The Heiress

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Would she be able to respect, honor and cherish Jack for as long as they both shall live? Or even the rest of the month, once they got back to Charleston and the complications they faced there?

  And what about Jack? Would he be able to care for her, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for the rest of their married lives? Or would this, too, end in disaster?

  Daisy had no answer. And given the conflicted look in Jack’s eyes as he bent to chastely kiss her lips at the conclusion of the ceremony, he didn’t know, either. But he was determined to do the right thing by her and their baby. That was something, she supposed.

  “WE’RE NOT DRIVING HOME?” Daisy asked in disappointment as Jack turned the SUV away from Lake Tahoe and onto the highway that would lead them to the Reno airport.

  “No.” Jack set the trip computer on his dash. “That would take several days. I need to get back to Charleston.”

  “So I’ll drive.”

  He slanted her a look and said dryly, “We’ve done that already. You took off without me.”

  Daisy gave him a smile of exaggerated enthusiasm. “Great,” she said, settling deeper into her comfy leather seat. “So how long is this all going to take?” she asked wearily, wishing she had a bed she could just curl up in.

  “It’s around four hours from Reno to Dallas–Fort Worth, where we change planes, and another four or so to Charleston. Our flight leaves at midnight. We’ll fly all night and be home by morning.”

  Daisy didn’t particularly enjoy sleeping on airplanes, but she reluctantly conceded that was probably better than staying in a hotel and trying to play it cool on what was, technically speaking anyway, their wedding night. So maybe, she decided as Jack busied himself switching on the radio, flying home tonight wasn’t such a bad idea after all…

  Jack had booked them into first-class, so they had comfortable seats and plenty of legroom. Daisy was so exhausted she slept on both flights and so did he. When she was awake, she kept herself busy reading, as did he, which meant conversation was at a minimum, and suited Daisy just fine. However, once they landed in Charleston that changed. “How do you want to do this?” Jack asked as they strode through the airport terminal toward the baggage claim.

  “Do what?” Daisy asked as she struggled to keep up with his longer strides.

  Jack gave her a sidelong glance, and noticing she was struggling, shortened his steps to a slower pace. He took her camera bag and put it over his shoulder, gallantly relieving her of that weight, which left her with just her purse. “I promised Tom I would take you to see him as soon as you got back.”

  That might have been Jack’s priority—it wasn’t hers. Especially given the way she still felt about her biological father. Sighing, Daisy consulted her watch. With the three-hour time difference, and the additional time they had spent in the DFW airport changing planes, it was nearly noon, eastern time. Daisy felt grimy and exhausted and nowhere up to another confrontation with Tom Deveraux. “I really want a shower,” Daisy said as they grabbed their luggage off the carousel and headed for the exit.

  “Then we’ll go to my—our—place,” Jack said. “We can both get cleaned up and then call Tom and see where he wants to meet—the office or home.”

  Daisy tried not to think how intimate “our place” sounded. Never mind how close and cozy their life ahead might be. Daisy studied Jack’s face, realizing she wasn’t about to get out of this meeting with her new husband’s “boss.” “I want to meet at Tom Deveraux’s office,” Daisy stated stubbornly. “It’ll be shorter, less personal, that way.”

  Jack lifted a curious eyebrow. “I thought you wanted to get to know him, that’s what your search for your real parents was all about.”

  Daisy’s heart hardened a little more as she followed Jack’s lead across the hot pavement to the short-term parking lot. “I probably would want to get to know them if they were strangers. But given the way both Iris and Tom abandoned me, and lied both to and about me, even and especially when both knew how very much I wanted to find my real parents and was looking for them, I really don’t have any interest.” Her feelings had been crushed enough already by the fact Iris hadn’t wanted her, and Tom Deveraux hadn’t even cared enough to find out if she was his child. But instead had been content to let Daisy grow up without so much as ever guessing at her and Tom’s connection. Never mind being as loved as his legitimate children, or made to feel a part of his family, or told she had four half siblings, who as it turned out, she had gotten to know and befriend anyway. Instead of making her feel wanted and loved for the first time in her life, Tom and Iris had left her feeling even more rejected and forsaken. Listening to their excuses, or worse—realizing neither of them felt they really owed her an apology—just made her feel worse. Which was why, of course, Daisy had run away. So she wouldn’t have to help Iris and Tom feel better while she was made to feel even worse than she already did.

  His expression unsympathetic, Jack walked to the end of the row and stopped in front of a decade-old red sedan. The vehicle looked familiar to Daisy, with a few exceptions. The hood and door were now painted the same fire-engine red as the rest of the car. In fact, the whole vehicle looked as if it had had a paint job. The dent was gone from the fender. Even the upholstery had had a good cleaning.

  Jack shrugged at her stunned look. “You’ve been driving my car, I’ve been driving yours,” he explained.

  Daisy could see that. And even as she admired the way he had given as good as he got in assuming the use of her vehicle without her okay, she did not like his presumptuousness in messing with a good thing without her blessing. Daisy scowled at Jack. “I didn’t give you permission to fix it up.” She had liked her secondhand car the way it was. The vehicle’s noticeable disrepair had gotten under countless skins. It’s new spiffed-up appearance would not.

  Jack merely quirked an eyebrow and looked at her without an ounce of regret. “You should have thought about that before you left it with me,” he said.

  MAYBE IT WAS BECAUSE she had been raised in such a big, cold, forbidding house, but Daisy had always liked small, cozy places. Jack’s home on the beach, a mile or so down from Chase and Bridgett’s and Maggie and Gabe’s, was just what she would have ordered, if she could have afforded to buy a home for herself at that point. The one-story beach cottage was one hundred and fifty yards away from the ocean and built in typical Low Country fashion, with a high, deeply pitched roof and gabled front door. It was small—Daisy guessed no more than twelve hundred square feet, if that. But pretty and very well maintained. Obviously built before it became fashionable to have the parking area beneath the house, the building had dark-gray siding, snowy-white trim, shutters and door and a light-gray roof. Palmetto trees shaded the front of the house, which faced the street. Hedges of tall, neatly trimmed flowering bushes insured maximum privacy from the neighbors on either side, despite the relatively small lot sizes.

  “Do you rent this or is it yours?” Daisy asked as they parked in the small gravel driveway and got out.

  “It’s mine,” Jack declared with no small amount of pride as he unlocked the door and led the way in. “I’ll show you around and then go back and get the luggage.”

  Curious to see how he lived, Daisy followed. The first thing she noticed was that there appeared to be nothing antique or exceedingly valuable in the home—the furnishings were all sturdy, attractive, department-store stock. There were miniblinds, not heavy velvet draperies, on the windows, and practical off-white ceramic tile on the floor.

  To the left of the foyer was a living room with a white stone fireplace, to the right a masculinely appointed study complete with a large desk and leather chair, computer, printer, fax and copier, a wall of built-in bookshelves and several black-metal vertical files. The living room had a sectional sofa in the same slate-gray hue as the exterior of the house, an impressively outfitted entertainment center, upholstered reading chair and matching ottoman and not much else. Behind that was a surprisingly well-equip
ped kitchen and dining area at the rear of the house. A laundry room was located in the middle, just off the covered back porch. Farther down the hallway that ran the width of the home, was a single bathroom with a tub and shower combination, commode and sink all located in a very tiny space, and what appeared to be not just the master bedroom but the only bedroom, Daisy noted.

  Daisy studied the king-size bed, with the brown, burgundy and taupe paisley sheets and coverlet. It looked comfortable and seemed to dominate the room. How comfortable it would be if the two of them were in it together, she did not know.

  His hand just above her elbow, Jack directed her back to the hall. “The clean linens, towels and washcloths are in here. If you want to go first—” He tilted his head at the shower.

  Daisy did.

  “I’ll bring in your things.”

  DAISY WASTED NO TIME getting into the shower, taking advantage of the time alone no doubt. Jack went to his study at the front of the house to the vertical files. He made sure they were locked then sat down to try to figure out what he was going to do with all the information locked inside. He couldn’t take it to the Deveraux-Heyward Shipping offices, his or Tom’s. There was too much of a chance of it being spotted by someone else. He didn’t want to leave it in a storage facility, where anyone could break in and or come across it and wonder just what the hell Jack had been doing the past ten years at Tom Deveraux’s behest. And he didn’t want to destroy the information, either. Some of it meant too much to him.

  One thing was for certain, though, he didn’t want Daisy laying eyes on it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  GINGER ZARING WAS STARING at the balance in her bank account, wondering how she could magically conjure up the sum she needed, when her daughter, Alyssa, walked into the kitchen, a stack of mail in her hands. She set the envelopes on the counter then went straight to the refrigerator and pulled out a tube of chocolate chip cookie dough. Ignoring Ginger’s frown—Ginger preferred they eat their cookies baked—Alyssa chopped off a liberal chunk and set it on a plate.

  “Anything interesting in the mail?” Ginger asked her daughter.

  “Yeah.” Alyssa tugged off the butter-stained polo she had to wear for her movie-theater concessions job and, still clad in a black T-shirt and black cotton slacks, collapsed wearily onto one of the breakfast-bar stools. She paused to pop a chunk of dough into her mouth. “I got another reminder from Yale. The rest of my tuition is due in two weeks, and they want my room and board to be paid in full, too.”

  Ginger nodded, as if it were no big deal, but inside, her heart was sinking. She had fully expected to have all the money she needed by now, to pay those bills. But she didn’t, and now, as the time approached for her only child to leave for college, the clock was ticking ominously.

  Alyssa studied her mother, at eighteen seeing a lot more than Ginger cared to admit. “Maybe it’s not too late for me to go to USC with the rest of my friends,” Alyssa said quietly.

  Ginger shook her head, vetoing that. Alyssa had opportunities here that most of her high-school graduating class could only dream about. “Honey, we’ve been through this. I told you if you got accepted to Yale, you’d go.” And Ginger had promised her daughter that, knowing full well that expenses for the year would exceed her thirty-five-thousand-dollar salary. But she’d been determined to provide for her only child, and provide she would.

  “But…” Alyssa’s lower lip trembled; her hazel eyes suddenly filled with tears. “We don’t have the money yet. Do we?”

  Ginger refused to make this her daughter’s problem—hadn’t she already hurt Alyssa enough by marrying and divorcing such a loser? She explained patiently, “I told you. I don’t want you worrying about this.”

  “How can I not worry,” Alyssa demanded plaintively, “when we’re not poor enough to be eligible for any of the need-based scholarships or financial aid, and not rich enough to qualify for the private loans?”

  Exactly the problem, Ginger thought. Fortunately for the two of them, where there was a will there was always a way. “Look, I know this is tricky, but I have arranged to get the funds for you.”

  “From that private funding source,” Alyssa ascertained uneasily.

  “Right,” Ginger said.

  “And you’re sure the money has been guaranteed to us?”

  “Absolutely.” Ginger smiled.

  Alyssa continued to regard her mother suspiciously. “It’s not a loan shark or anything, is it?”

  “No. Of course not,” Ginger said firmly. She might be willing to take a little risk, but not that much! “Just a wealthy friend of a friend with a philanthropic streak.”

  “Then what’s taking so long?” Alyssa demanded petulantly.

  Exactly what I’d like to know, Ginger thought, secretly feeling more than a little irked herself. She’d been working darn hard to hold up her end of that particular bargain for months now. But thus far, despite the generous promises made to her, she had actually garnered only nine thousand in cash from Alyssa and Ginger’s secret benefactor. Not that she was about to let him fail to pony up! Twice last week, he’d told Ginger he was going to bring her the balance of the money when they met. Twice, he had forgotten. Ginger wasn’t about to let him do so again.

  “Maybe we could ask Daddy to help us,” Alyssa said hesitantly.

  Ginger would have given anything if that were possible. But she knew she couldn’t count on Mack Zaring for anything, and the sad truth was she never had been able to. During the ten years they’d been married he had spent every dime they both brought in, and then some, leaving the three of them deeper and deeper in debt with every year that passed. The final straw, however, had come when Mack turned thirty and decided he hated his life. Telling Ginger privately that the mundaneness of their life together was suffocating him, he walked out on Ginger and eight-year-old Alyssa. Quit his job as an electrical engineer, moved to a shack in the Blue Ridge Mountains and began working on and off as a fishing guide. Since then, he’d been chronically late with child support payments, criminally unenthusiastic about their daughter’s many stellar achievements and completely unsupportive of Alyssa’s goals and ambitions for the future. Personally, Ginger didn’t care if she never saw Mack again, but for Alyssa’s sake, she knew she had to keep some connection going. It was important, Ginger knew, that Alyssa think her father loved her every bit as much as Mack should have loved her. “Honey, I’m sure he would help us if he could,” Ginger fibbed gently. “But your daddy doesn’t have that kind of money. You know that.”

  Alyssa ducked her head, discouraged, and Ginger understood full well how dejected Alyssa felt. Her own parents’ lack of money and ingenuity had kept her from going to a great private university. No way was the same thing happening to her daughter. Alyssa, Ginger determined resolutely, was going to have the opportunities in life that Ginger had never had. Alyssa was going to get the Ivy League education, and the prestige and hefty salary that went along with a degree. Even if it meant Ginger had to forfeit her pride and keep moonlighting at her second “job” in addition to her work as an airlines reservation agent. Deciding it was best to simply change the subject to something more hopeful, Ginger asked, “Do you still have that list of things you’re going to need for your dorm room—like extra-long twin sheets—for your bed?”

  Alyssa nodded. “It’s on my desk.”

  “Well, why don’t you go get it?” Ginger suggested cheerfully. “And we’ll go to the outlet mall and get what you need as soon as I finish up here.”

  Alyssa’s face broke out into a relieved smile, sure now that everything was going to be all right. “You mean that?” she asked excitedly.

  “Absolutely.” Ginger hugged her daughter warmly. “Just give me a few minutes.”

  As soon as Alyssa dashed upstairs to her room, Ginger picked up her cell phone. Knowing this was a good time of day to get him, she walked outside onto the patio, where she couldn’t be overheard, and grimly dialed the number she knew by heart. That man had made her
a promise. And by God, whether he wanted to or not, he was going to keep it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  DAISY CAUGHT JACK’S ARM before they could enter the Deveraux-Heyward Shipping Company executive office building. As Jack looked down at her, he couldn’t help but note how beautiful and fragile she looked in the snug-fitting capri pants and white sleeveless tank top, with a sweater knotted casually around her neck. Her hair fell loose to her bare, freckled shoulders. She abruptly tightened her grip on his bicep and confided in a low, compelling tone, “Before we go in, Jack, we need to make a deal.”

  “Okay.” Jack paused in the shadows of the building. The protective way he was feeling right now, she could have whatever she wanted.

  She turned to face him and took a bolstering breath. “I don’t want to tell anyone about the pregnancy just yet.”

  His wife’s request was surprisingly inconsistent with the rest of her behavior, especially when all along she had been the one demanding the entire truth be brought into the open. Unable to recall ever meeting a woman so full of contradictions, Jack countered just as firmly, “Secrets are trouble, Daisy. You should know that better than anyone.”

  “Maybe.” Daisy’s pretty chin took on that familiar stubborn tilt. “But I’m not up to hearing that I shouldn’t do this because I’m not at a point where my life is settled and orderly.”

  “And deadly dull?” Jack joked, seeing where this was going.

  “You know what I mean.” Daisy’s lower lip shot out petulantly as she dropped her hold on him and stepped back a pace, wedging a little more distance between them. “I wasn’t married yet when it happened, to someone I loved more than life itself. I didn’t have a prosperous career and a house, two cars and a dog—or, as Charlotte and Richard would have wanted, a suitably blue-blooded husband with a bank account to match.”