Authors: Loree Lough
So this William Prentice person must not have
moved in yet. She couldn’t believe her good fortune! Dara walked around behind the desk, slid open the center drawer.
Empty.
She opened the deeper file drawer to its right.
Empty.
And so were the filing cabinets and the credenza.
“May I help you?”
Dara spun around so quickly she nearly toppled over. “Mr. Turner!” she heaved. “You scared me half to death!”
“Good to see you, Dara. It’s been quite a while.”
Since Dad’s funeral, to be exact.
“I suppose you’re here to pack up your father’s things.”
It was as good an excuse as any to be on Pinnacle property on a Saturday morning, so Dara nodded.
He frowned slightly. “Wait a minute. Didn’t you…” Tucking in one corner of his gray-bearded mouth, he said, “Didn’t you gather up his things months ago?”
“I—I packed a few things, yes, yes,” she stammered. “But I—I didn’t get everything.” She grabbed the plaque from the wall. “This, for example.”
Turner’s green gaze scanned the tweedy carpet. “I don’t see any packing boxes.”
“I, ah, this was all I really wanted,” she said, hugging it to her. “It’s all right if I take it, isn’t it?”
He smiled suspiciously. “Of course it’s all right”
“Well, then,” she said, sidestepping toward the door, “I guess I’ll be on my way. It was good seeing you again, Mr.—”
“I hear you married the head of our accounting firm.”
He wasn’t smiling when he said it, and Dara didn’t
understand the angry gleam burning in his green eyes. “That’s right,” she said lightly. “December 18.”
“Congratulations. I hope you’ll be very happy.”
“I’m sure we will,” she said, turning to go. “Well, as I said, I have a lot to do.”
“Did you make yourself a list?”
She stopped in the doorway. “Excuse me?”
“Your father used to talk about you all the time—about how you never went anywhere without a list of ‘things to do.’” He drew quotation marks in the air.
It was true. She
did
make lists, for practically everything. But she hadn’t made one this morning.
“I guess your lists are longer than ever these days, eh, what with Noah and his kids to take care of. You probably have
thousands
of things written down.”
Why had he accented the number so harshly? she wondered.
“I imagine Noah helps you itemize things, so that not even one of those thousands of things will slip through the cracks.”
Dara believed she knew why Turner had put special emphasis on the word: her father’s ex-partner suspected
her
of having had something to do with the missing money, and because she’d married Noah,
he
was a suspect, too. Dara’s heart thundered. It was bad enough that the theft had tarnished Jake’s once-good name, but for his actions to have an effect on Noah’s stellar reputation…
Oh, Daddy, she thought dismally, what have you done!
“I hate to spring this on you now,” Dara said. She sat at her dressing table, brushing her hair. Noah was laying on the bed, still in his clothes, reading a book.
“Uh-oh, sounds like bad news.” He looked up from his book.
“I’m afraid it is.” She took a deep breath and turned to look at him. “I went to Pinnacle Construction today.”
He walked over to her and slipped his arm around her shoulders. “Aw, sweetie. Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have gone with you.” He kissed her forehead. “Couldn’t have been easy. Today was the eight-month anniversary of your father’s death, wasn’t it?”
It surprised her more than a little to discover he’d kept track of something so important to her.
“So what did you do—pack up the last of his personal stuff?”
“No. I wanted to get a deposit slip.”
Noah pulled back slightly, brow crinkled in confusion. “A deposit slip?”
She exhaled. “Well, you know that the real-estate checks came in for the sale of my condo and Mom and Dad’s house.”
One blond brow rose on his forehead. “Uh-huh.”
“When I left here this morning, it was my intention to put that two hundred thousand back.”
“But…but I thought you were going to let
me
do that.”
He was
really
puzzled now. She could see it in the furrow of his brow, the tautness of his lips, could hear it in his usually resonant voice. She rose to face him and gently brushed a strand of hair from his eyes. ‘That was the plan, but I changed my mind.”
He tucked a curl behind her ear. “Why?”
“Because,” she admitted, “I don’t want that money hanging over our heads for the rest of our lives.”
“Hanging over…” Noah placed his hands on her
shoulders. “Wait just a minute here. You don’t really believe I’d use the money as a weapon…do you?”
“Of course not.”
“I was only waiting till after the first of the year to return the money, so I could say I’d found it while filling out the company’s quarterly tax report. I hope you didn’t think I was procrastinating because I’d changed my mind.”
“No.” She smiled softly. “No, I’ve always known you’d keep your end of the bargain. I just don’t think it’s fair for you to have to right my father’s wrongs.”
“Bargain?” Noah clapped a hand over his eyes. “Dara, sweetie, you talk as if I think of our marriage as nothing more than a business deal.” He shook his head. “That isn’t what you think.” He winced. “Is it?”
“Not exactly. I—”
He gazed down at her with a solemn expression. His deep voice trembled. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. I don’t want to make
any
where you’re concerned. You have to believe me when I say this marriage means more to me than that.” He paused, his gaze darkened. “A lot more.”
But you can’t make yourself say you love me, can you? “I need your help, Noah.”
“What kind of help?”
“I don’t have access to the company checkbook, but you do. And the more I think about it, the more confused I get. I mean, the real-estate money is in my savings account. If I write a personal check and deposit it in the Pinnacle account…” Exasperated, she took a deep breath. “And if I go to my bank, ask them to print out a cashier’s check for two hundred thousand dollars, payable to Pinnacle, won’t someone eventually
be able to trace it back to my account? How do I put the money back without drawing attention to us?”
“Us?”
She nodded again. “Kurt Turner caught me in Dad’s office. It was pretty clear that he thought I had something to do with those missing funds. And,” she added, sighing, “now that we’re married, he’s suspicious of you, too.”
“He said that?”
“Not in so many words.” “I see.”
“I
have
to put that money back, as quickly as possible.” She grasped his hand, gave it a squeeze. “You’ve just
got
to help me to figure out a way it can be done without putting you at risk.”
“Tell you what,” he said, drawing her close, “why don’t you just let me handle this alone?”
She snuggled against his chest, shaking her head. “No. Absolutely not That’s out of the question. This is my responsibility, not yours.” She shrugged. “It’s my fault you’re involved in this mess in the first place. I wouldn’t have bothered you with it at all if I knew more about banking and…and whatnot”
He kissed her forehead. “Okay. I’ll fill you in on the ‘whatnots,’ if it’ll make you feel better, but—”
She threw her arms around him, kissed him soundly. “Oh, Noah,” she gushed, “thank you. Thank you so much!”
Chuckling, he said, “If
this
is what I’ll get for digging you out of jams, I hope you’ll be in trouble a lot!” Then, on a more serious note, he added, “I’ll help you on one condition.”
Dara looked into his eyes, heart pounding with love for this kindhearted, beautiful man. “What condition?”
“That you’ll never shut me out again. Not for any reason. Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Okay. First thing Monday morning, I’ll get to work. By start of business Tuesday, the case of the missing money will be solved.”
He wrapped her in his arms and rested his chin atop her head. “How does that sound?” he asked.
She felt safe in his embrace, so protected and secure. “It sounds perfect,” she replied.
And you’re a perfect husband, she reflected. No wonder I love you.
F
rank Howard shook Noah’s hand, invited him to have a seat on one of the bloodred leather wingbacks across from his burled mahogany desk. “Good thing for Pinnacle,” he drawled, sitting in his many-tufted black chair, “that they found a way to pay off that debt at the eleventh hour.”
Noah slid the envelope bearing the check from his briefcase and faced the big Texan. “What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s suspicious, don’t you think, that the whole time we’ve been talkin’ lawsuits, they’ve been cryin’ bankruptcy. Then the day before the fifty-thousand-dollar late fee kicks in, they cough up the whole kit an’ kaboodle. Tells me they had the resources to pay up the whole time…and they were stringin’ us along!”
“Well, no harm no foul,” Noah stated. “Besides, it’s not so strange, really,” he went on. “Companies do it all the time. You probably do it yourself, to keep
that interest money rolling in till the last possible minute.”
“No, I don’t, either!” His fist thumped the desktop. “My daddy raised me to pay my debts in full and on time. It’s one of the principles this country was founded on, one of the reasons Howard Equipment is the biggest company of its kind.”
Noah nodded politely as the older gent retold the story he’d told a hundred times before, about how his great-great-grandfather, a blacksmith, settled in Texas territory and built a burgeoning business from nothing but hard work and good intentions.
“I don’t cotton to folks makin’ a profit off of unethical business practices. The money they make comes outta
my
pocket, confound ‘em!”
“I agree,” Noah said, meaning it, “but I’m Pinnacle’s accountant, not their collective conscience.” He handed Howard the check and, standing, said, “I have a favor to ask you, Frank.”
He tore open the envelope, peered inside at the check. “This thing won’t bounce, will it?”
Chuckling, Noah shook his head. “Not a chance. That money has been sitting in a special account, earmarked for this payment.”
Scowling, he slapped the envelope onto his desktop. “So what’s this favor you want, Lucas?”
“Can you nudge your accounts receivable department a little? Get them to send off a ‘paid in full’ statement ahead of schedule?”
He stood behind the desk, leaned his knuckles on the blotter. “Why in tarnation should I do that?” he thundered.
Noah took a deep breath. “Well, I don’t suppose you heard, but I just got married, and—”
“Is that right?” The big Texan strode around to the front of his desk, pumped Noah’s arm up and down like a pump handle. “Well, congratulations, boy! You have young’uns to raise, ain’t that right?”
He nodded. “Two of them, a girl and a boy.”
“How old are they?” Howard asked, perching on the corner of his desk.
“Angie is seven, and Bobby is six.”
Crossing both arms over his chest, Howard chuckled and shook his head. “Got me grandkids older than that!”
“So as I was saying,” Noah continued, “I’ve been a little distracted these past few weeks, what with the wedding and—”
“Say no more,” Howard bellowed, laughing. “I’ll head on downstairs and have Mable type one up soon as we’re through here, get ‘em to mail that statement right off to the folks at Pinnacle. We’ll protect your purty li’l self, all right…”
Noah extended his hand. “Thanks, Frank. I don’t usually let things like this fall through the cracks.”
“Boy,” the Texan said, “if you
weren’t
distracted by a new bride, I’d say there was somethin’ wrong with you!”
“You’re a lifesaver. I mean that.”
Howard’s ruddy cheeks reddened even more in response. He clapped a fatherly hand on Noah’s shoulder. “Now, git on outta here, boy, so you can clock out on time, have a cozy I’il dinner with that new wife of yours.”
Noah felt a little guilty, having misled Frank that way. But he took comfort in the fact that he’d done nothing unethical or dishonest. Rather, everything had been completely aboveboard, from the cash deposit
he’d made with Dara’s money into Pinnacle’s account, to the bank check he’d had drafted in the amount of two hundred thousand, made payable to Howard Equipment.
When Frank’s accounting department forwarded the statement to Pinnacle, all parties concerned would believe Jake Mackenzie had had the foresight—before his trip to England—to earmark funds that would honor the company’s debt…just in time to save
another
fifty grand in penalties. Not only would he be cleared of any suspicion of embezzlement, he’d go down in company history as the man who’d given his life to save Pinnacle Construction.
Buoyed by the knowledge that her father’s good name had been preserved, Noah gunned the motor of his car and steered into traffic. He couldn’t wait to get home and tell his wife the good news.
Dara couldn’t explain Emmaline’s behavior. Ever since Christmas Eve, she’d been strangely quiet, and it seemed the woman had been deliberately avoiding her.
They were in the kitchen together—Dara standing at the sink, washing dishes; Emmaline perched on a stool at the snack bar, peeling potatoes—when Angie and Bobby skipped into the room.
“Can I have a sugar cookie?” the boy wanted to know.
She gave him a crooked smile. “Well, I suppose it won’t hurt to have just one.”
“Me, too?” Angie asked.
Dara winked. “Why not.”
Emmaline sighed heavily—a sure sign she didn’t approve of Dara’s permissiveness. But she wasn’t about
to ask the woman to state her opinions on the subject. Life is too short! she thought, grinning to herself.
The children helped themselves to one cookie apiece and slid onto stools to eat them. Bobby pressed his palm to the snack bar, rested his chin on the back of his hand. “This sure would taste good with a big ole glass of milk,” he teased, mischievously wiggling his eyebrows when Dara looked his way.
“Goodness, Bobby,” she said, grabbing a glass from the cupboard. “You’re so subtle that—”
“Subtle indeed,” Emmaline complained. “All this indulgence around here is turning him into a rude little rascal.”
“What’s a rascal?” Bobby whispered to Angie.
“A brat,” she whispered back.
“I’m not a brat, Grandmother.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“But I’m a good kid.” He looked at Dara. “Right?”
She opened her mouth to agree, but Emmaline beat her to the punch.
“If you were as good as you think,” his grandmother said, “maybe God wouldn’t have sent you to the hospital.”
He looked into his grandmother’s eyes, tears filling his own. And without a word, he slid from his stool and ran from the room.
Angie shot Emmaline an angry look, then ran after her brother. “Bobby,” she called, “wait up.”
Dara calmly dried her hands on a dish towel and walked purposefully toward the snack bar. “Mrs. Brewster,” she said, sitting on the stood beside Francine’ s mother, “we have to talk.”
Emmaline put down her paring knife, wiped her hands on her apron. “About what?”
“About what just went on in here.” Dara hung her heels on the stool’s bottom rung, rested her hands on jeans-clad knees. “I’ve been quiet when you chewed me up one side and down the other, but I can’t sit idly by while you belittle the children. Especially when they’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Nothing wrong!” Emmaline protested. “Why, they’re becoming little barbarians!”
Noah had decided to stop off at home on his way back to the office, rather than phone Dara with the news about the payment. He’d let himself in through the front door and headed toward the sound of voices in the kitchen. He’d stopped short of the doorway, though, when Emmaline’s scolding drove his children from the room.
“They’re not barbarians,” he heard Dara say. “They’re terrific kids. And you have to stop ridiculing them.” She paused. “They were so excited—no, make that
thrilled
—when they heard you were coming for Christmas. Don’t you know how much they love you?”
“Of course they love me,” she scoffed. “I’m their grandmother.”
“Then may I suggest you act like one and warm up a little. Spend some time with Angie and Bobby—not teaching them how to bow and curtsy, but getting to
know
them.”
“What kind of nonsense is this? I’ve known them all their lives!”
“If you knew them,
really
knew them, Mrs. Brewster, you’d realize what remarkable children they are.”
“I don’t have to sit here and listen to this,” she said, starting to get off the stool.
“You’re absolutely right. But you
do
have to stop being so mean to the kids.” She held a hand in the air
to forestall Emmaline’s retort. “I realize I’m not their natural-born mother, but I love them as much as if they were mine. It hurts them when you call them names, and I’ll do whatever I must to keep them from being hurt.”
Emmaline gasped. “Why, of all the…I’d never hurt them. How dare you insinuate such a thing!”
“Mrs. Brewster, I’m not
insinuating
anything.” Frustrated, she sighed. “I know you don’t like me, but that’s a problem only if we can’t learn to work around it…for the kids’ sake.”
“I never said I didn’t like you.”
Dara snickered quietly. “Well, you sure could have fooled me!”
Noah leaned back so that he could see them but they couldn’t see him.
He watched Emmaline begin to pace, from the sink to the stove to the snack bar and back again.
“It isn’t you, don’t you see? It’s me!”
“What do you mean?”
Emmaline stopped, faced Dara and said, “Everyone loves you. Noah, the children—even Joseph thinks the world of you. It’s Dara this and Dara that. You’d think you hung the moon!”
In all the years he’d known her, Noah had never seen the woman cry for real, but her tears were genuine now.
“You’re not the perfect housekeeper or a prizewinning cook,” she blubbered, “but you don’t
need
to be perfect.” She threw her hands into the air. “Don’t you see, they love you just for yourself!”
Dara nodded slowly, telling Noah that she was getting the same picture he had gotten: Emmaline was
jealous
of Dara!
She slid off her stool and drew Emmaline into a
warm hug. “You’re sadly mistaken if you think they don’t love you, Mrs. Brewster. They’re crazy about you—Noah, the kids—and Mr. Brewster adores you. Anyone with eyes and ears knows it!” Patting the older woman’s back, she added, “No one expects you to be perfect, least of all the bunch of us. We’re family, for goodness’ sake! If you can’t relax with us, who
can
you be yourself with?”
Emmaline stepped out of Dara’s embrace, blotted her eyes on a corner of her apron. “Joseph was right,” she said, sniffing.
“About what?”
Impulsively, she grabbed Dara’s hand. “You’re a wonder.”
And Noah, from his vantage point, nodded in agreement. He’d loved her from first sight, but never more than right now.
The next weeks flew by in a flurry of activity, with Dara volunteering at the elementary school and putting the finishing touches on the house.
She’d always been a bundle of energy, so the fact that she’d been tiring by suppertime worried her more than a little. Perhaps caring for Noah and the children, as well as all the holiday preparations and entertaining Joseph and Emmaline, had worn down her usual energy reserves. She’d scheduled a physical, to make sure everything was A-OK.
As it turned out, her appointment was at ten o’clock on Valentine’s Day. She’d waited the customary thirty minutes beyond the set time, then sat another ten minutes in the examining room, waiting for Dr. Peterson.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said when he breezed into the
room. “I had to break some bad news to my last patient. Took a little longer than I expected.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, putting aside the magazine she’d been reading. “Sitting around in here has been the most leisure time I’ve had in weeks.”
He peered at her over the rims of his half glasses, then patted her hand. “I can always count on you to brighten my day, can’t I?” He scribbled something in her file, then motioned for her to sit on the edge of the table. “So what’s this I hear about you getting married?”
Nodding happily, Dara smiled. “December 18.”
“Do I know the lucky fella?”
“I doubt it. His name is Noah Lucas.”
Peterson squinted one eye as he palpated Dara’s throat. “Can’t say as the name is familiar.” He plugged the stethoscope into his ears and listened to her chest. “Deep breath now,” he instructed. “Now, then,” he continued, listening to her back, “what seems to be the trouble?”
“Well, I’m just so
tired
all the time.”
He unplugged the stethoscope and grabbed his flashlight. Brow furrowed, he stared into Dara’s right eye, then her left. “Are you getting enough rest?”
“I should say so! I’m asleep by eleven and don’t get up till six.”
“Overdoing it around the house, then?” he asked, strapping the blood pressure cuff into place.
“No, just the usual chores, but Noah’s kids are a big help in that department.”
He made another note in her file. “Flat on your back, young lady.”
Once she was settled, he poked and prodded at her
abdomen. “Hmm,” he said, frowning. “Excuse me for a minute, will you?”
Peterson hurried out the door, white coat flapping, and returned with the results of her blood and urine tests. “How long did you say you’ve been married?”
“Almost two months to the day.”
Nodding, he said, “That’s right. December 18.” He wrote something else in her file. “Go ahead and get dressed,” he said. “You know where to find me.” With a grin and a wink, he was gone.
Dara hurried into her clothes and rushed right into Peterson’s office. He’d been her doctor ever since she was a child. He’d removed her tonsils when she was six. Set her broken arm that time she’d fallen off the monkey bars in the fifth grade. Prescribed antibiotics to get her ear infection under control when she was on the high-school swim team. And performed every other examination—healthy and sick—in between. Settling into the low-backed chair across from his desk, she waited for him to complete his additions to her file.
Peterson removed his half glasses. “How long have we known each other?” he asked, lying them atop the file.