The Mistaken Heiress

by Shelba Shelton Nivens

  “Never mind, Robert. I’ll handle this.” She took Kate’s arm and steered her back into the hallway. She closed the door behind them. “I don’t know what you think you heard. But you must have misinterpreted it. There’s nothing for you to get all worked up about.”

  “I’m not worked up, Mother. I simply want to know—”

  “You’ll know when the time comes. Now please go on about your business and let us attend to ours.”

  Kate took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She would not let her mother blow her cool. “Yes, Mother, I’ll attend to mine.”

  Back in her bedroom, she gathered her jacket, shoulder bag and umbrella, then slipped out the back door and ran to her car through a sheet of cold rain.

  She opened her cell phone and called up a number. “Mr. Boyer, there’s something suspicious going on concerning Grandpa’s property. I need to know what it is.”

  He cleared his throat. “Yes, I, uh... Where are you now? Can you drive out to my place?”

  When she hesitated, he added, “I have something to show you. You can pull up to the side entrance where my home office is located.”

  “It’s Christmas Day. How about your family?”

  “I’m the only one here. We’ll have privacy to talk.”

  Privacy? At his house? After his attitude during their intimate little dinner? She wasn’t up for dealing with another complicated relationship. But she needed some answers before her mother and uncles did more damage. Maybe she had just read Mr. Boyer wrong on Tuesday night, and he had not meant anything improper, after all.

  “Katerina, are you still there?”

  “I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  * * *

  She parked the car at the side entrance of the Boyer mansion and grabbed her umbrella. Paul Boyer opened the door as she ran up the steps. “Come on in.”

  A fire crackled in a large marble fireplace in the room behind him. Classical music played on a stereophonic sound system. Kate shook rain off the umbrella and stepped inside. She looked down at the soft beige carpet under her feet.

  “Don’t mind the rug. Here, let me take your coat.”

  He placed her umbrella in a stand beside the door and helped her out of her jacket, which he hung on a brass hanger above the umbrella stand. “Now go warm yourself by the fire.”

  She glanced round the room as she moved shivering toward the fireplace.

  A large, dark wood desk and a table holding a computer, printer and scanner sat beside a wall lined with glass-fronted bookcases. An entertainment center, bar and wine rack occupied the opposite wall. A plush beige sofa and small table sat on one side of the fireplace. Two matching chairs with a table between them occupied the other side.

  Paul Boyer smiled at her and moved toward the bar. He wore tan chinos and shirt topped by a sea-green pullover sweater. It was the first time Kate had seen him when he wasn’t wearing a crisp white dress shirt and tie.

  “How about something to warm you up?” He pulled a bottle from the rack.

  Kate shook her head. “No, thank you.”

  “Something warm?”

  “No. I want to see what you have to show me.” She turned her back to the fire.

  He nodded, replaced the bottle and retrieved a half-empty wineglass from the bar. He picked up an envelope from the desk and moved to the sofa.

  Seating himself on the sofa, he set his glass aside and patted a spot beside him. “Have a seat.”

  Kate sat on the edge of the plush sofa and waited as he pulled a legal-size sheet of paper from the envelope.

  He unfolded it. “This is a copy of your grandfather’s will.”

  Grandpa’s will! How long had he had this?

  Kate took the paper from his hand and read in stunned silence:

  I hereby bequeath all my earthly possessions, real and other property, to my three children, Joycelyn Priscilla Sanderson, Robert L. Cummins and Sidney Leon Cummins, with the stipulation that they deed...

  Kate took a deep breath. Now he’ll mention me. She picked up reading.

  ...with the stipulation that they deed plots of land, each equal to one-half acre, for the purpose of building homes, to my grandchildren...

  Kate read the names, then reread and counted them. She scanned the remainder of the document before looking at the attorney. “Grandpa had seven grandchildren. He only listed six.”

  She counted the names on her fingers as she read them aloud: “Julia Ann Madison, Thomas Cummins and Renae Cummins—that’s Uncle Sid’s three. Charlotte Lucas, Uncle Rob’s daughter. My sister, Sonja Ellis, and my brother, Billy Sanderson. Six of them. My name’s not there. He left me out.”

  Too shocked to cry, she stared at Paul. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m sorry.” Paul laid his hand on hers where it rested between them on the sofa. “I thought maybe you would give up trying to take the place without ever having to know.”

  “I don’t understand it. I thought Grandpa wanted me to have his home.”

  She looked at the document again. It was dated the day before her grandfather’s first stroke. His two old army buddies who’d visited him that week had witnessed it. The recording date was three days after the stroke.

  This was probably why he’d wanted her to drive him down to the county seat. Then he’d had the stroke and ended up in the hospital. She would have been driving him to the courthouse to record a will leaving land to every grandchild except her.

  How could Grandpa do such a thing? How could he forget all about me when I’m the only one who took care of him?

  Paul was watching her, compassion in his expression. She swallowed hard, trying to steel herself against the disappointment and pain. “Mother must have found the will when she came and got his checkbook the day of the stroke, then took it and had it recorded.”

  “She had power of attorney,” Paul said gently.

  Kate dropped her head to hide her tears. One lone tear dropped onto the document.

  Paul took it from her and laid it on the table, then pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry I had to hurt you. I wish there was some way I could make it better.”

  She dropped her forehead to his shoulder. He wasn’t her boss tonight; he wasn’t her lawyer. He was a kind and gentle man. And he was here.

  Gentle fingers lifted her chin and turned her face up to his. His lips moved toward hers.

  “No, Paul.” She turned her face from his and pushed against his chest with her hands. “Let me go.”

  He took his arms away and she jumped to her feet.

  When he reached for his wineglass, she moved toward the door.

  She paused beside the coatrack and pulled a tissue from her pocket.

  His hands dropped onto her shoulders. “You’re in no shape to drive, and it’s still storming. You should stay until it lightens up.”

  “I’ll be all right.” She lifted her jacket from the rack.

  He took it from her hands. “Don’t go yet.”

  She wiped her nose on the tissue. “I can’t stay.” She reached for the coat.

  He held it for her to slip into it and then placed his hands on her shoulders again. When his lips touched the back of her neck, she shrugged his hands away.

  She pulled her umbrella from the stand and reached for the doorknob.

  Opening the door as jagged lightning flashed across the sky and a clap of thunder shook the windows, he quickly closed the door. “You can’t leave in this.”

  “I have to go.”

  “Then let me take you. I’ll get—”

  “No. I drove myself out here, I’ll drive myself home. Let me leave.”

  He opened the door and she dashed for her car with the umbrella unopened. She slid inside her car.

 
Too many confusing, distressing things had happened here today. She had to get away from him. From the things he told her. The things he did.

  Everything was confusing. It was still too early to be so dark, yet darkness, broken only by streaks of lightning, blanketed everything. Like the day Jesus died.

  She moved at a snail’s pace through a new and strange world as she made her way down the circular driveway to the main road. Grandpa had forgotten her. Or deliberately left her out. Why would he do such a thing? Did she mean so little to him? Had he never loved her as she thought he did?

  Kate wasn’t sure where she was headed through the blinding rain. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Her world with all her dreams had just come crashing down around her.

  Chapter 17

  Kate climbed out of the car and peered into the darkness. Rain poured over her head and down the collar of her jacket. Thunder crashed about her. Lightning illuminated white stones on the hillside.

  If she could only talk to her grandfather, he would explain everything. If she could get up the muddy hillside and find his grave in the darkness.

  She picked up a foot and set it down—into a puddle of water. She picked it up and set it down again, her shoe mired in mud. She pulled her shoe out of the mud, stepped again and slipped, hitting the ground on all fours.

  It was no use. She couldn’t do it. Like everything else in her life, this was impossible, too.

  She struggled to her feet and clomped back to her car, her shoes heavy with mud.

  She turned the key in the ignition, but the car refused to start. She tried again and the motor caught.

  Back at her aunt’s house, she couldn’t get the key into the lock on the door. After several tries she realized she was trying to insert the car key.

  After finally getting the door open, she picked up a foot to step inside and discovered globs of mud clinging to her shoes. Kicking the shoes off, she left them on the porch.

  “Kate, is that you? Are you all right? Your mother wants you to call her on her cell. She got worried about you after you left in the storm.”

  The voice came from someplace in the distance. Kate tried to focus on the words and form an answer. “I’m all right, Aunt El. Will you call her? I need a hot bath.”

  She stood under the shower, letting it beat down upon her until the water ran cold, but she still couldn’t get warm. She slipped beneath the covers, shivering.

  When she closed her eyes, words from her grandfather’s Last Will and Testament appeared on the inside of her eyelids. To my grandchildren...

  All the names were there except mine.

  I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans to give you a future and a hope.

  Why did the Scripture keep haunting her? Why wouldn’t it go away? Her plans were now hopeless, her hope for the future gone. And all the time she’d spent with Grandpa left a bitter taste in her mouth.

  He had given away the house where he’d raised his family, where Kate had spent so many happy hours. The woods she loved to tramp through. The stream where she learned to swim. The old tree where she sat to write and draw...

  And now it had all been sold by people who didn’t want or appreciate it.

  Of course, she wouldn’t have met Steve if they hadn’t sold the land to him. Still, it hurt.

  It hurts so much that he just forgot about me.

  Barely able to croak next morning, she staggered into the kitchen where her aunt sat at the table with a cup of coffee and the morning paper.

  “Kate,” her aunt exclaimed. “You look like death warmed over. Get back in bed. I’ll bring a thermometer.”

  “Sore throat,” Kate croaked, clasping a hand around her neck before stumbling back to the bedroom.

  The medicine Aunt El gave her put her to sleep for most of the day and all night.

  She woke on Sunday morning to a bright, sunny sky. Her temperature was down, her throat much better and she could talk without sounding like a frog.

  Her boss called as she was about to leave for Steve’s house. “How about dinner, Katerina?”

  “Thank you, but I have plans.”

  “Can’t you change them? We may need to discuss the will.”

  “Thanks, but I know all I need to know about the will, and I can’t change my plans. I’ll see you tomorrow at the office.”

  * * *

  Steve’s double-cab pickup was parked beside the house. When she didn’t find him in the house or yard, she set out for his old campsite. She would tell him she knew the place was legally his. And if he cared about her the way his actions sometimes implied, there was now nothing to stand between them.

  She set out in a run between the trees.

  But just as she was about to step into the clearing, a voice stopped her.

  “Did you find him?”

  It was Steve’s voice. Someone was with him at the campsite.

  A child giggled. “He was playing with a lizard.”

  “He was not playing with it,” another childish voice said. “He was pointing at it.”

  Kate moved cautiously behind a bush and peered through.

  A boy about four or five years old struggled to hold on to a spotted puppy.

  A girl, probably a little older, stood with hands propped on plump, little hips. “He was not pointing at it. Dogs can’t point.”

  “Silly. Pointing don’t mean he’s—pointing. He don’t have fingers. He’s pointing his nose at it.”

  Feminine laughter mingled with Steve’s.

  Kate’s head jerked round.

  Steve and a dark-haired young woman stood on the far side of the clearing, his arm draped across her shoulders.

  Kate’s mouth dropped open as the little girl ran to them. “Mommy, Freddy called me silly.”

  “You shouldn’t call your sister names, Freddy. And please put the puppy down before he tears your jacket with his squirming.”

  The boy put the dog on the ground, pointed a finger at him and commanded, “Stay, Nickel!”

  The puppy sat wagging his tail, watching his young master explain in detail how a dog “points” at something with its nose instead of a finger.

  Instead of listening, the little girl skipped off to chase falling leaves.

  The woman grinned at Steve. “Just like you. Always ready with a detailed explanation.”

  Steve laughed. “I was thinking how much he reminds me of Dad.”

  “Like father, like son.”

  He laughed again and turned her toward the hillock where Kate had chopped up the stakes he’d used to lay out a building. “Come let me show you where the house will be.”

  Kate came out of her daze. So that’s who he was planning to build a house for! She was glad she’d chopped up his stakes. She wished there were more she could attack.

  She would like to attack him. Why had he led her on the way he had when he was obviously a married man? Why had he kissed her? Why had he made her fall in love with him?

  So, there was nothing to stand between them now, was there? Sure. Nothing but a wife and two kids. How could she have been so foolish as to let herself fall in love with a married man?

  She turned and crashed through the bushes, back toward her car. In her aunt and uncle’s driveway, she sat pounding the steering wheel, fighting tears. Then, lifting her head and squaring her shoulders, she mumbled aloud, “Well, I don’t need you, Steve Adams. I have other options.”

  She pulled her cell phone from her bag and punched in a number.

  “Paul? If that invitation for dinner is still open, I’ll take you up on it.”

  “Sounds good. Just one problem. The kids came home early. How about pizza here?”

  His house with the kids?

  “I could cook somet
hing, if Lisa wants to help me.” Cooking and Lisa’s chatter would help occupy her mind and fill up the evening.

  “Sounds good. Lisa, do you want to help Miss Sanderson cook?”

  “Kate? Sure. I’ll help her. Can I talk to her?” Lisa’s voice came over the line. “Hi, Kate. Can we have fried chicken?”

  “Sure. I’ll stop by the grocery store on my way.”

  Later, while Lisa rolled chicken parts in a mixture of flour, salt and pepper, Kate heated oil in a skillet on the range top. She didn’t often eat fried foods anymore, but after all she’d been through lately, she deserved to coddle herself a bit.

  “Mrs. Mason uses the deep fryer to make fried chicken.” Flour decorated Lisa’s cheeks, hair and the work island.

  Kate smiled at her. “This is the old-fashioned way.”

  A pensive look replaced Lisa’s smile. “I wish Mommy made fried chicken. She doesn’t like to cook. Did your mom teach you?”

  “No. My grandfather. Do you have the chicken ready to put in the pan? The oil is hot.”

  “Coming right up.” Lisa bounced to the stove with the bowl of floured chicken.

  A short while later, Kate, Paul and his kids sat at his kitchen table, their hunger sated.

  Paul Jr. turned a picked-clean chicken drumstick in his hands, checking to be sure he had not missed a morsel. “Mrs. Mason’s fried chicken don’t have bones to lick.”

  “That’s because she doesn’t use the real thing,” Lisa said. “And doesn’t cook it the old way like Kate does. Isn’t this a great dinner, Daddy? I helped with the chicken, the potatoes and the salad. But Kate made the gravy. And the biscuits. She makes them the old way, too.”

  Paul smiled across the table at Kate. “The best I’ve had in a long time.”

  “I wish Mom could cook chicken like this,” his son said. “Don’t you, Dad?”

  He glanced at his father and laid the chicken leg on his plate. “I just wish she’d come home and cook something. Even her burned smashed taters.” His face brightened. “Maybe Kate could come regular and cook for us. Wouldn’t that be great, Dad? I bet you’d stay home more if Kate was here.”