Perfect Family (3 page)

He would lose his job and they would move again. States faded one into another. New York. Maryland. Kentucky. Tennessee. As she grew older, she'd asked about her mother, but she never got an answer. She grew accustomed to the shadows that never disappeared. Or perhaps
he
had been the shadow.

The only thing that had saved them was his reputation as a horse trainer. He'd been able to extract every measure of speed from the horses under his tutelage. He understood them as few others did, and in return they gave him everything they had. But eventually he would be fired. They would move to another place where someone else was willing to give him still another chance.

She glanced down at the invitation again and tried to blink away tears. She never cried. Never. Ever. Not since the night that had led to his death. But today … today was too much.

Even the police had lectured her instead of doing something useful, like collecting fingerprints. She'd been foolish to go inside. She should have called the police. They had also been unimpressed with Ben, who, despite his timidity, had a huge heart. At that moment, however, he'd chosen to hide behind her legs, thinking himself invisible.

“Not much of a guard dog,” one officer noted.

“He wasn't meant to be,” she'd snapped.

“You might think about trading him in,” the second officer said.

“I would rather trade you in,” she retorted. “Aren't you going to do anything?”

“Make a list of your stolen items,” he said indifferently, “and take it to the police station. Then file with your insurance company.”

“That's it?”

“That's it,” he replied without apology.

“No fingerprints?”

“Look, lady, we don't have the resources to investigate every small burglary.”

But it wasn't a small burglary to her. It was one huge violation even if whoever had invaded her home hadn't taken much. Perhaps she'd returned before he'd been able to collect his booty. He had, however, obviously gone through her desk and bookcases, apparently searching for something of value. He'd left books on the floor, papers messed. The only thing she'd found missing, though, was a little cash she'd kept in her desk for emergencies.

The greatest loss was her precious illusion of safety.

She fingered the invitation. The burglary brought back so much. Snapshots flipped through her mind. A violent struggle. Pain. The soul-searing shame that followed. And Mills. Her hero. She remembered the contempt on his face, the icy triumph after he'd raped her. It happened long ago, but the mental photos were sharp. So were those of her father's face two days later when he was fired. It was the last time she'd seen him alive.

She hadn't told him why he'd lost his job, that this time it hadn't been his fault. It had been hers.

Jessie had lived with that for the past ten years.

She had fled all connections to that last farm in Kentucky. She'd tried to flee from her father's death, from the betrayal she'd felt from the one person she'd trusted. She'd found her refuge in books and finally in this small, barely profitable bookstore on the edge of a university.

Damm it. She had allowed that invitation to open emotional boxes she'd believed locked forever.

She read it over again.

The Biannual Clements Family Reunion

June 25–27, 1999

The Clements Ranch and Quest Resort

Sedona, Arizona

Then, most puzzling of all, a handwritten note at the bottom: “
Jessica, please come, Sarah
.”

Clements? She'd never heard the name before. But the invitation came to her. Jessica …

Another Jessica somewhere. She didn't think Jessica was a common name. And who was Sarah?

She reminded herself it had nothing to do with her.

Still, she suddenly realized that the shy, wistful girl she thought had turned into a pragmatic adult had not disappeared. The books that had become her friends were cold comfort when she glimpsed a couple together or a lighted house at holidays.

She'd kept telling herself she was strong, independent. She could be as aggressive in business as anyone, and she had worked at conquering the insecurities lurking inside. But in a particularly honest frame of mind, she knew she was hiding among the books, that she'd wrapped herself in a cocoon that made few demands. It certainly didn't require any real courage, any risk.

She liked it that way. No risks, no danger.

And now … her cocoon had been penetrated.

Impatient with herself, she shoved the invitation out of sight under a pile of orders. She had no time for
what if
s. Still, for some reason she did not destroy it or toss it in her wastebasket. It remained on her desk like a burning brand, announcing over and over again her aloneness. Maybe tomorrow, she would try to find the telephone number and tell them the invitation went astray. Tomorrow when the memories had faded.

She dismissed it from her mind and turned back to the list a professor had e-mailed her. It contained three titles, all out-of-print books. Such books were the store's specialty and the reason for the survival of a small independent bookstore among the behemoths that had taken over the book business.

Sol had collected and cultivated book sources throughout the years. Since he had semiretired two years ago, he had taught her how to contact them, how to talk with them. Many were now long-distance friends, and she yearned someday to visit them. More dreams, but those were of a more realistic type than yearning after a family that didn't exist.

She leaned down and petted a sleeping Ben, then picked up the telephone and dialed Dickens Books in London. No more daydreaming today. No more fanciful visions.

S
EDONA
, A
RIZONA

They gathered in the sprawling main room of the ranch house. Tension vibrated in the room.

Ross Macleod leaned against the wall, watching.

Mentally, he counted the votes, as he had so many times before. He'd lost another voting member today. One more, and he would lose everything. He tried to keep the simmering resentment from showing. He was the poor relation. Always had been. Always would be. He meant nothing to them other than what he could offer in skills.

There were only two survivors of the original progeny of Hall and Mary Louise Clements. Sarah was seventy-six, her brother Halden, ninety-one. Then there were what he called “the first cousins”—the second generation. There were six: Marc, Cullen, Katherine, Elizabeth, Andrew, and Melissa. Between them—the first and second generations—they held the fate of the ranch in their hands.

Marc and Cullen, though, were the main players in the current drama. Brothers, they had talked their father, Halden, and the owners of two other shares into voting to sell the Sunset. Only Sarah stood firm against them.

“How in the hell did that invitation go out?” Marc Clements asked as he paced back and forth. Tall, lean, and charismatic, he looked every inch the congressman he was and the senator he wanted to be. He had been Ross's ally until the past year, when he needed money for his campaign. Now he had become one of the enemies.

Sarah, Ross's adoptive mother, grimaced. “I know we had an agreement,” she defended herself. “We were all to wait until after Alex talked to this woman. But I thought he was going three days ago. I didn't know he would be held up with a court case. I did so want her to feel welcome.”

Marc sighed. “Are you sure you just didn't want to get to her first?”

“Now Marc, I would never do that.”

But she would. Ross knew it. The others knew it, too.

Cullen's eyes were angry. He had been the one to set the terms. No one would approach the woman before she arrived, until after Alex, the family attorney, had met with her. Otherwise, it was feared any number of the family members might camp on her doorstep with a varying assortment of bribes.

None of them knew much about the prospective heiress; nor did they know if she knew anything at all about the family. It had been decided at an earlier meeting that Alex would explain the situation, then ask her to come to the already scheduled reunion and meet the family.

If this woman knew even some of the hidden agendas, she would probably run like hell.

Marc's stern expression softened. “Probably no harm done, Sarah. Alex said he will fly to Atlanta right after the court hearing this afternoon.”

Ross watched Sarah's face flush. She had called the family meeting when she realized that Alex had not contacted Jessica Clayton prior to the time she should have received the invitation. She'd protested that the invitation was to be an added incentive, a warm welcome. But Ross wondered about that. Sarah could be as Machiavellian as any member of the family, and that was saying a great deal.

Despite any protestations she might make, he suspected she'd wanted to ingratiate herself on Ross's behalf.

Dammit, he didn't need or want a champion. Yet he was the only so-called cousin without Clements blood. He was the only one not to have a share in the Sunset. He had only his sweat.

And now a newcomer no one knew could well splinter the fragile truce that held the family together. She could also take away the only livelihood he knew. He couldn't quite tamp down the resentment, or the thought of the emptiness that would cause. The ranch was the only home he knew. Even if he'd never quite belonged, it was the only place that held good memories. Dammit, despite opposition, he'd dragged it into the twentieth century. He'd squeezed out a profit when every other ranch in the Southwest was going broke or being sold out. He'd worked all his life for the Clementses, and now a stranger could step in and take it all away. His stomach churned at the thought of losing the Sunset and what it would do to Sarah.

Cullen, Marc's brother and the oldest of the second generation, looked at Sarah. “Do we know any more about her?”

Sarah shook her head. “Only that the detective is sure he's found Harding's only heir. The man he thinks is Harding died ten years ago when she was seventeen. We know that she is part owner of a struggling bookstore.”

“Then she will want to sell,” Cullen said with satisfaction. Cullen, an older, larger version of his brother, thought the end-all of life was money. No, that wasn't exactly true. Money
and
the Quest, his resort development that ate up the former.

Sarah didn't blink. “Sam Davis said she doesn't seem to care too much about money.”

“Has he seen her?”

“She's twenty-seven, auburn hair, hazel eyes,” Sarah said with great satisfaction. “Just like most of the family,” Sarah said. “It has to be her.”

“There's about ten million people of the same description,” Marc said dryly. “We won't know until we have a DNA test.”

Sarah stood. Ross reminded himself she was seventy-six now. She acted younger. She still rode daily, and her mind was quick. But her face looked older than her years; her skin was dry and wrinkled by the sun. She'd shunned hats, saying she preferred the wind in her hair, the sun against her face. “Perhaps Alex can tell us more in the next few days. He reads people well.”

“Don't depend on her to side with you, Sarah,” Cullen warned. “She won't have the sentimental attachment that you have.”

“Don't you count your chickens before they hatch, nephew.”

“I just want you to think about selling, Sarah. You can build a home at the resort and stare out at those rocks all day long. You can even board old Daisy there.”

Sarah glanced over toward Ross. “It wouldn't be the same. Clementses have lived in this house for a hundred years. I don't understand how you can even think of selling it. Your grandfather would turn over in his grave.”

“Now Sarah, you know the land is good for development.”

“With a hundred little ugly houses every eighty feet. Over my dead body. And Ross is making a profit now.”

“A damned little one.” Marc turned toward Ross. “It's just not fair to the other members of the family. You know that.”

“I know nothing of the kind, and I don't expect Jessica will either,” Sarah retorted. “Not if she's a
true
Clements.”

The old girl really knows how to place her daggers
, thought Ross. But then she'd aimed enough of them at Ross. He knew she could usually bully all the other members of the family, but not on this one issue. She was alone in this.

Her only hope was the missing heir, which is why she'd commissioned the search. They had fought her on it, but in the end she'd won. Sarah had even insisted on selecting the search firm, afraid that the others might find one that wouldn't be diligent enough.

No one had thought she would succeed. It had, after all, been nearly fifty years.

Ross knew the terms of the trust better than anyone. The founder—old Hall Clements—had left the ranch in trust for his five surviving children, or their progeny. The ranch could be sold only if four of the five agreed to it. At the moment, three wanted to sell; Sarah did not. The fifth vote remained in trust for the missing heir, Harding Clements.

But it was nearly fifty years since he'd disappeared, and the others were ready to go to court to have that share divided among all the heirs. A majority could rule that share.

There had been past attempts to locate Harding, but they had all failed. Sarah had hoped that with all the new technology, they might have more success. And so, it appeared, they had. After a four-month search, investigators with the search firm believed they'd located Harding's daughter.

And no one had any idea what she would do.

“The hell with this,” Ross muttered to himself. He had far better things to do than speculate on the possible actions of some strange woman. He'd had a hard enough time figuring out what the familiar ones would do.

And there was work. There was always work. He pushed his hands into his pockets and strode out to the stables. Let the others stew. There was nothing he could do except pray, and he'd given up on that a long time ago.