Читать книгу Marrying a Delacourt - Sherryl Woods - Страница 7

If Michael Delacourt had had any idea that this latest harangue about his health was going to bring the bane of his existence, Grace Foster, back into his life, he would have tuned Tyler out. Instead, he let his brother drone on and on, then fell right straight into the trap.

“You’re a heart attack waiting to happen,” Tyler Delacourt began as he had at least once a week like clockwork. He made the claim with brotherly concern, usually from the comfortable vantage point of the sofa in Michael’s office on the executive floor at Delacourt Oil. He was slugging down black coffee and doughnuts as he spoke, unaware of the irony in his comments. “You have to learn how to slow down—before it’s too late.”

Too late? Hogwash! Michael was getting sick of hearing it, especially from a man who shunned exercise unless it was related to bringing in a new gusher. Worse, Tyler’s consumption of cholesterol showed a total disregard for its potential effects on his heart.

Besides, Michael thought irritably, he wasn’t even in his thirties yet. Okay, he was close, weeks away, in fact. Still, by all accounts this was the prime of his life. Just as he was doing this morning, he did thirty grueling minutes every day on the treadmill he kept in his office. Hell, he was in better shape now than he’d been in when he’d played college sports. Could Tyler say the same?

“I’d like to see you set the pace I do on this treadmill,” he countered as sweat poured down his chest and his muscles burned from the exertion.

But even as he dismissed his brother’s concern, Michael was forced to admit that he exercised the way he did everything else—as if driven. His bewildered mother used to say he’d come out of the womb three weeks early, and he’d been in a hurry ever since. It was a trait that definitely set him apart from his laid-back brothers—Dylan, Jeb and, especially, Tyler. Michael was not prone to a lot of introspection, but he could hardly deny that his type-A personality affected all aspects of his life, personal as well as professional.

To top it off, he had no social life to speak of, unless his command attendance at various benefits and dinner parties counted. He was as wary of females as a man could get. The minute a woman started making possessive little remarks, he beat a hasty retreat. Maybe someday, when he had some spare time, he’d sit down and try to figure out why. In the meantime, he simply accepted the fact that there was no room in his life for a woman who’d have to take second place to his career at Delacourt Oil.

Of the four Delacourt brothers, he was the only one who really gave a damn about the family business. He had his father’s instincts for it. He had the drive and ambition to take the company to new heights, but Bryce Delacourt was fiercely determined that the company he’d launched would be divided equally among his offspring. He grumbled unrelentingly about how ungrateful they were for not seeing that, never noticing that Michael was grateful enough for all of them.

Still, Delacourt Oil was his father’s baby, which he could split up any way he wanted to. It wasn’t that Michael was unwilling to share with his siblings. It was just that he wanted to be the one on top, the one in charge, and he would run himself into the ground if necessary trying to prove that he was worthy of the position. None of the others understood that kind of single-minded determination. Even now, Tyler was shaking his head, disapproval written all over his face.

“That’s just it. You exercise all out, as if you’re trying to conquer Mount Everest, the same way you do everything,” Tyler chided, refusing to let the subject drop. “You keep that blasted phone in your hand the whole time, too, so you’re not wasting time.”

“It’s efficient,” Michael said, defending himself for perhaps the thousandth time. He tossed his portable phone on the sofa next to Tyler to prove he could give it up any time he wanted to.

“It’s crazy,” Tyler contradicted. “Face it, you’re a compulsive overachiever. Always have been. When was the last time you took a day off? When was the last time you took an actual vacation?”

“To do what?” Michael asked, perplexed.

“Go to the beach house with the rest of us, for instance. We haven’t had a decent bachelor weekend in a couple of years now.”

“Dylan and Jeb are married. I doubt their wives would approve of the sort of weekends we used to have over there,” Michael said wryly.

Tyler grinned. “Probably not. Okay, so the wild bachelor days are over for poor Dylan and poor Jeb. That doesn’t mean you and I can’t spend a few days catching rays and chasing women. How about it? A week of sun and fun.”

Michael was tempted. Then he thought of his jam-packed schedule. “I don’t think so. Not any time soon, anyway. My calendar’s booked solid.”

“You are turning into a pitiful stick in the mud,” his brother declared sorrowfully. “If you won’t do that, how about going over to Los Piños for a few days to visit Trish and Dylan and their families? Spend a little quality time with our niece and nephew. Trish was saying just the other day that a visit is long overdue.”

Guilt nagged at Michael for about ten seconds. “Yeah, well, I’ve been meaning to get over there, but you know how it is,” he hedged.

“I know exactly how it is. Your niece is going on three years old and you haven’t seen her since she was baptized when she was a month old. When Dylan and Kelsey got married, you barely stuck your head in the church over there long enough to hear their I do’s before you took off for some can’t-miss conference.”

“I was speaking at an OPEC meeting. Are you saying I should have turned down that chance?”

Tyler waved off the defense. “I’ll give you that one. But if it hadn’t been OPEC, it would have been something else. What exactly are you afraid will happen if you take some time off? Do you think the rest of us are going to steal the company out from under you?”

He peered at Michael intently. “You do realize what a joke that is, don’t you? Trish wants no part of the business. She’s happy as a clam running her bookstore and devoting her spare time to her husband and daughter. Dylan is perfectly content playing Dick Tracy across the state. Jeb is doing in-house security and wallowing in family life.”

“That still leaves you,” Michael pointed out, aware that he was grasping at straws.

Tyler laughed. “You know perfectly well that I’m trying my best to convince Dad to let me stay out in the field, exploring for oil. I’m heading back out onto one of our rigs in the Gulf of Mexico in another couple of weeks. I miss it. I miss Baton Rouge.”

Michael studied him. “Who’s in Baton Rouge, little brother?”

“I didn’t say anything about a person. I mentioned an oil rig and a city.”

“But I know you. There has to be a woman involved.”

Tyler scowled. “We were talking about me competing for your job. It’s not going to happen, Michael. Not only do I love what I do, it keeps me out from under Dad’s thumb. Face it, none of your siblings wants a desk job here, thank you very much. It’s all yours, big brother. There is no competition. This office in the executive suite is yours for life—if you want it.”

Michael inwardly admitted that everything Tyler had just said was true. But that knowledge didn’t keep him from working compulsively. “I love what I do, so shoot me,” he muttered.

“You need a life,” Tyler retorted. “You might think it’s enough to be at the top of the list of Houston’s most eligible bachelors, but you’re going to look mighty funny if you’re still there when you hit ninety.”

“Why worry about my social life? A minute ago you claimed I’m destined to die of a heart attack before I turn forty. If that’s the case, there’s no point in leaving behind a wealthy widow.”

Tyler waved off the attempt to divert him. “You’re missing my point.”

“Which is?”

“You need some balance in your life, Michael. Believe it or not, I actually recall a time when you were fun to be around, when you talked about something besides mergers and the price of crude oil.”

Michael uttered a resigned sigh. Clearly, his brother was on a mission. Tyler was usually a live-and-let-live kind of a guy, but periodically he turned into a nag. This kind of persistence could only mean that he’d been put up to it by the rest of the family. The one way to shut him up was to make a few well-intentioned promises.

“Okay, okay, I’ll try to get a break in my schedule,” Michael promised.

Tyler looked skeptical. “Not good enough. When?”

“Soon.”

He shook his head, obviously not pacified by such a vague response. “Trish says her guest room is ready now,” he said. “You can see your niece. You can see Dylan and his family. I’ll even ride over with you on the company jet. We’ll have ourselves an old-fashioned reunion.”

Michael wasn’t fooled for a minute. Tyler wasn’t going on this proposed jaunt out of any great desire to hold a family barbecue. He’d been assigned to deliver his big brother into the protective arms of their baby sister.

Michael shuddered at the memory of the last time they’d all ganged up on him like this. He’d wound up in a deserted cabin in the woods for a solid week with no car and no phone. Instead of relaxing him, the forced solitude had almost driven him up a wall. He hadn’t been able to convince his siblings that they hadn’t done him any favors. A two-day visit with Trish’s family would be heaven by comparison. He was smart enough to accept it while he still had a choice in the matter. His family wasn’t above kidnapping him, and he doubted a court in the land would convict them for it once they made a convincing case that they’d done it for his own good.

“Set it up,” he said, resigned to the inevitable. “Just let me know the details.”

“We’re leaving in fifteen minutes,” Tyler announced, his expression instantly triumphant.

“But I can’t—”

“Of course, you can,” Tyler said, cutting off the protest. “Hop in the shower, get into your clothes and let’s go. I have your suitcase at the airport and the pilot’s on standby. Your secretary’s canceled all your appointments for the next week.”

“A week?” Michael protested. “I agreed to a couple of days.”

“Your secretary must have misunderstood me,” Tyler said with no evidence of remorse. “You know how she is.”

“She’s incredibly efficient, and I thought she was loyal to me.”

“She is. That’s why she wiped the slate clean for the next week. So you’ll be able to take a long overdue break. You’re free and clear, bro.”

Michael frowned at Tyler. “Awfully damned sure of yourself, weren’t you?”

“What can I say? I’m a born negotiator. It runs in the family. Now, hop to it.”

Not until twenty-four hours later did Michael realize the full extent of his brother’s treachery, when he found himself shut away on Trish’s ranch, abandoned by his sister, her husband and the very niece he’d supposedly come to see.

Tyler had long since departed, claiming urgent business elsewhere. Probably a woman. That one he’d denied existed over in Baton Rouge. With Ty, it was always about a woman.

At any rate, one minute Michael had been sitting at Trish’s kitchen table surrounded by family, the next he’d been all alone and cursing the fact that he hadn’t been an only child.

“It’s Hardy’s family,” Trish had explained apologetically as she sashayed past him with little more than a perfunctory kiss on his cheek. “An emergency. We absolutely have to go. We shouldn’t be gone more than a day or two.”

Since the phone hadn’t rung, he had to assume this crisis had occurred before his arrival. Naturally no one had thought for a second to simply call him and tell him to stay home.

“I hate doing this to you,” his sister claimed, though she looked suspiciously cheerful. “The cattle shouldn’t be any problem. Hardy’s got that covered. You don’t mind staying here and keeping an eye on the horses, though, do you? Somebody will be by to see that they’re fed and let out into the corral, but you might want to exercise them.”

Already reeling, at that point Michael had stared at his baby sister as if she’d lost her mind. “Trish, unless it has four wheels, I don’t ride it.”

“Of course you do.”

“I was on a pony once when I was six. I fell off. All advice to the contrary, I did not get back on.”

“Well, you’re a Texan, aren’t you? You’ll get the knack of it while you’re here,” she’d said blithely. “We’ll get back as soon as we can. Whatever you do, don’t leave. I won’t have your vacation ruined because of us. This is a great place to relax. Lots of peace and quiet. Make yourself right at home, okay? Love you.”

And then she was gone. Michael felt as if he’d been caught up in a tornado and dropped down again, dazed and totally lost. He knew he should have protested, told his sister that he’d be on his way first thing in the morning, but she already had one foot out the door when she asked him to stick around. She made this sudden trip sound like a blasted emergency. She made it seem as if his staying here was bailing her out of a terrible jam, so what was he supposed to say?

Not until Trish, Hardy and little Laura had vanished did he recall that Hardy didn’t have any family to speak of, none that he was in touch with anyway. With an able assist from Tyler, the whole lot of them had plotted against him again.

Okay, he thought, Tyler might be gone, Trish and her family had abandoned him, but there was still Dylan. Michael comforted himself with that. This time at least he wouldn’t be out in the middle of nowhere without a familiar face in sight. And they’d left him with a working phone. He picked it up, listened suspiciously just in case they’d had the darn thing disconnected, then breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of the dial tone. He punched in his older brother’s number.

But Dylan—surprise, surprise—was nowhere to be found.

“Off on a case,” his wife said cheerfully. “Stop by while you’re here, though. Bobby and I would love to see you. And if you need any help at the ranch, give me a call. My medical skills may be pretty much limited to kids, but I can rally a few of the Adamses who actually know a thing or two about horses and cattle. They’ll be happy to come over to help out.”

Wasn’t that just gosh-darn neighborly, Michael thought sourly as he sat on the porch in the gathering dusk and stared out at the field of wildflowers that Trish gushed about all the time. Frankly, he didn’t get the fascination. They didn’t do anything. Maybe after a couple of glasses of wine, he’d be more appreciative.

He was on his way inside in search of a decent cabernet and livelier entertainment, when he heard the distant cry. It sounded like someone in pain and it was coming from the barn, which should have been occupied by nothing more than a few of those horses Trish was so blasted worried about. Not that he was an expert, but no horse he’d ever heard sounded quite so human.

Adrenaline pumping, Michael eased around the house and slid through the shadows toward the small, neat barn. He could hear what sounded like muffled crying and a frantic exchange of whispers.

Thankful for his brother-in-law’s skill in constructing the barn, he slid the door open in one smooth, silent glide and hit the lights, exposing two small, towheaded boys huddled in a corner, one of them holding a gashed hand to his chest, his face streaked with tears. Michael stared at them with astonishment and the unsettling sense that the day’s bad luck was just about to take a spin for the worse.

“We ain’t done anything, mister,” the older boy said, facing him defiantly. Wearing a ragged T-shirt, frayed jeans and filthy sneakers, he stood protectively in front of the smaller, injured boy. The littler one gave Michael a hesitant smile, which faded when confronted by Michael’s unrelenting scowl.

Michael’s gaze narrowed. “What are you doing here?”

“We just wanted someplace to sleep for the night,” the little one said, moving up to stand side by side with his companion whose belligerent expression now matched Michael’s. His fierce loyalty reminded Michael of the four Delacourt brothers, whose one-for-all-and-all-for-one attitudes had gotten them into and out of a lot of sticky situations when they’d been about the same ages as these two.

“Come over here closer to the light and let me see your hand,” he said to the smaller child, preferring to deal with the immediacy of an injury to the rest of the situation.

“It ain’t nothing,” the bigger boy said, holding him back.

“If it’s bleeding, it’s something,” Michael replied. “Do you want it getting infected so bad, the doctors will have to cut off his arm?”

He figured the image of such an exaggeratedly gory fate would cut straight through their reluctance, but he’d figured wrong.

“We can fix it ourselves,” the boy insisted stubbornly. “We found the first aid kit. I’ve already dumped lots and lots of peroxide over it.”

“It hurt real bad, too,” the little one said.

The comment earned him a frown, rather than praise for his bravery. “If he’d just hold still, I’d have it bandaged by now,” the older boy grumbled.

“You two used to taking care of yourselves?” Michael asked, getting the uneasy sense that they’d frequently been through this routine of standing solidly together in defiance of adult authority.

The smaller boy nodded, even as the older one said a very firm, “No.”

Michael bit back a smile at the contradictory responses. “Which is it?”

“Look, mister, if you don’t want us here, we’ll go,” the taller boy said, edging toward the door while keeping a safe distance between himself and Michael.

“What’s your name?”

“I ain’t supposed to tell that to strangers.”

“Well, seeing how you’re on my property,” he began, stretching the truth ever-so-slightly in the interest of saving time on unnecessary explanations about his own presence here. “I think I have a right to know who you are.”

The boys exchanged a look before the older one finally gave a subtle nod.

“I’m Josh,” the little one said. “He’s Jamie.”

“You two brothers?” Michael asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you have a last name, Josh and Jamie?”

“Of course, we do,” Jamie said impatiently. “But we ain’t telling.”

Michael let that pass for the moment. “Live around here?”

Again, he got two contradictory answers. He sighed. “Which is it?”

“We’re visiting,” the little one said, as Jamie nodded. “Yeah, that’s it. We’re visiting.”

Michael was an expert in sizing up people, reading their expressions. He wasn’t buying that line of bull for a second. These two were runaways. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind about that. Hadn’t they just said they’d been looking for a place to spend the night? He decided to see how far they were willing to carry the fib.

“Won’t the folks you’re visiting be worried about you?” he asked. “Maybe we should call them.”

“We’re not sure of the number,” Jamie said hurriedly, his expression worried.

“Tell me the name, then. I’ll look it up.”

“We can’t,” Jamie said. “They’ll be real mad, when they find out we’re gone. We weren’t supposed to leave their place. They told us and told us not to go exploring, didn’t they, Josh?”

“Uh-huh.” Josh peered at Michael hopefully. “You don’t want us to get in trouble, do you?”

Michael faced them with a stern, forbidding expression that worked nicely on the employees at Delacourt Oil. “No, what I want is the truth.”

“That is the truth,” Jamie vowed, sketching a cross over his heart and clearly not one bit intimidated.

“Honest,” Josh said.

Michael feared he hadn’t heard an honest, truthful word since these two had first opened their mouths. But if they wouldn’t give him a straight answer, what was he supposed to do about it? He couldn’t very well leave them in the barn. He couldn’t send them packing, as desperately as he wanted to. They were just boys, no more than thirteen and nine, most likely. Somebody, somewhere, had to be worried sick about them. Maybe he could loosen their tongues with a bribe of food.

“You hungry?” he asked.

Josh’s eyes lit up. His head bobbed up and down eagerly.

“I suppose we could eat,” Jamie said, clearly trying hard not to show too much enthusiasm.

“Come on inside, then. Once you’ve eaten, we’ll figure out where to go from there.”

In Trish’s state-of-the-art, spotless kitchen, they turned around in circles, wide-eyed with amazement.

“This is so cool,” Jamie pronounced, his sullen defiance slipping away. “Like in a magazine or something.”

“There’s even a cookie jar,” Josh announced excitedly. “A really big one. You suppose there are any cookies?”

“We’ll check it out after you’ve eaten a sandwich,” Michael said. He poured them both huge glasses of milk and made them thick ham and cheese sandwiches, which they fell on eagerly, either in anticipation of home-baked cookies or because they were half-starved.

Watching the boys while they devoured the food, Michael realized he needed advice and he needed it now. He needed an expert, somebody who understood kids, somebody who knew the law. Even as that realization struck him, he had a sudden inspiration. He knew the perfect person to get them all out of this jam. He walked into the living room, grabbed his portable phone and punched in a once-familiar number.

Grace Foster answered on the first ring, just as she always did. Grace was brisk and efficient. Best of all, she didn’t play games. If she was home, why act as if she had better things to do than talk? He’d liked that about her once. Heck, he’d liked a whole lot more than that about her, but that was another time, another place, eons ago.

Now about all he could say was that he respected her as a lawyer, even if she did make his life a living hell from time to time.

“What do you want?” she asked the instant she recognized his voice.

“Nice to speak to you, too,” he countered.

“Michael, you never call unless there’s a problem. Since we don’t have any court dates coming up, just spit it out. It’s Friday night. I’m busy.”

“Whatever it is can wait,” he retorted, troubled more than he liked by the image of Grace being in the midst of a hot date, one that might last all weekend long. He preferred to think that she led a nice, quiet, solitary—maidenly—existence.

Although he’d intended only to ask for advice, instead he said, “I need you to get on a plane and get over to Los Piños tonight.”

He said it with absolute confidence that she wouldn’t refuse, not in the long run. She might grumble a little, but once she understood the stakes, she wouldn’t turn him down. He wondered just how little he could get away with revealing. Maybe just the lure of sparring with him would be enough. His ego certainly wanted to believe that.

“Excuse me? Why would I want to do that?” she asked. “It’s not like your every wish has been my command, not for a long time now.”

She employed that huffy little tone that always turned him on although she intended the exact opposite. He could envision her sitting up a little straighter, squaring her shoulders. She had no idea that her efforts to look rigid and unyielding only thrust out her breasts and made her more desirable than ever. He bit back a desire to chuckle at the mental image. Grace was a real piece of work, all right. She might be pint-sized and fragile-looking, but she had the soul and spirit of a warrior. It was a trait he suspected was going to come in handy.

“You’ll come because you know I wouldn’t ask unless it was important,” he told her patiently. Then he dangled an impossible-to-resist temptation. “And you can hold it over my head for the rest of our lives, okay?”

“Now that is an intriguing idea,” she said with considerably more enthusiasm. “Care to fill me in?”

What a breeze, he thought triumphantly. Even easier than he’d anticipated. He hadn’t even had to pull out the big guns and tell her about the kids.

“I’ll fill you in when you get here. Can you be at the airport in an hour? I’ll have the Delacourt jet fueled up and ready. The pilot can see to it that you find me once you land over here.”

“Michael, really, there has to be someone else you could call, someone closer.”

“There isn’t,” he assured her.

“But I have plans. I’ve had them for ages. I hate to cancel.”

Damn, she was still trying to wriggle off the hook. “No,” he said firmly. “It has to be you. This is right up your alley.” He sighed heavily, then added as if it were costing him a great deal to say, “I need you, Grace.”

“Hah! As if I believe that for a minute. You’re overselling, Michael.”

“Trust me. You’re the only one for this job.”

This time she was the one who sighed heavily. “Okay, okay. When you start laying it on this thick, my curiosity kicks in. But I have to finish up what I’m doing here. Make it ninety minutes,” she said. “And, Michael, this is going to cost you. Big time.”

“I never doubted it for a second,” he said.

Only after he’d hung up did he stop to wonder why he’d instinctively turned to Grace, rather than his sister-in-law or one of the Adamses right here in town. He told himself it was because this situation all but cried out for a woman to deal with the two runaways, but he hadn’t gotten where he was in life by deluding himself. His sister-in-law was not only obviously female, but a doctor, as well.

No, he had called Grace Foster, because as much of a pain in the butt as she was to him personally, she was the smartest lawyer he knew. If these boys were in some kind of trouble, he couldn’t think of a better ally than Grace.

But it was even more than that, he admitted candidly. A part of him liked wrangling with Ms. Grace Foster more than just about anything except watching a new million-dollar gusher spewing crude into the Texas sky.