The Parks Empire: Secrets, Lies and Loves

“What happens if another cow wants to be queen?”

“The ladies-in-waiting put her in her place.”

Sara felt his chest move against her back as he chuckled, then he stole a quick kiss just under her ear before returning the cloth and moving back.

Her own breath caught, then she cleared her throat, gave him a warning glance, then waited as the gate to the milking room opened and the queen regally ambled through, her tail swinging from side to side. Another cow stepped forward, and Sara started the dipping and washing again.

“Thanks for the help,” the farmer said when, after an hour, the three left the barn and returned to the cottage.

After grilling chicken strips and vegetable kabobs, they ate outside, the two dogs politely lying at their feet but keeping an eye out in case a morsel should happen to drop to the flagstone patio. Sara saw Stacy slip a couple of bites to each. So did Cade, but he pretended he didn’t.

Sara smiled contentedly while her heart flitted around like a drunken butterfly as she waited for night to fall.

After Stacy’s bath, Sara read her a story. The girl’s bedroom was similar to the guest room in furnishings. A large teddy bear shared the bed with her. There was another bathroom upstairs and, of course, Cade’s bedroom.

Sara had glimpsed a queen-size bed with an old-fashioned quilt over it in there. Tables with matching lamps were on either side of the bed. A cedar chest was next to the wall under a window. Scenes of a happy family preparing for the night after a busy day kept popping into her head.

“Ready for a back rub?” Cade asked Stacy, coming into the child’s room when the story ended.

Sara moved to the end of the bed while he rubbed his daughter’s back, then turned out the lamp and kissed her forehead. “Sleep tight.”

“Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” Stacy replied. She yawned and pulled the cover to her neck. “Good night, Sara, I mean, Miss Carlton.” She giggled, then closed her eyes.

Sara and Cade left the room, leaving the door ajar. He turned out the hall light when they reached the stairs.

At the bottom of the steps, he took her into his arms. “Alone at last.”

His husky murmur was sexy and intimate. Sara wrapped her arms around his neck and met the kiss halfway. She, too, had been impatient for this moment.

His hands roamed her back, her sides, then moved between them to caress her breasts. She tilted her head back so he could reach all the sensitive places along her throat with his magic lips. When he slipped his hands beneath her and lifted, she swung her legs up and around his waist, clinging as he carried her to the privacy of the guest room and locked the door behind them before flicking on the lamp.

He sat in the cane-backed chair with her straddling his lap. With hands on her hips, he urged her to move against him. He was as ready for her as she was for him, she found.

When he smiled, she did, too, and felt a wrench deep inside, as if part of her already knew that the closeness of the day and the passion of the night were fleeting things, the elusive dreams of what might have been.

“You’re thinking again,” he scolded, touching the slight frown line between her eyebrows.

“I’ve never found it easy to live in the moment,” she admitted. Or to deal with a guilty conscience, she added silently, wondering if he’d noticed her prying.

“Let’s see what we can do about that,” he suggested.

They kissed again and made love, then slept together until shortly before dawn. He woke her with his gentle touch and made love to her again. Later, she heard him in the shower, but she didn’t get up until he called her and Stacy to join him for breakfast.

Then it was time to go back to the city.

“All good things come to an end,” she murmured as they drove over the cow-guard and away from the ranch.

“I hope not,” he said, smiling at her before facing the winding road back to the highway.

“We can come back next weekend,” Stacy assured her.

Sara looked back before they turned onto the main road and she could no longer see the lovely rolling pastures of the ranch. Someone, she recalled, had written that a person couldn’t go home again.

Once San Francisco had been her home, then her family had moved to Denver. With a child’s acceptance of adult decisions, Colorado had become home. At the moment, she felt she didn’t belong to either place.

What of the little paradise she’d shared with Cade and his daughter that weekend? Did she belong there?

She wanted to, she acknowledged, then sighed quietly as awareness stole over her. She’d foolishly done what she shouldn’t. She’d fallen in love with the son of her enemy.

Chapter Seven

Cade went to the front door of his father’s two-story Pacific Heights mansion while Stacy stopped to splash her hands in the Poseidon fountain in the front courtyard. He’d grown up in this house, but he felt no sense of nostalgia nor attachment to it.

His father had redone the interior some twelve or so years ago, removing the ornate furniture Cade remembered from his childhood and replacing it, with the help of an expensive decorator, with a minimalist style. The house now seemed like a store display—too sterile to house a family.

The door opened before he could ring the doorbell, and Brenda Wheeler, the housekeeper who’d raised Cade and his siblings, beamed at him.

“Wheelie,” Cade said as he swept the matronly widow into an embrace and bussed her on each cheek.

“You rapscallion,” she scolded, hugging him back. “Stop this foolishness and come in the house. Is that other rascal with you? I have a special treat for her in the kitchen.”

“I’m here,” Stacy called, running across the flagstones and up the steps. “What is the surprise?”

“Now that would spoil it, wouldn’t it?” Mrs. Wheeler declared. “Mr. Cade, your father is waiting in the library. You come with me, missy.”

Stacy went with the housekeeper while Cade directed his steps to the library, his favorite place in the fifteen-room mansion during his growing years. His father was there, a glass of wine in his hand, as he stood at the window and gazed at the night view of the city.

So was his sister, Emily. She stood at the bar, pouring a glass of wine for herself. “Cade, join us?” she asked, holding the decanter up.

He nodded. “Thanks, Em,” he said, taking the glass, then leaning down to exchange a hug.

His twin had golden-brown hair, green eyes—which reminded him of another woman with brilliant green eyes—and their mother’s dimples, which now deepened as she smiled warmly at him. Emily was a romantic. She denied it, but the facts belied her protests—she was a wedding planner. A very good one, according to their friends.

“I wondered if you would make it,” Walter said, crossing the room and stopping in front of Cade. “Your secretary said you’d left work early Friday and gone to the ranch.”

Cade shook his father’s hand and smiled in spite of the other man’s sour expression and the fact Walter hadn’t asked about Stacy, his only grandchild. “Of course I came. It’s a command appearance, isn’t it?”

He caught his sister’s warning grimace, telling him their father was in no mood for jocularity. So? When had he ever been?

“Huh,” Walter said and sat in his favorite chair. “I suppose we’ll have to drag Jessica from her lair. Rowan hasn’t yet informed me of his plans for the evening.”

Jessica, the artist of the family, lived in a cottage on the estate. Her studio was there, and that’s where she stayed unless otherwise summoned to the main house.

Rowan, the wild one, as Cade and Emily dubbed their brother, might or might not stop by. At that moment, Cade heard the roar of a motorcycle. “I believe he’s here.”

Emily smiled in relief. She, more than anyone, tried to keep peace between Walter and the children. Cade was glad she had her own place and a successful business. A hundred years ago, she would probably have lived at home, a spinster who had to bow to their father’s orders.

Hearing voices in the back hall, Cade surmised Rowan and Jessica had arrived at the same time. He heard them both speak to the housekeeper, then her low voice urging them into the library.

Jessica came in first. She smelled of a floral perfume and the mineral spirits she used to clean her brushes. She was dressed in black from head to foot. The slacks and form-fitting knit top were striking with her blond hair and blue eyes. Like Em, Jessica also had Anna Parks’s dimples and winning smile.

Rowan entered wearing jeans, boots and a ragged long-sleeved shirt over a black T-shirt. His hair was too long and he sported a three-day beard, all elements designed to irritate their sire. Like Jessica, he had blue eyes and dimples, but his hair was black as midnight.

Long ago, Cade had gotten used to Rowan’s good looks stopping women cold in their tracks. Since the brothers had run in different circles, it hadn’t been a problem.

“Cade,” Jessica murmured, coming forward to hug him, then Emily. She spoke politely to the patriarch of the family, but that was all.

“Hey, bro,” Rowan said in his irrepressible fashion. The two high-fived each other, then shook hands.

Of the four siblings, Cade thought his daughter took after Rowan the most in personality and high spirits, a fact that caused his brother to laugh uproariously in approval and conspire with the child to drive Cade up the wall on his rare visits to their house.

Rowan turned from Cade. His grin disappeared when he looked at his father. “Father,” he said in less than cordial tones and didn’t offer to shake hands.

Walter nodded to his younger son.

Like emissaries from warring countries, Cade observed, each keeping a neutral stance while plotting the overthrow of the other.

“Wine?” Emily asked, breaking the little silence that hung over the room now that all were present.

“Got a beer?” Rowan asked.

“No, sorry.” Emily gave him a beseeching glance, as if pleading with him to behave, then poured two glasses of wine and gave them to the younger pair.

When Mrs. Wheeler came to the doorway, Walter stood. “Dinner,” he announced and held out an arm to each of his daughters.

Cade smiled grimly when Rowan waggled his eyebrows and fell into step beside him. They followed the other three into the dining room.

Assessing the others, Cade had a sudden sense of impending disaster. His father was unusually tense and dour, Rowan was obviously geared up for a fight, Jessica was oblivious, or indifferent, to all but her own dark thoughts, while Em probably hoped they could get through the evening with a modicum of grace and family unity.

Just another happy evening in his father’s house.

As Jessica and Rowan became more and more silent, Cade and Emily kept the conversation going during the meal. He told of Stacy’s new experiences in kindergarten and how much she liked her new teacher.

He explained about Tai and her mother’s illness. “Sara has been taking Stace to school and keeping her every afternoon, so that’s been a load off my mind.”

“Sara Carlton,” his father interrupted the story. “You took her to the ranch over the weekend.”

At the accusing tone, all eyes turned toward Cade. “That’s right,” he said, forcing a calm he no longer felt. “I owed her for helping out.”

“Big-time,” Rowan agreed, giving their father a hard glance before finishing the last of his salad.

Mrs. Wheeler entered with the serving cart. She removed the salad plates, then served salmon and rice pilaf with a medley of vegetables and hot rolls.

“Is Stacy being a bother?” Cade asked.

“Not at all,” the woman assured him. “She’s had her dinner and is playing with the new kittens Tansy had. She’s picked out the one she wants,” she added with a smile before leaving the dining room.

“Stacy loves pets,” Emily said to Cade. “Perhaps having a kitten will make up for having to leave the dogs and her pony at the ranch.”

“What about leaving it at home alone all day?” he asked.

Jessica spoke up. “Cats are marvelously adaptable and easy to train.” She glanced at Walter at the head of the table, bitterness in her eyes. “As are children.”

Rowan held up his glass. “I’ll drink to that.” He finished off the wine.

To Cade’s surprise, Walter merely glanced up, then continued eating, his mind evidently far from them.

When the meal was over, they returned to the library where Mrs. Wheeler had set up a tray with fresh coffee and a platter of various kinds of mints.

Cade, seated next to Emily on the sofa, wanted to collect Stacy and escape, but he sensed the evening wasn’t over. The best or worst, according to how one looked at it, was yet to come.

“To what do we owe the pleasure of this little family get-together?” Rowan challenged as soon as the group was alone again. He poured another glass of wine, his fourth by Cade’s calculation, and leaned an elbow on the mantel over the marble-tiled fireplace.

“Trouble,” Walter said bluntly.

Emily and Jessica glanced at each other. There was no surprise on either face. They turned back to their father.

Walter perused one, then another of them, before he spoke. “There’s a traitor among us.”

“Father!” Emily said in shocked, scolding tones.

“It’s true.” Walter stirred cream into his coffee. He looked at Rowan. “Someone has been asking questions about the family, more specifically, our business dealings. And someone has been talking.”

“What do you mean?” Cade asked.

“I mean there are questions being asked about our personal affairs and…about things from the past. Old gossip is being stirred up.”

Cade noted the hesitation as his father picked his words, something that had been happening frequently of late when they discussed the state of the jewelry business.

What was Walter worried about?

The question startled Cade even as it leaped into his mind. He knew he’d hit upon some part of the truth—their father didn’t want anyone delving into the past…because he was scared of what they might find out?

The icy hand of premonition glided down his spine. Something from the past was haunting the old man, but it wasn’t ancient history that bothered Walter, Cade surmised. Instead, their father was worried about how this mysterious something from days gone by would affect the future. For some reason, Cade thought of Sara’s father, who had once been Walter’s partner.

“What kind of questions? What gossip?” Rowan demanded.

“Ancient happenings that don’t matter a damn,” Walter said, dismissing the queries scornfully. “I don’t want anyone in this family telling any outsiders a thing. Is that understood?”

“No,” Cade said before his brother could jump in, “it isn’t. Who are you worried about? What do you see as a problem from the past? What makes you suspicious that someone is probing into our business because of it?”

The familiar signs of anger suffused his father’s neck and face in a dull red. An artery throbbed visibly near his temple. Cade maintained his cool.

Walter glared at him. “Maybe the new neighbor that you’re so taken with, for one. Her brother, for another.”

“Who the hell are you talking about?” Rowan demanded.

“Jeremy Carlton’s son and daughter,” Cade answered, putting two and two together and not liking the way things were adding up. He felt defensive where Sara was concerned. “Sara lives next door to me. Her brother is a detective with the SFPD. I don’t know if you remember, but Carlton was Father’s partner in an enterprise long ago.”

“He drowned,” Emily said, her eyes widening. “His body was never found. I remember how upset Mother was. There was speculation that he was murdered.”

“Mere rumors that don’t bear repeating,” Walter scoffed, his manner containing a warning and a threat. “I’ve hired a private detective. If I find any of you have talked about the family or the business, I’ll see that you’re cut off without a penny.”

“God, I don’t believe this.” Rowan set his glass on the mantel so hard the stem cracked and a chip of crystal went flying across the expensive carpet. A pulse pounded in his temple, lending him the same cold, calculating look of fury their father had sometimes turned on them over the years when they pushed too hard or asked too many questions, especially about their mother.

“Afraid we’ll let the world know our mother is in a lunatic asylum in a foreign country?” the younger son demanded, his voice just as scathing as the old man’s. “Afraid someone will find out your diamond dealing isn’t quite on the up-and-up as you would have everyone believe?”

Walter surged to his feet. “Shut your mouth, boy, or I’ll shut it for you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were stirring up trouble just for the hell of it.”

The silence streamed like a force field throughout the gracious room, binding the five of them in a miasma of anger and resentment and dislike.

“Yeah,” Rowan muttered. “Maybe that’s exactly what I’ve done. After all, I’m the black sheep of the whole bunch, aren’t I?” He glanced at his sisters, then at Cade. “He’s like a spider, wrapping everyone in his web of control. I’d advise all of you to get out while you still can. That’s what I’m going to do.”

“Rowan,” Emily began worriedly.

“Don’t say anything, Em,” their younger brother said bitterly. “Nothing would convince me to stay. I’m outta here, like forever.”

With that he left them, going down the hall and out the back door without a backward glance. In less than a minute, the roar of his motorcycle blasted the house from the driveway, then faded into the night.

“Father,” Jessica said. “I think you’ve gone too far this time.” She rose and set her cup and saucer aside, but gently. “Rowan won’t forgive you, and neither will I.”

“It’ll be a cold day in hell before I ask for forgiveness from my own children,” Walter said coldly.

“Fine. I’m glad we had this little chat.” Smiling rather defiantly she, too, left.

Cade stood. “You ready to go, Em?”

“Yes.” Her lips trembled slightly as she tried to smile. “I’ll say good night to Wheelie.”

“Send Stacy out, will you?”

“Yes.”

When they were alone, Cade turned to his father. “Is the house of Parks in trouble?” he asked, unable to hide the sardonic tone. “As your attorney, I need to know.”

“No,” Walter snapped. “Nothing’s wrong. I’ll explain things to Rowan next time I see him.”

“I think,” Cade murmured, heading for the door when he heard Stacy’s voice in the hall, “that might be a long time. Stacy, come say good night to your grandfather.”

When he and his daughter arrived home, Cade breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t know what the mess was, but he was damned sure his family was in deep.

After putting Stacy to bed, he went out on the back deck. The town house next door was completely dark.

Hell, he wasn’t fit company tonight, anyway.

“I beg your pardon?” Sara said, staring at the principal of the Lakeside School for the Gifted on Monday morning. The woman’s words made no sense.

“We are no longer in need of your services,” her boss said again, her voice a monotone as if she read aloud from a dull script.

“Are you saying I’m fired?” Sara demanded in disbelief. “You can’t fire me without cause. I have a contract.”

The woman hesitated. “There’s a clause in it relating to student enrollment.”

“I have a full class.”

“You’ll receive payment for the semester, of course,” the principal continued as if Sara hadn’t spoken. “The secretary has the check. You may pick it up when you collect your things and sign out.”

Sara started to protest further, but realized from the closed face across the desk that it was useless. Rising, she nodded with what dignity she could muster and went to clear her desk before classes started.

Fortunately she didn’t have much this early in the school year. The supplies fit in one box that she could easily carry the three blocks to her town house.

When she went to the office to collect her check and sign out, Rachel was there, two bright red spots of anger in her cheeks. “I just heard,” she said to Sara. “What is this all about?”

Sara shrugged. The school secretary pretended she couldn’t hear a thing. She handed Sara an envelope and observed while she signed herself out. Under “reason for leaving campus,” Sara put a question mark.

Rachel escorted her from the office to the front sidewalk. “This isn’t right.”

“No, but there’s nothing we can do.” Sara managed a smile. “You’d better go to your class. I don’t want you in trouble because of me.”

Her friend dismissed the thought with a wave. “I thought you and Cade were getting along rather well. Why would he have you fired?”

The question shocked Sara. “He wouldn’t—”

She and Rachel stared at each other.

“Do you think Cade would have done this?” Sara asked after a moment of strained silence.

“Who else? He’s on the board of directors. You know we always need good teachers. The old bat would sign away her soul before letting someone out of a contract, not to mention paying them a whole semester’s salary for nothing.”

Sara touched Rachel’s shoulder, comforted that her friend was angry and indignant on her behalf. “Well, I suppose I’d better go before I get thrown off campus.”

“I’ll see you tonight. Let’s go out to dinner,” Rachel said. “Call your brother and see if he can come. We need to have a strategy meeting.”

“Not tonight. Later this week. I’ll call you,” Sara promised, needing privacy to lick the wounds inflicted by this blow.

When Rachel nodded and retreated to her classroom, Sara started home. Glancing back as she approached the street corner, she saw a stranger standing at her classroom door, smiling and answering questions from the students when they realized Sara wasn’t there.

She would have to return at three o’clock to pick up Stacy. Then…then sometime this evening she would tell Cade Parks exactly what she thought of him and his lying, conniving family. Like Rachel, she was convinced they were the ones who’d arranged this humiliation.

A frigid resolve entered her soul. She’d let herself get distracted by Cade and his charm, had fallen for his daughter and even thought she was falling for him, but she wouldn’t be that foolish again.

Cade smiled at the warm leap of his heart when he pulled into the drive on his side of the duplex at nearly seven o’clock that evening. Home. And his two favorite girls waiting for him. He was eager to see them.

His day had been spent in a wrangle over a property settlement that had gone to civil court. Two brothers had started a business together. Now they’d had a falling-out. Such was the wisdom of doing business with family members.

As soon as the garage door was open, he pulled inside, parked and leaped up the steps leading to the kitchen.

“Hey, anybody home?” he called.

“We’re here,” Stacy responded. “We’re drawing.”

He tossed his suit coat and tie aside, then rolled up the sleeves of his shirt on the way to the deck. One glance at Sara chilled the warm glow inside him.

Although she was smiling, her eyes were as opaque as the cheap jade sold in tourist shops.

After going through the greeting ritual with his daughter, he turned to their neighbor. She held an artist’s sketch book in her lap. On it was a pencil drawing of Stacy sitting on the deck railing, the city behind her and the Golden Gate Bridge beyond that.

“That’s very good,” he said, pausing beside her. “I didn’t know you were an artist.”

“I dabble,” she said. “I’m not anywhere as good as your sister. I saw some of her work at a gallery today.”

He tried to put all these pieces together and come up with a coherent picture. “Did you take your class on a field trip?”

She shook her head.

“We had a sub’tute,” Stacy told him. “I didn’t like her as much as Sara. None of us did.”