The Hamilton Heir

by Valerie Hansen

  Tim laughed. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I was glad to bring you some cavalry, but I can just see you shooting a hole in your house if I gave you a real cannon.”

  That tickled the old man. “Just met me and already he thinks he knows me that well.” He winked at Dawn, then looked a bit surprised and began to frown. “Say, what brings you here? It’s not Wednesday. I may be old but I still have a good memory. You were just here last night. This has to be Tuesday.”

  “It is,” she said. Thinking about asking Stuart for an interview made her suddenly nervous and she licked her dry lips. “I’m, um, here on business. Sort of. My boss has asked me to write about interesting people for the Davis Landing Dispatch.”

  “And you picked me?” He cackled. “What’s so interesting about an old codger with a bum leg and a living room full of toy soldiers?”

  “Your hobby of re-creating history, for one thing,” she said. “And I’d like to hear more about your life. Where you came from, what brought you here, how long you’ve lived in this house, things like that.”

  “Why? Nobody’d be interested.”

  “Yes, they would.” She looked to Tim for support. “We are, aren’t we?”

  He nodded. “Actually, Stuart, it was my idea for Dawn to kick off our new feature with you. Think about it for a second. You care what people did, what kinds of lives they led, over a hundred and fifty years ago. Why wouldn’t others be interested in hearing your story?”

  The old man’s gnarled fingers grasped the tiny figure of a mounted cavalry officer and held it up. “Because these men made a real difference. They may have been on opposite sides but they were all doing what they thought was right.”

  “Like you and my grandfather were doing when you enlisted to fight in World War II?” Tim asked.

  “Ah, we were just a couple of naive kids. We survived more by sheer coincidence than by our wits.” Staring across the room as if in a daze, he began to smile wistfully. “My Ellie always said she’d got me through that war on her knees. I suppose she did do a powerful lot of prayin’. Most folks did. Ellie and me, we got married as soon as I got back to the States.”

  He blinked, clearing his vision, and looked at Dawn. “She was a good woman, my Ellie. Can I tell you about her? Will you put her in your story?”

  “Of course,” Dawn said tenderly. “This is supposed to be a personal interest feature. You can tell me anything you want to and I’ll do my best to see that it appears in the paper. How about pictures? Do you have any old ones you’d like to share?”

  He snapped out of his reverie, jumped up and grabbed his cane. “You betcha. Got a slew of ’em. Wait there. I’ll be right back.”

  “Good job,” Tim said, verbally patting her on the back after Stuart hobbled out of the room. “Got him. I knew you could do it.”

  She cast a wry smile at her self-satisfied-looking boss. “I got an interview and maybe some pictures. That doesn’t make an article. I still have to write it all down and organize it so it makes sense.”

  “You can do it,” he said with a sidelong glance at the war games table. “Any general who can command an entire army division can certainly sort out the details of one little newspaper article.”

  If anyone other than Tim Hamilton had teased her like that, Dawn would have immediately made a face and playfully smacked his arm. She thought about doing it anyway. In the end, sensibility won out and she merely set her jaw.

  Such displays of informal camaraderie in regard to Tim were more than unwise, she reminded herself. They were foolhardy. Not only was she already forgetting her place and calling him by his first name more often than she liked, she was also beginning to picture him as a potential friend—or more.

  That would never do.

  Timothy Hamilton was her boss, period. He wasn’t her buddy, or her cohort, or her meals-on-wheels fellow volunteer. And he certainly wasn’t her boyfriend, even if her imagination did try to assign him that ridiculous fantasy role whenever she let her guard down.

  Then again, Tim wasn’t as stuffy and unapproachable as she’d originally thought, either. Dawn huffed silently. Life had certainly been easier before he’d hit her car and she’d found out he had a human side, hadn’t it?

  And speaking of cars. Frowning, she stared at him. “Hey. I didn’t notice your silver BMW when I drove up. How did you get here?”

  “My car’s in the shop, too. I dropped it off this afternoon and the dealership gave me a loaner. It’s parked a few doors up the street.”

  “Why didn’t you drive your Ferrari?”

  “Logistics,” Tim said. “It was at home. I wasn’t sure how late Stuart stayed up and I didn’t want to take the extra time to trade vehicles. I may drive it to work in the morning.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t like admitting that she might have turned around and gone home without ever coming in if she’d suspected that Tim was there, but it was true. This interview promised to be difficult enough without adding the distraction his presence brought.

  Stuart returned with a photo album just in time to save Dawn from having to make more small talk. Relieved, she settled on the worn, floral fabric-covered sofa next to the old man and began to take notes while he talked about his fascinating life.

  It would have been a lot easier to concentrate on the task at hand if she hadn’t sensed that Tim was watching her from across the room, obviously assessing her interviewing style and evaluating her skills. Or lack of them.

  She couldn’t believe how hard it was to keep from looking up and making eye contact with him. If she hadn’t had Stuart’s story to concentrate on she didn’t think she could have held out as long as she did.

  Finally, she lifted her lashes and peeked over at Tim. The supportive smile he bestowed upon her seemed so warm and genuine it sent a tingle of elation singing up her spine and tickled the hair at the nape of her neck.

  “You get that last part?” Stuart asked her. “You stopped writin’.”

  Dawn blinked to clear her head. “Um, I think so. You were talking about D-day, right?”

  “Right.”

  Approaching, Tim offered his hand as he spoke to Stuart. “I’ve enjoyed our evening but I really should be getting on home. You two relax and finish your business. I’ll see myself out.”

  “Don’t forget that cannon,” the old man gibed, briefly shaking hands. “I’ll be lookin’ for it.”

  “I imagine you will.”

  “And bring another pizza like you did tonight. An army can’t fight on an empty stomach, you know. I’m partial to sausage. No olives. They give me heartburn something fierce.”

  Chuckling and shaking his head, Tim bid them both a good-night, turned away and headed for the door.

  “You don’t really expect him to buy you a working cannon, do you?” Dawn asked as soon as she and Stuart were alone.

  “Don’t know. He might. It don’t hurt to ask. He sure surprised me when he showed up tonight with all them horses and such.”

  “Yeah,” she said softly, “he surprised me, too.”

  Chapter Six

  Tim Hamilton’s penthouse encompassed the entire top floor of The Enclave, Davis Landing’s most prestigious address. His sister Amy had a smaller apartment in the same six-story building, as did Jeremy, although he hadn’t been home in ages.

  Absently greeting The Enclave’s night guard, Tim stepped into the elevator and used his key to unlock the controls, giving him access to his private floor.

  How long was Jeremy going to stay away? Tim wondered as the elevator hummed and rose smoothly. No telling. The angry way they’d parted still grated on his conscience. He’d overreacted. They both had.

  In view of the stress surrounding Wallace’s ongoing illness, there was no guarantee things would be different the next time they met, either, but Tim hoped he’d be able to moderate his own feelings enough to bring a semblance of peace. He owed it to his mother to try.

  Their mother, he corrected. He and Jeremy might have dif
ferent fathers but they still shared Nora. And she needed all her children around her in harmony at a time like this, which was further reason to be irritated with his older brother. Though Jeremy had phoned home several times since he’d gone searching for his true grandparents, he seemed oblivious to anyone else’s needs. Of all the things Jeremy had said and done, cutting himself off from the family at a time like this was, in Tim’s considered opinion, the absolute worst.

  The elevator stopped on the top floor, the doors slid quietly open, and Tim stepped into the marble-floored foyer of his apartment. Home. He paused, taking it in. The place was almost too quiet. After his chaotic visit to Stuart’s—and the earlier attack by Dawn’s monster dog—all this peacefulness seemed a bit like an anticlimax.

  In keeping with the style of the rest of the building and his personal aversion to anything fussy, his furniture was sleek and modern. Expensive. Spotless. Except for a couple of bright throw pillows his sister Amy had insisted he add to the decor, the whole place was a plain black and white and gray. What natural wood there was, was the finest, hand-rubbed teak. So few footsteps had crossed the living room, the paths of the maid’s vacuum cleaner were visible on the thick, ivory carpet in a random, overlapping, geometric design.

  In the past, Tim had judged the place ideal. Now, it seemed too sterile, too perfect. He crossed to the glass door and walked out onto the balcony overlooking Sugar Tree Park.

  The air was cool and crisp, hinting at winter’s approach. Moonlight reflected off the glassy surface of the lake below, enhancing the starkness of Tim’s world. In the daytime, the park seemed warm and welcoming with its green lawns, shady knolls and clusters of fall flowers. Looking at it at night seemed to bring out its more somber side, a side he had never before noticed.

  “What’s the matter with me,” he muttered. “This place is exactly what I’ve always wanted. It’s got everything. I’ve got everything.”

  Except…? his heart asked.

  Except, nothing, he answered flatly. I’m just overtired. The stress of work and Dad’s illness is getting to me, that’s all.

  Deciding that what he needed was useful distraction, he went back inside, took his briefcase into the den and opened it on his desk. There was plenty to do if a man put his mind to it. Hard work would fix whatever ailed him. It always had before.

  Dawn telephoned her best friend, Gabi Valencia, as soon as she got home. “Hi. I hope I’m not calling too late. I didn’t want to wake the girls.”

  Gabi stifled a yawn. “Too late? Naw, those kids could sleep through a hurricane. I’m glad you woke me. I’d fallen asleep in my chair and it’s time I went to bed like normal people.”

  “I’m sorry. I just needed to hear a friendly voice. Would it be better if I called back another time?”

  Gabi chuckled softly. “No. No hay problema, as my mamacita always says. What makes you need a buddy at this time of night?” She yawned. “What time is it, anyway?”

  “Just after ten. Listen, remember the writing job for the Dispatch I told you about?”

  “The feature? Sure. What about it?”

  “I went over to Stuart Meyers’s house and interviewed him tonight.”

  “Okay. So?”

  “So, Tim—Mr. Hamilton was there.”

  “Whoa. Start over. I don’t think I understood. Your boss was where?”

  “At Stuart’s. I couldn’t believe it, either. Not only was he there, on his own, he’d brought a pizza for them to share and had presented Stuart with the cutest set of toy soldiers. On horseback.”

  “Tim rode a horse?”

  “No, silly.” Dawn laughed. “The toys were cavalrymen. You know. The guys they used to call horse soldiers?”

  “Let me get this straight. Tim Hamilton—your Tim Hamilton—was playing war with Stuart Meyers and there was no profit in it? Amazing!”

  “That’s what I thought,” Dawn said. “He couldn’t have known I was planning to stop by. Even I didn’t know it when I left work. I’d been thinking about phoning Stuart to ask if I could do the piece on his life when it occurred to me that it would be better to ask him in person. When I showed up over there, he and Tim were already playing like a couple of kids.” She paused and sighed. “Actually, it was kind of cute.”

  Beau was leaning against her leg, begging for affection, so she reached down and ruffled his ears.

  Gabi snorted. “Repeat after me, ‘Tim Hamilton is not cute.’”

  “Can’t do it,” Dawn said. “He was adorable.”

  “The closest that man ever got to being adorable was probably while he was still sleeping in a crib and living on baby formula.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  “Listen amiga,” Gabi said, “this whole conversation is absurd. You know it and I know it. Get your head back on straight and forget about liking your boss. An attitude like that will bring you nothing but grief.”

  “What if I can’t help it?” Dawn asked.

  “Then you obviously need your head examined and that’s far beyond my expertise. Just promise me you won’t go and do anything stupid.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like fall in love when there’s no hope of a happy ending.”

  “Hey! I just said I was starting to like Tim, not that I was falling in love with him.”

  “That’s how it starts,” Gabi warned. “I ought to know. I never saw anything but a rosy future when I married Ostin Valencia and now look at me.”

  “You’re doing a wonderful job raising your girls by yourself,” Dawn offered. “Roni and Talia are great kids. If it hadn’t been for Octavio, whatever his faults, you wouldn’t have them.”

  “True enough. I just don’t want to see you hurt, that’s all. Promise me you’ll take your time and think things through. I don’t want you getting in so deep you flounder and maybe drown.”

  The water analogy struck Dawn funny. “I promise, mamacita. I’ll always wear my water-wings and wade in with a buddy, like you, holding my hand.” She giggled nervously.

  “You’d better, kiddo,” her friend replied. “Because it looks to me like you’re already swimming with the sharks. You just haven’t spotted their dorsal fins yet.”

  Laughing, Dawn bid Gabi a fond goodbye and hung up. She didn’t think she’d taken the advice to heart till she found herself humming the theme from the scary movies about being eaten alive by a great white!

  Predictably, Tim was already hard at work when Dawn got to the office the following day. She greeted him with a cheery, “Good morning.”

  “Morning.” He barely looked up.

  There was a half-empty coffee mug on the desk near his right elbow. Dawn eyed it. “Is that fresh?”

  “No. It’s yesterday’s. But I didn’t want to stop and make a new pot.”

  “Yuck.” She took the mug to the sink and rinsed it out, then disposed of the thick brown sludge in the coffeemaker. “I don’t know how anybody can drink day-old coffee. It’s sickening.”

  “It was all I had,” Tim muttered, still concentrating on the spreadsheets he’d been studying when she’d arrived.

  Nodding as if he’d made an important decision, he leaned back in his chair. “Come here and have a look at this. I don’t want you to say anything to the staff yet, but you’ll need to know. I’m going to outsource our bookkeeping like my dad wanted.”

  Dawn’s breath caught. Her eyes widened. “You mean you’re going ahead with the contract Jeremy refused to sign, even after your father insisted?”

  “Yes.” Tim pointed to the green-tinted sheets of figures on his desk. “There’s no doubt it’s best for business.”

  “I see.” She hesitated, then squared her shoulders and spoke boldly. “You told me to tell you when your public image needed work. Well, this is one of those times.”

  “Go on.” He laced his fingers behind his head.

  “There’s nothing wrong with being mad at your brother because he let Curtis Resnick get away with embezzlement and didn’t want to prosec
ute him for the sake of their friendship. I happen to think that was a stupid decision, too, especially because Curtis is still hanging around Davis Landing and bragging about what fools he thinks the Hamiltons are. The problem is, you’ll be putting innocent people out of a job if you sign that contract.”

  “That’s where you come in,” Tim said calmly, lowering his arms and leaning his elbows on the desk. “I want you to find them slots within Hamilton Media, if you can. If not, we’ll make sure they have good jobs outside before we make any permanent changes. That was why I wanted their personnel files updated.”

  “Oh. Oh, well then…”

  He snorted a wry chuckle. “There’s no need to blush, Ms. Leroux. I admire your honesty. I’d told you to sound off if you thought I was making a mistake and you did. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Still, I apologize. I should have known what you were thinking when I saw which employee files you wanted to see. I think most of those people will fit into other areas, except maybe the department head. Bob is pretty much a human calculator and not very versatile. We may have to find him something else.”

  “Fine.”

  “And speaking of being versatile,” Dawn said. “I’ve almost finished that article about Stuart Meyers.”

  “I’m looking forward to reading it. Have you got it with you?”

  “No. I—um—I thought I was supposed to give it to an editor.”

  “I’d like to see it first.”

  Rats. She was afraid he’d say that. “Well, I guess I could bring in the rough draft. But I’d rather have it polished up before I share it with anyone.” Especially you.

  In the background, the coffeemaker was noisily burbling and dribbling, inspiring her to add, “While you’re reading it, I want you to keep in mind how great my coffee tastes.”

  Tim frowned above a lopsided grin. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”

  “In case you don’t like my writing? I don’t want to be looking for another job, too, so I thought I should remind you of something good about myself.”

  It was Tim’s turn to be nonplussed. He swiveled his chair and got to his feet. “I don’t have to be reminded. There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t thank God for an able, trustworthy assistant like you.”