Excerpt of His Inherited Wife by Barbara McMahon

Late July

SHANNON MORRIS LET herself into her home slowly. It was no longer home, only a building where she had once had such happiness. It was midafternoon, but the silence hung heavy as midnight.

"Alan?" she called from habit, then stopped, remember- ing. Alan would never answer again. The clutch of pain gripped her heart. Her husband of five years was dead. He'd never hold her, laugh with her, or share quiet eve- nings.

Shannon headed for their bedroom. A shower and fresh change of clothes were in order. She'd put in a full day at the office, working to close it down. It was not a labor of love, but one to be mourned as she mourned her husband's passing.

The bedroom was dimmed, the drapes pulled against the afternoon sun. Antique furnishings and carpets were to be protected. Alan had loved this room. She hesitated in the doorway, looking immediately at the bed almost imagin- ing Alan lying on top of the duvet, waiting for her.

"Alan?" she said softly. Of all the rooms in the house, she felt his presence most in this one. Shrugging out of her clothes, she took a quick shower. Wrapped in a light robe, she went to crawl into bed. She wished she could pull the covers over her head and stay there forever. Taking a deep breath, she could still smell the lingering scent of him. Tears began again. She felt as if she'd cried herself out long ago, but still they came.

Rolling over, she gathered his pillow against her, bury- ing her face in it. It wasn't fair he was gone and the pillow remained — a reminder of the man she'd loved who'd been taken too soon.

The last few months had been a blur. Coming home one day from her volunteer work at the animal shelter, she'd found him in bed with another killer headache. That after- noon she'd learned the truth. The headaches weren't mi- graines, but symptoms of a tumor that was too invasive to eradicate. Her husband was going to die within months.

She'd tried to capture every moment since Alan had told her. But the immediate past was still a blur. She re- membered railing against fate, urging him to consult other doctors, to find a surgeon willing to operate. To do some- thing to stay alive!

He'd been kind, but firm. He'd already tried everything. He'd come to terms with the indictment, Shannon had not. She'd done all she could to stave off the inevitable.

When she'd finally accepted the fact, she'd stopped go- ing to work, determined to spend every moment with him. Alan had not objected. Nor had his partner, Jase.

Closing her eyes, she could see Alan in this bed, trying to overcome the pain, the lines etched in his face from the intensity.

"I want you to promise me if anything happens to me you'll go to Jase. He'll take care of you." Alan had said one afternoon.

Alan had been in his mid-fifties. He should have had decades of life ahead of him. Granted he'd been almost thirty years older than she, and she'd known in her mind that one day he'd probably die before her, but not so soon. He'd known he was dying for eight months. He'd done his best to protect her against the knowledge, until there was no hiding it.

"The prognosis wasn't good from the beginning. No surgery. I could have tried radiation and chemo, but my on- cologist didn't hold out any hope, so I elected not to sub- ject myself and you to the horrors in hopes of gaining a few weeks at most. Quality counts with me, you know that," he'd told her that awful day.

"You can't die," she had repeated, shocked from the revelation.

"Shannon, you need to listen to me. This is important. I've been thinking of your future since I got the prognosis. You know most of our income is from my grandfather's trust. Even the house we live in belongs to the trust. All that ends with my death. And I don't see Dean continuing any allowance for you."

"I don't care about money!" she said hotly. He was talk- ing about money at a time like this? "I care about you. I love you. I can't go on if you're not here." Shannon knew his older brother Dean had never liked her. But that was the least of her concerns at this moment. She couldn't ac- cept that Alan was dying!

"Of course you will. You need to listen to me. I have it figured out. I've done my best to put aside some money for you over the last few months, without alerting Dean by drawing down extraordinary amounts. But it's not enough. Jase and I began that expansion last year, unfortunately just before I got the diagnosis. So much of my personal in- come and assets went to that expansion and are now tied up in the company. I can't ask Jase to buy you out yet. It's a crucial junction for the firm. I know the expansion is go- ing to pay off. You've seen the reports. I need you to prom- ise me you'll let everything stay the way it is for a year. Just a year. That gives Jase time to establish the business we both know is there, to start reaping the benefits. He can buy you out after that if you like. Or you can stay in the firm. You get my shares. You'll be a full partner."

"Oh, Alan," she sobbed. "You did your best. But I need you. I miss you so much." Her tenure in the house was end- ing. Dean had given her two months to vacate, and the deadline was only days away.

Conscious of her promise to Alan, of all the implica- tions, she wished she'd not given it. Alan's partner rubbed her the wrong way. Not initially. When she'd first gone to work at Morris and Pembrooke as a secretary six years ago, she had enjoyed working with both partners. Jase had been only a few years older than she, with tons of terrific ideas, and a determined drive that assured his success.

Alan was the older, more cautious partner, and the one who had handled most of the financing.

It was only after she fell in love with Alan, and then mar- ried him, that her relationship with Jase had subtly changed.

He andAlan's brother, Dean Morris, had been convinced she had married Alan for his money. As if! It didn't matter a bit to her that he had been almost thirty years her senior. She loved him and she knew he loved her.

She'd continued to work after their marriage, progress- ing to office manager. She knew almost as much about the firm as Alan did. He often discussed things with her and even implemented her ideas from time to time. Maybe she should have left and found a job with a different firm. Then he wouldn't have put any restrictions on her, or urged her to depend on Jase.

Shortly after their marriage, Jase had relocated to San Francisco, opening a branch of their security firm on the West Coast. The firm had recently expanded into some of the Pacific Rim countries. Alan had continued with the op- eration in Washington, D.C.

Fortunately for peace in the partnership, she and Jase had rarely seen each other over the last few years. Design- ing and installing state of the art security measures was a growing business as the threat of terrorism grew. Their speciality was training businessmen in how to be watch- ful in foreign settings, to minimize danger when away from home, and protect themselves in daily life.

It wasn't enough she was losing her home. Alan had ex- tracted another promise. "I want your promise you'll work with Jase for a year. Put your efforts into helping him make the company the success I know it can be. Consolidate to reduce expenses. Close the D.C. office. Move to San Fran- cisco. Work with Jase."

She'd argued against it, knowing she'd work better with Jase if there was a continent between them. In the end, she'd given in. She would have done anything to make his last days happy. He was dying! She hadn't wanted to talk about business. Hadn't wanted to think about the partner about whom she had such mixed emotions.

At least she'd talked Alan out of the harebrained notion he'd voiced one time. "One way to protect the assets of the company, and to make sure you two are pulling together as a team would be to marry," Alan had said pensively.

She stared at Alan. "You are crazy. That tumor has af- fected your mind. I'm not going to marry Jase Pembrooke."

"He'll succeed, you know he will. And if you two were married, you wouldn't have to dissolve the partnership later or fragment the business. I don't want Dean making any trouble. I don't want you floundering when I'm gone. I want to know you'll be taken care of. Give me that one promise, Shannon. Please."

It had been the one promise she couldn't make. She cried herself to sleep,Alan's voice echoing around her.

Jase Pembrooke hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair. It was after seven on a Thursday night, but he was still at the office. He got more done when the place was empty and the phones quiet. Still, if the phone rang, he'd answered it as he had a few moments ago.

Robert Wiley had called to report in on Shannon. Robert was an operative in the D.C. office. Jase had asked him to keep an eye on Shannon while she worked through closing the office and the home she and Alan had shared. He'd called to report the last of the details had been seen to. As of Monday, the office would be vacant, a sublessee already lined up.

Jase rose and strode to the window to gaze out, not see- ing the outline of the Bay Bridge spanning the San Francisco Bay, nor the high rise office buildings of the fi- nancial district. Instead he saw his friend the last time they'd been together in March. Alan had exacted Jase's promise to take care of Shannon. Sick with worry and re- grets, Jase had agreed. Now the reality of that promise was coming home to roost.

Shannon. She'd be moving to San Francisco soon. He'd see her every day. Would she fit in, or constantly be a thorn in his side?

Alan's idea sucked. If Jase hadn't known Alan was ill, that stupid scheme would have convinced him. Take care of Shannon, give her a role in keeping the business intact? Treat her like a full partner? Not likely. He'd find a way to buy her out. He wasn't going to get tangled up with her. If Alan wasn't going to be involved, he wanted the running of the business all to himself. Alan had been the more cau- tious partner, really delving into things before agreeing to major decisions. Did he really expect Shannon to assume his role? She was only twenty-eight; she didn't begin to have the business experience Alan had brought to the firm.

When their young secretary had married the boss five years ago, Jase had been convinced she'd done so to latch onto the Morris millions. After five years of marriage, however, Jase wasn't so sure. Shannon worked hard at the D.C. office. As far as he knew she'd always been faithful to Alan, and seemed to hold her much older husband in high regard. She hadn't blown money on expensive clothes or jewels or trips to Europe. Maybe he'd misjudged her five years ago.

Still, a twenty-eight-year-old woman with a fifty-five- year-old man wasn't a likely match made in heaven.

She was probably wishing now that she could have found a way to get some of the family trust money before Alan was gone. Dean would see to it she didn't get a cent. Alan had complained often about how Dean disliked Shannon. Jase knew Alan's brother had already given her notice to vacate the family home, although it had been ex- pected. One of Alan's regrets at the end was that he hadn't provided better for Shannon and he was depending on Jase to do so.

Jase didn't have a problem keeping an eye out for her. He just didn't want her involved with Morris and Pembrooke.

Though he'd promised his friend he'd see to that exact thing. He'd promised, but could he deliver? Especially with Alan's idea of keeping her on as a partner until the company was doing well enough for Jase to buy out her half without jeopardizing what they'd built?

"There are ways to safeguard your wife's interests with- out keeping her with the firm," Jase muttered.

Jase had put all he had, and all he could borrow, into ex- panding the company. The early returns showed great po- tential. Facing facts realistically, he knew they couldn't absorb the expenses Alan's trust normally took care of. Which meant no money to provide a place for Shannon to live. No second office in D.C. No way for her to stay with the company unless she moved to California.

He didn't want Shannon within three thousand miles of him.

And not only because of his discomfort every time he thought about her marrying his partner, but because of the pure sexual attraction he'd felt when she was around. Jase had done his best to ignore it. Avoid her whenever he could. He and Alan were partners, not he and Shannon.

Alan had asked the impossible. And Jase had promised to deliver.