One in a Billion

“This hotel?” Deidre asked, pointing at the building behind them.

He nodded.

She closed her eyes and he sensed it again, her extreme fatigue, her vulnerability.

“There’s another reason we should spend some time getting to know each other better, Deidre.”

She opened her eyes. He couldn’t see their hue in the dim light emanating from the dashboard, but he knew they were an unusual blue-gray color. He could clearly see the line of her jaw and the delicate shell shape of her ear.

Was she made so perfectly everywhere?

“I’m afraid to ask,” she murmured.

“Lincoln wrote me a letter before he died. He specifically asked me to get to know you better.”

“Why?” she demanded. She leaned toward him, her fatigue seemingly disappearing at the mention of the man she believed to be her father. Her curiosity bordered on hunger. It struck him as understandable, but sad, that she was so desperate for information about Linc. Again, he inhaled her clean, floral feminine scent. His muscles clenched tight in restraint.

“Linc knew I had my doubts about your claim to be his child. Maybe he thought us spending time together would put those doubts to rest. He likely also knew that no one else could teach you about your inheritance as well as I could.”

“Can I read the letter?”

“No.”

She started at his abruptness.

He shut his eyes briefly when he saw her hurt, incredulous expression. Lincoln’s letter had been heartbreakingly honest, almost childlike in its plea. Nick had been moved deeply by that letter, but at the same time, it’d made him question whether or not Lincoln was of sound mind when he’d changed his will. He couldn’t tell Deidre that, though. She’d just accuse him of causing his prejudice against her to influence his opinion about Lincoln’s motivations and state of mind.

“Not now you can’t, Deidre,” he said quietly. “I have my reasons for saying that. Don’t take offense. Please.”

But she had taken offense, he realized. Her backbone went ramrod straight.

“May I ask why it is that you believe you have the right to constantly call my morals and character into question, why you have the right to investigate me like a common criminal, when I don’t even have the right to ask a simple thing of you?”

“I didn’t mean you can’t ask me things,” he grated out.

“It sounded that way to me,” she said, picking up her evening bag from her lap and retrieving the centerpiece from the floorboard. She reached for the car door and then suddenly went still, her hand outstretched. She turned, her brow crinkled in consternation. Her mouth fell open as if something had just dawned on her.

“Wait a second …” she muttered.

“What?”

“The other half of Lincoln’s estate—he left it to you, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Nick admitted.

The weighty silence was shattered by Deidre’s desperate bark of laughter.

“Do you mean to tell me—”

“That’s right,” he said more calmly than he felt. “My hands are tied without you. There’s a major acquisition deal I’ve been brokering now for months, for instance, and even though the time is ripe for DuBois Enterprises to buy, I’m powerless to act without your consent. The way things stand legally right now, I can’t make a major decision on behalf of DuBois Enterprises without your agreement. So for the time being, we’re partners. Whether we like it or not.”

Chapter Two

The next morning Deidre called Colleen, in much need of some sisterly commiseration and support. They met up at Jake’s Place, a popular Harbor Town hangout, for brunch. Colleen’s fork halted in midair when Deidre told her all the bizarre, gory details from her meeting with Nick the previous night.

“Lincoln left you half of his estate and fifty percent controlling interest in his company?” Colleen asked, clearly flabbergasted.

Deidre nodded and sipped her coffee.

“But he was one of the wealthiest men in the country. That means … you’re bloody rich, Deidre.”

Deidre chuckled at her sister’s bald statement. “Not if Nick Malone has his say in the matter. He told me he plans to contest the will if he decides I coerced Lincoln in any way.”

“Coerced,” Colleen said, looking insulted. “You mean he suspects you took advantage of Lincoln? What’s he think? That you drugged him and stuck a pen in his hand, telling him to sign a new will? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. You’re a skilled nurse and a compassionate woman. I’ve never seen someone so dedicated and concerned about another human being as you were that sweet, fragile man. Doesn’t Nick even know you?”

Deidre smiled, heartened by her sister’s show of faith in her. She would have been lost if it weren’t for Colleen being at her side after Lincoln had died. She was the perfect confidant, since she’d witnessed firsthand Nick’s suspicion of her.

“According to Nick, he doesn’t. That’s the whole problem,” Deidre sighed, setting a forkful of pancakes down on her plate. It was hard to eat when her life felt like an out-of-control carnival ride.

“And Nick said he’s here to investigate you?” Colleen asked as she resumed eating.

“Not exactly, no,” Deidre admitted. “He said he needs an opportunity to observe me, determine my character. But it all amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it? He’s already convinced I’m a gold digger, so I’m sure he’ll see whatever he expects to see.”

She noticed Colleen’s pensive expression as she ate her omelet. “What?”

“Why did Lincoln do it?” Colleen wondered. “Why would he split his estate and the control of his company equally between you and Nick?”

“I have no idea. Especially when I specifically told him I didn’t want or expect anything from him. I have a hard enough time balancing my checkbook. How in the world could I possibly make decisions about a multibillion-dollar conglomerate?” Her gaze sharpened on her sister. “Do you think he did it because he wasn’t in his right mind?” she asked in a hushed, worried tone. If that were the case, it was possible Lincoln’s faith that she was his daughter was part of a demented delirium, as well.

“We both know Lincoln’s level of consciousness fluctuated because of the tumor. He was sharp as a tack at times, but in others he was really out of it. It’s my understanding that for the will to be binding, his attorney and other witnesses would have to attest he was in his right mind when he signed the document. But that’s not what I was wondering about just now. You don’t suppose there’s any possibility that Lincoln arranged things this way so that you and Nick were forced to spend time with one another, do you?” Colleen asked tentatively.

“Why would he do that?”

Colleen’s shrug was a little too nonchalant for Deidre’s liking. “Maybe he noticed the sparks between you two and was doing a little matchmaking with his will.”

Deidre rolled her eyes. “Those sparks are purely from dislike on my part and outright suspicion on Nick’s. He suspects I manipulated a vulnerable, sick man into leaving me billions of dollars. How can you think he would be remotely interested in me in the romantic sense?” Deidre asked, her cheeks heating.

Was the fact that she found Nick attractive really so evident for everyone to see? Colleen’s comment had called to mind Nick’s reference to the letter Lincoln had left him. She hadn’t told Colleen about that letter yet. For some reason, Lincoln making the request of Nick to get to know her better struck her as highly significant … highly intimate.

“So you’re definitely not attracted to Nick Malone?” Colleen asked, her eyelids narrowed as she studied her.

“It’s sort of hard to be attracted to someone when they’re looking at you like you’re a slimy criminal,” she sidestepped.

“Yeah, I see what you mean. Well one thing is pretty straightforward. Nick Malone is gorgeous. He’s at the top of every most eligible bachelor’s list.” She gave Deidre an I’m just stating the truth glance when Deidre looked at her incredulously. “You don’t believe me? I looked Nick up online while we were staying at The Pines.”

“Colleen,” Deidre chastised, grinning. She’d frequently teased her sister while they were in Tahoe that she should surgically get her hand grafted to her iPad for convenience sake. Living in the Middle East and Europe for as long as she did, Deidre didn’t share her fellow Americans’ reliance on personal modern technology.

“Check this out,” Colleen said, reaching inside her bag and withdrawing her iPad. A few seconds later she handed the tablet across the table. Deidre took it with a mixture of doubt, amusement and curiosity.

An image of Nick was on the screen. He was leading a sophisticated brunette with legs that went clear to her armpits out of the back of a black sedan. The woman wore an elaborate hat that probably had cost the equivalent of Deidre’s annual salary as a nurse. Beneath the photo, Deidre read the inscription, Churchill Downs—Nick Malone, chief executive officer of DuBois Enterprises, and Danielle Geddy, of the Geddy Banking Trust, attend the Derby Festival Preview Party. The woman’s smile was like headlight beams. Nick looked somber, as usual, and perhaps a tad irritated as he pinned the photographer with his icy stare.

“There’s more,” Colleen said wryly from across the table.

Deidre swiped her finger along the screen, her curiosity growing despite herself. Here was another photo, this one in profile, of Nick at a charity function, this time with an attractive blonde on his arm. Another showed him behind a podium wearing a suit and addressing a crowd. The caption said the occasion had been his acceptance of an honorary doctorate in business from a prestigious East Coast university. Nick didn’t appear surly in this photo, as he had in the first. He did look somber, intent … and drop-dead gorgeous.

“He looks especially good in that one,” Colleen observed, reading Deidre’s mind.

Deidre laughed. “What’s your point, Colleen?”

“I’m just saying that most of the world sees Nick Malone in a completely different light than you do.”

“Given the strange circumstances, that’s not too surprising, is it?”

“No, I understand that. I’m just pointing out that Nick is considered by most to be a brilliant businessman, not to mention a heck of a catch. And …”

“And what?” Deidre asked warily when she noticed her sister’s significant glance.

“It occurred to me on one or a dozen occasions while we were at The Pines that there was an attraction between the two of you. I used to notice Nick watching you quite a bit, Dee,” Colleen said, grinning. “You light a fire in him. He’s got an itch for you.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Deidre exclaimed, stabbing her fork into her sausage patty with undue force.

“Am I?”

“If you’ve noticed any sparks of that variety coming from him, I’m willing to bet the reason isn’t unquenchable lust.”

“What do you mean?” Colleen wondered.

Deidre shrugged, not wanting to give the impression she actually had thought about the topic overly much. Even though she had.

“I think he’s testing me by acting interested every once in a while. He already thinks I’m a conniving, immoral female. Maybe he thinks if he can seduce me, he’ll get me to show my true colors. He’ll prove to himself that I’m a gold digger by using himself as bait.”

Colleen set her coffee mug down heavily on the table. “Do you really think so? Nick has struck me as cool and unapproachable at times—intimidating, even—but do you really believe he could be that manipulative?”

“He certainly suspects I’m that manipulative, so I don’t feel very guilty for thinking the same of him,” Deidre said.

She turned pensive as she stared out the window on to Main Street, which had been festively decorated for the holidays. Christmas in Harbor Town, she thought with wistful sadness. How lovely it would be to be like Colleen, to feel that she truly belonged here … that she wasn’t an outsider looking in. She’d belonged there once, as a child.

That was the past, though. She felt like even more of an imposter at the idea of being Lincoln’s heiress in the present.

“I don’t know what to think, Colleen,” she admitted after a pause, meeting Colleen’s gaze. “The only thing I know for certain is that Lincoln made me a player in a game with stakes so high, I can’t even comprehend them. I’m a fish out of water. And truthfully? I don’t know what a man like Nick would do to ensure he maintains control of a company that possesses the revenues of some small countries’ entire economies. Do you?”

Colleen’s face settled into a solemn expression, and Deidre had her answer.

Deidre promised her sister she’d rest and take it easy that afternoon. Colleen had been expressing concern for her lack of appetite and difficulty sleeping since Lincoln had died. Her life had been a blur since Lincoln’s death last week and her hurried trip to Harbor Town for Liam’s wedding.

She returned to Cedar Cottage and took a long, hot shower. The premises of the vacation rental were roomy, but not too large to take away from the cozy ambience. Since it was the off-season in the quaint beachside community, she’d gotten a week-to-week lease for a steal.

She dressed for a lazy day in a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt. Afterward, she curled in front of the gas fireplace with a book in her lap, losing herself in the story.

A car door slammed in the distance. Deidre looked up, holding her breath. She heard the stomp of boots on the front steps, then a brisk knock at her door. The book she’d been reading slid heedlessly onto the couch cushion.

Somehow, she just knew it was Nick.

She hesitated for only a second before standing decisively.

“Hello. How are you?” he asked quietly, his gaze running over her face when she opened the door. He wore a pair of well-worn jeans and a hip-length black insulated jacket. He hadn’t shaved today. Dark whiskers shadowed his jaw.

“Fine,” Deidre replied warily.

He nodded, and she found herself shifting on her feet in the awkward silence that followed. Realizing she couldn’t stand there forever with the door wide open, she reluctantly waved her hand into the kitchen. Nick entered. She shut the door and faced him.

“I drove around Harbor Town a little. It’s nice. You must have loved coming here as a kid.”

She attempted a smile. “Winter isn’t the best time to be here. Harbor Town is a beach town, pure and simple.”

He nodded. “It’s still charming, decked out for the holidays like it is. I remember once when we were both with Linc you told him Christmas was your favorite holiday.”

She blinked in surprise. She didn’t remember ever having said such a thing in his presence. It made her feel exposed that he’d recalled the trivial detail.

“It was a favorite holiday when I was a child,” she admitted. Longing ripped through her unexpectedly when she thought of Christmases when she was a kid—back in the days when she never doubted she was a true Kavanaugh. It was stupid, of course. She could return to her mother’s house anytime—this very second if she chose. Her refusal to go there was a self-imposed sanction.

She looked up reluctantly when he placed a gloved finger beneath her chin and lifted it. She couldn’t avoid his eyes now.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

She merely nodded, her throat convulsing uncomfortably when she swallowed.

His gaze moved over her face. “Why don’t we go into the living room? It might be a little warmer?” he suggested, nodding toward the interior of the cottage.

“All right,” she conceded.

She studied him while he removed his gloves and coat and draped his coat on the back of a kitchen chair. When he wasn’t dressed in a suit, he favored jeans and shirts that weren’t the classic cowboy variety, perhaps, but still possessed a Western flavor. They usually had snaps instead of buttons and fitted his lean, muscular torso to perfection.

When he glanced at her, she just raised her eyebrows in polite expectation, hoping he hadn’t noticed the way she’d been detailing his form. She led him into the living room. The sitting area before the flickering fire looked much more cozy and intimate than it had when she’d been there alone.

“Did Lincoln ever speak to you about whether or not you were interested in running DuBois Enterprises?” he asked after he’d stood before the fire for a moment.

“Yes.”

He turned and speared her with his stare. “He did? When?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. A month or so before he passed? He asked me if I’d ever consider taking up business. Then he asked me if I’d like to run his company. I thought he was kidding.”

“And what did you say?” Nick asked intently.

“I told him ‘no way.’ I have no interest in working in an office. Medicine is my career. I love being a nurse. Did Lincoln really ask you to get to know me better in that letter?” she blurted out, unable to contain her curiosity anymore. She’d been obsessing about Lincoln’s reasoning and state of mind all day.

“Yes. Why would I lie about something like that?”

She gave him a small, cautious grin. “Your reasoning escapes me, as usual.”

He laughed and turned toward her, one hand on the mantel. His silvery-gray eyes looked a little softer than usual. “My reasons are hardly Machiavellian.”

“I just can’t comprehend why he’d ask you to do it.”

“Maybe he trusted me. Maybe you should, too.”

She looked up into his face. He hadn’t moved, but he somehow seemed closer. “Why should I trust you when you clearly don’t trust me?”

“I haven’t decided yet whether I trust you or not,” he said.

A thought occurred to her. “Wait … don’t tell me that Lincoln actually asked you to investigate me in this infamous letter.”

“I’m not investigating you, Deidre. Don’t be so melodramatic,” he mumbled, exasperated.

“What else should I call it? You’ve admitted you’re here to determine if I’m the type of person who would coerce a sick, vulnerable man into giving me all his money.”

He sighed. “I’m here to understand you—and this whole situation—better. Linc’s impulsive actions don’t make much sense to me, given what I know of his character. He was an astute, methodical businessman. In order for me to get comfortable with the change, I need to get the lay of the land, so to speak. Linc’s request for me to get to know you has nothing to do with my concerns about the will. It’s a completely separate issue.” He turned toward the fire, clutching at the edge of the mantel with both hands.

“I still think it’s strange for you to stay in Harbor Town.”

“Just as strange as Lincoln giving half the control of his entire company to a woman who probably can’t even interpret a basic financial statement?” he wondered, giving her a steely sidelong glance.

Her spine stiffened. “Do you know what I think? I think it bothers you that Lincoln liked me so much.”

“Why should it bother me that he was so taken by you? I suspect many men are,” he said, holding her stare.

Her heart skipped a beat. She wasn’t sure whether to interpret his comment as an insult or a compliment. “Maybe it bothers you because you’re used to being the only one who had Lincoln’s complete affection and trust.”

He made a scoffing sound. “Linc gave his trust to many people, Deidre. Some of the officers of DuBois Enterprises thought he gave it a little too freely for their liking.”

“As in my case, I suppose.”

“Yes … and one other notable case,” he said quietly. She frowned, confused by his reference. He dropped one hand and stepped toward her, so that only a half a foot separated them. She held her ground and hoped he didn’t notice her pulse throbbing at her throat.

“It’s not an inevitability that we have to be enemies,” he said.

“It’s not inevitable that we have to be friends, either,” she said, staring at his chest.

“We might be friends, Deidre. Lincoln thought we could be, anyway.”

“You haven’t decided yet if I’m worthy of the title though yet, have you?”

Despite her cool sarcasm, his nearness made her blood race. Something about his voice affected her for some reason, especially when he said her name. When she’d first heard him speak, she would have taken his accent for typical Midwestern—blunt, clipped, no-nonsense. Every once in a while though, a slight twang would slide into the syllables, a glimmer of something that reminded her of horses grazing in the high desert of the American West, the stark, rugged mountains and clean alpine air that surrounded The Pines.

“Deidre?”

“Yes?” she asked uneasily, meeting his stare.

“I never got a chance to tell you I was sorry about Linc’s passing. Whether or not you’re his daughter, I don’t know, but no one could spend night and day with a person for months like you did and not be affected by the loss. Lincoln was certainly affected by you.”

“Did he tell you that?” She longed to hear his answer, to know every tiny morsel of information about the man who had been in her life for such a fleeting time.

Nick hesitated for a moment. “Yes,” he finally admitted. “But he didn’t have to. He couldn’t take his eyes off you when you were in the room with him.”

She smiled shakily, both warmed and saddened by his words.

“We hardly ever spoke privately while we were at Tahoe, so I also never got a chance to thank you for insisting Linc be taken back to the hospital for diagnostic testing. You were right in thinking something didn’t match up with his presentation and the diagnosis of multiple strokes. Because of your recommendation, we found out Linc’s dysfunction wasn’t just from his strokes. He had a brain tumor. You were right about that all along.”

The surge of grief that went through her gave her the strength she needed to face the fire, breaking his magnetic stare. She lifted her chin. “I guess you were always too busy being suspicious that I’m a conniving opportunist to thank me at The Pines.”

“I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe you’re right,” he conceded slowly. She glanced over at him in surprise. “Having Lincoln inform me that he had a daughter shook me up a bit. I’ve been trying to make sense of things, and I can see why you take me for a rude, single-minded jerk. Why don’t you turn the tables on me? Ask me anything you like.”

For a second, she just stared at him silently before she directed her gaze to the flames.

“How did you meet Lincoln?” she asked.

“I was paired up with him in a Big Brother program when I was eight years old. Who knows where I would have ended up if that hadn’t happened? Prison, most likely. Let’s see,” he paused, his gaze focused elsewhere as he delved into his memories. “I would have been in my sixth foster home placement in two years when I first met Linc. That summer, he hired me as his stable boy. I worked for him, in one capacity or another, for the next thirty years of my life, the only exception being when I was on active duty with the air force.”

Her gaze lingered on his lips for two heartbeats. It was a firm mouth. She could imagine him giving brisk orders with it … easily picture every instruction being followed to a T.

It was also a sensual mouth. She could just as easily imagine women following his every demand in the bedroom. A flicker of annoyance went through her at the thought, but so did a flash of heat.

“Where did you serve while you were in the military?”

“I moved around. Turkey, Iraq—Operation Southern Watch. I did a stint in Sierra Leone.”

“Were you involved in Operation Silver Anvil?” she asked, referring to the European Joint Operations Task Force that evacuated hundreds of people out of Sierra Leone by plane after a bloody military coup d’état.

“Yeah.”

She gave him a swift, assessing glance. “Are you a pilot?”

He nodded once. “Still am, for private purposes. I own a Cessna that I use to get around the country for business. I flew it here, actually. I’m renting hangar space over at Tulip City Airport.”