Playing for Keeps (Texas Scoundrels)

PLAYING FOR KEEPS

A Texas Scoundrels Novel

JAMIE DENTON

Copyright © 2013

Jamie Ann Denton
 

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book can only be dedicated 
to two very special women,

 
Kristine Mason - the sister of my heart

and

Kristi Avalon - my other oldest 

You are my inspiration, my greatest encouragement 
and my dearest friends. Thank you for always 
being just a phone call away.

One

GRIFFEN SOMMERFIELD’S FINGERS trembled. She’d been dreading this moment. Although she’d known it would happen eventually, she just hadn’t expected the foreclosure notice from the bank for at least another month.

She scanned the document, her stomach roiling. Reading the fine print wasn’t necessary. All she needed to know was how long until the bank ripped Antiquities away from her.
 

Forty-five days?
Seriously? That was it? The seventy-five hundred dollars the bank was demanding might as well have been seventy-five thousand. In another month, the price would be closer to ten thousand dollars. She silently cursed her soon-to-be ex-husband. Ross had cleared out every one of their accounts when he’d left, her business accounts included. As much as she hated the thought of giving up, she’d just run out of options. The wolves pounding on the door had changed tactics and were already sucking enough air into their lungs to huff and puff and blow her world apart.

The bell over the door to the shop jangled, signaling a customer. A
buying
customer, she hoped.

She slipped the foreclosure notice into a cubby on the roll top desk, then snapped her laptop closed. The ledger on the accounting program was filled with more red than black these days. Taking a deep breath, she adjusted her silk blouse, then left the small office. Maybe Charlotte Carter had returned to purchase the Louis XIV table she’d been coveting for the past six months. The sale wouldn’t solve all of her problems, but the tidy sum might buy her some time until she could think of a way to save her shop.

She stepped into the showroom to find a short, portly gentleman she didn’t recognize. He stood eyeing the rainbow of colored perfume bottles in the glass display case, arranged atop the emerald brocade fabric she’d used in conjunction with St. Patrick’s Day. On the opposite end, resting against a cream velvet background lay a Victorian jewelry box filled with gold and emerald trinkets. A pot of gold, something she doubted any wily Leprechauns would be dropping at the end of her rainbow.
 

She walked around the counter and summoned a welcoming smile she was nowhere near feeling. “Can I help you?”
 

The gentleman looked up and studied her through smudged glasses. Pulling them from his beak-like nose, he wiped them on a tissue. “Mrs. Somerfield? Griffen Hart Somerfield?”

Apprehension balled in her stomach.
Now what?
Six months ago, she never would have reacted with such fear, or constantly be waiting for the other shoe to drop. First Ross wiping her out financially when he decided to indulge in a clichéd mid-life crisis with his twenty-two-year-old secretary. Then the past due notices and threatening letters followed. Spitefully, she’d let the bank repossess Ross’s fancy sports coupe. Why would he need a sports car living on the white sandy beaches of Jamaica anyway?
 

She pulled in a deep breath. “I’m Griffen Somerfield. And you are?” she asked, aiming for a polite, business-like tone.

“Cyrus Morton.” She took the hand he extended, and he pumped as if he were trying to get water from a well.

She retrieved her hand before he yanked her arm from its socket. “What I can do for you, Mr. Morton?” She resisted the urge to massage her shoulder.

He smiled, revealing a speck of pepper between his teeth. “I have something for you.” He handed her a business card with the words Morton Investigations in bold, bright red letters emblazoned on the front. In the corner were the words investigation, surveillance, service of process.

Great. Now she was being sued.

He hefted a briefcase onto the counter and flipped open the latch. “You had a sister, a...” He lifted the lid and rifled through papers. “Just a second, it’s right...oh yes. Danielle Hart?”

“That’s right.” Dani, her sweet, darling older sister, had been gone over nine years. Leukemia had cut her gentle life short, but Griffen would always have the single sacrifice her sister had made. Austin.

“My client is First Trust Bank of Mississippi. When your sister was a college student at Ole Miss, she’d opened a bank account there. She also had a safety deposit box.”
 

Against the advice of her team of doctors, Dani had insisted on not only going to college, but she’d broken ranks and the family’s long standing Baylor University tradition. Instead, she’d opted for the University of Mississippi and a business degree in advertising.
 

More unfulfilled dreams and wishes, Griffen thought sadly.

“My client has been attempting to contact Ms. Hart and only recently learned that she’s been deceased for a number of years. You’re listed as her primary beneficiary.” Cyrus pulled a document from his briefcase and set it on the counter. “If you’ll just sign here, I’ll be on my way.”
 

“Why did it take so long?” Griffen asked, taking the pen Cyrus offered.

“A routine advertising mailing. The last known address my client had for your sister was the college dorm. The correspondence was returned with ‘deceased’ written across the front,” Cyrus explained. “The bank manager checked into it and discovered your sister had died.”

“Doesn’t anyone ever investigate inactive accounts?”

“Not as a rule. People open savings accounts all the time and leave them alone for long periods.”

Griffen nodded and signed the document to release the contents of Dani’s safety deposit box to her.

Cyrus asked for identification and verified the signature. Apparently satisfied, he opened his briefcase again to retrieve a thick manila envelope, which he placed on the glass counter. “There’s a cashier’s check inside, payable to you for nineteen hundred and sixty-three dollars. That’s seventeen hundred and seventy dollars from her savings, plus nine years of accrued interest, less the rental on the safe deposit box, of course.”

Nineteen hundred dollars? Granted, it wasn’t much, but it would help keep her and Austin afloat for at least another month until she sold the business and found herself a nine-to-five job.
 

“Thank you, Mr. Morton.” She took the envelope and held it to her chest. Nineteen hundred dollars would help, not much, but it would help.

“Are those authentic?” he asked, pointing to the atomizers in the display case.

“Yes, they are. Can I show you something in particular?” Maybe her luck was changing. She was curious as to what was in the envelope, but that could wait. If Cyrus wanted an atomizer, then she’d certainly sell him one.

“My wife likes those little perfume bottles. How bad would that blue one set me back?”
 

“Not as much as you might think,” Griffen said with a smile. She reached into the case and retrieved the circa 1910 atomizer. When he didn’t haggle over the cost, but asked her to wrap it, she nearly shouted with glee.
 

Ten minutes later, Mr. Morton left with an expensive gift for his wife wrapped in delicate floral tissue paper tucked inside his briefcase. Envelope in hand, she locked the door to the shop and flipped the sign to closed. She had about forty minutes to make it over to the gymnasium for Austin’s basketball game.
 

Back in her office, she sat at her desk and carefully opened the envelope. She caught the faint aromas of vanilla and musk. Memories assailed her of the short time they’d had with Dani. Her eldest sister had been as sweet and delicate as a fragile hot house orchid. Her goal had been to work at one of the advertising firms in Dallas, but she hadn’t lived long enough to fulfill her dreams. At the age of twenty-one, she’d given birth to a son, Austin. Having Austin had taken what little strength Dani had left and she’d never fully recovered. By the time Austin was two, Dani could hardly take care of herself let alone an active toddler, so Griffen had stepped in and cared for the adorable dark haired boy with huge brown eyes. When Dani had asked Griffen to promise to raise Austin as her own, no one in the family had been surprised.
 

 
Griffen had easily made that promise. Despite the fact that Ross had never wanted children, he’d insisted they legally adopt Austin. Dani hadn’t objected. Austin Hart Somerfield was in reality Griffen's nephew, but in her heart, he was her son. A son she now raised as a single parent.

The anniversary clock on the top of the desk chimed the half hour. With plenty of time before the game, she reached inside the envelope. Resting on top, as promised, was the cashier’s check. She tipped the envelope and two more envelopes, both sealed, tumbled onto the desk along with a glossy photograph.
 

She picked up the photograph, and her stomach rolled again. No. It couldn’t be. But she couldn’t think of any reason why Dani would have
his
picture, unless...

Griffen's heart thumped wildly. Dani had always refused to say, but Griffen had often wondered about the identity of Austin’s father. Never in all of her wild imaginings would she have even believed it could be
him
. What would her younger sister, Mattie, and their father, say if they knew? It didn’t matter. Griffen had no intention of telling them, or anyone. Especially Austin.

She stared at the black and white publicity photograph, at a familiar face. The handsome face of the man her son idolized, of the unnamed man Dani had claimed to love—Texas Wranglers’ star quarterback, Jed Maitland.

She set the photograph aside. At least now she knew where Austin had gotten his dark, good looks and a jaw already showing signs of becoming square and strong. Now she knew why at thirteen, he was nearly as tall as her own five-foot-eight inches and would no doubt top her by at least another two before the coming summer would draw to a close. But what she simply could not understand was what Dani had seen in Jed Maitland. They were so opposite, it just didn’t make sense. Fourteen years ago when Austin had been conceived, Maitland had been a hot shot quarterback, the number one draft choice out of Ole Miss, snapped up by the Texas Wranglers in the first round. Young and cocky, he'd become a target for the press, the same press which now claimed Maitland was headed toward forced retirement. According to Austin, being cut from the team was a fate worse than death.
 

Had Dani tried to contact Maitland to tell him about his son? Had he refused to acknowledge his own child? Griffen wouldn’t put it past someone like him. He’d already been sued once for paternity. As far as she was concerned, Maitland was a hard living, hard drinking, has-been womanizer.

With trembling fingers, she carefully slid the rose colored paper from the envelope addressed to her. A knot the size of a football churned in her stomach.

Dearest Griffen,

I know this probably seems rather morbid, reading a letter from the grave and all, but I can tell you now what I couldn’t when I had the chance. As much as I love you, Griffen, I couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in your eyes when you learned the truth about Austin’s father.

Despite what the press and media say about him, the man I knew and loved really is a good man. I know in my heart that if he’d known about Austin he’d have done the right thing. I chose not to tell him for my own reasons, so please don’t hold my choice against him. If you haven’t already guessed, Jed Maitland is Austin’s father. I know that I was wrong and probably should have given Austin the chance to know his real father, but I knew you would be the perfect mother and role model for him.