Heiress for Hire (8 page)

That was the problem with only having one son—you decreased your odds of grandchildren. Since Shelby and Danny had split, Willie had lived in constant fear that he would never find another woman to settle down with and fill up the yard with kids.

Not that she wanted him to marry the wrong woman. Like what's-her-name with the high heels. Willie wanted him to be happy. While procreating.

But she reassured herself that if Danny were dying, Daniel would be more upset than he sounded.

"First, do you know where we put the phone number for that lawyer we used to make our wills? Danny came around tonight saying he'd gotten a bit of a surprise."

"Lawyer? What the hell does he need a lawyer for?" Willie met the shocked gazes of her three friends and felt panic swelling up in her.

"I'm getting to that part."

"Well, speed it up." Daniel took things easy, calmly, thought them through. Willie wished for once he could just spit it out. If her son had committed murder and was facing the electric chair, she needed to know.

"Turns out when he was in high school Danny met a girl at the county fair and uhhh, well, was intimate with her."

It wasn't murder, but did she need to hear these things? Willie was going to need another margarita at this rate. "And?"

"She got pregnant. But she never told Danny. Tonight the gal's husband dropped by with Danny's daughter. She's eight years old, and the stepfather doesn't want her any more."

"A daughter?" She was drunk. That had to be the only explanation for this. Maybe the booze had gone to her head and she was really in bed sleeping it off, dreaming this. "Are you serious?"

"Dead serious. And I want to talk to that lawyer. As far as I'm concerned, we need to establish who has custody of this child. Danny says she's underweight and dirty, Wil. They haven't been taking care of her."

Everything tilted and shifted, and the only thing that mattered now was that she had a granddaughter. Who needed her. Willie scrambled for her purse. "I'm leaving. I'll be home in an hour and a half."

"Wilhemina…"

She hung up on Daniel and looked at Trudy, Karen, and Dawn. "I have a grandbaby."

Dawn looked at her in astonishment. "Didn't you know that? Erica Kirkwood called me twenty minutes ago and left a voicemail. Turns out Janice ran into Danny shopping with the little girl at Wal-Mart. Everybody knows by now."

Danny's truck was crammed full with plastic bags, and his credit card had suffered the largest hit since he'd gotten the account six years ago. He wouldn't be surprised if Visa called him inquiring about unusual activity on his card. But it wasn't enough. It didn't feel like enough to make up for eight years of not knowing about Piper.

She was tucked into the truck beside him, her knobby knees crammed against the gearshift. He knew he shouldn't expect otherwise, but she was so quiet all the time. It was hard to know what to say to her.

Despite nearly getting tossed out of Wal-Mart on their ears, he could admit he was glad after all that Amanda had gone shopping with them. At least she filled the silence and gave him someone to bounce his thoughts off of. He wasn't used to having to make decisions about someone else, and it was reassuring to have Amanda back him up. Or more like disagree with him, which allowed him to argue why his choice made more sense.

They were pulling in Amanda's drive to drop her off, the new bike he'd gotten Piper scraping across the truck bed. Piper hadn't wanted a bike—said she couldn't ride two-wheel—but he hadn't been able to resist. A bike on a farm was a good way to tool around and explore. He'd spent hours racing his BMX around when he was her age.

Maybe it was overcompensation. He was trying to make up for lost time. Fix everything that he had missed. Everything that Piper hadn't had.

But he didn't know what else to do.

SpongeBob SquarePants Band-Aids couldn't take away the past, but it was a start for the future.

"This your house?" Piper asked Amanda, peering through the dark at Amanda's little gray rental.

"Well, I don't own it. I'm just renting it for the summer."

Until she went back to Chicago. Danny couldn't forget that. Didn't matter that she had been amusing in the store, that he enjoyed her quirky company, and that sometimes he thought he saw beneath the chemical-processed cover and glimpsed the lonely woman beneath.

"It's pretty."

"They say it's haunted, but I haven't encountered one ghost. It's been an incredible letdown."

Danny had never seen any ghosts either, but enough folks around town had claimed to, so he was inclined to believe the stories. But he was glad that no disembodied entities had any interest in his house. He'd prefer to stay disembody-less.

Amanda opened the door. "Thanks for letting me hang with you, Piper. I'll see you soon."

"I'll walk you to the door." Danny opened his own door. "Stay in the truck, Piper. I'll be right back."

The panic that flitted across his daughter's face made him curse silently. "Or why don't you walk up with me? We can make sure Amanda gets in safe and sound."

He didn't want Piper to think for one second that he would abandon her. It was going to take time before she learned to trust that this was permanent. Before she learned to trust him.

Piper was so relieved she scrambled right out, even letting him take her hand, which up to now she had shied away from. Danny walked over the gravel driveway, his throat tight at the feeling of his daughter's small, cool hand in his. She seemed so tiny, so fragile next to him. Damn, he didn't want to screw this up and break her. Piper already had chips and cracks all over; he didn't want to be the one to shatter her.

It was a hell of a responsibility.

Amanda was fishing her keys out of her big purse, the plastic Wal-Mart bag with the Barbie in it hung over the opposite wrist. She had set Baby down on the porch, and the dog raced past the wicker chair, squatted, and did her business.

"Why is the dog wearing a shirt?" Every time he looked at that poodle, something seemed off to him. Now he realized it was because the dog was wearing a tiny peach-colored T-shirt. "It's summer."

"It's not for warmth. It's a logo T-shirt." She smiled. "It says NO ONE PUTS BABY IN A CORNER."

All those letters had fit across that itty bitty chest? "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Ah! You don't remember that from Dirty Dancing?" She looked astonished. "That's like a classic line."

"I never saw it." He vaguely had the notion it involved gay men, but he could be wrong about that.

"Some day I'll rent it, and we can watch it together. But right now I don't have three bucks for a video, which is a shame, because it's a perfect cheese-ball movie."

"Is your dad really going to stick to his no-money policy?" The whole idea of just cutting off his kid without a dime bothered Danny, but then he figured there was a whole lot to Amanda's relationship with her father he didn't know about.

"I guess. He's never done this before, but he sounded determined. And he is a businessman, first and foremost. I think he's decided I'm a bad investment. Not enough return on his capital."

Amanda's back was to him as she opened her front door, but Danny could hear the tinge of bitterness in her voice.

"If you need anything, Amanda, you can call on me. I'll help you out any way I can."

Her flaxen hair shone in the moonlight. Her porch light was blown, but the night was light enough that he could see the smile that played around her lips as she stared at him over her bare shoulder.

"You know, Danny Tucker, you really are a nice guy," she whispered. "Not many people would feel sorry for the poor rich girl."

Piper was still clutching him, leaning into his hip, so he couldn't say what he really wanted to. Which was that the last thing in the world he felt was pity. That he felt a deep, gut wrenching, ball-busting attraction to her that had him antsy during the day and downright agonized at night.

So he just shook his head. "What I'm feeling for you isn't pity."

Her mouth slid open, her tongue moistening that plump bottom lip. "Go home, Danny, before I say something that embarrasses me tomorrow."

He knew that there could never be anything between them. Certainly not a relationship. Definitely not an affair. He wasn't looking for immediate gratification—he wanted the long haul. So he couldn't even indulge in a kiss. Because one kiss would lead him to want that gratification, and they just couldn't go there.

So he just brushed his knuckles across her arm. "Friends don't need to be embarrassed around each other, ever."

Amanda studied him for a second, than smiled. "Maybe not in your world." She clapped her hand to her thigh. "Baby, come here, sweetie."

The dog came scurrying over, a blur of white fur. Amanda picked her up and pushed open the front door.

"Good night, Danny. Good night, Piper."

"Good night." When the door shut, Danny looked down at Piper. Unable to resist, he lifted her up into his arms until she was face-to-face with him. She looked startled but rested comfortably against him.

"Come on, baby girl. Let's go home."

Amanda put Baby down on the wood floor in the foyer and tossed her handbag on the fussy little Victorian table standing next to the stairs. The table even had a little lace doily on it, and it wasn't Amanda's style at all. But she liked this house, despite feeling like she had to duck to get through the doorframes. The ceilings were only seven feet high.

Clearly in the nineteenth century, women weren't six feet tall in stilettos.

The entire house seemed to have been built on a miniature scale. Rooms were tight, hallways narrow, the tub wedged under a gable so that the one time she'd tried to use it she'd had to limbo to climb in. Then when she'd settled in the water, her knees had scraped the ceiling.

She'd stuck to showers since then.

"What am I doing here, Baby?" she asked, turning on the lamp in the parlor. She had come to Cuttersville on a lark, bored out of her mind in Chicago. The usual parties and clubs had only emphasized to her how sterile and artificial her life was, how she had many acquaintances and party pals, but very few real friends.

Seeing her ex-boyfriend Logan one night, a barely legal skinny blonde on his lap, sucking back mojitos, had done her in. He was an ugly, painful reminder that she was needy, that she craved love and affection just like a dog did. That no matter how much she said it didn't matter, she still wanted her father's approval. She still wanted him to admit, just once, that he was pleased to have her as a daughter, even though she hadn't been born with a penis.

Kiss, kiss, hug, hug, she had worked that club, letting Logan know she didn't care, it didn't matter, she was Amanda Margaret Delmar, heir to the Samson Plastics conglomerate and she was untouchable. As cool as the diamonds in her earlobes.

And the next morning, she had packed six suitcases, hopped a plane to the middle of fucking nowhere, and had rented herself this little gray house. Boston had told her the landlady had fleeced her on the rent, but she hadn't cared. What did it matter when the money was never-ending? Boston had already been dating Shelby, but just the fact that she was in Cuttersville had irritated her father and left him pondering her next move. He seemed to think she was Napoleon in heels, planning her next capture of an unsuspecting, underarmed, rich man.

So here she was, with a dog and low ceilings.

"Let's see what we have in the kitchen, Baby." She had gone to the grocery store when she had first moved in and bought several boxes of cereal, margarita mix, and tuna packets. Maybe inspiration would hit while she was nibbling Shredded Wheat.