The Tycoon's Secret Child
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Maureen Child
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10
One
Wesley Jackson sat in his corporate office in Houston, riding herd on the department heads attending the meeting he’d called. It had been a long two hours, and he was about done. Thankfully, things were winding down now and he could get out of the city. He didn’t mind coming into town once in a while, but he always seemed to breathe deeper and easier back home in Royal.
Didn’t appear to matter how successful he became, he’d always be a small-town guy at the heart of it. Just as, he thought with an inner smile as he set one booted foot on his knee, you couldn’t take Texas out of the businessman.
“Am I keeping you from something important?” Wes asked suddenly when he noticed Mike Stein, the youngest man on his PR team, staring out a window from the other side of his wide mahogany desk.
Mike flinched. He was energetic, usually eager, but a little distracted today. Not hard to understand, Wes thought, considering it was January 2 and everyone in the office was probably nursing the dregs of a hangover from various New Year’s parties. And Wes could cut the kid a small break, but that was done now.
“What?” Mike blurted. “No, absolutely not. Sorry.”
Tony Danvers snorted, then hid the sound behind a cough.
Wes’s gaze slid to him, then to the woman sitting on the other side of him. Mike was new, but talented and driven. Tony knew his way around the company blindfolded, and Donna Higgs had her finger on the pulse of every department in the building. The three of them exemplified exactly what he expected from his employees. Dedication. Determination. Results.
Since everything else he’d wanted discussed had been covered in the last two hours, Wes finally brought up the most important item on his agenda.
“The Just Like Me line,” he said, flicking a glance at Tony Danvers. “Any problems? We on track for spring delivery to outlets?”
This new doll was destined to be the biggest thing in the country. At least, he told himself, that was the plan. There were dolls that could be specially ordered to look like a child, of course. But Wes’s company had the jump on even them. With the accessories available and the quick turnaround, the Just Like Me doll was going to smash all sales record previously set for…anything. He smiled to himself just thinking about it. A line of dolls that looked like their owners. Parents could find a doll that resembled their child, either online or at retail locations. Or they could special order one with accessories to make it even more like the child in question.
Wes once considered bringing the doll out early, to catch the Christmas shopping frenzy. But he’d decided against it, banking on the fact that by February children would already be tired of their Christmas toys and looking for something new.
He was counting on making such an impact that by next Christmas, the dolls would be on every kid’s wish list. And every child who had already received one would be looking for another. Maybe one in the image of a best friend or a sibling.
The possibilities were endless.
Tony sat back in his brown leather chair, hooked one ankle on a knee. “We’re right on schedule, boss. We’ve got dozens of different designs of dolls. Every ethnicity, every hair type I’ve ever heard of, and a few that were news to me.”
“You’re so male,” Donna Higgs, the marketing director, muttered with a shake of her head.
Tony winked at her. “Thanks for noticing.”
Wes grinned but not at the two friends’ byplay. His company, Texas Toy Goods Inc., was going to be the most talked-about toy company in the country once these dolls hit. Marketing, under Donna’s steady hand, was already set for a huge campaign, he had the PR department set to flood social media, and a test group of kids had already proclaimed the doll a winner. After ten years of steady growth, Wes’s company was poised for a jump that would change Wes from a multimillionaire to a billionaire practically overnight.
He’d started his company on not much more than a shoestring. He had had ideas, a partner he’d managed to buy out several years ago and a small inheritance from his father. With that, and his own driving ambition, Wes built a reputation for coming up with new ways of doing things in a centuries-old industry. He was known for his innovation and creativity. Thanks to him, and the best employees in the business, they’d built on their early successes until TTG was a presence in the toy industry. And the Just Like Me doll was going to give them that one last push over the top.
Each doll was unique in its own way and was going to appeal to every child on the planet. He had visions of European distribution as well, and knew that soon Texas Toy Goods was going to be an unstoppable force in the industry. And that wasn’t even counting the upcoming merger he was working on with Teddy Bradford, the current CEO of PlayCo, or his other ventures under the Texas brand umbrella.
“So,” Wes said, bringing them back on topic, “if the parent doesn’t find exactly what they’re looking for, we’re set up for them to order specifics.”
“Absolutely.” Tony straightened up then leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. “There’ll be a kiosk in every toy department. The computer will link them to us and they can put in an order for any specific detail they need. Say, if the child has a prosthetic, we can match it. If the child has a specific disability, we’re prepared for everything. From wheelchairs to braces, we can give every child out there the feeling of being special. Having a doll in their own image. Naturally, specific orders would take a little longer…”
Wes frowned. “How much longer?”
“Negligible,” Donna put in. She checked something on her iPad and looked up at him. “I know Tony’s production, but in marketing, we’ve been working with turnaround time so we can advertise it. With the wide array of dolls already available, we can put out a special order in a couple of days.”
“That works.” Nodding now, Wes leaned back in his own chair. “Make sure the factory floor is up to speed on this, and I want a centralized area devoted only to this project.”
“Uh, boss?” Mike Stein held up one hand as if he were in class. But then, he was young and enthusiastic and would eventually get used to the more wide-open discussions Wes preferred during meetings.
“What is it?”
Mike glanced at the others before looking back at Wes. “We’ve got the ads lined up and the social media blast is ready to roll on the day.”
“Good.”
“But,” Mike added, “I know it’s not my department—”
“Doesn’t matter,” Wes told him. He liked his people being interested in all departments, not just their specialties.
“Okay. I was thinking, having a dedicated area at the factory could be problematic.”
Tony actually leaned a little toward the left, putting some distance between himself and the new guy. At least the others knew better than to tell Wes something couldn’t be done.
“Why’s that?” Wes asked calmly.
“Well, it means pulling people off the line and setting them up to handle only these special orders.”
“And?”
“Well,” Mike continued, clearly unwilling to back off the track he found himself on. Wes could give him points for having guts. “That means we have people who are standing there waiting for something to do instead of working on the line and getting actual work done.”
“What changes would you suggest?” Wes asked coolly.
Tony cleared his throat and gave a barely there shake of his head, trying to tell the kid in code to just shut up and let this one go. But Mike had the bit in his teeth now and wouldn’t drop it.
“I would leave them working on the line and pull them out when a special order came in and then—”
“I appreciate your idea,” Wes said, tapping his fingers against the gray leather blotter on his desk. “I want my people to feel free to speak up. But you’re new here, Mike, and you need to learn that at TTG, we do things a little differently. Here, the customer is always number one. We design toys and the delivery system to facilitate the people who buy our toys. So if that means we have a separate crew waiting for the special orders to come in, then that’s what we do. We’re the best. That’s what breeds success.”
“Right.” Mike nodded, swallowed hard and nodded again. “Absolutely. Sorry.”
“No problem.” Wes waved the apology away. He’d either learn from this and pick up on the way things were done at TTG, or the kid would leave and find a job somewhere else.
But damn, when did he start thinking of guys in their twenties as kids? When did Wes get ancient? He squashed that thought immediately. Hell, at thirty-four, he wasn’t old. He was just busy. Running his company ate up every moment of every damn day. He was so busy, his social life was a joke. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been with a woman. But that would come. Eventually. Right now, TTG demanded and deserved his full concentration.
Of course, his brain whispered, it hadn’t always been that way. There’d been one woman—
Wes cut all thoughts of her off at the pass. That was done. Over. He hadn’t been interested in long-term and she’d all but had marriage and children tattooed across her forehead. He’d had to end it and he wasn’t sorry. Most of the time.
Having a relationship with one of his employees hadn’t been a particularly smart move on his part. And sure, there’d been gossip and even resentment from some of his staff. But Wes hadn’t been able to resist Belle. What the two of them had shared was like nothing he’d ever known. For a time, Wes had been willing to put up with whispers at work for the pleasure of being with Belle.
But it was over. The past.
“We’ve got the accessories covered, I think,” Donna said. “When the special orders come in, we’ll be able to turn them around in a flash.”
“Good to hear. And if you don’t have it?” Wes asked.
“We’ll get it.” Donna nodded sharply. “No problem on this, boss. It’s going to work as smoothly as you expect it to. And it’s going to be the biggest doll to hit the market since the vegetable patch babies back in the ’80s.”
“That’s what I want to hear.” Wes stood up, shoved both hands into his pockets and said, “That’s all for now. Keep me in the loop.”
Tony laughed. “Boss, everybody runs everything by you.”
One corner of Wes’s mouth quirked. “Yeah. Just the way I like it. Okay, back to work.”
He watched them go, then told his assistant, Robin, to get him some fresh coffee. He’d need it once he started going through business emails. Inevitably, there were problems to walk through with suppliers, manufacturers, bankers and everyone else who either had a piece—or wanted one—of the Texas Toy Goods pie. But instead of taking a seat behind his desk, he walked across the wide office to the corner windows. The view of Houston was familiar, impressive. High-rises, glass walls reflecting sunlight that could blind a man. Thick white clouds sailing across a sky so blue it hurt the eyes.
He liked the city fine, but it wasn’t somewhere he wanted to spend too much time. At least twice a week, he made the drive in from Royal, Texas, and his home office, to oversee accounts personally and on-site. He believed in having his employees used to seeing him there. People tended to get complacent when there was an absentee boss in the picture. But if he had a choice, he’d pick Royal over Houston.
His hometown had less traffic, less noise and the best burgers in Texas at the Royal Diner. Not to mention the fact that the memories in Royal were easier to live with than the ones centered here, in his office. Just being here, he remembered late-night work sessions with the woman he refused to think about. All-night sessions that had become a blistering-hot affair that had crashed and burned the minute she whispered those three deadly words—I love you. Even after all this time, that moment infuriated him. And despite—maybe because of—how it ended, that one woman stayed in his mind, always at the edges of his thoughts.
“What is it with women?” he asked the empty room. “Everything was going fine and then she just had to ruin it.”
Of course, a boss/employee relationship wasn’t going to work for the long haul anyway, and he’d known that going in. And even with the way things had ended, he couldn’t completely regret any of it. What bothered him was that even now, five years later, thoughts of Belle kept cropping up as if his mind just couldn’t let go.
A brisk knock on the door had him shaking his head and pushing thoughts of her to the back of his mind, where, hopefully, they would stay. “Come in.”
Robin entered, carrying a tray with a single cup, a thermal carafe of coffee and a plate of cookies. He smiled. “What would I do without you?”
“Starve to death, probably,” she said. Robin was in her forties, happily married and the proud mother of four. She loved her job, was damn good at it and kept him apprised of everything going on down here when he was in Royal. If she ever threatened to quit, Wes was prepared to offer her whatever she needed to stay.
“You scared the kid today.”
Snorting a laugh as he remembered the look of sheer panic on Mike’s face, Wes sat down at his desk and poured the first of what would be several cups of coffee. “He’ll survive.”
“Yeah, he will. A little fear’s good. Builds character.”
One eyebrow lifted as Wes laughed. “Your kids must be terrified of you.”
“Me?” she asked. “Nope. I raise them tougher than that.”
Wes chuckled.
“Harry called. He’s headed into that meeting in New York. Said he’d call when he had it wrapped up.”
Harry Baker, his vice president, was currently doing all the traveling around the country, arranging for the expedited shipping the new doll line would require. “That’s good. Thanks.”
After she left, Wes sipped at his coffee, took a cookie, had a bite, then scrolled to his email account. Idly, he scanned the forty latest messages, deleting the crap. He scanned the subject lines ruthlessly, until he spotted Your secret is out.
“What the hell?” Even while a part of his mind was thinking virus or an ad for timeshares in Belize, he clicked on the message and read it. Everything in him went cold and still. The cookie turned to ash in his mouth and he drank the coffee only to wash it down.
Look where your dallying has gotten you, the email read.
Check your Twitter account. Your new handle is Deadbeatdad. So you want to be the face of a new toy empire? Family friendly? Think again.
It was signed, Maverick.
“Who the hell is Maverick and what the hell is he talking about?” There was an attachment with the email, and even though Wes had a bad feeling about all of this, he opened it. The photograph popped onto his computer screen.
He shot to his feet, the legs of his chair scraping against the polished wooden floor like a screech. Staring down at the screen, his gaze locked on the image of the little girl staring back at him. “What the—”
She looked just like him. The child had Wes’s eyes and a familiar smile and if that wasn’t enough to convince him, which it was, he focused on the necklace the girl was wearing. Before he and Belle broke up, Wes had given her a red plastic heart on a chain of plastic beads. At the time, he’d used it as a joke gift right before giving her a pair of diamond earrings.
And the little girl in the photo was wearing that red heart necklace while she smiled into the camera.
Panic and fury tangled up inside him and tightened into a knot that made him feel like he was choking. He couldn’t tear his gaze from the photo of the smiling little girl. “How does a man have a daughter and not know it?”
A daughter? How? What? Why? Who? He had a child. Judging by the picture, she looked to be four or five years old, so unless it was an old photo, there was only one woman who could be the girl’s mother. And just like that, the woman was back, front and center in his mind.
How the hell had this happened? Stupid. He knew how it had happened. What he didn’t know was why he hadn’t been told. Wes rubbed one hand along the back of his neck and didn’t even touch the tension building there. Still staring at the smiling girl on the screen, he felt the email batter away at his brain until he was forced to sit, open a new window and go to Twitter.
Somebody had hacked his account. His new handle was, as promised, Deadbeatdad. If he didn’t get this stopped fast, it would go viral and might start interfering with his business.
Instantly, Wes made some calls, reporting that his account had been hacked, then turned the mess over to his IT guys to figure out. He reported the hack and had the account shuttered, hoping to buy time. Meanwhile, he was too late to stop #Deadbeatdad from spreading. The Twitterverse was already moving on it. Now he had a child he had to find and a reputation he had to repair. Snatching up the phone, he stabbed the button for his assistant’s desk. “Robin,” he snapped. “Get Mike from PR back in here now.”
He didn’t even wait to hear her response, just slammed the phone down and went back to his computer. He brought up the image of the little girl—his daughter—again and stared at her. What was her name? Where did she live? Then thoughts of the woman who had to be the girl’s mother settled into his brain. Isabelle Gray. She’d disappeared from his life years ago—apparently with his child. Jaw tight, eyes narrowed, Wes promised himself he was going to get to the bottom of all of this and when he did…
* * *
For the next hour, everyone in PR and IT worked the situation. There was no stopping the flood of retweets, so Wes had Mike and his crew focused on finding a way to spin it. IT was tasked with tracking down this mysterious Maverick so that Wes could deal with him head-on.
Meanwhile, Wes had another problem to worry about. The merger with PlayCo, a major player in the toy industry, was something Wes had been carefully maneuvering his way toward for months. But the CEO there, Teddy Bradford, was a good old boy with rock-solid claims to family values. He’d been married to the same woman forever, had several kids and prided himself on being the flag bearer for the all-American, apple pie lifestyle.
This was going to throw a wrench of gigantic proportions into the mix. And so far, Teddy wasn’t taking any of Wes’s calls. Not a good sign.
“Uh, boss?”
“Yeah?” Wes spun around to look at one of the PR grunts. What the hell was her name? Stacy? Tracy? “What is it?”
“Teddy Bradford is holding a press conference. The news channel’s website is running it live.”
He stalked to her desk and only vaguely noticed that the others in the room had formed a half circle behind him. They were all watching as Bradford stepped up to a microphone and held his hands out in a settle-down gesture. As soon as he had quiet, he said, “After the disturbing revelations on social media this afternoon, I’m here to announce that I will be taking a step back to reevaluate my options before going through with the much anticipated merger.”
Wes ground his teeth together and fisted his hands at his sides. Teddy could play it any way he wanted to for the press, but it was easy to see the merger was, at the moment, dead. All around him, his employees took a collective breath that sounded like a gasp.
But Teddy wasn’t finished. The older man looked somber, sad, but Wes was pretty sure he caught a gleam of satisfaction in the other man’s eyes. Hell, he was probably enjoying this. Nothing the man liked better than sitting high on his righteous horse. Teddy hadn’t even bothered to take his call, preferring instead to call a damn press conference. Bastard.
“Here at PlayCo,” Teddy was saying, “we put a high priority on family values. In fact, you could say that’s the dominant trademark of my company and it always will be. A man’s family is all important—or should be. After this morning’s revelations, I have to say that clearly, Wes Jackson is not the man I’d believed him to be, and so I have some thinking to do in the next few days. As things stand now, it would take a miracle to persuade me to believe otherwise.” Questions were fired at him, cameras chattered as shutters clicked over and over again. But Teddy was done.
“That’s it. That’s all I’ve got to say.” He looked out over the crowd. “You have more questions, I suggest you throw them at Wes Jackson. Good day.” He left the podium in the midst of a media circus and Wes rubbed his eyes, trying to ease the headache crouched behind them.
Stacy/Tracy turned the sound off on the computer, and silence dropped over everyone in the room like a damn shroud. Inside Wes, irritation bubbled into anger and then morphed quickly into helpless rage. There was nowhere to turn it. Nowhere to focus it and get any kind of satisfaction.
As of now, the merger was in the toilet. And yeah, he was concentrating on the business aspect of this nightmare because he didn’t have enough information to concentrate on the personal. Furious, Wes watched his PR team scramble to somehow mitigate the growing disaster. His assistant was already fielding calls from the media and this story seemed to be growing by the minute. Nothing people liked better than a scandal, and whoever this Maverick was, they obviously knew it.
For the first time ever, Wes felt helpless, and he didn’t like it. Not only was his company taking a hit, but somewhere out there, he had a child he’d known nothing about. How the hell had this Maverick discovered the girl? Was Isabelle in on all of this? Or was someone close to her hoping for a giant payout along with payback? Whatever the reason, this attack was deliberate. Someone had arranged a deliberate assault on him and his company. That someone was out to ruin him, and his brain worked feverishly trying to figure out just who was behind it all.
Running a successful business meant that you would naturally make enemies. But until today he wouldn’t have thought that any of them would stoop to something like this. So he went deeper, beyond business and into the personal, looking for anyone who might have set him up for a fall like this. And only one name rose up in his mind. His ex-girlfriend, Cecelia Morgan.
She and Belle had been friendly for a while back in the day. Maybe Cecelia had known about the baby. Maybe she was the one who had started all this. Hell, she might even be Maverick herself. Cecelia hadn’t taken it well when he broke up with her, and God knew she had a vicious temper. But if she was behind it all, why? Her company, To the Moon, sold upscale merchandise for kids. They weren’t in direct competition, but she was as devoted to her business as Wes was to his, and maybe that was the main reason the two of them hadn’t worked out. Or, he told himself, maybe it was the mean streak he’d witnessed whenever Cecelia was with her two best friends, Simone Parker and Naomi Price. He knew for a fact that people in Royal called the three women the Mean Girls. They were rich, beautiful, entitled and sometimes not real careful about the things they said to and about people.
He didn’t know if she’d had anything to do with what was happening, but there was one sure way to find out. Leaving his employees scrambling, Wes drove home to Royal to confront his ex and, just maybe, get some answers. The drive did nothing to calm him down, since his brain kept focusing on the photo of that little girl. His daughter, for God’s sake.
He needed answers. The only one who could give them to him was Belle, so finding her was priority one. His IT staff was now focused on not only mitigating his business disaster, but also in finding Isabelle Gray. But until he did locate Belle, Wes told himself, at least he could do something. Knowing Cecelia could always be found at the Texas Cattleman’s Club for lunch, he headed there the moment he hit town.
Cecelia was in the middle of what looked like a lunch meeting with a few of her employees. And though breaking it up would only encourage gossip, Wes wasn’t interested in waiting for her to finish. The TCC was a legend in Royal, Texas. A members-only club, it had been around forever and only in the last several years had started accepting women as members—quite a few of the old guard still weren’t happy about it. The dining room was elegant, understated and quiet but for the hush of conversation and the subtle clink of silverware against china.
On the drive from Houston, Wes’s mind had raced with the implications of everything that had happened. A child he didn’t know about. A merger in the toilet. His reputation shattered. And at the bottom of it all, maybe a vengeful ex. By the time he stood outside that dining room, he was ready for a battle.
“Mr. Jackson.” The maître d’ stepped up. “May I show you to a table? Are you alone for lunch or expecting guests?”
“Neither, thanks,” Wes said, ignoring the man after a brief, polite nod. Wes speared Cecelia with a cold, hard gaze that caught her attention even from across the room. “I just need a word with Ms. Morgan.”
Once she met his cool stare, she frowned slightly, then excused herself from the table and walked toward him. She was a gorgeous woman, and in a purely male response, Wes had to admire her even as his anger bubbled and churned inside. Her long, wavy blond hair lay across her shoulders and her gray-green eyes fixed on him, curiosity shining there. She wasn’t very tall, but her generous figure and signature pout had brought more than one man in Texas to his knees.
She gave him a smile, then leaned in as if to kiss his cheek, but Wes pulled back out of reach. He caught the surprise and the insult in her eyes, but he only said, “We need to talk.”
There were already enough people talking about his business today, so he took her forearm in a tight grip and led her away from the dining room to a quiet corner, hoping for at least a semblance of privacy. Cecelia pulled free as soon as he stopped and hissed, “What is going on with you?”
“You know damn well what,” he said in a gravelly whisper. “That email you sent.”
Those big, beautiful eyes clouded with confusion. “I have zero idea what you’re talking about.”
He studied her for a long minute, deciding whether she was lying or not. God knew he couldn’t be sure, but he was going with instinct here. She didn’t look satisfied with a mission accomplished. She looked irritated and baffled.
“Fine,” he said grimly and dug his cell phone out of a pocket. Pulling up his email, he handed the phone to her and waited while she read it.
“Maverick? Who the heck is Maverick?”
Her expression read confusion and a part of him eased back a little. But if she wasn’t Maverick, who was?
“Good question. I got an email this morning from a stranger. They sent me a picture of a daughter I never knew existed.” He opened the attachment and showed her the picture of the smiling little girl. That’s when he saw the flash of recognition in her eyes and he realized that Cecelia knew more than she was saying. Her face was too easy to read. His daughter’s existence hadn’t surprised her a bit.
“You knew about the girl.” It wasn’t a question. His chest felt tight.
Taking a deep breath, Cecelia blew out a breath and said, “I knew she was pregnant when she left. I didn’t know she’d had a girl.”
“She?”
Cecelia huffed out a breath. “Isabelle.”
He swayed in place. He’d known it. Seeing that necklace on a little girl with his eyes had been impossible to deny. Isabelle. The woman he’d been involved with for almost a year had been pregnant with his daughter and hadn’t bothered to tell him. More than that, though, was the fact that apparently Cecelia had known about his child, too, and kept the secret. Belle had left town. Cecelia had been right here in Royal. Seeing him all the damn time. And never once had she let on that he had a child out there. He couldn’t rage at Belle. Yet. So it was the woman in front of him who got the full blast of what he was feeling. Every time she’d seen him for the last five years, she’d lied to him by not saying anything. She’d known he was a father and never said a damn word. What the hell? And who was Maverick and how did he know?
“You knew and didn’t say anything?” His voice was low and tight.
She tossed a glance over her shoulder toward the table where she’d left her friends, then looked back at him. “No, I didn’t. What would have been the point?”
He glared at her. “The point? My kid would be the point. And the fact that I didn’t even know she existed.”
“Please, Wes. How many times have you said you don’t want kids or a family or anything remotely resembling commitment?”
“Not important.”
“Yeah, it is.” She was getting defensive—he heard it in her voice. “She was pretty sure you wouldn’t be happy about the baby and I agreed. I just told her what you’d said so many times—that you weren’t interested in families or forever.”
Having his own words thrown back at him stung, but worse was the fact that two women he’d been with had conspired to keep his child from him. No, he’d never planned on kids or a wife, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t want to know.
“Then what?” he asked, his voice sounding as if it was scraping along shattered glass. “You wait a few years, find this Maverick and tell him? Help him slam me across social media? For what? Payback?”
Her head snapped back and her eyes went even wider. “I would never do that to you, Wes,” she said, and damned if he didn’t almost believe her. “I wouldn’t hurt you like that.”
“Yeah?” he countered. “Your rep says otherwise.”
She flushed and took a deep breath. “Believe what you want, but it wasn’t me.”
“Fine. Then where is Isabelle?”
“I don’t know. She only said she was going home. A small town in Colorado. Swan…something. I forget. Honestly, we haven’t stayed in touch.” Tentatively, she reached out one hand and laid it on his forearm. “But I’ll help you look for her.”
“You helped enough five years ago,” Wes ground out, and saw her reaction to the harsh tone flash in her eyes.
Too bad. He didn’t have time to worry about insulting a woman who very well might be at the heart of this Maverick business. Sure, she claimed innocence, but he’d be a fool to take her word for it. When he rushed out, he barely noticed the waiter hovering nearby.
Wes’s entire IT department was working on this problem, but he should be researching himself. His own tech skills were more than decent. He could have found Isabelle years ago, if he’d been looking. Yeah, he’d have to sift through a lot of information on the web, but he’d find her.
And when he did, heaven better help her, because hell would be dropping onto her doorstep.
* * *
Isabelle Graystone sat at the kitchen table working with a pad and pen while her daughter enjoyed her post-preschool snack.
“Mommy,” Caroline said, her fingers dancing as she spoke, “can I have more cookies?”
Isabelle looked at the tiny love of her life and smiled. At four years old, Caroline was beautiful, bright, curious and quite the con artist when it came to getting more cookies. That sly smile and shy glance did it every time.
Isabelle’s hands moved in sign language as she said, “Two more and that’s it.”
Caroline grinned and helped herself. Her heels tapped against the rungs of the kitchen chair as she cupped both hands around her glass of milk to take a sip.
Watching her, Isabelle smiled thoughtfully. It wasn’t easy for a child to be different, but Caroline had such a strong personality that wearing hearing aids didn’t bother her in the least. And learning to sign had opened up her conversational skills. Progressive hearing loss would march on, though, Isabelle knew, and one day her daughter would be completely deaf.
So Isabelle was determined to do everything she could to make her little girl’s life as normal as possible. Which might also include a cochlear implant at some point. She wasn’t there yet, but she was considering all of her options. There was simply nothing she wouldn’t do for Caroline.
“After lunch,” Isabelle said, “I have to go into town. See some people about the fund-raiser party I’m planning. Do you want to come with me, or stay here with Edna?”
Chewing enthusiastically, Caroline didn’t speak, just used sign language to say, “I’ll come with you. Can we have ice cream, too?”
Laughing, Isabelle shook her head. “Where are you putting all of this food?”
A shrug and a grin were her only answers. Then the doorbell rang and Isabelle said, “Someone’s at the door. You finish your cookies.”
She walked through the house, hearing the soft click of her own heels against the polished wood floors. There were landscapes hanging on the walls, and watery winter sunlight filtering through the skylight positioned over the hallway. It was an elegant but homey place, in spite of its size. The restored Victorian stood on three acres outside the small town of Swan Hollow, Colorado.
Isabelle had been born and raised there, and when she’d found herself alone and pregnant, she’d come running back to the place that held her heart. She hadn’t regretted it, either. It was good to be in a familiar place, nice knowing that her daughter would have the same memories of growing up in the forest that she did, and then there was the added plus of having her three older brothers nearby. Chance, Eli and Tyler were terrific uncles to Caroline and always there for Isabelle when she needed them—and sometimes when she didn’t. The three of them were still as protective as they’d been when she was just a girl—and though it could get annoying on occasion, she was grateful for them, too.
Shaking her long, blond hair back from her face, she opened the door with a welcoming smile on her face—only to have it freeze up and die. A ball of ice dropped into the pit of her stomach even as her heartbeat jumped into overdrive.
Wes Jackson. The one man she’d never thought to see again. The one man she still dreamed of almost every night. The one man she could never forget.
“Hello, Belle,” he said, his eyes as cold and distant as the moon. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
