Guarding the Heiress

Doug tried to reassure her with his eyes as he stood. “Of course.” He stared down at Thurston and gave him a look that dared him to argue otherwise. “You can find us at the boardinghouse.”

Millicent nodded, relief evident in her face. “I’ll call you after I’ve told my daughter.”

“Told me what?”

All eyes shifted to the front of the room where Edwinna Harper stood in the doorway.

Edwinna, her expression fiercely guarded, looked from Thurston, who only then pushed to his feet, to Doug and then to her mother. “Who are these people? And what is it you have to tell me?”

Chapter Two

Dead silence filled the room for the space of three beats.

Millicent’s gaze swung to Doug’s. “Please,” she urged.

Knowing full well what she wanted, Doug nodded and offered both Millicent and Edwinna a smile. “You know where to reach us,” he reminded the mother. Then he ushered a still-speechless Thurston toward the door. Thurston stalled there, apparently unable to tear his startled gaze from the young woman standing to one side waiting for them to pass.

“My God,” Thurston murmured.

“Let’s go,” Doug insisted, giving Thurston another nudge toward the entry hall. The resemblance between Edwinna and her grandmother D’Martine was uncanny to say the least. But now was not the time to hang around and gawk.

Eddi watched the two strangers exit through the front door with a mixture of anxiety and fear tangling in her belly. Part of it, she confessed, was from the up-close encounter with the gorgeous guy Irene and her pals had gone on so about. The other part, however, was something she couldn’t quite label. What were these men talking to her mother about? Her gaze moved back to where her mom still sat in her favorite rocker-recliner, and the knot of anxiety tightened. Milly looked more frightened than Eddi had ever seen her in her entire life.

“What’s wrong? What did those men want?” She hurried to her mother’s side before she put herself through the physical rigor of getting up. If those guys were bill collectors she was going to teach them a thing or two about manners. The Harpers might be a little late on payments now and then, but they never failed to pay.

Crouching near Milly’s chair, she searched those usually smiling brown eyes and found only pain. “Please, Momma, tell me what’s happened.”

Milly nodded. “I want you to sit down over there.” She gestured to the couch. “I have some things to explain to you.”

Feeling her own tension heighten, but needing desperately to hear what her mother had to say, Eddi obediently settled on the couch. She wondered briefly how long those men had been here pestering Milly. Then she chastised herself for not coming sooner. If she hadn’t piddled so at Ms. Ella’s house to listen to the matchmaking plot, she could have been here already.

Milly Harper moistened her lips and blinked away the tears in her eyes. The strength Eddi knew her mother to possess visibly surged and the uncertainty she’d seen moments ago all but vanished.

“There are things I should have told you long ago.” She cleared her throat and propped both hands on her cane. “But, selfishly, I chose not to. Now it will be all the more difficult.”

Eddi’s confusion mounted with each passing second. “What on earth are you talking about?”

Milly took a big breath and began, “Twenty-six years ago I graduated high school and thought I had the world by the tail.” She shrugged one shoulder. “My family didn’t have any money to speak of, but that wasn’t going to stop me. I’d won a scholarship, enough to pay my tuition and such. So, off I went to Boston, to a school I never dreamed I’d have the opportunity to attend. I picked up a waitressing job to keep a little money in my pocket.” Her gaze took on a distant look. “I was on my way.”

For a long while Milly said nothing else. Eddi knew that she was remembering. She couldn’t imagine why she’d never heard this story before. She hadn’t even known her mother had attended college, much less some fancy Boston institution.

“I met someone.” She fidgeted a bit, the uncertainty creeping back. “He was a little older than me and in his final year of law school.” She smiled through the layer of emotion that now shimmered in her eyes. “We fell in love immediately.” She shook her head. “It was just like a fairy tale. He was this handsome prince and I was the lowly peasant who’d captured his fancy and his heart.”

Eddi was suddenly enthralled by the story, having forgotten all about the strangers she’d found in her own living room. “Mother, you never told me you’d been in love with someone else before Dad.”

Milly’s eyes met Eddi’s briefly. “Well, we all have our secrets.”

Another moment of taut silence lapsed between them.

“We had it all planned out. As soon as he graduated we planned to marry.” Her gaze flicked to Eddi’s. “His parents would never have approved of him marrying a small-town girl like me. But he didn’t care. We were in love and that’s all that mattered.”

The fervor in her mother’s voice emphasized the truth in her words. She had been in love with the young man of which she spoke. Deeply in love. Eddi’s heart rate picked up its pace in anticipation of more of the story.

“He was about to go home for spring break, his graduation was only weeks away.” She smiled sadly. “And we were so happy. I told him then…he was going home to break the news to his parents and then he was coming back for me. He wasn’t even going to wait for his graduation….” Her voice trembled then trailed off for a time. When she spoke again, her words were strained. “But he never made it home. Someone, we don’t know who since the crime was never solved, kidnapped him…held him for ransom.”

“Oh my God.” Eddi rushed to her mother’s side, crouching next to her and taking her hand in hers in a show of comfort. “That’s horrible.”

“The ransom was never picked up and no one could understand why, until the…body was found.” Her lips trembled and she had to take a second to compose herself. “Whatever went wrong, he wound up dead.”

“I’m so sorry, Momma,” Eddi soothed. Something niggled at her and she asked, “What did you mean when you said you told him then? Told him what? What made him decide he wasn’t going to wait for graduation to speak to his parents?”

Milly’s gaze connected with hers and Eddi knew the truth even before she spoke. “That I was pregnant with his child…with you. That’s why we were so happy.”

Eddi went ice cold then fiery hot. Her head shook of its own volition. She thought of the man she knew as her father…of all that he’d done for her…all that he’d been to her. “That can’t be true. Daddy—”

“Knows the truth,” Milly put in. “He knew right up front. But he’d loved me since the third grade. He knew I was in love with Edouard, but he was gone. Your father was willing to play second fiddle if it meant spending the rest of his life with me. He loved me that much. I thank God for him every day. He’s all that kept me from losing my mind.”

Eddi managed to make her way to the couch. She wasn’t sure she could have stayed upright just then, her legs felt too unsteady. She had to sit down. This was crazy. She was Eddi Harper, daughter of Milly and Harvey Harper. The story she’d just heard simply couldn’t be.

Then all the signs hit her at once. The fact that everyone always tried to come up with the name of some Harper ancestor who looked like Eddi. The shock of white hair that started at the center of her forehead and cut a path through her strawberry-blond hair. The fact that her mother had light brown hair and her father had black, well, they were both pretty gray now, but that was beside the point. The brown eyes of her parents when she had blue. Oh, the traits had been blamed on some Harper far in the past, or maybe a Talkington on her mother’s side. There was always an excuse.

Now, all that coalesced into an epiphany that pulled the rug a little farther out from under Eddi’s feet.

“So, you’re saying that this Edouard was really my father and that Dad just kind of stepped in to play the part.” She shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell me? I’m almost twenty-five years old. Did you think I couldn’t handle the truth? Did Daddy worry that I wouldn’t love him as much? My God, he’s my father. This isn’t going to change how I feel about him.” She looked straight at her mother then. “Or you.”

Tears rolled down Milly’s cheeks and Eddi felt immediately contrite for her cross tone. She would have moved back to her mother’s side except she still didn’t trust her legs to hold her steady.

“I’m sorry, Momma. Please, tell me the rest.”

Milly nodded and swiped at her tears. “The reason I didn’t tell you or anyone else was because I was afraid.”

Eddi frowned. “Afraid of what? That Edouard’s parents might give you trouble about custody or something?” That was Eddi’s first thought.

Her mother shook her head. “I didn’t have time to even think of that.” She exhaled a heavy breath. “When Edouard was murdered, I feared for your life as well. You see, Edouard was the one and only heir to huge wealth. With him dead, that left only you. I couldn’t risk the same sort of thing happening to you that happened to him.”

That reality slammed into Eddi like an unexpected fist to the gut.

“The rich are often targets,” her mother went on. “I didn’t want to thrust you in the middle of that kind of danger. I couldn’t bear the thought of someone coming after you.”

“I have to go.” Eddi lunged to her feet with surprising agility. A second ago she wasn’t sure she could stand, but now…now the fire of fury burned inside her. This…all of this was uncalled for. She had to stop this runaway train before it became a full-fledged wreck. “I’ll be back.”

She hurried from the room without looking back. She couldn’t bear to see the pain on her mother’s face. Milly had been plagued with enough pain in the past. Eddi would allow no one to add to her suffering. She would stop this now.

Three minutes later she parked her truck in front of Ada’s Boardinghouse. An old Victorian home that had been in the Garrett family for several generations was well restored and the only thing remotely resembling a bed-and-breakfast in town. Meadowbrook had no hotels. The closest one would be over in Aberdeen. The boardinghouse was really more of a bed-and-breakfast save for two exceptions—Jesse Partin and Mavis Reynolds. The two were permanent residents of the boardinghouse. Had been for nearly half a century. According to Ada, taking in permanent boarders was something the Garretts had done for generations to support the community. Most folks around town were pretty sure Ada just liked the extra cash.

Eddi suddenly stalled halfway to the big old front porch. What if the story about her biological father had already spread around town? If either of the men had told Ada…well, they didn’t call her “The Radio” for nothing.

Taking a deep breath for courage, Eddi marched up the steps and across the porch. She didn’t hesitate as she entered the front door and smiled as Ada herself looked up from the antique desk stationed in the entry hall that served as the reception area.