Heiress

by Janet Dailey

  Even though it wasn't the same as if her father had been there, Abbie had fond memories of that evening—because of Ben, ill at ease, yet going through it for her.

  By the time her father had returned after a week's absence, Abbie had been too caught up in the whirl of parties, teas, and balls to take more than passing notice of his apathy. Now, hindsight enabled her to see that he had been a man bereaved by the death of the woman he loved.

  Abbie remembered it all so clearly, the brooding silences, the faraway stares, the pained look in his eyes. Her lips felt wet and she pressed them together to lick them dry, tasting the salty moisture of tears. . . her tears. She could feel them running down her cheeks, one after the other.

  No wonder she'd never been able to be the daughter her father wanted.

  No parent ever loves his children equally, no matter how he might try or pretend. There is always one that is the favorite, one that is special. But it hadn't been her. Never her. Obviously it had always been Rachel, the daughter of the woman he had loved for so long. Yet all this time he'd let her believe she was the only one; all this time she'd wondered what was wrong with her, certain that something had to be—otherwise he'd love her. Hurt and angered by the deception, Abbie dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands, needing the physical pain to ease the emotional one.

  Behind her the office door opened. Instantly she stiffened, opening her eyes wide to try to clear them of the stinging tears.

  "Your mother asked me to find you."

  Abbie slumped at the quiet sound of Ben Jablonski's voice. She didn't have to hide her feelings from him. "Ben, did you know about the woman and child Daddy kept in California?"

  There was a long pause before he answered. "I heard some talk. . . among the help."

  "It was more than talk. It was true." She poured out the whole agonizing story to him, and its obvious conclusions. "Why, Ben?" She choked on a sob, as always demanding from him the answers she couldn't find. "Why?" She felt the light pressure of his big hand on her shoulder and swung around to face him. "Why couldn't he love me, too?"

  "Ssssh baby." Gently he gathered her into his arms and crooned to her in Polish.

  She leaned against his shoulder and doubled her hands into tight fists. "I hate him for what he did, Ben. I hate him!"

  "No. You don't hate him." He smoothed her hair with a gentle touch. "It hurts so much because you loved him."

  Abbie cried, this time for herself.

  Chapter 9

  The distinctive skyline of downtown Houston soared above the flatness of the sprawling Texas city. Coming from Los Angeles, Rachel hadn't expected to be impressed. In her opinion, city downtowns were all alike—a collection of skyscrapers crowded together to form concrete canyons jammed with traffic—a place you only went if you absolutely, positively had to.

  But as she turned down Louisiana Street, she was radically revising her opinion. Initially she was struck by the high-rise buildings themselves, each one unique, like an architectural signature written against the sky. Contemporary in design, their individual use of shapes, angles, and glass was unusual, if not controversial. She couldn't help marveling at the progressive mixture that combined to make a single statement of dynamic growth.

  She felt the energy and vitality that surrounded her. In almost any direction she looked, construction was under way on a new tower. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was driving through an outdoor gallery devoted to architecture. Yet the wide streets, the short blocks, and the building setbacks gave the downtown a sense of space. In fact, when she stopped looking up at the bronze and silver reflecting towers and noticed the small plazas, the spraying fountains, and the sculptures scattered about, Rachel caught the mood of the city center: vital yet leisurely, with a kind of laid-back energy, Texas-style.

  Nowhere was the impression stronger than when she turned off Louisiana Street onto Dallas and approached the landscaped entrance to the Hotel Meridien, where she was to meet Lane Canfield for lunch. Designed in the form of an elongated trapezoid tapering to a sharp point at its western end, the building was faced entirely with bronze glass, echoing the color theme of the off-white concrete and bronze used so effectively in adjacent structures. But the severity of its form was broken by the zigzag construction of its front that faced the plaza entrance and added dimension to the hotel.

  Although Rachel hadn't inherited her mother's creative talents with a brush, only a technical skill, she had acquired an appreciation for art from those early years of constant exposure to it. To her mother, art had been everything. It was her great love. After that came Dean. Rachel had never been sure where she ranked with her mother, but it had been somewhere down the line. Caroline had loved her, but when a choice had to be made, art had always come first. She had lived her life the way she wanted, compromising for nothing and no one.

  It was a selfish attitude that Rachel had frequently resented when she was growing up, especially when she learned that Dean had wanted to marry her mother. She was certain her life would have been very different if they had married. She wouldn't have grown up so lonely, feeling unwanted and unloved—and ashamed of who she was. During those first years in elementary school, she had learned very quickly that being a love child wasn't the wonderful thing her mother had claimed, and that love child wasn't the term ignorant people usually used to describe her. The feeling had never really left her, even now, in this supposedly enlightened age.

  Maybe that's why she'd always had this vague fear of drawing attention to herself. She wanted to blend in, be like everyone else. It was almost better to be a wallflower; then people wouldn't be whispering behind her back.

  But when she parked her rental car and entered the hotel, Rachel felt uncomfortably conspicuous. The California layered look of her dirndl skirt, knit top, and belted overblouse didn't fit the understated elegance of the hotel's French-flavored decor. Too self-conscious to approach the clerk behind the genteel reception desk, Rachel approached a bellman and asked him for directions to the hotel's Le Restaurant de France.

  Inside the restaurant's entrance, she hovered uncertainly. This formal atmosphere was the last thing she'd expected to find in Texas. Texas was supposed to be barbecue and boots, cowboy hats and chili peppers. Despite the restaurant's name, she hadn't dreamed Lane Canfield had invited her to a place like this for lunch. All her life, she'd wanted to have a meal in surroundings like these, but she'd never gone to a fancy restaurant, certain that she'd end up feeling out of place.

  And she did—from the top of her long, straight hair to the bottom of her sandaled feet. As the maître d' approached, her wearing a uniform that had the unmistakable stamp of custom tailoring, Rachel realized that even he was better dressed than she was—a fact he noted in one sweeping glance at her.

  "May I help you?"

  She felt intimidated and struggled to suppress it. "I'm supposed to meet Mr. Lane Canfield here for lunch."

  "Mr. Canfield." An eyebrow shot up, then quickly leveled as he smiled respectfully. "This way, ma'am."

  Seated at a secluded table for two, Lane Canfield sipped at his bourbon and water and stared absently at the empty chair opposite him. Idleness was unnatural to him. Usually every minute of his day was crammed with business: meetings, phone calls, conferences, or reports of one kind or another.

  Lane frowned absently, trying to recall how long it had been since anything had taken precedence over his business. There'd never been time in his life for anything—or anyone—else. Sex wasn't even a diversion to him. He hated to think how many times he had arranged for one of the prostitutes from his carefully screened list to come to his penthouse apartment, then screwed her while he mentally plotted out some new corporate strategy. Why? What did he want? What was he killing himself for? More money? More power? Why? He was millionaire a hundred times over.

  Dean's death had affected him in ways he hadn't expected. He wondered how he could fairly say he'd been Dean Lawson's friend. Yes, he had interrupted his bu
sy schedule to attend his funeral, but in the last ten years, how many times had he seen or talked to Dean? Eight, maybe nine times. No more than that. Yet Dean had made him the executor of his will.

  And what had he done? Turned the paperwork over to one of his staff to handle—too busy, his time too valuable for him to get involved with any of the details beyond the contents of the will.

  Reaching up, he felt the front of his suit jacket, making sure the letter was still in his inside pocket—the letter that had been addressed to him marked personal: only to be opened in the event of my death, with Dean's name signed below.

  It had been buried among the papers, bills, and documents collected from Dean's law office by his secretary, Mary Jo Anderson. He had assigned the task of sorting through them to his own personal secretary, Frank Marsden. Frank had found the sealed envelope and delivered it into Lane's hands late yesterday afternoon. This morning, its contents had been verified.

  Lane knew it was the letter in his suit pocket that was partly responsible for all his soul-searching. The opening lines of the letter haunted him:

  Dear Lane,

  I hope you never have to read this. I promised myself long ago that I would never tread on our friendship. But now I find myself in a situation where I must ask a favor of you. There's no one else I can trust. It's about my daughter, Rachel, Caroline's child. . .

  Trust. The word nagged at Lane. He had done so little to deserve it. What troubled him more was the doubt that there was anyone among his own circle of friends whom he could trust with something so very personal in nature. Not a single name came to mind. The people he dealt with and called friends were not that at all. It was a sobering discovery at the age of fifty-six to realize you had no one you could turn to.

  But whom did Rachel have? Motherless. Now fatherless. No blood relative who wanted her. Abbie had made that clear. Since meeting her at the cemetery, Lane had thought about Rachel often: the sadness, the hurt in her blue eyes, haunting him at odd moments. He wondered if she suffered much from the stigma of illegitimacy while growing up. He doubted that she could have escaped it entirely, considering how thoughtless and cruel other children could be at times.

  Roused from his reverie by the sound of approaching footsteps, Lane glanced up and saw Rachel following the maître d' to his table. As he rose to greet her, he noticed how stiff and tense she appeared.

  "Hello, Rachel."

  "Hello. I'm sorry I'm late." Immediately she sat down in the chair the maître d' pulled out for her, then awkwardly helped him move it closer to the table.

  "You're not late." Lane resumed his own seat. "I was able to leave the office sooner than I planned. It gave me a chance to relax and have a drink."

  She seemed self-conscious and ill at ease, her glance skittering away without even meeting his as she opened the menu in front of her. "I know how busy you are and I'm grateful that you could spare the time to have lunch with me."

  Her cheeks looked flushed to him, and he doubted it was rouge. She wore very little makeup, but with her skin and eyes, he didn't think she needed any. "It's my pleasure. It isn't often that I have lunch with an attractive woman."

  She glanced briefly around at the other customers in the restaurant, her glance lingering on one or two of the more fashionably dressed women in the room. "You're very kind, but I doubt that, Mr. Canfield."

  "You shouldn't. It's the truth." Belatedly he realized she was embarrassed about the way she was dressed. He blamed himself for not saying something when he had suggested meeting here, but it hadn't occurred to him. "Would you like something to drink before we order lunch?" he asked as the waiter came up to their table.

  She hesitated briefly, "Perhaps a glass of white wine."

  "A chardonnay or Riesling? We have a very nice—"

  "The chardonnay will be fine," she interrupted.

  "We'll trust your judgment on the vineyard and the vintage," Lane inserted to stave off the anticipated inquiry from the waiter, guessing—he was sure correctly—that Rachel wasn't knowledgeable about wines. "And I'll have another bourbon and water."

  "Very good, sir."

  "This is a beautiful restaurant," she remarked as the waiter left.

  Personally, Lane regretted his choice, observing how uncomfortable she was there. He'd assumed that Dean had taken her to places like this in Los Angeles. Maybe not, though. Caroline certainly wouldn't have been impressed by it.

  "It's a little stuffy, but the food is excellent."

  "I'm sure it is."

  Dammit, he felt sorry for her, although he suspected his pity was the last thing she wanted. He had intended this lunch to be something personal. He felt he owed that to Dean. More than that, he felt Rachel deserved it. He didn't want this to become a business discussion about the contents of Dean's will and the letter in his pocket. That had to be dealt with, but not now. After their drinks arrived and they ordered their meals, Lane started asking her questions, trying together to talk about herself and her work as a commercial artist, and relax a little. He discovered it wasn't easy to draw her out of her shell, but he persisted, responding to the challenge.

  "Are you still living in Malibu?" he asked after his questions about her work gained him only meager responses.

  "No. I have an apartment in the hills near the riding stable where I keep my horses."

  "You have horses?" He remembered how involved Abbie was with the Arabian horses at River Bend. He should have guessed that Rachel would pick up Dean's obsession for them as well.

  "Well, only two, actually. Ahmar is the gelding Dean bought me when I was twelve. He's the first horse I ever owned. Before that I had a pony—a Welsh-Arabian cross. Ahmar is nineteen years old now, but you'd never guess it. He still loves his morning gallops and gets jealous if I take my filly Simoon out instead."

  "Ahmar. He's an Arabian, of course," Lane guessed.

  "Of course," she laughed for the first time. He liked the warm spontaneity of the sound. "A fiery red chestnut. In Arabic, Ahmar means 'red.' He's my very best friend."

  A horse for a best friend, Lane thought, noticing that she appeared embarrassed by her admission. If that was true, then her life must be lonelier than he'd thought.

  The waiter returned with their food order: a lobster salad for Rachel and duck terrine for himself. He let it absorb her attention for a few minutes.

  "You said you have another horse," he prompted.

  "Yes, Simoon, a three-year-old filly. Dean gave her to me as a yearling. She's out of one of the mares he imported from Egypt a few years ago, and sired by his stallion Nahr El Kedar." Rachel described her at length, for a little while completely forgetting herself. It was a different Rachel that Lane saw then, warm and glowing, that wall of reserve lowered, but only briefly.

  "What about boyfriends? I'm sure there's someone back there in L.A. waiting for you."

  "No." She picked at the remains of her lobster salad. "Between my job and my horses, I don't have a lot of free time for dating. I go out once in a while, but not often."

  Lane could tell by her expression that the experiences left a lot to be desired. As sensitive as she was, there was no doubt in his mind that she'd probably been hurt at one time or another. And the old saying "once burned, twice shy" was probably more than apt for her.

  After Rachel had refused both dessert and coffee, Lane asked for the check. "I enjoyed the lunch very much. You were right. The food was excellent." She laid her napkin on the table and picked up her purse. "Thank you for asking me."

  "Don't leave yet," Lane said, checking the movement she started to make. "I thought we might take a walk in the park across the street. There are a few things I want to talk to you about."

  With a hand at her elbow, Lane guided her across the street to Sam Houston Park. They strolled together across the rolling green, past historical St. John's Church and the gazebo to the rushes growing along the bank of Buffalo Bayou. There Rachel turned and looked back at the modern skyscrapers of downtown tower
ing over the small park.

  "The architecture here fascinates me." A gusting wind blew her long hair into her face. She combed it out of the way with her fingers and held it, the pose pulling the loose blouse tautly across her breasts. Lane was not so jaded that the sight failed to arouse him. Rather, he felt a healthy stirring of desire in his loins, and had to remind himself that she was the daughter of a friend—not that he was entirely sure what difference that made. "I guess I get that from my mother. I don't know." She shrugged absently. "When I think of all that Los Angeles is doing to try to revitalize its downtown area and then. . . see this. I mean, there's construction going on everywhere."

  "Counting cranes is Houston's favorite pastime," Lane said, referring to the giant construction cranes that poked their long necks from nearly every building site. "Some people want to declare them the state bird."

  "I can believe it."

  "If you want a better vantage point of the downtown buildings, we can walk over to Tranquility Park. It's just a block or so from here."

  "I know you're busy. And I can't keep taking up your time. . .”

  "It's my time." With a wave of his hand, he pointed out the direction they would take. "Before you leave for California, you should take a drive around Houston. There are high-rise buildings clustered miles apart on the outer loops with architectural styles that rival what you see here."