The Reluctant Heiress

“The tabloid probably already knows who you are,” he warned. “And any news editor who gets his hands on those photos will use his contacts to run those plates just like William’s attorney did.”

Confusion gave way to uneasy comprehension. “Is that how you found me?”

He shook his head, stepped closer. “We already knew you lived in Hayden. You’d told William,” he reminded her. “Locating you was just a matter of plugging your name and town into the Internet.”

“I’m on the Internet?”

“Just about everyone is,” he assured her. “Anyway,” he continued, more interested in making his point than in her apparent ignorance of what could be obtained for five bucks from the right search site, “the attorney ran your plates just to see what anyone else running them would come up with.

“What they’ll get is your name and address and the name of the lien holder on your little Beetle out there. Once they know who and where you are and you’re recognized as the woman in those photos, your anonymity will be history.”

Ben’s first impression of the woman he’d been sent to guide and protect was that she was the sort of person who went through life flying under the radar. Considering her and her modest surroundings, she appeared to be a quietly attractive woman of average means, one whose life was as relatively uncomplicated as she appeared to be herself. She didn’t want the world to know her. She didn’t want notoriety or fame. From what she’d rather emphatically made clear to him, all she wanted was whatever it was she had now.

It wasn’t his fault her life was about to be upended. Yet, something about the way she struggled to mask her apprehension as she searched his face brought an unexpected twinge of sympathy. And guilt. She was looking to him for help. Just not the kind he was prepared to offer.

“The pictures were sold?” Looking as if she absolutely did not want to believe what she’d heard, she lifted her hand, pushed her fingers through the wild tangle of her incredible hair. “Who else had access to them?”

Her motions drew the soft cotton of her tank top taut below the fullness of her breasts. Ben felt his breath stall. He was already more aware than he wanted to be of the litheness of her feminine body, the delicacy of her shoulder blades, the long length of her shapely legs. He preferred women who looked refined, sophisticated, sleek. Standing barefoot in the grass with the soft, golden skin of her slender limbs exposed and her thick curls uncontrolled, she looked more like a young earth mother. He could easily see her wandering down a beach or through the woods with a dozen little kids in tow.

Still, there was no denying the quick tightening low in his gut as he met the anxiety in her eyes once more. As cynical as he’d become, the sympathy he felt for her was disconcerting enough. The last thing he wanted was the reminder of just how long he’d gone without a woman.

“Tess Kendrick’s ex-husband. Bradley Ashworth,” he said, burying his responses to her the way he did anything else he didn’t want to think about. “We suspect he sold them in retaliation for William exposing him as the louse he is.”

A little panic on her part wouldn’t have surprised him. At the very least, he expected a little more cooperation.

“They might know who I am,” she conceded, “but I don’t have to talk to them.”

“That’s not going to stop them from invading your life. That’s why I’m here,” he emphasized, needing her to grasp the gravity of the situation. “My job is to help you with the media that’s going to descend the minute they discover your identity.” And to put the proper spin on what you say, he admitted to himself. If she knew that, though, she’d only want to get rid of him that much faster. “They will arrive,” he assured her. “If not today, then tomorrow for certain. As difficult as it may be to accept, you can’t avoid any of this.”

The woman clearly had no idea how vulnerable she was. Hoping he didn’t sound impatient with her, he deliberately gentled his tone.

“William wants you to know he’s not about to leave you to the wolves. And that’s exactly what you’ll think has happened once your phone starts ringing with requests for statements and interviews.” He slowly shook his head. “This really isn’t something you want to try to handle alone.”

For a moment Jillian said nothing. She found it disconcerting enough to be face-to-face with one of her famous father’s associates. But Ben Garrett was unsettling in his own right. The man was confident to a fault, incredibly persuasive in his arguments and utterly convinced of his certainty of what was about to happen. Yet, even more disturbing than his absolute insistence was the physical impact of his presence.

He possessed the same compelling aura of authority and influence she’d sensed in William when she’d met him, only in a more elemental and infinitely more disquieting way. He stood nearly ten feet from her, yet she could almost feel the energy that radiated from him like a force field. That raw power sensitized her nerves, tugged hard at something low in her belly.

She didn’t doubt for an instant that he was a man accustomed to achieving exactly what he set out to accomplish. He was the alpha other men envied and women turned stupid for—just as her mother had done with William. But turning stupid over a total stranger wasn’t on her list of back-to-school resolutions. Nor was she about to have a stranger tell her what she should do. Especially one she strongly suspected wanted only to cover William’s tracks.

Feeling a definite need for the situation in general and this unnerving man in particular to go away, she adopted the end-of-discussion tone she used when a student was being particularly obtuse.

“Mr. Garrett,” she began, “please tell your client I appreciate his concern, but I can manage on my own. If I can handle thirty second-graders on a sugar high after a class birthday party, I can probably deal with a few reporters.”

“It’ll be more than a few.”

“Then, I’ll handle however many there are,” she insisted, only to immediately soften her tone. “I’m sorry you had to come all this way for nothing. I’m sure you’re very qualified to do whatever it is you do, but I don’t want anything from William. Not even his help.

“No offense to you,” she concluded, because she didn’t believe in shooting the messenger—even if the messenger was part of the reason her stomach was jumping.

She’d seen something that looked suspiciously like sympathy in his disturbing blue eyes moments ago. She caught a glimpse of it again before he glanced away. She just couldn’t tell if it was real or calculated.

She never should have gone to see William, she thought, reaching to stuff the last of the stones and twigs into the bag. Loss and anger had pushed her. That alone should have told her seeking him out would be a mistake.

The chirping of birds joined the rustle of plastic as Ben prepared to argue his position. The woman really had no concept of what she was about to face. He’d seen seasoned politicians and corporate heads cave under the media’s badgering, and he had no clear idea of what she would say or do when the press found her. But pressing his point didn’t seem like such a good idea just then. Jillian Hadley might be as naive as a newborn about what was to come, but there was a sense of independence about her—or maybe it was simply stubbornness—that told him pushing too hard would only push her farther away. He needed her cooperation. He wouldn’t get it by badgering her.

With his first efforts frustrated, Ben prepared to retreat. He wasn’t admitting defeat by any means. He would simply let time work in his favor.

Reaching inside his jacket, he pulled out a pen and one of his business cards. Using the table beside him, he wrote his cell phone number on the back of the card. Two steps later he held it out to her.

The breeze shifted. As it did, it caught her scent, something elusive, faintly exotic and far more sensual than he would have expected a woman who worked with small children to wear.

A muscle in his jaw jerked.

“Call me when you change your mind.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Jillian assured him, but took the card anyway. Anything to get him on his way. “But thank you.”

With a nod of his dark head, he murmured, “You’re welcome,” and turned to stride back the way he’d come.

Not until he’d disappeared around the side of the house did Jillian realize she’d been holding her breath. Realizing it now, it escaped in a rush as she stuffed his card in her skirt pocket and grabbed her sack.

Considering the amount of doom he’d predicted, she hadn’t expected him to give up and go so easily. Just glad that he had, she hurried toward her back door with her chest feeling far too tight and a sense of foreboding fast on her heels. If the press did find her, the next few days could be a little unsettling. But she had weathered upsetting days before.

For months after her mom had been diagnosed and she’d lost both her mom and Eric, she’d felt as if she’d been in a total, stomach-dropping free fall. Nothing about her world had felt the same. Not even the parts that had kept her from feeling as if she had nothing to latch on to, nothing to keep her life from spinning completely out of control. Now that she’d finally gotten her feet back under her, and the dark cloud that had hung over her head had lifted, she was not about to let her life get messed up again. Especially not by William Kendrick.

She could handle this, she assured herself over the squeak of her back screen door as she pulled it open. And she could handle it on her own. She did not need Ben Garrett.

Or so she thought before she found herself rather desperately needing to seek his advice less than twelve hours later.

Chapter Two

In the five minutes since Jillian had scrambled from her car into her duplex, her telephone had barely stopped ringing. It rang now as she paced behind the low moss-green sofa dividing her normally tranquil living room from her kitchen and dining area. Her teacher’s copies of the textbooks she would be using that year lay scattered over the sofa’s cushions. She’d dumped them there on her way across the room to yank closed the drapes.

Opposite the sofa, the offending instrument summoned her from the end table between two barrel chairs. In between, sat the coffee table holding a trio of lime-scented candles, the latest cooking magazines and Cosmo, and the faucet knob that had come off in the shower that morning.

She had intended to mention the broken knob to her landlady when she returned from school that afternoon. Her phone conversation a minute ago with Irene White, however, had not been about the plumbing.

Holding Ben’s business card between two fingers, she nervously flicked it with her thumb.

Had she known anyone else who would know what to do, she would call them and beg for help. She just couldn’t think of a single person who’d had any experience being followed by a pack of rabid reporters.

She paced back past the phone, nerves jumping. It was no longer possible to believe she could somehow escape recognition, or that she could handle the press alone. Hoping that the matter would simply go away had been a total waste of energy. So had been praying for a miracle. The “matter” had arrived. It was literally on her doorstep—and the only person she knew with the expertise to deal with it was the six feet of disturbing, urban masculinity that William Kendrick had sent to deal with her.

Hating the position she felt forced into, she snatched up the phone seconds after it stopped ringing and punched in the cell phone number Ben had written on the back of his card. She was staring at his handwriting, thinking that the bold, confident strokes suited his personality perfectly when he answered on the third ring.

“Ben Garrett.”

She would have recognized the deep, authoritative tones of his voice even if he hadn’t identified himself. Pacing to the window facing the street, she peeked between the heavy beige drapes she’d closed only minutes ago.

“It’s Jillian. I have a…situation.”

Over a faint crackle in the connection, he calmly asked, “What’s going on?”

“Do you want to know what’s going on now? Or what’s been going on all day?”

“You choose.”

“In that case,” she replied, more irritated at William by the minute for putting her in this position, “a gray SUV followed me to school this morning. I thought I was just being paranoid when I first saw it because of what you’d said yesterday about the press showing up, but there was a black car behind it. It followed me, too.”

She found it impossible to remain still. Nerves had her turning from the drapes to pace around the coffee table. “They both parked outside the school and both were still there when I left. In between, one of the teachers told me after lunch that a reporter was in the school office asking personal questions about me. He apparently had a picture of me and William.

“The principal asked him to leave,” she continued, feeling her grip on calm slip, “but there were more guys with telephoto lenses on their cameras hanging over the schoolyard fence when I left. I think most of them followed me home. I know the first two guys did. They’re out front with the reporters who were waiting for me when I got here.”

The muffled honk of a horn filtered over the phone line. A moment later a brushing noise made her think he must be in his car and had just switched his phone to his other ear.

“What did you say to them?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Nothing?”

“Not a word.” She couldn’t even recall all the queries that had been hurled at her as she’d darted from her little Beetle to the door of her carport. All she’d cared about just then was that none of the half-dozen people thrusting microphones toward her had managed to block her way to her side door.

“Look,” she continued, having paced back to peek between the drapes again. There were now television cables on her front lawn. “I have a dozen strangers outside my door, my phone has been ringing since the minute I got here, and Mrs. White is threatening to call the police because her mums are getting trampled. She tends those plants as if they were her children.”

“Who’s Mrs. White?”

“My landlady. She lives in the other half of this duplex.” Her disquiet compounded itself. A woman with a camera crew just crossed the street to knock on Hal Pederson’s door. Hal worked graveyard shift at the grocery warehouse and slept from two o’clock in the afternoon until ten. He wouldn’t appreciate being awakened after having just gone to sleep.

The two news vans at the curb in front of her house had been there when she arrived. A third van pulled up, the satellite dish on its roof already rotating to seek the strongest signal.

“CBS just got here,” she told him, identifying the logo on the side of the vehicle as someone knocked on her front door. “And there’s a woman with a microphone at the house across the street. It’s one thing to have them outside my door, but now they’re disturbing my neighbors. Should I call the police?” she asked him, her distress mounting as the knock repeated. “Or would that just make this all worse?”

“I’ll call. The police can’t stop the press from talking to your neighbors, but they’ll get them off of their lawns. And yours. I’m on my way,” he told her. “Don’t open the door until I get there. I’ll come around back.”

The line went dead before she could do much more than open her mouth. She’d been about to ask how long he would be. The address on his card indicated his office was in Washington, D.C.

Thinking it could be nearly three hours before he arrived, she hung up the phone—only for it to start ringing again.

She didn’t recognize the name on the caller ID. But then, except for Mrs. White’s, she hadn’t recognized the names or numbers of any of the other people who’d called since she’d come home, either.

Feeling besieged, needing an ally, she thought about calling Stacy Fisher. It was Stacy who’d talked her into blowing some of the money she was saving to buy a house on the week with her in Hawaii.

“You need to do something fun for yourself,” her ever-adventurous—and only single—friend had insisted. “You can buy a house when you’re married. You need to lie on a beach and drink mai tais while some buff, bronzed hunk rubs suntan lotion on your back.”

The beach and the mai tais had materialized. So had the hunks, actually. Jillian hadn’t been as receptive to them as Stacy had, though. She preferred men who could converse without staring at her chest or feeling compelled to impress her with what kind of cars they drove and how well their stocks had performed last quarter. Or without using the words dude, righteous and gnarly.

Stacy had said she just needed more practice. She’d been stuck in the Eric rut so long before she’d had the good sense to dump him, that she’d forgotten about the frog-kissing a woman had to do.

She hadn’t talked to Stacy since they’d returned from Hawaii a couple of days ago, so the fearless, bubbly blonde she’d known since college had no idea what was going on. Still, Jillian knew she could always count on her for solid, no-nonsense advice. Stacy, who now taught seventh grade at a middle school on the other side of town, had once taught in the inner city where lock-downs and crowd control had been as common as chalk dust. Her advice on how to handle the intruders outside her door would probably be to turn a hose on them, so she’d be no help there. But being the people person she was, she could give her a little practical perspective on how to deal with her colleagues at school.

That morning, talk about the Kendrick scandals had pretty much been an echo of yesterday. Gina Wasserman, the librarian, had claimed, again, that there was no way she could have sat in front of a camera and listened to her husband tell the world he’d been unfaithful to her. “Katherine had to be devastated,” she’d insisted, speaking of the man’s wife as if she were her dearest friend, “but she showed such class.”

“Unlike whoever that other woman was,” had sniffed the grand dame of fifth grade, Yvonne Bliss. “She knew he was married. She knew he had a family. What did she think? He was going to leave Katherine Kendrick for her?”

According to Carrie Teague, Jillian’s outspoken teaching partner, some women simply didn’t think in those situations. They were attracted to the power. What Carrie had been more interested in was how much his “secret daughter,” as the press had started calling her, had been paid to keep quiet. The married mother of two was absolutely certain it must have been a fortune.

The gossip had changed tone, however, after the reporter had shown up. Thanks to Yvonne, who’d been in the office at the time and who also happened to be the biggest gossip in the school, news of his presence and his photograph had spread through the halls like an annual virus.

Once word was out about Jillian’s identity, some staff had practically tripped over themselves explaining that they’d never have said what they had if they’d known they were talking about her and her mother. Others had chosen a speculative silence. Or outright skepticism.

Ted Gunderson, the built and balding coach who’d smiled broadly every time he’d seen her the past couple of days had walked up to her in the hall with his hands on his hips and a frown on his face.

“You’re not really his daughter, are you?” he’d asked.

Since there was no denying what certain lawyers, reporters and a tabloid already knew, she’d reluctantly admitted that she was.

His only response had been to consider her with an even deeper frown—before he’d turned and walked away.

So much for him asking her out.

There had been a few others who’d jokingly asked her not to forget them now that she was famous. Yvonne had glared at her as if she had been the one to come between William and her much-admired Katherine. Carrie, who in the two years Jillian had taught with her had rarely had an unspoken thought, had decided it was obvious that Jillian hadn’t been paid off since she was still working and living in her duplex. She’d also wanted to know if she was coming into money now and what she planned to do with it and if she would share.

The phone stopped ringing. Desperately needing a friendly ear, she grabbed it before it could start again and punched in Stacy’s number.

Hearing her friend’s recorded voice when her answering machine picked up, she blew a breath and punched the off button.

The phone immediately started to ring again. Not recognizing that incoming call, either, she reached behind the table and unplugged the line from the wall jack.

She’d just slipped the now mercifully silent instrument back onto its base when voices from outside penetrated the walls and another knock rattled her front door.

The only way she could think to block the intrusive sounds was to turn on the television in the entertainment unit, raise its volume and escape into her bedroom.

With the sounds outside finally muffled, she headed down the short hall behind the living room wall and turned into her room.

The drapes she’d opened that morning framed a view of the flower-filled yard Mrs. White so lovingly tended—and a tea-saucer-size black photo lens pressed to the outside of the multipaned glass.

Her heart jerked as adrenaline surged. All she could see of the man holding the camera were his bony fingers and a head of wiry red hair. Behind him approached a mountain of muscle with no neck wearing a dark ball cap.

The camera flashed even as she grabbed the door handle and jumped back into the hall. The door slammed so hard it rattled. The bones in her body seemed to rattle, too, when her back hit the wall behind her.

Moments ago she’d felt under siege. With the privacy of her home invaded, she felt violated and vulnerable. A total stranger had been photographing the room where she slept, the room that was, to her, the most personal.

She had always felt safe in her home, rented though it was. And as physically secure as she was likely to feel anywhere. Hayden was a relatively quiet town. Her little corner of it was quieter still. But just then all she felt was surrounded. And angry. And trapped.

The blinds were open in the kitchen, too.

Remembering that, she hurried from the hall, her footsteps pounding along with her heart. When she’d closed the drapes in the living room, her only concern had been with what had been going on out front. Obviously, fences and gates meant nothing to the press Ben had described as “persistent.”

She apparently needed to pay more attention to his assessments.

Her kitchen was a small, efficient ell of white counters and appliances that held her considerable collection of cookbooks and cooking gadgets. Ceramic canisters painted with ivy sat beneath a rack crowded with spices and herbs. When she couldn’t sleep, she baked. Cookies, cakes, lasagnas. Everyone at the school knew when she’d had a bad night, too, since they were the beneficiaries of her insomnia.

She’d done pretty well sleepwise lately. At least, she had before William had made his little announcement.

She dropped the blinds over the sink and was calling herself six kinds of idiot for having ever sought out William Kendrick when a hard knock on her back door almost sent her back into the little hall.

It was only the muffled voice that shouldn’t have sounded so welcome that stopped her.

“Jillian, it’s Ben.”

Relief that he’d arrived canceled any concern about how anxious she appeared to him when she ripped back the chain and yanked open the door.

He looked much as he had yesterday as he slipped inside, glancing over his shoulder as he did. Tall, confident and more attractive than a man had a right to be. He even wore the same beautifully cut navy suit that so perfectly fit his lean, broad-shouldered frame. The shirt and tie were different, though. Crisp white had given way to a light blue that picked up the flecks of silver in his deep-blue eyes.