“With my whole heart.” He had just espoused her own philosophy. She couldn’t have been more surprised.
“Snap her up, Richard, or I might decide to beat you to it.”
Rick was still trying to come to terms with what seemed to be his father’s epiphany. “What would Dorothy say?”
Howard laughed. “Dorothy Wynters is a wild, free soul who doesn’t want to get married. She says she’s happy enough just ‘keeping company.”’ His tone dropped to one of confidentiality. “But I hope to change her mind soon.” He reached into his pocket and took out a black ring box. Opening it, he held it so that Joanna could get a good look at its contents. “What do you think?”
She’d never cared that much for jewelry, but the ring, a three-carat heart-shaped blue diamond, took her breath away. “I think I should have worn my sunglasses.” She grinned. “That has to be the biggest diamond I’ve ever seen.”
Howard closed the box, returning it to his pocket. “Could a woman say no to this?”
“It would be hard,” Joanna allowed. It seemed odd to her that the man was asking her reassurance. Never in a million years would she have ever imagined herself in the scene she was now in. “But coupled with you, I don’t see how.”
Howard laughed. The sound surprised her. Joanna distinctly heard an echo of the laugh she loved so dearly. Rick’s laugh was a carbon copy of his father’s.
“Charming, too. You are an incredible package, Miss Prescott.”
The man was actually likable when he gave himself half a chance, she thought. “Joanna, please.”
Going through the motions of eating, hardly tasting his food at all, Rick could only stare at his father. “Who are you?”
“As I’ve told you, I’m in the middle of discovering just that,” Howard said.
As far as she was concerned, Rick’s father had already found that out and was on his way to building a better life. “So, do you have a date in mind?”
“Any date she says yes to.” Howard finished his meal and leaned back with the rest of his wine. “You’ll both come to the wedding, I trust.”
“Absolutely.” Joanna’s enthusiasm was solitary. She slanted a look at Rick, raising her brow at his glaring silence.
Rick held his hands up, as if to slow down the assault of the words that were coming, fast and furious, his way. He shook his head. “I’m still having trouble absorbing all this. Just what kind of medication are you on, Dad?”
“The best. Love. I never thought it could happen at my age. Hell, I never thought it could happen at all.” He paused, his eyes never leaving his son’s face. “You must know that your mother and I weren’t exactly a love match. More like a merger of two old families for the purpose of propagation.” He shut his eyes and shook his head. “When I think of all the time that I’ve wasted—”
Howard opened his eyes when he felt a hand on his.
Joanna was looking directly into the older man’s eyes. “No going back, remember? Just forward. Today is the first day of the rest of your life isn’t just a trite saying, it’s also true.”
He smiled his thanks.
Howard remained for another hour. Joanna introduced him to her daughter when the infant woke from her nap. She was completely straightforward about the baby’s conception.
Rick expected some sort of cryptic comment at the very least. His father stunned him by commenting favorably on Joanna’s strength of character.
“You go after what you want. I admire that in a woman.” After glancing at his watch, Howard rose to his feet. “Well, as much as I hate to cut this short, I have a flight to catch and these days, they’re advising us to arrive at the airport hours ahead of time.” He surrendered Rachel to Joanna. “I only came to California to see my lawyer about what needed to be done in order to transfer the company to you, Richard, and,” he looked at Joanna, “to make amends if I could.”
They walked him to the door, flanking him on either side. Turning to face them, Howard took Joanna’s free hand in his. “I’ve done you a grave injustice, Joanna, and you’ve been far more gracious to me than I deserve. That said, I hope that Richard comes to his senses and brings you into the family before someone else takes it into his head to snap you up.” He placed her hand on his son’s. “You two belong together and I had no right to try to change that. I realize that now.”
Touched, Joanna leaned forward, as Rachel made bubbles and gurgled against her chest, and brushed a kiss on Howard’s cheek.
He looked at her, smiling. “You are a true lady.” Then he turned toward his son and surprised him by embracing him. “Take care of her, Richard.”
Feeling a little awkward, Rick returned the embrace. “I’d like to, but she won’t let me.”
His hand on the door, Howard paused and looked at Joanna. “What’s this?”
Shifting Rachel to her other arm, she patted the baby’s bottom. “I believe everyone should take care of themselves.”
Howard frowned. “That’s all well and good when it comes to 401K retirement plans. Otherwise, a little interdependence never did anyone any harm.” He leaned forward and pretended to confide to Joanna, “And men like to feel that they’re still necessary for something. Take pity on us.” He glanced at his son, then back at her. “Humor us and allow us to ride to the rescue once in a while.” He winked at her, then embraced his son again. “Thank you for your hospitality and your forgiveness. I’ll be in touch.”
With that, he let himself out. Joanna stood staring at the closed door a moment before turning toward Rick. “Who was that masked man?”
Rick could only shake his head. “Damned if I know.”
Twelve
Rick waited patiently, keeping the subject under wraps while they bathed Rachel and got her ready for bed. But once the baby was asleep, he felt under no obligation to hold back any longer.
The moment Joanna emerged from the nursery, he said, “I’ll have that discussion now.”
Well, it wasn’t as if she didn’t know it was coming. Joanna pressed her lips together, searching for strength. Rick was making it harder and harder to stick to her guns. Having him right there beside her helping to care for Rachel went a long way to disintegrating a resolve that wasn’t made of steel to begin with.
But the memory of the fund-raiser was still very vivid in her mind. It was that image she hung on to in order to help her remain steadfast on rather wobbly legs.
Walking past him, she went into her room. It wasn’t going to be hers for much longer, she thought. “There’s nothing to discuss.”
He followed her, closing the door behind them. Mrs. Rutledge had said something about retiring for the night, but voices carried.
“Then you don’t love me.”
She swung around, wounded by his assumption. If her whole course of action was going to depend on making him believe she didn’t love him, then it was doomed from the start because no matter how resolved she was not to ruin his life, she couldn’t tell him she didn’t love him. It just wasn’t in her.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” He blew out a breath, struggling to hang onto a temper that was badly frayed. “When a woman turns down a man’s proposal, that’s usually some kind of indication that she’s not all that crazy about him.”
Didn’t he understand? They weren’t children anymore. How many ways did she have to say it? “Love doesn’t conquer all, Rick, society does. And like it or not, you’re smack-dab in the middle of the social world.”
Incredulous, he shook his head. “I feel like I’ve stepped into some kind of time warp, or a parallel universe or something straight out of Star Trek. My father sounds like you and you sound like my father.”
Any minute now, she was going to cry. For years, in the small, sad wee hours of the morning, she’d thought about what she’d done, about what they could have had together. Now he’d asked her to marry him and she’d had to turn him down. For his sake. And it was killing her.
“Some
things you just can’t buck. Wasn’t going to that party enough for you?” she cried. “I didn’t even know what fork to use.”
Rick stared at her, dumbfounded. “And that’s it?” he demanded. “You’re basing our entire future, the rest of our lives, on a fork?”
She threw her hands up. Why couldn’t he just leave it alone? There was nowhere to go in her room, nowhere to escape. She went for the door. “You’re twisting things.”
He caught her by her arms and turned her around to face him. He wasn’t about to let her run off.
“And I’ll keep on twisting them until they’re the way I want them to be. And no,” he denied, one step ahead of her, “it’s not about control, it’s about happiness. And the shooting down thereof.”
Releasing her, he dragged his hand through his hair, frustration chewing huge chunks out of him. “Damn it, Joanna, they have classes to teach you how to use a fork. They don’t have classes to teach you to be you.” He was shouting, he realized. With effort, he lowered his voice. “Stubborn but wonderful.”
“I’m doing this for both of us.” Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. He hated that. He wasn’t going to benefit from having her refuse to be his wife, he was going to suffer because of it.
“And what my father said hasn’t changed your mind?”
Life-altering epiphanies at his father’s stage of the game didn’t count. “He’s lived his life. He has nothing to lose.”
“And I do?” he shouted at her.
Rick didn’t trust himself to keep a civil tongue in his head any longer. Abruptly, he turned on his heel and strode away from her.
Two minutes later, she heard the front door slam. The sound reverberated in her chest. Her first impulse was to run after him, to tell him she’d changed her mind. But she held herself fast. She couldn’t allow herself to be weak. It was because she loved him that she was doing this and she had to remember that. So instead she sank down on her bed and remained in her room.
But God, it hurt.
She’d barely dropped off to sleep when she heard the knock on her door.
Immediately alert, her first thought was that something had happened to Rick. She’d spent most of the night pacing, praying. Waiting for him to come home. When he didn’t, she’d thought of calling all the hospitals in the area to see if there’d been an accident.
By two o’clock she was beyond exhausted and had lain down on the bed, telling herself she needed to get some rest. After all, she was supposed to start apartment-hunting by nine.
Leaping out of bed, she ran to the door and swung it open, half expecting to see Mrs. Rutledge bearing some kind of dire news.
“What is it—?”
She nearly slammed into Rick.
Catching her balance, she stepped back, looking up at him. He was all right. Nothing had happened to him. Relief flooded through her.
The next second, anger caught up to her. How could he have put her through this? She hit his chest with the flat of her hand. “It’s almost three o’clock in the morning. Where the hell have you been?”
He glanced down at the sheets of paper he had tucked against him. “Gathering evidence.”
“Evidence?” Her eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
Something his father had said earlier at dinner had triggered him. “I called my father at the airport and he gave me a list of names. I spent the rest of the time looking them up.”
He’d completely lost her. And it was no excuse for storming out the way he had. “Names, what names? Rick what are you talking about?” She searched his face for telltale signs. “Have you been drinking?”
“No, but don’t think I wasn’t tempted.” For the first ten minutes after he’d left the house, he’d seriously thought about doing just that, before a more productive course of action suggested itself. “But getting drunk wasn’t going to solve my problem.”
He was talking in circles, circles she wasn’t following. “What problem?”
“You.” Taking the conversation out of the hallway, Rick strode into her room and dropped the pages he was carrying on her bed. They fell like so many autumn leaves on top of her rumpled sheets. “Read that.” He gestured toward the pages. “Pick any order you want to, it doesn’t matter.”
She looked at the pages. “What is that?”
Rick laughed shortly. “Those are my illustrious ancestors.” Since she didn’t look as if she was going to pick a page up, he did. He took the first one from the top. “Oh, here’s a good one. Simon Greeley, born 1657 or thereabouts. Cutpurse.” He looked up at her. “In case you don’t know what that is, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Someone who cuts the strings off your purse. In other words, a thief. Simon comes from my mother’s side.” He couldn’t help grinning, thinking how aghast his mother would have been to know that there was someone like Greeley lurking in her family tree. “I’m sure she would have been thrilled to know that.”
Discarding that one, he picked up another sheet. “Here’s another one of my mother’s people. Jenny Wheelwright. Street prostitute. No date of birth but she was shipped to Georgia in lieu of a death sentence in 1689.” Tossing the page aside, he chose a third sheet. “Here’s one of my father’s glorious forebears, Jonathan Masters, common thief.” He grinned broadly. “Notice the emphasis on the word common?” He began to reach for another. “There’s more. Would you like me to go on?”
She didn’t get it. Why was he deliberately berating his ancestors? “What are you doing?”
“I thought that was obvious. Showing you my bloodlines. After all, you’ve got a right to know what you’re getting into. This—” he gestured at all the sheets littering her bed “—is my family.
“Oh, and in case you’re interested, I also took the liberty of finding a few of Alyssa Taylor’s relatives and a couple for some of the other people who attended the fund-raiser. Not one of them have clans that could exactly be called pure as the driven snow,” he assured her. “And then I did you.”
She stared at him. “Me?”
He nodded, sitting down on the bed. He began pulling the pages together into one pile again. “Took a little time. I only had your mother’s name to work with. Since you’ve never told me it, getting your father’s name was a little tricky.”
Where was all this coming from? And why had he gone to all this trouble in the middle of the night? “How—?”
“Hospital records,” he answered simply. “His name is on your birth certificate.”
She knew that couldn’t have been readily available to him. There was only one way he could have gotten the information. “Since when did you become a hacker?”
“I’m not, but my assistant is loaded with a lot of hidden talents. Most are parlor tricks, but this one turns out to be very handy. When it comes to extracting computer files, Pierce is a veritable Houdini. I worked him to death tonight and left him facedown on his bed. But I digress,” he told her, and he became serious. “According to my information, you’re the best one of all of us. Not a single thief, murderer or strolling lady of the evening in your family tree. Just a lot of good old-fashioned honest laborers and farmers.” He shifted around on the bed so that he could take her hand. “Maybe I’m the one who should be worried about you being ashamed of me.”
Joanna stared at the sheets of paper on the bed. “You did all this for me?”
Tugging on her hand, he made her sit down beside him. “Well, you’re the one who needs convincing, not me. I already know that you’re the best thing ever to happen to me. And, if anyone ever makes you feel the slightest bit out of place, I’ll just give them a peek at their family tree and I guarantee that you won’t get a second haughty look out of them.”
Joanna shook her head. This had to be the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her. “I don’t know what to say.”
He cupped her cheek. “I believe the operative word of the day is still yes. As in, ‘Yes I’ll marry you.’ ‘Yes, I’ll go to Catalina with you—”’
In the excitement of his father’s unexpected visit, he hadn’t had a chance to tell her. “I booked tickets for us to go tomorrow—today,” he corrected. “Oh, and yes, I’ve also got something for you.”
She wasn’t sure if she could take anything more. But before she could ask him what else he had up his sleeve, Rick took out a velvet box from his pocket and handed it to her.
She opened it and immediately recognized the ring. There couldn’t possibly be two like that. She looked up at him, puzzled. “This is your father’s ring.” Joanna tried to give it back to him.
He pushed her hand gently back, closing her fingers around the box. “No,” he corrected, “technically, it was to be Dorothy’s ring.”
She still didn’t understand. “Then how did you get it?”
His father had slipped it into his pocket when he’d embraced him at the door. The show of emotion had completely caught him off guard.
“He gave it to me just before he left, saying that he saw the way you looked at it and thought it might help me convince you.” Rick searched her face. “Was he right?”
Didn’t he know her yet? “I wouldn’t marry you just because of a ring.”
He knew that. The ring was just to sweeten the deal, a token to symbolize his affection. “Would you marry me just because you love me? Just because I love you?” And then he grinned. “And just because I won’t give you any peace until you do?”
“You know they call that stalking, don’t you?” It wasn’t easy keeping a straight face. Or keeping herself from throwing her arms around his neck.
“They used to call it determination.” Rising to his feet, he took her into his arms. “I don’t care about labels, Joey. Or what ‘society’ says. I care about you, about your baby. About the kind of life we can have together. And the kind of life I’d have without you.” He looked into her eyes. “I’ve already seen it and I don’t like it. I had to keep myself busy twenty-four hours a day just not to think about you. And most of the time, it didn’t work. Remember, you were the one who once told me that the most important thing in life is not what you do, but who you love and who loves you back.” His arms tightened around her. “The most important part of my life is that I love you. And you’ve already told me that you love me. In my book, when people feel like that, they get married.”
A Bachelor and a Baby Page 14