The Father Factor

Round-eyed.

Envious of what Linnie had.

In fact she’d had a wild hormonal crush on Jared that had lasted until she was sixteen. For most of those three years he’d hardly seemed aware of her existence, but, ohhh, had she ever been aware of his! The kind of aware that resulted in clammy hands and hot cheeks, clumsy outbursts and ill-timed episodes of tongue-tied silence, an obsession with certain hit tracks featured on MTV and the scribbling of secret, tortured and very, very bad poems. The way she’d behaved on the night he’d finally deigned to notice her was not exactly one of her proudest memories.

As if Jared sincerely had no notion that she might have any reason to feel hostile or negative toward him, let alone that her feelings might be a whole lot more complex and jumpy than that, he came around the side of his grandfather’s huge oak desk to shake her hand. His smile was as steady as his grip, and contained just the right amount of professional warmth. There was a respect in his golden-brown eyes that you sensed might eventually turn to friendship given the right encouragement and points of connection.

And there was nothing in his attitude or his body language that said, “Another blond bimbo, big yawn…or maybe a one-night stand,” which was the way she’d been treated in Los Angeles, and nothing that said, “Oh, wow, I’m in the same room as Hyattville’s beautiful prodigal princess,” which was the way she got treated here.

Not fair!

He was too good at all of this.

It was exactly the kind of behavior that Shallis wanted from every other citizen in town, but she didn’t want it from Jared Starke, not when she knew from Linnie’s experience and her own that it had to be part of some game plan of his that could lead to only one outcome—a win for Jared himself.

“Jared,” she answered him coolly, because sometimes an ex first runner-up in the Miss America pageant could be good at this, too. And she dropped his grip a little too soon. Deliberately. “I wasn’t expecting you to be here.”

“I wasn’t expecting me to be here, either, until a couple of days ago,” he drawled. “Please sit down.” He gestured not to one of the two upright chairs that faced the desk, but toward the leather armchairs positioned near the window, on either side of a low coffee table which matched the antique oak of the other furnishings.

Reluctantly, Shallis took a seat. Her lips felt dry, which was why she’d stopped into the drugstore to purchase the lip balm just now. She’d spent most of yesterday out in the open air at Linnie and Ryan’s thoroughbred stud farm and she’d gotten burned by the spring sun and wind, as if the weather itself wanted her to regret her recent attempts to wean herself away from full daytime makeup.

And why was she doing that?

The princess thing, again. New theory. Maybe if she looked a little more down-to-earth…

So far, it hadn’t worked.

“I arrived back in town Friday,” Jared said, “and Grandpa Abe basically pushed a bunch of keys into my hand, picked up his fishing pole and headed for the mountains.” He gave a bland kind of grin and turned his hands palm upward. “I thought I was here for a break, but he had other ideas.”

“So this is a temporary setup? Just a few days?”

Shallis let way too much relief show in her voice, and this time it wasn’t deliberate. She wished at once that she’d hidden her reaction better. Jared was definitely hiding something.

“That’s fine,” she went on. “I can arrange another appointment when your grandfather gets back.”

Jared looked at her in steady silence for a moment, reading every bit of her discomfort. Hopefully not reading all of the reasons for it. He gave another brief smile.

“Sorry, I guess I’m giving you the wrong impression,” he said. “My grandfather and I had a good talk before he left on his fishing trip, and I’ve agreed to take over his law practice for the next six months while we have a serious look at options for the future. He’s overdue to retire, but he wants to take some time to consider things. My dad’s death rocked him, six months ago.”

“Oh, yes, of course. It would have done. I was sorry to hear about it,” Shallis told him.

“It was hard,” he agreed. “We didn’t see each other all that often after he and Mom got divorced—he moved to Nashville, as you know—but we were still close.”

“Of course.”

She’d already noted the enlarged, silver-framed photograph on the most prominent shelf of the antique breakfront behind his desk. In the photo Jared, his father and grandfather all grinned toward the camera against a backdrop of the manicured green grass and foliage of Hyattville’s members-only golf course.

Jared didn’t look much like the two older men. The bone structure in his face was more angular, his jaw more prominent and determined, his build stronger and denser, but the closeness between the three of them was self-evident.

“Anyhow, we’re talking a lot more than a few days until my grandfather’s return, I suspect,” Jared continued. “I’ve looked at a couple of the relevant files and I’m sure your business can’t wait that long.”

“My grandmother’s estate. No, it can’t. My mother is finding it hard.”

“I can imagine.”

Once more, he seemed to know just how to pitch himself. His sympathy was sincere but not cloying. It had to be a professional skill, studiously worked at, part of the Attorney Ken act. It couldn’t be natural, not in a man like him, Shallis told herself. Surely his arrogant behavior at Linnie and Ryan’s wedding had given her all the warning signals she needed in that area.

“I’ve heard a few great stories about your grandmother,” he said. “Laughed at most of them. Of course it’s hard for your mom.”

Shallis stayed cool and wished her throat hadn’t gone so tight. She nodded. “They were very close. If I can get the practical, legal stuff taken care of for Mom, some of the decisions she needs to make about Gram’s possessions and so forth will be easier.”

“Well, you could go to Banks and Moore over in Carrollton, if you want,” Jared offered. Was that the glint of a challenge in his eyes? “Or you can deal with me.”

“I’m surprised you’re here,” Shallis said, stalling for time. Then she realized she sounded as slow on the uptake as the drugstore clerk who’d tried to give her too much change. Jared had just explained why he was here. She added quickly, “I mean, I’m surprised you were available to do what your grandfather wanted. You’ve been in Chicago for quite a while, now. I would have thought you had commitments there.”

“Taking a break,” Jared answered, offhand. He was confident that the complexity of his feelings on the issue didn’t show.

And he ignored Shallis Duncan’s cool tone, because he understood the reasons for it all too well. No doubt about it, he’d behaved very badly in the past. To Melinda Duncan—Linnie—and to Shallis, her baby sister. More than once. He didn’t like those memories.

“Thinking about a couple of opportunities,” he continued. “I don’t want to commit myself to the wrong choice.”

He knew that many people in Hyattville wouldn’t believe him on this. There was an element in the town that would love to see him crash and burn, and would interpret his return home as a signal that it was about to happen, big-time. He expected rumors about shady dealings, massive debts, financial scandals, or disbarment from the future practice of law.

That was the downside to being a self-proclaimed high flier, in a place like this, and unfortunately his ambition and his arrogance had led him into a few poor choices in the past, which would make the rumors more plausible.

Yep, no doubt about it, at times he’d been a jerk and he made sure he never forgot the fact. Grandpa Abe had put a slew of Jared’s old golfing and racquetball trophies on the breakfront shelves, “to put your own stamp on this office, since it’s yours, now.” Jared had added a trophy of his own—the fake one that a couple of old law school buddies had presented him with a few years ago.

Sore Loser it read, in beautiful copperplate engraving. The really telling point about the trophy was that when his friends had made the mock presentation, he hadn’t been able to laugh. Three years on, the trophy was the first touch of personality he gave to a space any time he shifted offices, and he laughed at himself a lot more often now.

The only thing he could do about his reputation, he knew, was to get his head down, take heart from his own growth and his family’s faith in him, and prove everyone else wrong.

No, not everyone.

Just the people who mattered.

The impossibly beautiful Shallis Duncan shouldn’t be one of them, and yet without a doubt she was. Six years since he’d last seen her face-to-face, and he still hadn’t been able to get her out of his head.

She stood up, and instinctively so did he. “Banks and Moore has a good reputation,” she said.

Her golden-blond hair bounced around her face, and her blue eyes looked as big and clear as pools of sea water. Her suit was neat and conservative and plain, but on her curvy, long-legged frame it somehow managed to look as pretty and feminine as a lace negligee.

She appeared to have almost no makeup on at all, apart from a translucent sheen across her lips, but her skin was so clear and fine and her coloring so perfect that Jared preferred her with the natural look, and every molecule of testosterone in his body refused to leave the subject alone.

“Your secretary will be able to arrange to have the files sent over to them, I assume?” Shallis finished.

Jared felt his stomach drop an uncomfortable couple of inches.

Shoot. Drat. Darn.