Billion Dollar Bride

“I have no problem with other people’s opinions,” he said, “when they relate to business. But I don’t like interference in my personal life.”

She held the door while he passed through it. “It was an opinion on Caroline’s life. She is the bride, after all, and seeing that the bride has everything she wants on her special day is my job.”

“Good,” he said. “You take care that she has everything she needs for the wedding, and I’ll worry about her mental and emotional well-being.”

No large undertaking, he knew. Caroline had shut off her deepest feelings long ago, and her mental well-being was just fine because she skimmed along the surface of her emotions fearful of rekindling the ones she’d disconnected.

He could see from the expression in Anna Maitland’s eyes that though she might not know the details, she’d already grasped the obvious about Caroline.

With a patronizing subservience he didn’t trust for a moment, she inclined her head.

“You’ll have a wonderful wedding,” she assured him, stepping back through the doorway as Caroline led him toward the elevator. “And Caroline will be a beautiful bride.” She waved at Caroline, then closed the door to her office.

He wanted Caroline to be the bride all women dreamed of being so she would never feel that she’d sacrificed anything to give him his baby.

They stopped to wait for the elevator.

“My word!” Caroline exclaimed with a shake of her head. “Are you two going to argue until the moment I walk up the aisle? Why is her opinion so important to you?”

“It isn’t. I just didn’t want her upsetting you.”

“Oh, we were just talking, one woman to another. Don’t worry about it. I know what I’m doing.”

“But are you happy about what you’re doing?”

She shrugged noncommittally. “I’m never happy, you know that. But I agreed, didn’t I? I have nothing going on for a year or so. We may as well make a baby.”

He felt that pinch again and gave the down button an impatient jab. Why did he want her to be happy, he wondered, when they didn’t love each other? It didn’t make sense.

“And I’m not upset,” Caroline went on. The light over the elevator blinked its arrival and a buzzer sounded. The doors parted on an empty car and they stepped inside. “In fact,” she said as the doors closed, “I’m pretty excited about the prospect of a medieval wedding.”

She smiled at him coaxingly. “You can ride a horse, can’t you?”

Austin forced himself not to shudder.

CHAPTER TWO

“MOM! WHERE ARE YOU?”

Will always came through the office door shouting for her, just as he did at home. The school bus dropped him off outside the building, and he did homework in a corner of her office until they went home together.

She sat behind her desk, in plain sight, not ten feet from the doorway in which he stood. She’d often wondered if his father’s absence made him want to keep close tabs on her.

“Right here in front of your face, Will,” she said, gesturing him to come to her. “Where else would I be?”

He dropped his backpack on her desk and wrapped her in a sturdy hug. She relished it, knowing that the next ten years would pass with the speed of the last ten and he’d soon be in college somewhere thinking about business and women and forgetting to give his mother the time of day.

She studied him as he drew away and leaned against her desk, his white sweater smudged and his jeans muddy at the knees. He had her dark hair and eyes, though he’d inherited his father’s aristocratic nose and chin. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and a usually serious air, though he did have a wry sense of humor and a sunny smile. He smiled at her now.

“You’re always saying that one day Michael Keaton’s going to come and take you away to the Batcave. I thought he might have come while I was gone.”

“As if I’d leave for the Batcave without you. Did you eat all your lunch?”

“Except for the carrot sticks I traded to Ashley Bates.”

“Traded for what?”

“A cupcake.”

Anna groaned. “Will, I try to balance your lunch so that you get all the nutrition you—”

“Mom,” he interrupted reasonably, “if someone wanted to give you a cupcake for your carrot sticks, you’d have to be brain-dead not to make the deal. It was like getting Microsoft stock for railroad shares.”

Anna laughed and hugged him again. He was the best thing in a life filled with pretty good stuff, and she never took that for granted for a moment.

“What did you have for lunch?” he asked, falling into her client’s chair.

“Caesar salad with shrimp.”

“Ah. Austin Eats again, huh? I know it’s only across the street, Mom, but you’re in a rut.”

She nodded and pushed to her feet. “And if you don’t mind digging yourself in there with me, I noticed they had chicken and dumplings on the dinner menu.” It was one of his favorite meals—and the cook-housekeeper’s day off. “Want to eat there tonight?”

“Please. Anything’s better than those frozen chicken and spinach calzone things we had last week.” He crossed his eyes and made a terrible face. “Even your cooking would be better than those.”

She chased him to the elevator.

AUSTIN EATS was a small diner with a circular counter in the middle of the room and square tables and chairs all around. It served fifty or so customers and was busy for every meal and most times in between.

Framed photographs of local events lined the pale yellow walls, and a large bulletin board behind the cashier was a rotating gallery of new babies, birthday-party photos and postcards from vacationing patrons.

It was like eating at home surrounded by friends and not having to cook.

Two glasses of ice water were placed on the table the moment Anna and Will settled in one of the window booths.

“And how are my two favorite customers?” Mary Jane Potter asked with a bright smile. She was in her early twenties and small but buff, her curly brown hair caught up in a casual topknot. She wore her Austin Eats uniform with great style and a very serious-looking pair of athletic shoes. She took a pad and pen from her apron pocket and winked at Will.

“How’s my Scully Sports Equipment stock, Will?”

“Up two-thirds of a point,” Will replied with a proud smile. “Slow growth is good.”

Mary Jane grinned at him. “Then how come you’re getting so tall?”

“He’s a blue-chip stock,” Anna said. “We’re here for the chicken and dumplings, Mary Jane. Is Shelby cooking tonight?” Shelby Lord owned Austin Eats.

“No, Sara’s cooking.”

“Does she make it as well as Shelby does?” Will wanted to know.

Mary Jane scribbled on her pad. “Maybe even better. She must have worked for Wolfgang Puck in her other life. Salads or soup? The soup’s tomato rice today.”

“Soup!” Will said with enthusiasm.

Anna shook her head. “Neither, thanks. Just some coffee.”

“Right. And milk for Will.”

“Pepsi,” Will corrected.

“Milk.” Anna overruled him. “Thanks, Mary Jane.”

As Mary Jane left to place their order, Will pulled the napkin dispenser toward him and gave Anna two napkins, taking two for himself.

“I don’t need strong bones,” he argued good-naturedly while replacing the dispenser. “I’m going to run a big company, not play professional basketball.”

“All smart companies today have in-house gyms to help reduce employee stress. Thank you.” Mary Jane delivered their drinks and was gone again. “Your employees will expect to see you there.”

He grinned. “I’ll just show up in the sauna like Uncle R.J.” Will looked in the direction of the kitchen, then leaned conspiratorially toward Anna and asked quietly, “Where do you think Sara came from, Mom? I mean, it’s weird that she’s been here seven whole months and she still doesn’t remember anything.”

Anna took a sip of her coffee, then shook her head as she replaced the cup. “I don’t have an answer to that, Will. No one can say when she’ll get her memory back. All we know is that she sustained a head injury that probably caused the memory loss. Even the specialist the hospital brought in from Dallas said she could get her memory back tomorrow, or it could take months. I guess those things are unpredictable.”

Sara had wandered into town, dazed and unable to remember her name. She’d been taken to a women’s shelter, and Daisy, the director, had brought her to Maitland Maternity Clinic, the hospital run by Anna’s family, because it was closer than the hospital across town.

When Sara had finally been declared healthy except for the memory loss, Daisy had pleaded with Shelby to give her a job. Sara had proven to be a good waitress—and a good cook.

She had golden blond hair and blue eyes with a questioning look in them that Anna noticed every time she saw her. It was almost as though she expected a clue to present itself at any moment, a revelation that would answer her questions.

“Imagine not knowing who you are,” Will speculated, sitting back in the booth. “Not knowing your mom or your dad or your friends. I wonder how she remembered she could cook.”

“Shelby said the cook had a family emergency a few weeks ago and couldn’t come in to work. Sara started cooking. It was probably instinctive.”

“She just knew she could do it?”

Anna nodded. “That even happens to people who know who they are, but don’t know what they’re capable of,” she said, unable to resist making a life lesson out of their serious conversation. “When put to the test, they do things they didn’t know they could do.”

“Sort of like discovering they have super powers.”

Anna was about to nod, but her maternal radar spotted the danger in doing so without qualification. “Internal super powers,” she specified. “I wouldn’t try to fly or see through lead or anything.”

Will rolled his eyes at her. “I know what you mean, Mom. I wasn’t planning to leap tall buildings.”

“Good.” She never knew for certain with him. He was extremely intelligent, unusually gifted, but still a ten-year-old boy. His sense of daring and adventure occasionally overruled his common sense. “I’d just prefer not to have a repeat of the gunpowder incident.”

He frowned, distracted by the memory of the experiment that had given her a few of the worst moments of her life. “I still don’t understand why that didn’t work,” he said absently. “According to the book, sulfur and potassium nitrate should have been a perfect launching fuel.”

Fortunately, he’d tried to launch a teddy bear and not himself, but in the process he’d blown out the bathroom window and the glass on the medicine cabinet, and ignited the shower curtain. The teddy bear had gone to his reward.

If R.J. hadn’t been there, Anna wasn’t sure what she’d have done when she heard the explosion and opened the bathroom door to find her son covered in soot and glass and lying motionless on the floor.

Will had come to immediately, and R.J. had gotten the glass off him and out of his hair with a Dustbuster. Then he’d taken him to the emergency room, where they’d found nothing wrong with him except singed eyebrows and hair and rampant inquisitiveness.

R.J. had talked her out of locking Will in his room until college and made an effort to spend more time with him. Even now that R.J. was married, he made Will a part of his life.

Will shrugged off the incident. “I guess it showed that science isn’t my thing.” He sat back as Mary Jane delivered his soup and Anna’s coffee. “Money is.”

As Mary Jane left again, he asked seriously, “Do you think I get that from my father? Even though I never see him?”

Anna shook her head, eager to rid him of that notion. “You get it from the Maitlands,” she said, pushing the pepper toward him. “Almost all of us are into some kind of business. Besides the clinic itself, there’s Lana’s baby shop, Shelby’s restaurant—” she spread her hands to indicate Austin Eats “—and Aunt Beth’s day-care center in the hospital.”

“And you.”

“Right.”

“But Shelby and Lana are Lords,” he corrected, “not Maitlands.”

Anna nodded, pointing to his napkin to remind him to put it on his lap. He did, then pulled his soup closer and picked up his spoon.

“But we Maitlands sort of think of them as cousins,” she explained, “because Grandma found Garrett and the triplets on the doorstep of Maitland Maternity not long after she opened it. She found a loving home for them close by and we had parties and picnics together. Our interests rubbed off on each other.”

“I just wonder why he doesn’t like me,” Will said candidly.

They were back to his father again. Anna preferred not to think about her ex-husband, but she knew that understanding his rejection was important to Will’s peace of mind.

“He doesn’t dislike you,” she assured him quickly. “He doesn’t even know you well enough to make any judgment about you. He just thinks of himself first. Life always seems easier if you never have to consider anybody but yourself.”

“It must get lonely,” Will observed.

She was pleased he understood that. “I’m sure it does. Guess what client I took on today.”

He spooned soup into his mouth with enthusiasm, pausing to add more pepper and take a guess. “Um…that lady that’s the mother of that baby Grandma has? The one that’s your new cousin Connor’s girlfriend?”

“Janelle?” Anna shook her head. “Nope. I took Janelle and Connor on last month. This is a client I officially got today.”

Will shrugged, more interested in eating his soup than trying to guess.

“Caroline Lamont,” she said.

“Who’s that?” he asked between spoonfuls.

“A nice lady who has a lot of money. But guess who she’s marrying.”

“Who?”

“Austin Cahill.”

She watched with delight as Will dropped the spoon into his empty bowl and stared at her in wide-eyed disbelief.

“Mom,” he said gravely, “you’re kidding, right?”

She shook her head. “I’m not. They want a medieval English wedding, and I have to find costumes and armor and horses.”

His mouth fell open.

“You can help me with that part if you like,” she said.

He still didn’t believe her. “No way!” he challenged.

“Way,” she assured him.

Hero worship blazed in his eyes as he finally realized she spoke the truth. “But…he lives in Dallas!”

“Right. But Caroline lives here in Austin.”

“Wow.” He pushed his bowl aside and leaned toward her pleadingly. “You think I’ll get to meet him?”

She remembered Cahill’s resistance to Caroline’s suggestion. “He’s pretty busy right now,” she said gently. “He’s involved in getting ready for the wedding and trying to run his business from here.”

He absorbed that information, then seemed to dismiss it, as though the notion that he could be this close to his hero and not meet him was unthinkable.

“Did he say anything about the RoyceCo takeover?” Will asked eagerly. Before she could answer, he added, “Did he say what he’s going to do about the pet stores in their subsidiary company?”

“Didn’t you just buy us RoyceCo stock?” Anna frowned in puzzlement. “I thought it was a grain company.”

He nodded. “I bought it because I knew Austin Cahill was looking at it seriously. I think RoyceCo bought a dog-food company as a place to use some of their grain, and those guys had pet stores. Anyway, those stores—I think they’re called Dogdom—have been in violation of Texas animal protection laws. Somebody has to make them change.”

“He didn’t say any—”

“I’ll bet that’s why he bought it!” Will beamed. “’Cause he heard the animals weren’t being treated right and he wanted to fix that!”

Anna was willing to let him believe that. It reminded her again that although her son had a keen, almost adult mind, he was still a little boy. He understood the workings of business, but not the motivations of those who made the deals.

She doubted seriously that Austin Cahill had purchased RoyceCo to see that the animals owned by the subsidiary pet stores were better treated. He was taking a wife for the sole purpose of producing an heir. With so little regard for a human being, he couldn’t possibly care that much about animals. He was in it for the profits in grain.

“Maybe we’ll run into him,” Will said hopefully, “while I’m helping you with the armor and the horses.”

“Maybe. We’ll have to find a way to work it out when his schedule loosens up.”

Mary Jane brought their dinners, and conversation stopped while Will consumed his, then finished off the second half of Anna’s.

“Sara’s a really good cook,” he said appreciatively as he contemplated the last bite. “I’ll bet she cooked for the president or somebody.”

Anna had to agree that her chicken and dumplings were delicious. The seasoning was perfect, the biscuits light, the mashed potatoes creamy. An hour on the treadmill tonight, she thought, might save her hips from retribution.

“I can stay up late tonight,” Will boasted as he pushed his plate aside, “’cause I don’t have school tomorrow. Can I have peach cobbler?”

“Sure.”

“A là mode?”

“Is there any other way?”

Anna beckoned to Mary Jane, who brought Will’s favorite dessert without being asked.

“Aunt Beth wondered,” Anna said casually, “if you could help out at the day care tomorrow, since you have the day off.”

Will gave her a direct look that changed subtly to one of disapproval. “Mom, I’m on to you. You think if you make me feel like Aunt Beth needs my help, I won’t get mad about having to spend the day with a bunch of little kids. I thought I was going to spend the day with Uncle R.J.”

She hadn’t been able to skate anything past him since he was four. She didn’t know why she continued to try.

“It helps her a lot when you read to the little ones,” she insisted. “And Uncle R.J. and Aunt Dana have an appointment he’d forgotten when he said you could stay with him.”

He looked disappointed. “Why can’t I just go over to Eddie’s?”

“Because no one’s home at Eddie’s house.”

“Mom, we’re ten years old.” He said it as though they were twenty-one.

“I know that, Will,” she replied patiently, “but I’m more comfortable knowing that you’re nearby, and that someone I trust has an eye on you.”

“But it’s embarrassing to have to stay at a day care!”

“You’re not staying there, you’re assisting.”

“I’ll bet Austin Cahill never had to stay at a day care when he was ten,” he grumbled, then finished his cobbler in silence.

Anna put an arm around him as they walked to the cashier. “We’ll stay up late and scarf brownies while we’re watching Leno, okay?”

That earned her a tentative smile. “Okay. But you owe me big for this, Mom.”

She squeezed him to her and kissed the top of his head. “I owe you big for a lot of things, kiddo.”

WILL LAY on the sofa, covered with a throw, and watched television. Curled up near his feet, Anna checked her source catalogs for the unique requirements the Lamont-Cahill wedding would call for.

She’d made a few notes when there was a knock at her door just after nine. She walked from the family room at the back of her rambling ranch house, through the kitchen, the dining room, then the living room, wondering who would be calling at this hour.

Her brother and his wife stood on the doorstep, their cheeks flushed and their eyes alight with their love for each other.

Anna smiled to herself. That love had come as such a surprise to her brother R.J. As president of Maitland Maternity Clinic, he’d hired Dana as his secretary years ago and had worked closely with the beautiful blonde every day without noticing what had grown between them.

“Hi!” Anna greeted them. “What’s up?”

“My hormone level!” Dana replied without trying to ease into the reason for their visit. Her green eyes were alight with excitement. “We’re going to have a baby!”

R.J. turned to his wife, laughing. “Oh, that was well done. What happened to ‘Let’s be subtle and mysterious?’” R.J.’s hazel eyes could often be difficult to read, but tonight they were as revealing as Dana’s.

“I couldn’t stand it another moment!” Dana cried as she wrapped her arms around Anna. “Oh, Anna. We’re so excited!”

“What?” Will demanded, racing to the door in his Dallas Cowboys knit pajamas, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“You’re going to have a cousin!” Anna exclaimed to Will as she drew his aunt and uncle inside and closed the door. “Well, I’m excited, too! That’s wonderful! Have you told Mom?”

“Not yet,” R.J. replied. “I wanted to tell you first.”

“Will,” Dana said, “I hope our baby is half the sweetheart you are.”

Will blushed furiously. “Sweetheart?” he questioned, glancing at his uncle.

“Dana means she hopes he’s a great guy like you.” R.J. shook his head at Dana. “Guys don’t like to be considered sweethearts, my love. Only women appreciate that.”

Dana hugged Will. “I’m sorry, Will. I mean that in the most complimentary way.”

Anna left Will to entertain them while she excused herself to make a fresh pot of decaf.

Even now that they were adults, Anna worried about R.J.’s sense of disconnection from the family.

She and R.J. had been born to William Maitland’s brother, Robert, then abandoned when their mother died and Robert left, unable to cope. R.J. had been three and Anna just six months old.

William and Megan had adopted them and raised them with the same love and attention they gave their own children, but R.J. had struggled with the knowledge that he wasn’t really their child and that his father had abandoned him.

Though he’d always been protective of Anna, he’d also thought of her as William and Megan’s daughter, because he remembered their natural parents and she didn’t.

It was a defense mechanism, she knew. He’d been afraid that genes would win out and someday, despite all his efforts to the contrary, he’d find in himself the same irresponsible qualities their father had shown.

Even after he’d become president of Maitland Maternity, he’d held himself a little apart from everyone—except her—for fear he would fall short of what was required of him.

While Anna loved and counted on their closeness, she worried about the subtle distance he kept between himself and their family.

Now, though, as she heard R.J. and Dana laughing together in the other room, she felt sure that Dana’s love would go a long way toward bridging that distance.

And he had once vowed never to have children, afraid he’d be the kind of father their natural father had been. But now his wife was pregnant, and he looked as though he couldn’t be happier.

There was hope for him.

“You understand, of course,” Anna said, carrying out a tray filled with a pot of her favorite flavored decaf, three cups and a mug of cocoa, “that I’ll have to throw you the biggest, most elegant Boston shower known to man.”

“What’s that?” Will asked.

Anna set the tray on a carved bench she used as a coffee table and sat on the edge of the doe-colored leather sectional where they were all gathered.

“It’s a shower that isn’t restricted to women. Men can come, too.” She poured and distributed cups.

“We just want you to be happy with us,” R.J. said, leaning back and sipping his coffee. “You aren’t required to do anything else.”

“I’m not required to do anything at all.” Anna scolded him with a look. “But I happen to love both of you, so I’d like to do it for your baby. What’s your due date?”

“October seventeenth,” Dana replied. “I’m just about nine weeks along.” She sighed dreamily and turned to smile at R.J., her eyes alight with love and excitement. “I can’t believe we’re sitting here, talking about our son—or daughter.”

“Can’t they tell you what it is?” Will asked.

R.J. shook his head. “We want it to be a surprise.”

“But what if you get a lot of pink stuff, and it’s a boy?”

Dana laughed. “People usually give you yellow or green when you’re not sure.”