Everything but the Baby

However, they had been her last resort. An only child, now an orphan, she was absolutely alone. She didn’t even own a dog. Her business was booming, but as the pundits always said, you couldn’t cuddle up next to your bank account on a cold winter night.

She’d been easy pickings for Lincoln, who had sat next to her in the lounge that day. When she’d tried to discreetly blow her nose, he’d noticed and asked her what was wrong.

A month later, he’d asked her to marry him. And she’d said yes.

It had been so simple for him. She thought it just barely possible that he’d go back to Sole Grande now to find another lonely, foolish heiress who would drop into his hands like an overripe plum.

Still, when her detective called, it had surprised her, just a little, to be right. Lincoln wasn’t exactly hiding under a rock, was he? He obviously believed Allison would be too proud to come looking for him.

“I didn’t really think my idea would pan out,” she said, as if Mark had posed the question with words instead of with his eyes. “And you may remember, when you asked me if I had any clues, I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to help you find him.”

“I remember. So we seem to be back to the original question. If you don’t want me to find him, why are you here?”

She took a deep breath. “I’m here to ask you to stop looking for him.”

He frowned, as if he hoped he hadn’t heard her correctly. His face hardened. “Then I’m afraid you’ve made the trip for nothing.”

“No, please. Hear me out. I have a plan.”

His dark eyes scanned her quickly, from her head to her toes. Probably doing a wacko inspection. She was glad she’d tamed her hair into a smooth chignon, even though it had taken nearly the whole bottle of mousse. When it was flying around, she always looked slightly mad.

She must have passed, because he set his water down, leaned an elbow on the fireplace mantel and nodded.

“Okay. Tell me about your plan.”

She’d rehearsed this on the plane, and she’d decided then that it was best to start out with the punch line. Mark Travers didn’t seem like a guy who would appreciate a cowardly, meandering preamble.

“I’m going to get Lincoln to marry me again.”

There was a momentary silence. Then Mark’s mouth tilted up at one side. “You’re joking, right?”

“Not at all. It’s the best way to catch him, don’t you see? In fact, it’s the only way. As things stand, he hasn’t done anything illegal. But I’ve looked into it, and bigamy is definitely not just creepy and cruel—it’s against the law.”

“Indeed it is. I looked into it, as well.”

“Good, then you know what I mean. The minute he actually takes the vows and signs the marriage certificate, the police can arrest him. He won’t do a lot of time—two years max, probably less. Not much justice, but a little is better than none, don’t you think?”

“That’s the usual theory,” he agreed, though it was clear he still thought she might be pulling his leg.

He scratched his cheek. “Look, Allison. I don’t mean to be rude, but you couldn’t quite get Lincoln to the altar the first time. What makes you think you’d be more successful the second time?”

She felt herself flushing. “For starters, I know what I did wrong the first time,” she said. “I asked him to sign a prenup. The night before the wedding. That must have spooked him, which makes it pretty obvious he was in love with my money, not me.”

“So?”

“So this time I’ll make it clear there are no strings attached. I’ll promise him anything—unlimited access to my bank accounts, safety-deposit boxes, whatever he wants.”

“And you think that will do it?”

“Yes.” She put on her most confident voice, the one she’d always used when arguing with her father, who hated weakness. “If it doesn’t, what have we lost? A couple of weeks, at most. If I can’t land him, you are free to swoop in and beat him black-and-blue, or whatever it is you are secretly dying to do.”

He really was the most physically controlled person she’d ever met—except, of course, for her father. Though Mark smiled at her comment, he didn’t fidget or twitch. He stood there leaning gracefully against the mantel and didn’t move a muscle. He might have been an oil painting.

The Travers Heir, at Leisure.

She knew the power position at this point was silence, but she couldn’t help herself. She wanted a response.

“Surely you can see that it is our best course?”

“No,” he answered mildly. “I’m not sure that I do. My instincts tell me it’s risky. I think I’d prefer to approach him myself.”

She straightened her back. “You don’t know where he is.”

“True.” Mark’s smile deepened. “But I know where you are.”

She was embarrassingly slow—it took her several seconds to process that, but when she did she saw he was right. He could have her followed and that would lead him to Lincoln. The easy way.

All right. Checkmate. But she’d been prepared for his resistance. She knew that a certain kind of man was accustomed to control and would dislike handing over the reins, even for a couple of weeks. She picked her purse up from the floor and pulled out the photographs her investigator had delivered this morning.

“I’m sure you’d find it personally satisfying to rush in and take Lincoln by the throat,” she said. “But that’s a little shortsighted. And, frankly, a little selfish. Remember how you told me you wanted to keep him out of some other woman’s bank accounts—and her bed?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I’ve just found out that the ‘other woman’ has a face. And a name.” She extended the photo. “Meet Janelle Greenwood. Apparently Lincoln calls her Janie.”

Mark accepted the picture and studied it carefully. Allison knew what he would see there. Janelle Greenwood was young, even younger than Allison—midtwenties at most. She wasn’t plain, but she wasn’t beautiful—Lincoln’s favorite type. She had chin-length brown hair, a wide, honest face with almost no makeup, a snub nose and ears that stuck out just a bit. She was dressed in tennis clothes and sitting next to Lincoln, leaning toward him the way a plant leans toward the sun.

The sparkle in her cute brown eyes said it all. Janelle Greenwood was already hooked.

“Damn it,” Mark said. It was the first real emotion Allison had seen from him since she arrived. He turned the picture over, as if he hoped to find proof that it was a fake. It wasn’t. Looking at Janelle one more time, he ran his hand through his wet hair. “Damn it.”

“Exactly. So here’s how I see it. We can race down there and you can beat him up while I warn her. That would mean we could save this one woman, just this one. But then Lincoln would disappear, maybe change his name or his looks. We might never find him again. We can see Janelle’s face, Mark. But what about the next one, the one we can’t save? How young will she be? How much will he steal from her?”

He drummed his fingers along the mantel, still staring at the picture.

She waited.

Finally he looked up, looking more Batman than ever.

“I’ll give you two weeks. On one condition.”

She frowned. “What condition?”

“I’m coming with you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

MARK HAD NEVER BEEN to Sole Grande before. As a lifelong Californian, he’d wasted many a teenage weekend surfing and snorkeling and checking out the bikinis, but he’d always been satisfied with the Pacific beaches.

He’d done his homework, though, so he knew what to expect from this tiny barrier island in the Atlantic. Sole Grande was a short bridge ride across the intra-coastal from Fort Lauderdale, just far enough away to leave all the bustle behind.

The mansions and hotels on the island were too expensive for the noisy riffraff to infiltrate. Sole Grande didn’t allow putt-putt golf or Dairy Queens, video arcades or tattoo parlors. Nothing that might mar the idyll of sleek sailboats, penthouse restaurants, Given-chy boutiques and day spas.

The island was about twenty miles from tip to tip and shaped like an hourglass. The narrow center formed two bays: East Nook, which looked out onto the ocean and was, therefore, the more exclusive, and West Nook, which faced the intra-coastal and had lowered prices to match the diminished view.

O’Hara’s Hideaway was in East Nook. Since Allison was determined to stay there, Mark had checked out their Web site and, in spite of its down-home name, it seemed up to East Nook standards.

Mark and Allison shared a cab from the airport—rental cars would be delivered to the hotel later that afternoon.

For the first twenty minutes they chatted easily enough about the differences between the two coasts. But as soon as they hit the bridge, she fell silent. She stared out the window, watching the stately rows of royal palms as if she were getting paid to count them. Her hands were clasped in her lap, every knuckle white. Her simple ruby ring looked like a drop of blood against that pale finger.

He watched her a minute, then spoke. “Thinking about Lincoln?”

She shook her head. “No. I was actually thinking about my grandfather. I’m not sure I’ll even recognize him after all these years.”

She’d explained the whole story to him on the plane—how she’d come to Sole Grande two months ago hoping to reconcile with her mother’s family, who owned the Hideaway. How she’d chickened out at the last minute. And how that had left her vulnerable to Lincoln’s smarmy charm.

She was clearly still nervous about meeting them, though Mark wasn’t sure why. Even if the O’Haras were rotten relatives who couldn’t let go of an old feud, they were obviously good businessmen. They wouldn’t turn away a couple of paying customers.

“It’ll be fine,” he said, resisting the urge to put his hand over hers and chafe some warmth into it. “The quarrel was with your father, right? Why would they hold that against you?”

She shrugged. “I could have contacted them. He told me he’d rather I didn’t, but he didn’t exactly have a gun to my head.”

Mark wasn’t sure about that. Not a bullet-shooting gun, perhaps, but there were plenty of emotional weapons that could be just as effective. The subtle hint that, if a person went against your wishes, love might be withdrawn was a powerful threat. It had worked on his sister, when she was married to her first son-of-a-bitch husband. That guy had left her so uncertain of her own worth that she’d willingly signed it over to the second SOB—Lincoln Gray.

“What exactly was the fight about? Did you father ever give you the details?”

She glanced at him, which he considered a good sign. She looked wan, but at least she wasn’t counting palm trees.

“He never told me the whole thing, from start to finish. But I got the general idea. Mostly I think it was a culture clash. My father was very dignified, very restrained. I guess the O’Haras are more—uninhibited.”

“That’s it?”

“Oh, no. That was just the beginning. Then my grandfather, Stephen, hit my father up for a loan. He already owned the land on Sole Grande, but he needed money to build the Hideaway. My father refused, of course.”

“Why of course? Their hotel seems to be quite a success.”

“My father didn’t believe in loaning money to relatives. He’d earned his, and he thought everyone else should do the same, including me.”

Which she’d done. Mark had looked up Lullabies, too, while he was surfing the net and discovered that she already had nine franchises on the East Coast.

“The real problem, though,” she went on, “the one that led to this total estrangement, was that my father blamed my uncle Roddy for my mother’s death.”

“Why? How did she die?”

“She took a bad fall from a horse. I think she was a good rider—I remember lots of ribbons from competitions she won as a child. But apparently this horse wasn’t fully broken yet. My father always said she wouldn’t have been foolish enough to ride it if Uncle Roddy hadn’t egged her on.”

“So her death was completely unexpected. That must have been hard. How old were you?”

Though her voice was composed, reciting the story as if it were a history lesson she’d learned in school, she had gone back to twisting the ruby ring.

“I was only three, so I really didn’t understand much. Reading between the lines now, though, I get the impression that my mother—her name was Eileen—must have had a wild side, which my father was trying to correct. He said Roddy was criminally immature and a dangerous influence.”

Mark wondered if she could hear how oppressive her father sounded. The idea of “correcting” a spouse was not only domineering, it was dumb. In his experience, people didn’t change unless they wanted to. They might pretend to change, either to please or appease, but what good did that do?

Lauren, Mark’s ex-wife, had pretended not to want children, but the truth came out eventually.

Eileen O’Hara Cabot had defied her husband and sneaked into the stables for one last, fatal ride on the back of a wild horse.

But he wasn’t going to point that out. It wasn’t, in the end, his business.

“Families are complicated, aren’t they?”

She merely nodded at this platitude and went back to looking out the window.

Mark thought maybe it was time for a distraction.

He reached down to the duffel he’d placed on the floor between them and pulled a little box out of the side pocket. “Here. I want to show you something.”

She glanced over with polite attention but no genuine curiosity.

He wasn’t worried. He’d never opened this box in front of anyone without capturing their full attention.

He thumbed it open now, watching her face.

Her eyes widened. “Oh my God.” She started to reach out, but pulled her hand back just in time. She looked up at him. “Is that… Is that the Travers Peacock? I thought you said Lincoln stole it from your sister’s safety-deposit box.”

“He did.”

She was clearly torn between wanting to know more and wanting to just look at the brooch. Though most Travers women in the past century had decided it was just too showy to wear, it was definitely impressive. A small gold peacock stared at you with emerald eyes, its tail spread wide open, almost as big as the palm of a woman’s hand. And what a fantastic tail…a full fan of graceful gold feathers, each studded with emeralds and sapphires, which were in turn circled with onyx and gold.

Allison was still speechless. Still staring.

“The legend is that the Travers Peacock was given to one of my ancestors, back in the sixteen-hundreds, a gift from King Charles II of England. Her name was Elizabeth Travers and apparently she was very beautiful.” He smiled. “If not altogether virtuous.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “If Lincoln took it, then what—”

“More than a hundred years ago, some sensible Travers husband had a copy made, so that his wife could wear it without fear of losing it. It’s exact, right down to the last millimeter. The gold is genuine, because that’s hard to fake. But the stones are paste.”

She shook her head. “I can hardly believe it’s not real.”

“It’s not.” He took it out and handed it to her. “It’s a very good, very expensive fake. I can’t imagine that anyone, short of a jeweler with a loupe, could tell it from the real thing.”

She looked up, her eyes intent. She wasn’t stupid, was she? He had the feeling she already knew where he was going with this.

“Why did you bring it down here?” She frowned slightly. “What are you going to do with it?”

“I’m hoping we’ll get lucky. I’m hoping you might be able to find out where Lincoln keeps it. If you can, I’m going to make a switch. This brooch is very important to my sister. It’s part of our heritage. I do not intend to let Lincoln Gray pawn it for a hundred bucks if I can help it.”

She stroked one of the tail feathers with a fingertip, very gently, as if she didn’t dare risk damaging it. She seemed to have forgotten that it had already survived for more than a hundred years.

She shook her head. “That’s a lot of luck you’re talking about.”

“I know.”

“What are the odds that he’d carry a thing like this around with him?”

“A thousand to one. But if there’s even that one chance, I’d like to take it. I agreed to your plan, Allison. Will you help me with mine?”

She gazed at him for several seconds. And then, holding out the peacock, she nodded. “For what it’s worth, I’ll try.”

He settled the brooch back into its velvet nest and slid the box back into his duffel. When he looked up again, he realized the cab was slowing down.

“We’re here,” she said. So much for his distraction. Her tension had returned.

From the street, O’Hara’s Hideaway looked unassuming—with none of the Irish “old sod” kitsch of its name. It had, instead, a strong Spanish-Mediterranean influence. The stucco walls were pale salmon, with clean white trim and glossy black wrought-iron balconies. The deep orange tile roof rose cleanly into the cloudless turquoise sky.

Thick green palmettos and red bougainvillea spread over everything, giving the small entrance a shadowy, cloistered feel—just what a visitor craved after taking a few soggy breaths of this hundred-degree Florida sunshine.

A red-haired teenage boy opened the front door the minute the cab came to a complete stop. He would have been good-looking if he hadn’t had a typical adolescent glower, announcing that nothing had pleased him since he was about ten and nothing ever would again until he had his own apartment and regular sex.

He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but he was dressed better than any teenager would voluntarily, so obviously he was on the payroll. Mark eyed that wavy auburn hair. Family, maybe?

The boy opened Allison’s door. “Welcome to the Hideaway,” he said with rote courtesy but no change of expression.

Oh, yeah, he was an O’Hara, Mark concluded as he found his own way out of the cab. Only a family member could get away with that attitude.

Emerging, Allison smiled at the boy. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Allison Cabot. This is Matt Travis. We were on the same plane, and when we realized we were both headed here, we decided to share a cab.”

She wasn’t a great liar—here she was, spilling the whole thing to the first person she met—but Mark had seen worse. She’d get better with practice and she had an innocent smile that just might pull it off.

Obviously, Mark had to use an alias. Though Lincoln had never met Mark and wouldn’t recognize his face, he would recognize the name. Mark had chosen a pseudonym as close to his own name as possible, so that if Allison slipped it might pass unnoticed.

They’d also decided on this strangers-on-a-plane story, agreeing that it would be foolish to reveal too much. Island communities tended to be close-knit—it was impossible for a newcomer to guess exactly how all the residents might be connected. For all they knew, the O’Haras might go fishing with Lincoln Gray every Sunday afternoon.

“Allison Cab—” The kid looked oddly troubled. “You’re—” He frowned. “You’re Allison…Allison who?”

“Cabot.” She smiled again. “I’m checking in. I’m here for two weeks.” She shifted her purse to her other arm, clearly wondering if something had gone wrong with her reservation. “From Boston?”

“Yes. Yes.” The boy looked right, then left, as if he needed backup. “Umm…excuse me just a minute.”

Allison shot a worried glance toward Mark.

No room at the inn? Mark knew from the Web site that the hotel had only twelve suites, six in each wing, with the family quarters in the center of the U-shape building that enclosed an old-world courtyard. They’d been lucky to get reservations on such short notice.

He nodded, assuring her that everything would be fine. If the paperwork had gone awry, she could always take his room and he’d find somewhere else to stay.

But within a few seconds, a storm of people poured through the arched entryway, all redheads with beaming grins and outstretched arms.

“Allison Cabot! Could it really be you?”

Allison turned, looking half startled, half embarrassed. “I—”

If she finished the sentence, Mark couldn’t hear it. The oldest of the group, a man with a leonine shock of wavy white hair, got to Allison first and, without waiting for permission, enveloped her in a robust embrace.

“Sure and I’m not believing my eyes,” he said. “It’s our own little Allie, come home at last!”

“You must have thought we were terrible people,” a woman with matching white hair added, cupping Allison’s cheek with the palm of her hand. “Taking your reservation like that, as if you were a stranger.”

“I thought she said Talbot, Gram.” The boy who had opened the door was flushing. “It sounded like Talbot.”

“Then we’d better be buying you new ears, Daniel O’Hara, because those are clearly failing you.”

A pair of little girls, identical twins of about eight or ten, giggled at the joke. They had the fine red curls and pale skin of expensive porcelain dolls, but right now they were dressed in blue jeans and flamingo-pink T-shirts that fought hideously with their tangled masses of hair. One of them carried a scruffy backpack patterned with stars.

The old man, who Mark deduced must be Stephen, kept his hands on Allison’s shoulders, but moved her a few inches out, so that he could feast his eyes on the prodigal granddaughter. Mark couldn’t think of another way to describe the wistful, half-starved expression the old man turned on her.

“You’re so beautiful, child,” he said, his voice husky. “And so like your mother. You might be our Eileen, come back to us after all these years!”

“Do I really look like her?” Allison’s voice sounded stiff, an odd contrast to her eyes, which were wide and shining. “I—I would like that.”

“You’re the spitting image.” He grinned, the movement folding deep, comfortable creases into his cheeks. He probably smiled as much as he cried, which was obviously a great deal. The whole lot of them needed pockets sewn onto their shirtsleeves for holding their hearts.

“Yes, you’ve got her sweetness,” her grandfather continued. “And not a whit of your father’s arrogance, thank God.”

“Stephen!” The old woman batted his shoulder.

“It’s true, Kate, and weren’t we all thinking it?” Stephen was gleefully unrepentant. “I’m sorry for your loss, Allie darling, and I know you loved your father with a good heart. But the man never liked me and I never liked him and there’s no use pretending any different just because he’s dead.”

“No,” Allison said, no doubt overwhelmed. “I understand. I’m sorry I haven’t come sooner, but—”

“None of that, now, none of that!” He hugged her again. “Aren’t you here now? And isn’t that all that matters? Let’s get you settled. We’ll have to call your uncle in and Moira, too. They’ll be wanting to hear all about you.”

“Grampa.” The twin with the backpack tugged at Stephen’s sleeve, pointing at Mark and whispering. “Grampa, what about him?”

“Who?”

Mark realized wryly that he might as well have been invisible. “I think she means me,” he said with a smile. “I’m Matt Travis. I have a reservation, as well.”

The second little girl, apparently the more confident of the two, stared at Mark while chewing the nail of her pinky finger as if it were her afternoon snack. “Are you Allison’s boyfriend?”

Allison shook her head quickly, flushing again as she had to trot out her rehearsed lie. “No, no! Matt and I…we just happened to be on the same plane. We just shared a cab from the airport.”

“Well, come on in, son,” Stephen said, waving his hand expansively. “We’ll get your room eventually, but you may have to wait. You’ve stumbled into a family reunion, as you see, and family comes first.”

“Of course,” Mark agreed.

“And our poor Allie, she’s like a miracle, showing up here,” Kate O’Hara said as if she owed Mark a better explanation. “She’s lost her dad, you know, so we’re her only family now.”

The nail-chewing little girl stared up at Allison, frowning. “Your father’s dead? What happened to him?”