“I’ve been an idiot,” he muttered against her hair. “As if that stupid deal we made could ever work.”
“Folly,” Leslie agreed, Granduncle Charles’s favorite word bubbling out along with her laughter.
“Think we should let Cory in on our good news now?” Yes, she thought, tell everyone! This is the happiest—and the scariest—day of my life.
THE DRAPERY FELL AWAY from the statue and those assembled for the grand unveiling let out a unified gasp of appreciation. Depicted in marble were the young Margaret and Paul Lyon. Making this a work of true art, Margaret was half a step ahead of Paul. Deafening applause brought a wash of youthful color to Margaret’s cheeks.
The ceremonies were winding down. Standing in the front row with her husband and daughter, Leslie basked in her secret happiness. Not an audience, not even television cameras could faze her now. She had all she’d ever wanted, and she looked forward to sharing her good news at the private celebration her family had planned for later.
Paul finished his thank-you speech and turned to his wife. “Have you anything to add, Margie?”
Margaret beamed. “No, dear, but I would like to acknowledge the youngest members of the family who are with us today. Cory, Andy-Paul—children, will you come forward, please?”
The youngsters, giggling and shy, joined her at the microphone. She introduced Andy-Paul first, then said, “Tell me, young man, what have you learned here today?”
The boy scrunched up his face in an approximation of thought-fulness. “I guess I learned the cake comes last,” he announced.
After laughter and applause had died away, Margaret repeated the question to Cory. The little girl considered carefully.
Then she said, “Well, I guess the best thing I learned today is...my mama’s gonna have a baby! I’m gonna be a sister!”
For once, shy Leslie wasn’t the least bit embarrassed, even when everyone’s attention centered on her. She was proud to help carry on the Lyon legacy, even though she had not been born a Lyon. She’d always been awed by the Lyon family loyalty, the family pride. Now she’d happily do her part to help the family prosper into the next half century, at the same time ful-filling all her own dreams.
On this golden anniversary of WDIX, she had a golden anniversary of her own to look forward to: fifty years of marriage to the man of her dreams. It really didn’t get any better than that.
EPILOGUE
CHILDREN RAN ACROSS the graceful lawn at Lyoncrest, shrieking and giggling and heedless of generations-old beds of rosebushes.
Their grandparents, parents and aunts and uncles mingled beneath a spreading white tent, erected for the private family celebration.
And the couple who’d created the reason for the celebration fifty years ago sat on a wicker settee on the second-story gallery, watching the proceedings. They held hands and sipped sparkling cider from champagne flutes. They had retired an hour earlier and were enjoying the party from afar.
“We’ve done well with our lives,” Paul said, giving his wife’s hand a gentle squeeze.
Margaret wasn’t one to mince words or hide from the truth. “It is almost over for us, isn’t it?”
She looked at her husband of fifty-eight years. Even in the moonlight, his age was impossible to deny. But he still looked dashing to her. And the adoration in his eyes—that was worth everything they’d been through in their lifetime. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips.
“Look on the lawn, my dear Margie,” he said. “Our family is thriving. Happy. Productive. There is our legacy. It’s far from over for us. I’d say this is just the beginning for the Lyons.”
Margaret smiled and raised her glass. “To the future.”
Paul touched the rim of his flute to hers. “And to the woman who first saw it all those years ago.”
Turn the page
for an excerpt from the first book
in the LYON LEGACY trilogy
FAMILY SECRETS
by
Ruth Jean Dale
Watch for it next month!
PROLOGUE
New Orleans, July 1999
SHARLEE INCHED her way through the crowd toward the door of the rehearsal hall at WDIX, trying to look inconspicuous. If she were to make a clean getaway, the time was now, while the place was still mobbed by friends, family, employees, media and Very Important People celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the TV station established by her grandparents. No one paid Sharlee the slightest mind, which was exactly the way she liked it.
She hadn’t wanted to come to this overblown extravaganza in the first place, but there’d been no way to avoid it without making relations even more strained with her family. Neatly lifting a glass of champagne off the tray of a passing waiter, she managed a mechanical smile for her father, briefly visible across the room. Fortunately, her mother was nowhere in sight.
Why couldn’t her parents understand that at almost twenty-five, Sharlee was an independent woman determined to make her way in the world without benefit of the Lyon name? She felt so strongly about this that at her job as a newspaper reporter in Colorado, she went by a nickname bestowed upon her many years ago by a lost love—Sharlee, short for Charlotte—and her middle name: Hollander. She’d been essentially “gone” from the family nest since she left for boarding school almost nine years ago.
Yet here she was, pretending for the sake of public relations that she actually belonged to this illustrious clan. Her grandfather, Paul Lyon, was a television icon known and revered throughout the South as “The Voice of Dixie”; her father, André, was a devoted family man and pillar of the community who had taken WDIX-TV to new heights. Her grandmother Margaret and mother Gabrielle had both played important roles at WDIX, while at the same time raising their children, loving their husbands, nurturing their community, and doing it all with perfect public grace.
At least, mama had done all that until the birth of her only son seven years ago. At that point, Gaby had “retired” to stay home with Andrew Paul, universally called Andy-Paul. Also living at the family manse in the Garden District were older sibling Leslie with her new husband and stepdaughter. Leslie’s pregnancy had been revealed only minutes earlier, to the delight of all.
Sharlee hated to envy anyone anything, but this time she couldn’t help herself. Just what she needed: an older sister who had everything including the approval of the entire family, and an adorable little brother to carry on the Lyon name.
A bump from behind sent her stumbling forward, a few drops of wine spraying over the rim of her glass. When she’d regained her balance, she found herself standing behind two courtly old gentlemen speaking in low tones.
Her grandfather, Paul, and his younger brother, Charles, both in their eighties; were deep in conversation. She edged closer, her curiosity roused by the almost conspiratorial expressions on their faces.
“So now the history of the Lyons is an open book,” Paul was saying in a tone laced with an unusual cynicism. “The truth, the whole truth...”
To which his brother replied, “I was there, brother dear. There are more secrets in this family than there are candles on that cake—and someday they’ll all come home to roost.”
Sharlee frowned. What on earth were they talking about? What “secrets”? So far as she knew, every single Lyon was a model of decorum. Would that she could say the same! But now Granduncle Charles was suggesting something altogether different, and she waited for Grandpère to refute him.
And waited.
And began to wonder. Could it be true? Secrets—an intriguing word suggesting much but revealing little. Perhaps Charles was talking about his own branch of the family tree. He and his son, Alain, were not only active in Lyon Broadcasting but owned one of the most elegant French restaurants in New Orleans. She’d just eaten several cheese and shrimp stuffed mushrooms from Chez Charles, reminding her of one of the few things she missed about New Orleans: the food. All of Charles’s descendents had moved dutifully into on
e or the other of the family businesses and endeavors such as this grand anniversary celebration.
Unlike Sharlee, who’d vowed early on to go her own way and had proceeded to do so, consequences be damned.
She had long since concluded that she was the only person in the family with a wild streak. In her teens, she’d been the screw-up, the kid who got suspended from school for practical jokes, who got into curfew trouble with the cops, who snuck out of the house to meet boys, who got caught drinking by the nuns. She was also the one who was arrested in campus demonstrations at college and who got into a humungous confrontation with her mother on her twenty-first birthday, resulting in her decision to take a job in Colorado instead of moving back home after graduation.
The culmination of all this rebellion was her parents’ refusal to release her trust fund on schedule. Their lack of faith actually hurt more than being deprived of the money—although money was nice, too, at least from what she remembered.
This waltz down memory lane was getting her nowhere. She had a plane to catch, people to avoid. Even so, the conversation between the two old men had sent her reporter’s instincts into high gear. Perhaps if she loitered for just a few minutes, she might hear a few interesting, perhaps even scandalous, tidbits about the Lyons....
But then she saw Devin Oliver heading her way, a determined expression on his handsome face. Her heart stood still. He looked wonderful with his curly almost-black hair and his deep, almost-black eyes. She’d managed to avoid him on this trip as she’d pretty much avoided her parents and anyone else wearing a serious expression, but her luck might be running out.
The last thing she needed was a run-in with a former lover now on her father’s payroll. Turning quickly away, she ducked behind a cluster of celebrants and beat a hasty retreat, resolutely ignoring Dev’s voice behind her.
“Sharlee, wait! You can’t go on avoiding me forever.”
ISBN : 978-1-4592-5351-3
THE LYON LEGACY
Copyright © 1999 by Harlequin Books S.A.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:
BEGINNING
Copyright © 1999 by Peg Robarchek.
SILVER ANNIVERSARY
Copyright © 1999 by Rosaline Fox.
GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY
Copyright © 1999 by Betty Lee Duran.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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