Stroke of Fortune
Christine Rimmer
Eligible bachelor Flynt Carson struck a hole-in-one when his Sunday golf ritual at the Lone Star Country Club unveiled an abandoned baby girl. Although temporary fatherhood for Flynt Carson dredged up painful memories, this was just the beginning of mayhem for Flynt and the town of Mission Creek.Flynt felt he had no business raising a child or reuniting with Josie Lavender, a woman too innocent for a man with his tarnished soul. But the lovestruck nanny was determined to help him raise the mysterious baby–and what happened next was anyone's guess….
CLUB TIMES
For Members’ Eyes Only
Cute Baby Abandoned on the Ninth Tee!
You heard right, members. While those sinfully handsome bachelors were taking a whack at a golf ball on the ninth tee, they heard a peculiar sound for a Sunday morning on the course—definitely not the kind of feminine squeals these gents are used to. These sounds came from a darling little baby girl with big blue eyes, curly black hair—not even a year old—and a note attached for her daddy. I anticipate your question already: who’s the father of this sweet thing? And why did Flynt Carson feel that he needed to take responsibility? Is there something we don’t know?
Not that it’s any of our business, but does anyone know where member extraordinaire Luke Callaghan is? The Mission Creek social circles are sure missing him, as he’s supplied us with tales of sin that made even Mrs. Delarue’s ears catch on fire (you know it’s true, Nadine). We like to think Luke is out somewhere globe-trotting and doing what billionaire playboys were born to do.
Meanwhile, Mrs. McKenzie wants to remind us to visit her dress shop, Mission Creek Creations, for the June summer sale. There’s a new maternity section for those of you out there who are in the maternal way. And be sure to check out the new citrus-almond oil pedicure treatment at Body Perfect. It’s heaven on earth….
Enjoy, and remember, make your best stop of the day right here at the Lone Star Country Club!
About the Author
CHRISTINE RIMMER
“Famed for her deliciously different characters, Ms. Rimmer keeps the…love sizzling hot.”
—Romantic Times
A reader favorite whose books consistently appear on the USA TODAY and Waldenbooks bestseller lists, Christine Rimmer has writen nearly forty books for Silhouette Books. Her stories have been nominated for numerous Awards, including the Romance Writers of America’s RITA
Award and the Romantic Times Series Storyteller of the Year award.
“Writing Stroke of Fortune was such a grand experience,” Christine tells us. “It all starts with four proud Texans and a baby—on the links at the Lone Star Country Club. From there, the story has more twists and turns than a sidewinder. I loved working with the other authors in the series, creating the fabulous Lone Star Country Club, pooling our ideas to make the Texas town of Mission Creek come alive.”
Stroke of Fortune
Christine Rimmer
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Welcome to the
Where Texas society reigns supreme—and appearances are everything!
When a Sunday-morning foursome of eligible bachelors finds an abandoned baby girl on the ninth tee, pandemonium breaks loose at Mission Creek’s exclusive country club….
Flynt Carson: When brooding millionaire rancher Flynt Carson decides to take on temporary guardianship of baby Lena, can he right the wrongs of his anguished past…and mend his broken heart?
Josie Lavender: Being this infant’s doting nanny is a cinch compared to sharing close quarters with her gruff—and undeniably gorgeous—boss. Flynt Carson is just the kind of man she has sworn to avoid. But how can Josie resist the searing passion he awakens in her innocent soul?
The Carson/Wainwright Feud: For over seven decades, the bitter feud between the Carson and the Wainwright clans has ripped through Mission Creek. Will all-out war break out if a clandestine tryst is unveiled?
Daisy Parker: The stakes are higher than ever when she infiltrates the LSCC to bring down the mob. Can “Daisy” pull this undercover mission off…or will she lose the greatest gamble of her life?
For the ones who never give up.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
One
The two golf carts reached the ninth tee at a little after eight that Sunday morning in late May. Tyler Murdoch and Spence Harrison rode in the first cart. Flynt Carson and Dr. Michael O’Day, the blind fourth they’d picked up at the clubhouse when Luke Callaghan didn’t show, took up the rear.
It was one of those rare perfect mornings, the temperature in the seventies, the sky a big blue bowl, a wispy cloud or two drifting around up there. Somewhere in the trees overhead, a couple of doves cooed at each other.
When the men emerged from under the cover of the oaks, the fairway, still glistening a little from its early-morning watering, was so richly green it hardly seemed real. A deep, true green, Flynt Carson thought. Like Josie’s eyes…
Flynt swore under his breath. He’d been vowing for nearly a year that he’d stop thinking about her. Still, her name always found some way to come creeping into his mind.
“What did you say?” Michael O’Day pulled their cart to a stop on the trail right behind Spence and Tyler. “I think I caught the meaning, but I missed the exact words.” He slanted Flynt a knowing grin.
Flynt ordered his mind to get back where it belonged—on his game. “Just shaking my head over that last hole. If I’d come out of the sand a little better, I could have parred it. No doubt about it, my sand wedge needs work.”
Michael chuckled. “Hey, at least you—”
And right then, Flynt heard the kind of sound a man shouldn’t hear on the golf course. He put up a hand, though Michael had already fallen silent.
The two in the front cart must have heard it, too. They were turning to look for the source as it came again: a fussy little cry.
“Over there,” Spence said. He pointed toward the thick hedge that partially masked a groundskeeper’s shed about thirty yards from them.
A frown etched a crease between Michael’s black eyebrows. “Sounds like a—”
Spence was already out of the lead cart. “Damn it, I don’t believe it.”
Neither did Flynt. He blinked. And he looked again.
But it was still there: a baby carrier, the kind that doubles as a car seat, tucked in close to the hedge. And in the car seat—wrapped in a fluffy pink blanket, waving tiny fists and starting to wail—was a baby.
A baby. A baby alone. On the ninth tee of the Lone Star Country Club’s Ben Hogan-designed golf course.
“What the hell kind of idiot would leave a baby on the golf course?” Tyler Murdoch asked the question of no one in particular. He took off after Spence. Flynt and Michael fell in right behind.
Midway between the carts and the squalling infant, all four men slowed. The baby cried louder and those tiny fists flailed.
The men—Texans all, tall, narrow-hipped, broad-shouldered and proud—stopped dead, two in front, two right behind, about fifteen feet from the yowling child. Three of those men had served in the Gulf War together. Each of those three had earned the Silver Star for gallantry in action. The fourth, Michael O’Day, was perhaps the finest cardiac surgeon in the Lone Star State. He spent his working life fighting to save lives in the operating room—and most of the time, he won. Flynt’s own father, Ford Carson, was a living testament to the skill and steely nerves of Dr. O’Day.
Not a coward in the bunch.
But that howling baby stopped them cold. To the world, they might be heroes, but they were also, all four, single men. And childless. Not a one knew what the hell to do with a crying infant.
So they hung back. And the baby cried louder.
Flynt and Michael moved up on the other two, so that all four of them stood shoulder to shoulder. The men exchanged the kinds of looks bachelors are likely to share when a baby is wailing and there’s no female around to take charge and defuse the situation.
“Maybe the mother’s nearby,” Spence suggested hopefully.
“Where?” demanded Tyler, scowling. “Crouched in the bushes? Hiding in the shed?”
“Hey. It’s a thought.”
Another several edgy seconds passed, with the poor kid getting more worked up, those little arms pumping wildly, the fat little face crumpled in misery, getting very red.
Then Tyler said, “Spence.” He gestured with a tight nod to the left. “I’ll go right. We’ll circle the shed and rendezvous around the back. Then we’ll check out the interior.”
“Gotcha.” The two started off, Tyler pausing after a few steps to advise over his shoulder, “Better see to that kid.”
Flynt resisted the urge to argue, No way. You deal with the baby. We’ll reconnoiter the shed. But he’d missed his chance and he knew it. He and Michael were stuck with the kid.
Michael looked grim. Flynt was certain his own expression mirrored the doctor’s. But what damn choice did they have? Someone had to take care of the baby.
“Let’s do it,” he said bleakly, already on his way again toward the car seat and its unhappy occupant.
As his shadow fell across the child, the wailing stopped. The silence, to Flynt, seemed huge. And wonderful, after all that screaming.
The baby blinked up at him. A girl, Flynt guessed—the blanket, after all, was pink. Her bright blue eyes seemed to be seeking, straining to see him looming above her. And then she gave up. She shut those eyes and opened that tiny mouth and let out another long, angry wail.
Flynt dropped to a crouch. “Hey, hey. Come on. It’s okay. It’s all right….”
She might be hungry, or need a diaper change. She definitely needed comforting—and he was going to have to provide it. There was a note, a plain white square of paper scribbled with blue ink, pinned to the blanket. He went for that first.
It was damp. Water had dripped on it from the sprinkler-wet leaves of the hedge. The first part of whatever had been written was smeared beyond recognition.
But it did give him a name. Lena. “Hey, Lena. How are you?” The baby stopped in midwail, hiccupped—and wailed some more.
“Let’s see that note,” Michael said from right behind him.
Flynt pulled it free of the pin and handed it over. Then, while Lena howled and kicked her legs and waved those tiny fists, he went to work getting her out of the car seat.
The blanket had fallen away enough to reveal the seat belt apparatus, which didn’t look all that complicated: a shoulder harness that veed to a single strap over the tiny torso and hooked to the seat via a button latch between the legs. She went on flailing as he popped the latch and, gently as possible, lifted the strap to free her from the restraint.
He talked to her the whole time, trying to sound soothing, probably not succeeding. “Hey, Lena. We’ll get you out of here. It’s going to be all right. Hey, now. Hey…”
Damn, she was so tiny. Small as Wild Willie, the runt barn cat he’d been fond of as a kid—and a hell of a lot more defenseless. He slid one hand behind the downy black curls to support her head. He’d done a little studying on the subject of baby care a couple of years ago. That was back before the accident, when Monica was finally pregnant and he’d thought he would be a father, even dared to imagine he might learn to be a decent one, the kind his own father had been. He’d remembered reading that you had to support a baby’s head. A baby didn’t have much control of it, couldn’t hold it up by herself.
Lena quit flailing as he lifted her. She was blinking again, zeroing in on his face. Hadn’t he read that, too—that they could only see close up, that they bonded, by sight, with the faces of the adults who held them?
She was looking at him. She really was. “Lena…” He breathed the word softly, liking the sound of it. Then she burped—a big one—and made a funny, scrunched-up face.
Carefully he raised her to his shoulder. She moved against him, getting comfortable. She was so warm and small and soft. She felt good, her tiny body curled into his chest. And she was blessedly quiet. For the moment, anyway.
He stood from his crouch and turned to Michael, who said, “I think you’ve got a knack with babies, Flynt.”
Flynt didn’t reply. What was there to say?
The other half of their foursome emerged from the bushes. “Nothing,” said Spencer. “If the mother was here, she’s not now.”
Tyler frowned. “Wasn’t there a note on the blanket?”
Michael held it out. “Right here.”
Tyler took it and read it aloud. “‘I’m your baby girl. My name is Lena…”’ He passed the note to Spence. “Well, great. Whose baby girl?”
Spence studied the square of paper. “Looks like there was some kind of salutation, somebody’s name. But now it’s water-smeared to nothing but a blotch.”
Tyler shook his head. “So. Great. We’ve got no idea who left her here—let alone who was supposed to find her.”
No one spoke for a moment. At Flynt’s shoulder, Lena hiccuped again, then sighed. He felt her tiny chest expand, felt the warm huff of air against his shirt.
Michael broke the silence. “Whoever left her, I’d guess one of her parents was supposed to find her. After all, the note says ‘I’m your baby girl.”’
Spence was nodding. “It also reads as if whoever it is doesn’t know the baby exists in the first place, doesn’t know he or she has a child.”
Michael grunted. “That’d be a pretty neat trick for a mother—to have a baby without knowing it.”
Spence shrugged. “So more than likely, it was the name of the father on that note.”
“The father,” Tyler added, “who very likely has no clue that he’s a dad.”
Michael raised an eyebrow. “You three meet at the clubhouse every Sunday, right? You tee off at six-fifteen and by eight or so you’re always right here, at the ninth tee. Luke Callaghan, too.”
There was another silence, a heavy one. Flynt hardly noticed it. He had no idea what the other three were thinking. And he didn’t care.
His mind had started racing.
Damn. Could it be?
Blue eyes, black hair…
That didn’t match up, not with Josie, anyway. Her hair was the color of moonlight and her eyes were that damned unforgettable green.
Flynt’s hair was a sandy-brown. His eyes were right: blue, like his mother’s and his brother’s. But then again, didn’t most babies start out with blue eyes?
How old was this little girl? He wasn’t much at judging a baby’s age, but she could be two months or so, couldn’t she? That would make the timing right.
With great care, he lowered the baby from his shoulder and cradled her in front of him. She yawned, stuck her fist in her mouth, then pulled it free and seemed to study him, her face a blank, yet somehow infinitely wise.
She looked like…a baby. Small and plump, with a pushed-in nose and a tiny rosebud of a mouth. As for any resemblance—to him, or to Josie Lavender—damned if he could tell.
Still, it was possible….
Because he had not been careful that one forbidden night he’d spent with Josie. He’d screwed up royally that night, in more ways than one.
But why? Why the hell would Josie do this? It wasn’t like her to choose this crazy, irresponsible way to let him know he was a father. Not like her at all.
Yet, it did add up.
He’d sent her away after that night, and he hadn’t seen her since. She’d left town, only returned a few weeks ago—or so he’d heard. Rumor had it her mother was sick again and Josie had come back to care for her.
The rumors had never included anything about a baby, however.
Flynt gently put Lena back on his shoulder. He made eye contact with Tyler—briefly. Then both men looked away. Spence was still staring at the note. Michael was frowning, his dark gaze moving from Spence to Tyler to Flynt and back to Spence again.
Flynt thought they all seemed a little— What? Worried? Sheepish? Could they each, like him, be thinking that, just maybe, the note was meant for him?
No damn way to tell. And whatever might be going through his friends’ minds, Flynt knew what he had to do.
Somewhere in the trees near the cart path, the doves had started cooing again. A yellow bird hopped across the grass and took flight, vanishing into a big waxy-leaved magnolia at the edge of the fairway.
Flynt laid it out for them. “Listen, I’m taking this baby home to the ranch until I can figure out what the hell is going on here.”
The other three men looked at him as if he’d suddenly announced he planned to rob a bank and take a few innocent bystanders hostage.
After a charged moment, Spence asked in a carefully offhand way, “What did you say, there, buddy?”
So he said it again.
Spence looked pained. “Seriously bad idea, with all kinds of negative legal ramifications.” Spence was a lawyer; as a matter of fact, he was the local D.A. “Sorry, man. No way you can just take that baby home with you.”
Flynt curved a protective hand over Lena’s tiny, warm back. “Watch me.”
“Stop,” Spence said. “Think.”
“I am thinking,” Flynt told the lawyer. And he was. He was thinking of Josie Lavender. She could end up in big trouble for abandoning her baby like this—if Lena was her baby, which would mean she was also his baby, which meant he had every right to take her home.
“Come on, Flynt,” Spence said. “You know we have to call the police and get someone out here from Child Protective Services ASAP to take custody.”
“No need for any of that. I told you. I’m taking custody.”
“And I told you—”
“All right,” Flynt cut in before Spence could get rolling. “I’ll lay it right out for you. I have good reason to believe I’m the one that note was meant for, which means this baby is mine.”
The doves had stopped their cooing. The silence echoed. Each of the men seemed to be looking anywhere but in each other’s eyes. A small two-engine plane buzzed by overhead, heading out of the small airstrip at Mission Ridge a few miles away.
Tyler cleared his throat. Michael looked down at his shoes. Spence glanced up at the plane as it soared by overhead, then looked at Flynt—and then away again.
Flynt grew impatient with all those shifting glances. “You guys have something to say, spit it out.”
“Fine,” said Tyler. “Question.”
“Shoot.”
“How old do you think that baby is?”
Michael answered that. “I’d guess eight weeks—give or take a week.”
“So we’re talking about last summer, right? June or July? Maybe August?”
Michael tipped his head to the side. “Conception, you mean?”
Tyler nodded.
“Yeah. I’d say that’s about right.”
“Okay, then.” Tyler raked his black hair back from his forehead. “I suppose it’s possible that she could be mine.”
Michael made a low sound in his throat. “Well, guess what? She could be mine, too—though I’m probably the least likely prospect of the four of us. Not a lot of people knew I would be here looking for a pickup game today.”
Spence said, “Okay.”
“Okay what?” prodded Tyler.
“Okay, you got me. I’m no celibate. Count me in as potential father number four.”
“And what about Luke?” Tyler reminded them. “He’s here at the ninth tee, too, every Sunday around eight—unless something important comes up. And today, he never called me to tell me he was taking a pass on the game.”
“Didn’t call me, either,” said Spence.
“All right,” Flynt admitted. “So he didn’t show up and he didn’t call.”
“Which means the word is not out that he wouldn’t be here,” Tyler said. “And whoever left the baby could very well have assumed that Luke would be here. That means he’s in the running, too—at this point, anyway. The note could have been meant for him. It could have been intended for any one of us.”
“Fine.” Flynt cradled Lena with the utmost care. “Great. Gotcha. It might be one of us. It might be Luke. It might be any number of guys. But the fact remains this baby goes home with me.”
Spence looked at him for a very long time. Then he blew out a weary breath. “You’re not going to budge on this one, are you?”
“You got it.”
“Hell…”
“Talk to me.”
“All right. Would you agree to a compromise?”
“That depends.”
Spence laid it out. “I could pull a few strings. Maybe you could take that baby home with you. But there’s no way you’ll get out of an interview—make that interviews. Technically the club’s within the city limits, but the county’s been helping out lately, since the trouble in the Men’s Grill.”
Trouble was putting it mildly. A few months back, a corrupt group of Mission Creek’s finest had blown the club’s Men’s Grill to smithereens in a failed attempt to kill off the man determined to expose them. That whole area of the club was now being rebuilt. And with so many of its former officers in jail, the Mission Creek P.D. was in something of a state of disarray. Lately the sheriff often ended up stepping in to take up the slack.
“What are you saying, Spence? That I’ll have to talk to the sheriff?”
“It’s pretty likely. And somebody from the MCPD, too. And Child Protective Services. T’s have got to be crossed, I’s will need dotting.”
“The sheriff,” Flynt repeated. The Lone Star County sheriff was a Wainwright—Justin Wainwright, to be specific. Wainwrights were never welcome at Carson Ranch.
“Sorry,” said Spence. “The sheriff’s office is going to want to know about this.”
“You think I give a damn what the sheriff’s office wants to know?”
“You’d better give a damn. You want them all on your side if you hope to keep that baby at the ranch without getting arrested for kidnapping, or something equally unpleasant.”
Right then, Lena stirred in Flynt’s arms. She let out the sweetest, softest little sigh—and suddenly, the prospect of a Wainwright at the ranch didn’t seem all that impossible. If it had to be, it had to be. “You’ll arrange it?”
Spence shrugged. “I’ll do what I can.”
“I’m not hanging around to have the MCPD and the sheriff’s office and God knows who else crawling all over the club. They’ll come to the ranch and talk to me there—all of them, whoever needs to know about this.”
“I can probably work that out.”
“And we’ll keep it under wraps, as much as possible.”
“We’ll try.”
“Do more than try. I want this kept quiet.” Flynt couldn’t stop thinking of Josie, of keeping the gossip mill from going to work on her. If the story got out…Well, folks didn’t look kindly on a woman who dumped her baby and ran. Josie had suffered through some tough times in her young life, but up till now, at least, the citizens of Mission Creek had been on her side. She didn’t need the town’s scorn dumped on her on top of all the rest of it.
Spence said, “Look, I’m not saying a word except on a need-to-know basis.”
“Fine by me,” said Tyler. “I can keep my mouth shut.”
“No problem,” Michael added. “This is strictly between the four of us, as far as I’m concerned.”
Flynt looked at each of the other men in turn. “Good. And Lena stays with me until we find out who her mother is.”
Spence’s mouth twisted ruefully. “There’s someone else you’ll have to convince on that score.”
Flynt understood. “The social worker.”
“You got it.”
“Okay,” Flynt said quietly. The baby in his arms was starting to cry again. He patted her back, trying to soothe her. “Tell me what I have to do.”
Two
The Lone Star Country Club came into being in 1923, founded by Flynt’s great-grandfather, Big Bill Carson and Big Bill’s ranching buddy, J. P. Wainwright. At that time, both the Carson and Wainwright holdings had grown to the point that their property lines met. It was there, where the two huge ranches came together, that Big Bill and J.P. kicked in a thousand acres each to form a social club.
Four years later, J.P’s beloved daughter, Lou Lou, drowned herself when Big Bill’s oldest son broke her heart. J.P. came after the boy with his shotgun, but it was Big Bill he ended up shooting, shattering not only both of the man’s legs, but also the bond of friendship that had held strong for three decades.
Since then, no Carson had called a Wainwright his friend. The feud between the two families was bitter, rife with dirty tricks on both sides, and as deeply rooted now as the proud oaks that lined the curving driveway up to the soaring facade of the Lone Star Country Club’s pink granite clubhouse.
Both ranches remained large—and prosperous. And both families held considerable influence in South Texas, in the nearby town of Mission Creek, and at the country club their forefathers had created. Down the years, both Carsons and Wainwrights had sat on the club’s board of directors, the families tacitly keeping an uneasy peace with each other on the neutral ground of the club.
Flynt himself was currently serving a term as club president. And that Sunday in May, he was glad he’d taken the job. It meant that club employees followed his orders without asking any questions.
As soon as he and Spence had ironed out their compromise, Flynt put Lena in the car seat and managed to hook the thing into the golf cart. Then Michael drove them to the clubhouse.
Flynt had thought at first that he’d head straight for the ranch. But the baby wouldn’t stop crying. Maybe she needed food, or a diaper change. Whatever. He decided he’d better find out what was wrong with her before he did anything else. He had the surgeon let him off at a service entrance in back.
Halfway up the back stairs, on his way to the club’s business offices on the second floor, he met up with one of the maids. He told her to find Harvey Small, the new club manager he’d hired himself not long before, and to say that Flynt Carson wanted to see him in Harvey’s office right away.
“Si, Mr. Carson. Right away.”
As the maid hurried off to do his bidding, Lena let out a really loud wail. He took a minute to murmur a few soothing words, then he headed up the stairs again.
In Harvey’s office, he took Lena out of the seat and raised her to his shoulder. When he rubbed her back a little, she seemed to settle down—for a minute or two. Then the crying started up again. By the time the club manager bustled in, Flynt had spent five minutes pacing the floor, laying on the gentle pats and the soothing words, trying to calm Lena and never really quite succeeding.
Harvey sputtered some at the sight of the baby. Then Flynt questioned him on the subject of baby things—like diapers and wipes, formula and maybe even a diaper bag. Harvey replied that yes, they had those things on hand, just in case a guest might need them.
“Then, go get them. And make it fast. And arrange to have my pickup brought around to the service entrance off the Empire Room. I want it ready there, engine running, in ten minutes. I don’t want to go out the front, understand? And I want you and that maid I sent after you to keep your mouths shut about this little girl.”
“Well, of course we will, Flynt. You can count on our absolute discretion in this matter and we—”
“Great. Go.”
It took Harvey eleven minutes and thirty-four seconds to return with the damn diaper bag. By then Lena was hardly bothering to breathe between angry sobs. The manager’s office had a small bar area, complete with granite counter, stainless steel sink and microwave. Flynt sent Harvey over there to deal with getting the bottle ready, while he took on the diapering job. It wasn’t the best time he’d ever had, but he managed it. Harvey rose to the occasion, too, figuring out how to fill the plastic bag inside the bottle and warming it up without getting it too hot.
Then there was the feeding to accomplish. Obviously the kid had clear plumbing, because she needed another diaper change right after she ate. After he took care of that, Flynt finally felt it was safe to head for the ranch.
He was reasonably certain no one saw him going down to the service entrance door. As for the driver who brought his vehicle around from the parking lot, he gave the man a twenty and told him to go straight to Harvey. Harvey would make it painfully clear that talking about how Mr. Carson had slipped out the back with a baby would be a bad move for anyone hoping to hold on to his job.
Lena slept the whole way home. Flynt had an extended cab on his pickup, so he’d put her in the back seat, facing the rear as the diagrams on the side of the car seat had indicated. He kept craning his head over his shoulder, to check on her. She looked so damn sweet, her head drooping to the side, those soft black curls shiny as silk against her plump cheek.
He called the ranch on the way. When the housekeeper answered, he asked for his mother, Grace. Luck was with him. She was home.
“Flynt? What is it?”
“Ma, I need your help.”
“Has something happened?” He heard the worry in her voice. He hadn’t had a drink in over a year, but still, she was his mother and a mother will always worry. “Are you—”
“I’m fine, Ma. Sober as a temperance worker. Would you do me a favor?”
“I don’t underst—”
“I’ll explain it all as soon as I get there, which should be in about ten minutes.”
“Oh, Flynt. Are you sure that you—”
“Ma. Can I count on you?”
A pause, then, “You know you don’t really need to ask.”
He smiled. “Great. Gotta go.”
She was waiting for him on the front porch, a plump, pretty woman in her Sunday best, with chin-length graying blond hair and kind, rather worried blue eyes. She hurried down the wide stone steps and reached the passenger door of his pickup almost before he’d pulled to a stop in the half-moon driveway that curved in front of the house. She didn’t say a word as he got out and went to free Lena’s carrier from the back seat. He left his pickup right there in front and they went inside, Grace bustling ahead, Flynt following with Lena and all the baby gear.
Flynt had his own wing. They headed straight for it, managing by some minor miracle not to run into any of the household staff or the family on the way. When they reached Flynt’s private sitting room, his mother ushered him through. Shutting the door, she turned to him.
She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. He saw what she was thinking in her eyes.
Flynt was thirty-four years old, had been more or less in charge of the business end of the ranch for years now. He also managed the various Carson holdings, which included oil interests, investments in local citrus groves and some lucrative properties on the Gulf Coast. He’d been to war, been married and widowed, fought a battle with the bottle that, at this point anyway, he appeared to be winning. But when Grace Carson gave him the kind of look she gave him right then, he still felt like an ill-behaved ten-year-old boy.
He set Lena, still sound asleep in the car seat, carefully on the Oriental rug at his feet, dropped the diaper bag on the coffee table and tried a crooked smile. “I guess you were all ready to head to church, huh, Ma?”
She went on staring him down for a good twenty seconds. Then, at last, she spoke. “The Lord will have to wait this Sunday. But that’s all right. He has infinite patience. I don’t. What’s going on?”
Flynt told his mother the truth—or at least, most of it. About finding Lena on the golf course, about the water-smeared note pinned to her blanket.
Grace went straight for the heart of the matter. “You believe you could be the father, is that it?”
He confessed, “It’s possible, Ma.”
“Well, all right. If you’re the father, who’s the mother?”
He’d expected that question. Still, it didn’t make it any easier to answer.
Grace knew Josie Lavender, had been very fond of her. Josie had come to them four years ago, when she was just nineteen, to work as a maid. But she hadn’t stayed a maid. Within a year, due to her willingness to apply herself, her good organizational skills and great attitude, she’d become their housekeeper. Grace—along with the rest of the family—had counted on her, grown to like her and respect her. Then, last year, Josie had left them, without notice, seemingly right out of the blue.
Grace still resented her for taking off like that. Flynt had tried to smooth things over, telling his mother it was “family problems” that had forced their formerly dependable housekeeper to vanish from their lives. The vague explanation hadn’t satisfied Grace. Flynt hated that his mother thought less of Josie for something that was actually his fault. But he knew if he gave his mother the real facts behind Josie’s sudden departure, it would only make things worse.
So he kept quiet—and despised himself for it.
“Flynt, I asked you who that baby’s mother is.”
“I can’t say for certain, not at this point.”
“Well, fine. Then who do you think that baby’s mother is?”
“Ma, I’ve told you all I can right now. I need you to help me look after this baby, and I need you to keep what I’ve said quiet. Will you do those things for me?”
Grace looked tired all of a sudden. And old.
“Just give it to me straight, Ma. Will you help me or not?”
“Oh, Flynt. You know very well you don’t even need to ask.”
Grace took on baby-sitting duties when Detective Hart O’Brien, a friend of Spence’s, showed up from the Mission Creek Police Department about an hour later. Hart had already interviewed Spence, and Spence had turned over the water-splotched note. At the ranch, Hart took Flynt’s statement and then asked him why he thought the abandoned child should remain in his care.
Flynt admitted he thought Lena might be his.
Detective O’Brien asked the same thing Grace had. “If you think you’re the father, then who do you believe is the baby’s mother?”
And Flynt set about hedging an answer. “Look, I’ll be honest. I’m not certain I’m the father. And I don’t want to bring any trouble on an innocent woman. First, I’ll need to find out if Lena is mine. If she is, then no harm has been done. She’s only gone from one parent to the other. If Lena’s not mine…well then, it’s no one’s business who I spend my time with, now is it?”
It was a lot of fast talk and Flynt could see in Hart’s eyes that the detective knew it. But his reply gave Flynt hope. “All right. It’s obvious the baby is in good hands here. Spence said he was contacting CPS—Child Protective Services. And the sheriff’s office, too.”
“Yeah.” Flynt regarded the other man warily. “That’s the plan.”
“Representatives from both agencies should be here soon, then.”
“Right.”
“So I’ll just hang around and see what the social worker has to say about the situation.”
A thin, soft-spoken woman from CPS appeared about five minutes later. She handed Flynt a business card. “I’m Eliza Guzman. I’ll be baby Lena’s caseworker.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
The social worker examined the baby and got a tour of the main house and grounds. “You would need to fix up a room for the child,” she said.
Flynt showed her the bedroom next to his own. Two and a half years ago, that room had been set up as a nursery, with a crib and a changing table, bins of toys, stacks of blankets and diapers, and bright murals on the mint-green walls. After the accident that took both his wife and unborn child, he’d ordered everything hauled down to the basement, where it remained.
Of course, he didn’t go into any of that with the social worker. He only said, “Generations of babies have been born in this house. We’ve got baby stuff, everything Lena could possibly need, stored down in the basement. I’ll have this room set up for her immediately.”
The social worker wanted to know how Flynt, a rancher and businessman with a full schedule, intended to care for a baby round-the-clock.
“I’ll hire a nanny right away. In the meantime, my mother has agreed to take care of Lena whenever I’m unavailable.”
The social worker was nodding and smiling. A good sign. “Since there is some doubt whether or not you are the father, would you be willing to take a paternity test?”
“Whatever I have to do.”
“All right, then.” She produced a card and handed it to him. “Here’s the name of the lab in town where they’ll take a cheek swab. Can you get over there tomorrow, say, some time after noon? I’ll make sure they’re ready for you when you arrive.”
“After noon. I’ll be there.”
“Good. The sample will be sent out for evaluation, and we should have the results in ten to twenty business days.”
“That’s fine.”
“You’ll have to bring the baby with you, of course, so they can collect a sample from her, too.”
“No problem.”
Flynt knew she was about to tell him he could keep Lena—at least till the results of the test came through. But before she got the damn words out of her mouth, the house line buzzed.
It was the housekeeper. A deputy from the sheriff’s office was waiting for him in the foyer.
A deputy, Flynt thought with some relief. He wouldn’t have to bow and scrape to a Wainwright for Lena’s sake, after all.
He had the three officials served coffee and sweet rolls in his sitting room and he answered all their questions, except for the one concerning the mother’s identity. He promised he’d get to that, after the test proved he was Lena’s father. Since he had the social worker and the detective more or less on his side by then, Flynt had little trouble getting the deputy to go along, too.
The three left about an hour after the deputy had arrived. They all had what they needed to write their reports and they were all in agreement that the abandoned female infant called Lena would remain in Flynt Carson’s care, at least until the results of the paternity test came through.
Flynt walked them out to their vehicles. It was a little past noon by then. The gorgeous, mild morning was turning to the usual blistering South Texas afternoon. Flynt stood in the shade of a proud old oak that had been planted by his great-grandmother, watching the dust the cars kicked up as they disappeared down the driveway.
His pickup still waited where he’d left it, a few yards away. That pickup was not only fully loaded with all the luxury extras, it was also a V-8. The thing could move. He wanted to climb in it and roar off down the drive into town.
He knew where to go looking for Josie. First, he’d try her mother’s house. If she wasn’t at Alva’s, he had a pretty good idea where to head next.
The way he’d heard it, once her mother got out of the hospital, Josie had taken a waitress job at the Mission Creek Café, which served down-home country fare and had stood for decades near the corner of Main and Mission Creek Road, in the heart of town. If Flynt remembered right, the café was open till eight or nine at night, seven days a week. But it did most of its business weekdays, for breakfast and lunch. As a relatively new employee, Josie would probably draw the less desirable weekend shifts.
He could make it to town in half an hour—less, given that he’d be burning rubber all the way.
But no.
If he showed up at the café now, looking for her, there would be talk. Even dropping in at that shack of her mother’s in broad daylight was too chancy. He was a Carson, after all, a rich man, a power in the community. And she was young and poor and pretty. Only one reason, folks would say, why a man like Flynt Carson would come looking for a girl like Josie Lavender.
A voice in the back of his mind whispered, What does it matter? Why not go after her right now? When the truth comes out, everyone will know about us anyway….
He ignored that voice. That voice was just making excuses for him to do what he wanted, not what was best for Josie.
Better to wait till after dark, keep it just between the two of them. He owed her that much.
Hell. He owed her more. A lot more. He’d tried to make it up to her, a little anyway, with that ten thousand dollars he’d pressed into her hand when she’d left. She’d taken it then. But six months later, she’d sent him a cashier’s check, paying every penny back. The postmark on the envelope had said it came from Hurst, Texas, up in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
He’d looked at that postmark and felt just about the way he felt right now—that there was a way to her, that he could find her if he wanted.
And he wanted. As much as—no, more than—he wanted to draw his next breath.
But he hadn’t. And he wouldn’t. Not then, not now. Not until tonight.
He looked at his watch. Barely twelve-thirty. The day stretched before him, endless hours of it, until he could go to her and get the truth out of her.
Flynt muttered a low curse and turned back to the house.
Three
Josie Lavender had the closing shift that night. She hung around to do her cleanup work, marrying ketchups, filling salt and pepper and sugar dispensers, setting up the tables for the morning girls. She left the café at 9:20 and she got home about ten minutes later.
Her mom was lying on the old green sofa in the front room, watching TV. “Hi, sweetie.” Alva Lavender lifted the mask that covered her mouth and nose just long enough to get the words out, then slid it back into place and sucked in a difficult breath. Alva suffered from emphysema. She spent a lot of time each day hooked up to the oxygen tank that helped her breathe a little easier.
Josie locked the front door. Mission Creek didn’t have all that much street crime, but what little there was tended to take place in her mother’s neighborhood. “Mama, did you eat?”
Her mother held the mask in place and nodded.
“Want me to—”
Alva didn’t let her finish. She slipped the mask aside again. “Don’t worry ’bout me. I’m fine.”
“You’re sure?”
Alva, behind the mask once again, nodded some more, and then waved her thin hand. She pointed at the television, indicating she wanted to concentrate on her program. It was a Law and Order rerun, from when Benjamin Bratt was on the show. Alva had a thing for him.
“Okay, Mama,” Josie said softly. “If you’re sure you don’t need me to fix you something, I’m going to have a nice, long bath.”
Alva waved her hand again, but never took her gaze off the television screen.
Josie went through the open arch opposite the front door and into the tiny, square hallway. From there it was two steps to her bedroom.
She flipped on the switch by the door. Her room was just big enough for her bed and her dresser and the small pine desk she’d found at a yard sale while she was still in high school.
Josie’s computer sat on that desk. It was a nice one, with a big screen and the newest software and tons of memory. She’d bought it when she was living up in Hurst. Mostly she used it for word processing, keeping her small bank balance in order and for e-mail. It made her feel hopeful, somehow. That she was hooked in to what mattered, and on her way up. She had a car—a not-so-great one, but a car, none-the-less—and she had a computer. And she wouldn’t always be working the worst shifts at the Mission Creek Café. She was dealing with the obstacles life had put in her path, step-by-step, one day at a time.
Josie grabbed the hem of the snug black T-shirt with Mission Creek Café written in orange across the front of it. She was just about to yank it off over her head when she heard tapping on the window behind the desk.
She froze, with her arms crossed, still holding the hem of the shirt in each hand.
There it was again. Three sharp raps.
Josie stared at the yellowed blind pulled down over the window and debated. Should she see who was out there? Probably not. Who could it be but someone looking to make trouble? Anyone on the up-and-up would just walk up the front steps and knock on the door.
But then again, why would a troublemaker bother to tap on the window and let her know he was there? With a sigh, Josie smoothed her shirt back down and slid around the end of the bed to lift the side of the blind.
At the sight of the face looming close in the shadows beyond the glass, her pulse went racing and her throat got tight. “Flynt.” She mouthed his name, barely able to give voice to the word.
Was she surprised to see him?
Not really.
Had she suspected it just might be him?
Maybe.
Did it hurt to see his face again?
Definitely.
He said, slowly, so she could read the words off those lips of his that had kissed her in places she still blushed to think about, “Open the window, Josie. Now.”
She stared at him, unmoving. He stared right back. Finally she held up a hand, signaling for him to wait just a moment. He nodded, his mouth a grim line.
She dropped the shade and went to shut the door and engage the privacy lock, pausing first to listen for the sounds from the living room. She heard the drone of the television and the hum of the window air conditioner. Nothing that might indicate her mother knew she had a visitor.
Which was all to the good. She’d just as soon not have her mama asking her a lot of questions about Flynt Carson. Alva didn’t need to know about what had happened between Josie and her former boss. She’d only worry if she knew.
Josie went back to the window and did what Flynt wanted, running up the shade, slipping the latch, shoving up the bottom pane and unhooking the screen. He started to climb through.
She decided when it was almost too late that it was a bad idea to let him into her bedroom. “Just wait,” she whispered. “I’ll come out there.”
He gave her another tight shake of his head. “Someone might see us.”
He was probably right. Someone just might. She found herself thinking, So what? But she didn’t say it. It would only have been her defiant streak talking, anyway.
She didn’t really want her private business all over town, and Flynt was only trying to protect her from the evil tongues of town gossips.
At heart, he was a good man. She knew that. It was just that he’d gotten himself all turned around inside, after what had happened with Monica and their baby.
For one beautiful night eleven months ago, Josie had let herself hope that he might learn to forgive himself and leave the past behind. But in the harsh light of the following day, she’d learned the true power that guilt can have over a man—the kind of power a mere woman could never overcome.
And right now, well, best to look on the bright side. At least his eyes were clear and she couldn’t smell liquor on him. “Why are you here, Flynt?”
He looked surprised suddenly. “You don’t know?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t be asking.”
Narrow-eyed, he studied her face some more. Then he shook his head. “Not like this, all right? Not with you in there and me standing out here, whispering over the damn windowsill.”
“All right. Where are you parked?”
“Down around the corner.”
“Go on back to that fancy pickup of yours. I’ll be there. Five minutes.”
He glared at her as if he didn’t trust her to do what she said she’d do.
“Go on,” she whispered. “I said five minutes and I meant what I said.” Before he could start barking orders at her again, she hooked the screen, pulled down the window and drew the shade.
“I’m out of bath beads, Mama,” Josie called as she went out the front door. It wasn’t really a lie—she was out of bath beads and she would stop at the store before she returned to the house. “I’m going to run down to the Stop ’n’ Save.”
Her mother nodded and waved and went on watching TV.
Josie rushed out into the darkness, wondering what in the world was the matter with her, to be in such an all-fired hurry to get to the man who had broken her heart.
She didn’t make him wait.
Flynt had barely climbed back into his pickup when she was knocking on the passenger door. He reached across the seat and opened it for her. She got in and shut the door, trapping them in that small space together.
He looked the other way, out the window over the driver’s door. But it didn’t help. His mind, his whole being, was centered on her.
He said, “You sent the money back.”
“Yes, I did.”
“I wanted you to have it.”
“I pay my own way. But thank you. I did need it at first. Then, as soon as I could manage it, I paid you back.”
“Josie, I—”
She cut him off. “No. No more about the money, please. You know me, deep down. You know I couldn’t keep it. It wouldn’t have been right.”
He wanted to argue with her, that the money wasn’t much. That there was no point in her not having it. That she needed it and he didn’t.
But he let it go. She wasn’t going to take that money, no matter what he said.
Instead he asked, “You did all right, then? Up there in Fort Worth?”
“I did just fine.”
Why did he feel so…hungry? A hunger that was more than just wanting to get his hands on her. He wanted to know about her, about what she’d been doing, what she’d been thinking, what she’d seen, what she’d cared about. He wanted to know everything. Everything that happened, every breath she took, for the past eleven months.
“You got an apartment?”
“I took a room, with a family. The price was right, and they were good people. It worked out fine. And I found a job—two jobs, really.”
He thought about Lena, wondered where she fit into all this, how Josie had managed. Two jobs, a room in someone’s house, and a baby.
He said carefully, “You wore yourself out, I’ll bet.”
“No. I’m young and I like to work. You know that. Then, well, you know, my mama needed me so I came back.”
God. He could smell her. The sweetness of her. And something else.
Cigarettes. “You take up smoking, Josie?”
She stared straight ahead, her profile so fine and pure in the faint glow of the streetlamp down the block. She looked as sweet as an angel—an angry angel, right then. “I don’t much like your tone, you know that, Flynt?”
He put his hands on the steering wheel and held on tight to keep from reaching for her. “It was a simple question. You can just answer yes or no.”
“I just got off work and I work at the café.” She shot him a charged look, then faced front again. “The Mission Creek Café—which I’m sure you already know.”
He understood what she was telling him. At the Mission Creek Café, there were ashtrays on the tables and smokers lit up whenever they felt the urge.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” she said.
“I’d hate to see you do that to yourself, that’s all,” he told her softly.
She sent him another glance. “Well, don’t worry. I’m not. And if I ever considered takin’ up the habit, all I have to do is look at my poor mama to change my mind right quick.”
Flynt was pleased to hear her say that. He wanted the best for her. And that included good health—both for herself and for Lena. He didn’t want to think that she’d been smoking around Lena or, worse, before Lena was born.
But she said she hadn’t and he decided to believe her. “Well,” he said. “Good.”
She didn’t say anything, just went on staring out the windshield.
He scoured his mind for a way to get around gracefully to the subject of Lena. But there was no graceful way to ask a woman if, just possibly, she’d borne his child and then left her on the golf course at the Lone Star Country Club.
So he fell back on a safer subject. “How is your mom doing, anyway?”
She sent him another iceberg of a look. “What is this, Flynt? You came knockin’ on my bedroom window at ten o’clock at night to ask me how I liked it up in Hurst and find out how my mama’s doing?”
“Josie, I…”
“You what?”
Did you have my baby? Is Lena ours?
The questions were there; he just couldn’t quite bring himself to ask them. Yet.
She waited. When he gave her only silence, she started in on him again, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Well, let’s see. I already told you about my life in Hurst. So, about my mama… Well, Flynt, my mama is sick. She will never be well again. But she is better than she was three weeks ago. The doctor says she’s improved enough to live on her own now, for a while. I’ll be getting my own place soon. But if you really came here tonight to tell me you want me out of town, you’re flat out of luck. My mama needs someone nearby that she can count on. Since my father’s no longer among the living and I’m their only child, no one else fits that description but me.” She left off and just glared at him for a minute, those eyes of hers daring him to speak. He didn’t.
She let out a hard huff of air. “So then, satisfied? Did you find out what you wanted to know? I don’t want your ten thousand dollars and my mama is not well. And if that’s all, I’m getting out of here.” She leaned on the latch and the door opened a crack.
He reached across her, grabbed the armrest and yanked it shut, his arm brushing her breasts in the process.
Both of them gasped. He jerked his arm back to his own side of the cab.
There was a silence—one with way too much heat in it. He stared at her profile some more, and then his gaze traveled downward.
Too bad he couldn’t see much in the shadows. He didn’t think she looked heavier or much different at all from the way he remembered her.
And damn. It was nothing short of bizarre to sit here, less than three feet from her, and wonder if she had borne his child.
He couldn’t tell. Shouldn’t there be something, some clue? Wouldn’t she have put on weight, the way Monica did?
He frowned. Not necessarily. Not all women were like Monica. Josie could be the kind who breezed through a pregnancy, hardly showing a sign, back to her former weight shortly after delivery.
She turned to him at last, her pale, thick hair catching the light, glimmering like moonbeams. He thought about burying his face in it, about the warmth of it, the warmth of her.
“Well?” she demanded.
“Josie, we’ve got to talk.”
She gave him another long, angry stare. “Well, all right. Why don’t you say it, then? Whatever it is.”
He studied her face, unsure. Her behavior and everything she’d said so far indicated that she had no clue why he’d sought her out.
But did those eyes say otherwise?
He just couldn’t say with any certainty.
And he still didn’t know where the hell to begin.
She let out a small, hard sound of impatience. “Flynt. I am not gonna sit here all night waiting for you to figure out what you want to say to me.”
There was probably no good place to start, so he gave up on trying to do it gracefully. He just told her, said what had happened that day, from the foursome on the ninth tee all the way to how Lena was now safe at the ranch.
By the time he finished, he was the one staring out the windshield. He didn’t have to turn to know she was watching him.
He made himself face her. “Look, Lena’s safe now, that’s what matters. And whatever—however—this happened, it can all be worked out. No one has to be to blame. Do you understand?”
She only looked at him.
He said, slowly and carefully, “I want you to tell me the truth. Is Lena ours?”
Her eyes were huge and dark as she slowly shook her head.
No.
By God, she was telling him no, that Lena wasn’t hers…wasn’t his. Wasn’t theirs…
She might as well have poleaxed him, popped him right between the eyes with a steel pipe.
He’d expected her to admit it.
But she hadn’t.
And now that she’d denied it, did he believe her?
He wasn’t sure. Josie Lavender was an honest woman, he knew that in his heart. And yet…
She was so young. Maybe the prospect of taking care of Lena alone had been too much for her. Maybe she’d made the desperate mistake of leaving their baby for him to find and now she didn’t know how to admit what she’d done.
Those huge eyes had gone soft and deep. “Oh, Flynt.” She barely mouthed the words. “I’m so sorry…”
What the hell did she mean by that?
He couldn’t stop himself. He leaned across the seat and grabbed her. “Tell me, Josie.” He gave her a hard shake. “Tell me the truth.”
“Let go of me,” she commanded in a low voice. “I mean it, Flynt. Let me go now.”
He looked down at his own hands, at his fingers digging into the smooth skin of her arms. And he hated himself.
“God.” He released her, retreating to his own side of the cab. “I’m sorry.” He fisted a hand, hit the steering wheel with it. “It’s just… It’s no good, Josie. You can’t hide the truth from me forever. I’m going to find out.”
“I gave you the truth.” She met his gaze dead-on. “I didn’t get pregnant from that night we spent together. I didn’t have your baby. I didn’t have any baby. Ever. I don’t know where that baby came from, but she is not mine.”
He felt compelled to warn her what would happen next. “I’m taking a test tomorrow. We’ll know in two weeks or so if that baby is mine. If she’s mine, then she’s yours. There’s been no one else but you. Do you understand? The truth will come out, one way or the other.”
She was leaning on the door again. “I have to go.”
“Josie—”
“Just leave me alone, Flynt Carson. Just stay out of my life.” She pushed the door wide and jumped to the ground. Then she headed off down the street, walking fast, not looking back.
It took all the willpower he had in him, but he didn’t go after her.
Four
Flynt should have gone home and he knew it.
But he couldn’t face the questions in his mother’s eyes right then—let alone the ones his father kept asking outright.
Ford Carson had come in from checking some downed fences with Flynt’s younger brother, Matt, around four that afternoon. He’d gone looking for his wife and found her tending a baby.
He’d had a lot of questions, and he’d wanted answers on the spot. Ford was a fair and reasonable man, but he liked things clear and he liked them in order. Either Flynt had a daughter or he didn’t. And if he did, who was the mother—and why the hell wasn’t she taking care of her baby the way a mother should?
Flynt refused to give the old man the answers he demanded. So things were a little tense in the Carson house right then. Flynt wouldn’t put it past his dad to come after him again that night. Ford would get nowhere, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying.
After the grim and unsatisfying confrontation with Josie, Flynt just didn’t feel up to fielding more questions from his father. So when he came to the turnoff that led to the club, he took it. He found himself a nice, dim corner in the temporary structure they’d set up to house the bombed-out Men’s Grill until the big-time architect they’d hired could finish building them a new one.
A young waitress, one he’d seen a lot around the club, Ginger Walton, came trotting up to take his order. “Your usual, right?”
He nodded.
“Then I can serve it to you.” It took him a moment to catch her meaning. She must be under twenty-one, which meant she’d be required to let the other waitresses handle the liquor orders when she worked in the Men’s Grill.
But Flynt presented no problem for her. His “usual,” for the last year and a half, anyway, was club soda on ice.
When she returned with his drink, she had another waitress with her, a dark-eyed, faintly exotic-looking blonde. Flynt suppressed a sigh. There were a few drawbacks to the job of club president. One was the way the staff seemed to think he was just dying to meet each and every one of them. He never had the heart to disillusion them, so he was always saying hi and shaking hands. He did his best to keep their names straight, but there were a lot of them. Luckily for him, the majority wore name tags.
“Mr. Carson, this is Daisy Parker,” Ginger said. “She’s new. We’ve trained her in the Yellow Rose.” The Yellow Rose Café was the more casual of the other two restaurants at the club. “Now I’m showing her around the Men’s Grill.” At the club, the wait staff received training in all three of the club’s restaurants. That way they could work wherever Harvey needed them.
“Daisy.” He frowned. Something about her was familiar, he just couldn’t put his finger on what—then again, maybe not. He shrugged. “Nice to meet you. Welcome to the Lone Star Country Club.”
Daisy Parker made a few polite noises. Then Ginger set his club soda in front of him and the two waitresses left him in peace. Flynt sipped his gutless drink and wished it was a Chivas on the rocks and stared into the middle distance, thinking of Josie, wondering if she might have been telling the truth when she said that Lena wasn’t theirs.
No. More likely, she was lying in bed in that rundown shack of her mother’s right about now, crying herself to sleep, eaten up by guilt over what she had done.
Ginger and the new waitress had retreated to one of the staff stations and begun folding the white linen napkins, each monogrammed with the letters LSCC, that were used in the Men’s Grill and in the Empire Room, the club’s most expensive restaurant.
The blonde said something, and Ginger laughed softly, not loud enough to disturb any of the men smoking their cigars and sipping their whiskeys nearby. Then she leaned close to Daisy and whispered something in her ear. Daisy nodded, murmured a low reply. Flynt wondered again if he’d met the blonde somewhere before.
“Flynt,” said a voice at his shoulder. “How are you?” It was Judge Carl Bridges, stern-faced and sad-eyed as ever.
“Carl.” The men shook hands.
The judge indicated the empty chair opposite Flynt. “Mind if I join you?”
Flynt did mind. He’d rather sit and brood over Josie Lavender and the baby that might or might not be his. But his mama didn’t bring him up to be outright rude. Besides, he owed the white-haired judge for getting him and his war-hero buddies out of a major jam in the past, owed him big time. If Carl Bridges didn’t want to drink alone, Flynt would provide the company he needed. Anytime. Anywhere. “Be my guest.”
Carl took the chair and signaled for a waitress. Ginger sent over the new blonde, who greeted him politely and took his order of a bourbon and water on ice.
“Well,” Carl said when the waitress left them. “Heard from Luke Callaghan lately? I’ve been trying to get a hold of him, but he’s not picking up the phone at the estate and his staff there is downright evasive about where the hell he could be.” Luke had more money than the Carsons and the Wainwrights combined. He owned a huge place out at nearby Lake Maria that everyone referred to as “the estate.” Carl chuckled. “I suppose he’s halfway around the world right now, playing baccarat at Monte Carlo, with a gorgeous woman hanging on his arm.”
Flynt shrugged. He’d always known there was more to Luke than the playboy image he showed to the world. They’d gone to the Virginia Military Institute together, served in the Gulf conflict side by side and even helped their former commander ferret out a money-laundering ring run out of the MCPD a few months back—the ring responsible for the bombing of the Men’s Grill, as a matter of fact. There was no better man to have at your back in a tough situation.
But he didn’t know where Luke was, and he told the judge as much. “All I know is he didn’t make the golf game this morning. If he’s in town, Luke always makes the game.”
Daisy returned with Carl’s drink. He gave her a warm smile and a wink and then waited until she went back to folding napkins before he leaned across the table and pitched his voice low. “I heard your game this morning was interrupted at the ninth tee.”
Flynt suppressed a groan. “Who told you that?”
“What can I say? I have my sources, both at the MCPD and in the sheriff’s office.”
Hell. He’d known this would happen. Once Spence Harrison dragged the police and social services into the situation, all hope of keeping the story quiet was gone. “I’m trying to keep it low-key, Carl.”
“I understand. The child is at the ranch, right? Grace is looking after her?”
“Is there anything you don’t know?”
Carl chuckled again. “Very little, and that’s a fact.”
What could he say? “Your sources have it right.”
“You’re keeping her?”
“If you mean, will she be staying at the ranch for a while, then yes. She will. Tomorrow we’ll start the search for a nanny.”
“And then what?”
“Damn it, Carl. You can be as nosy as a maiden aunt.”
Carl raised his glass to Flynt in a quick salute. “You know how I am.” He took a sip. “I like to keep on top of what’s happening in my district.”
“Yeah, well.” Flynt picked up his club soda and drank the rest of it. He set the glass down. “To put it to you straight, I don’t really know what’s happening. I’m taking a paternity test tomorrow. We’ll have to wait for the results.”
“Ah,” said the judge. “Of course. I see…”
By Tuesday morning, the story of the mystery baby abandoned on the golf course for three war heroes and a top heart surgeon to find was all over town. All the waitresses at the Mission Creek Café were talking about it.
Josie had the early shift that day. When she went in the back room for her midmorning break, another waitress, Margie Dodd, signaled her over and showed her the ad in the Mission Creek Clarion.
“See there.” Margie sucked on a cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke through her nose, tapping a finger at the place she wanted Josie to see. “They’re lookin’ for a nanny out at Carson Ranch. Gotta be for the mystery baby.”
Josie knew she ought to just shake her head, shrug, mutter something meaningless and step outside for her break. But she did no such thing. She set down the Coke she’d poured for herself and she looked at the paper spread out on the table, at the words in bold print right where Margie’s long red fingernail was pointing. “Loving, experienced nanny sought. Live-in position. Excellent salary, full benefits. References required. Inquire at Carson Ranch.”
Josie stared at that ad and couldn’t stop a certain image from flashing through her mind—the image of Flynt’s face, as he’d looked the other night. So bleak. So lonely. Staring at her through the darkness, demanding that she admit the abandoned baby was theirs.
Her throat closed up, just the way it had when she first raised the blind and saw him there beyond the glass. Oh, she was a sucker for Flynt Carson, and that was a plain fact.
He was exactly the kind of man she’d sworn she’d never let herself get near—tortured and troubled, with an alcohol problem. Truly, considering the daddy she’d had, and the things that had happened in her life so far, she ought to know better.
She did know better.
But sometimes a person’s heart just loved where it wanted to, no matter that her brain kept ordering it to stop.
Margie let out a dry cackle of laughter. “The mystery baby is Flynt Carson’s, did you hear that?”
Josie swallowed. Hard. “I heard it, but—”
“No buts about it. It’s his baby and he ain’t sayin’ who the mother is.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know.”
Margie blew out more smoke and squinted at Josie through the thick fringe of her false eyelashes. “Yeah. Right. Now that makes a lot of sense.”
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