Besides, she'd assumed that what she and Michael shared was something much more important than messy emotions like lust and desire. She liked Michael's company, admired his achievements, and envied his deep family roots. Surely those were better—stronger—grounds for marriage than a physical attraction that was likely to burn itself out within weeks of the honeymoon.
Emily felt a spurt of betrayal when she thought back over the past three months. Michael had assured her numerous times that she was going to be the perfect wife for him, the ideal partner for a man burning up miles on the trail to the governor's mansion. Only last week, after their dinner with Senator Drysdale and his wife, he'd told her that she was the sort of woman most political candidates could only dream of finding. Socially gracious, well educated, but never pushy, she burnished his image whenever they appeared together, Michael had said proudly. What had happened between last Wednesday and today to change his mind?
Emily realized she'd been so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she'd given less than half her attention to Michael's rambling explanation as to why he was calling off the wedding. In the end, though, perhaps it didn't matter that she wasn't much wiser about his motives now than she had been ten minutes ago. What could he possibly say that would justify such a crazy decision, anyway?
"I'm counting on you to help me come up with a reasonable explanation for this last-minute cancellation," Michael was saying, in a jolting echo of her own thoughts. "Neither of us wants to provide any more fodder for the scandal sheets than we need. Our breakup is bound to be reported by the local San Antonio media, especially coming right before the wedding like this. If we're unlucky, this is a story that could get picked up by the national tabloids. We can't forget how easily my campaign for governor could hit a roadblock. I know I don't need to remind you, honey, how important it is that we don't do anything to derail my fund-raising prospects at this stage of the game. These days, if you can't please the moneymen, you can't hope to run a campaign."
She winced at the endearment, but she could see he hadn't even noticed the casual intimacy of the way he'd called her honey. Hurt made her angry. "Yes, I can see that your fund-raising prospects are your first priority right now."
Michael gave no indication that he noticed the sarcasm dripping from her reply. "I knew you'd understand, Emily. I value your opinion, you know, even though I can't marry you, and I sure would appreciate anything you can think of that would keep my campaign moving along on an upward swing."
How about a swift kick in the pants, Emily thought wildly. That ought to give him some satisfactory upward propulsion.
"It's vital for us to have some sort of plausible story to tell before tonight's dinner," Michael said. He sent her a smile that Emily found infuriatingly patronizing. "I'm perfectly agreeable to pretending that it's you who called it off." His smile deepened, then changed into a warm chuckle. "Who knows? If you're seen ditching me, maybe that'll increase my sympathy ratings with the women voters."
"Or maybe they'll all start wondering what I found wrong with you," she said.
His worried frown instantly reappeared. "Damn! I was joking, but you have a point. Hmm…we'll have to think about that some more. There must be some way for us to pull this one out of the hat."
"Consult with your campaign manager," she said, her jaw clenched. "I'm sure Jeff Greiff will have an opinion. He always does. After all, this is a political issue, isn't it? There don't seem to be many emotions involved."
"You're wrong," he said, suddenly solemn. "At least on my side, there's quite a lot of feeling, even though we both recognized this was pretty much a marriage of convenience. I really do care about you, Emily. It's just that I need to be so careful—" He pulled himself up short. "Anyway, thanks for suggesting I should get in touch with Jeff. That was a great idea, I'll give him a call."
"Sure. Don't let me keep you."
Her sarcasm finally penetrated Michael's cloud of self-absorption. He had reached for his cell phone, but he put it down on the desk without dialing, his expression contrite and faintly ashamed. "I'm real sorry, Emily. But this will turn out for the best, you'll see."
He leaned forward and, to her horror, she realized he was planning to hug her, or maybe even give her a comforting kiss. She hastily stepped backward, out of his reach.
"Don't touch me!" She was humiliated by the hurt and panic that she could no longer screen out of her voice.
Michael's expression softened into a sympathy that she didn't want and couldn't bear to see. "I have a high regard for you and your adopted family, Emily, a very high regard. Even though things haven't worked out between the two of us, I'm glad that my father and yours have already entered into a business partnership for that new land development in Laurel Acres. And I want you to know that if I can count on your father for the promised campaign contributions, then he can count on me to get him all the introductions he can possibly use for his other business projects. Any doors that might have been closed to him in the past…well, I'll personally guarantee to make sure that they spring open. The Chambers family name carries a lot of power in this state, and you've earned the right to have me use some of that power on behalf of your adoptive family."
Earned the right? The shock was well and truly wearing off, Emily realized. She was so hurt by Michael's suggestion that their engagement had been nothing more than a subsidiary clause in a business deal, and so disgusted by his casual shattering of their promises to each other, that she was about to say all sorts of things she would undoubtedly regret. Thinking first and speaking much later had prevented her from making a lot of bad mistakes in her life. No point in changing the habits of a lifetime at this traumatic moment. What she needed to do right now was to get out of here so that she could draw the tattered remnants of her pride and dignity back around her.
Averting her eyes, she picked up the wedding arrangements binder and clutched it to her chest, deriving irrational comfort from its familiar weight, even though all the documents tucked carefully inside were now so much waste paper.
"I can't stay talking to you any longer, Michael. I have an appointment all the way across town." She was fiercely glad now that she'd never told him about her decision to consult with Dylan Garrett of Finders Keepers. Especially glad that she'd never even breathed a hint as to why she might want to hire the services of a private investigator. Her desire to find her birth mother seemed an intimate yearning that she was glad she'd never shared with Michael.
She glanced at her watch, surprised that some part of her brain was still functioning clearly enough to enable her to note that it was 10:38. "Unless the traffic is miraculously light, I'm going to be late."
"Of course, don't let me keep you. We're just about finished here, aren't we?"
"You could certainly say that."
"Then I'll let you go." Michael was obviously as anxious to get away from her as she was to get away from him. She could see his fingers quivering over the buttons of his cell phone. "I really appreciate how understanding you've been about this, Emily. I knew you would be, though. You're one class act, but you know that, don't you?" He looked at her almost wistfully. "In so many ways, you'd have made the perfect governor's wife."
She was a class act in grave danger of tossing her cookies if she didn't get out of this room in the next thirty seconds. Without saying another word, Emily swung out of the library, proud that she was sufficiently in control to close the door quietly behind her.
Emily had never made a scene in her life, and she wasn't about to give Michael Chambers the satisfaction of seeing her create one now. When you had no idea where you came from, it wasn't a good idea to give people cause to ask questions about your stability, or even your manners.
Ever the lady—even if she hadn't been born one—Emily walked quietly from the room.
CHAPTER TWO
The next time Emily was consciously aware of her surroundings, she found herself facing a set of imposing barred wrought-iron gates. Unable to proceed, she
was forced to stop driving. She drew her Ford Explorer to a halt, her hands starting to shake on the steering wheel when she realized that she had arrived at the Double G Ranch on the far northwestern outskirts of San Antonio.
Good grief, if she was at the Double G, she must have driven clear across town at the height of midday traffic! Try as she might, she couldn't summon a single memory of seeing another vehicle, or stopping for a traffic light. She could only be thankful that she hadn't killed anyone in the process of getting here.
Although a traffic accident might be one solution to her dilemma, she thought with a touch of hysteria. Maybe she could stage a fake accident, smash up the car a bit, and feign head injuries. How about pretending to have amnesia? Then Michael could sorrowfully announce to the 350 assembled guests that since his fiancée had lost her mind, they were postponing the wedding.
Three hundred and fifty guests. Emily's hands started to shake again. She'd tried so hard to be a source of pride to her parents. The Suttons had showered her with love and attention from the day they picked her up at the adoption agency, when she was only two weeks old. Achieving her maximum potential had seemed the least she could do to demonstrate her gratitude. Now she appeared doomed to shatter their pride in a big way, in the most public of settings. How in the world was she going to face them?
Her hands simply wouldn't stop shaking. She gripped the wheel, forcing herself back to an approximation of calm. Take things one step at a time. By chance, she'd made it here to the ranch without mishap. On time, no less, so she might as well keep her appointment. When she'd finished her consultation with Dylan Garrett, there would be more than enough hours left in the day to track down her parents and pass on the shocking news that their weekend schedule suddenly had plenty of free time in it.
First she had to get through the closed gates. Small tasks seemed very difficult when half your brain was nonfunctioning. Emily rubbed her pounding forehead. How was she supposed to get inside? There were video monitors mounted on the decorative stone gate posts, but she couldn't see any handles or locks on the gates themselves. Belatedly, she remembered that Carolyn had warned her about the secured entrance to the ranch. She'd been instructed to press the buzzer right below the videocam and request admittance.
Okay, Emily decided. She could manage that.
Hot, humid air assailed her as she rolled down the window. The temperature had been in the nineties for the past several days, and there was no rain in the five-day forecast, no expectation of a return to the eighties anytime soon. She'd been happy about the dry spell when she heard the forecast this morning. Now she wished rain would pour down in torrents. If there could only be a flood, just a little one, with nobody drowning, would that be sufficient excuse to call off the wedding?
Despite a fervent prayer for lightning bolts and thunder claps, the sky remained stubbornly cloudless, without the tiniest hint of an impending shower, let alone a flood of torrential rain. Thunderstorms, she could only conclude, were not delivered on demand to save people from social embarrassment.
Sighing, she pressed the intercom button. "This is Emily Sutton. I have an appointment with Dylan Garrett of Finders Keepers."
"Hi, Emily. This is Carolyn. I'll let you in."
The gates swung open, but Emily didn't drive through them. Instead, she stared at the electronic speaker as if it had sprouted fangs and poison pincers. Carolyn St. Clair! Her maid of honor. Good grief, she was truly losing her mind. How could she possibly have forgotten that Carolyn would be here, at the Double G Ranch? How could she have forgotten that the main reason she'd chosen Dylan Garrett to be her investigator was because her best friend Carolyn worked for Finders Keepers?
"Hey, Em, are you there? Or have we lost you to a daydream about your honeymoon?" Even over the intersystem, Emily could hear that Carolyn's voice was tinged with friendly laughter. What in the world was she going to tell her? Carolyn was probably the kindest, most sympathetic woman in San Antonio, but that didn't make it any easier for Emily to confess that she'd been dumped by her fiancé, hours before the wedding.
Whatever story she settled on, Emily decided, she couldn't break the news over an intercom. She cleared her throat. "I'm here, Carolyn, and the gates are open. I'll be with you in a couple of minutes."
"Okay. I'll meet you at the head of the stairs. When you've parked the car, you'll see the signposts to our office."
The gates swung closed behind her, and Emily followed the winding, tree-shaded drive to the ranch. The driveway was almost long enough and wide enough to be considered a road, and on another day, in different circumstances, she might have been intrigued by this chance to observe one of the San Antonio region's oldest and most successful cattle ranches. As it was, her brain was so stuffed full of worry that she could just as easily have been driving to the local mall for all the attention she paid to the view.
Parking on a flagstone apron shaded by a pair of giant live oaks, she followed rustic wooden signs that pointed her to a side entrance and a stairway that led up to the second-floor offices of Finders Keepers.
As promised, Carolyn greeted her at the head of the stairs. "I'm glad you could make it, Em. With the wedding tomorrow, I half expected to get a phone call saying that some last-minute glitch in the arrangements was keeping you in town."
"No." Emily drew in a shaky breath. "I decided to get the hell out of Dodge for an hour or two and leave everyone else to cope with the disasters."
Carolyn laughed. "I should have known you would be much too well organized to be panicked just because several hundred of the most important people in Texas are coming to watch you get married. Now me, I'm already chugging antacids just because I'm going to be your maid of honor. I know people aren't going to pay the least bit of attention to anyone except you, and maybe a glance or two at Michael, but I'm not used to moving in the sort of high-society circles that you inhabit, and I don't want to mess up." She rolled her eyes. "The Chambers family is so nose-in-the-air Old Money that I'm never quite sure whether to curtsey or tell them to lighten up and get a life."
This was simply awful. Emily wondered if she should faint, have hysterics, or cut short her torture by jumping out of the nearest window. "Look, Carolyn, you probably need to know that you don't have to worry anymore about being—"
A man came out of a door to her left. "Ms. Sutton? I'm Dylan Garrett, one of the partners in Finders Keepers. I've been looking forward to meeting you."
Years of social training took over and Emily extended her hand, smiling politely. "Yes, I'm Emily Sutton. It's good to meet you, Dylan."
"I'll get back to straightening out the petty cash accounts," Carolyn said with a quick wave. "See you tonight, Em. I'm looking forward to it."
Oh, God! Should she keep Dylan waiting while she told Carolyn what had happened? Panic started to whirl in Emily's stomach and she leaned against the banister, afraid she might pass out if she didn't grab on to some solid support.
"Come into my office and we'll get started," Dylan said, taking the decision of what to do next out of her hands. "I know how busy you must be, and I'll try to do this as fast as we can." He held the door, standing back so that she could pass him.
He would never know what an effort of will it required to straighten her shoulders, move away from the support of the stair rail, and follow him into his office, Emily thought.
"What a pleasant room," she said as Dylan closed the door behind them. Her reaction was mechanical, but as she spoke, she realized she had instinctively responded to the simple, masculine comfort of the room. As a trained interior designer, it was second nature for her to notice the settings people chose to live and work in, and she heartily approved Dylan's taste.
The office had walls of natural stone and rough-hewn timber, contrasted with sections of whitewashed plaster that gave the whole room an airy feel that was simultaneously timeless and fashionably rustic. The furniture was obviously custom-designed to fit the niches and contours of the room, and the natural clutt
er of a working office was cleverly contained within several purpose-designed cabinets and open tray systems.
"You have wonderful natural light, and you've made the most of the available space," she said, looking around. "You must enjoy working here."
"I sure do. It's turned out well, hasn't it?" Dylan sat down behind an oversize desk and gestured for her to take the comfortable armchair that faced him. "It's hard to imagine that this second floor has been part of the ranch for a hundred years, but it wasn't much more than wasted space until my sister and I decided to convert the area into our offices."
"With Carolyn to keep the administration running smoothly, and this great setting to impress your clients, I'm sure Finders Keepers will soon be the most successful investigative firm in the state."
Dylan grinned. "We can only hope. But let's get down to business. I know this is a very busy day for you and I'm sorry we couldn't arrange to get together any earlier. You're the only person I know whose schedule is more full than mine right now."
Emily managed a sickly smile. If only he realized just how empty her schedule was about to become.
Dylan gave her an intent look, then leaned back in his chair, deliberately casual. "Tell me what you would like Finders Keepers to investigate for you, Ms. Sutton. Carolyn said that it was a family matter, but that's all she told me."
"Call me Emily, please." She had agonized over her decision for weeks before coming to consult with Dylan Garrett. Ironically, now that she was here, her emotions were so numb that it didn't seem such a big deal after all. "I'm here because I need you to find my birth mother," she said.
His Brother's Fiancée Page 2
