Children of Dynasty

by Christine Carroll

  Pulling out the creamy paper embossed with a Moorish-style castle, she felt a twinge of regret. It looked like the kind of place where a Cinderella story might come true.

  “I was going to suggest you go,” he said. “Mrs. Schertz can stay over in the guest room.”

  He might say he’d forgiven her for Rory, but guilt urged her to take care of him. “No, Dad.”

  Listen to me,” he said. “You have to build your power base in this town. My day is ending.”

  Mariah wanted to put a finger to his lips and shush him, but she listened.

  “With this loan crisis, you’ve got to find prospects we can sell property to.” He sounded as though he’d bitten into a sour fruit. “The last thing I want is a fire sale to Davis Campbell.”

  “My, God.” If Davis had put Thaddeus Walker up to calling Grant Development’s notes, he might be waiting in the wings, his goal to take the entire company.

  Suddenly, it was no longer good enough not to know what had gone wrong between the two men. “You and Davis have been rivals for as long as I can remember, but it seems to go a lot deeper than that.”

  John looked through the windows at his beloved garden he could no longer tend. Though he clearly didn’t want to talk about it, she couldn’t let this go. “Dad, please. Tell me why you despise each other.”

  “Who said I despise him?” His face twisted with what looked like pain.

  “Are you all right?” A clutch of fear went through her as she hoped she’d not pushed too hard.

  “Fine,” he said. “That is, my heart’s okay. I’m just thinking how different things would be,” he reached to stroke the embossed castle on the invitation, “if I hadn’t gone to McMillan’s house twenty-seven years ago.”

  CHAPTER 11

  It misted rain all afternoon, but the sun came out when John drove his Ford Fairlane past the big dunes at Fort Ord. He looked out at the wild, foaming surf and wished his friend Davis Campbell weren’t on the far side of the ocean hunting with his father in Africa. John could use him along this weekend at Wilson McMillan’s.

  Oh, John had plenty of confidence in his ability to get a job done; no doubt in time he’d be a most successful builder. It was just that his new partner Davis was better at talk. There was bound to be a lot of social banter along with golf on the world-renowned Pebble Beach or Spyglass Hill courses. John’s duffing would be less noticeable if he shared clubs with Davis, who was an excellent player.

  The worst of it was that until Davis got back and made the break with his father’s company, John couldn’t announce that they were going into partnership. Davis had wanted to wait until the hunting trip was over, for he expected Gates Campbell to take it poorly.

  After driving the oceanfront route through Monterey and Pacific Grove, John guided his Fairlane over a hill and caught sight of Wilson McMillan’s castle. Near the beginning of the 17-Mile Drive, it was set above an emerald fairway overlooking the broad curve of Spanish Bay. Offshore, the surf crashed and careened in a dozen directions off the last rocky outpost before thousands of miles of open water.

  Seeing the imposing setting and the thick-walled limestone fortress made John even more apprehensive. Lots of men would bring their wives, and today he wished he had one. Someone sweet and lovely who’d charm everyone into thinking he was a clever fellow to have won her. At thirty, he had yet to meet a woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

  Driving under the arched stone porte-cochere, John’s palms were sweaty on the wheel. To his relief, a servant welcomed him as if he belonged to the moneyed set. He followed the white-jacketed young man through a glass-walled solarium, down a wood-paneled hallway ornate with carving, and up marble stairs. The spacious room allotted him overlooked the golf course and the sea.

  “Cocktails are at six, sir, below.” His guide pointed over the balustrade to a larger terrace decorated with potted evergreens and bougainvillea climbing trellised arbors. “We dress.”

  John resisted the effort to tip, for he’d never had this kind of service outside of a hotel.

  True to instructions, he changed from his usual uniform of khakis into a suit. To avoid being conspicuous, he waited until a group gathered before he went down. Even so, as he reached the bank of French doors onto the lower terrace, he hesitated.

  “John!” A strong hand gripped his shoulder.

  He turned to find Wilson McMillan’s bright simian eyes beaming at him. The wiry forty-something developer exuded energy as he offered a crushing handshake.

  Wilson gestured to a balding man beside him. “Henry, you must meet John Grant. John’s been working with Hugh Vinson, but I think it’s time for him to start his own company.”

  John felt a wave of pride as he shook hands with Henry Sand.

  After talking a while with Sand, John wandered, listening unabashedly to snippets of conversation.

  “I’m going over to First California for all my construction loans,” said a man in a fine cashmere sweater. John made a mental note to check out the bank.

  “And if you aren’t known at Jack’s, you’re going to have to stand in the crowded hall for at least half an hour,” an older woman’s voice rose for emphasis, “even with a reservation.”

  McMillan had taken John to lunch at the landmark San Francisco restaurant the day he’d invited him down. At the time, John thought the bright lights and mirrors overdone, the poached salmon in hollandaise too rich, and the prices sky-high. Now, he wondered if Wilson had been telling him where to be seen.

  “Trust me, renovation is the key in the city proper.” The tall man leaning against the balustrade dipped two fingers into his martini and fished out an olive. He bent closer to Wilson’s wife Hilda, a handsome brunette at least ten years younger than her husband. “Those old Victorians that are falling down will be priceless someday.”

  John wanted to build, not renovate.

  Glancing at his Timex, he wondered what time it was for Davis in Rhodesia. Another week before his friend would break the news to his father that he and John planned to compete with Gates Campbell’s company. It was a daring move in a city where being a member of the club was everything, but Davis believed he could pull off getting out from under his father’s heavy hand. John couldn’t wait to reveal the contacts he was making this evening.

  Wilson circulated back and gestured at John’s half-empty drink. “How’re you doing there?”

  “Fine, sir.”

  He felt Wilson’s hand on his arm, turning him to look over the balustrade.

  “You see that rocky point?” The vibrant developer pointed southwest toward the setting sun, through the salt mist floating above Spanish Bay. The surf boiled, flinging itself against the buttress of boulders. White spray leaped thirty feet and cormorants huddled against the wind.

  “That’s Point Joe,” Wilson instructed. “A lot of sailors mistook that headland for the entrance to Monterey Bay and ended up smashed against those cliffs. You take a lesson and see you don’t end up on the rocks in your career.”

  Left alone again, John surveyed the other guests, many of them older and more prosperous than he. It wasn’t long before his eye was drawn to a young woman standing alone, looking out to sea.

  She was not tall, about five feet, wearing a simple black dress that emphasized the curve of her waist. A fantastic wealth of flaxen hair tumbled down her back. When she turned, the sun caught her eyes; they might have been made of gold. Lit by the last rays of light that made the sea molten, she was quite simply the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He looked around to see if she might be one of the older men’s trophy wives, but she remained by herself.

  Whoever she was, she was certainly not for him. She seemed made to ride in luxury rather than his Ford, to wear diamonds as big as doorknobs and travel regularly to the Continent.

  John shrugged and headed toward a group of people surrounding Henry Sand. Before he had gone three steps, Wilson’s wife Hilda turned from her conversation and placed herself in
his path.

  “I happen to have the advantage of you, Mr. Grant,” she said, offering a hand that was callused, he supposed, from tennis. “It’s a pleasure to have you here.”

  John thanked her, stealing a glance over his shoulder to see if the blonde was still where he’d seen her.

  Hilda’s alert eyes followed his. “Ah, I see you’ve noticed her. As you two were the only unattached young people this weekend, I placed you together at the table.”

  He had trouble believing his good fortune as Hilda smiled and gave him a nudge. “Go on over and introduce yourself. I’d be in the way.”

  Hoping his palms would not start to sweat, John moved toward the rail. When his dinner partner turned and faced him, the party’s chatter suddenly seemed muted by a roaring in his ears.

  “Hello,” he said. A brilliant opening.

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, you seem as much a stranger here as I am.” Her voice was low and softly modulated.

  “This is my first time down. I’m John Grant.”

  She extended both slender hands, and he grasped them. “You will take me in to dinner?” she asked delicately. John could not decide if she was a woman who needed a man’s protection, or whether she might be made of flexible steel.

  “I’d be honored,” he said.

  He’d never imagined this could happen to him. For the first time in his life, he saw a woman he believed was everything he’d ever wanted, and he knew it went deeper than her breathtaking looks. There was sincerity, a ring of elemental truth in her gaze, and strength in her delicate-looking fingers.

  “I’m Catharine Stockton.”

  John dropped her hands as if he’d been burned. Yet, the fire in him was not so easily quenched. Last month Davis had told John he’d met someone special. For the first time in his life, he was serious …

  About Catharine Stockton.

  John had found it hard to believe, remembering the swath Davis had cut through the coeds at Stanford. Even now, his best friend never had fewer than three women on a string. He seldom introduced them to John, keeping that part of his life separate from their friendship. When Davis had left to go hunting, John figured Catharine was a memory. Instead, he had received a postcard from Johannesburg, South Africa.

  I want you to be the first to know, Davis had dashed in his handsome script. I’ve decided to marry Catharine. And before you ask, yes. She is enough to make me give up other women for the rest of my life.

  During dinner, John battled with himself. The prime rib and vintage Bordeaux went down without note as Catharine devoted her attention to him. By the time dessert arrived, he was beyond help.

  Late that night at Spanish Bay, the dunes shone whitely beneath a nearly full moon. Catharine’s hair shone as she ran ahead of him toward waves glowing with bioluminescence. Holding her skirt above her knees, she danced with the ebb and flow on slender legs like a sandpiper. John watched her with a smile. In her innocent pleasure, she could have no idea what she did to him. It would be folly to let her see, for as Davis’s girl, she was merely being polite to a fellow stranger in the gathering.

  Feeling dread at the prospect of taking her back to the castle, he called her name. This couldn’t be, yet how right the word sounded on the night breeze, a promise instead of a door closing.

  Catharine walked toward him across the gleaming sand, looking up at him with golden eyes. She seemed open, not at all like a woman cheating on her lover. Was it possible Davis had read more into their relationship than she did?

  Her face changed from innocence to a waiting posture. With her head tilted, her lips parted, she moistened them with her tongue. Now was when he would have taken her in his arms had she been any other woman.

  With an effort, John said, “I had a postcard from Davis Campbell in Africa. It was all about you.”

  Catharine placed a gentle finger to his mouth, her slightest touch shocking him to the core. “No more,” she whispered.

  He wondered how he could possibly be thinking of pulling her against him. “But, you and Davis … He’s my friend.”

  “I know he is your friend. He has told me enough about you that I feel I already understand you,” she said steadily.

  “I guess I’m the one who doesn’t understand.” How could she be so guileless if she were truly engaged to Davis? “He said he’s going to marry you.”

  She went as still as a statue. “He never told me that.”

  “I guess he will when he returns from Africa.”

  Catharine shook her head. “You and I both know one woman will never be enough for him.”

  “But his note said you …”

  “He can say what he wants now. He may believe it.” She moved closer. “Could you love someone, marry someone you knew was wrong for you?” She lifted her hands and placed them over John’s heart. “I think when the right two people meet, they know.”

  He thought later of blaming the moonlight, for he was holding Davis’s girl … no, not his friend’s girl. The pounding surf matched the pulse that rose inside him, while Catharine wove her gentle gossamer magic.

  It all came clear as Mariah imagined a younger Davis, a handsome kid who looked a lot like Rory. A man without the bitterness and rancor he now carried. Finally, she understood the intense scrutiny he always subjected her to. In her, he must see Catharine.

  Sitting in his well-worn recliner, John told Mariah, “I married your mother the next week, while Davis was still in Africa.”

  She drew in her breath sharply. “You didn’t wait for him to come home? You and she didn’t tell him in person?”

  “Catharine assured me over and over that Davis had never brought up the subject of marriage to her. That she didn’t want to wait another day for us to be together …” John shook his head. “I could never resist anything she wanted but … I did feel bad about springing it on him that way.”

  “I can imagine.” If the youthful Davis had half the passion she had sometimes glimpsed in his son, he would have been devastated.

  “Davis has never forgiven me for marrying Catharine, ‘out from under him,’ he called it.” John said sadly. “Sometimes I wonder if I were in his shoes if I wouldn’t feel the same way.”

  “Did you ever talk to him about it?”

  He gave a bitter chuckle. “Are you kidding? The one time I tried to bring it up … he showed up at her memorial service … I thought he was going to slug me there in the cemetery.”

  Then he looked thoughtful. “You know, all these years someone has been sending fresh flowers to her grave on a weekly basis. I’m sure it must be him.”

  Mariah imagined Davis coming to Cypress Lawn, to the hill where Tom Barrett and John both had their family plots. Getting out of his black Mercedes, carrying a sheaf of lilies or a spray of rosebuds still bearing the dew from the florist’s bucket, he would walk with bowed head to Catharine’s resting place. He’d stand there a few moments, looking at the grieving marble angel in the nearby plot, at the words carved in granite: Catharine Mariah Stockton Grant, and then run his eyes over John’s name and birth date. All that would remain for him was to fill in the day John died.

  “So, you both went at it trying to outdo each other all these years.” Mariah’s stomach ached at the thought of what could have been had the two men combined their considerable talents. All these years, she’d thought her father hated Davis. Rather, he had once loved him, might still have loved him except for the way Davis had reacted to the loss of Catharine.

  A chill went through her as she realized the true meaning of what she’d learned. Davis’s vendetta was not about the testosterone overload that drove him to big game hunting. It had nothing to do with the competitive spirit he showed in sailing and business. Rather, it was a deeply personal quest for vengeance.

  This made it all the more important that Grant Development not fail. Time was running out, and if she were going to find buyers for Grant properties by next Friday, she must accept Lyle’s invitation to Wilson McMillan’
s.

  CHAPTER 12

  Mariah’s first sight of Wilson McMillan’s castle astounded her. The pale stone fortress crowned an expanse of perfectly manicured golf course, with a view down to Spanish Bay. She saw the rocky point where hapless sailors lost their ships, still a beacon surrounded by the peaks and valleys of churning waves.

  “This is beautiful,” Lyle Thomas said with appreciation. The weather was cooperating by producing a chamber-of-commerce weekend.

  On the drive down, Mariah had learned that the assistant district attorney was more soft-spoken and cultured than his courtroom reputation would suggest. It didn’t hurt that with his golden hair, ice blue eyes and perfect features, he might have modeled men’s clothing. Because of Rory, she couldn’t muster anything other than friendly interest.

  It felt good to get out of the city. Somehow safer, though she continued to keep an eye out for the press following her, or, God forbid, someone who meant her harm as Tom Barrett had suggested. She had not forgotten the scruffy-looking man in the Taurus whom she believed had shadowed her into Chinatown. So, every few miles she checked behind Lyle’s Mercedes convertible.

  Now, he guided the sports car under McMillan’s arched stone porte-cochere, cut the engine and looked around. “Gargoyles, for God’s sake.” Sure enough, carved figures of dogs, dragons, and monsters decorated the eaves and downspouts.

  An elderly man in a white jacket ushered them in through a glass-walled solarium. “Cocktails are at six, there.” He pointed to the outside terrace, decorated with potted evergreens and bougainvillea climbing on trellised arbors. “We dress.”

  Mariah smiled at the reception that hadn’t changed since her father had been here nearly thirty years ago. The servant led her and Lyle up marble stairs, down a long hallway hung with museum-worthy masterpieces, and showed them to doors on opposite sides.

  After admiring the spacious room with marble bath, Oriental rugs, and porcelains trimmed in gold, Mariah went onto the private balcony. No, not private; a matching set of double French doors opened onto the stone expanse fronted by a limestone railing. This pristine retreat overlooked a long green fairway, the beach, and the sun gold of the Pacific. Heady floral scents wafted from climbing roses.