“Do you have a child? Children?”
“No.”
“Then—
“There was someone once, a long time ago.” He spoke as if the words hurt him. “She was someone worth dying for.”
A strange sensation wafted through Tessa, like a very slow-acting narcotic that gradually induced a light-headed feeling. This man had loved a woman so completely that he would have been willing to die for her, as Tessa would for her child. Love that strong took on a life of its own, existing beyond the grave.
Love never dies.
Before Tessa could think of what to say to Dante, she noticed a slender brunette wearing a white jacket emerge from room number three.
“That’s Dr. Ellison,” Dante said.
Tessa hurried up the hallway, Dante directly behind her. The middle-aged doctor turned immediately and glanced up from the chart she held in her hand. She looked straight at Dante.
“Dr. Ellison, this is Tessa Westbrook, Leslie Anne’s mother,” Dante said.
The doctor nodded cordially to Tessa.
“How is my daughter?”
“Physically, she’ll be fine,” Dr. Ellison said. “I found no evidence of rape, no signs of penetration or bruising. But Leslie Anne has gone through an emotionally harrowing ordeal. I suggest that you see to it that she receives therapy to help her deal with what happened to her tonight.”
“Yes, of course,” Tessa replied. She’d undergone years of therapy and understood the profound way professional help could complement the love and support of a person’s family. “May I see my daughter now?”
“Yes, of course. And as soon as she’s dressed, you may take her home.” Dr. Ellison glanced at Dante. “She’s been asking for you, Mr. Moran.”
Tessa rushed to the door of room three, then hesitated. Dante came up behind her, reached around and opened the door. The nurse was helping Leslie Anne into her jeans and blouse.
Tessa sucked in a deep breath, then entered. “Leslie Anne?”
Her daughter whirled around and stared at her. Tears pooled in her dark brown eyes. Tessa took a tentative step forward and held open her arms.
“Baby…”
“Mama!” Leslie Anne flew into her mother’s arms.
“Shh—” Tessa stroked and caressed and murmured soothingly. “It’s all right. I’m here. You’re safe. Oh, sweet baby, I love you so much.”
Leslie Anne lifted her head and looked right at her mother. “How can you love me? If—if it’s true that I’m…” She gulped down her tears.
“Shush, baby, shush.” Tessa hugged her daughter close.
“Am I?” Leslie Anne asked, her eyes closed, her head resting on Tessa’s shoulder. “Am I the result of your…your being…”
“We’ll talk about it later, when we’re home.” Oh, God, she knows. Somehow Leslie Anne has found out the truth. That’s why she ran away. “Granddaddy’s terribly worried. He’ll be so happy to see you.” Tessa knew she had to stay strong and not fall apart…for her daughter’s sake.
The nurse handed Dante a black leather coat, then left the room without saying anything. He exchanged a quick glance with Tessa, then nodded toward the closed door. She understood he was telling her that it was time to leave.
After draping the coat across one arm, he walked over, placed his hand in the center of Leslie Anne’s back and said, “Are you ready to go home?”
Leslie Anne lifted her head and looked back at him. “You’re going with us, aren’t you?”
“You bet I am.”
“Thank you for everything.” Leslie Anne turned all the way around to face Dante.
He lifted the black leather coat, whipped it around Leslie Anne’s shoulders and pulled the lapels together. “It’s chilly outside. You’d better wear this until we’re on the helicopter.”
Leslie Anne crossed her arms over her waist and hugged the supple leather jacket as if simply touching it somehow comforted her. It was then that Tessa realized Dante must have wrapped his coat around Leslie Anne before taking her out of the motel earlier tonight.
They were both naked. Dante’s words rang out in Tessa’s mind. Had Dante wrapped her daughter in a sheet to cover her nakedness and then given her his own coat to protect her from the nighttime chill?
“What about my car?” Leslie Anne asked. “I mean Hannah’s car.” She hung her head. “Mama, I’m sorry I ran away. I just didn’t know what else to do.”
“It’s all right,” Tessa said. “We’ll have all the time in the world to talk things over once I get you home safe and sound.”
“We’ll have Lucie drive Hannah’s car back to Fairport,” Dante said. “She can exchange cars with Hannah in the morning.” He opened the door and stepped aside. “We’ve got a helicopter waiting on us. Are you ladies ready?”
Tessa looked to her daughter, who nodded. “Yes, we’re ready,” Tessa said. “We’re ready to go home.”
CHAPTER SIX
DANTE EXITED the helicopter first when it landed at the Fairport airstrip a couple of miles outside town. The town was too small to support an airport, but the old airstrip, used now mostly by crop dusters and some small aircraft owned by local residents, was the ideal place to land a helicopter. Once on the ground, Dante assisted Leslie Anne and then Tessa out of the whirlybird. Seeing them standing side by side, he noted once again that the daughter stood several inches taller than the mother. They were both slender, blond beauties and except for being taller, Leslie Anne’s figure, walk and mannerisms mimicked Tessa’s. No one seeing them together would ever doubt they were mother and daughter.
So there’s no way Leslie Anne could be Amy’s child.
He had to keep reminding himself of that fact because Leslie Anne’s resemblance to Amy Smith had been neither a trick of his imagination nor wishful thinking. Not only did she look just like Amy—except she was taller and her eyes were brown—but her voice even sounded like Amy’s. But then, Tessa’s voice reminded him of Amy’s.
Once he was no longer assigned to this case, which should be within twenty-four hours, he intended to check into the possibility that Tessa Westbrook was related to Amy. There had to be an explanation for why Tessa’s daughter could almost pass for Amy Smith’s double when Amy was a teenager. Surely, the man who fathered Leslie Anne hadn’t been a blood relative of Amy’s!
“There’s Daddy,” Tessa said, then groaned. “Oh, God, she’s with him.”
“Why did he have to bring her?” Leslie Anne echoed her mother’s sentiments.
Dante watched while G.W. approached, a strikingly attractive, petite redhead clinging to his arm. The girlfriend? When they drew closer, Dante noted that the woman was not as young as she appeared to be at a distance. No doubt Olivia Sizemore—Dante guessed her to be in her midfifties—had been a beauty in her youth and was still quite a lovely woman.
G.W. rushed forward and wrapped his arms around his granddaughter, encompassing her in a bear hug. “Don’t you ever do anything like that again, honey pie. You had us scared half out of our minds.”
“I’m sorry. I just didn’t know what else to do.” Leslie Anne began crying again.
G.W. petted her lovingly. “Enough of that. Whatever’s wrong, we’ll fix it.”
“Some things can’t be fixed.” Leslie Anne glanced over G.W.’s shoulder and glared at Olivia.
“Mercy, G.W., don’t keep the girls out here in this night air any longer.” Olivia smiled and batted her eyelashes as she scolded G.W.
“She’s right, Daddy,” Tessa said somewhat reluctantly, apparently hating to agree with her father’s girlfriend. “We need to get Leslie Anne home.”
“Hal has the car waiting.” G.W. inclined his head to where the Mercedes was parked on a paved area not far from the airstrip. He took his granddaughter’s hand. “Let’s go.”
She wouldn’t budge. “Wait!”
“What’s wrong?” G.W. asked.
Leslie Anne pulled free and ran back toward Dante. “You’re coming, too, aren’t you
?”
He hadn’t intended to go to the Leslie Plantation with the family at this hour of the morning. He’d planned to get a good night’s sleep at the local motel, where Dundee’s had reserved rooms for their agents, and then finalize this assignment sometime tomorrow.
“Yes, please, Mr. Moran.” Tessa placed her hand on her daughter’s back in a supportive gesture. “I doubt any of us will get much sleep tonight. Leslie Anne deserves answers to the questions that drove her away from home. She seems to like you, to trust you. If she wants you to come home with us, then so do I.”
“Is that what you want?” Dante asked Leslie Anne. “Do you want a perfect stranger to be with you when your mother answers your questions?”
“You’re not a perfect stranger,” Leslie Anne said. “You’re the man who saved me from—Please, Dante…Mr. Moran…”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d come home with us.” Tessa looked at him pleadingly. Their gazes met and locked for a minute and during those sixty seconds, he studied her there in the shadows cast by the airstrip lighting.
“Sure thing. You two go on and I’ll follow. I see the agency has a car waiting for me, too.” He motioned to the driver.
“No, please, ride with us.” Leslie Anne grabbed Dante’s arm.
“There isn’t room for all of us in the Mercedes,” G.W. said. “Honey pie, let Mr. Moran—”
“Daddy, you and Olivia go on with Hal.” Tessa clasped her daughter’s hand. “We’ll ride with Mr. Moran.”
For a second there, it looked as if G.W. was going to protest, but as if realizing this wasn’t a battle worth fighting, he acquiesced. “Very well.”
Within minutes the Mercedes pulled out onto the road and Vic Noble followed. Settled into the front seat beside Vic, Dante turned halfway around and looked into the back seat.
Tessa had her arm around Leslie Anne, who cuddled against her mother, her head on her mother’s shoulder. Leslie Anne’s eyelids fluttered. Poor kid, Dante thought, she’s been through hell.
“Are you two all right?” Dante asked.
“We will be,” Tessa replied, and he understood her meaning.
He already felt awkward being this personally involved with his client’s family. Technically, G. W. Westbrook was the client, since the old man was picking up the Dundee tab, but as far as Dante was concerned, he was working for Tessa. At least for the time being.
“Thank you for coming home with us, Dan—Mr. Moran.” Leslie Anne yawned.
“Call me Dante,” he replied.
A fragile smile lifted the corners of Leslie Anne’s lips moments before she fell asleep. Tessa looked right at Dante and, by God, he felt as if he’d been hit by a bolt of lightning. The last time something like that had happened had been over seventeen years ago—when he realized he’d fallen hard and fast for Amy Smith.
SO THE LITTLE BRAT is coming home. Too bad. It would have made things so much easier for me if she’d disappeared completely. Or better yet, if someone else had gotten rid of her for me. But now she’s my problem again. Not to worry. I’ll figure out a way to remove all the obstacles standing between me and what I want, what I deserve. Besides, the world will be better off without that demon seed. G.W. should have insisted that Tessa have an abortion the moment the doctors discovered she was pregnant. If it hadn’t been for that lily-livered Anne begging Tessa not to abort her precious grandchild, everything would have been different. For Tessa, for me, for everyone involved. If only I’d known then what had really happened to Tessa, that the “accident” that had supposedly killed her baby’s father and left Tessa near death had been nothing but a ruse to protect the family from the hideous truth. Despite the fact that Anne was dying slowly from cancer, I would have told her the truth and spared all of us.
I’ve tried everything I know to avoid taking this next step. As much as I dislike Leslie Anne, I rather hate the idea of killing her. Of killing anyone. But it must be done. There is no other way.
It galls me to think that Tessa gave her bastard child not only Anne’s given name, but the honorable family name, too. The Leslie family goes back generations in southwest Mississippi and has been part of a dynasty formed in the days preceding the War between the States. The offspring of a murderer doesn’t deserve to bear such a distinguished, revered name.
I must think of a way to get rid of Leslie Anne, a way that will not implicate me. I could hire a hit man. But what if he were caught and named me as his employer? No, no, that would never do.
I could shoot her myself. Or stab her. Or poison her.
If only I were good at this sort of thing. But I’m not. I’ve never plotted someone’s murder.
Think. Think about what can be done.
Revealing the truth about her father was an excellent first step in destroying the spoiled little princess’s self-confidence. Her running away was an unexpected bonus.
But she’s back now, in the bosom of her loving family.
Yes, she has returned to the Leslie Plantation, but not unscathed. She’s been emotionally wounded and is now quite vulnerable. She knows me, trusts me. It should be quite simple to catch her unaware.
TESSA WATCHED while Dante lifted a sleeping Leslie Anne into his arms. For just a moment, the sweetest, strangest thought went through her mind. The gentle, caring way Dante handled Leslie Anne was the way a father would treat his daughter.
If only…
Tessa followed closely behind as Dante carried Leslie Anne onto the veranda. Hal held the front door open for them and G.W. waited quietly in the foyer. Much to Tessa’s great relief, G.W. had deposited his current lady love at her house on their way home from the airstrip.
When he entered the foyer, Dante paused. Tessa walked to the staircase and motioned for him to follow, which he did. She led him up the stairs, down the hall and straight to Leslie Anne’s suite. After hurrying inside, Tessa switched on a dim light in the bathroom to softly illuminate the suite. One step ahead of Dante, Tessa pulled down the covers so that he could deposit her child in her own bed. He slipped the black leather coat from beneath her and tossed it to the foot of the bed.
Tessa removed Leslie Anne’s shoes, then lifted the sheet and blanket to cover her. She stood with Dante at the foot of the bed and looked at her daughter. When Dante eased his arm around her shoulders, Tessa almost cried out with gratitude. Despite having the loving support of her devoted father, she felt so alone. How many times had she dreamed of a man to stand by her, to love her, to be a father to her child? But there had been no one, even though she’d had numerous offers. In recent years, she had dated some, but had been unable to form a strong attachment to anyone, not even to Charlie Sentell. Dear, sweet, pompous Charlie. How many times had he professed his undying love? How many times had she broken his heart?
Her therapist had helped her understand that it was perfectly normal for her to fear committing herself to a sexual partnership. Not only had she endured a vicious rape, but she had survived a brutal beating that had left all of her assailant’s other victims dead. After years of therapy, she had finally accepted a bitter truth—no matter how hard she tried to find love, to open herself up to the possibility of forming a lasting relationship with a man, she seemed doomed to failure.
So, why now, after all these years, did she find herself interested in a man she barely knew? What was it about Dante Moran that drew her to him, that made her instinctively trust him, that ignited a sexual longing inside her?
Dante led Tessa out of Leslie Anne’s room, but left the door open. “Her falling asleep on the way here gave you a temporary reprieve from having to answer her questions,” he said. “But come morning, she’ll confront you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, I know.”
“What do you intend to tell her?”
“The truth.” She had hoped to never have to reveal the truth of Leslie Anne’s true parentage. But she realized that lying to her daughter would hurt her far more, now that she suspected the truth.
; “Is there anything I can do?” Dante looked at her with such intense concern that she longed to wrap her arms around him and beg him to stay with her.
Barely holding herself together, she shook her head sadly. “Not unless you think you can convince a sensitive, high-strung sixteen-year-old girl that it doesn’t matter who her biological father was, that just because…” Tessa simply could not bring herself to say it again.
“Sorry. I’m not a miracle worker. I wish I were.”
“Of course you’re not. It’s just I’d rather die than have to tell her what happened.”
“I believe she already knows,” Dante said. “All she wants is to hear you admit it.”
“That’s not what she wants. What she really wants is for me to tell her it’s not true, that it’s a terrible lie, that she really is the daughter of some man named John Allen.”
“Telling her the truth won’t be easy for you, either.”
Dante reached out and caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. That soft, tender touch exploded inside her, as if she’d been struck by lightning.
When she stared at him, her mouth open, but silent, he continued. “It will be even more difficult for Leslie Anne to accept the truth. She’s going to need all your love and support, as well as her grandfather’s and her entire family’s. And my guess is, it wouldn’t hurt to take Dr. Ellison’s suggestion and throw a really good therapist into the mix, too.”
“She likes you, Mr. Moran…Dante. I believe after what happened at the hotel last night, she sees you as her knight in shining armor.”
Dante harrumphed. “Believe me, that’s not a role that suits me.”
“I disagree,” Tessa told him. “I’m in total agreement with my daughter. But if you prefer the title of guardian angel to white knight, then—”
“Hold on there.” He held up his hand in a stop signal. “All I did last night was what I’d been hired to do—find your daughter and bring her home.”
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that when you’re given a compliment, you should simply say thank you?”
He smiled. “Thank you.”
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