The Heiress

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Iris’s heart pounded. “And how am I supposed to do that?” It wasn’t as if Daisy would simply hand the documents and private investigator reports over to her!

  Richard shrugged, as uncaring as always. “You figure it out. Just make sure it’s done.”

  IRIS TELEPHONED DAISY three times the next day. Each time, she left a message on Daisy’s voice mail, asking Daisy to please call her as soon as possible so the two of them might get together.

  Daisy ignored the request and instead spent her morning making phone calls to drum up work for herself, and her afternoon trying to clear a little space in Jack’s closet and dresser for her own things. And she was still at it when he came home from Deveraux-Heyward Shipping around five-thirty.

  “I hope you don’t mind—” Daisy indicated the quarter of his closet she had filled with her things.

  “Take all the room you need,” Jack invited as he walked into the master bedroom. He hung up his suit jacket, stripped off his tie and wrapped that around the hanger, too. While unbuttoning his shirt, he told her casually, “Mitch and Lauren Deveraux have invited us over to their place this evening.”

  “Yeah?” Daisy stopped folding her pajamas and looked up at Jack. This was certainly unexpected. The last time she had seen Tom’s kids, they had all looked at her as if her mere presence was at least partly responsible for their parents’ divorce. And they had been right. If not for Daisy, Tom and Grace might not ever have divorced, Tom’s infidelity or no.

  Jack tossed his dress shirt into the wicker hamper in the corner and took a short-sleeve polo shirt off a hanger. “It sounds like fun.”

  Daisy watched him pull the shirt on over his white T-shirt. “It sounds,” she corrected, “like a setup.”

  “You’re right.” Jack dispensed with his socks then suit pants and hung those up, too. “I guess in a way it is.”

  Daisy tore her eyes from his long, muscled legs. “And…?”

  Jack pulled on a pair of old, faded jeans almost as threadbare and disreputable as the ones she was currently wearing, the difference being his did not have a frayed rip in one knee. He gave Daisy a bluntly assessing look, taking in her upswept blond hair and tummy-baring cap-sleeved black T-shirt, before returning to her face. “They all want to talk to you—Gabe, Amy, Chase and Mitch—and their spouses. Now that they know you are their sister.”

  Aware she wouldn’t be able to wear clothes like this much longer—already her navel-baring jeans were feeling pretty snug around the hips—Daisy slid her pajamas into the dresser drawer and shut it. “Aren’t they jumping the gun a little bit?” she asked. “My paternity isn’t official yet.” And because it wasn’t, she hadn’t heard from Tom since the afternoon of the blood test.

  “Your half siblings seem to think it may as well be. Anyway, you know Lauren has been renovating 10 Gathering Street. And she’s having a wallpaper-stripping party, and wants us to come.” Jack grabbed sneakers from the bottom of his closet and put those on, too.

  Daisy could tell Jack wanted to go.

  His expression fell just a little. “But if you don’t feel up to it—”

  Actually, she’d been feeling a little strange all day. Nothing specific. Just not quite right. Taking it fairly easy all day hadn’t really helped her malaise. Maybe getting out and seeing people would. “Well, I have been wanting to talk to all of them. Lauren, Chase and Amy were among the first to hire me when I started freelancing. I could sure use some more photography jobs from them.” Not knowing how they would react hearing from her, she hadn’t called any of them today. And instead, had waited for them to make the first move. Now, Daisy noted, it seemed they had.

  “Mitch said they’d provide dinner if we provided the labor.”

  “How come Lauren doesn’t just hire someone to do the work?” Daisy asked as she found a pair of sandals and began to get ready to go. “She and Mitch surely have the money between them.” Both were trust-fund babies and successful professionals.

  Jack leaned against the wall, watching as Daisy restored order to her wavy blond hair. His attentiveness sent shivers of awareness down her spine.

  Shrugging, Jack answered Daisy’s question, “Lauren says she’d rather do this to stay in shape than do three miles on her treadmill at the gym, at least part of the time. Mitch will do whatever it takes to make Lauren happy. The rest will be there just to party and hang out together, as well as lend a helping hand.”

  JACK WASN’T KIDDING about lending the helping-hand bit, Daisy noted forty-five minutes later. When Daisy and Jack arrived, all eight of them were hard at work on the two foremost downstairs rooms. “Hey, Daisy.” Chase Deveraux was the first to put down his steamer and make his way over to her. “I’m glad you could come.”

  Chase was nine years older than she, but he was the most visibly unjudgmental about her antics—maybe because he had, in the past, possessed a penchant for wild and reckless behavior himself. Now that he was happily married to Bridgett Owens, he had calmed down considerably, but was no less understanding when it came to her. Daisy looked at him uncertainly. She needed to be clear. “Are we going to be okay?”

  Chase nodded and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “You know it.”

  The next thing Daisy knew, she was surrounded by everyone there, accepting hugs and warm welcomes and congratulations from them on her marriage to Jack. For the first time in her life, Daisy had an inkling of what it must be like to be a member of a big and loving family. And she noted, Jack, an only child and outsider himself, seemed to be enjoying the novelty as much as she was. “I’m sorry about the scene I caused when I first found out,” Daisy apologized to one and all, knowing that much was past due.

  “Don’t blame you one bit,” Gabe Deveraux said sympathetically, wrapping his arm around his pregnant wife, Maggie.

  Amy Deveraux nodded and added sympathetically, “You had every right to feel betrayed.”

  Mitch Deveraux stepped forward to agree, and looked at Amy earnestly. “But we’re all hoping we can put the past behind us and move forward. We don’t care how you and Dad decide to handle this, Daisy—whether you want to go public with your paternity or keep it quiet—we just want you to know that we all consider you part of our family now. And we plan to treat you accordingly.”

  Daisy hesitated. Except for her brother, Connor, she hadn’t been close to anyone, growing up. Never mind been part of a big, boisterous group like the Deveraux family. A family that had now been ripped down the center because of her. “To be honest,” Daisy said eventually, swallowing hard around the growing lump in her throat, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” She wanted this, but not at their expense. And unless Grace Deveraux changed her feelings about Daisy, there would be no room for both Daisy and Grace in the Deveraux-family gatherings, no matter what Tom wanted.

  “That’s okay, too,” Amy said with a frankness and gut-level honesty Daisy appreciated. “Just know we all plan to stand by you. That we’re not going to punish you for something that was completely beyond your control.”

  Daisy could see all four Deveraux siblings and their spouses, were in total agreement on that. And although she was relieved about that—she would have hated to lose her friendship, not to mention the work she got from the four Deveraux siblings—she knew that was only part of the havoc within the Deveraux clan. So, much as she was loath to do so, she had to ask, “What about your father?” She got the words out with difficulty. “How do you all feel about him now?” The last time she had seen them, they had all been furious with Tom.

  Uneasy glances were exchanged all around. “We’re working on that,” Gabe said eventually.

  “To be honest, we’re all finding it a lot harder to come to terms with Dad’s actions, the way he simply turned his back on you as if you didn’t even exist when he had to know—at least suspect. But even assuming we buy that,” Chase said in a low, clipped tone before going on protectively, “we still have to deal with his infidelity and what that did to Mom, as well as our en
tire family, and that’s even harder to forgive.”

  “Although we are trying,” Mitch put in. He gave Chase a reproving look before turning back to Daisy and explaining, “Because we know that the family is not going to be able to come together again, the way it should, unless we can all stop placing guilt on each other and just move on.”

  It was a good plan, albeit not a very practical one, Daisy thought. Because feelings and emotions, as she well knew, were not so easily manipulated. You couldn’t just decide to be happy if your whole world was falling apart around you. Not for any length of time, anyway, because sooner or later the circumstances around you would get to you again. Just like her circumstances were getting to her now.

  “How do you feel about…Dad?” Amy asked curiously, studying Daisy. “Are you going to be able to forgive him for abandoning you so completely?”

  Ah yes, the ten-million-dollar question. “I don’t know,” Daisy said quietly. Afraid she was going to be overcome with emotion if this discussion went on any longer, and start sobbing her heart out, she turned her attention to the walls, which were in dire need of work.

  “So.” Daisy smiled a lot more energetically than she felt as she planted both hands on her hips. “Where should Jack and I start?”

  “I DON’T THINK you should try and handle one of the steamers,” Jack told Daisy a few minutes later as they all got to work.

  Daisy frowned at Jack. “It’s fine.”

  “It’s too heavy.”

  “Not that heavy,” Chase disagreed. “These machines weigh only ten pounds. I think Daisy can handle one. The only reason we don’t want Amy and Maggie using them is because they’re pregnant.”

  Exactly Jack’s point about her, Daisy thought, turning back to Jack. Daring him to try and announce her condition to the group, to use that to slow her down, she waited to see what he would do.

  He merely smiled and continued stubbornly, “I still prefer to use the steamer. You scrape.” He handed her the appropriate tool.

  Deciding to let her husband win—for now, and enjoying the camaraderie of the group—Daisy went back to the wall. Aware she was beginning to feel a little funny—or maybe just pregnant, again—Daisy concentrated on making conversation. “So how is Grace’s new TV show coming?” Daisy asked Nick Everton, the producer of the show, who’d just showed up. And was Grace still as mad at Tom as she had been five weeks ago, when Daisy had barged in and made her announcement to the family? Daisy knew she had no reason to feel responsible for any of their unhappiness, but somehow she did just the same. They were good people and she wanted them all to put this terrible situation behind them.

  “Very well,” Nick replied as a tiny spasm rippled through Daisy’s lower back on the right side.

  Oblivious to the discomfort Daisy was beginning to feel, Amy broke in cheerfully, “They’re going to be interviewing for a show photographer pretty soon.”

  That was nice, Daisy thought as another spasm rippled through her, this time in the vicinity of where her appendix was supposed to be.

  Lights flashed behind Daisy’s eyes. There was a peculiar weakness in her knees.

  “Are you interested? Daisy?” Amy’s glance narrowed as she took in the perspiration beading Daisy’s face. Amy leaned closer, touched Daisy’s arm as Daisy put her scraper down. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” Daisy said, leaning back against the wall and bending over from the waist as a piercing pain ripped through her abdomen. She felt really dizzy and strange again. Not quite nauseous. But there was no reason for it, Daisy told herself sternly. She hadn’t eaten anything weird. She hadn’t strained her body in any way. Yet there it was again. Pain so sharp and debilitating it seemed to consume her entire being.

  Suddenly, Jack was there beside her, too, pulling her away from the wall and wrapping his strong arms around her. “Daisy?” His voice came at her, as if far away.

  Daisy turned to him, sweat breaking out on her face and chest as another shudder ripped through her body. Then without warning, Daisy felt the stabbing pain a third time, and this time the ferocity of it nearly ripped her in two as she gasped, closed her eyes and everything mercifully faded to black.

  DAISY KNEW it was bad the moment she awakened and found herself in what appeared to be a hospital bed. Jack was sitting in a straight-backed vinyl chair beside her. His jaw was lined with a beard. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. He looked as if he hadn’t slept all night. Daisy wet her lips. She felt groggy and out of sorts. Funny, but in a different way than before. Sort of drugged, maybe. “What happened?” She had to force the words through her dry, parched throat.

  “You collapsed,” Jack said quietly, leaning forward and taking her hand in both of his. “Do you remember that—or the ambulance?”

  Daisy struggled to find the memory and finally shook her head.

  She waited, knowing instinctively it was bad.

  The silence drew out between them. Jack swallowed hard and his eyes glistened. He opened his mouth as if to speak, stopped, and had to start again. “You had an ectopic pregnancy, Daisy,” he told her thickly. His golden-brown eyes shimmered all the more. “The embryo was implanted in your right fallopian tube instead of your uterus. That’s what caused the pain.”

  Daisy struggled to absorb what he was telling her, as panic swept through her in great numbing waves. “So…what do we do?” Daisy asked desperately. What marvel of medical science did they need to fix this?

  Unbearable sadness filled his eyes as he gripped her hand all the harder and continued in a low, miserable tone, “Mother Nature already took care of it, Daisy.” He hesitated, lip quavering. “That’s why you had the pain.”

  A sob rose in Daisy’s throat, even as she struggled to deny everything he was saying, to somehow make it not true.

  The tears overflowed, dripped down his face and his voice broke. “Daze—you lost the baby.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JACK DIDN’T WANT to tell Daisy the rest, but he figured she should hear it from him before anyone else let it slip. “There’s more,” Jack said reluctantly. “Your admission to the hospital last night made this morning’s newspaper.”

  Tears still flowing freely, Daisy stared at him in disbelief.

  “It’s in Bucky Jerome’s ‘Around the City’ column,” Jack said. He plucked the newspaper off the tray table next to the wall and handed the society page over for Daisy to read.

  One of our own, the beautiful Daisy Templeton-Granger, was taken to Charleston Hospital via ambulance early last evening. No reason for the admission or emergency surgery was given by her husband of one week Jack Granger, high counsel to the Deveraux empire, but I’m sure you all can join me in wishing the newlyweds well.

  “Damn Bucky,” Daisy said bitterly.

  Jack seconded the feeling. As far as he was concerned, he would like to see Bucky Jerome damned all the way to hell. Daisy’s only blessing, Jack figured, was that there was no photo of her being rushed in on a gurney to go with it. That image was something he—and the rest of Daisy’s half siblings—were never going to be able to forget. But at least Daisy couldn’t recall any of it, and wouldn’t have to see a photo record of that terrifying time, either.

  “I figured you’d be calling my name.” Bucky Jerome strolled in as if he owned the place. Black hair spiked in a fashionable style, he was wearing a pair of khakis and a loud shirt. He had a camera around his neck, sunglasses resting on the top of his head. “How are you, Daisy?”

  Jack had never been prone to violence, but there was something about the nosy reporter that made him want to smash his face. Given that Jack had half a foot and a lot more muscle on the stocky reporter, he’d probably be able to take him in one or two punches, too.

  Deciding, however, that a brawl wouldn’t help things, Jack put the lid on his more violent urges and contented himself with a threatening step toward the obnoxious newspaperman. “How’d you get in here?” Jack demanded.

  Bucky gave Jack a look tha
t reeked of both the arrogance and smugness that was as common to those with old money as syrup was to pancakes.

  As Jack’s temper flared, Bucky grinned. “It’s a public hospital, or didn’t you know?”

  “Get out.” For Daisy’s sake, and the sake of the other patients on the floor, Jack held himself back with effort.

  Ignoring the warning in Jack’s eyes and the grim forbidding set of his jaw, Bucky pushed past Jack to get directly in Daisy’s face. “Would you like to make a statement, Mrs. Granger?” Bucky flipped open his notepad and pushed out the writing end of his pen. “I notice you’re on the floor with all the OB-GYN patients.”

  Daisy gasped. A combination of shock and hurt radiated in her eyes.

  “That does it,” Jack growled. Not about to let Daisy endure any more than she already had, he grabbed Bucky by the back of his shirt and the belt of his pants and half shoved, half carried him out the door.

  “You can let go of me now,” Bucky said as they reached the elevator, looking annoyed, but too arrogant and indifferent to struggle.

  “I don’t think so.” Jack rode with him down to the lobby, then walked Bucky over to the security guard. Seeing the potential for trouble, another guard quickly appeared to assist. A short explanation later, Bucky was being issued a warning and escorted out the lobby doors.

  Relieved to be rid of the pesky reporter/newspaper heir, Jack took the elevator back up and strode down the hall to Daisy’s hospital room. She was sitting up in bed, staring sightlessly at her untouched breakfast tray. “He won’t be back.”

  Daisy folded her arms in front of her, looking as if she might burst into tears at any second. “Sure he will,” she said in a low, dispirited tone.

  “Not while you’re here,” Jack reiterated. Thinking it might help Daisy to have something to eat or drink, he ripped the foil cover off her plastic container of orange juice and stuck a straw in it. “If he sets foot in the hospital or approaches you again in any way, he’s going to be arrested.”