Long, Tall Texans: Christopher
Автор
Diana Palmer
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CHAPTER ONE
Tansy Deverell was missing again. In fact, she’d been missing for a week. It disturbed Christopher Deverell when he couldn’t find his mother, who was in her seventies. More particularly, it disturbed him when the famous Lassiter Detective Agency of Houston, Texas, couldn’t find her. Chris had come home from a trip to Spain to find the family in an uproar over the matriarch’s disappearance. Tansy was known for her madcap lifestyle, and she tended to cause scandals wherever she went.
Chris’s older brother, Logan, lived in Houston with his wife, Kit, and their new son, Bryce. Since Logan’s marriage, Tansy had become even wilder than usual. She was a diabetic who was on insulin and had to watch her diet very carefully, and Chris worried that she might indulge too much in her travels. Her last escapade had almost landed her in a harem in the Middle East. For a woman in her early seventies, Tandy was adventurous indeed. Old age, she often said, would have to run very fast in order to catch up with her. She wasn’t kidding.
On a whim, Chris had traveled to Jacobsville, Texas, to see his cousin Emmett Deverell. In the past, nobody visited Emmett unless they were nuts, but now that Emmett had married Melody and they’d settled down nicely with his three children from his first marriage, Emmett had mellowed. He managed a ranch for Ted Regan, in which he now had a partnership. Things were looking prosperous there, and Tansy might have detoured to visit them. But she hadn’t. Chris met with disappointment. Emmett hadn’t seen nor heard from Tansy in months.
Chris drove into town and had lunch at the local high-class restaurant, sitting alone at a corner table with his steak and salad while he brooded about his mother. Logan hadn’t been overly concerned. It was amusing how the brothers had changed over the years. In the past, Logan was the straitlaced, worrying one. Now, he was more relaxed and less anxious, especially since his marriage. On the other hand, Chris had been almost as madcap as their mother when he was younger, and women had passed through his life like butterflies. He was thirty-three, and a devastating automobile accident had left him with a different view of the world. His once-handsome face was now less pleasing to the eye, two long furrows having been carved into one lean cheek by shattered glass. He’d lost the sight in one eye, although plastic surgery had spared him deformity. But nothing seemed to erase the scars completely, and he was too weary of hospitals and skin grafts to pursue them further.
He wasn’t repulsive by any stretch of the imagination. His smooth olive complexion was enhanced by liquid black eyes with thick black lashes and eyebrows, and a chiseled mouth that was more sardonic than amused most of the time. He had a lean face and a tall, lean, muscular body that was more attractive than ever since his weeks of sailing near the coast of Spain with an old friend. He enjoyed the challenge of the sea, where he could pit his muscle against the waves and wind. A man with as much money as he’d inherited from his father could do whatever pleased him. Unlike Logan, who enjoyed working at the family investment firm, Chris had invested his inheritance in multinational corporations and tripled it in less than ten years. He could live comfortably off the interest, and he’d never found an adequate reason to work a routine job. He dabbled in designing yachts with the friend with whom he’d been sailing in Spain. His ideas were innovative, and one of his designs had taken its owner into the finals of the America’s Cup race. He was paid for that idea, and for several others that had sold well.
He watched his investments like a hawk. But increasing his means no longer satisfied him. The carefree bachelor’s existence that was such fun in his early twenties was distasteful to him now. He no longer sized up women as potential conquests or enjoyed the attention of pretty fortune-hunters. He felt jaded and life was suddenly empty.
He fingered his coffee cup absently, the motion bringing the waitress with a refill.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked pleasantly, sizing up his expensive suit and shoes with practiced expertise.
He shook his head. “Thanks. I’m fine.”
He didn’t encourage her to stay and chat. She was young and pretty, but so were dozens of other women. He envied Logan his family life. Maybe marriage wasn’t so bad a thing. Certainly that baby was a delightful little bundle. Chris had never been around children much, but he adored his new nephew and spent a lot of time shopping for educational toys to bring him. That had amused Tansy, who’d suggested that Chris get married and have children of his own.
He’d only shrugged it off with a smile. He’d never had a serious relationship with a woman. His romantic encounters over the years had been light and pleasant and brief. Now he felt as if he’d missed something. Except for his friend who built yachts, he had no one who was close to him. Most of his old girlfriends were married. He traveled alone, ate alone, slept alone. He felt ancient, especially since the wreck.
“Excuse me, but aren’t you Christopher Deverell?”
The voice was quiet, unhurried, with a pleasant huskiness. He turned his head to find the face that went with it. Not bad, he thought. Pale gray eyes, pretty complexion, rounded chin, bow mouth, short blond hair with a wave over the pencil-thin eyebrow.
She looked like something out of the thirties, he mused.
“How would you know who I am?” he asked indifferently.
“It’s my job.” She produced a pad and pen. “I work for the Weatherby News Service. We’re not as big as the Associated Press, but we’re working hard to catch up,” she added with a faint smile. The smile faded quickly. “We’re trying to locate your mother, as it happens.”
He lifted his hot coffee to his mouth. “Join the club.”
“She’s gone into hiding,” she continued. “Not that I blame her, under the circumstances, but—”
“Sit down,” he said curtly. “You’re on my blind side.”
“Your…what?”
He turned his head and looked fully at her, so that she could see the extent of the damage the accident had done to his once-handsome face. The black eye in the socket above the two deep scars and just below a smaller one stared straight ahead, but without sight. The nerve damage had been extensive.
She caught her breath audibly and sat down, visibly flustered. “I’m sorry!” she said. “I didn’t realize…”
“Most people don’t, until they look at me for a while,” he added with a mocking smile. He leaned back in the chair, pulling his jacket away from the thin white shirt that covered his broad, hair-roughened chest. In the position, the muscles were visible, and the woman quickly averted her eyes, as if looking at him that way embarrassed her.
“About your mother,” she continued.
“First things first. Who are you?”
She hesitated. “I’m Della Larson.”
He nodded. “Do you have some idea where my mother might be?”
“Of course.” She turned back a few pages in the small flip notebook. “When last seen, she was in a little town just outside London, called Back Wallop.” She glanced at him. “That’s a village.”
“And what would she be doing there?”
“That’s where he lives,” she replied, surprised.
“He, who?” he asked with a broad scowl.
“Look here, she’s your mother,” she returned. “Don’t you know that she was involved with an MP?”
“A Member of Parliament?” he exclaimed.
“Oh, yes, Lord Cecil Harvey. He belonged to the House of Lords and was a relative of the Windsors.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe you don’t know this!”
“I’ve been on holiday in Spain,” he said.
“It’s been all over the tabloids,” she continued.
His face hardened. “I don’t read the scandal sheets,” he said tersely.
“Considering how many times you’re featured in them, I guess not,” she agreed pleasantly. “You had the front page of most of them for two weeks when that Italian countess accused you of fathering her child—”
“We were discussing my mother,” he interrupted curtly.
She grimaced. “Sorry. I guess that hit a nerve. Anyway, Mrs. Deverell was photographed coming out of a London hotel with Lord Harvey. There were rumors that he was going to divorce his wife and marry her.”
He put the coffee cup down audibly. “My mother?”
“Your mother.” She studied him curiously. “You don’t look at all like her,” she commented. “She has blue eyes and a very fair complexion, almost girlishly pretty.”
“My brother and I take after our father. He was Spanish.”
“Spanish?” She frowned and flipped quickly through the notebook. “That’s not what I was told. They said your father was French, a member of the nobility.”
“Our stepfather was French,” he returned, and refused to even think of the man, despite the many years it had been since he’d seen him. “Our father died when I was pretty young. Tansy remarried. Several times,” he added drolly and picked up his coffee cup again.
“Oh, I see.” She was watching him closely. “Why isn’t your father mentioned?”
He chuckled. “He was a minor businessman until he bought a few cheap shares of stock and put them away in a safe-deposit box. Long after his death, the box was discovered and opened, and Logan and I inherited a small fortune.”
“What was the stock?” she asked suspiciously.
He lifted the coffee cup to his chiseled mouth. “Standard Oil.”
She grinned at him. “Amazing foresight.”
He shook his head. “Sheer, damned luck. He didn’t know beans about investments.”
“They say your brother does. And so do you.”
He chuckled. “I dabble. Not much.” His dark eyes narrowed. “Why are you trying to track down Tansy?”
“Why do you call her Tansy instead of ‘Mother’?”
“She isn’t old enough emotionally to be anyone’s mother,” he said simply. “Logan and I grew up trying to keep her out of trouble, with occasional and brief assistance from her five husbands.”
“Five?” She glanced at her notes. “I only found four.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
She fingered the notebook and stared at it instead of him. “I blew a story, a really big one. I’m going to get fired unless I can make amends somehow. I can’t lose my job. I have…responsibilities.” She lifted her pale eyes to his. “I want to find your mother before the rest of the media can. I want an exclusive interview.”
“Ask her for one.”
“I can’t find her. She’s left Back Wallop and nobody knows where she went.”
He finished his coffee. “Don’t look at me. I can’t find her, either, not even with the help of the best detective agency in the state.”
She gnawed her lower lip worriedly. “I guess it’s understandable that she wouldn’t want to be found.”
“Thank you for noticing,” he said in a tone that dripped sarcasm. “A woman being accused of breaking up a marriage wouldn’t rush to find the media.”
Her eyebrows went up. They were pencil thin, very dark despite her blond hair, and quite interesting. “That’s not why she’s running, of course.”
“It isn’t?”
She sighed heavily. “Mr. Deverell, I already know the truth. There’s no sense in pretending you don’t know what’s going on.”
“I’m not pretending.”
“Have it your own way.” She put the pad into her large purse and stood up, slinging it over her shoulder.
“Giving up so soon?” he taunted.
“I’ve got to get to England before somebody beats me to the story. It will make my career if I can get it before the others do.”
He stared at her with something like contempt. “By all means, ruin a life. You and your colleagues put a high price on your own careers, don’t you? Nobody else’s pain or suffering is too much to ask.”
She flushed. “You make us sound perverted.”
“I don’t, actually.” His eyes darkened. “You are perverted. All of you.”
She stiffened. “We don’t make the news.”
“No, you just spread it around, with as many embellishments and enhancements as your editors see fit.” He got to his feet, too, and looked down at her. She barely came to his chin. She noticed the discrepancy in their heights and stepped back a few inches.
“Frightened?” he chided, his black eyes glittering as he smiled down at her. “I’m not much of a threat these days.”
“You’d be a threat if you were missing both legs,” she muttered uncomfortably. The proximity was making her legs wobble. She backed up again. “I’m not responsible for what a few renegade reporters do.”
“I know several families, including one royal one, who could give a chilling response to that remark.”
Her fingers clutched the strap of her shoulder bag tightly. He noticed her nails, short and rounded and unpolished. The suit she was wearing was of the chain-store variety, and not new. Her shoes were scuffed, vinyl instead of leather, like her purse. He stared at her with new interest. She wasn’t a successful professional, judging by her looks.
“As unfair as it seems, we are judged by the company we keep,” he said quietly. “Some of your colleagues have no scruples and no conscience.”
“I’m not like that.”
“Yes, you are,” he said simply. “Otherwise, why would you be chasing my mother over an indiscretion?”
“That’s a rather weak thing to call it,” she pointed out.
“What, a would-be affair?”
Her lips parted. “Mr. Deverell, Lord Harvey’s body was found just this morning floating naked in the Thames. Your mother is Scotland Yard’s number one suspect.”
He caught his breath. The shock and terror he felt were in his stiff expression, his clenched jaw.
“You really didn’t know, did you?” she asked worriedly. “I’m most dreadfully sorry. I thought…”
He caught her by the upper arm long enough to look at his check and lay a wad of bills down with it before he propelled her out the door.
“What you ordered doesn’t cost that much,” she murmured as he took her out through the doorway.
“I know how little waiters and waitresses get paid. What business is it of yours?” he asked curtly.
“Could you let me go?”
“Not on your life. You’re not making my mother front page news. I’ve got you and I’m keeping you until I get to the bottom of this.”
“You can’t! It’s kidnapping. It’s against the law!”
“Big deal,” he muttered. “Come on.”
He put her into his big Lincoln on the driver’s side and got right in beside her, quickly pressing the master lock switch on his door so that she couldn’t open hers. She fumed and pushed, but she was trapped.
“Put on your seat belt,” he said.
She did, only because when he put the car into gear and took off, she didn’t want to go into the backseat the hard way.
“You drive like a maniac!” she exclaimed.
“So I’ve been told.”
“Listen here, I’m not going anywhere with you. Let me out!”
“When we get to the airport,” he assured her.
Her eyebrows lifted. “The airport?”
“We’re going to London. You’re resourceful and you have contacts that I lack.” He glanced at her formidably. “You’re going to help me find Tansy.”
“Oh, am I, now?” she returned haughtily. “And what am I going to get out of it?”
“A front page scoop when we clear her name.”
“You’re nuts!”
He nodded. “Apparently.”
“But I can’t leave the country. Not like this. I told you, I have responsibilities.”
“So have I. They’ll wait until you get back.”
“But I must stay,” she persisted.
He lifted the cell phone from its cradle in the floorboard and handed it to her. “Call somebody and make arrangements.”
She hesitated, but only for a minute. She couldn’t afford to miss the opportunity of a lifetime, which this certainly was. Once she got the story, she’d file it no matter what he tried to do. If she didn’t go with him, he might find some way to block her, to keep her from finding his mother. That wouldn’t do at all.
She punched in the number and then the button that would send the call along the airways. It rang once, twice, three times.
“Hello?”
She smiled at the pepper in that sweet old voice. “Hi. It’s me. I just wanted to tell you that I’m going to be out of town for a day or two. You let Mrs. Harris come over and cook for you. I’ll make it right when I get home.”
“Chasing after that mad old lady, are you?” A deep chuckle came from the other end of the line. “Just like me, when I was younger.”
“Not just like you,” she replied, smiling. “You used to hang out in bars with the Lafayette Escadrille and the SAS. I just walk in your shadow.”
“Flatterer!”
“Don’t forget to put the chain latch on at night,” she added worriedly. “And if you need me…”
Chris already had the picture, from the brief snatches of conversation he overheard. “Give him this number,” he told her without taking his eyes from the road—a good thing, at the speed they were going. He recited the cell phone number, and then added one with a foreign exchange. “That’s in London. He can call anytime if he needs you. I’ll make sure the call is forwarded immediately.”
She relayed the information.
“Sounds young,” the old man cackled. “Is he?”
“Sort of,” she replied warily. “Stay warm, too. Don’t worry about turning up the heat. Okay?”
“Okay. Now stop worrying about me and get the job done. Don’t shame us.”
“I wouldn’t dare!” she chuckled. “I’ll see you when I get back, Grandad.”
“You take care, too. You’re the only family I got left.”
“Same here.” She smiled as she put the receiver down. She glanced at the taciturn man beside her warily. “Thanks.”
He shrugged. “You’ll do better sleuthing if you’re not worried. Your grandfather sounds like a character.”
“He was, and still is. He was a reporter during the gang wars in Chicago, during Prohibition, and after that he was a war correspondent.” She laughed. “He can tell some stories. I followed in his footsteps, but not very well. I’m not sure I’m cut out for investigative reporting after all.”
“What did you do before?”
“I did political news and features.” She grimaced. “I was good at it, too, but Grandad said I was wilting on the vine and wasting away. He wanted me to do something exciting and risky while I was still young enough.”
“Don’t you have any other family?”
She shook her head. “My parents died overseas. They were touring the Middle East when the plane they were in was shot down accidentally. Grandad took me in when I was just ten and raised me.”
“Tough luck,” he said. “No brothers, sisters, uncles or aunts?”
“An aunt,” she replied. “She lives in California and never writes.” She glanced at him. “At least you have a brother.”
“A brother and a mother,” he replied.
“What’s she like?”
“She’s a hell-raiser,” he returned amusedly. “I’ve never known her when she wasn’t in trouble. But she doesn’t kill people,” he added firmly.
“I hope you’re right,” she replied.
“I know I am.” But there was the faintest doubt in his voice. He turned the car onto the highway that led to the Jacobsville airport, new lines in his worried face.
