A Man Like Morgan Kane

Prologue

12345678910111213141516

Epilogue

Prologue

^»

"
A
sk your
friend
to wait outside." Knotting her hands into fists so tight that the oval tips of her nails bit into her palms, Bethany Wyndham glared at her stepfather.

Big, robust, with steel gray hair and sky blue eyes, Jimmy Farraday looked a good ten years younger than his sixty years.

Releasing the curvaceous redhead he held in his arms, Jimmy grinned wickedly atBethany. He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, removing the young woman's coral lipstick.

"This isn't what it looks like," he said.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"It never is, is it, Jimmy?"

Gregarious, conservative in his public opinions, and the darling ofBirmingham's redneck community, Jimmy could do no wrong in the eyes of his television audience. But privately, the man was a loudmouthed sleaze to whom decency and morality had no meaning.

"I was just … er … interviewing Miss Rone for a job at WHNB." Jimmy patted the girl's behind.

"Wasn't I, sugar pie?"

Giggling, the silly girl cuddled closer to Jimmy's side. "I'm going to be singing every Friday on Jimmy's Wake Up Birmingham show."

The girl gazed longingly at him, and for one brief moment,Bethanyalmost felt sorry for her. Good old boy Jimmy seemed to possess some sort of magnetism for certain women. Unfortunately,Bethany's mother was one of those women. What on earth her wealthy, elegant mother had ever seen in this uncouth womanizer, Bethany would never know. And why she endured the humiliation of staying married to him was just as much of a puzzle.

"There's no need to mention this to your mother." Jimmy glanced at the open door behindBethany. "You know how upset Eileen gets over the least little thing."

"I'd get upset over
the least little thing,
too, if I was married to a man who couldn't keep his fly zipped."

The redhead gasped.

Jimmy chuckled.Bethanyclenched her teeth.

"Go on, Retta." Jimmy beamed his three-hundred-watt smile on Miss Rone. "Enjoy yourself at this little shindig my wife's throwing. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow—"

"Tomorrow I'm going to be on Wake Up Birmingham," Retta Rone said in her chirpy, sing-song voice.

Laughing, Jimmy watched the sway of Retta's slender hips as she slunk out of the study. The moment the young woman disappeared up the hallway, his bright smile softened and dimmed to a smirky grin.

"To what do I owe the honor of this private meeting?" Jimmy glanced around the room. "You usually do your best to avoid being alone with me."

"I'd rather be trapped in a pit of vipers than be alone with you," she told him. "I learned when you first married Mother what a vile, disgusting man you are."

"You're never going to forgive me, are you, Bethy, for that little incident? I've tried to explain that I'd had too much to drink, your mother and I had had our first fight and—"

"Save your explanations for someone who's stupid enough to believe them." Taking a deep, steadying breath,Bethanyopened and closed her fists. "I despise you for the ten years of pure hell you've put my mother through, but I'm not here to discuss my mother. She's a grown woman. She can take care of herself. Why she stays with you I'll never know, but that's her decision."

"Then if you don't want to tell me, once again, what a good-for-nothing husband I am, what is so important that you'd corner me in my study during one of your mother's parties?"

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Jimmy's grin exposed his big white teeth and deepened the dimples in his cheeks. In three long strides, he closed the distance between them. Immediately wary,Bethanystepped backward. He reached out, grabbed her arm and jerked her up against him.

"You wouldn't be interested in finding out what I've got that keeps your mama married to me, would you?"

"You bastard!"

Using every ounce of her strength,Bethanyslapped his face. His head jerked sideways from the force of her blow, and his grasp on her arm loosened. She pulled away from him. Swinging his hand up to his red cheek, he covered the mark of her hand-print with his spread fingers.

Jimmy glared at her. "You know what your problem is, Bethy? You ain't getting any. What you need is a real man to put a smile on your face."

If everBethanyhad hated Jimmy Farraday, she hated him at that precise moment. The man had a way of making everything seem sordid and dirty.

"Anne Marie told me what you said to her, how you came on to her,"Bethanysaid.

"Is that what this is all about?" Jimmy shrugged. "Your little girl misunderstood. I was just trying to be grandfatherly. That's all. What's wrong with a man having a little birds and bees talk with his fifteen-year-old granddaughter?"

"I'm giving you a warning that you'd better heed,"Bethanysaid. "If you ever touch my daughter, I'll kill you!"

A loud gasp came from the open doorway. "I'm sorry, Jimmy. I—I—that is we didn't mean to…" the woman stammered.

Recognizing the voice,Bethanyturned around slowly. Vivian Crosby, Jimmy's secretary at WHNB, stood just outside the study with Tony Hayes, Jimmy's sidekick on his Wake Up Birmingham show, directly behind her.

"We apologize," Tony said. "We've obviously interrupted a private conversation."

"Just a little family squabble. A minor misunderstanding."

Jimmy laughed, but when he reached out to touchBethany, she slapped away his hand.

"There is no misunderstanding,"Bethanysaid. "I think I made myself perfectly clear. You can mess around on my mother all you want. I gave up on trying to make her see what kind of man you really are."

Baring her teeth in a ferocious growl,Bethanynarrowed her eyes. Her gaze skewered Jimmy Farraday to the bone. "But, so help me God, if you ever come near Anne Marie again, I
will
kill you."

Tilting her chin and squaring her shoulders,Bethanywalked out of the study, past Tony's and Vivian's shocked glances and down the hallway. Back in the throng of her mother's guests, she sought out a waiter and retrieved a glass of champagne from a silver tray. Her hand trembled.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Glancing across the room, she caught a quick glimpse of her mother, gorgeous in her silver lamé gown.

Only in recent years hadBethanyappreciated how difficult it must have been for her mother to have been widowed at twenty-three and left with an infant to raise all alone. She understood, now that she was rearing Anne Marie alone, to what lengths a mother would go in order to protect her daughter. And with this new understanding had come forgiveness of her mother's past actions.

Suddenly Jimmy Farraday appeared as if out of nowhere and slipped his arm around his wife's waist.

When he leaned down and kissed Eileen on the cheek,Bethanysnorted and shook her head sadly. Her poor mother was a fool.

Seth Renfrew placed his hand onBethany's shoulder. She smiled at her handsome, debonair business partner. They both looked across the room at the host and hostess of the evening's gala affair.

"One of these days someone is going to do the world a favor and slit that sorry son of a bitch's throat,"

Seth said. "Your mother is far too good for him, you know. She deserves a man who loves her."

Patting Seth's arm,Bethanysighed. "Maybe someday Mother will free herself from Jimmy and discover that the man who truly loves her has been within arm's reach all these years."

"Eileen will never be free as long as Jimmy lives," Seth said, then lifted the champagne flute to his lips and emptied the glass.

Sighing deeply,Bethanyleaned her head against Seth's shoulder. "As much as I hate to admit it, I'm afraid you're right, my friend."

Chapter 1

«^»

He had been home four days. If you could call this mausoleum home. He felt like a caged animal. But he always had felt confined inside the walls of this Greek Revival mansion in Redmont, trapped by his family's vast wealth and imprisoned by the Kanes' social position inBirmingham.

Even though he'd been away sixteen years, things had changed very little. The house remained spotlessly clean and impeccably decorated, the only alterations superficial ones made by an interior designer. The grounds, now tended by a local lawn service instead of a private gardener, were manicured perfection.

The last time he'd come home, he'd sworn that he would never return. And he hadn't. Not when his cousin Amery had been killed in a car crash, not when his mother had undergone heart surgery and not even when his own father had died five years ago.

So what the hell was he doing here now? It wasn't as if he and his mother had ever been close. As a boy, he'd spent more time with the housekeeper than he had with his parents. But when Ida Mae had called and asked him to come home, to come and see his mama before she died, he had agreed to a brief visit. Perhaps more for Ida Mae's sake than his mother's. She'd never before asked anything of him.

His father had notified the Navy when Amery had died twelve years ago, and his mother had done the same when Henderson Kane passed away. By the time the messages had reached him, it had been too late to attend the funerals or even send flowers. If he were honest with himself, he'd have to admit that he wouldn't have returned for Amery's funeral—he'd despised his cousin—and he wasn't even sure he'd
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

have come home for his father's.

But he was no longer a SEAL, no longer part of the most physically fit and ferocious warriors in the American military. He'd burned out after one mission too many, and three years ago, at thirty-five, he had hired on with Dundee Private Security inAtlanta. Now, when he was on an assignment, he was easier to reach. And after years of running away from the past, he finally realized that sooner or later every man's life comes full circle. No matter how long and hard you run, eventually every road leads home.

Poor health had aged his mother, leaving the once stern matriarch a faded version of her former regal self. Heart surgery in the past had added years to Claudia Morgan Kane's life, but two recent heart attacks had warned the doctors that, despite their best efforts, the sixty-eight-year-old was dying.

The double French doors leading to the study opened slowly and Ida Mae waddled into the room.

Morgan supposed if anyone had ever really loved him just for himself, Ida Mae had. And he loved her, that fat, bossy, caring old woman who'd been more of a mother to him than his own mother had ever been. Ida Mae had been the one who had patched his skinned knees, who'd fed him cookies and milk in the kitchen and helped him with his homework before he'd been shipped off toMcCallieMilitarySchoolin Chattanooga.

Shifting his position on the padded seat in front of the bay windows, Morgan smiled at Ida Mae. But she didn't return his smile. Her round, rosy face was somber. She held out the morning newspaper to him, her age-spotted hand quivering.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Take a look for yourself." She spread open the newspaper and lifted it up to him, practically shoving it under his nose. "When your mama learns about this, she's going to be powerfully upset. She sets great store by that girl. Always has."

"What are you jabbering about? What girl?" Morgan grabbed the paper out of Ida Mae's trembling hand.

"That girl islikea daughter to Miss Claudia. And the child … Lord, your mama loves that child better than anybody on earth."