Overnight Heiress

He ran an impatient hand through his hair and then grasped the back of his neck, working his head back and forth in an attempt to release some of his tension.

Enough! he told himself. He had more to do than wallow in what he couldn’t or wouldn’t take.

He had responsibilities.

Shaking his head, he reached for his telephone and punched out the numbers.

“Lambert residence,” answered the sweet, young-girl’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Hi, kiddo.”

“Pops! Are you home? Did you bring Avalon’s Anastasia with you?”

Lucas surrendered to a grin. At fourteen, Jamie was only two years older than Danny, but a world apart in openness from the quiet, solemn boy, and a world apart in spontaneity from the daughter he had finally tracked down seven years ago. Russian history was her latest love. How like her to compare Meg Carlton’s return with the tragic life of the youngest daughter of Czar Nicholas.

“I did,” he said.

“And is she?” Jamie asked. “Really?”

“Really,” he told her. “Wait till you see her. There’s no way she’s not Edward’s sister.”

“Hot da—oops!”

Lucas chuckled. “Oops is right, kiddo. You won’t like the taste of soap messing up your pizza.”

“You mean I don’t have to force feed us broccoli tonight after all?”

Lucas shook his head. Jamie loved broccoli. But she loved pizza more. “Not tonight,” he told her. “Tonight I have a craving to take my best girl out for a special meal and a night on the town.”

After he hung up, he shrugged into his suit jacket and looked around the office.

It was a good office. A stable, dependable workplace after a lifetime of strife. And if Jamie was his best girl, that was his choice, too. A choice he had willingly made. A choice he could live with, as he could live with the peace of Avalon, as he could live with doing what he had to do to ease the way of others, as he could live without...without the temptation that for a moment Meg Carlton so unconsciously had offered.

He couldn’t need her, he told himself again. He wouldn’t need her. But somehow his vows seemed pathetically lacking in force.

Three

Meg stretched and twisted, trying to get comfortable in the wide bed. She suspected she wouldn’t, no matter how many times she pounded the down-filled pillows. No matter how many times she told herself that Danny was sleeping peacefully in the equally luxurious room adjoining hers. No matter how many times she realized she was living her little-girl fantasy: the king and queen had come for her—had told her, “You belong with us, my dear. We’re taking you home to live in the castle,” and had whisked her away from the unhappiness of life with James and Audrey, of life with Blake.

And they’d whisked her away from the insecurity of knowing that if anything happened to her, her son would be alone, unprotected and unloved. Now Danny would never be left alone. Edward would love him, and Jennie; she knew that from the few hours she had spent with them. And Lucas would protect him.

Meg slid her hand over the smooth sheet she lay on. It wasn’t actually linen—she was fairly sure of that—but a cotton so luxurious that the sheets on this bed alone had to have cost as much as the entire contents of her bedroom in Tulsa. And across the room, in the alcove of a sitting room, the glow from a fire in the tiny marble fireplace danced over the pattern of an Oriental rug. Sheer luxury. Opulence in excellent taste.

So why was her mind spinning, refusing to let her sleep? Wasn’t her life going to be wonderful from here on out? After all, the glass slipper had fit.

No. That was the wrong fairy tale.

And in spite of all the times she’d wished as a child for the king and queen to come and get her, in spite of the pictures and videotapes of converted home movies Edward had shown her that evening, in spite of the memories her brother—her brother—had shared with her, she didn’t feel like the princess. She was just Meg Wilson, Danny’s mother and Patrick’s bartender. Tomorrow she would miss an entire shift at Patnck’s. Tonight Danny had missed his woodcarvers’ club meeting, and she had missed a class in contract law. That was going to be important when everyone here discovered she was really an impostor.

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. She wasn’t an impostor. This was her life now, and no matter how strange, how alien it seemed to her, she had better get used to it.

A brother. Oh, Lord, she had a brother. A family. A decent family—she would have been drawn to Edward and Jennie even if they hadn’t been—been hers. And friends. She could have friends now. Friends she wouldn’t have to leave without a word, if—when—Blake found them.

And when Blake found them this time, Lucas would be there with her, standing between her and whatever he threatened.

Lucas.

Meg turned again, and this time her shoulder found the spot in the feather bed that had eluded her all night, her cheek nestled against the pillow and the tension that had clenched her shoulders eased from her as she felt, at last, the peace of sleep wrapping itself around her.

“Gee, Ma, you goin’ to sleep all day?”

Ma? Meg raised one eyelid and glanced across the oversize pillow she had hugged to her as she slept. A dream floated back into her subconscious as she focused on Danny standing at the side of the bed. Since when did her son call her Ma? She squinted at him through sleepy eyes. Since when did her son look like an escapee from a Dumpster?

“Didn’t I throw that T-shirt in the rag bin this fall?”

Danny looked down at his shirt and grinned. “Yeah, but I figured, what the heck? They’re probably expecting the Beverly Hillbillies. Why not give them what they want?”

Meg closed her eyes, but all thought of sleep had fled with Danny’s words. Sighing, she unwound her arms from the pillow and scooted up against the headboard, taking the sheet with her. “He’s my brother, Danny. Do you have any idea what this means to me?”

“Yeah,” her son told her. “It means that after today you get to sleep in silk instead of that reject from the thrift store.”

She would have liked to wait until she was more awake and more sure of her own emotions before having this conversation, but it looked as if the time for waiting had fled with the last of her elusive dream.

“Are you angry with me, Danny?”

“You? No. Why?”

“Then maybe you’re angry with Edward and Jenny. You do understand that they didn’t know about us until the day before we found out about them, don’t you? They came for us right away.”

“They came for you. No. They sent for you. They sent a cop for you. I just got dragged along because—”

“Because I’d cut off my arm before I’d leave you behind?”

At that Danny ducked his head. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

“And of course they’ve been really mean to you since you got here,” Meg continued in a companionable tone. “Made you sleep in the basement, fed you gruel and water for supper last night—”

At the mention of gruel, her stomach gave an audible complaint She looked away from Danny’s answering grin and saw the delicate, ornate clock on the nearby desk. “Ten o‘clock? I slept until ten o’clock? Good grief. Breakfast? Are you starved?”

“Nah. I ate hours ago. There was some old lady in the kitchen when I found it. She was cryin’ when I got there, but she fixed me pancakes. I don’t think you’re going to get food though, not unless you cook it yourself. There’s something really weird going on in this house, people going and coming, an old guy that looks like the actor that played Santa in Miracle on 34th Street and some sort of a preacher with one of those tight white collars up to here. And, oh yeah, the sheriff’s back. Do you suppose they’re going to kick us out?”

Meg shook her head. Danny’s insecurity was even worse than her own, probably with good reason. She’d tried. Oh, how she had tried. Apparently her efforts so far hadn’t been enough, but that didn’t mean she could give up. “Edward and Jennie are family.”

“Yeah. Well, so was Dad. And so were all those grandparents I’ve never even seen.”

Now Meg was the one to duck her head. “Yeah.” She chuffed out a sigh and studied her son. He was so young and so cynical, and right now, even though he’d never admit it, so scared. And so was she. “But you’re right about one thing,” she told him. “I suspect that we’re at least part of the reason those people are here this morning. Us and the trouble that’s going to come down on our heads when the press gets hold of this story.”

She slid her long legs in the almost-long-enough nightgown over the side of the bed and quirked a grin at Danny. “Give me a hug so I’ll have the strength to face what the day has m store, and then scram and let me get dressed so I can go face it.

“And, Danny,” she said when he just stood there, “I don’t think we’re going anywhere, but just remember, if we do, you and me kid, we go together. Got that?”

Meg found Lucas and Edward in serious conversation in the same small sitting room they had used the night before. Edward looked up, stricken, when she entered the room.

“Meggie...”

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you and Danny have passports?”

Passports? Why would they need passports? Concerned, she shook her head.

“No. Of course not,” her brother said. “Or we would have found you much sooner. Lucas?”

Hearing the thread of panic in her brother’s voice sparked an answering one in Meg. “What’s wrong?” she repeated.

“It’s Jennie She needs surgery. We’d hoped to be able to avoid it—she’d seemed to improve—or at least to postpone it, especially since you’ve just arrived, but she had a relapse last night. Dr. Freede contacted her neurologist finally, about six this morning, and we need to take her...now.”

“Someplace where I would need a passport to accompany you?”

He nodded. “Switzerland.”

Meg found a chair simply by backing into it, and collapsed. What kind of wealth had she stumbled into? Jennie needed surgery so they woke up a couple of doctors in the middle of the night and scheduled a trip to the other side of the world.

“Is she—How is she?”

“In pain.” Edward looked at her with his unbelievably familiar eyes. He’d told her the night before how close he’d come to losing Jennie, in a kidnap attempt. Now she knew he had never shed the fear of losing her to the effects of the serious head injuries she’s suffered in that attempt. “Frightened,” he said, “but trying not to let me see just how much. I wouldn’t leave you if this wasn’t critical.”

Unbelievably familiar. But not quite real.

Meg sought out the only thing, the only person, in the room who was truly real to her. “Are you going, too?” she asked Lucas.

He gave her a grim smile. “Only as far as the airport.”

“When?”

“Within the hour.”

Within the hour. It was that critical, then. She forced her practical self to take over. “What can I do to help?”

Edward crossed the room and dropped his hand onto her shoulder. “Just be here when we get back, Meggie. Don’t let us lose you again.”

She sensed a deep pain in Edward’s words, an echo of too many losses. Uneasy with the intimacy and the sharing that was so different from the isolation she had always known, Meg looked away—and found Lucas watching Edward’s hand on her shoulder. Losses. She and Edward weren’t the only ones to have felt them.

“You will be here?”

She dragged her attention back to Edward. “Yes.” She knew he needed to hear her say the words. “Yes, of course.”

Edward turned to the other man in the room. “And you’ll take care of her?”

Lucas’s eyes met hers. Reluctantly? Meg couldn’t really be sure of anything but his words. “Yes,” he said, echoing her promise. “Yes, of course.”

They weren’t truly alone in the house; at least Meg didn’t think they were. But it seemed that way. For such a large house, Edward kept a very small staff. A very small, tired staff, who had been up most of the night while she and Danny slept. After assuring the cook that she would be all right, and sending her off for a much needed nap, Meg installed herself in the kitchen.

Here, at least, she felt at home.

The room was huge, with marvelous, if ancient, commercial fixtures. Except for the numerous sparkling windows, it reminded her of the kitchen at Patrick’s and at any number of the restaurants where she had worked over the past twelve years.

Danny ambled into the kitchen and scooted himself up onto the long pine table in the center of the room. “I told you that if you wanted to eat, you’d have to fix it yourself,” he said.

His moods never lasted long. Maybe if she just ignored this one it would go away. Meg doubted that, but it was worth at least one more try. “So you did, oh fearless prognosticator. Did you happen to foresee what I would be preparing?”

“Corn dogs, French fries and double-chocolate ice cream?”

“Hah!” Meg grabbed lettuce and a platter of baked chicken from the refrigerator. “Swami sees with a broken crystal ball.”

Danny grinned at her, her mischievous and loving son again for at least this moment. “It was worth a try.”

The rich were different, or at least lived differently, Meg thought moments later as she and Danny lunched on sandwiches made of thinly sliced chicken on a rich homemade dark rye bread with tangy mayonnaise that had never seen a processing plant and tomatoes that had ripened naturally somewhere in a warm climate.

“still want corn dogs?” Meg asked as her son with the hollow leg built his second monster sandwich.

“Mmmph.”

She interpreted that as a “no,” or maybe a “later, Mom,” and grmned. Danny’s appetite, at least, had not changed.

“So,” she asked, already knowing the answer, “have you had a chance to check out this place?”

Danny nodded. “Big,” he said. “Big house. Big yard. Big fence.” He set his sandwich on its plate and looked at her. “Did somebody really steal you when you were just a little kid?”

Not only had he been checking out the place, he’d obviously been spying on conversations, as well, because neither she nor Lucas had told him just exactly how Meg had gotten separated from her family. “That’s what they tell me,” she said.

“Gee. You must have been scared.”

Meg nodded. “I expect I was.”

“You don’t know?”

She shook her head. “No, Danny, I don’t remember,.”

“Then maybe it’s a mistake, and you’re; not who they think?”

She reached across the table and took his wildly gesturing hand in hers. “Aside from the fact that my fingerprints match, remember that funny little birthmark I have behind my left ear?”

He nodded.

“Meg Carlton had one just like it. And Jennie was right. You do look like your Uncle Edward. A lot. Especially when he was your age.”

“So we do belong here?”

She smiled at him. “Yes, Danny. I think at long last we have found a place where we really belong.”

Lucas returned minutes after she had taken Danny to the only other downstairs room where she felt comfortable, the small sitting room, and had begun showing her son the photo albums Edward had left for her. Danny tensed when he saw the man standing in the doorway; Meg tensed when she saw the hummingbird of a woman who accompanied him.

“They’re on their way?” Meg asked.

Lucas nodded.

“Yes,” the woman said, just that, yes, as she stepped into the room. “This will be a pleasure. Oh, yes, Megan, you will be stunning.”

“Excuse me?”

Lucas shook his head, and what might have been a smile passed over his features. Yes. Definitely a smile. But gone so quickly she almost missed it. “Let me introduce you. Meg Wilson, this is Marianna Richards. Marianna, this is Meg and her son Danny.”

The woman smiled at Danny and advanced on her, a tiny, delicate firestorm of color and self-assurance. “Jewel tones,” she said. “Definitely. And drama. Lots of drama. Scarves and hats and—oh, yes—more height. Two-inch heels. Maybe three.”

“I beg your pardon,” Meg said, looking from the woman to Lucas in confusion.

“Oh. Oh, I am sorry,” Marianna said. “Edward has asked me to oversee your makeover.”

Makeover. Meg felt every defensive hackle she possessed rise up in indignation. “Makeover,” she said tightly. “I don’t think so. If I’m not accepta—I’m perfectly happy with who I am.”

“Oh, yes. Of course you are. And you should be. But when the reporters come, and they will, snapping around like a pack of ill-mannered little terriers, you are going to want to look down your lovely aristocratic nose at them and silence them. I’m just here as a friend of the family—for no other reason, I assure you—to help you be able to do that.”

And to make sure I look like a Carlton, Meg thought. But of course she couldn’t say that. And why shouldn’t she look like someone who belonged to this wealth, she realized; she was a Carlton. Even though she didn’t feel like one. Maybe she did need this woman’s help. She looked up and caught Lucas studying her quietly from across the room, not condemning, just offering a steady, nonjudgmental acceptance of whatever she decided to do.

“And me? Are you going to try to make me over, too?” Danny asked with the same belligerence Meg had heard in his voice earlier that morning.

Marianna turned slowly toward him and raked an appraising glance from hair he had managed somehow to spike, over disreputable T-shirt and jeans, to athletic shoes that looked as though he had found a mud puddle to scrape them through.

“That’s quite a fashion statement,” she said. “How old are you? Twelve?” She glanced back at Lucas. “How old was Jamie when she discovered this very same style?”

For a moment, Lucas didn’t answer, almost as though he understood the turmoil behind Danny’s revolt, and then he smiled, falling in with Marianna’s teasing diversion. “Jamie’s my daughter,” he said to Danny. “She’s fourteen, a little older than you are, but she went through some pretty hard times after her mom died. I thought that in spite of the age difference, you two might find a few common interests and that she should be the one to introduce you around. Instead of me, I mean,” he added when he saw Danny’s pending and instinctive refusal.

Danny subsided, silent but once again sullen. Meg wanted to shake him, and she wanted to hug him. Instead, she looked at Lucas who seemed to be waiting for some sort of answer. Daughter, huh? Well, that answered a question she hadn’t even let herself ask. That was at least one reason why it was Lucas Lambert, the sheriff, she would be seeing in the future. Lucas Lambert., the man, obviously had enough to fill his life, if he was raising a child alone. God knew she understood how draining that could be.

And it answered or at least hinted at answers to some of the questions she hadn’t allowed herself to ask—about his secrets, about his pain.

Meg found her smile, the cocky one the patrons at Patrick’s had known and expected, and turned it on Marianna. “Did you say aristocratic?” she asked the woman, peering down at her from an advantage of several inches.

Mananna nodded, acknowledging the role everyone in the room understood Meg was playing.

“Well, then,” Meg said, “I suspect we’d better get busy.”

He came back. Later that afternoon when he was sure Marianna would have finished the first phase of her new assignment and when he hoped that Danny had taken himself off to explore the rambling grounds of the estate.

There was no reason to return. Lucas told himself that as he parked the Land Rover and strode across the lawn. Anything he had to say to Meg could be said by telephone, or even relayed by a third party. There was no reason to think she would even want to see him again, except for the memories of the way her eyes sought his whenever her new life threw another obstacle in her path.

He found her in the garden, sitting on the sun-warmed lawn beside the marble pool and fountain that so fascinated his daughter. She had drawn up her knees to rest her chin on them and wrapped her arms around her legs.

And she was lost, staring unseeingly at something or somewhere far away from Avalon, New Mexico, and all the changes that an unwitting burglar had brought into her life. Was she missing the small duplex she had made into a warm, welcoming home? Or Patrick McBean, the man she’d told him had given her a job and hours that took into account her schooling and Danny, and reinforced the sense of self-worth Meg had spent a lifetime building?

A soft breeze found its way through the trees and teased a lock of Meg’s hair across her cheek. Absently she brushed it back, sighed and raised her tented hands to her mouth. He noticed the sheen of moisture in her eyes. And she noticed him.

“No. Don’t get up,” he told her when she started to scramble to her feet. “I’m sorry I startled you.” He crossed the few steps and seated himself on the stone ledge of the pond. “I’m sorry I disturbed you. You looked lost in thought.”

Meg sniffed once and grinned up at him. “What a kind way of saying I was wallowing in my emotions.”

“Were you?” he asked. “Wallowing?”

“Maybe.” Meg looked, and for a moment all her indecision and confusion and pain flowed from her to him. “Have you ever had your life completely change, Lucas? I thought I had seen changes—as Danny and I moved from one town to another—but I always knew who I was and who my son was. Now I’ve learned that all of that was based on a lie so horrible I can’t bear to consider it. Now I don’t know who I am. I don’t know who I can be. Can you have any idea how frightening that is?”

Oh, yes. He knew. He knew too well. But there was a difference in the changes she was undergoing from those he had been forced to make. “Do you have to know right now? Can’t you give yourself time to explore the possibilities? It’s only the outer trappings that have changed, Meg. Beneath all of those, you’re still the same fine woman and mother you were yesterday. And Danny’s still the same fine boy.”

She chuckled softly. “I hope so. I keep reminding myself to be patient, that this phase of his won’t last long.”

“I’ll send Jamie over tomorrow. She’ll show him the town and introduce him to her friends. If nothing else, peer pressure will bring him around.”

Again she laughed. And this time she did rise to her feet with an innate grace she seemed completely unaware of. She dusted off her slacks and cocked her head to one side as she looked at him. “But that’s not why you came. There’s more, isn’t there?”

Yes, there was more reason for his being here. More than he, himself, could even begin to understand. More than he could ever tell Meg Carlton. But this much he could tell her, even though he knew she wasn’t ready, even though he’d like to shield her from this. He nodded. “The Bureau called.”

She paled slightly, then sank onto the ledge beside him. “And so it starts?”

“Soon, Meg. Soon.” He pulled a sheaf of papers from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “I’ve dictated a statement based on what you told me yesterday. If you’ll sign it, I’ll send it on to them. That ought to keep them quiet for a while.”

Meg took the pages. When she looked up from them, her eyes were bright with relief. “You kept it to the minimum.”

“That’s all they need for now. Later, yes, they will ask more questions than you’ll ever want to answer about your kidnapping. But this will keep them away until you’ve had a chance to orient yourself. And until you’ve had time to confer with the Carlton lawyers.”

“When?” she asked.

“Tomorrow. Edward’s personal attorney, Fallon Teague, is flying in late tonight I’ll delay this report as long as I can so that he can begin preparations before the Stemples or Blake are questioned—”

“Blake? Why would they question him?”

He heard the thread of panic in her voice, quickly masked, and cursed himself for causing it. “Even if they don’t, Meg, he will hear the news when it’s released. And it will be released. Or leaked. This was too big a case for someone to pass up the opportunity for publicity. But for now we’ve all agreed to play it low-key and quiet.”