by Neesa Hart
Amusement gleamed in his silver-gray eyes. He looked nothing like she’d suspected. He was short and unassuming. From her conversations with him, she’d expected a giant. He enfolded her hand in both of his. “I am. And you’re Liza Kincaid. Welcome to our world.”
She couldn’t quite suppress a smile. “Thanks. Come in.”
Doris stood in the middle of the living room, fuming. “Stop that fawning, Martin. You said Eli would be here.”
Liza gathered her composure. “He’s out,” she said. “So’s Grace.”
“Out?” Leonard snapped. “Out where?”
“Out,” Liza said again. “Is there something I can help you with?”
Doris’s face flushed. “I think you’ve done quite enough. My God,” she looked at Martin, “is she sleeping here?”
“Apparently,” Martin said. He sounded pleased.
Liza found herself liking him better by the minute. Deliberately, she kept her gaze on Doris and Leonard, instinct telling her not to even turn her back. “Was there something you wanted?” she asked.
Doris frowned. “You bet there is.” She reached into her handbag and produced a folded piece of paper. “I just received this from Eli’s lawyers, and I want to know what the hell it is.”
Leonard snatched the paper from her, his eyes glittering as he faced Liza. “It’s a court order. He had his attorneys draft an order to keep us away from Grace.”
“Did he?” she said blandly.
Martin rocked gently back and forth on the balls of his loafer-clad feet. “It seems,” he explained, “that Everson and the rest of Eli’s legal team feel that perhaps the Paschells are putting an unnecessary amount of stress on Grace. The judge, apparently, agreed.”
“Really?” Liza asked. She’d been present when his lawyers had informed him that they intended to call the Paschells. She leveled a cold look at Doris. “I’d say that about sums it up, then.”
Doris launched into a stream of obscenities that made Liza wince. She made a mental note to thank Anna for every opinion she’d every offered on the unbecoming nature of swearing women. Leonard’s face turned a dark red. “I want to know where that son-of-a-bitch is,” he demanded. “And if you know, you’d better tell me.”
“Or what?” Liza snapped. “You’ll send me a nasty letter telling me that maybe the man who claims to be my father really isn’t—but don’t worry because I can come live with you?” She glared at the malevolent pair. “Is that really the best you can do? Picking on a ten-year-old child you claim to love?”
“How dare you,” Doris sputtered.
Liza managed a slight laugh. “You’re one to talk.”
“This is none of your business,” Leonard barked. “We’re here to talk to Eli—and to ensure Grace gets what’s best for her.”
“And that would be living with you?” she asked. She looked at Martin. “I can’t believe you brought these people over here.”
Martin’s expression didn’t flicker. “Sometimes a head-on collision is the only way to stop a runaway train.”
“I’ve had enough of this,” Doris spat out. “Where’s Eli?”
“I’m right here,” came his voice from the doorway. “What are you doing here?”
Leonard swung around to face him. “You’re back, I see.”
Grace, Liza noted, was not only clinging to her father’s hand, but had stepped behind the shelter of his leg. “We are,” Eli said softly.
“Grace!” Doris moved forward. “Thank God. I’ve been so worried about you. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Grace said. Her voice had the same emptiness Liza remembered from the first day she’d met her.
“For God’s sake, Doris,” Eli snapped. “She’s been out shopping with me, not in the clutches of a serial killer. Will you rein in the melodrama?”
Doris gave him a look that could have frozen the Gulf of Mexico. “If I choose to express concern for my granddaughter’s well-being, I hardly see how you can find that offensive.”
Eli snorted. He gave Grace’s hand a quick squeeze. “Honey, why don’t you and Liza go back to my room so you can show her what we bought?”
Liza held out her hand. “Good idea.”
“Okay.” Grace eased forward, giving Doris a wide berth. Martin brushed her shoulder as she passed, and she flashed him a slight smile. She took Liza’s hand, then virtually tugged her through the hallway toward the back bedrooms.
When they entered Eli’s room, Grace slammed the door. “Why are they here?” she asked Liza, wide-eyed.
Liza decided to tell her the truth. “Your father’s lawyers got a judge to agree to keep them away from you until the custody case has been decided. And they’re angry about it.”
Grace hesitated. “I’ll bet they are.”
Liza sat on the edge of the bed. “Grace, is there something you want to tell me?”
Grace dropped the plastic bag she carried and twisted her hands together. “They really hate him, Liza.”
Liza’s eyebrows lifted. “Your father?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“I don’t think they hate him, exactly—”
“No, they do. I’ve heard them. Grandfather thinks that Daddy kept him from making a lot of money. He says that Daddy knew when he released the results of that last study that it would bankrupt him and grandmother.” Her eyes filled with tears. “That’s why Mama was going to marry Paul. He had a lot of money, and we didn’t anymore.”
Startled, Liza leaned forward. “Grace, I don’t think—”
“It’s true. I heard them,” the child wailed. “Grandfather said that if Daddy’s research was published it would mean that some drug his company was developing wouldn’t reach the market. I heard them, Liza. You have to believe me.”
“I do,” Liza assured her. “I believe you.”
Grace ran across the room to climb onto the bed next to her. “Grandfather told my mother she had to marry Paul because his company was big enough to buy grandfather’s company.”
“Grace,” Liza stroked the child’s shoulders, “does your Daddy know about this?”
“No,” Grace shook her head. “I didn’t tell him.”
“Why not?”
“I thought after Mama died that Paul would go away, and I didn’t . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“You didn’t what?”
“I didn’t want to tell him everything,” she said quietly. “I was scared.”
Liza frowned. “Do your grandparents know that you know this?”
Grace hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”
Which explained, Liza thought bitterly, their ruthless insistence that Eli send Grace to live with them. At no cost did they want her to tell him what had occurred. It probably also explained why Paul, and Mara, evidently, had taken great pains to ensure that Grace wouldn’t easily trust her father. The maliciousness of it all made her shudder. She tamped down her anger and deliberately kept her voice gentle. “Honey, if we go out there right now, are you willing to tell your Daddy what you just told me?”
Grace’s lips quivered. “Will it make my grandparents quit trying to take me away from Daddy?”
“I think so,” Liza assured her. “I’m almost certain.”
She could see the indecision on the child’s face, and hated the loss of her innocence. “Will you come with me?” Grace finally asked.
“Absolutely,” Liza assured her. She took the child’s hand, and they walked toward the door. “All you have to do,” she told her, “is tell your father what you just told me. Just trust him, Grace. He’ll take care of everything.”
As they walked down the hall, the angry voices coming from the living room grew louder. Leonard was shouting, accusing Eli of everything from unscrupulous research methods to criminal activities. Grace and Liza stood unnoticed in the doorway for long seconds while Doris stalked toward Eli. “You’ll never know,” she spat out, “what this has cost us. You dirty bastard. Not only did you set out to ruin Leonard’s repu
tation, but you took our daughter and our granddaughter from us.” She threw the subpoena at him. “If you think you aren’t going to pay for that, then you’re crazy. You drove Mara to her death, and you know it. If it hadn’t been for you, she never would have gotten mixed up with Paul LeMan. If some judge asks me exactly what I think of you, I have every intention of telling him that not only are you a lying, thieving cur, but that you’re a murderer as well.”
“Doris—” Leonard held out a hand.
“It’s true,” she snapped, giving her husband a cold look. “He made sure we’d have nothing left, and then he drove Mara with his demands until she couldn’t take it anymore.” She turned on Eli once more. “You might as well have put a gun to my daughter’s head and shot her, you bastard. You killed her.”
“No!” Grace screamed. “No, that’s not true.”
Every head in the room turned their way. Liza looked at Grace startled. “Grace—”
“It’s not true,” the child yelled again. “It’s not Daddy’s fault. He didn’t even know why Mama was with Paul. He had nothing to do with it.”
Eli took a step forward. “Honey—”
“You didn’t, Daddy. I know you didn’t.” She gave Eli an anguished look. “It isn’t your fault that she died, it’s mine,” she said, her voice a broken sob. “I’m the one that killed her.”
Grace ran back down the hall before Liza could stop her. She had the barest second to recognize the ravaged look on Eli’s face as he pushed past her and hurried after his daughter. Liza drew a deep breath and turned to face Doris and Leonard. “It’s time for you to leave,” she said firmly.
“I’ve got to go to her,” Doris said.
Liza moved to block the doorway. “No. You need to leave.”
Leonard glared at her. “We’re not leaving her like this. She has to understand—”
“She understands perfectly,” Liza bit out. “And you need to leave.” She glanced at Martin. “Martin?”
He nodded. “I’ll see them out.”
Doris sputtered. “You can’t throw me out of here, you little bitch. I have a right to see—”
Martin walked forward and clamped his fingers on Doris’s elbow. “The lady wants you to leave,” he said, his voice lethal. “And I suggest you do before I’m forced to call the police and inform them that you’re in violation of the restraining order Eli has against you.”
Leonard exploded. “You bastard.”
Martin looked to Liza. She nodded and said, “If you don’t leave now, I can call security and have you arrested.”
Doris started swearing again. Liza decided to leave the details to Martin. She turned and walked back down the hallway, but not before closing the pocket door and throwing the lock.
Eli found Grace flung across his bed, sobbing. “Honey,” he said, easing carefully into the room. “Baby, it’s okay.”
“I should have told you before,” she wailed. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry this happened.”
His chest ached. He took a badly needed breath as he sat next to her on the bed. “Shhh.” He gathered her into his arms so she could sob against his chest. Easing back against the headboard, he pillowed her against him as he gently stroked her hair. “It’s all right, honey. Daddy’s here.”
Grace’s sobs were breaking his heart into millions of shattered pieces. She shook her head. “It’s”—she hiccuped—”it’s true. Everything I said. If it hadn’t been for me, Mama wouldn’t have died in that crash.”
His eyes drifted shut. “Oh, honey, that’s not true. Your Mama died in an accident, and no matter how it seemed, it wasn’t your fault.”
“It was my fault,” she insisted. “You don’t understand.”
His hands were shaking, he realized as he made a concerted effort to control his voice. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?” He continued smoothing her whisper soft hair with his large hand.
She sucked in several tear-laden breaths. “We had a huge fight that night. I was really mad at Paul and I kept yelling at her that she shouldn’t marry him.”
“Why?” he asked softly.
“He was lying about you.” Grace rubbed her face on his shirtfront. “I heard him on the phone with Grandfather. Paul said that after Mama married him, he could make sure that you wouldn’t keep Grandfather’s company from selling Arid—Arril—”
“Arillium,” he supplied the name of a drug he knew Leonard’s company had been developing—a drug that had lost significant value since the results of Eli’s most recent study had been released.
“That’s it. Paul said he could make it worth money again after he married Mama.”
Eli raised a brow. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. He said that if you didn’t do what they wanted, that he’d never let you see me again and that you’d give in. Mama and Paul, and sometimes Grandfather and Grandmother would have long meetings with him. At first, I didn’t know why.”
He did. His temper spiked several degrees higher. “Why did you argue with your mother that day?”
“Because Paul came over before she got home. I heard him tell Grandfather on the phone that if he didn’t get someone to corro—corro—”
“Corroborate?” Eli prompted.
“Uh huh. What does that mean?”
“It means that they needed someone to back up their claim that the study I’d released wasn’t true.”
“Oh.” She sniffled. “Paul was yelling at him. He said if Grandfather couldn’t get someone to do that, then he wasn’t going marry Mama. He said that Grandfather better find a way to make you look like you were lying or they’d both lose everything.” Grace tipped her head back to look at him through tear-laden eyes. “He was lying, Daddy.”
“Yes,” Eli agreed.
“I didn’t know what was going on, so I asked Mama, and she got really mad at me for listening to Paul’s conversation. She told me I shouldn’t have done that, and that I’d better not tell Paul. I told her I hated him anyway, and I didn’t want her to marry him. And she started yelling at me. I didn’t know what to do. I told her I was going to call you and tell you everything. That’s when she called Paul and told him we were coming to see him.”
Eli swallowed. “The night of the accident?”
“Yes. She told Paul that he’d better think of a way to explain things to me because I was going to ruin everything by telling you. She said that he never should have told me you wouldn’t let me live with you.”
“He shouldn’t have,” Eli agreed. He swept her hair behind her ear. “He lied about that.”
Grace dropped her head back to his chest. “We were fighting the whole time we were in the car. I didn’t want to see Paul. I wanted to call you, but she wouldn’t let me. She called Grandmother and Grandfather, and they were supposed to meet us there.”
“But you and your mother didn’t make it to Paul’s house because of the accident?”
She had begun to sob again. Eli held her closer. “Shh, baby, it’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Grace clung to him. “We were in the car, and I kept trying to reach the cellular phone. I was going to call you and tell you to come get me. Mama was trying to take it away from me when she hit the truck.” Her shoulders were jerking spasmodically. Eli felt a burning sensation in his throat. “And then,” Grace continued, “she swerved off the road. When I saw the truck, I screamed, but Mama couldn’t stop. She hit it, and she—the windshield shattered and the bumper of the truck hit her in the head. She was bleeding, and I kept screaming. There was no one there. The phone wouldn’t work, either. I couldn’t call anyone. I was really scared. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Oh, my God.” He felt the sting of tears in his own eyes. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“I was scared to tell you,” she said through a fresh burst of tears. “I was afraid that if I told you you’d be really mad at me for causing the accident, and then you wouldn’t want me anymore. I didn’t mean to do it, Dadd
y. I swear I didn’t.”
Eli’s cradled her head in both his hands. Gently tipping her head back, he met her tearful gaze. “Grace, it was an accident,” he said carefully. “Your mother died because she wasn’t driving as cautiously as she should have, and she crashed her car. It was not your fault.” He stroked his thumbs over her wet cheeks. “And I will always want you. Always. I love you.”
Grace searched his eyes. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Shhhh, Baby, I know. It’s going to be okay.” She sobbed against him for what seemed like an hour. Eli held her and stroked her hair while the aftershocks rolled through him.
Finally, Grace tipped her head back from his shoulder. Her lips trembled. “What if—what if Grandmother proves that I’m not even your daughter?”
“You are,” he told her. “I’ve never doubted it. You’re my daughter. No one is going to take you away from me.”
She stared at him gravely. “Are you sure?”
“I’m very sure.”
“Daddy?”
“What?”
“I love you.”
18
A week and a half later, Liza wearily rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger as she listened to Bill Maxin making a pseudo-conciliatory speech at a special meeting of the board of visitors. The stifling afternoon heat was classic Terrance, Georgia, summer weather. There was a time, she knew, when she would have found it comforting. Today, it grated on her nerves.
As had everything else, it seemed, since she’d returned from New York. With Grace’s story in the open, the Paschells had been forced to back down on their custody demands. As predicted, the publicity was dying a long, dreary death. Eli had remained in New York to finish tying up loose ends, and Grace had returned with Liza to Breeland.
At her own request, Grace was staying in the dorm until her father returned. While Liza was staying, very much alone, in the apartment that had been her safe-haven for the last twelve years. It felt more like a prison every day, she admitted.
“So,” Bill was saying, “I hope we can finally put this behind us and move on to some of the pressing issues about Breeland’s future.”
