Dad for Charlie & the Sergeant's Temptation & the Alaskan Catch & New Year's Wedding (9781488015687)

by Stewart, Anna J. ; Sasson, Sophia; Carpenter, Beth; Jensen, Muriel

  She’d met some wonderful men while modeling, but none she’d considered interesting enough, or desirable enough, for closer contact. Some had wanted her body, her money, or to share her spotlight. Fortunately she’d been clever enough to see through them.

  There was nothing false about Grady, but it seemed hard for him to believe the same was true about her.

  She turned onto the road that led to Grady’s home, feeling grim. It wasn’t like her to inhabit a bad mood for any length of time, but it had been an unusual week. She had to cut herself some slack.

  She waved at the FedEx deliveryman who had just left Grady’s driveway. She wondered what had arrived and found she didn’t really care. Her mood was darkening further.

  That was probably why the sight of the young man in the long raincoat who’d been watching her two days ago made suppressed anger rise out of her like shrapnel out of a detonated bomb. She screeched the truck to a stop as she spotted him looking out from behind a tree. He had the grace to look embarrassed as he took her photo.

  She ran out of the truck and straight for him. He didn’t seem to know what to do. He held the camera in front of him, apparently thinking it would give him some protection. But all the years of having to be polite to the paparazzi so they wouldn’t take an ugly photo of her, or having to tolerate their pesky presence so they wouldn’t report she was a harridan, came to the fore. Well, that was no longer a concern. The whole world thought she was a dragon. What did it matter now?

  He watched her come at him, his mouth in a startled O as he clutched the camera to his chest. She yanked it from him and threw it to the ground. “You’ll get out of here if you know what’s good for you!” she shouted, backing him up against the tree he’d hidden behind.

  He was slightly shorter than she was and clearly so astonished that he didn’t fight back. “I’m here for my sister’s wedding and if I see you there…” She smacked both hands on his shoulders to convince him that she spoke the truth. “I will personally beat you with your own camera!”

  “But I…” he tried to say, sidling away from the tree. She didn’t listen. She shoved him backward again. Surprised, he tripped and rolled down the slope until a fallen tree stopped him. She slid down sideways and tried to stop before she hit him, but had too much momentum. She fell on top of him and they screamed together.

  “I want you gone!” she yelled at him, sitting up and ripping leaves from her hair and shoulders. She grabbed the lapels of his coat and shook him. “Nothing and no one is going to spoil this for my sister and my family! No one!” She scrambled to her knees and tried to yank him up, too, but he was too heavy.

  “Miss Chapman!” he said, his voice a little shrill and desperate. “I—”

  “I don’t want to hear it, you camera monkey!” She tried to pull him up again, and he pushed himself against the log with one hand while trying to dislodge her hand on his coat with the other.

  * * *

  GRADY WAS PAYING for two coffees at the cart near the edge of town when he heard Ben shout his name. He turned and saw Ben’s furious beckoning. Great. His mocha was going to get cold again. What was it this time? He wasn’t going into the blackberry bushes again. It cost him thirty dollars to get his uniform cleaned and free of stickers. And he was truly sick and tired of dealing with petty disputes. Why couldn’t people just learn to get along, already? Because it was a challenging world and if you didn’t take a fighting stance, the other guy would hit you first.

  Cassie would hate that philosophy, but he knew it to be true. He slapped lids on the cups and ran back to the car, hot coffee bouncing through the drinking holes and burning his hand.

  “What?” he demanded of Ben. “Traffic accident? Domestic?”

  “Um…seems to be an assault.” Ben got back in the car, secured his belt and started it up. Grady placed their coffees in the console’s holder and buckled up.

  “On the docks?”

  “No.”

  Grady turned to look at Ben. He was being deliberately evasive as he backed out of the parking spot and started up Black Bear Ridge Road.

  “Where?” he asked. There wasn’t much up this road. He knew that because he lived at the end of it. “The crew building the assisted-living facility?”

  “No.” Ben shot him a glance. “Dispatch gave me your address.”

  “What? No one’s home. Cassie had errands to run and her dad’s driving around with my mom.”

  “Well, it sounds as though Cassie’s now home and beating the crap out of some photographer. A FedEx truck driver called it in.”

  “Oh, God.”

  On one level he couldn’t imagine that. On another he knew her to be full of surprises.

  Ben screeched to a halt just before Grady’s house. The FedEx truck had pulled off the road and the driver was pointing down the slope to the creek.

  Grady jumped out of the car and saw that Cassie was indeed slapping someone around near the bottom of the slope. Right off the road beside him, he saw a camera lying in several pieces atop a fern.

  He crab-walked down the slope, Ben right behind him. Cassie seemed to be trying to pull the man to his feet but she didn’t quite have the muscle, and the man was scrabbling in the mud, trying to fight her off. Both of them were filthy.

  Grady reached for Cassie’s arm and was rewarded with a backhand to his shin and then, as he leaned over, an elbow to his throat.

  “Cassidy!” he shouted.

  The action stopped as though a video had frozen. She looked up at him in complete shock, mud smeared across her face and in her hair. “What are you doing home?” she demanded.

  “We got a call that you were assaulting someone,” he said, caught between dark amusement and disbelief.

  “I am!” she said, pulling herself together. She gave the man lying in shock on the ground a fist to his ribs.

  He groaned and curled into a fetal position. “Miss Chapman, please listen!”

  “That’s enough, Cassie.” Grady put both hands under her arms and lifted her to her feet while Ben lent the other man a hand up. Grady had to put himself between them to prevent Cassie from landing another blow.

  “The paparazzi are not going to ruin Corie’s wedding!” she shouted, reaching around Grady to stab an accusatory finger in the photographer’s direction. “He’s out of here if I have to put him in his car myself!”

  The man in question was caked in mud from head to toe and all over his elegant coat. There was a scratch on his face and his hands were bloody, as though he’d landed a punch.

  “Did you hit her?” Grady demanded of the man, turning to Cassie to look her over. She was muddy, but didn’t look injured.

  The man appeared exhausted. “No, I didn’t. She stepped on my hand.”

  “Where’s your car?” Ben asked.

  “I don’t have one,” the man replied, trying to brush off his coat but succeeding only in getting his hands even muddier. “We came in a cab.”

  “You and the other paparazzi?”

  Sighing heavily, the man shifted his weight and replanted his stance. “I’m not a photographer. I’m a lawyer. A law student, actually. Oliver Browning.”

  “He’s lying!” Cassie accused. “He has a camera.”

  “It’s Mrs. Manning’s camera.”

  The Manning name stopped all of them. Cassie’s eyebrows drew together. She and her siblings had all once been Mannings, but none of them used that name now. Jack was a Palmer, Corie’s last name was Ochoa and about to change to Palmer, and Cassie’s last name was Chapman. “What do you mean? Who is Mrs. Manning?”

  He shrugged inside his coat as though trying to realign his battered body. “Eleanor Manning, my client,” he said. “Your grandmother.”

  * * *

  “I…DON’T HAVE a grandmother,” Cassie said weakly.
<
br />   Oliver nodded, studying her with caution. “Yes, you do. She and your grandfather lost track of your mother when you were little. She only just found you when she saw you in the news. But I should let her tell you about it. I left her by the house. She wanted photos of your meeting her for the first time, and I heard you coming. I figured it had to be you since you’re the last house on the road. So I got behind the tree to get a candid shot.” He put the back of his hand to the scratches on his face and just held it there. “Not such a great idea as it turned out.”

  They all stood in silence then Grady said, “Are you going to press charges against Cassie for assault?”

  “What? No,” Oliver replied. He glanced at Cassie then looked away. “Of course not. I think I understand her reaction.”

  “Good. That’s generous of you, Mr. Browning.” Grady pushed Cassie gently toward the slope. “Then let’s get you to the house so you can meet your grandmother. Maybe get cleaned up a little bit. Maybe a lot.”

  Cassie let Grady help her up the slope because she seemed to have zero propulsion abilities on her own.

  I have a grandmother, she thought in disbelief. I thought there was no one else but Jack and Corie and me.

  When they reached the flat driveway, Cassie stopped, frightened anew. Now there was someone else who’d waited a lifetime to meet her, and what was she going to think of the granddaughter who’d beaten up her attorney?

  “Relax,” Grady said gently, reading her mind. “She’s going to love you.”

  “I assaulted her lawyer.”

  “He’s not pressing charges, and she probably didn’t see all that from up here, anyway. She’ll be proud of you that you…” He hesitated and she knew he was trying to put a positive spin on it. “That you can take such good care of yourself. Come on.”

  By the time they reached the middle of the driveway, Cassie could see a tall, slender woman in a red raincoat, knee-high boots with tack detail and a sou’wester hat. Snow-white hair was visible below the hat.

  The woman took several steps out from under the cover of the overhang and smiled tentatively at Cassie. Cassie wanted to smile back but her bottom lip quivered and her face scrunched up. This was the woman once removed from the mother she couldn’t remember. She was a connection to the past.

  The woman opened her arms and came toward her. Cassie ran into them. Eleanor Manning didn’t seem to mind the mud.

  * * *

  GRADY UNLOCKED HIS door and ushered both women and Oliver inside while Ben called in to the station. Cassie turned to him, her expression still startled. “Will you call Corie and Jack, and ask them to come over?”

  Ben made two more calls.

  When he was finished, Cassie introduced him and Grady to Eleanor Manning.

  The woman hugged Ben. “You’re Jack’s adopted brother,” she said. “I’m so happy to meet you. Is this another brother?” She extended a hand to Grady.

  “Only in spirit,” Ben explained with an expression of fondness they seldom betrayed to one another. “He’s my partner on the Beggar’s Bay police force.”

  She looked from one to the other, seeming a little perplexed. “So there’s something between you, Grady, and my granddaughter?”

  “Tenancy,” Grady said. Well, it was a half-truth. “I helped her leave Texas when the paparazzi found her, and since Corie was about to be married here, it made sense that she stay with me.” He pointed to the loft. “That’s her space.”

  “I see.” She looked upward. “Oh, that bunting is beautiful.”

  Ben took her hand. “It was so nice to meet you. Grady and I have to get back to work, but your other grandchildren are on their way. We’ll probably see you tonight.”

  “I’ll look forward to that.”

  “Are you going to be okay till your brother and sister get here?” Grady asked Cassie.

  “I think I’ll be fine. I may have to open the bottle of Gewürztraminer, though. And, oh, I forgot! I’ve got a truck full of groceries.”

  “Ben and I’ll get them in. I’ll check with you in a little while and see what you want to do about dinner.”

  She put her arms around his neck and held on for a minute. He was big and solid, and her head and her world were spinning. Then she remembered he probably wasn’t comfortable with the hug. She drew back. “Sorry,” she whispered.

  “Did I complain? You’re sure you’re going to be okay?”

  “I am. They’ll be here soon. Go back to work.”

  Cassie directed Oliver to Grady’s bathroom, sat her grandmother—her grandmother!—on the sofa and brought her a glass of wine. Then she hurried upstairs to clean herself up. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and was horrified. She was a physical mess, and she thought that the mess she was inside showed through, too.

  She showered, washed her hair and then wound the partially dried mass into a knot. She changed into her jeans and yellow sweater. By the time she came down, Jack and Corie were arriving in Jack’s truck.

  Both looked astonished and nervous as Cassie made introductions. Eleanor cried a little more, Jack and Corie moving to sit on either side of her on the couch. Even Oliver, in Grady’s police department sweats, looked emotional.

  “I’ve wanted to find you for so long,” Eleanor said, composing herself. “But I had no information. And even just twenty years ago you couldn’t find everything online like you can today.”

  “How did you find us?” Jack asked.

  Eleanor smiled sympathetically at Cassie. “It was the news story about you,” she said, reaching across the angle that separated the chair from the sofa and patting her knee. “Oh, don’t look horrified. I know what happened. I talked to your friend Fabiana.”

  “You did?”

  “I called, trying to reach you, and she explained what had really happened that night in Ireland, and how you’d heard from your siblings and gone to Texas to meet them. So, I called Texas and spoke with Teresa. She told me you’d all come here. She had your email address but not your physical address, so I told her not to tell you I was coming.” She looked suddenly reticent. “You know. On the chance you wouldn’t want to see me.”

  “What?” all three asked simultaneously. Then Jack added, “Why?”

  “Because I’m the mother of the woman who was such a bad mother to you.” The words were spoken with a rasp in her voice, tears held at bay.

  “She wasn’t all bad,” Jack said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “There was a brief period of time when she was clean and sober, when she was nice to be around. And then…” He hesitated. Cassie knew the words were still hard for him to say. Corie reached across their grandmother to touch his hand. “You bear no guilt in that, Jack,” she said firmly.

  Eleanor covered their hands with hers. “I know she went to jail for you. When I was trying to find her, I came upon the prison record and there was an addendum attached that explained what happened, assuring the court of your innocence.”

  Jack accepted that with a nod. “Right. I have to make that adjustment every day. I just so wish it could have been different.”

  Eleanor leaned a shoulder into his. “I know, but that would require that she had been different, and she wasn’t.” She looked from one grandchild to another. “I can tell you about when she was a girl, if you want to hear it. Some of it good, some of it…not.”

  The siblings looked at one another, consent passing among them. “Please,” Jack said.

  Eleanor smiled at him. “I also have to make that adjustment you make every day, because she was such a beautiful child, fun, talented, happy.” Eleanor seemed forlorn then brought herself back to the moment, apparently making today’s adjustment.

  “In high school, it was the old story. Everyone experimented with drugs and she admitted to trying them. The real trouble didn’t start until she wa
s invited to be a backup singer for a minor rock star who came to town to judge a high school talent show. She was so thrilled, and we were happy for her, not knowing that drugs were a way of life for him and a lot of his band. She left to tour with them, called us a couple of times a week, then just once a week, then finally not at all. We literally lost her in a matter of months.

  “We located her once in the depths of her addiction. Her father was furious with her, but I went to her. She refused to see me. I tried over and over, and I don’t know if she was embarrassed by who she’d become or if she truly didn’t care about us anymore.”

  Grief was visible in her eyes. “Her father gave up, but I tried to keep track of her. It wasn’t easy. The singer she’d connected with died in a car accident, the group disbanded and she left the business for a while. I just couldn’t find her. And I had to look on the sly because your grandfather was just so hurt and angry. He passed away last year.” She turned to extend a hand to Oliver, who stood to the side with a cup of coffee while they talked.

  “Oliver is the son of a good friend of mine.” He came to take her hand. Cassie moved aside to make room for him. “He was studying law and had to take a year off to earn his tuition, and worked for a skip tracer. I hired him to find Charlene. That’s when I learned that she…died in jail.”

  She shook her head as though still in disbelief. Then she brightened suddenly. “We learned that she connected with men who could keep her in drugs, except for Donald, who was a drug counselor. And while that’s awful, I also learned that I had grandchildren. We found the names of the men she’d been with, and the names of her children, but each search for one or the other of you led to a dead end.

  “Jack’s name changed when he was adopted, and we didn’t know that because the adoption was closed. Corie went to live with her father, but when we tried to track him down, we learned he had died and his widow had no idea where you were and, what was worse, didn’t seem to care.”

  She shook her head again, her expression darkening. “I couldn’t believe that could happen. Then Oliver found that Cassie was fathered by Charlene’s drug counselor.” She shrugged at the obvious professional betrayal in that.