by Sheryl Lynn
Frankie threw up her hands, backing away from her aunt. “I never went to Europe. I can barely afford the gas to get up here.” Unable to take her eyes off her sister, she shoved her fists in her pockets.
“What diff does it make, now?” Julius said. “We’re sister and brother. Isn’t that peachy? Welcome to the family, Frankie darling.” Full of false cheer, each note rasped across Frankie’s nerves like sandpaper. Julius’s Adam’s apple bobbed in a convulsive swallow. “Aren’t you happy for us? Now that you’re here, we can all celebrate in proper good form, what hey?”
Penny snuggled closer to her new husband. Her face had lost what little color it possessed, but her eyes glinted with pure rebellion. “Go away, Frankie. I’m married and there’s nothing you can do about it. Stop trying to ruin my life.”
The words struck with the force of a punch. Frankie opened her mouth, but air refused to move past her throat. For the past eleven years she’d sacrificed everything for Penny. Loved her, mothered her and nurtured her. Now Penny accused her of trying to ruin her?
The Colonel reached for Frankie’s arm. She twisted out of his reach. Disgusted and heartsick, she trudged toward the parking lot. She heard Penny say, “Let her go, Aunt Elise! I don’t want her wrecking my wedding day.” The words stung like an arrow piercing her back.
“Frankie!”
At the sound of her cousin’s voice, she stopped and turned. “How could you do this to me, Ross? How could all of you do it?”
Ross Duke placed a hand on her shoulder. His brow and mouth twisted with confusion. She hadn’t seen him since his sister’s wedding last summer. He was the hell-raiser of the Duke clan—or had been up until the day he’d married Dawn. He’d always been her favorite cousin, but at the moment she wanted to punch out his lights.
“What’s going on? Penny said you were in Europe and couldn’t get back in time.” He huffed, exhaling a long, white cloud. “You’re opposed to the wedding, I take it.”
“I can’t believe that little brat sneaked around behind my back like this.” In frustration, she shoved at his shoulder. “I can’t believe your mom and dad went along with it! She’s only nineteen.”
He shrugged, showing his palms. “She’s an adult. Besides, Julius seems okay. He’s kind of a wimp, but he’s harmless enough.”
Frankie wanted to howl. “You, of all people, should be able to see right through him.” She held up a hand and ticked off a finger. “One, he’s forty-three years old. He’s old enough to be her father.” She ticked off a second finger. “Two, he’s been married three, five, maybe six times already. Not one of those marriages lasted more than a year.” She shoved at his shoulder again. “He’s a stinking drunk and probably does drugs, and God only knows what kind of diseases he’s picked up from all the women he runs around with.”
Frankie clamped her mouth shut before she spilled the part about how Max had dumped her so he could marry Julius’s mother. The only redeeming factor of the entire affair was that she hadn’t told the Dukes about her engagement to Max. She was in no mood now to rehash the nasty details.
Ross raised an eyebrow. “Oh.”
“Didn’t it give you a clue when Penny said I couldn’t make the wedding? God, Ross, I’ve devoted my whole life to her. I’m working my butt off to keep her in college. If I thought for one second she was making a good marriage, a herd of polar bears couldn’t keep me away.”
“Oh.” He looked as guilt-stricken as a puppy caught chewing shoes.
She idly kicked clots of snow. “She told me, she promised me she wouldn’t see him anymore. But she dropped out of college and didn’t even tell me. She’s been living with him.”
“I—we didn’t know. I only learned about the wedding last week.”
She glanced at the limo, which still idled on the other side of the parking lot. “She’s been planning this a lot longer than a week.”
“What can I say?”
Unable to bear looking at him one more second, she hurried to her car. Once inside, with the door locked, she rested her face against the steering wheel.
“Damn you, Penny,” she muttered. Their mother had wrested a deathbed promise from her eldest child: take care of Penny. She’d prevailed against the social-services bureaucrats who had stated that since she was only nineteen years old she couldn’t handle the guardianship of an eight-year-old. She’d gone to war and won, when her father’s ne’er-do-well relatives had learned Virginia Forrest had left a sizable insurance policy for the care and education of her daughters. She’d given up her dreams of attending medical school. She’d given up the university and a social life in order to mother Penny full-time.
She drew in several long, soothing breaths then fished her car keys from her pocket. She’d given it her best shot, tried to save Penny from making a horrible mistake, and in gratitude received a kick in the teeth. She fumbled with the keys, but her fingers were stiff from the cold. She dropped the keys on her lap and slammed the heels of both hands against the steering wheel.
Leave, she told herself. Drive away, forget this mess and wait a few weeks until Penny came crawling in search of forgiveness. She kept envisioning that look on Penny’s face, kept hearing the accusation that Frankie tried to ruin her life. She rested her face against the wheel again.
Irony tweaked her. Because of Penny, she’d gone to work for Max Caulfield. He owned the largest private security firm in the state of Colorado. He’d offered health insurance and flexible hours—benefits her age, experience and schooling hadn’t warranted. She’d started work as a researcher and gofer, which meant she could do some of her work at home so she could be there when Penny got out of school. Max had taken her under his wing, praising her intelligence and affinity for details. When graphology became popular as a useful tool in hiring employees, he’d paid for Frankie’s education in the field. To her delight she discovered that handwriting analysis was something she was good at. She’d made a lot of money for Max by helping his clients weed out dishonest employees.
In her wildest dreams Frankie had never thought she’d fall for her boss—or that he’d fall for her. Her worst nightmares had failed to prepare her for the Bannermans. Belinda and Julius, mother and son, two of the most greedy, self-serving people on earth. Max had fallen in love with Belinda’s vast wealth. Julius had taken one look at Penny and put her on his list of amusing little conquests.
Her life had been in the toilet ever since.
She opened one eye and peered at the dashboard clock. If she hurried, she’d make it to work on time.
Soft tapping on the window startled her. She jerked up her head. McKennon had removed the sunglasses.
She rolled down the window. He had unusual eyes, like emeralds shot with gold—bright and piercing against his dark face. Frankie couldn’t recall ever seeing him look so concerned. Her throat choked up.
“My apologies, Miss Forrest. It wasn’t my intention to get rough with you. But I had my orders.”
“Stick your orders where the sun doesn’t shine. I don’t need your apology.” She sniffed and groped through the mess on the front seat for a tissue. “Or your pity.”
A hank of thick hair had fallen over his forehead, softening somewhat the hard angles of his face. His sympathy embarrassed her. She’d never been particularly nice to him. When they worked together she’d been a tad jealous of his close relationship to Max. Even more, she hadn’t liked the effect he had on her. Any man who, through simple actions such as holding a door or offering a cup of coffee, could make her insides turn mushy had to have something seriously wrong with him. She hated the way he invaded her more sensuous dreams. She was a one-man woman and wasn’t about to let a hulking mercenary turn her head. Sarcasm and thinly veiled insults had always kept him at bay before.
At the moment all she could do was miserably return his gaze and wish somebody, even McKennon, would hold her and assure her that everything would be all right.
“Want to talk?” he asked.
His co
mpassion annoyed her. He had no right to feel sorry for her. He certainly had no right trying to make her feel better.
“Julius is your brother-in-law now. If you’re going to have a relationship with Penny you need to be polite to him.”
She fumbled the key into the ignition. “Thank you very much for the advice, McKennon. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go home.”
He laid a gloved hand on her parka sleeve. “You’ll lose her.”
Damn him to hell and back for being right. Penny was as prideful as Frankie. “She could have at least finished college.”
“She has to make her own mistakes.”
In the rearview mirror she glimpsed approaching figures. Her cousins walked in a knot, all of them looking at Frankie’s car. She loved her cousins, but at the moment she wished a spaceship would swoop down and abduct the lot of them. She shoved McKennon’s hand away and exited the car. She searched the path for any sign of Penny.
Janine Duke took command, as usual. She gave Frankie a perfunctory hug, then stepped back. Garbed in a dark blue silk suit with cartouche trim, Janine looked like a fashion photographer’s dream. All her cousins looked great, Kara and Ross, Dawn, too, all were dressed like movie stars. Frankie was not merely an interloper, she was an oversized, lunkish mess wearing ragged jeans and the Frankenstein coat. She must look as wild as she felt.
She glanced surreptitiously at McKennon. He’d put back on the sunglasses and his strong-as-steel facade. She guessed he was thinking Frankie was the family nut. The family loser.
“Penny won’t leave the chapel as long as you’re here,” Janine said.
“Why am I not surprised?” She turned back to the car. “I have to go to work, anyway.”
Ross slid an arm around his wife’s waist. He and Dawn exchanged knowing glances. “If you leave now, you and Penny will have a harder time patching things up. Come to the lodge. We’ll get Penny calmed down. You two can talk.”
She needed to leave. She wanted to leave so she could hide and lick her wounds in peace. She thought about how she needed to go to work, and her cat was probably starving by now, so he’d be looking for a few books to shred in order to vent his frustration. She had a video to return. Like McKennon said, Penny needed to make her own mistakes. “None of you understands what’s going on here.”
“Try us, Frankie.” Kara, the youngest of the siblings, stepped to the fore. She took Frankie’s cold hand and rubbed it briskly between hers. “Why is Penny so angry with you?”
Startled, Frankie caught her breath. Angry? Penny had no reason in the world to be angry with anyone, much less with Frankie. Yet...she’d seen the look in Penny’s eyes as she stood on the chapel stoop. There had been a strange hardness in the girl’s expression, a glint of something deep and dark and hurtful.
“She has no reason to be angry,” Frankie said hotly. “She knows I’d do anything for her.”
Kara shrugged. “Okay, maybe she isn’t angry. Maybe she’s just embarrassed. You know, about—”
“She should be embarrassed. Julius is old enough to be her father.” Frankie didn’t like the way her cousins shared knowing glances. “What? You all know something. What is it?”
Silence hung heavily over the parking lot. The idling engine of the limousine began to sound very loud, like a rumble of distant thunder, and the stench of exhaust clashed with the clear mountain air. Frankie searched their faces one by one. Ross averted his gaze. Dawn stared at the toes of her pumps. Janine twirled a strand of her lustrous hair around her fingers. Kara clamped her arms over her bosom and shivered. McKennon appeared to meditate upon the distant mountains.
“Sheesh,” Kara said. “Penny didn’t—”
“Shut up,” Janine interrupted. “Penny will tell her.”
“She should have told her already.” Kara reached again for Frankie’s hands. “She’s pregnant.”
Chapter Two
Frankie wanted to leave more than ever. She wanted to go home and forget she even had a sister. She really, really wanted to snatch Penny by the throat and shake some sense into her fluffy blond head. She decided to talk to Penny. She’d be reasonable, she wouldn’t yell, but she’d let the girl know exactly where she stood: Penny could have Julius or she could have Frankie, but not both. Then she would leave.
She allowed Ross to drive her to the resort lodge. He guided her to the family’s private dining room and fetched a carafe of hot coffee. The coffee chased away some of the chill. She wrapped both hands around the mug to warm them. Her face felt crackly, as if it might break if she moved too fast. She lifted her gaze to Ross.
“She isn’t pregnant. No way. She’s too smart.” Frankie knew the pregnancy had to be a lie. Penny probably used it as an excuse for a hasty wedding.
Ross sat at the table and folded his hands atop the surface. The pity in his gray eyes scratched her bones.
“She has plans,” she insisted. “She’s going to travel the world.”
“Stuff happens, plans change. You girls need to talk.”
Snorting in disgust, Frankie turned her glum gaze on the trophy wall that chronicled her uncle’s long and distinguished military career. She wondered again how he and his family could have betrayed her like this. A glance at a wall clock showed that even if she left now, she’d be late for work. “Is there a phone I can use?”
He brought her a cordless telephone, then moved to the other end of the table to give her some privacy. She dialed the number of her neighbor. Sally answered with a syrupy hello.
“This is Frankie,” she said. “Can I ask you a big favor?”
“Are you okay? You sound funny.”
“I’m fine.” Sally’s concern lifted her spirits somewhat. They’d met on the day Frankie moved into her apartment and had been good friends ever since. Wait until Sally got an earful of this debacle. “I’ve got a...situation. I’ll tell you all about it later. Can you feed Cat?”
Sally didn’t answer right away. Frankie groaned inwardly. The cat, whom she called Cat, had shown up a few months ago and stayed. He was neither pretty nor sweet tempered, and he had a bad habit of shredding her books, magazines and newspapers when he lost his temper. He also attacked people on occasion. Frankie let him stay because he seemed like the one creature in the universe whose life was in worse shape than hers.
“Please,” Frankie said. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to.”
“Oh, all right. I’ll take an oven mitt for protection.” She sighed dramatically, then laughed. “That animal belongs in a zoo, you know. When will you be back?”
“Very late tonight. I owe you one, girlfriend.”
“You owe me two.”
After she finished that call, she dialed another number. She hoped anyone but Bob answered. A scratchy, petulant voice answered the phone: “Martha’s Pie House, may I help you?”
“Hi, Bob,” she said, “it’s Frankie.” She waited a beat, then added, “I can’t come in to work tonight. I have an emergency.”
“What do you mean you can’t come in? You know I’m shorthanded.”
Frankie dropped her face onto her hand. Bob ruled the pancake house as if being assistant manager made him emperor. The little twit. “It’s an emergency. Call Julie.”
“I know who to call. It’s my job to know. I keep the schedules, you know.” Papers rustled. “You’re working Saturday, then.”
“Fine.” She noticed he didn’t ask about the nature of her emergency.
“From now on I need at least twenty-four hours notice.”
“I’ll plan more carefully for my emergencies, Bob.” She hung up and placed the telephone on the table.
“Everything okay?” Ross asked. Questions lurked in his eyes.
Frankie hadn’t told the Dukes about her recent situation. Since Penny was acting so sneaky and self-absorbed, it was doubtful she had told them, either. Guilt crept through her. Ever since Max had dumped her, she’d shut out her family. Ross and Dawn lived in Colorado Springs, perhaps twenty minutes fro
m Frankie’s apartment. Embarrassment and pride had prevented her from running to them with her tales of woe.
“I don’t work for Max Caulfield anymore,” she said.
Ross cocked his head and assumed an expression that invited confidences. He’d always been easy to talk to.
Explanations caused a traffic jam of words in her throat. Even after six months it hurt to talk about Max. “Things got intense,” she finally said. “I’m waiting tables until I can figure out how to market myself as a freelance graphologist.”
“Self-employment is the best.”
Grateful he didn’t probe too deeply, she nodded.
“Julius is related to Caulfield.”
His statement made her wince. She stared at her hands. The redness had faded, leaving them looking paper-white against the chestnut hue of the tabletop. “Max married Julius’s mother. She’s rich.” She wished she’d never voiced Max’s name.
“Does that have something to do with you disliking Julius?”
She winced again. Ross knew. Not everything, but he suspected something heavy lurked beneath the surface. “Penny knows my reasons. We settled all this months ago.”
“Apparently not.” He topped off his coffee mug and offered her the carafe. “Maybe you kept her on too short a leash, Cuz.”
“Not short enough.” She waved away the offer of more coffee. “Apparently.”
“You’re a lot like the Colonel, Frankie.”
She knew Ross didn’t mean the comparison as a compliment. She scowled into the steam rising from the mug. “Contrary to what that brat says, I am not trying to ruin her life. Or run it for that matter. But she has no business getting married at her age.”
Elise Duke’s high heels clicked softly on the polished wood floor. “How are you, dear?”
Frankie shot a glare at Ross to let him know she didn’t appreciate his insinuation that she was a control freak like his father. “Where’s Penny?” She pushed away from the table, starting to rise.
Elise placed a gentle hand on Frankie’s shoulder. “It might be best if you kept your distance. She’ll speak to you tomorrow.”
