Twin Seduction
Page 19
“They’re going to make a good team.” Jase turned to Cash. “By the way, I owe you one.”
“What for?”
“Those karate moves you taught Maddie. One of them saved my life. Hers, too.”
Cash smiled at him. “Then it was time well spent.” He glanced at his coals. “Ten more minutes and we’re going to have to round ’em up and bring ’em in. I’ll open a bottle of chardonnay as bait and we’ll take them a couple of glasses along with the letter Pete Blackthorn delivered while they were riding.”
“Good plan.”
“I’ve got another one. Tonight, I’m taking Jordan back to my place. That will give you and Maddie some privacy.”
Jase studied Cash. “If you can pull that off, you’re going to be my new best friend.”
“Watch and learn. I know just what bait to use then, too. Making love in the back of my pickup is on our to-do list.”
Jase raised his beer bottle in a toast. “I like your style.”
“I’M STILL TRYING to get my mind around the other Wares,” Maddie said. “I knew from the time I met them that there was something different about them.”
“Different is way too mild a word. Carleton was absolutely nuts. I saw it in his eyes. I’m amazed he was able to hide it all these years.”
Maddie shivered a little. “I saw it in Dorothy’s eyes, too.”
“At least Adam might be salvageable,” Jordan mused. “I think you’re right about him. He’s a lot like our mother—focused on his career as a designer. I think she saw a lot of herself in him. That may be why she didn’t want to prosecute him when she discovered he robbed the store. And the gambling may have been his way of acting out against his mother’s constant derision and dissatisfaction.”
“Our mother may have had some faults, but they were light years away from Dorothy Ware’s.” Maddie glanced at Jordan. “I have a question about Eva.”
“Ask away.”
“Are you angry with her for what she did? I mean, she didn’t want either one of us, and then she was the one who insisted that we never know about each other.”
Jordan shook her head. “I’m not angry at all. She may have been the cause of our separation, but in the end she brought us together.” Jordan let her gaze sweep the landscape. “And in the end she opened up new worlds for me. Not just this place, but all the new business challenges I’m finding here.”
“I feel the same way about New York and about working at Eva Ware Designs. I’m learning so much from helping Cho to finish her designs. I can’t help but feel grateful to her.”
Jordan glanced over her shoulder and saw the two men walking toward them. “If it hadn’t been for the terms of our mother’s will, I never would have found Cash.”
“And I never would have found Jase. We owe her big-time.”
“We come bearing gifts,” Cash said as he reached them. Jase handed them each a glass of wine and Cash handed Jordan the letter. “Pete Blackthorn brought this while you were out riding.”
Jordan looked down at the script—Maddie and Jordan—and she ran a finger over the writing.
“This is the letter you told me about,” Maddie said. “Read it to us.”
Jordan nodded as she broke the seal and held it so that Maddie could see.
Dear Maddie and Jordan,
If you’re reading this, it means that you’re together at last—something that I didn’t live long enough to see. I’m also hoping it means that the gamble I took when I kept the daughter who even at six months loved to play with shiny stones and sent away the daughter who loved to ride with me on my horse has paid off and played some part in your finding one another.
Enjoy one another as I’ve enjoyed watching both of you grow up.
All my love,
Dad
Jordan reached for Maddie’s hand and held on. “He mixed us up on purpose.”
“Because he loved us and he hoped we’d be together one day.”
“Hear! Hear!” Cash raised his glass in a toast. “To Mike Farrell.”
“And to Eva Ware,” Maddie said as she lifted her glass.
“To our parents,” Jordan said.
And all four of them drank.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3546-9
TWIN SEDUCTION
Copyright © 2009 by Carolyn Hanlon.
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