The Marriage Agenda: The Marriage Conspiracy / The Billionaire's Baby Plan

* * *

Joleen kept Sam with her, while DeDe and Wayne cut the cake and after, as the guests took turns proposing toasts to the happy couple. Then she handed Sam back to her sister, who was now clad comfortably in her favorite black jeans.

By then it was a little past seven, and growing dark. The breeze had kept up, and the temperature had dropped about ten degrees. It was the next thing to pleasant now, in the backyard. Joleen went around the side of the house and plugged in the paper lanterns that she and a couple of cousins had spent the day before stringing from tree to tree.

There were “oohs” and “aahs” and a smattering of applause as the glow of the lanterns lit up the deepening night. Joleen felt a glow of her own inside. She had done a good job for her sister. In spite of more than one near disaster, it was stacking up to be a fine wedding, after all.

Camilla had a decent stereo system in the house. And yesterday, after the lantern stringing, Joleen and her cousins had wired up extra speakers and set them out on the patio. So they had good, clear music for dancing. DeDe and Wayne were already swaying beneath the lanterns, held close in each other’s arms. So were Aunt LeeAnne and her husband, Uncle Foley, and a number of other couples as well—including Joleen’s mother. Camilla moved gracefully in the embrace of yet another middle-aged admirer.

“You did good, Jo.” Dekker had come up beside her.

“Thanks.”

“Welcome.” He was staring out at the backyard, his eyes on the dancers.

Joleen thought of Los Angeles again, wondered what had happened there. She was just about to make another effort at prying some information out of him when she remembered the Atwoods.

She supposed she’d better go looking for them.

Dekker sensed her shift in mood. “What’s the matter?”

“Oh, nothin’. Much. I have to say goodbye to the Atwoods.”

His brows had drawn together. “I don’t like the way you said that. What’s going on?”

Teasingly, she bumped his arm with her elbow. “You are such a suspicious man.”

“When it comes to Robert Atwood, you bet I am. I don’t trust him.”

“I noticed. He wants a few minutes with me before they leave, that’s all.”

“A few minutes for what?”

“I don’t know yet. But I’m sure he’s plannin’ to tell me. When he gets me alone.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Dekker. Chill.”

“‘When he gets you alone.’ What does that mean?”

“It means I am giving him five minutes. In Daddy’s study.”

“Why? I can tell by the way you’re hugging yourself and sighing that you don’t want to do that.”

“I want to make it work with them.”

“People do not always get what they want.”

“Dekker—”

He cut her off. “It’s pride, Joleen. You know it is. You’re ashamed that you had such bad judgment about Bobby. You want them to be different from him. But Jo, they raised him. You have to face that.”

“I was a fool with Bobby. This is different.”

“No. No, I don’t think it is.”

“You think I’m still a fool?”

He made a sound low in his throat. “Damn it, Jo…”

She stood on tiptoe and whispered to him. “It is only five minutes. Then they will leave and we can enjoy the rest of the party.”

“You are too damn trusting.”

She planted a quick kiss on his square jaw. “Gotta go.”

He was silent as she walked away from him, but she could feel his disapproval, like a chill wind on the warm night. She shrugged it off.

Dekker had seen way too much in his life. He’d been a detective with the OCPD before Stacey died. He’d quit the department during the tough time that followed. But before that he’d seen too many examples of the terrible things people can do to each other. Now he worked on his own as a private investigator, which gave him an ongoing opportunity to witness more of man’s inhumanity to man. Sometimes he saw trouble coming whether it was on the way or not.

Joleen put on a confident smile. She was going to do her best to make things work with the Atwoods. It was her duty, as the mother of their grandchild.

She could stand up just fine under Robert Atwood’s cold looks and demanding ways. What could he really do to her, after all? She held all the power, when it came to their relationship with Sam.

She would not abuse that power. But she wouldn’t let Robert Atwood walk all over her, either.

* * *

Joleen found the Atwoods waiting by the back door. They followed her into the kitchen and on to the central hall, where Uncle Hubert’s snoring could be clearly heard through the open door to the living room.

Joleen held up a hand. “Just one minute.”

The Atwoods stopped where they were, at the foot of the stairs. Joleen moved to the living room doorway. Uncle Herbert lay just as she and Dekker had left him two hours before, faceup on the couch, his stocking feet dangling a few inches from the floor. Gently she closed the door.

“This way.” She led Sam’s grandparents across the hall to the room her father had used as his study. She reached in and flicked the wall switch. Four tulip-shaped lamps in the small chandelier overhead bloomed into light.

The room was as it had always been. Samuel Tilly’s scarred oak desk with its gray swivel chair waited in front of the window. His old medical books and journals filled the tall bookcases on the inner wall. There was a worn couch and two comfy, faded easy chairs.

“Have a seat.” Joleen closed the door.

The Atwoods did not sit.

They stood in the center of the room, between the couch and her father’s desk. Robert looked more severe than ever. And Antonia, hovering in his shadow as always, looked nothing short of bleak—too pale, her thin brows drawn together. She had clasped her hands in front of her. The knuckles were dead white.

Joleen said, “Antonia? Are you all right?”

“Oh, yes. Fine. Just fine…”