Nighttime Guardian

Each piece and each pearl was an exquisite work of art, but the blue gems had always been Shelby’s favorite, perhaps because they were so rare and so highly coveted.

With a sigh, she tried to rein in her fascination. There was a lot of work to do in the office, and very little time in which to do it. Shelby had come in early to try and reacquaint herself with the shop’s operating procedures and accounting methods before the start of business at ten o’clock. As much as she would like to examine leisurely each enticing piece in the display cases, there were more pressing concerns at the moment.

Annabel’s faith in Shelby had touched her deeply, but she also had her misgivings about running the shop. She hadn’t worked in retail in a long time. But with her previous experience at the Pearl Cove and her accounting knowledge in general, she felt fairly confident she would be able to hold down the fort, at least until her grandmother could return to work.

If she returned, Shelby thought with a pang. The injury, sustained from a fall down the porch steps, had taken a toll. It had been over a year since she’d seen her grandmother, and Shelby had been shocked yesterday to find how much Annabel had aged in that time, how frail she now seemed. What would happen if she could never return to work, if she would always need someone to look after her?

Was Shelby prepared to move back to Arcadia permanently?

It wouldn’t be easy. She no longer had a job to worry about since she’d resigned her position at a small, independent film studio, but her home was still in L.A. Michael was buried there. How could she not go back? How could she move thousands of miles away without feeling as though she’d somehow betrayed him? Abandoned him?

Rationally, she knew that wouldn’t be the case, but her emotions were a different matter. She wasn’t ready to let go yet. She couldn’t.

Concentrate! she chided herself. With an effort, Shelby put her mind back to the task at hand, scanning the numbers on the computer screen. Recent natural disasters befalling the Japanese cultured-pearl farms had enhanced the desirability of American freshwater pearls, and it appeared that her grandmother had utilized this demand to great advantage. Not only had she increased the size and distribution of her catalogue, she had also added online shopping to the Pearl Cove’s web site. The supply of gems on hand, many of them worth several thousand dollars, would allow the shop to maintain the same level of prosperity for years to come, even with the growing scarcity of mussels.

The inventory alone would be worth a small fortune on the current market. Shelby couldn’t help but admire her grandmother’s keen business acumen. No wonder the shop rested on such a secure financial foundation.

“I see you’re wasting no time.”

The deep voice startled Shelby. She jumped slightly as her gaze shot up to meet her uncle’s. He stood in the doorway, arms folded, impeccably dressed in an expensive gray suit as he glared across the office at her.

The front door was still locked. How had he got in? Shelby wondered. Had her grandmother given him a key, even though she’d admitted to Shelby that she no longer trusted him?

Shelby wasn’t surprised. She hadn’t trusted her uncle James since his lie had made her a laughingstock in this town. She’d learned only to well what he was capable of, especially where she was concerned.

She hadn’t seen him in more than five years, and the fact that he didn’t appear to have aged a day was a startling and disturbing contrast to the deterioration Shelby had seen in her grandmother.

Tall, slender, with sun-kissed hair and piercing blue eyes, James, at forty-one, was a striking-looking man who’d left in his wake a long line of soured business deals as he’d drifted carelessly through life, looking for easy money. He wasn’t all that different from his older brother, Richard. Shelby’s father was a successful stockbroker in California, but after the final breakup with her mother, he’d gravitated from one marriage to another, searching, it seemed, for something that always eluded him.

Shelby’s grandmother was the very salt of the earth, kind and generous to a fault. How her two sons could have turned out the way they had was a puzzle to Shelby.

With pantherlike grace, James moved across the room toward her. He stopped at the desk, placing his hands on the glossy surface as he leaned toward her. “Look at you, already settled in Mother’s office.”

“I’m here because she asked me to come.” Shelby refused to let her uncle intimidate her. After all she’d been through, a small-time hustler like James hardly seemed a threat.

Still, there was something about the way he stared at her, the way his lips curled upward in the softest of sneers that chilled her blood. His hatred for her was almost a tangible thing, and such a powerful emotion couldn’t be ignored. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, her uncle frightened her. He always had.

“Oh, I don’t doubt she asked you to come,” he said coolly. “You were always her favorite. You made certain of that.”

Shelby frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Always the innocent. Poor little Shelby, all alone because her parents didn’t want her. Poor little Shelby, moping around the house, playing on sympathies, worming her way into a lonely widow’s good graces.”

“For God’s sake, I was nine years old!” Shelby said in astonishment. “You can’t honestly think I was that devious.”

“Oh, I never underestimated you.” He straightened from the desk as she rose to face him. “I still don’t.”

“Why?” Shelby forced herself to walk around the desk, challenging him on his own turf. “Why do you hate me?”

“Because you’re Shelby,” he said with a casual shrug.

She lifted her chin, gazing up at him. “I never did anything to you.”

He gave a low, bitter laugh. “You did plenty, by God. But if you think I’m going to let you waltz in here and take what’s rightfully mine, you’re in for a very nasty surprise.”

Her initial impression of him had been wrong, Shelby realized. He had changed. He was even more dangerous than she remembered, and she would be a fool to underestimate him.

“I’m here because Grandmother wants me here,” she said with an edge of defiance. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Oh, no?” He grabbed her suddenly, and Shelby gasped, more in surprise than pain. “You’ve seen Mother recently. She’s old and frail, and I don’t just mean physically. Her mind’s going. With the right incentive, I think the courts could be persuaded to find her incompetent.”

“You wouldn’t,” Shelby said in horror. “Even you couldn’t be that cruel. There’s nothing wrong with Grandmother’s mind, and you know it.”

“Then how come she put a nutcase like you in charge of her business?”

Shelby’s heart thudded against her chest. What did he mean? What did he know?

He grinned, as if reading her mind. “I know your dirty little secret, Shelby. You had to be hospitalized after you were attacked by your husband’s killer. You were sent to the psychiatric ward, weren’t you?”

Shelby gasped. “How did you know that?”

“I have my ways. I know a lot of things about you, Shelby. You’d be surprised. You went a little crazy, the way I heard it. Saw monsters everywhere.” He paused, smiling, enjoying himself. “They still talk about you at that hospital, you know. The nurses still remember your screams, your little sleepwalking excursions.”

So he’d been to the hospital. He’d talked to the people who had cared for her. But why? To use the information against her somehow?

Shelby closed her eyes briefly. She had no wish to be reminded of that time, to revisit the terror of those nightmares, but James’s taunts had already opened the wounds.

She tried to struggle away from him, but his grasp tightened. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a movement in the doorway. A man’s voice said sharply, “What’s going on in here?”

James released her as suddenly as he’d grabbed her, and Shelby staggered back a step. Nathan was instantly by her side, steadying her. He towered over them both. James had once seemed enormous to Shelby, but now she realized that he was only an average-sized man. A bully who was suddenly dwarfed in Nathan’s powerful presence.

“The front door was open. When I came in I heard voices back here. Are you okay?” Nathan asked Shelby. He held her arm gently, but Shelby winced at the tenderness of her skin.

He turned slowly back to James. “I’ll ask you again. What’s going on?”

James shrugged, his expression suddenly benign. He smoothed his hand down his silk tie. “A little family powwow. Nothing for you to be concerned about. Unless, of course, you’re looking to turn a family squabble into front-page news.”

“Shelby?”

Nathan was looking to her for confirmation of James’s explanation. All she had to do was say the word and he would take care of her uncle. He would defend her just as ferociously as he had when they were children. Shelby didn’t know how she knew this, but she did.

She also knew that she couldn’t draw Nathan into her personal problems. She had to find a way to deal with James on her own.

“He’s right,” she said, glancing up in time to see her uncle’s smirk. “We were having a business discussion.”

Nathan didn’t look as if he bought it for a second, but there was very little he could do under the circumstances. “Well,” he said, his gaze troubled, “if you’re finished, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you, too.”

“We aren’t finished,” James said smoothly. “Not by a long shot. But the rest can wait. I’ve always been a patient man.”