Reflected Pleasures

Instead he shifted the conversation back to the original question he’d had when he walked in the door. “I want you to explain why and how we found Merri Davis…and I want you to assure me that she won’t be like all the others. I want to know absolutely that she intends to stay in Stanville and doesn’t have designs on me.”

“I think you can tell by looking at her that she isn’t like all the others,” Frank said with a smile. “She’s refined and all business. You would do well to take some lessons from her in how to behave around donors. I believe she’s got the sophistication and the congeniality you lack. Try to absorb some of it, will you?”

Yeah, maybe. But there was still something about her that didn’t sit right….

“Anyway,” Frank continued, “I had been telling my old friend Jason Taylor—you remember the Taylor family from here? He’s been my best friend since grade school, even though he’s a hotshot attorney out in L.A. now.”

“Yes, I know of him. His mother and Jewel were best friends when they were girls. But what does he have to do with…?”

“Jason and I still talk a couple times a month. I’ve been keeping him up on local goings-on. Over the last year or so, I’ve told him of our utter frustration at not being able to hire a responsible…and qualified…person for the fund-raising position.

“Then a few days ago, Jason called and said he had the perfect applicant for the job and she would be willing to start immediately. I waited until she actually arrived and settled in before I called you about her.”

“Yes, yes. I don’t mind that you hired her without consulting me first. That she’s right for the job and is prepared to stick with it is all I care about.” Ty shifted and rested one of his booted feet against the other knee. “So tell me her background.”

“Jason told me he’s known her family since he moved to L.A. They must’ve been neighbors or something. He says he’s known Merri since she was a kid, and that she is a very serious and sober young woman who has experience with fund-raising. She took nonprofit management courses in college and has decided she wants to have a career in development. Her main ambition is to help those less fortunate.”

“Does she come from money?” Ty knew the suit and the shoes she wore looked expensive, but she still seemed so wrong in those clothes that he’d imagined she must’ve bought them at a consignment shop.

“I don’t think so. I believe Jason would’ve mentioned it. What he did say was that she didn’t care about the money. All she needed for a salary was enough to get by—which, as you are well aware, is not all that much in Stanville.”

Ty nodded in agreement. “Right. So again, I have to ask, why would a single young woman be willing to give up her friends and her family in order to come to a backwater town with almost no social life to speak of?”

“Who knows?” Frank shrugged and grinned. “I got the impression that she didn’t have much of a social life back in L.A. Maybe our friendly town will be all the high life she needs or wants.”

Ty didn’t think so, but finding out her true motivation was fast becoming a challenge. It was what made him push her and test her this morning, he knew. But he tried not to think of his own true motivations.

The woman simply fascinated him, and he refused to consider how dangerous that might really be.

“I always liked your great-aunt Lucille,” Jewel told Ty as she wiped down her kitchen counters. “Ever since she gave you the money to go to college and then to buy your first piece of property, I thought she was special, even though she wasn’t blood kin to me. I’m sorry she’s gone. So, her funeral was well attended?”

Ty opened Jewel’s refrigerator door and stood absently inspecting the contents the same way he had ever since he’d been a five-year-old kid. “The funeral was huge. I never realized my father’s side of the family had so many relatives. I guess I’m just used to you being the only one on my mother’s side.”

He bent to check the bottom shelves. “It seems that Lucille had some strange friends. I ran into a weird gypsy who gave me what she said was a magic mirror.”

“What? Was it a joke?” Jewel walked over, reached around him and pulled out the milk carton. “Is this what you’re looking for?”

Beaming, he took the carton from her and popped it open. “I’m not sure about the joke. I thought so at first. I mean, the mirror looks like an antique, but it has my name engraved in the gold leaf. And the actual mirror is nothing but plain glass. Frank’s checking it out for…”

“Hold it, mister,” Jewel interrupted as she kicked the refrigerator door closed and handed him a glass. “You can drink straight out of the carton at your own house when I’m not around…if you must. But I taught you better manners than that.”

Ty grimaced and poured the milk into the glass. “You sound like Frank. He says I need polish. Hell, I’ve got more money than ninety-five percent of the world, why do I need polish, too?” He tried to hold back a grin as his aunt scowled. “Besides, there’s nothing fit to eat or drink at my ranch.”

“And whose fault is that? You’re an adult. Go to the grocery store.” Jewel went to the teakettle on the stove and poured herself a cup.

Man, he really loved Jewel. It would never occur to her to suggest that either one of them hire servants to do the work—no matter how much money he had in the bank.

Ty ignored her remark, just like he ignored having to shop for food. He’d been too busy to do anything lately, what with trying to get the Nuevo Dias Children’s Home and the Lost Children Foundation off the ground and also overseeing his oil and real estate businesses.

And then that last-minute trip to Lucille’s funeral had really thrown him for a loop. He hated to think what might actually be growing in his refrigerator.

“I met Merri Davis this morning,” he said with an effort to change the subject. “She’s hard at work in the Foundation office as we speak.”

“What did you think of her?” Jewel asked. “I thought she was just adorable.”

“Adorable?” With that severe bun, those thick glasses and sensible shoes? All he’d seen was a practical and shy woman whose ugly thick glasses had been hiding sexy green eyes. But he had enough sense to keep his mouth shut.

Jewel clucked her tongue at him anyway. “Merri Davis may not be a raving beauty, but she has other charms that make her very special. I swear, Tyson, you only seem to take notice of people’s outward appearance. Just like that horrible Diane person you were engaged to in college. I would’ve thought that experience had taught you a lesson.”

She shook her head. “You are not really that shallow. No one I love can be that superficial.”

He groaned and swiped his mouth with the back of his hand—which earned him another cluck from his aunt’s tongue, along with a paper towel.

“I thought you were happy when I asked Diane to marry me in college,” he said without challenging Jewel’s shallow remark. God. He hadn’t thought about that terrible lying witch, Diane, in years. And now he’d been faced with the disastrous memories twice in one day.

“No, I was glad for you when you seemed to be so happy for once.” Jewel walked over and put her hand on his arm. “I know the pain of losing your parents is always there, right behind that wicked smile of yours. I see it, son. Even if you won’t admit it.”

Now she was about to hit on something he absolutely refused to dwell on. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Mom and Dad’s accident was a long time ago. There’s no pain left after twenty-five years. You did a good job of raising me. I’m a happy man.”

“All right. We won’t talk about it if you don’t want to.” She released his arm and sighed. “I do want you to find someone to love, though. But I didn’t believe that Diane was the one to make you really happy. And it turned out I was right. She was all frosting and no cake.”

Ty pitched the towel in the trash and set the glass down so he could wrap his arms around Jewel. “From now on, you tell me what you think, okay? I trust your judgment.” And he would’ve given just about anything not to have had his heart ripped out by Diane. “But I don’t imagine I’ll be finding love with anyone but you. I frankly just don’t have the time. I hardly have enough time to eat.”

Jewel turned in his arms. “Is that a hint? Are you hungry?”

He kissed her on the top of the head and released her. “Naw. I need to get back to the Foundation office. I promised I’d go back to check on Merri’s work and make sure she took a lunch break. I’m a little late.”

“Lunch? Tyson Adams Steele, it’s nearly two o’clock. You are not allowed to starve my new renter. Not when she’s paid me two months in advance.”

He chuckled at the stern look on his aunt’s face. “And that’s another thing. I thought we decided you wouldn’t rent out that old cottage I gave you until I had a chance to make sure it was habitable.”

“That’s your opinion, Tyson. I think it’s fine. The few things left to do can be done when you have the time. And there really wasn’t anywhere else for Merri to live in town. You know the nearest apartment complex is miles away in Edinburg.”

Jewel pointed to a kitchen chair. “Now sit a minute. I’ll make a few sandwiches and put some potato salad in containers. You take them back to the office so both you and Merri can have a decent break.”

She opened the refrigerator door. “You can nag at me about the cottage while I’m working if you must. But I’ll warn you that I won’t be too remorseful. I’ve told you I can hire someone to finish the restoration if you’re too busy.

“Merri needed a place to live and I needed to make some rent money to pay for the new appliances,” Jewel continued. “And on top of that, she’s a lovely person with terrific manners. You would do well to listen to Frank and take some pointers.”

Merri licked the flap on the last envelope and pressed it down to seal. She sat back in Ty’s chair and inspected her work.

Not bad, if she did say so herself.

All the training on writing thank-you notes that her mother’s housekeeper had given her when she was a child had finally come to good use. At the time, her mother had complained it was useless information for a Davis-Ross to have and berated both Merri and the housekeeper. Their kind simply did not need to dirty their hands with such mundane occupations.

Even for the meager few semesters Merri had spent in college, her mother had insisted that she live in a penthouse apartment near campus and not dirty her hands in a dorm with other students. Of course, Mother claimed it had to be that way for safety. Threats of kidnaping were always a worry.

So Merri had allowed the bodyguards to follow her to classes. But she’d tried hard…and failed…to avoid having a full staff of house servants there. In the end, she felt so distant from the rest of the university kids that it was too much and she’d quit college altogether.