The Reluctant Heir

Jackson did what he often did when talking about family business: he shook his head. “All kidding aside, your father is an ass.”

Among other things. “Very true.”

“You have a second chance, you know.” Jackson made a show of taking a drink and wiping his hands on his napkin. Drew out the suspense but didn’t deliver a punch line.

Carter didn’t shy away from asking. “Meaning?”

“Derrick liked your ideas about converting the Virginia property. He had me look into the legalities of changing the property’s legal use and run some numbers on the financial feasibility of trying your solution.”

For the business retreat and possible private club and party event facility? That was news to Carter. “What?”

“Like you, Derrick doesn’t often agree with your father. He has always been pretty clear that his memories of living at the estate as a kid weren’t great.”

“It was fine, if you liked yelling.” Carter thought about the big redbrick mansion, stately with the columns surrounded by acres of rolling hills. The pool, the pond, the outbuildings. As much as he loved the house and the outdoors and the open space, it was hard to ignore the bad memories that lingered over every inch of the land.

He’d been a teenager when his mother got cancer. Only a few months older than that when she went into the hospital, then to hospice to live out her final days, where Dad served her with divorce papers. Eldrick couldn’t allow her the simple dignity of dying in peace. No, he thought his girlfriend was pregnant and he needed to move on. His girlfriend wasn’t and now he was on wife number four and Carter doubted the man was one ounce more faithful to this one than he had been to Carter’s mother.

Before his mother’s death and the shock and the ripping sensation of having all his safety nets stripped away, life hadn’t been so great either. Dad used his wife and sons as public props while bouncing between ignoring them and screaming at them in private. He was demanding and difficult and manipulative. He liked to pit Derrick and Spence against each other. It was a miracle the brothers managed to maintain any meaningful sibling relationship, let alone establish the strong one they had.

As soon as he graduated, Carter escaped and shuffled off to college, only visiting when ordered home, which amounted to little more than once a year at the holidays. Even when Derrick had moved back home with the thought of taking over the family business, he’d skipped the mansion and moved to D.C. Insisted the commute to the office would be prohibitive, which was true but not really the reason he avoided the place.

As the years rolled by, the brothers rarely used the space for weekend getaways or events. For the most part, the big house and the grounds stood empty. Eldrick lived there on and off, depending on whether his then girlfriend or wife, or whomever he was sleeping with at the time, had any interest in the country.

A skeleton staff ran the place. The only event Carter could remember attending there in the last few years was Derrick and Ellie’s engagement party. Ellie had insisted the party would replace some of the bad memories of growing up there with good memories. It was a nice thought, but Carter didn’t think it had worked.

“Which is why you should repurpose the house and grounds.” Jackson tipped the small bag and dumped the remaining chips and crumbs on his desk blotter. “Talk to Derrick. Of course, all of this depends on if you intend to stick around.”

The tone. Jackson might not be related to them, but he shared Derrick’s ability to convey a get-your-act-together message with a few words.

“Are you trying to lure me back into the family?” For the first time in a long time, Carter entertained the idea and it was all due to his brothers. The idea of fitting in, of being a part of something that didn’t depend on his father’s whims, appealed to him even though he was not a set-down-roots kind of guy. But maybe he could let something matter to him. Maybe.

Jackson picked up a chip and pointed it at Carter. “Forget your dad. You and your brothers support each other. I understand how that works because it’s how it is with me and Zoe.”

“Ah, yes.” Carter smiled at the thought of Jackson’s fraternal twin. She looked like him with brown hair and blue eyes, only female and much prettier. Petite and fiery. She was one of the most determined people Carter had ever met. “Your baby sister. You are eight minutes older, right?”

Jackson’s mouth flatlined. “Pretend I don’t have a sister.”

“But I love her.” Like the sister he never had, but Carter didn’t say that part out loud. Not when he enjoyed Jackson’s reaction to the joke of potentially tying him even more tightly to the Jamesons through his sister’s dating choices.

“Get over it,” Jackson said in his most grumbly voice.

The fact was, they all viewed Jackson and Zoe as family. And some days, when his resistance was down, Jackson admitted that the feeling was mutual. Well, one time he had. He’d gotten drunk one New Year’s Eve and let that slip. Now he denied it.

Carter decided to take pity on Jackson. “You do know if I made a pass Zoe would kick me in the balls, right?”

Jackson snorted. “Who do you think taught her that move?”

“Figures.”

Jackson grabbed the chip bag in front of Carter and opened it, dipping his fingers inside. “But back to the Virginia house. I’m telling you that when Derrick is in charge—and I’m hoping that happens soon because I dread the idea of Eldrick dropping back into the office again—you should run it by him. You might be surprised by how much support you get.”

“Is there anything you don’t know about this family and the business?”

“Nope.” Jackson popped one of Carter’s chips in his mouth.

“We’re lucky to have you.”

Jackson stopped chewing long enough to smile. “That’s what I keep telling you all.”

* * *

She should run and keep running.

That thought raced through Hanna’s mind as she stepped out of the cab she really couldn’t afford in front of a gate meant to keep her out. She stared up at the high wall that circled and protected the Jamesons’ expansive Virginia property. This was how rich people lived—cut off from others, safe from having to touch or talk with anyone but their own.

For years, on and off, she’d lived behind that wall when she visited her father during those weekends, school holidays and a handful of weeks in the summer when he had visitation. During those times, she’d slip through the gate. Not this one, of course. The one around the side meant for staff. Never really welcome or accepted inside, her presence had been tolerated so long as she stayed quiet and knew her place.

Despite all the rules, her father insisted he enjoyed working here because he was part of something. That living at the estate, having the responsibility of managing the grounds, gave him purpose. He’d felt at home there.

He’d also died there.

That’s why she’d taken Carter’s suggestion and showed up. Before they talked, she’d convinced herself she needed to move on and rebuild. Not look to the past. But now the need for answers gnawed at her. Real ones, not the ones passed through Eldrick’s fancy lawyers years ago. For the first time since she lost Gena, Hanna felt like she might be able to control some part of her life.

Her mother had collected the death benefit check along with Eldrick’s short explanation. After years of fighting over custody schedules with her father, when it came to his death, her mother mourned. She also never believed the Jameson line about Dad falling off a ladder. Neither did Hanna.

Standing there, lost in a haze of memories, she heard the rumble and crunch of tires. She watched a dark sedan slow down as it drove by. The driver stared at her, and at the scuffed duffel bag with the broken strap sitting at her feet. She stared right back, watching until the car turned a corner and headed for one of the other estates that dotted the hillside.

“I hate being here.” She mumbled the truth to herself as she slipped her cell out of her front jeans pocket. Her finger hesitated over Carter’s number just as it had every time she started to call over the last few days.

She’d shown up unannounced, but she first called the Jameson office in D.C. pretending to be a business contact looking for him. The person who answered said he wasn’t there, so she took a shot that he’d been telling the truth when he said he lived and worked at the estate now.

It was just one of many chances she was taking. Carter didn’t refer to his dad in glowing terms. They seemed to share a distrust of the older man, but family was family and she still had a tangled past with Carter that made her wonder how far he’d come from the entitled boy who once caught her watching him work out in the gym at the estate and laughed at her interest.

Being near him now was such a risk. She’d tried to move on, not think of herself as the second-best Wilde sister, but memories of Carter and the attraction that still seemed to beat inside her had the power to flip her back to that insecure mental place.

She stared at the screen until the numbers blurred. Shifting and typing again, she started texting.

I agree to the terms we discussed. I stay in the cottage and you leave me alone.

She winced at the tense tone but hit Send anyway.

Carter shot back a text response almost immediately.

How could I say no to that charming agreement?

“They were your terms, but fine,” she grumbled as she thought about what to write next. She couldn’t exactly admit she thought his family had something to do with her dad’s death. That would shut down all access, and this access onto the property only just opened for her thanks to Carter’s offhand suggestion.

Before she could come up with the right response, another text popped up from Carter.