by Linda Conrad
“Donors don’t feel appreciated when their generosity isn’t acknowledged,” she said with a disdainful frown. “How did you manage to fall so far behind?”
The smile that spread across his face this time was a wry one. “You aren’t the first person I’ve hired to fill this position.”
He raised an eyebrow and sighed in a self-deprecating way. “You’re the fourth…no fifth…young woman who has agreed to be my assistant. I was hoping one of them would eventually work into the Director of Development position I’ve been wanting to create. And take the burden of the everyday administration off my shoulders.
“Unfortunately, none of them lasted more than a few weeks—as you can probably tell by the state of things around here.”
“But why didn’t they last? The pay is fair and these offices are really plush. What made them all quit so fast?”
He started to shrug a shoulder but stopped midway and scowled. “I thought it was because this town is so out of the way and…backward. I mean, the nearest fashion mall is a three-hour drive away.”
Running a hand through his hair, Ty looked as if he was frustrated and confused. “But the last woman left screaming something about never again being taken in by such a handsome ogre. I guess that means she thought I was something I’m not. Or maybe the job was more than she bargained for.
“I don’t know for sure,” he added, finishing his shrug. “But I have always tried to be completely honest with everyone, and I expect that in return.”
Ty turned to retrieve his cowboy hat from its hanger on the wall behind the door. “I have an appointment now with my attorney and a new donor. I’ll be back in a few hours to check up on you and see that you get a lunch break.”
Honest. He would have had to say something like that. “Take your time,” she gulped. “I have plenty to do and I’ll be fine.”
He walked out with a quick nod but his words had made Merri nervous. She had to lie to him, to everyone, if she wanted to keep her freedom and her hard-won reality.
Two
There was a lot more to the unusual assistant than her outward appearance. Ty felt it in his gut. As he drove his Jeep down the block toward his attorney’s office, he went over what was bothering him about Merri.
It had seemed miraculous that he’d come back from New Orleans, discouraged at not being able to locate a new assistant, only to find that his attorney, Frank, had hired one right out of the blue.
And what an assistant this one was. All the other women—and it had always been women—who’d accepted the position had been stunning beauties with little knowledge of charitable organizations.
He’d wondered about that each time. In the first place, why would any single woman want to relocate to tiny out-of-the-way Stanville, Texas, and dedicate her life to helping a children’s charity? It hadn’t made any sense, even though he’d always hoped they would stay.
But this woman was…different from the others. Merri was businesslike and professional-looking, with her black pantsuit and sensible, low-heeled pumps. And she seemed genuinely interested in living in this two-bit town.
Stanville was his home. He loved it here and was truly grateful that he could leave the big cities behind, except for short visits, and come back to settle in the one place that had always felt welcoming. Ty had enough money to live wherever he wanted. And he wanted to be here.
But he still couldn’t get his head around why a nice young woman would want to bury herself here.
His thoughts went back to his new assistant. Her skin was fair and creamy, and she looked like she should be a natural blonde. But instead of highlighting whatever she had been born with, the hair that she’d pulled up in a tiny bun on the top of her head was dull and the color of an unattractive wood table. Brown. Just brown.
He’d never met any woman that seemed so unconcerned with her appearance. She didn’t wear any makeup or jewelry, which shouldn’t have seemed so out of place, but on her it did. She was tall and her body appeared to be as skinny as a toothpick. Though it was hard to really judge what her body looked like under the heavy suit jacket and pants.
It was her eyes that had most captured his attention. Hidden behind inch-thick, black-rimmed glasses, those deep-set windows to her soul were an incredible shade of green. They sparked as she controlled her displeasure with him and the unfamiliar surroundings, and sizzled when she studied him from under her ultra-thick lashes.
Emeralds. Yes, perhaps those eyes could be called the color of emeralds. Expensive and exclusive.
In total, there was something off about the picture Merri Davis presented to the world. He couldn’t quite say what yet. But given enough time, he would figure it out.
Ty parked, went into the attorney’s office and was ushered immediately into Frank’s conference room. The new donor they were expecting was a rich farmer from the panhandle and hadn’t arrived at the office just yet. But Frank was waiting for Ty, sitting at the far end of a conference table that was big enough to seat twenty.
Frank stood and shook his hand. “Sorry about your great-aunt Lucille Steele, Ty. But she was rather advanced in age, wasn’t she?”
Ty nodded and took a seat. “Yeah. And she died peacefully in her sleep. We should all be so lucky to go that way.
“But I do wish I could’ve talked to her one last time,” Ty continued. “I had an interesting experience with a gypsy while I was there and I would’ve loved to ask Lucille what she knew of her. Now I guess I’ll never know.”
“Interesting? You want to talk about it?” Frank sat down in his chair again and leaned back.
“Not much to say. She was a strange old lady who gave my cousin a book and gave me a mirror…then she just disappeared. I don’t know her reasons, but it feels wrong.”
“You want me to have a private investigator do a little digging? Maybe try to find her?”
“I guess so. I can give you the very few things I know about her later. But it really doesn’t seem terribly urgent now that I’m home. At the moment, I want to talk about the new assistant for fund-raising you hired while I was gone.”
“Merri? I think she’s the answer to all your problems. We were really lucky to get her.”
“That’s just it, Frank. How did we get her? I hadn’t been able to get so much as a nibble on anyone who was qualified and would also be willing to relocate this far out in the sticks. I was about to give up.”
Frank smiled. “Between us, we have now come up with five different women to take that job. And none of the first four worked out due to circumstances beyond our control. I was talking to…”
“Just a minute. It sounds like you might know why the other assistants quit. Do you?”
“I have a good idea,” Frank admitted. “In a couple of the cases I managed to conduct cursory exit interviews and checked with outside sources.”
He studied Ty for a minute, then continued. “It seems that most, if not all, those women had marriage and not employment in mind when they agreed to take the job.”
“Marriage?” It suddenly hit him what Frank must mean. “You mean to me?”
“Well, your picture has been in several of the state-wide Texas magazines as an eligible bachelor. Think about it. You’re filthy rich. Single. Good-looking…in a rough-and-tumble sort of way. Why wouldn’t a woman want to take her best shot at that?”
It took Ty a minute to get enough of his powers of speech back to make it clear why not. “I never gave any of those women…or anyone else for that matter, the impression that I was looking for a wife. I’m not.”
He fought to bring his voice under his command. “I have no intention of getting married. Not now. Not ever.”
Frank raised his eyebrows. “Never? That sounds like a broken heart talking. You want to tell me the story?”
“No.” It had been ten years since he’d given a single thought to his old college flame, Diane, and to what a fiasco becoming engaged to her had been. And he didn’t want to think about it now, either.
Instead he shifted the conversation back to the original question he’d had when he walked in the door. “I want you to explain why and how we found Merri Davis…and I want you to assure me that she won’t be like all the others. I want to know absolutely that she intends to stay in Stanville and doesn’t have designs on me.”
“I think you can tell by looking at her that she isn’t like all the others,” Frank said with a smile. “She’s refined and all business. You would do well to take some lessons from her in how to behave around donors. I believe she’s got the sophistication and the congeniality you lack. Try to absorb some of it, will you?”
Yeah, maybe. But there was still something about her that didn’t sit right….
“Anyway,” Frank continued, “I had been telling my old friend Jason Taylor—you remember the Taylor family from here? He’s been my best friend since grade school, even though he’s a hotshot attorney out in L.A. now.”
“Yes, I know of him. His mother and Jewel were best friends when they were girls. But what does he have to do with…?”
“Jason and I still talk a couple times a month. I’ve been keeping him up on local goings-on. Over the last year or so, I’ve told him of our utter frustration at not being able to hire a responsible…and qualified…person for the fund-raising position.
“Then a few days ago, Jason called and said he had the perfect applicant for the job and she would be willing to start immediately. I waited until she actually arrived and settled in before I called you about her.”
“Yes, yes. I don’t mind that you hired her without consulting me first. That she’s right for the job and is prepared to stick with it is all I care about.” Ty shifted and rested one of his booted feet against the other knee. “So tell me her background.”
“Jason told me he’s known her family since he moved to L.A. They must’ve been neighbors or something. He says he’s known Merri since she was a kid, and that she is a very serious and sober young woman who has experience with fund-raising. She took nonprofit management courses in college and has decided she wants to have a career in development. Her main ambition is to help those less fortunate.”
“Does she come from money?” Ty knew the suit and the shoes she wore looked expensive, but she still seemed so wrong in those clothes that he’d imagined she must’ve bought them at a consignment shop.
“I don’t think so. I believe Jason would’ve mentioned it. What he did say was that she didn’t care about the money. All she needed for a salary was enough to get by—which, as you are well aware, is not all that much in Stanville.”
Ty nodded in agreement. “Right. So again, I have to ask, why would a single young woman be willing to give up her friends and her family in order to come to a backwater town with almost no social life to speak of?”
“Who knows?” Frank shrugged and grinned. “I got the impression that she didn’t have much of a social life back in L.A. Maybe our friendly town will be all the high life she needs or wants.”
Ty didn’t think so, but finding out her true motivation was fast becoming a challenge. It was what made him push her and test her this morning, he knew. But he tried not to think of his own true motivations.
The woman simply fascinated him, and he refused to consider how dangerous that might really be.
“I always liked your great-aunt Lucille,” Jewel told Ty as she wiped down her kitchen counters. “Ever since she gave you the money to go to college and then to buy your first piece of property, I thought she was special, even though she wasn’t blood kin to me. I’m sorry she’s gone. So, her funeral was well attended?”
Ty opened Jewel’s refrigerator door and stood absently inspecting the contents the same way he had ever since he’d been a five-year-old kid. “The funeral was huge. I never realized my father’s side of the family had so many relatives. I guess I’m just used to you being the only one on my mother’s side.”
He bent to check the bottom shelves. “It seems that Lucille had some strange friends. I ran into a weird gypsy who gave me what she said was a magic mirror.”
“What? Was it a joke?” Jewel walked over, reached around him and pulled out the milk carton. “Is this what you’re looking for?”
Beaming, he took the carton from her and popped it open. “I’m not sure about the joke. I thought so at first. I mean, the mirror looks like an antique, but it has my name engraved in the gold leaf. And the actual mirror is nothing but plain glass. Frank’s checking it out for…”
“Hold it, mister,” Jewel interrupted as she kicked the refrigerator door closed and handed him a glass. “You can drink straight out of the carton at your own house when I’m not around…if you must. But I taught you better manners than that.”
Ty grimaced and poured the milk into the glass. “You sound like Frank. He says I need polish. Hell, I’ve got more money than ninety-five percent of the world, why do I need polish, too?” He tried to hold back a grin as his aunt scowled. “Besides, there’s nothing fit to eat or drink at my ranch.”
“And whose fault is that? You’re an adult. Go to the grocery store.” Jewel went to the teakettle on the stove and poured herself a cup.
Man, he really loved Jewel. It would never occur to her to suggest that either one of them hire servants to do the work—no matter how much money he had in the bank.
Ty ignored her remark, just like he ignored having to shop for food. He’d been too busy to do anything lately, what with trying to get the Nuevo Dias Children’s Home and the Lost Children Foundation off the ground and also overseeing his oil and real estate businesses.
And then that last-minute trip to Lucille’s funeral had really thrown him for a loop. He hated to think what might actually be growing in his refrigerator.
“I met Merri Davis this morning,” he said with an effort to change the subject. “She’s hard at work in the Foundation office as we speak.”
“What did you think of her?” Jewel asked. “I thought she was just adorable.”
“Adorable?” With that severe bun, those thick glasses and sensible shoes? All he’d seen was a practical and shy woman whose ugly thick glasses had been hiding sexy green eyes. But he had enough sense to keep his mouth shut.
Jewel clucked her tongue at him anyway. “Merri Davis may not be a raving beauty, but she has other charms that make her very special. I swear, Tyson, you only seem to take notice of people’s outward appearance. Just like that horrible Diane person you were engaged to in college. I would’ve thought that experience had taught you a lesson.”
She shook her head. “You are not really that shallow. No one I love can be that superficial.”
He groaned and swiped his mouth with the back of his hand—which earned him another cluck from his aunt’s tongue, along with a paper towel.
“I thought you were happy when I asked Diane to marry me in college,” he said without challenging Jewel’s shallow remark. God. He hadn’t thought about that terrible lying witch, Diane, in years. And now he’d been faced with the disastrous memories twice in one day.
“No, I was glad for you when you seemed to be so happy for once.” Jewel walked over and put her hand on his arm. “I know the pain of losing your parents is always there, right behind that wicked smile of yours. I see it, son. Even if you won’t admit it.”
Now she was about to hit on something he absolutely refused to dwell on. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Mom and Dad’s accident was a long time ago. There’s no pain left after twenty-five years. You did a good job of raising me. I’m a happy man.”
“All right. We won’t talk about it if you don’t want to.” She released his arm and sighed. “I do want you to find someone to love, though. But I didn’t believe that Diane was the one to make you really happy. And it turned out I was right. She was all frosting and no cake.”
Ty pitched the towel in the trash and set the glass down so he could wrap his arms around Jewel. “From now on, you tell me what you think, okay? I trust your judgmen
t.” And he would’ve given just about anything not to have had his heart ripped out by Diane. “But I don’t imagine I’ll be finding love with anyone but you. I frankly just don’t have the time. I hardly have enough time to eat.”
Jewel turned in his arms. “Is that a hint? Are you hungry?”
He kissed her on the top of the head and released her. “Naw. I need to get back to the Foundation office. I promised I’d go back to check on Merri’s work and make sure she took a lunch break. I’m a little late.”
“Lunch? Tyson Adams Steele, it’s nearly two o’clock. You are not allowed to starve my new renter. Not when she’s paid me two months in advance.”
He chuckled at the stern look on his aunt’s face. “And that’s another thing. I thought we decided you wouldn’t rent out that old cottage I gave you until I had a chance to make sure it was habitable.”
“That’s your opinion, Tyson. I think it’s fine. The few things left to do can be done when you have the time. And there really wasn’t anywhere else for Merri to live in town. You know the nearest apartment complex is miles away in Edinburg.”
Jewel pointed to a kitchen chair. “Now sit a minute. I’ll make a few sandwiches and put some potato salad in containers. You take them back to the office so both you and Merri can have a decent break.”
She opened the refrigerator door. “You can nag at me about the cottage while I’m working if you must. But I’ll warn you that I won’t be too remorseful. I’ve told you I can hire someone to finish the restoration if you’re too busy.
“Merri needed a place to live and I needed to make some rent money to pay for the new appliances,” Jewel continued. “And on top of that, she’s a lovely person with terrific manners. You would do well to listen to Frank and take some pointers.”
Merri licked the flap on the last envelope and pressed it down to seal. She sat back in Ty’s chair and inspected her work.