Castles that were bound to come back down to earth with a resounding crash.
What did it take for her to learn that she couldn’t just believe in happy endings because they didn’t happen to people like her?
Leonor blinked hard, struggling to keep the tears back. She refused to let him see her cry. She refused to cry over the likes of him.
She could feel the moisture forming.
Grasping her by her shoulders, as if that could somehow help his words penetrate, he said, “Leonor, this is serious. Someone is trying to kill you. Do you understand?”
Claudia stifled a cry. Hearing the words out loud made everything seem that much worse. There was genuine concern in her eyes as she looked to her sister for an answer. “Leonor?”
“It’s just a stupid coincidence, that’s all,” she told Claudia.
She wasn’t thinking about the near hit-and-runs; she’d survived those. She was thinking about the fact that she’d been lied to—again—and that she just might not survive.
Her heart was literally aching in her chest. All she wanted to do was run and get away from him. But somehow, she remained where she was, as if her feet were glued to the ground.
Josh had an answer for Claudia. “Your mother,” he told her flatly.
“Livia?” Claudia cried, appalled as well as stunned. It was obvious that the information made no sense to her. “Why?”
“No reason. It’s just his imagination,” Leonor answered, dismissing what Josh had just said. She felt literally sick to her stomach.
But Josh wasn’t ready to retreat yet. He was determined to make his point. “That blog spilling all the family secrets is why she’d be after Leonor,” Josh said, answering Claudia’s question. “Somehow she found out that Leonor was the one who gave that blogger’s source all the information.”
Leonor raised her chin stubbornly. “My mother would never hurt me,” she insisted. “And certainly not for something like that,” she added.
But Claudia wasn’t so sure. “Maybe he’s right, Leonor. I mean the rest of us have forgiven you and moved on, but Livia’s not like the rest of us,” Claudia reminded her.
“No, she’s not,” Leonor agreed, but that was just her point. “Everyone in the family was angry because you thought I sold you out—” she began, laying out her argument.
“Well, I wasn’t really angry, just upset,” Claudia admitted, cutting in. “But not for long,” she quickly added.
“But Livia is very vain,” Leonor doggedly continued, sparing Josh the barest of glances. “She absolutely adores publicity. The more, the better. There’s nothing she loves more than to have her story all over the news.”
She looked at Claudia pointedly. All her life Claudia had insisted she felt like the outsider in the family, but even an outsider was able to notice things if the pattern kept being repeated.
“I think we can all agree that the woman really wants to be infamous and that article certainly painted her that way,” Leonor concluded.
“If your mother isn’t trying to kill you, then who is?” he wanted to know.
Leonor raised her shoulders in a vague shrug. “I haven’t got the slightest idea,” she told him. “But then, I don’t seem to know anything about anyone.” She looked at him pointedly as if to drive her point home.
Claudia shifted, unclear as to what was going on between her older sister and the handsome man who had come rushing to her aid.
She looked from Leonor to the man who, in her opinion, had heroically saved her sister’s life—maybe twice, according to him.
“Is this a lover’s quarrel?” she finally asked uncertainly.
“No!” Leonor cried with a little too much feeling.
Rather than make any comment on whether or not love in any form was involved, Josh said, “It’s not a quarrel. At best,” he added, looking at Leonor’s hardened profile, “it’s a misunderstanding.”
“Right,” Leonor said, her eyes narrowing to almost-angry slits. “And apparently I misunderstood you all the way around.”
“We need to talk,” he informed Leonor. Not waiting for her response, he turned toward Claudia and said, “Can I call you a cab? Or drop you off somewhere?”
Claudia resourcefully came up with an idea. “My car’s parked by the restaurant where Leonor and I ate earlier. Why don’t I drive her car there, get my car and leave hers in the parking lot? This way, you and she can have some privacy,” she suggested.
“I don’t want any privacy with him,” Leonor insisted, speaking up.
Claudia gave her a reproving look, then pulled her sister aside to talk to her.
“Lennie, you’re my big sister and I love you and I mean this in the most loving way—don’t be so pigheaded. That man just risked his life saving yours and one look at his face tells me that he definitely has feelings for you. I’m thinking that you’ve got a real chance at happiness here, despite the family curse—”
Confused, Leonor repeated, “Family curse?”
“Mother,” Claudia explained, biting off the word as if it was poisonous and needed to be spat out before it had a deadly effect. “Now give me your car keys,” she hissed into Leonor’s ear, “and for heaven’s sakes, listen to what he has to say.”
But Leonor wasn’t about to be so easily swayed. “The last time I listened to what someone who professed to have my ‘best’ interests at heart had to say,” she told Claudia, “he fooled me into trusting him with family secrets, and then he wound up conning me out of a million dollars before he took off. I don’t need to go through an experience like David Marshall again.”
But Claudia wasn’t convinced that lightning was about to strike twice. “You really think he’s going to do that?” she asked, nodding at Josh.
Leonor was not about to give up her stand easily. “Well, maybe he won’t get any money—but that’s only because I’ve got it locked up in a trust that only I can access under certain provisions,” she added.
Claudia looked unconvinced. “Is that the only reason you think he won’t try to con you and get your money?” her sister challenged.
Leonor wanted to remain steadfast—but she was losing ground and she knew it. Even her heart was turning against her, hoping against hope that she was wrong somehow.
“Probably not,” she murmured quietly.
Claudia glanced again at Josh. She wasn’t the world’s best judge of character, but there was just something about this man that made her believe he had Leonor’s best interests at heart.
“Look, all I ask is that you give him a chance to explain before you dump him. Sounds fair, doesn’t it?” she asked.
“‘Fair’ has nothing to do with it.” Leonor began to work herself up again. “How do I know he won’t give me some sob story, try to con me that way?”
“How do you know that what he’s telling you isn’t the truth?” Claudia challenged.
Leonor stared at her younger sister. The one she had just bankrolled to restart her career in Shadow Creek. “Why are you on his side?” she wanted to know.
“I’m not on his side,” she protested. “I’m on yours. And you need someone,” Claudia insisted. “From what I can see, I think that he’s it. Now, I can’t tell you what to do—”
“Ha!”
Claudia relented. “Okay, I can try, but you’re the final authority here and you know it. I just think it’d be a shame to slam the door on something before you explore all the possibilities that ‘something’ has to offer.” She glanced around Leonor’s shoulder to look at Josh again. “Especially when those possibilities come in a package that is so damn cute,” she said with feeling and no small appreciation.
Leonor sighed, temporarily surrendering. Digging into her pocket, she took out her car keys and handed them to Claudia.
“Fine. Here.”
Claudia happily closed her hand around the keys. “Great. I’ll leave them for you with the hostess at the restaurant,” she told her.
Hurrying to Leonor’s car, she got in the driver’s side. She buckled up and started the vehicle. Looking at Josh, Claudia waved and said, “Good luck,” before she drove away.
Thinking it was safe to rejoin her, Josh walked over to Leonor and asked, “Ready to go?”
Leonor gritted her teeth together and ground out, “No.”
He was flexible. Right now, he had to be. “We can stay here and talk for a while if you want,” he offered. “I don’t think that driver’ll be back.”
When he mentioned the person who had almost mowed her down, she remembered something. “I didn’t thank you for saving me,” she said grudgingly.
The smile rose slowly to his lips, a little like the sun making its first appearance on the horizon. “No, you didn’t,” he agreed.
“Thank you,” Leonor mumbled less than willingly.
He held the car door open for her and waited until she got in.
“Anytime, Leonor,” he told her as he closed and secured the passenger door. “Anytime at all.”
Chapter 15
With all her heart, Leonor wished she could just take off somewhere, cutting herself off from everyone and everything just long enough to be able to try to pull herself together. She wanted to get her bearings and be able to move forward with her life.
But she didn’t have the luxury of indulging herself that way. She had to get back to Austin and back to the museum.
Oh, she supposed that she could just hand in her resignation, but her sense of responsibility wouldn’t allow her to do that. Sheffield had made it clear more than once that he depended on her and if she quit, that would be leaving him in the lurch at the worst possible time. It wasn’t as if he could just pull another curator out of a hat, and the museum was scheduled to hold that huge gala opening for the new works of art that had been acquired.
Works of art that did not include any paintings from “Joshua Pendergrass’s” private collection, because she sincerely doubted that there was actually a private collection to speak of.
Leonor moved around the suite, throwing things into her suitcases as she packed.
She had tried to pin Josh down about the paintings right after he had saved her life. She’d felt conflicted pressing him for answers after he’d been so heroic, but then, for all she knew, he might have had someone make it look as if they were trying to run her down just so that he could play the hero. This way she would be grateful to him and consequently feel as if she was in his debt.
Leonor dropped the makeup she was packing on the floor. Swallowing an oath—she kept dropping things because she was trying to hurry and leave before Josh knocked on her door—Leonor bent down to pick up the tiny containers. Tossing them haphazardly into one of the suitcases, she stopped for a moment and took a deep breath.
Get a grip, Lennie!
She didn’t know what kind of game Josh was playing; all she knew was that she didn’t want to play games. She’d been played once by David and this had all the earmarks of another con.
A unique one, but still another con.
This was why she’d decided to check out this morning. She was going back to Austin and the museum where hopefully, with any luck, she would forget all about Josh.
In about a hundred years or so, Leonor thought ruefully.
When had she become so pessimistic, she upbraided herself.
Less dawdling, more moving, Leonor silently ordered.
She looked around the suite one final time. Satisfied that she hadn’t left anything behind, she closed the lids on both suitcases and snapped the locks into place.
Time to go.
With a suitcase in each hand and a bag slung over her shoulder, Leonor made her way to the suite’s door. Opening it, she exhaled. She was making a clean getaway.
Almost.
The moment she stepped out of her suite, she found herself, suitcases and all, walking smack into Josh. She very nearly had all the air knocked out of her.
“Whoa.” He laughed, catching her by the shoulders. A big, warm smile graced his lips. “They told me at the front desk you were checking out.”
Determined to leave, Leonor avoided his eyes, giving her answer to the space next to him. “I am. I did. I’ve got to get back to work.”
“At the museum?” he questioned, moving to take her suitcases from her.
Leonor deliberately shifted them away, out of his reach. She didn’t want him touching her suitcases, or her. She just wanted to get away from Josh as fast as she could.
“That is none of your business,” she said between clenched teeth.
He wasn’t an idiot. He knew something was wrong, but he went on as if it wasn’t, hoping to gloss over the rough patches and eventually get her to let him back into her life.
“But I thought we were in negotiations to have my art collection displayed at the museum,” he said, “mystified” by her sudden change of plans.
This time Leonor did look up at him and her eyes were nothing short of blazing. “Drop the act, Josh, or whatever your real name is,” she snapped. She was tired of being played for a fool.
“It is Josh,” he told her in a calm voice.
She jumped on his words, putting her own interpretation to them. “Then you admit that the rest of what you told me was all an act.”
The triumph of being right felt very hollow to her and she took no comfort in it.
“We can talk about that later,” Josh began, trying to take the suitcases again.
She pulled away for a second time. “No, we can’t,” Leonor retorted, sidestepping him. She intended to take the stairs, determined to get away from him as fast as possible. “Now get out of my way!”
His voice was as calm as hers was sharp. “Not going to happen.”
Josh put his hand up against the wall right in front of her, blocking her exit.
Furious, Leonor glared at him. She knew that if she pivoted and went in the opposite direction, he would still get in front of her and stop her, so she didn’t even bother trying.
“Someone is out to get you, Leonor,” he told her in the same maddeningly calm voice, “and I’m not going to let them hurt you.”
Her chin shot up defiantly. “How do I know that’s not you?” she challenged. “How do I know that you’re not the one who’s out to hurt me?”
“Because I’m not,” he told her. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”
Just like David. “Right, because you’re so trustworthy,” Leonor shot back.
He ignored the sarcasm. “Actually,” he told her, “I am.”
How could he possibly say that? Just how simpleminded did he think she was? For a second, Leonor was so angry she couldn’t even speak. When she finally did find her voice, it was to accuse him.
“You lied to me!”
He wasn’t going to insult her by denying it. “Just to get close to you.”
She hadn’t expected him to admit it that readily. At a loss for words, she shouted, “Go to hell!” and then darted past him—or tried to.
“Most likely,” he allowed, “but not yet. First I need to find out who’s trying to kill you. Once they’re in prison, then I’ll see about getting those hotter accommodations.”
Did he think he was being funny? She was so angry at him, she could hardly think. “I can call the sheriff,” she threatened.
“But you won’t,” he said with confidence that she found infuriating. And then he told her why, showing her that he knew her better than she knew herself. “You’ve had enough of that kind of attention to last you a lifetime and you’re not about to willingly invite that back into your life if you can help it.”
She wanted to pound on Josh with her fists, but she knew he’d hardly feel it. “What do you want from me?” Leonor demanded.
“Nothing,” he told her. His voice was so mild, to the general passerby it would have sounded as if they were having a general conversation—unless they took note of the tension pulsing between them. “I just want to keep you safe.”
Because of Livia, she had come to painfully learn that everyone had a motive. He had to have a motive for his suggestion.
“Why?” she demanded.
He looked at her for a long moment, debating saying something offhanded in response. But that wouldn’t do here. So he put himself on the line and told her the truth.
“Because,” he said, his eyes meeting hers, “heaven help me, something happened between us in your room. Now I’m not the world’s brightest man, but I’m smart enough to know that kind of thing doesn’t happen between two people very often—”
“What? Having sex?” she asked sarcastically. “I hear it happens all the time.”
When he spoke, his voice was low, intense, going to her very core. “It was more than just that and you know it.”
The sigh Leonor blew out was long and ragged. She couldn’t argue with him because she knew he was right and she knew that he knew. But she was not about to let him back into her life until she had at least some of her questions answered.
“I am not taking another step with you until you tell me who you really are.”
Josh knew she was serious.
He carefully weighed his options, trying to decide if there was any possible way he could avoid answering her question and still get her to let him accompany her. He knew he could fabricate something—he’d been in tighter situations than this. But none of those situations had held the life of someone he really cared about in the balance.
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