A Will and a Wedding

With a little ingenuity and a few well-framed questions, Jeff managed to inveigle himself into the household routine without much fuss. Before long Bennet was relaying bits and pieces of information that were very enlightening when one was trying to understand Cassie Newton. He also learned more about her charges.

Friday afternoon he found Cassie alone in the library. He wandered over to the armchair and stood peering down at her, noticing the tearstains on her pale cheeks. She glared back at him impolitely.

“Do you ever work?” she demanded rudely.

“You forget,” he teased. “I have my own company. I’m the boss.” Jeff smiled. He had her rattled. That should help.

She raised her eyebrows as if to say, so what? Jeff grinned.

“It so happens that I just finished the graphics for a new computer system and I’m taking a break. How’s it going with you?”

She sat cross-legged on the floor. Some tight black material clung to her shapely legs and stretched all the way to her hips where a big bulky sweater covered the rest of her obvious assets. Her hair was mussed and tousled in disarray around her tearstained face.

“It’s not going, not at all,” she muttered, staring at her hands.

“I thought some of the kids had moved.” Jeff flopped into a big leather chair and propped his elbows on his knees.

“They have. Only David, Marie and Tara are left now. Tara has a place to go on the first of the month, but the other two.” Her voice died away as huge tears plopped onto her cheeks. “I just can’t seem to find anywhere for them to live. If nothing comes up, they’ll have to go into temporary care, or worse, the juvenile home. They’ll hate that.”

She slapped her hand against the newspapers spread out on the floor around her. Jeff felt the energy she projected buzzing in the air around him as she jumped to her feet.

“Why did Judith have to make those stupid rules?” she demanded, standing in front of him. “I could have tried to purchase the place outright if she had put it up for sale, but this way, even when I move out, there’s no opportunity to get it.” Her tone was disparaging. “A cat home, for Pete’s sake!”

Jeff grinned. He’d seen this side of her quick temper before and he knew there was at least one way to calm her down. He grasped her slim arm and tugged.

“Come on,” he urged. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Seconds later they were striding through the dense, musky woods. Cassie might be short, but she set a fast pace and Jeff was forced to move quickly to keep up.

She strode along the path muttering to herself, clad in a brilliant red wool anorak that left her long, slim legs exposed in their black tights. Cassie’s raven curls glistened like a seal’s coat in the autumn sunshine as they swirled around her taut face.

“Absolutely ridiculous,” he heard her mutter as she stomped on a rotted tree, splintering it in the crisp air. “People shouldn’t be allowed to waste valuable resources just because she wants her nephew married.”

Jeff picked up the pace, anxious to hear this.

“Can’t he find himself a wife?” she mumbled angrily.

“I haven’t really looked,” he told her and watched, satisfied, as her skin flushed a deep rose. “Are you volunteering?”

“I don’t want to get married,” she told him as she looked down her pointed little nose. “I just want the kids and the house.”

Jeff pursed his lips to stop the chuckle from escaping. “Isn’t that putting the horse before the carriage, so to speak?” he queried, teasing her. “You should probably marry me first before we start discussing children.”

Cassie stopped in her tracks at his heckling tone, which sent him colliding into her from behind. Jeff struggled to regain his balance, but they both went crashing to the ground anyway with Cassie’s firm little body landing squarely in his lap. He sat there winded while she scrambled off him, and wondered at the reaction her tiny presence always created.

Her giggles of sporadic laughter sent his head tipping back to scrutinize her laughing face.

“You look like you’ve landed in something particularly nasty,” she told him, chortling at his discomfort.

“It sure felt like it,” he muttered, dusting the pine needles from the seat of his pants. Her laughing green eyes stared down at him curiously.

“What did you mean?” Her soft voice was hesitant, as if afraid to hear the answer.

Jeff thought for a moment, rehashing their conversation.

“Aren’t you at all interested in volunteering for the position of my wife?” he asked, his voice teasingly serious.

But Cassie didn’t laugh as he had expected. Her haunting green eyes stared at him, assessing his meaning.

“Why would you need to hunt for a wife?” she inquired, walking slowly beside him, her earlier ill humor dissipated like a morning mist now that curiosity had taken over. “I’m sure there are droves of women who would eagerly offer themselves on the marriage block to the infamous Jefferson Haddon the fourth.” Her tone was softly disparaging but her companion seemed not to hear it.

“It’s the third. And there are hardly droves,” he drawled.

“Anyway, that’s not the kind of woman I want for the mother of my son,” he mused, his thoughts turned inward.

Cassie stopped dead in her tracks as she stared at him in shock.

“What did you say?” Cassie squeaked, sure she had misunderstood. “What son?” She wrinkled her brow in thought. Surely there must be something she had missed.

When he didn’t answer, Cassie shook the muscled arm hanging loosely at his side. “Do you have a child, Jeff?”

“Not yet,” he told her, black eyes snapping fiercely. “But I plan to.”

His pronouncement left her speechless, mouth gaping in wonder. Jefferson William Haddon the third was going to get himself a child? How, she asked herself dryly. By mail order and stork delivery? She stared unblinkingly at the grim determination turning up his wide mouth. When she heard his next question, Cassie’s jaw dropped a little further.

“Want to help?” As a come-on it lacked finesse. As a proposal, it left something to be desired. It also left her gasping, as if someone had ploughed their fist into her midsection. She moved weakly down the dusky trail, totally ignoring the illustrious Mr. Haddon, flummoxed by his ridiculous statement.

In fact, the whole conversation was preposterous, she told herself. Totally ridiculous. The inane concept of marrying him and helping him provide an heir to the family fortune was.

The answer to her prayer, a small voice whispered. She tried to brush it away, but the flow of words refused to stop. For years, it reminded Cassie, she had dreamed of raising her own children. Now, at twenty-eight, she had almost lost hope that the right man would ever come along.

Maybe he had finally shown up.

What are you holding out for? Prince Charming? her subconscious chided her. There are all kinds of love. Some of them are learned, like your love for the children. Forget the fairy tale-take reality.

Cassie replayed the lawyer’s voice as it read Judith’s will. Marry him, it said, and she could live in this house, have her foster family, continue with her work and have a large amount of money as well.

Flickering images of her own family’s needs slipped through her mind. Samantha desperately needed cash with the second baby on the way and her husband’s death just last month. Ken was struggling, too, with two stepchildren who needed some professional help.

And Mom and Dad. Cassie pictured the couple’s dilapidated old farmstead. Neither of her parents were in good health and the place had become worn and rundown. One hundred thousand dollars would make an immense difference all around.

But one thought kept surfacing. She would be a kept woman, Cassie reminded herself. She would be marrying Jeff for the money.

And for a child.

Strangely, that thought didn’t bother her as much as Cassie expected it would. Instead, darling little cherub babies floated across her mind, kicking their chubby legs and gurgling in happy voices. The agency never brought her the babies. Her arms ached with the need to hold and cuddle one of those baby-lotion scented bodies.

And there was David. If anyone needed a father, he did. Could Jefferson Haddon possibly be the man God had sent to ease David’s path into adulthood? It seemed impossible; it didn’t jibe with the dream she’d held for so long.