled the punch that had landed him in the dirt and left his jaw aching for days, and decided Daisy didn’t need to know that Tom was still so angry he was barely speaking to Jack. “Nothing that bears repeating,” Jack finally said.

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll bet.”

“Look, Daisy, let’s get out of here,” Jack said, ready to go back East and reclaim his job and whatever was left of any respect Tom Deveraux might still have for him. Hopefully what he was doing now to make an honest woman of Daisy and set things to rights would go a long way in repairing the damage that had been done. And if not, he hoped he would at least continue to have his job with the Deveraux-Heyward Shipping Company. “We’ll get married and hop a plane back to Charleston.”

Daisy took the rest of the printed photos out of the tray and stuck them in an envelope emblazoned with the name Tahoe Mountain Tours. Apparently finished with the work she had to do, she shut off her printer and computer and closed the lid on her laptop. “I’ll marry you for the sake of the baby, Jack, but I’m not going back to Charleston.”

Jack had expected some resistance on that score after the way she had run away, and had prepared for it. “Afraid, are you?”

Daisy shot to her feet and squared off with him. “I’m no coward,” Daisy lashed back.

“Hey.” Jack flattened his hands on his chest and gave her a look of mock innocence. “That’s what a person is who refuses to face the consequences of their actions.”

Daisy thrust her chin out as she slapped both hands on her hips and stomped nearer. “I’ve never been afraid of anything or anyone in my life,” she swore, glaring up at him.

“Then prove it,” Jack threw down the gauntlet, knowing damn well a woman like Daisy would pick it right up and brandish him with it in return. “Marry me. Come home with me. Help me show everyone that we know that we don’t care what they think.”

“There’d have to be a few conditions,” Daisy warned after a moment.

At last, a chink in her emotional armor, Jack noted solemnly. He couldn’t wait to hear those.

The taunting look was back in her Deveraux-blue eyes. “You’ll give my baby a name and we’ll have a physical relationship—that’s it!”

Jack didn’t mind the prospect of hitting the sheets again with Daisy, he also knew they had some very important boundaries to set. “Fine. I also don’t want to be jerked around.”

“Fine.” Daisy glared right back at him.

They seemed to be circling each other like two wary animals—neither willing to make the first move. Maybe the thing to do was to make it real and go from there. They could worry about the details later.

He regarded her sternly, chastening, “And one more thing. No one’s bed but mine, got it?”

A slow, sexy, victor’s grin spread across her face. Looking as if she was the one in the driver’s seat, Daisy shrugged and said, “Whatever.”

DAISY HAD TO ADMIT that like Jack, she didn’t appreciate being manipulated, either. To the point she tended to behave perversely and illogically if she felt she was being used. Nevertheless, Daisy thought as she rummaged through the clothes in her closet, looking for something to don for a quickie wedding, she was very relieved Jack had not only shown up so swiftly, but offered to help her muddle her way through this dilemma she found herself in. Because she had the feeling that the next eight months or so were going to be rough in a lot of ways. And she and the baby needed a man like Jack, who was known for his steady presence and selflessness to help her through all the life changes she was going to have to make if she wanted to be a good mother, and she did.

“How soon can you be ready to go?” Jack asked.

Daisy shrugged as she took several things on hangers into the bathroom and hung them over the shower rod for trying on. “I don’t know. Ten or fifteen minutes.”

It ended up taking her thirty, but that was okay, Daisy thought as she examined herself in the mirror, because with her hair put up in a neat twist on the back of her head and some makeup and dangly earrings on, she looked pretty darn good. Smiling, she spritzed herself with perfume and walked out into the studio in her stocking feet.

Jack had changed clothes too in her absence. The sport shirt he had been wearing when he arrived was now in a carry-on garment bag. He was wearing a navy blazer with his khaki slacks, white shirt and dark-olive tie.

Jack finished zipping up his garment bag and turned to face her. “That’s what you’re going to wear?” His eyebrow lifted in surprise.

Unable to help but note how good Jack looked, not to mention to feel a little hurt he disapproved of her choice, when she had so little to choose from, Daisy shrugged. “What’s wrong with it?”

Jack made a face. “It’s black, for starters.”

Daisy looked down at her long sleeveless dress. It was woven out of a linen-cotton blend that fell just above her ankles. It was cool and summery and yes—with its sensual drape and cutaway armholes, sexy as all get-out. But if he didn’t like it… “I’ve got some pink capri pants,” she said, deliberately suggesting something even more outrageous. “Or a yellow floral mini.”

“Never mind.” Jack picked up Daisy’s computer, printer and camera—which had all been put in their cases while she was changing—and set them in a pile next to the door. “Let’s just load this stuff in my SUV and get going.”

Knowing he had also been on the phone making arrangements while she got ready for the momentous event, Daisy threw the rest of her belongings into a suitcase as quickly as she could. “Which wedding chapel did you pick?”

Jack helped her get the rest of her things together, which admittedly weren’t much, as he told her matter-of-factly, “We’re getting married on the upper deck of a paddlewheel boat on Lake Tahoe.”

Daisy’s eyes widened with surprise. “That’s a little extravagant, isn’t it?”

Jack gave her a look that indicated he didn’t think so. “We’re only going to do this once. It might as well be memorable.”

Daisy wondered if he would have the same view of the wedding night then quickly pushed the thought from her mind. She couldn’t risk making this a romantic occasion, even in her mind, because it simply wasn’t. Methodically, she collected the tourist photos she had to deliver to Tahoe Mountain Tours en route to the ceremony. “What about rings and a license and blood tests?” she asked, mentally making a note to give her notice while she was there so they could find another photographer to take her place.

Jack picked up several of the heavier items, then held the door. “They’ll have everything we need there, including the paddleboat captain who is going to marry us, the marriage certificate, license and two plain solid-gold wedding rings. There’s no waiting period. And no blood tests are required. All we have to do is show up.”

Somehow, Daisy didn’t find that at all encouraging. But refusing to be the first to back out, Daisy merely smiled and said, “Right.” As they loaded Jack’s truck with all her gear and his small travel bag, Daisy kept expecting Jack to renege, demand to go over to the clinic, wait until paternity tests could be completed, and otherwise put off such a risky, impulsive decision. But he didn’t. Instead, she was the one with cold feet about joining their lives on any level—and they both knew it. But every time she faltered, he was right there, giving her that goading look that sent her temper flaming and made her feel all the more reckless and determined not to bow out or back down.

Not that she was going to allow Jack to have the upper hand with her. No one got that. She wasn’t like her older sister slash birth mother Iris, who had married a man twice her age to please her parents. Or her brother, Connor, who prided himself on being able to mediate his way out of every and any situation. She was strong and independent and she did whatever she needed to do to ignore the constant criticism and disapproval coming her way. She knew how to look out for herself because she had learned very early that no one else, either within or outside the family, was going to do it for her.

Jack, of course, didn’t know how impossible Richard and Charlotte Templeton could be, or how much they could—and often did—upset her. But soon he would be subject to the same kind of familial pressure. And would be right there beside her to either deflect it or help her deal with it, Daisy reassured herself seriously as she was handed a bouquet of flowers and she and Jack climbed the metal stairs to the upper deck of the boat. And perhaps in that sense, because she would no longer have to fight every battle alone, Daisy thought as Jack took her hand in his, her life would get better.

Daisy and Jack said their vows at sunset, as the wedding package touted, with the granite mountains towering in the background, above the beautiful blue surface of the mountain lake, and two marina employees serving as their witnesses. To the two of them, it was a solemn, not romantic, occasion, and Daisy couldn’t help but wonder, even as she said their highly personalized vows, how—and if—they could ever be true.

Would she be able to respect, honor and cherish Jack for as long as they both shall live? Or even the rest of the month, once they got back to Charleston and the complications they faced there?

And what about Jack? Would he be able to care for her, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for the rest of their married lives? Or would this, too, end in disaster?

Daisy had no answer. And given the conflicted look in Jack’s eyes as he bent to chastely kiss her lips at the conclusion of the ceremony, he didn’t know, either. But he was determined to do the right thing by her and their baby. That was something, she supposed.

“WE’RE NOT DRIVING HOME?” Daisy asked in disappointment as Jack turned the SUV away from Lake Tahoe and onto the highway that would lead them to the Reno airport.

“No.” Jack set the trip computer on his dash. “That would take several days. I need to get back to Charleston.”

“So I’ll drive.”

He slanted her a look and said dryly, “We’ve done that already. You took off without me.”

Daisy gave him a smile of exaggerated enthusiasm. “Great,” she said, settling deeper into her comfy leather seat. “So how long is this all going to take?” she asked wearily, wishing she had a bed she could just curl up in.

“It’s around four hours from Reno to Dallas–Fort Worth, where we change planes, and another four or so to Charleston. Our flight leaves at midnight. We’ll fly all night and be home by morning.”

Daisy didn’t particularly enjoy sleeping on airplanes, but she reluctantly conceded that was probably better than staying in a hotel and trying to play it cool on what was, technically speaking anyway, their wedding night. So maybe, she decided as Jack busied himself switching on the radio, flying home tonight wasn’t such a bad idea after all…

Jack had booked them into first-class, so they had comfortable seats and plenty of legroom. Daisy was so exhausted she slept on both flights and so did he. When she was awake, she kept herself busy reading, as did he, which meant conversation was at a minimum, and suited Daisy just fine. However, once they landed in Charleston that changed. “How do you want to do this?” Jack asked as they strode through the airport terminal toward the baggage claim.

“Do what?” Daisy asked as she struggled to keep up with his longer strides.

Jack gave her a sidelong glance, and noticing she was struggling, shortened his steps to a slower pace. He took her camera bag and put it over his shoulder, gallantly relieving her of that weight, which left her with just her purse. “I promised Tom I would take you to see him as soon as you got back.”

That might have been Jack’s priority—it wasn’t hers. Especially given the way she still felt about her biological father. Sighing, Daisy consulted her watch. With the three-hour time difference, and the additional time they had spent in the DFW airport changing planes, it was nearly noon, eastern time. Daisy felt grimy and exhausted and nowhere up to another confrontation with Tom Deveraux. “I really want a shower,” Daisy said as they grabbed their luggage off the carousel and headed for the exit.

“Then we’ll go to my—our—place,” Jack said. “We can both get cleaned up and then call Tom and see where he wants to meet—the office or home.”

Daisy tried not to think how intimate “our place” sounded. Never mind how close and cozy their life ahead might be. Daisy studied Jack’s face, realizing she wasn’t about to get out of this meeting with her new husband’s “boss.” “I want to meet at Tom Deveraux’s office,” Daisy stated stubbornly. “It’ll be shorter, less personal, that way.”

Jack lifted a curious eyebrow. “I thought you wanted to get to know him, that’s what your search for your real parents was all about.”

Daisy’s heart hardened a little more as she followed Jack’s lead across the hot pavement to the short-term parking lot. “I probably would want to get to know them if they were strangers. But given the way both Iris and Tom abandoned me, and lied both to and about me, even and especially when both knew how very much I wanted to find my real parents and was looking for them, I really don’t have any interest.” Her feelings had been crushed enough already by the fact Iris hadn’t wanted her, and Tom Deveraux hadn’t even cared enough to find out if she was his child. But instead had been content to let Daisy grow up without so much as ever guessing at her and Tom’s connection. Never mind being as loved as his legitimate children, or made to feel a part of his family, or told she had four half siblings, who as it turned out, she had gotten to know and befriend anyway. Instead of making her feel wanted and loved for the first time in her life, Tom and Iris had left her feeling even more rejected and forsaken. Listening to their excuses, or worse—realizing neither of them felt they really owed her an apology—just made her feel worse. Which was why, of course, Daisy had run away. So she wouldn’t have to help Iris and Tom feel better while she was made to feel even worse than she already did.

His expression unsympathetic, Jack walked to the end of the row and stopped in front of a decade-old red sedan. The vehicle looked familiar to Daisy, with a few exceptions. The hood and door were now painted the same fire-engine red as the rest of the car. In fact, the whole vehicle looked as if it had had a paint job. The dent was gone from the fender. Even the upholstery had had a good cleaning.

Jack shrugged at her stunned look. “You’ve been driving my car, I’ve been driving yours,” he explained.

Daisy could see that. And even as she admired the way he had given as good as he got in assuming the use of her vehicle without her okay, she did not like his presumptuousness in messing with a good thing without her blessing. Daisy scowled at Jack. “I didn’t give you permission to fix it up.” She had liked her secondhand car the way it was. The vehicle’s noticeable disrepair had gotten under countless skins. It’s new spiffed-up appearance would not.

Jack merely quirked an eyebrow and looked at her without an ounce of regret. “You should have thought about that before you left it with me,” he said.

MAYBE IT WAS BECAUSE she had been raised in such a big, cold, forbidding house, but Daisy had always liked small, cozy places. Jack’s home on the beach, a mile or so down from Chase and Bridgett’s and Maggie and Gabe’s, was just what she would have ordered, if she could have afforded to buy a home for herself at that point. The one-story beach cottage was one hundred and fifty yards away from the ocean and built in typical Low Country fashion, with a high, deeply pitched roof and gabled front door. It was small—Daisy guessed no more than twelve hundred square feet, if that. But pretty and very well maintained. Obviously built before it became fashionable to have the parking area beneath the house, the building had dark-gray siding, snowy-white trim, shutters and door and a light-gray roof. Palmetto trees shaded the front of the house, which faced the street. Hedges of tall, neatly trimmed flowering bushes insured maximum privacy from the neighbors on either side, despite the relatively small lot sizes.

“Do you rent this or is it yours?” Daisy asked as they parked in the small gravel driveway and got out.

“It’s mine,” Jack declared with no small amount of pride as he unlocked the door and led the way in. “I’ll show you around and then go back and get the luggage.”

Curious to see how he lived, Daisy followed. The first thing she noticed was that there appeared to be nothing antique or exceedingly valuable in the home—the furnishings were all sturdy, attractive, department-store stock. There were miniblinds, not heavy velvet draperies, on the windows, and practical off-white ceramic tile on the floor.

To the left of the foyer was a living room with a white stone fireplace, to the right a masculinely appointed study complete with a large desk and leather chair, computer, printer, fax and copier, a wall of built-in bookshelves and several black-metal vertical files. The living room had a sectional sofa in the same slate-gray hue as the exterior of the house, an impressively outfitted entertainment center, upholstered reading chair and matching ottoman and not much else. Behind that was a surprisingly well-equipped kitchen and dining area at the rear of the house. A laundry room was located in the middle, just off the covered back porch. Farther down the hallway that ran the width of the home, was a single bathroom with a tub and shower combination, commode and sink all located in a very tiny space, and what appeared to be not just the master bedroom but the only bedroom, Daisy noted.

Daisy studied the king-size bed, with the brown, burgundy and taupe paisley sheets and coverlet. It looked comfortable and seemed to dominate the room. How comfortable it would be if the two of them were in it together, she did not know.

His hand just above her elbow, Jack directed her back to the hall. “The clean linens, towels and washcloths are in here. If you want to go first—” He tilted his head at the shower.

Daisy did.

“I’ll bring in your things.”

DAISY WASTED NO TIME getting into the shower, taking advantage of the time alone no doubt. Jack went to his study at the front of the house to the vertical files. He made sure they were locked then sat down to try to figure out what he was going to do with all the information locked inside. He couldn’t take it to the Deveraux-Heyward Shipping offices, his or Tom’s. There was too much of a chance of it being spotted by someone else. He didn’t want to leave it in a storage facility, where anyone could break in and or come across it and wonder just what the hell Jack had been doing the past ten years at Tom Deveraux’s behest. And he didn’t want to destroy the information, either. Some of it meant too much to him.

One thing was for certain, though, he didn’t want Daisy laying eyes on it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

GINGER ZARING WAS STARING at the balance in her bank account, wondering how she could magically conjure up the sum she needed, when her daughter, Alyssa, walked into the kitchen, a stack of mail in her hands. She set the envelopes on the counter then went straight to the refrigerator and pulled out a tube of chocolate chip cookie dough. Ignoring Ginger’s frown—Ginger preferred they eat their cookies baked—Alyssa chopped off a liberal chunk and set it on a plate.

“Anything interesting in the mail?” Ginger asked her daughter.

“Yeah.” Alyssa tugged off the butter-stained polo she had to wear for her movie-theater concessions job and, still clad in a black T-shirt and black cotton slacks, collapsed wearily onto one of the breakfast-bar stools. She paused to pop a chunk of dough into her mouth. “I got another reminder from Yale. The rest of my tuition is due in two weeks, and they want my room and board to be paid in full, too.”

Ginger nodded, as if it were no big deal, but inside, her heart was sinking. She had fully expected to have all the money she needed by now, to pay those bills. But she didn’t, and now, as the time approached for her only child to leave for college, the clock was ticking ominously.

Alyssa studied her mother, at eighteen seeing a lot more than Ginger cared to admit. “Maybe it’s not too late for me to go to USC with the rest of my friends,” Alyssa said quietly.

Ginger shook her head, vetoing that. Alyssa had opportunities here that most of her high-school graduating class could only dream about. “Honey, we’ve been through this. I told you if you got accepted to Yale, you’d go.” And Ginger had promised her daughter that, knowing full well that expenses for the year would exceed her thirty-five-thousand-dollar salary. But she’d been determined to provide for her only child, and provide she would.

“But…” Alyssa’s lower lip trembled; her hazel eyes suddenly filled with tears. “We don’t have the money yet. Do we?”

Ginger refused to make this her daughter’s problem—hadn’t she already hurt Alyssa enough by marrying and divorcing such a loser? She explained patiently, “I told you. I don’t want you worrying about this.”

“How can I not worry,” Alyssa demanded plaintively, “when we’re not poor enough to be eligible for any of the need-based scholarships or financial aid, and not rich enough to qualify for the private loans?”

Exactly the problem, Ginger thought. Fortunately for the two of them, where there was a will there was always a way. “Look, I know this is tricky, but I have arranged to get the funds for you.”

“From that private funding source,” Alyssa ascertained uneasily.

“Right,” Ginger said.

“And you’re sure the money has been guaranteed to us?”

“Absolutely.” Ginger smiled.

Alyssa continued to regard her mother suspiciously. “It’s not a loan shark or anything, is it?”

“No. Of course not,” Ginger said firmly. She might be willing to take a little risk, but not that much! “Just a wealthy friend of a friend with a philanthropic streak.”

“Then what’s taking so long?” Alyssa demanded petulantly.

Exactly what I’d like to know, Ginger thought, secretly feeling more than a little irked herself. She’d been working darn hard to hold up her end of that particular bargain for months now. But thus far, despite the generous promises made to her, she had actually garnered only nine thousand in cash from Alyssa and Ginger’s secret benefactor. Not that she was about to let him fail to pony up! Twice last week, he’d told Ginger he was going to bring her the balance of the money when they met. Twice, he had forgotten. Ginger wasn’t about to let him do so again.

“Maybe we could ask Daddy to help us,” Alyssa said hesitantly.

Ginger would have given anything if that were possible. But she knew she couldn’t count on Mack Zaring for anything, and the sad truth was she never had been able to. During the ten years they’d been married he had spent every dime they both brought in, and then some, leaving the three of them deeper and deeper in debt with every year that passed. The final straw, however, had come when Mack turned thirty and decided he hated his life. Telling Ginger privately that the mundaneness of their life together was suffocating him, he walked out on Ginger and eight-year-old Alyssa. Quit his job as an electrical engineer, moved to a shack in the Blue Ridge Mountains and began working on and off as a fishing guide. Since then, he’d been chronically late with child support payments, criminally unenthusiastic about their daughter’s many stellar achievements and completely unsupportive of Alyssa’s goals and ambitions for the future. Personally, Ginger didn’t care if she never saw Mack again, but for Alyssa’s sake, she knew she had to keep some connection going. It was important, Ginger knew, that Alyssa think her father loved her every bit as much as Mack should have loved her. “Honey, I’m sure he would help us if he could,” Ginger fibbed gently. “But your daddy doesn’t have that kind of money. You know that.”

Alyssa ducked her head, discouraged, and Ginger understood full well how dejected Alyssa felt. Her own parents’ lack of money and ingenuity had kept her from going to a great private university. No way was the same thing happening to her daughter. Alyssa, Ginger determined resolutely, was going to have the opportunities in life that Ginger had never had. Alyssa was going to get the Ivy League education, and the prestige and hefty salary that went along with a degree. Even if it meant Ginger had to forfeit her pride and keep moonlighting at her second “job” in addition to her work as an airlines reservation agent. Deciding it was best to simply change the subject to something more hopeful, Ginger asked, “Do you still have that list of things you’re going to need for your dorm room—like extra-long twin sheets—for your bed?”

Alyssa nodded. “It’s on my desk.”

“Well, why don’t you go get it?” Ginger suggested cheerfully. “And we’ll go to the outlet mall and get what you need as soon as I finish up here.”

Alyssa’s face broke out into a relieved smile, sure now that everything was going to be all right. “You mean that?” she asked excitedly.

“Absolutely.” Ginger hugged her daughter warmly. “Just give me a few minutes.”

As soon as Alyssa dashed upstairs to her room, Ginger picked up her cell phone. Knowing this was a good time of day to get him, she walked outside onto the patio, where she couldn’t be overheard, and grimly dialed the number she knew by heart. That man had made her a promise. And by God, whether he wanted to or not, he was going to keep it.