"Sometimes I don't understand you, Blake. You open up enough
to let me know the business is in a slump, that you think we
really can find the Santa Magdalena diamond and use it to
pull us out of the fire. But you bite off my head for asking
how things are going."
Tanya Kimbrough froze.
It was nearly eleven o'clock on Friday night and she had no
business doing what she was doing in the library of the
Dallas mansion of the family her mother worked for. But her
mother had gone to bed and Tanya had known the McCords were
all at a charity symphony that should have kept them out
much later than this. And she'd gotten nosy.
But now here she was, overhearing the raised voice of Tate
McCord as he and his older brother came into the formal
living room that was just beyond the library. The library
where she'd turned on the overhead lights because she'd
thought she would be in and out long before any of the
McCords got home…
Make a run for it the way you came in, she advised
herself.
She certainly couldn't turn off the library lights without
drawing attention since the doors to the living room were
ajar. But maybe Tate and Blake McCord would only think
someone had forgotten to turn them off before they'd left
the house tonight. And if she went out the way she'd come
in, no one would guess that she'd used her mother's keys to
let herself in through the French doors that opened to the
rear grounds of the sprawling estate. If she just left right
now…
But then Blake McCord answered his brother and she stayed
where she was. What she was listening to suited her purposes
so much better than what she'd already found on the library
desk.
"Finding the Santa Magdalena and buying up canary diamonds
for a related jewelry line are in the works," Blake was
saying. "And we've launched the initial Once In A Lifetime
promotional campaign in the stores to pamper customers and
bring in more business. That's all you have to know since
you—and everyone else—are on a need-to-know-only
basis. Your time and interest might be better spent paying
some attention to your fiancΓ©e, wouldn't you say?"
"What I'd say is that
that isn't any of your
business," Tate answered in a tone that surprised Tanya.
The sharp edge coming from Tate didn't sound anything like
him. The brothers generally got along well, and Tate had
always been the easygoing brother. Tanya's mother had said
that Tate had changed since spending a year working in the
Middle East and suddenly Tanya didn't doubt it.
"It may not be my business, but I'm telling you anyway
because someone has to," Blake persisted. "You take Katie
for granted, you neglect her, you don't pay her nearly
enough attention. You may think you have her all sewed up
with that engagement ring on her finger, but if you don't
start giving her some indication that you know she's alive,
she could end up throwing it in your face. And nobody would
blame her if she did."
Katie was Katerina Whitcomb-Salgar, the daughter of the
McCord family's longtime friends and the woman everyone had
always assumed would end up as Mrs. Tate McCord long before
their formal engagement was announced.
"You're going to lose Katie," Blake shouted, some heat in
his voice now. "And if you do, it'll serve you right."
"Or it might be for the best," Tate countered, enough under
his breath that Tanya barely made out what he'd said. Then
more loudly again, he added, "Just keep your eye on finding
that diamond and getting McCord's Jewelers and the family
coffers healthy again. Since you want to carry all the
weight for that yourself, you shouldn't have a lot of spare
time to worry about my love life, too. But if I want your
advice, I'll be sure to ask for it."
"You need someone's advice or you're going to blow the best
thing that ever happened to you."
"Thanks for the heads-up," Tate said facetiously.
And then there were footsteps.
But only some of them moved away from the library.
The others were coming closer…
Too late to run.
Tanya ducked for cover, hoping that since she was behind the
desk whoever was headed her way wouldn't be able to see her
when he reached in and turned off the lights.
"Tate hasn't even been staying in the house since he got
back. He's living in the guest cottage…"
Tanya's mother's words flashed through her mind just then
and it struck her that merely having the lights turned off
might not be what was about to happen. That Tate might use
the library route to go to the guesthouse that was also out
back.…
Tanya's heart had begun to race the minute she'd heard the
McCords' voices. Now it was pounding. Because while she
might have been able to explain her presence in the library
at this time of night, how would she ever explain crouching
behind the desk?
Or holding the papers she'd been looking through—
because until that minute she hadn't even realized she'd
taken them with her when she'd ducked.
Please don't come in here.…
"What the hell?"
Oh, no…
Tanya had tried to turn herself into a small ball but when
Tate McCord's voice boomed from nearby, she raised her head
to find him leaning over the front of the desk, clearly able
to see her.
This was much, much worse than when she was six and had been
caught with her fingers in the icing of his twin sisters'
birthday cake. His mother Eleanor had been kind and
understanding. But there was nothing kind or understanding
in Tate McCord's face at that moment.
Summoning what little dignity she could—and with the
papers still in hand—Tanya stood.
It was the first time she and Tate McCord had set eyes on
each other in the seven years since Tanya had left for
college. And even before that—when Tate had come home
from his own university and medical school training for
vacations or visits while Tanya still lived on the property
with her mother—there weren't many occasions when the
McCord heir had crossed paths with the housekeeper's
daughter. Plus, Tanya had been very well aware of the fact
that, more often than not, when any of the McCords had seen
her, they'd looked through her rather than at her.
So she wasn't sure Tate McCord recognized her and, as if it
would make this better, she said, "You probably don't
remember me—"
"You're JoBeth's daughter—Tanya," he said bluntly.
"What the hell are you doing in here at this hour and—"
He glanced down at the papers and held out his hand in a
silent demand for her to give them to him.
She did and he looked over what—before she'd been
interrupted—she'd discovered to be some sort of
mock-ups for ads for a suggested line of jewelry using
canary diamonds set in old Spanish designs.
Tanya had taken the papers from a file that was still open
on the desk in front of her. After Tate McCord's initial
look at them, he pulled the entire file toward him to see
what else she might have gotten into.
While he sifted through what she already knew were similar
pages, Tanya was wishing she wasn't dressed in a shabby,
oversize, cut-up old sweatshirt and a pair of drawstring
black pajama pants with cartoon robots printed on them. She
also wished she wasn't completely makeupless and that her
shoulder-length espresso-colored hair wasn't pulled up into
a lopsided ponytail at the top of her head. Looking as if
she were ready for bed made her feel all the more at a
disadvantage. When she realized that the wide neck of the
sweatshirt had fallen from her shoulder, she tugged it back
into place.
It was something Tate McCord saw because just as she did it,
he raised his gaze from the file and eyes that were bluer
than she remembered drifted momentarily in that direction.
Noticing did not, however, change his attitude toward
her—his expression remained stern and angry.
"So, I repeat—JoBeth's-daughter-Tanya, what the hell
are you doing in here, at this hour, going through things
that you have no right to go through?" Tate McCord finished
by tossing the papers he'd taken from Tanya back in the open
file.
"I know this can't look good," she said.
But he definitely did look good! Better even than she
remembered him.
Unlike her in-for-the-night apparel, he was dressed in a
dark suit that accentuated the fact that he was tall and
lean, with broad shoulders and a more toned, muscular
physique than he'd had in his earlier years. His face had
matured into sharply defined angles that gave him a decisive
chin and high cheekbones. His mouth at that moment was a
stern line beneath a strong, thin nose and his penetrating,
clear blue eyes seemed to have taken a bead on her, which
should have kept her from thinking that she liked his dark
blond hair slightly longish, the way he was wearing it
now.…
But it was the expression that said he was waiting for an
explanation that she knew she really had to address.
"My mother dropped her sweater when she came through here
today after she finished work—" Tanya pointed to the
plain white cardigan that had been her excuse for this
foray. She'd picked it up from the floor where it had fallen
and tossed it across the back of a chair before beginning
her snooping. "Mom likes to wear it when she walks over from
the bungalow in the mornings. She was just going to leave it
and get it tomorrow, but I thought I'd come back for it
tonight so she'd have it."
All true, but feeble at this point. Very feeble.
"And while you were here, you thought you'd take a look
around, at things that you shouldn't look at, and then hide
under the desk so you didn't get caught eavesdropping on
what Blake and I were saying in the other room? Or are you
going to pretend you didn't hear anything?"
There was that facetious tone again. It could be harsh. And
it didn't help that his assumptions of what she'd done were
right.
Maybe offense was the best form of defense.…
"I heard enough to know that there's a whole lot going on.
That all the suspicions about McCord's Jewelers' business
being way down have some foundation. That the rumors that
the McCords came into possession of the Santa Magdalena
diamond when you all got the Foley's land and silver mines
could also be the truth. I heard enough to know that your
family does think the diamond can be found."
"So you heard plenty."
"And I'll admit," she continued, "that when I came for Mom's
sweater and saw the file, I got curious, and since it was
open I looked at those pages—" That was a lie, not only
had she opened the file herself, but she'd come to get the
sweater hoping that there might be something of interest to
her in the library where business was sometimes conducted.
"But now that I know things are popping here, it seems to me
that there's a story in it that I could use."
"You're going to make me sorry I did what your mother asked
and send your rΓ©sumΓ© over to my friend at WDGN, aren't you?"
WDGN was one of the local independent news stations.
"I didn't know which of you got me the interview, but thanks
for it," she said as if that mattered at this point.
"Oh, believe me, you're welcome," he said snidely.
"But here's the thing—" she went on, ignoring his
disapproval "—I've been making my living in the world
of broadcast journalism for a while now and this is how it
works—at least for me because I haven't made any kind
of big splash yet—a new position means I start at the
bottom. The bottom is filling in for other reporters or
doing whatever the seasoned reporters have moved on from or
refuse to do—"
"Was I supposed to see if I could have you hired at the top?"
"That's not what I'm getting at. What I'm getting at is that
between the story of the diamond—whatever it might be
and especially if you do actually find it—and the story
of the McCords' feud with the Foleys, well, let's face it,
if the McCords or the Foleys sneeze it makes the news so
stuff like this could get me an anchor chair." Not to
mention the other tidbit the staff was whispering about that
wasn't public knowledge—that Tate's mother
Eleanor had an affair with Rex Foley and that the youngest
brother, Charlie, was Rex Foley's son.…
If Tate's sky-blue eyes had had a bead on her before, it was
nothing compared to the way they were boring into her now
and it made Tanya's tension level rise another notch.
Especially when she began to wonder if she'd gone too far.
The McCords
were her mother's employers after
all.…
Then Tate McCord said, "Or how about a story where the
housekeeper's daughter gets arrested for breaking and
entering, for trespassing, for who knows what else should
something turn up missing.…"
Tanya took issue with that last part. She might be willing
to do a little nosing around for a story, but she wasn't a
thief!
"Should something turn up missing?" she repeated.
"Go ahead, look around. Take inventory. I haven't so much as
touched anything but my mother's sweater and the papers in
that file. I have done almost nothing wrong!"
"Almost nothing wrong?" Tate took a turn at
parroting in the midst of a wry laugh. "Believe me, with the
McCord connections,
almost can still get you
arrested. And how would your mother like to hear that you're
using the trust we have in her to do something like this?"
"You're threatening to tell my mommy?" Tanya said with some
sarcasm of her own even though the threat to tell JoBeth
carried more weight than the threat to call the police.
Tate didn't respond to her flippancy. He merely glanced down
at the file again, closing it and laying his hand flat on
top of it as if that could seal it away from her.
Then those eyes pinned her in place again and he said, "I'll
tell you what this family
doesn't need right
now—a traitor in our midst."
"I'm hardly that," Tanya countered, chafing under that
comment more than anything he'd said yet.
"So it's loyalty that brought you in here tonight?"
There was that facetiousness again.
"I was just hoping for an inside story. The discovery of
that sunken ship that the Santa Magdalena supposedly came
from has renewed interest in the diamond and I thought—"
"That you'd use your mother's position here as a way to get
the scoop."
Despite pretending not to take seriously his threat to bring
her mother into this before, Tanya was becoming increasingly
worried that she'd done damage to the position that her
mother had held since Tanya was barely two years old. She
definitely didn't want that.
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