The Heiress

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Daisy studied the sadness in his golden-brown eyes. “And you did.”

  “Yes,” Jack replied calmly. “Because she was right. There was just no way we could fix what had been broken years ago. So we both went on with our lives.”

  Prior to the last five weeks of her life, Daisy would have encouraged Jack to keep trying, keep struggling to somehow make things work with his mother. Now Daisy wondered if he hadn’t been the smart one, if they all wouldn’t have been better off if she, too, had just been able to walk away after finding out the truth. Instead, she had needed to come back to confront everyone who had lied to her; she’d taunted Jack, seduced, and slept with him just to get even with Tom Deveraux, Iris, Charlotte and Richard. That hotheaded mistake had resulted in a forced marriage and a miscarriage, and a loss and a grief she would never fully recover from.

  Now Jack wanted to believe they had married for all the right reasons. He wanted to take something that was all wrong and make it into something real, if not exactly wonderful.

  Only, their life together wasn’t that simple and never would be because she couldn’t have the kind of life she had always wanted if she remained trapped in a marriage neither of them had planned on or wanted in the first place. So there was only one thing for her to do, Daisy realized with a mixture of sadness and defiance. And Jack wasn’t going to like it.

  THE LIMOUSINE PULLED UP in front of Richard and Charlotte Templeton’s Charleston residence shortly after midnight. Charlotte waited until they were headed up the front steps, out of earshot of their driver, before speaking her mind. “I wish you wouldn’t disappear in the middle of a party that way.”

  Richard sent her a scowling, sidelong glance as he opened the door and let them inside. “I didn’t disappear.”

  “I couldn’t find you,” Charlotte repeated as they walked through the dimly lit foyer.

  Richard shrugged uncaringly. “Then you must not have looked very hard.”

  On the contrary, Charlotte thought, her irritation growing by leaps and bounds with every second that passed, she had searched for her husband very thoroughly and discreetly. Richard had not been anywhere in the hotel ballroom where the gala had been held, the lobby of the hotel or even the courtyard just off the ballroom. And she sincerely doubted he had been in the men’s room for the hour and a half he had been missing in action.

  Not that it really mattered, she guessed, as the muscular dystrophy fund-raiser she had cochaired had been a rousing success, and everyone in attendance at the Roaring Twenties party had seemed to have a wonderful time.

  Deliberately, Charlotte pushed her uneasiness aside as she ignored the aching in her feet and made her way up the stairs. She paused at the top of the landing. “Iris and I are going to see Daisy tomorrow. We’d like you to come with us.”

  Richard preceded her down the hall. “I don’t think so.”

  “She could use our support, Richard.”

  Concern creased his forehead. “I thought she was fine.”

  “She is. At least she claims she is,” Charlotte amended hastily.

  Richard regarded her with barely checked irritation. “You obviously don’t believe that.”

  “I don’t see how she could be all right emotionally, having just lost a baby.”

  Richard’s lips pressed together grimly, telling Charlotte that he cared less about Daisy’s miscarriage than the pregnancy she had hidden from them. “I’m sure it was for the best,” Richard said tightly as he shouldered his way past Charlotte and walked into his bedroom suite at the top of the stairs.

  Charlotte followed her husband as far as the doorway of the bedroom he had occupied alone for the last twenty-four years. She watched as he took off his jacket and tossed it onto a chair. “I don’t see how you can say that,” she returned, wondering how he could be so unfeeling.

  “I say it because it’s true.” Richard unbuttoned his shirt and removed his bow tie. “I don’t want a Templeton heir who’s descended from a family of dockworkers.”

  Too exhausted to stand any longer, Charlotte made her way to a wing chair next to the fireplace and sank into it. She ran a hand through her hair until she found the pin securing her twenties hat. She took off the delicate silk, net and rhinestone confection and laid it across her lap, then looked her husband square in the eye. “Daisy’s husband isn’t a dockworker.”

  “His grandfather was,” Richard argued as he removed the gold and onyx cuff links from his shirt. “And his mother, from what I gather, was a common tramp.”

  Charlotte stiffened at Richard’s rudeness. “Don’t talk that way.”

  Richard looked at her as if she was an idiot. “Now you’re defending a sixteen-year-old slut who got pregnant and left her baby with her widowed father to rear?”

  Charlotte retained her ladylike demeanor. “We don’t know the circumstances.” It was wrong to judge.

  He regarded her levelly. “We know enough to know that Jack Granger isn’t good enough for Daisy. We know enough to realize that we don’t want Granger and Templeton bloodlines mixing.”

  Charlotte privately admitted the marriage wasn’t one she would have chosen for Daisy, but that was neither here nor there. “She’s married to him now, Richard. We’re going to have to make the best of it.”

  He sent her a contemptuous look. “You make the best of it. I’m tired. I want to go to bed.”

  Her cue to leave.

  Charlotte rose with as much grace as she could muster. They hadn’t made love in over a decade or more. Richard had been impotent and refused to seek help or even discuss his problem with her. And she didn’t press him since she knew the condition was so difficult for him to face. It was why she’d tolerated his resentment all these years. If nothing else, she was a supportive wife.

  Not that their love life had ever been all that exciting, Charlotte thought wistfully as her husband shut the door behind her and she made her way down the hall to her own bedroom suite. Their marriage had been arranged by their families. Both eighteen at the time when they said their vows, they’d had Iris that same year, Connor in the decade that followed, and they’d adopted Daisy the decade after that. And although Charlotte had loved and respected her husband from the very start, and been the best wife she could, even though it meant putting away her own romantic dreams, she had to wonder sometimes if Richard had ever loved or really respected her. All Charlotte knew for certain was that she felt responsible for the void in their marriage because she knew—even in the years before he became impotent—she had never been able to give Richard what he wanted or needed in the bedroom. Or, it sometimes seemed, anywhere else. And that, more than anything, Charlotte knew, was why he had turned away.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  DAISY WAITED until Jack had gone to sleep, then got up and quietly got dressed and found her car keys. She was headed for the door when a sudden shaft of light overhead and a low masculine voice stopped her in her tracks.

  “Dr. Rametti said you’re not supposed to be driving yet.”

  Her insides quaking with dread at the thought of an emotional confrontation neither of them wanted or needed, Daisy turned to face him. Jack was standing at the other end of the foyer in low-slung pajama pants, arms crossed over his bare chest.

  Daisy could tell by the indignant look on his face that he had never been asleep at all, but had simply been pretending, same as she. Ignoring the stiffness in her healing body, she propped a hand on her hip and resolutely stayed her ground. “I’ll determine if I’m well enough. Besides, this time of night there’s no traffic to be worried about.” In fact, at 2:00 a.m., Daisy knew, she would be lucky if she saw a soul as she drove herself back out to Kristy Neumeyer’s Paradise Resort.

  Jack closed the distance between them with long, determined strides. “You could still encounter a drunk driver or an animal in the roadway.” He paused just short of her. “Both would require some fancy maneuvers you might find you can’t manage.”

  Okay, so she hadn’t thought of that
, Daisy thought as a shiver of pure sensual awareness swept through her. Determined not to get sidetracked by anything still medically forbidden to both of them, Daisy tilted her face up at his and quirked a cavalier eyebrow. “Would you prefer I call a cab?”

  Jack shifted his weight and stood, legs braced for battle, arms folded against the bare, hair-whorled muscularity of his chest. “I would prefer you tell me what you’re doing.”

  Their eyes locked. “Leaving.”

  He slowly lifted his hand and she felt the abrasion of his thumb as he gently rubbed the vulnerable spot beneath her ear. “I thought we had settled that,” he murmured.

  With effort, Daisy stepped away from the mesmerizing quality of his touch. “You gave your opinion.”

  “Obviously,” Jack sighed, “you were withholding yours.” He took her by the hand and led her into the adjacent living room and helped her ease down on the comfy sectional sofa. “So give it to me now.”

  Daisy watched as he sank down beside her. Knowing there was no helping it now—she would have to give it to him straight—she stated bluntly, “I’m tired of being other people’s problem. And I sure don’t want to be yours, not anymore.” Bad enough she had grown up with an adoptive father who resented her, an adoptive mother who worried over her, not to mention two birth parents who would have done anything not to acknowledge her. Now, through no deliberate effort of her own, she had kept to the pattern and acquired a husband who had married her only because she was pregnant.

  Now she wasn’t.

  It was just simple.

  And even though she could see that the inherently gallant part of Jack did not want to admit that to himself, she knew it was true.

  Once he was away from her, well, he’d see it, too.

  But in the meantime, Jack only shrugged and looked all the more resolute. “So be something else to me,” he said softly.

  Daisy made no effort to hide her exasperation. “Like…?”

  “My wife.” Jack took her hand in his and lifted it to his lips.

  Daisy shivered as he lightly kissed her knuckles. “You’re telling me you actually want to be married now,” she asked in a throaty whisper.

  “I never knew it until you came into my life, but yeah—I like having someone to be with, and sleep with, and share dilemmas with.”

  Daisy had to admit she had enjoyed having a partner, too, if only for a few days. But this was not reality, she reminded herself firmly. It was fantasy, and fantasy faded under the demands of every day. She withdrew her hand from his, and wincing as she shifted positions, moved away from him. “You’re forgetting one thing, Jack. We’re not in love with each other.”

  Jack lounged back against the sofa, casually keeping his physical distance, and yet at the same time so clearly invading her emotional space. “Why do we need to be madly in love to be happily married?” he asked with a careless shrug. “Why does anyone?” He paused and looked into Daisy’s eyes. “Maybe marriage would be better and simpler if people chose to become partners in life.”

  Needing to dispel the lingering romantic aura in the shadowy room, Daisy reached over and turned on a reading lamp. “I can see why you’re an attorney,” she told him practically. “You have an ability to argue any side of a case, no matter how inane.”

  Jack folded his arms behind his head and propped his ankle on his knee. “I’m not going to deny that. It’s what I’ve been trained to do. However, in this particular case—” he gave her a sexy smile “—I happen to believe it.”

  Oh, how Daisy would have liked to let him seduce her. But that was what had gotten them into this fix. Although she had been the one doing the seducing back then. “We have no future,” she stated firmly.

  Jack grinned and persisted, “How about a present, then?”

  His cavalier attitude pushed her over the edge. Suddenly it was all too much. This conversation. The future. And especially the present. Her hormones still running riot, tears blinding her eyes, Daisy struggled to her feet and told him in a low, choked voice, “I’ve spent my entire life to date living in a place where I was never supposed to be, with people who felt required to take care of me but who didn’t really want to be doing that.” She looked at Jack furiously. “It’s not an experience I care to repeat.”

  Jack stood, and blocked her way to the door. “You are not and never will be an albatross to me, Daisy,” he said compassionately.

  “So you say now,” Daisy retorted.

  Jack wrapped his arms around her, enclosing her in warmth. “So I’ll say forever.”

  Daisy buried her face in the solidness of his chest. “You can’t possibly know that. We had to be together before,” she said, forcing herself to be sensible. “Now we don’t.”

  Briefly, hurt radiated in his eyes. “So you want to separate?”

  Daisy swallowed hard. Hadn’t they caused each other enough pain? Did they really want to risk any more? “Can we even call it that?” she countered lightly. “We were only married a week ago, Jack.”

  “Long enough to get me to like it,” he countered, more than up to the middle-of-the-night showdown she had forced upon them. “And you did, too, Daisy.”

  Too much, Daisy thought. She drew a breath. She had to put her usual impulsiveness aside and be sensible here. She had to protect her heart before she fell apart.

  Calling on her legendary stubbornness to give her the strength she needed to turn away from him, Daisy stared at the sinewy hardness of his chest and reiterated calmly, “I’ve got to stand on my own two feet, Jack.” She had to be able to make herself happy before she could expect to do the same for anyone else. And God knew, a good man like Jack deserved a woman who could and would make his life wonderful.

  She swallowed hard around the tight knot of emotion in her throat. “I want to go back to work and save enough money to get a place of my own.” She wanted to start back where she had been, before Jack came into her life, and build a future no one else could take away from her.

  “So do that,” Jack advised, as supportive as always. “But do it here. We don’t have to be husband and wife if you don’t want to be, Daisy. We can be more like roommates.”

  Daisy regarded Jack skeptically. “And you’d be happy with that?” she challenged.

  The sadness he’d felt at the loss of their baby was back in his expression. “I want to take care of you while you’re recuperating,” he stated simply. “If you still want to go after you’ve recovered, then so be it.”

  Daisy studied him with as much objectiveness as she could muster under the circumstances. “But you don’t want that, do you?” Daisy whispered after a long moment. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Thrilled. Scared. Perplexed. “You don’t want me to go at all.”

  For a moment Jack looked just as lost and lonely as she felt deep inside, and just as determined to cover it up. A revealing silence stretched between them as he rested his hands on her shoulders. “If we hadn’t lost our baby we’d still be living here together as lovers. I won’t lie to you, Daisy,” Jack confessed softly as he ran his palms down her arms to her wrists. “I’m not enthused about the prospect of giving up that part of our relationship.”

  Truthfully, Daisy thought as he linked hands with her, neither was she. “Meaning what?” Daisy said as her heart began to race at the sensuousness of his light, commanding touch. She lifted her chin at him belligerently and tried to pass off the entire conversation as a hypothetical joke. “That as soon as my body heals all the way, you’re going to try and seduce me?”

  Jack’s lips curved upward—once again he was all indomitable male. “Let’s just say if you’re willing and the opportunity to be together presents itself, I won’t pass it up,” he promised. “And in the meantime,” he told her as he tucked his thumbs beneath her chin, “even if we can’t have sex, we can still kiss.”

  Daisy hitched in a breath. What they should be doing was getting to know each other, if they were serious about this, and she wasn’t sure he was, beyond th
e physical, anyway. “Jack…” Daisy moaned as his lips touched hers. She told herself she shouldn’t be doing this—and longing swept through her. She told herself she was definitely not going to let him tease her lips apart—and she accepted his tongue into her mouth. She told herself none of this meant anything—and yet, as he continued to kiss her gently and reverently, the world fell away. Until there was just the two of them, this moment, this need for physical and emotional comfort that only they could give. Her senses sharpening, she went up on tiptoe, wreathing her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss. The loss was still there, but now, so was hope. And if not love, something that felt very close.

  Daisy clung to him, wanting this moment to never end.

  Looking as if he felt the same way, Jack scooped her up in his arms and carried her back to the bedroom. His expression tender, he lowered her to the bed, stretched out beside her and traced the curve of her jaw with his thumb. “Let me hold you, Daisy.”

  What could she say to that? It was what she wanted and needed. What they both needed in the aftermath of what had happened. “And then what…?”

  Jack pressed a kiss into her hair and cuddled her all the closer. “We’ll take it one day at a time and things’ll work out. You’ll see.”

  Daisy listened to the conviction in his voice and wished she had Jack’s confidence. But her feminine intuition was telling her things were going to get a lot worse before they ever got better.

  “I GATHER YOU’VE SEEN today’s paper?” Iris asked her parents as she joined them for breakfast in the formal dining room of their Charleston home.