“Perfectly.” Randall gazed in appreciation over the field, where the furry tips of buckwheat, which grew waist-high in spots, curtseyed to the breeze, toward the ocean beyond. Then he drew her into his arms and kissed her lightly on the lips. “I’ll do whatever I can to help. You know that, don’t you?” She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Where had this man come from? “You’re not alone. I have resources. I know people.”
“Thanks. I just hope it’s enough.” She was sure that Lloyd Heywood had more influence than all of Randall’s connections combined. “Not that I don’t appreciate what you’re doing,” she hastened to add. “And normally I believe in the power of the pen. But I don’t know if it’s mightier than the sword in this case.”
Randall’s brow creased as he stared past her. When he brought his gaze back to her, the frown lines were still there. “Lindsay, there’s something you should know. But first I want to tell you—”
Before he could finish, they were interrupted by the drone of a car engine. Lindsay turned to see a black Mercedes SUV making its way down the drive, trailing a plume of dust. “I wonder who that could be,” she muttered. “Unless it’s one of Heywood’s goons. And I can’t believe even they would stoop this low—on a Sunday.” She was getting a funny feeling, though. God might have rested on the seventh day, she thought, but the devil’s work was never done. “I’d better go see who it is.”
Randall gripped her arm. “Don’t.”
She eased her arm from his grasp. “I have to. I can’t just leave my sister and Miss Honi to deal with this.”
“Let me handle it, then.”
“I appreciate your gallantry,” she said. “But if it’s who I think it is, they won’t settle for my second.”
Randall fell into step with her as she headed back toward the house. She could see that he wasn’t happy about it as he walked stiffly at her side, his mouth drawn into a grim line.
When they got to the house, the Mercedes was parked out front. Lindsay reached it just as the driver’s-side door swung open and Lloyd Heywood, dapper in a pair of cream trousers and a fashionably creased linen blazer, climbed out. His gaze fell on Randall, and his mouth spread in a grin that revealed a row of gleaming porcelain veneers.
“Hello, son,” he greeted him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lindsay stared at him in shock. “This man is your father?”
For a second she thought Randall was going to plow his fist into the older man’s smug, smiling face. Then he turned to her with an anguished look. “It’s not what you think. If you’ll just let me explain—”
“No.” She put a hand up to ward him off as she backed away. “My God. So you’ve been lying to me all this time? Trying to trick me into going along with his scheme?” She swung around to face Lloyd Heywood. Randall’s father. She could see the resemblance now—the same build, the same nose and mouth. The same charm that masked a cold, calculating eye. And she’d believed Randall truly cared for her. What a fool she’d been!
“Lindsay, please …” He reached out to place a hand on her arm, but she shrank away. Randall looked stung, but he gamely plowed on, “That’s what I was trying to tell you before … about my family. Yes, I know I should have told you sooner. The only reason I didn’t was because I knew this was how you’d react. I didn’t want you to think I was connected to him in any way.” He shot another murderous look at the old man.
“Please, spare me. I may be naive, but I’m not an idiot.” She took another step back. “I get it now. You thought if you could get me all buttered up …” and into your bed … “you’d have me right where he wanted me.” She glared at Lloyd. “That I’d just sign on the dotted line.”
Randall looked stricken. “No, it wasn’t like that. You’ve got to believe me.”
“Why should I?”
“Because I care about you, damn it!” Bands of color stood out on his cheeks, and his eyes were wild. This was not the Randall who’d had her family eating out of his hand a short while ago.
She gave a hollow laugh. “You expect me to believe that? Oh, I admit you had me fooled. I must have seemed an easy mark—the damsel in distress. All you had to do was come riding up on your white charger and sweep me off my feet.”
“It wasn’t like that,” he continued to deny. “I wasn’t part of any scheme.”
Lindsay was too angry to listen. “Well, now that you’ve had your fun, I’d like you to leave. If either of you ever sets foot on my property again, I’ll get a restraining order.” She turned to fix the elder Heywood with a frosty gaze. “Anything you have to say to me from now on, you can say to my lawyer. As for you …” She turned back to Randall. “We’re done.”
If Randall was shaken, the old man appeared unruffled. “In that case, I won’t take up any more of your time, my dear,” he said, as avuncular as ever. “But in all fairness to my son, you’ve misjudged him. We’re not, as you seem to think, in cahoots.” He tipped Randall a wink, as if in blatant contradiction of his words. Randall stared back at him with a flat, cold gaze.
Lindsay’s head was spinning, and she felt slightly sick to her stomach. I’m no better than my sister, she thought. At least Kerrie Ann had reason to believe that Jeremiah was the answer to her prayers: He was the father of her child. With Randall, all it had been was sweet talk and the hope he’d sparked in her of something that was never going to be.
Tears rose, choking off the angry words on the tip of her tongue. “Go.” This time it was more a plea than a demand. She couldn’t bear to look at him a minute longer. It hurt too much.
Randall made one last attempt. “Can I call you later? Five minutes of your time, that’s all I’m asking. Will you give me that much? Please. You don’t know the whole story.”
Lindsay shook her head. “You’d only be wasting your time.”
“You should listen to what he has to say,” advised the elder Heywood in the same unruffled tone. “If you’re looking to hang on to all this—” he gestured around him—“my son might just be your best bet. That way we could keep it all in the family.” He glanced about with an appreciative look. “And I must say, I can’t think of a nicer spot for a wedding.”
“You bastard.” Randall took a menacing step in his direction.
“Now, now, is that any way to talk to your father?” Lloyd feigned a hurt look. “And here I was only trying to help. Never let it be said that I stood in the way of true love. Now, where was I … oh, yes.” He withdrew an envelope from the inside pocket of his blazer and handed it to Lindsay. “This is for you, my dear. Not another offer,” he was quick to add at the contemptuous look she shot him. “It’s a check. Quite a generous one, you’ll see. All you have to do is sign the quitclaim my lawyer is drawing up.” Lindsay moved to give it back to him, but he stepped back and put up his hands. “If you decide not to cash it, fine, we’ll do it your way, but give it some thought at least. It would solve your money worries, and at the end of the day you’d still have your business.”
She drew in a sharp breath. “What do you know about my business?”
“I know enough,” he said. “I know, for instance, that you’ve had to borrow against your house in order to make the payments on your bank loan. I also know that your lease is up for renewal at the end of the year and that you’re most likely looking at a substantial increase in rent. Don’t look so shocked.” He smiled. “You didn’t honestly think I wouldn’t find out everything I could about you? If I get what I want, it’s because I do my homework.”
This time Randall lunged at him, fists clenched, but the older man was as nimble on his feet as he was in his dealings. Before his son could lay a hand on him, he turned and climbed back into his shiny black SUV. Moments later he was backing out of the drive.
In a daze, Lindsay started back toward the house, trying not to stumble as she blinked back tears.
Normally she would have tried to put on a game face, but she could see as soon she walked in that it would be useless. Her sister an
d Miss Honi had witnessed the entire scene—the looks on their faces said it all. Miss Honi rushed over to her, throwing her arms around Lindsay. “You poor thing! Why, if I’da had a shotgun, I’da run the bastard off myself!”
Which bastard would that be? Lindsay wondered.
“She wanted to give him a piece of her mind, but I told her it would only make things worse,” said Kerrie Ann.
“You’re right, it would have.” Lindsay was grateful that for once her sister had shown some restraint. Extricating herself from Miss Honi’s embrace, she patted the older woman’s arm, as if Miss Honi were the one in need of consoling. “Don’t worry, I’ll survive. It’s probably for the best. I mean, just imagine if I hadn’t found out. I might have gone on thinking that Randall and I … that we …” She let out an involuntary little sob and squeezed her eyes shut as she fought to regain her composure. Finally she squared her shoulders, assuring them in a less than steady voice, “I’m fine, really. It was a shock, but I’ll get over it. It’s not as if we were …” She paused, gulping back another sob.
“Lovers?” Kerrie Ann supplied.
Lindsay gave her a blank look.
“Oh, come on,” her sister went on. “It’s no use pretending. We know the score. We weren’t born yesterday.” She nodded in the direction of Miss Honi, who nodded back in assent.
Lindsay bristled. “What is this, some sort of conspiracy? I thought you guys were on my side.”
“We are.” Kerrie Ann advanced on her, wearing a stern look. “Look, sis, I know you’re used to sucking it up, but we’re not gonna let you this time. So deal with it.”
“What your sister’s trying to say,” Miss Honi translated, “is that we love you, and we ain’t gonna leave you to wallow in your own mud.”
“Who says I’m wallowing?” But Lindsay’s protest was without much conviction. The truth was, she felt as if she weren’t so much wallowing as drowning. She staggered over to the easy chair by the fireplace, collapsing into it. For a long while, she just sat there shaking her head. Finally she said in a hollow voice, “Please tell me none of this is happening.”
Miss Honi lowered herself onto the footstool beside Lindsay’s chair. “Wishing it ain’t so won’t make it go away. You got to face facts.”
“What facts are those? That Randall’s a lying bastard? I think that’s been pretty well established,” Lindsay replied bitterly, an invisible knife twisting in her gut at the thought.
“I don’t mean him. You got bigger problems than that.”
“Such as?”
“Such as what you’re gonna do if the real bastard has his way. He’s right about one thing—you could lose it all, and not just the ranch. You need to look at what’s best in the long run.”
“What are you suggesting?” asked Lindsay.
“You could sell this place.” Miss Honi cast a mournful look around her. “I know. I don’t like the idea any more’n you do. But sometimes you gotta know when to fold ’em.”
“This is my home!” Lindsay cried. “I can’t just leave.”
“Sure, you can,” said the older woman with her usual pragmatism. “You can do just about anything you set your mind to. Always have, ever since you were this high.” She put her hand out level with the back of Lindsay’s chair. “The way you looked after your sister when she was little, why anyone woulda thought you were her momma. And you barely old enough to look after yourself. A little setback like this ain’t gonna change nothing. Before you know it, you’ll be back on your feet.”
Lindsay was touched by the show of support, despite the fact that this was hardly a “little setback.” More like a major catastrophe. “I’m sure I’ll manage if it comes to that,” she said. “But damn it,” her hands balled into fists, “I’m not going down without a fight.”
“I been thinking …” Miss Honi looked down at the cat that had crawled into her lap, absently scratching it behind the ears. “I got a little bit of money saved up, thanks to you. Enough to get by, with my Social Security. I could get a little place of my own, somewhere in town, close enough so I could walk to work. Maybe it’d be easier if you had one less person to worry about.”
Lindsay spoke firmly. “You’re not going anywhere—either of you.” She cast a resolute glance at Kerrie Ann, who looked a little worried. “I’m counting on you both to get me through this. And if we lose …” She let out a sigh. “I guess we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Miss Honi nodded, her eyes bright with unshed tears. She replied in a throaty voice, “I was kinda hoping you’d say that.”
They both looked to Kerrie Ann, who stood silent. There was a time when Lindsay might have mistaken her flat expression for a sign that she didn’t care, but over the past weeks she’d come to see it for what it was: a mask that hid a world of emotions. At last Kerrie Ann shrugged and said, “Whatever you guys want, I’m in. Hey, it’s not like I have a choice.” A corner of her mouth turned up in a crooked smile. “There’s just one thing …” She looked down at the envelope containing the check, which Lindsay hadn’t realized she was still holding. “Don’t you want see how much it’s for?”
Lindsay had forgotten all about it. Now, she pried it open, saying, “This is stupid. It’s not like it’s going to make a difference.”
“You should at least know what you’re playing for,” her sister reasoned.
Lindsay withdrew the check from the envelope as Miss Honi and Kerrie Ann gathered around to have a look. They were all speechless.
Finally Kerrie Ann said in an awed voice, “I’ve never seen so many zeros on a check.”
Miss Honi looked up at Lindsay. “He must think it’d be pretty darn tempting to someone in your shoes.”
“He’d be right.” Kerrie Ann went on staring at the check, wide-eyed, before recovering her wits and casting Lindsay a contrite look. “I’m just saying. But hey, it’s your money. Do what you want.”
“It’s not my money.” Lindsay stuffed the check back into the envelope. “I have absolutely no intention of cashing this. If those two crooks imagine I can be bought off, then they don’t know who they’re dealing with!”
“Whoa.” Miss Honi put out a hand. “Seems a little unfair, don’t it, branding ’em both with the same iron. You can’t be sure our boy was in on this.” Lindsay wondered when Randall had become “our boy.” Wasn’t it obvious that he was as much the enemy as dear old dad? “Don’t you think you oughta at least hear what he has to say? He don’t strike me as the type to pull the wool over someone’s eyes. ’Specially not someone he’s sweet on.”
Lindsay wavered for an instant but remained firm. “But that’s exactly what he did—he lied to me.”
“Lindsay has a point,” Kerrie Ann put in.
“Thank you.” Lindsay cast her a grateful look.
“All I’m saying is, don’t rush to judgment,” advised Miss Honi. “Remember, innocent until proven guilty.”
“That’s only in court,” Lindsay said. “And even if he wasn’t in on it, why didn’t he tell me who his father was?” She recalled that he’d been on the verge of telling her when Lloyd showed up, but she dismissed it as a case of too little, too late. “All that time I was going on and on about the evil Lloyd Heywood, he never said a word. Not one word. If it wasn’t an outright lie, it was still dishonest.”
“You of all people should know what it’s like to want nothing to do with your kin,” Miss Honi said darkly.
Her words gave Lindsay pause. It was true that she’d wanted nothing to do with Crystal; she’d refused to even write to her in prison. But she’d never purposely misled anyone about her mother. And Randall hadn’t just misled her; he’d led her to believe that he cared about her, which made it worse. She felt doubly betrayed. How could she ever forgive that?
“Does she know you’re my son?” Randall’s father had asked earlier when they’d met for breakfast at his hotel.
They’d been sitting out on the bay-view terrace. The morning sun was
breaking through the fog, and though it was still quite chilly out—chilly enough for the other hotel guests to opt for the glassed-in breakfast area fronting the terrace—the older man seemed perfectly comfortable outdoors in his lightweight slacks and linen blazer as he sat sipping coffee and nibbling on a Danish. He might have been on his way to a summer polo match. Randall, in contrast, felt chilled in his much warmer fleece-lined jacket and chinos.
“No—I’ve been waiting for the right moment to break it to her.” Randall frowned into his coffee cup, which he cradled in both hands, more for warmth than anything else.
“I wouldn’t wait much longer if I were you,” Lloyd advised. “You wouldn’t want her to hear it from someone else.”
Randall didn’t respond. He’d learned early in life to hold his cards close to his vest when dealing with his father. Starting in high school, when he’d phoned his dad with the exciting news that he’d gotten into Princeton. Lloyd had used it as an exercise in “character-building,” agreeing to foot the bill only if Randall would work for him during the summers. Since Randall’s mom and stepdad hadn’t had that kind of money, he’d had no choice but to go along.
Meanwhile, Lloyd’s two children with his second wife had never wanted for a thing.
Not that Randall was bitter. If character-building had really been his father’s intention, that much had been achieved. After graduating from college, Randall had headed for the one place where he was likely to make a killing and thus beat the old man at his own game. In the end, though, Wall Street had come close to killing him, soul-wise. However much money he made, it was never enough. He became like the people he worked with: an eye always on the main chance, devoid of a life outside the Street. Getting off the phone one day after having persuaded a client to buy shares of an iffy stock his company was aggressively pushing, he realized to his disgust that he hadn’t just beaten his father at his own game; he’d become his dad. He’d walked away from it then: the seven-figure income, the chic duplex in TriBeCa, the three-thousand-dollar Alan Flusser suits, the never-ending supply of women lured by the scent of money. There were those who’d probably seen it as a good move in a youth-driven business where anyone over the age of forty was considered past his or her prime—Randall was pushing forty by then—but for him it had been the only move.
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