Читать книгу Heir to Murder - Elle James - Страница 10

Chapter 1

“Jackson?” A soft feminine voice called out through the doorway of the sixteen-stall stable at Adair Acres. The structure sat in the middle of one hundred and eighty acres of the most beautiful land Southern California had to offer. With sprawling citrus orchards, vineyards and pastures of alfalfa and the best horseflesh money could buy, it was an oasis of grace and beauty tucked in the gently rolling hills.

“Jackson?”

Noah Scott didn’t respond to the voice, refusing to acknowledge the name he’d been born with. He threw a blanket over the black stallion’s back and returned to the tack room for a saddle.

“There you are.” His half sister, Landry Adair, met him as he exited the tack room with a saddle in hand.

Standing five feet ten inches tall, she was almost as tall as he was. With her hair pulled back in a low ponytail, she looked more like a girl than the twenty-six-year-old daughter of the deceased billionaire, Reginald Adair. She smiled at him with her bright blue eyes so much like his own. “Rachel called. She’ll be here in a few minutes for her riding lesson.”

“Tell her I’m taking the day off.” He tossed the saddle over the stallion’s back with a little more force than usual.

Diablo danced sideways, his ears slanting backward.

“She’s driving all the way out here, expecting you to give her a riding lesson.”

Noah ran a hand along the horse’s neck, murmuring soothing sounds until the animal settled and let him reach beneath him to snag the girth. “Hell, you can give her the riding lesson.”

“She prefers having you as her instructor, Jackson.”

“Noah. My name is Noah.”

Landry nodded. “Noah. I have to admit I have a hard time thinking of you as Jackson.”

“Because that’s not who I am.” A couple days ago, Noah had known who he was and what he wanted to do: continue his import-and-export business on the side while working with his cousins at Adair Acres, where he could be around the horses and cattle he loved.

Now, he was reeling with the knowledge he wasn’t who he thought he was. His real name was Jackson Adair. The long-lost son of the man who’d owned the ranch he’d been working. The man he thought of as his uncle.

Jackson Adair. How would he ever get used to it? He’d spent the past thirty-seven years as Noah Scott. A man didn’t change his name overnight. Hell, his entire life. He didn’t bother facing Landry Adair, his half sister; instead, he focused his attention on the girth he cinched around the horse’s belly. Once the girth was tight enough, he let the stirrup drop in place on the stallion he’d adopted as his favorite since coming to work at Adair Acres three months ago.

Landry touched his arm. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He led Diablo out of the barn.

Before he could mount, Landry spoke again. “I’m here for you, if you need someone to talk to.” She smiled, hesitantly. “After all, we’re related. I’m your sister.”

“Half sister,” he corrected automatically, regretting it as soon as he noted the slight frown between her arched brows. Landry had always been nice to him and, though he had thought they were cousins, she’d been more like the little sister he’d never had growing up. Now that he knew it was true, it changed everything about their relationship.

But should it?

God, how could this happen to him? How could he have spent the past thirty-seven years of his life oblivious to the truth?

“If it makes you feel any better, none of us knew, either. We had some suspicions but that was pretty recent,” Landry said as if reading his thoughts. “Now that we do know, we’re glad you’re the missing Jackson we’d always heard about. We love you. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have as my oldest brother.” She emphasized brother, negating his attempt to make the distinction.

A knot formed in Noah’s throat. Landry accepted him as part of her family. He’d yet to get a real reaction from her brothers, Carson and Whit. They might not be as thrilled to have to share their inheritance with him. Maybe he was being paranoid.

Now that the truth had been revealed and the terms of Reginald’s will spelled out to him, he found it incredibly hard to believe he had a share in the ranch he’d come to work for.

Gathering the reins, he started to raise his foot to the stirrup, but a hand on his arm stopped him.

“I wish my father could have been here to know it was you all along,” Landry said softly. “He only had good things to say about you. He’d have been proud to call you his son.”

“Well, we’ll never know that now, and guessing what he might have said or felt is as empty as guessing what the weather was the day I was born.” He glanced down at her hand on his arm. “If you’ll excuse me, I want to check on a fence in the north pasture.”

Landry stepped back. “Of course. You need time to sort this all out. If you need to talk, you know where to find me.”

Noah swung up into the saddle, nudged his horse’s flanks and rode away from the Adair barn, all his motions from rote memory.

Thoughts and memories ricocheted through his mind as he gave the stallion his head. Soon they were racing across the fields, nothing but the sound of the horse’s hooves and the creak of saddle leather to interrupt the chaotic feelings rattling around inside his head.

He leaned forward, the wind in his hair, the breeze taking the heat out of the warm morning sun already bearing down on his back.

For the hundredth time since he’d learned of the results of the DNA test, he shook his head. It couldn’t be true. He wasn’t one of Reginald Adair’s children. The woman he knew as his mother wouldn’t have hidden him as a baby from his biological father and mother. Hell, Reginald was her brother. And Ruby, Reginald’s first wife, had been her sister-in-law.

All his life, Emmaline Adair Scott, the woman he’d called Mother, had sheltered him, kept him secluded from other children and other families. He’d assumed she’d done it to protect him because she loved him so much. Now...holy hell, she’d been hiding him from his real family. They’d never lived in any one place for very long. His mother had him in small private schools in France, or homeschooled him to keep anyone from suspecting he wasn’t her child.

If not for the summer his mother had taken ill and required major surgery, she’d have kept him from the rest of the Adair family. But she couldn’t care for him while she was laid up for several months. His grandparents had sent him to stay at his uncle’s ranch in California.

That summer, surrounded by the Adair siblings, was the first time he’d felt part of a family. Reginald Adair had been kind to him. For a few short weeks, he understood what it might have been like to have a father to look up to. A man who cared about him and wanted to teach him the things a father taught his sons.

Working with and hanging around Reginald’s children, whom he’d thought were his cousins, he’d finally gotten a feel for what it would be like to have siblings and be a member of a large family. Growing up as an only child, he’d always wished he had a brother to go fishing with or a sister to tease and protect.

He’d envied Reginald’s children, wanting what they had. Not the money or the lifestyle of the rich, but a big family, people he could count on to always be there for him.

If he really was Reginald Adair’s long-lost son, he had two half brothers and a half sister. The two boys and the girl, now grown, he’d come to respect and care for when he’d been there that summer so long ago.

If? His thoughts churned. The DNA test had been conclusive. There was no if about it. He was Reginald’s son.

In this day and age, how could someone get away with stealing a child and hiding him for all those years? Everything he knew about his life had been a lie. All the times he’d asked his mother about his father, she’d lied to him. She’d told him that his father died before she’d given birth. All the while his father and his mother had been alive and well, grieving the disappearance of their son.

That his fake mother was related to his father—and knew how devastated he’d been by the loss of his son—was impossible to fathom.

All those years, growing up isolated in France, he could have known the joy of having brothers and sisters, sitting at a table filled with family, laughing, joking and sharing each other’s lives.

All the years he could have spent with his family, getting to know and love them, were lost. Now that he knew who his real father was, the man was gone. Murdered before Noah had the chance to get to know him as a father.

As his horse galloped over acres and acres of grassland and rolling hills, all Noah could think was that he’d learned who his father was too late to get to spend time with the man. To get to know him.

Reginald Adair was dead. Shot to death in his office almost four months ago, and the authorities still hadn’t identified a suspect in the murder case.

Noah would never have the opportunity to know his father.

The stallion had the bit between his teeth and ran like the wind, pounding the hard-packed earth, never seeming to tire.

Noah let him run until they neared one of the streams running through Adair Acres, the one with the waterfall and the large pool, surrounded by evergreen trees and rocky ledges to stretch out on.

When Noah pulled back on the reins, Diablo pulled harder against him, increasing his speed instead of decreasing.

It became a battle of the wills between the man and the stallion.

Noah dug his feet into the stirrups and pulled back as hard as he could on the reins until the horse’s bottom jaw nearly touched his chest. Not until then did he finally slow, dancing sideways, whinnying, air huffing from his nostrils in angry puffs.

The big horse came to a jolting halt, reared up on his hind legs and pawed at the air.

“Whoa, Diablo,” Noah said soothingly. He feared some of his anger and disturbed feelings had rubbed off on the horse.

As the horse rose on his hind legs, Noah leaned forward, his feet in the stirrups.

Diablo dropped to the ground, landing hard, jolting Noah in the saddle. Then he kicked up his hind legs, arched his back and bucked, trying to unseat the man as he dragged hard on the reins.

“Whoa, fella.” Noah held his balance for the first eight seconds. When Diablo pulled a quick twist, however, Noah wasn’t ready and was sent flying through the air to land hard on his back, knocking the wind from his lungs.

Diablo reared again and took off like a crazed animal, running hell-bent for leather back to the barn.

When Noah could breathe again, he pushed to his feet and dusted off his jeans. “Damned horse.”

Since it was a good thirty-minute hike from the barn, Noah debated starting back. One glance around at where he was and he changed his mind. The one place in the world that calmed his soul was this spot on the Adair ranch.

The creek, filled with crystal-clear water, ran between the rolling hills, cutting through rocky crevices and long, flat pastures. And if he followed its path upstream, he’d find the waterfall and the naturally formed pool where he and his cousins—siblings—used to swim. With the air warming nicely, swimming was a distinct possibility, and it would delay his return to the ranch house, where he’d have to face up to his new role in the Adair family.

And what that role was, he had no idea.

Pushing all thoughts of his new status among Reginald Adair’s offspring, he hiked upstream to the pool, kicked off his boots, pulled his shirt over his head and shucked his jeans. Without giving much thought to how cold the water might be, he dove in.

As soon as he hit the surface, the cool water shocked him out of his musings and reminded him he was alive and the pool was all his to enjoy without interruption. The media wouldn’t swarm him and his family wouldn’t be following him around to see what he would do next like some trick pony in a sideshow.

It was just him, the chill water and sound of the cicadas chirping. He swam the length of the pool and back several times until his body warmed despite the coolness of the water. The sun found its way through the trees overhanging the rocky shoreline, speckling the water and making it shine like diamonds.

Noah wished he could stay out there, away from everything. Away from having to make decisions about what he was now going to do with his life. Before the DNA test, he’d been content to work on the ranch as a ranch hand and operate his import-and-export business out of the guesthouse on Adair Acres.

Knowing he had a controlling interest in the property, he wondered if he would be expected to do something other than work the ranch. He had never fit in with the corporate world and he didn’t want to live in a city.

Hell, he had everything he’d ever wanted in life. Why did it have to cause him so much heartache and introspection? He wished he had someone to talk to, someone who wasn’t a member of the Adair family. An unbiased individual he could bounce his thoughts off of without worrying whether he was encroaching on their territory or stealing their inheritance.

An image of Rachel Blackstone appeared in his thoughts. The pretty socialite with wavy dark brown hair that kissed her shoulders and a slim body with all the right curves sprang to mind. He’d spent weeks teaching her how to ride, always maintaining his distance, regarding himself as her social inferior. She was a member of San Diego’s social elite. A child of the privileged class. He had been the ranch hand, the poor cousin to the megarich Adairs.

Rachel had never made him feel inferior. She’d always talked to him as an equal, asking questions about his life as if she really cared.

For a few brief moments, he’d considered asking her out on a date. When he gave himself enough time to think it through, he realized it was ridiculous to think he could mingle in the same social sphere. He didn’t attend charity balls. He’d eaten out at nice restaurants, but not as nice as the ones she’d be used to. What did he have to offer as a ranch hand, making a living teaching rich girls how to ride horses and running his small business as a sideline?

Now that he was one of the Adairs, would she see him differently? He was still the same person inside even if his name had changed.

Noah struck out again across the pool, swimming hard, hoping if he wore himself out, he would be too tired to think so much.

Head down, concentrating only on the next stroke, he was startled by a voice calling out his name.

“Noah!”

He stopped in the middle of the pool and glanced up at a rocky ledge.

As if conjured by his thoughts, Rachel Blackstone sat on the smooth boulder, her slim, jean-clad legs dangling over the edge.

Suddenly conscious of his state of undress, Noah sank low in the water. “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough to admire a very handsome naked bottom gliding through clear water.” She winked.

Heat rose up his neck and into his cheeks as he treaded water, sure to keep the lower part of his body well beneath the surface. “Sorry. I didn’t expect company.”

She laughed, the sound joyful and as pure as the air. “I’m not sorry. I was enjoying the view.”

“If you’d just turn your back, I’ll get dressed and we can be less awkward.”

She raised her brows. “I don’t feel the least awkward.” When he remained where he was in the water without responding, she pouted. “Modesty is way overrated.” Then she turned her back. “I promise not to look.”

Noah swam over to the shore and emerged on the bank next to the pile of his clothing. Still dripping, he tugged his jeans over his wet thighs. When he had them on, he collected his boots, shirt and belt and climbed onto the boulder where Rachel sat with her back to him. Her dark hair swung across the top of her shoulders and down her back as she flexed her shoulders and tipped her face toward the sun. “About done?” she called out.

This wasn’t the first time they’d been to the pool together, but this was the first time she’d seen him without his clothes on and it had every blood cell in his body humming swiftly through his veins. He wanted to touch her but held back. She was far too beautiful and tempting. Rather than touch her with his hands, he leaned over her shoulder and whispered against her ear, “Close enough.”

* * *

Noah’s breath stirred tendrils of Rachel’s hair along the side of her neck. She spun around on her bottom, discovering that she was within easy reach of his broad and very naked chest. Droplets of water gleamed in the sunlight, daring her to capture them with her tongue.

Rachel licked her lips and dragged her gaze from his chest to his eyes. “Do you swim naked in the pool very often?”

“When it’s warm and I’m alone.”

“Ever considered swimming here with a woman?”

He shook his head. “No, but now that you mention it...” As he tipped his head toward the water, his lips tilted upward on the corners. “Care to?”

When he looked at her like that, with that sexy gleam in his eyes and a teasing half smile, she was tempted to throw off her clothes and drag him back into the water.

“Uh, not now.” As soon as she’d said the words, regret settled in. For the past few weeks, she’d had him teaching her how to ride horses, though she was an accomplished rider and had been riding since she was a small child. But he didn’t know that. And it had been at Landry’s request.

Landry had been her best friend since they’d attended private school in San Diego. When Landry had asked Rachel to keep an eye on Noah, Rachel hadn’t seen it as much of a hardship. The man was so darned sexy she was surprised a dozen women weren’t standing in line for riding lessons with him.

Noah shook out his T-shirt and raised it above his head.

Rachel captured his arm with her fingers. “Don’t put that on because of me. You aren’t offending my sensibilities...and...and you need to let your skin dry more.” Mostly, she wanted to stare at his muscular body while she had an excuse.

“In that case, I won’t.” He tossed the shirt to the side and stretched out on his back beside her, lacing his hands behind his head. “What brings you out this far?”

“I had a date for riding lessons.”

He shook his head. “You don’t need riding lessons.”

“I don’t?”

Again he shook his head. “Let me guess, you’ve been riding since you were a small child, right?” His gaze rolled her way, his brows rising in challenge.

Rachel chewed on her bottom lip before finally nodding. “Yeah. I got my first pony when I was four.”

Noah snorted. “Figures. I find it harder and harder to know when someone is telling me the truth or a lie.” His lips thinned and he stared up at the sky.

“Hey. You’re far too cynical for one so young.”

“I’m not young. I’m thirty-seven years old and the person I trusted most has been lying to me for all thirty-seven years. What’s one more person lying to me?”

Her heart squeezing tight in her chest, Rachel didn’t refute his statement. The guilt weighed heavily. Instead, she lay on her back beside him and stared up at the leaves hanging over her, the sun sneaking through the gaps.

“If you didn’t come for the riding lesson, did you come out to stare at the long-lost son of Reginald Adair?”

“No, I came to see how you were doing.” That was true. But only half of the truth. She’d come to tell him that she’d been spying on him for the past several weeks as a favor to Landry. Surely he’d understand how careful the Adairs had to be. The family was rich. Noah could have been a scamming relative looking for a way to make off with some of the Adair fortune.

Since the DNA test, conjecture had been settled. Noah Scott was in fact Jackson Adair and justified in any claim on Reginald Adair’s legacy.

For the past month, Rachel had spent more time at Adair Acres than in San Diego where she was heavily involved in philanthropy, raising money for those in need. She’d put much of her work on hold in order to help Landry and her brothers spy on Noah.

She had to admit, it was much more interesting staying at Adair Acres than at her home, which had become just a big empty space since the deaths of her parents when she was a little girl.

Her chest knotted. Now that she didn’t need to spy on Noah, she didn’t have an excuse to stay. She’d miss having the Adair family around her, and her afternoons of riding lessons with Noah.

Her purpose for coming to Adair Acres that day was to confess her part in Landry’s plan to find out as much as she could about the man they suspected might be the missing Jackson Adair. She steeled her nerves and opened her mouth.

“Less than a week ago, I knew who I was,” Noah said. “I knew who I wanted to be and what to do with my life. I trusted the people I thought were family and the people I was working for. Now, I don’t know who to trust and who I am.”

His words froze what Rachel was going to say on her tongue.

“Apparently, some of them knew before the DNA test that I might be Jackson or they wouldn’t have asked me to take that darned test. Why didn’t they speak up then? Why all the secrecy?” Noah turned his head to the side to face her and held out his hand. “You’re not part of the Adair family. Tell me...” He paused before continuing. “Who can I trust besides you? Right at this moment, I think you are the only person I know who hasn’t lied to me.”

Wave after wave of guilt washed over her as she took Noah’s hand and squeezed it. “Noah, I...” She swallowed hard to clear her throat of the knot forming there so that she could say the words she knew she should. Words that would reveal her for the liar she was and dash his hopes of having someone unbiased to confide in.

Before she could say anything, he rolled over and planted his hands on the boulder on either side of her arms. “When I was growing up, I wished I had a big family, siblings to play with, to love and to share my life and theirs. One simple DNA test and poof! I have it all. But in my head, I’m still the poor cousin working for the rich Adairs. This life, the fancy cars, the social scene, flying around the world at a moment’s notice... It’s not who I am. I don’t belong here. I feel like I need to leave and start over somewhere else.”

Rachel sat up, bringing him with her. “Noah, no. You are a member of the Adair family. You have just as much of a right to be here as they do. It’s not your fault someone stole you from your parents.” It broke her heart to see the man torn by his desire to stay where he finally had a home and family, and leaving because he didn’t fit in. “Things will work out.”

“Whit and Carson can’t be happy about me.”

“Landry is thrilled. She knew how much it meant to her father to find you.” Rachel lifted both his hands in hers and held them between hers. “You just have to give Whit and Carson time to get used to having you around permanently. They already know you—it’s just a matter of accepting you as their brother.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t come here to cause the Adairs trouble and heartache.”

“You can’t leave now. They lost their father and Patsy, their mother, is going to jail. Landry and her brothers may not know it, but they need you as much as you need them.”

Noah shook his head. “Why would they need me?”

“Because you were the missing link to their father’s past. The reason he had such a hard time accepting them. You have to stay and let them get to know you and you them.”

Noah’s fingers closed around hers and he stared into her eyes. “Okay. I’ll stay. But not for them, but because you asked me.” He smiled and leaned forward, pressing his lips to her forehead. “Thanks.”

His mouth was soft, his gesture gentle. It could have been the kiss of a brother to a sister, but Rachel didn’t have sisterly feelings toward this man.

Over the past few weeks of riding lessons, she’d fallen deeper and deeper under his spell. He wasn’t like any of the men she’d dated. He was patient, caring and considerate of her feelings. The man didn’t have a shallow bone in his body and he didn’t give a damn about who could best influence his career or portfolio.

Though Noah thought he didn’t know who he was, Rachel knew exactly who he was: a real man who could be taken at face value and who would love his family dearly.

When he bent to kiss the tip of her nose, she tipped her head back. His lips missed their target, capturing her mouth in a soft brush of a kiss. Before he could pull away, she wrapped her hands around the back of his neck and pulled him closer, opening her mouth to him. It was up to him to make the next move.