Karen Woods Read online

  He laughed, but it was a most unpleasant sound. “I’m Jase Wilton.”

  “Audra’s son?”

  “And you’re Mary Katherine…Devlin.” He hesitated in pronouncing her last name. “So, now that we’ve identified ourselves, get some clothes on.”

  “You know, I swear that I locked both doors,” she offered as she crossed her arms over her chest.

  “There are such things as master keys.”

  “And no such thing in this house as privacy, obviously. I’ll remember that.”

  He took a step towards her.

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  Mary Kate automatically assumed a defensive posture. “Not even one step closer!”

  “Listen, woman, I’ve just seen my favorite mare through a breech delivery. I’m in no mood to play games.”

  “Is the mare okay?” Mary Kate asked, not lowering her guard.

  “Mother and son are doing fine.”

  “Odd time of year for a thoroughbred to foal. Weren’t you tracking her season?”

  Jase’s eyes narrowed. “As a matter of fact, Starchild was believed to be barren.”

  “Surprise!”

  Jase smiled, genuinely this time. Mary Kate swallowed hard. He was an incredibly attractive man. Suddenly, she was only too aware of how little she was truly wearing.

  “I’ll meet you downstairs in ten minutes. We can talk then,” she offered, with a touch of panic in her voice. She cringed mentally when she heard it. The last thing that she wanted was to give this man any hint that he made her nervous.

  Jase nodded. “Make it twenty. I need a shower.”

  She nodded. “A bit of an understatement, that. Twenty minutes. Downstairs.”

  Mary Kate watched as he left the room and the suite. Quickly, she grabbed the chair from the desk and propped it under the doorknob in the sitting room. Master keys, indeed. She returned to her bedroom, locked the door and put her motion sensitive door alarm on the doorknob before she quickly pulled on underclothes followed by jeans and a shirt. He had been through her closet. There was no sense in letting him think that she had dressed up for him, especially since the first item on her agenda was to wring his, hopefully freshly washed, neck.

  * * *

  Billie looked at Mary Kate in surprise when the younger woman walked into the kitchen. “Thought that you were going to take a nap before dinner.”

  “Shower woke me up. Can I fix myself some lunch?”

  “Absolutely not. Tell me what you want. I’ll fix it.”

  “Don’t go to any trouble. Whatever’s in the refrigerator would be fine,” Mary Kate replied.

  “Chicken salad?” Billie asked.

  Before she could answer, Jase walked into the room. He was wearing a dark blue business suit that fit too well to have been anything except custom made. His shirt was fine linen and his tie was silk.

  Mary Kate wasn’t prepared for the longing she felt to touch him. This is crazy, she mentally chided herself. You don’t even know him. And what you know about him, you don’t like. So, why are you drawn to

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  him? Insanity?!

  “Mary Katherine,” Jase acknowledged without warmth. “Billie, how about some food?”

  “Chicken salad, raw vegetables, and rolls,” Billie replied. “I could pack it up in a basket with some iced tea and the two of you could go out to the gazebo and have a relaxing lunch. It’s beautiful outside. Shame to stay inside.”

  “No. Thanks, anyway, Billie,” Mary Kate refused. “I just want something to eat before I try to get a nap.” Being alone with him was the last thing she needed at the moment, and she knew it.

  “And I have to get into the office in a little while.”

  Billie smiled at them before she sat out the bowl of chicken salad and a tray of cut up raw vegetables on the counter beside the refrigerator, then she pulled a tray of dinner rolls from the warmer and placed the rolls in a napkin lined serving basket. “You know where the plates and things are, Jase. I have to go supervise the cleaning crew.”

  Jase went to a cabinet and pulled out two plates and glasses. Then he retrieved two sets of silverware from a drawer. He filled the glasses with ice and water. “Bring the food and come with me.”

  An informal breakfast room was off the kitchen. They sat across the table from one another with the food between them.

  She felt Jase’s eyes on her as she bowed her head, crossed herself, and said a silent grace before beginning to eat. When she looked up at him, he was wearing a mocking half smile.

  “What?”

  “You don’t have to pretend piety for my sake.”

  “I never pretend anything, for anyone’s sake.” She took a serving of the chicken salad and a freshly baked roll.

  Jase stated in a neutral tone, “I’ve been eager to meet you. It’s not every woman who can meet the guests at her wedding with the news that the ceremony is off. That takes moxie.”

  Mary Kate felt her face grow warm. Her appetite, that was only marginal to begin with, was now completely gone. “Seems that you have done some research on me,” she remarked with forced ease, covering up her nervousness.

  “Thoroughly,” Jase answered before he took a bite of the salad.

  Mary Kate forced herself to take a bite. She wasn’t about to let him know how deeply he was upsetting her. The salad looked very good. Too bad that it tasted like sawdust to her right now.

  “I know everything that can be known about Mary Katherine Devlin,” Jase added, expanding on his previous comment.

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  Mary Kate laughed, hoping that her nervousness wasn’t showing too badly, but fearing that it was. “That’s good. I’m not at all certain that I do. Care to loan me a copy of the report? I might find it interesting reading.”

  “No, I don’t think that you would,” he continued. “You didn’t know anything about Edward Hastings’ illegal activities until the police arrested him at the church, a half hour before your scheduled wedding?”

  “No, I didn’t.” She forced herself to continue eating. Mary Kate had the strong feeling that he wasn’t above searching out a weakness and exploiting it for all it was worth. She wasn’t about to give him any sign that he had hit a very painful area. Or at least, no more of a sign than she could help.

  “I don’t understand how you couldn’t have known. You worked with him.”

  “Worked for him,” Mary Kate corrected. “But I never saw any evidence suggestive of criminal behavior. If I had, I would have reported it to the police.”

  “Sure you would have,” Jase agreed with more than a tinge of disbelief coloring his tone. “That would have been killing the goose who laid the golden eggs.”

  Mary Kate sighed. “Believe what you will. You’re going to anyway. Just for your information, my job was to do Edward’s payroll and to make the employment tax deposits. I never saw the income side, except to verify that the bank balances were sufficient to cover the payroll and taxes. Proper accounting procedures require segregation of duties. All I did was cut checks and make sure the employment taxes were handled.”

  Jase cleared his throat. “Oh, really?” Blatant disbelief was written all over his face.

  Mary Kate challenged, “I suppose that you tell everything about your work to the women you date? And I suppose that everyone who works under you has complete access to every one of your files and ledgers?”

  Jase smiled at her. His smile was just as devastating as it had been earlier. She forced herself to breathe. This man interested her in ways that she had forgotten a man could interest her. And she wondered, bitterly, if she didn’t have a character defect in that she was only attracted to men who were bad news for her, as Jase Wilton clearly was, as Edward Hastings had been. Heaven knows, there were good men who had made it clear to her that they would have been interested in pursuing a relationship with her over the past few years. Men like Len Young, the principal at one of the elementary schools back home. But, all she had ever felt for Len had been friendship.
There had been no chemistry, no spark, between them. Kissing Len had been ...dull ...flat...uninteresting. She wondered how Jase would kiss, how he would hold a woman, what it would be like to be touched by him. Then, with difficulty, she dismissed those thoughts.

  “Touche,” he acknowledged. “But then again, I’ve never taken any of my employees for a week’s vacation to Grand Cayman Island. Quite a romantic spot, or so I hear.”

  “It was quite a wonderful week,” Mary Kate replied without hesitation. “The island is quite beautiful.

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  The sea... Oh, the sea there. It was a dream. One of these years, if I save my pennies, I might be able to go back.”

  Jase cleared his throat. “You didn’t know anything about his activities, yet at the first sign of trouble, you break your engagement.”

  Mary Kate sighed. “You know, this is really none of your business.”

  “Under ordinary circumstances, I might agree with you. However, I find the idea of harboring a thief under this roof repugnant.”

  “I am not a thief!” Mary Kate said, pushing her words out between clinched teeth.

  “Didn’t you accept a three carat diamond from Hastings? What about the car? The furs? The jewelry? The designer clothes? The trips? The house?” Jase demanded. “All of which were purchased with the proceeds of theft.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  Jase pressed, “You still haven’t answered my question. Didn’t you take those gifts from Edward Hastings?”

  “The house was to have been our marital home. The Ferrari, the mink, most of the jewelry, and the clothes were all gifts in anticipation of marriage. Edward was extremely status conscious. Those things meant something to him. How I looked was important to him, especially when we entertained his business clients. The clothes and all the rest were nothing but stage dressing. It’s important to look successful in order to be successful in some businesses. And for your information, the three-carat diamond was my engagement ring. I never lived in the house. I did drive the Ferrari, at Edward’s insistence. It was a very fine piece of equipment, a pure pleasure. I do love fast cars.”

  “That’s why you drive that hunk of junk VW,” he replied, disbelief in his voice.

  “It’s reliable. I can work on it myself, since it doesn’t have any of those computer control systems on it. It gets reasonably good mileage. And it’s relatively cheap to insure,” Mary Kate ticked off the advantages of the car. “Coupled with the fact that I bought it for only a few hundred dollars, made it the perfect car for me at this stage of my life.”

  “But it’s quite a comedown from the Ferrari,” Jase stated. “In fact, your whole life is quite a comedown from the lifestyle you lived with Hastings.”

  “When I discovered how he made his money, I broke the engagement and I returned to him the gifts that were returnable. And I testified against him. I don’t know what else could have been required of me.”

  “But you did take those gifts, as well as the Island vacations, the theatre weekends in New York, trips to California, Texas, Mexico, and Australia, along with all the other expensive gifts that Edward Hastings lavished

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  on you over a period of two years. Didn’t you?”

  “I’ve never denied that. There are some beautiful spots in the world that most people never get to see. I don’t regret seeing those places. The Great Barrier Reef is truly a sight to behold. And the diving in the Caribbean was a joy beyond words.”

  “You see nothing improper with your accepting those large gifts from him?”

  Mary Kate sighed. “I would have been happy with a picnic in the park and quiet evening walks. I never asked him for anything,” Mary Kate replied, her voice as tired as her body. “It was too bad that I couldn’t see that the glossy surface hid a rotten soul.”

  “He was twice your age,” Jase stated. His voice could have frozen nitrogen. “Didn’t it bother you that he was old enough to be your father?”

  Mary Kate felt her face grow hot. “Edward was thirty-seven, an established, dynamic, successful, very handsome man when we met. He was about your age, actually.”

  “I would not chase after a girl young enough to be my daughter!”

  Mary Kate spoke more calmly than she felt like, “I’ve found that we often don’t know what we’ll do in any situation until it arises.”

  Jase shook his head. “Really.”

  “Fine. Be that way. You had already made up your mind about me before making any effort at understanding my life. That’s your loss.”

  “My loss?”

  “We might have been friends.”

  “I don’t count many criminals among my circle of friends. I’m choosy that way.”

  “Look, Jase, I’ve made my share of mistakes. I admit that. Maybe more than my share. However, I was completely cleared of any and all involvement in Edward’s business affairs after an intensive probe by the various law enforcement and justice agencies. So, don’t you dare accuse me of complicity in Edward’s crimes! I had absolutely nothing to do with them.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Of course you do,” she allowed in a far more reasonable tone than she felt. “If I had entered a convent at sixteen when I graduated from high school, you would have found something strange about that, as well.”

  “Since you aren’t Roman Catholic, I certainly would have.”

  “There are Anglican nuns.”

  He rolled his eyes. “The circumstances speak for themselves. You were eighteen when you met Edward Hastings. Within ninety days of the first time you met, you took a weekend theatre trip to New York

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  with him.”

  “Charlotte, his mother, lived in New York City, in Manhattan. Rest her soul. Edward had proposed during the previous week. The trip to New York was a family visit. My mother went with us. Mother and I took a hotel room. The theatre was an afterthought,” Mary Kate replied. “Not that it’s any of your business. But things aren’t always what they appear on the surface. And if your investigator had done a proper job, you would have known the full details.”

  “Perhaps the report is incomplete,” Jase allowed.

  “Perhaps?” Mary Kate challenged. “I’d say the report was purposefully slanted to place the worst possible construction on my life. I’d also bet that the report didn’t mention that I have served for the last three years as parish treasurer. I’ve never been as much as a penny off on any of my reports. I’ve been active in the Jaycees and the local Habitat for Humanity affiliate, holding the treasurer post in both organizations with no complaints from the auditors, the organizations, or the IRS. Did your report happen to mention any of these things or the fact that I also carry a two million dollar surety bond as well as Errors and Omissions insurance for the small income tax preparation service that I’ve run each tax season?”

  “No,” Jase admitted. “It didn’t cover those things.”

  “I didn’t think so. Jumping to conclusions is easy, but recovering can be terribly painful. The insurance companies are choosy about whom they stand surety, and equally ‘choosy’ about E and O coverage underwriting. I would have never been issued either the bond or the policy, especially not at the minimum premium for which they issued them, if there had been any real hint of criminality or even dishonesty in my personal background.”

  “I admit that I am uneasy with your introduction into the family. I would be stupid or crazy not to be.”

  “And neither of those words are normally attributed to you.”

  “No. They’re not. I have to wonder why you can assess me correctly, but you had such a hard time seeing through Edward Hastings?”

  She rose from the table. “Excuse me.”

  “There’s no excuse for you.”

  Mary Kate walked from the breakfast room, her head held high, her carriage erect. The last thing she could afford was to let this man know just how badly he’d hurt her.

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  Chapter Three<
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  Coming down the black marble stairs before dinner, Mary Kate paused when she heard slightly raised voices. She had meant to be down thirty-five minutes earlier. She had finally gotten a nap after her confrontation with Jase. But her dreams had been dark and confused. Then she had overslept, awaking only about twenty minutes ago. She’d rushed to dress and fix her hair and makeup. A glance in the mirror told her that she had nothing to be concerned about, at least where her appearance was concerned. Her punctuality was another matter, however. But that couldn’t be helped.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Harry. You don’t even know that she is your daughter. All you know is that she is the daughter of Nancy O’Brien,” Jase’s voice bit out the frustration evident. “That alone should be warning enough not to trust her. Billie should have never let her in.”

  “Jase!” an older male voice corrected in a sharp voice. “I love you as though you were my own son. I know you’re concerned about this whole situation, but I won’t have you using that tone with me in my own house. Billie was following my direct orders. Furthermore, young man, who I invite to stay under my roof is my business. Not yours. Is that quite clear?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s clear, sir,” Jase replied, his tone equally sharp. “But you’re making a huge mistake.”

  “You’ve been quite clear in expressing that belief,” older man replied with something that Mary Kate registered as amusement. “If it is a mistake, it certainly won’t be the first one I’ve ever made. I also doubt it will be the last.”

  “And if this woman is your daughter?” an unknown younger woman’s voice demanded.

  “Missy, if Mary Kate is my daughter then I’ll claim her happily,” the voice Mary Kate identified as her father’s said. “Get used to that, Sweetheart. But my including Mary Kate in my will won’t diminish the love I feel for you, or for little Jamie. I have enough love for all of you. And face it, none of you would ever miss my money. So stop being so greedy. There will certainly be enough left when I’m gone for all of you.”

  “Harry!” the younger woman said in exasperation. “You know that wasn’t what I meant! Jase and I just don’t want to see you hurt. Money isn’t either of our concerns.”