Worth Dying For (23 page)

He nodded. “Let’s go find your daughter.”

Thankful to have Dante at her side, Tessa hurried downstairs, protecting her daughter Tessa’s only thought.

“N
EED HELP
building that fire?”

Leslie Anne jumped around, then smiled when she saw who the intruder was. “I’ve just about got it, but thanks.”

“How are you this morning?”

“I’m okay.”

“Are you sure? You know you can always talk to me. I realize you’ve got your mother and G.W., but since they were involved in the cover-up, you might not want to talk to them.”

Leslie Anne sighed. “I was pretty angry with them when I first found out and I acted like an idiot by running away, but now I’m determined to act like a grown-up. Lucie Evans told me that if I wanted to be treated like an adult, I should start acting like one.”

“Are you saying that an adult wouldn’t be upset if she found out her biological father was a serial killer who had impregnated her mother when he raped her?”

Leslie Anne gasped. “Does the fact that Eddie Jay Nealy is my biological father make you think less of me?” Realization suddenly dawned. “You—you already knew, didn’t you? You knew the truth about what happened to my mother. You knew there was no John Allen. How long have you known?”

“For quite some time. And does that knowledge make me feel differently about you, think less of you? Of course it does. I’ve always been rather fond of you because you were Tessa’s child, but once I learned the truth—that you were that monster’s daughter—I hated you almost as much as I hated him for what he’d done to Tessa.”

Leslie Anne backed away, fear clutching at her heart. She had thought the worst thing she had to fear was the
knowledge that Eddie Jay Nealy had fathered her. But looking into a set of cold gray eyes, she knew it wasn’t. Leslie Anne realized she should fear for her life.

D
ANTE HAD
Lucie wake Dom and alert him and Vic of the problem. Their objective was to find Leslie Anne Westbrook. Everything else had to wait, at least temporarily. He had no choice but to put aside his personal feelings and concentrate solely on finding Tessa’s child.
Amy’s child
. God only knew how he’d put his feelings on hold, even for a few minutes, let alone however long it would take to track down Leslie Anne, not when she could well be anywhere on the vast Leslie plantation? He could and would do it for Tessa’s sake because he loved her. He’d loved her as Amy Smith seventeen years ago and now he loved her as Tessa Westbrook. What difference did her name make to him? None. Absolutely none. She was the girl he’d loved, the woman he loved. And he felt certain that she loved him, too.

But she will never remember her life as Amy. She’ll never remember what the two of you shared
.

“Look, there’s Tad,” Tessa cried. “He’s coming out of the summerhouse. But I don’t see Leslie Anne.”

“You stay here,” Dante said. “Let me talk to him.”

“If he’s said something to upset Leslie Anne, I’ll—”

“Morning,” Tad called to them and threw up his hand. “Is everything all right with G.W.? We could hear him hollering through the whole house, and Mother was terribly worried.”

Dante rushed ahead of Tessa and met Tad coming up the path. He grasped the guy by the lapels of his fancy suede jacket and glared at him. “Where’s Leslie Anne?”

Tad gulped. “I—I don’t know. She ran off and left me. I’ve been looking all over for her.” He glanced down at where Dante gripped his jacket. “Would you mind not wrinkling the material. This jacket cost a small fortune.”

Dante loosened his hold, but didn’t release Tad. “Sharon Westbrook said she left Leslie Anne with you. What did you say to her to make her run off?”

An incredulous expression formed on Tad’s face. “I didn’t say boo to the kid. She told me to get lost, that she wanted to be alone. What the hell’s the matter with y’all anyway?”

Dante let go of Tad’s lapels. “If you’re the one who sent Leslie Anne those newspaper clippings and have been harassing her, I’ll—”

“You think I—” Tad gulped several times. “I didn’t do it. I swear. How could I have possibly known what happened to Tessa all those years ago? Hell, man, seventeen years ago, I was only twelve. Besides, that information was top secret, wasn’t it? You’d do better trying to find somebody who would have had a way of finding out and a reason to want to upset the applecart.”

Tessa came up beside Dante. “Tad, swear to me that you didn’t—”

“I swear.” He crossed his heart. “I didn’t know. Not until everybody else found out. And even if I had known, I wouldn’t have told Leslie Anne. My father was a real piece of work, too, so I understand how it is. I wish I’d never known who my father was.”

Tessa placed her hand on Dante’s arm. “I believe him,” she said.

“Yeah, I do, too. Which means—”

Tessa sighed. “She’s out there somewhere alone, and we still don’t know who sent her those newspaper clippings or who sneaked into her room and taunted her while she was sleeping and left a note on her breakfast tray yesterday morning.”

Dante had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. A really bad feeling. Instinct warned him that something more was going on here than someone revealing an ugly truth about Tessa having been raped and Leslie Anne being the rapist’s child. Someone hadn’t hesitated to emotionally harm Leslie Anne. What if that person intended to harm her physically? But the real question was why and who? When a man as wealthy as G. W. Westbrook was involved, Dante’s guess was that the motive somehow revolved around money. G.W.’s millions.

Dante hitched his thumb toward the house. “You’re free to go,” he told Tad.

As soon as Tad was out of earshot, he turned to Tessa. “We’ll find her soon. She can’t have gone far.” He wanted to allay Tessa’s fears, but he needed information from her that might shed some light on who would benefit if Leslie Anne was out of the way. “I have to ask you something, but I don’t want you to go reading anything sinister into what I ask.”

“What is it? Tell me.” Panic laced Tessa’s voice.

Dante grasped her shoulders. “Don’t go nuts on me, honey. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Have you seen your father’s—G.W.’s—will?”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

“Are you and Leslie Anne his beneficiaries?”

“Yes, we’re the major beneficiaries,” Tessa replied. “He’s provided generously for Aunt Sharon and Aunt Myrle, too. And he left stock in Westbrook, Inc. to Celia and Charlie.”

“On G.W.’s death, you inherit Westbrook, Inc., right? And the bulk of G.W.’s money, too, then in turn Leslie Anne is your sole beneficiary.”

“Yes, that’s right, but—” Tessa sucked in deep breaths. “Why are you asking me about Daddy’s will? Dante, please, you can’t think someone—”

“If Leslie Anne isn’t in the picture and for some reason you can’t run Westbrook, Inc., who takes charge? Who runs the company and oversees G.W.’s vast fortune? Who is the next in line? Your aunt Sharon? Or someone else?”

Tessa cried out as she held up her hands in a stop gesture. “You’re wrong about this. Tell me you’re wrong. He’d never harm Leslie Anne in any way. He loves her. He was willing to marry me and adopt her.”

Dante shook Tessa gently to gain her full attention. “Are you saying that Charlie Sentell is—”

“If for any reason I can’t act as the executor of Daddy’s will, then that task falls to Charlie. Or at least it did. Only a few weeks ago, Daddy told me he planned to change his will and name Walker Benson, a Westbrook, Inc. vice president, as the backup executor because he’d come to realize what a poor businessman Charlie is.”

“Did Sentell know your father intended to—?”

“Yes, of course. I was there when Daddy told Charlie, but Daddy assured Charlie that his inheritance hadn’t changed, that he would still receive a—”

“Has the will been changed?”

“Not yet.”

“How did Sentell react when G.W. told him what he intended to do?”

“At first he was upset, but then he calmed down rather quickly. Perhaps too quickly.” Tessa laid her hands on Dante’s chest. “I’m telling you that it can’t be Charlie. He doesn’t have it in him to harm anyone, least of all Leslie Anne. Charlie loves me—he loved Tessa Westbrook—and he loves Leslie Anne.”

“Are you willing to bet your daughter’s life on it?”

C
HARLIE GRUNTED
as he walked along the unkempt path leading to the cliff overlooking the river. He’d taken a seldom used route, just in case anyone was looking for Leslie Anne. Slowing his pace, he shifted Leslie Anne in his arms. She was deadweight. The girl was heavier than she looked.

It had been so easy to pick up one of the small logs in the bucket beside the fireplace and tap her on the head with it. After all, once he tossed her over the cliff, she’d go rolling and tumbling, hitting her head and bruising her body on the way down. Later on, who would be able to say she’d received a blow to her head before she jumped to her death?

R
EGAINING CONSCIOUSNESS
, Leslie Anne felt totally disoriented. And her head hurt like hell. She opened her eyes a fraction and realized someone was carrying her.
Charlie? Think, Leslie Anne, think
, she told herself.
What happened to you?
The last thing she remembered was bending over the fireplace at the summerhouse. Something hit her in the head. What?

Charlie had been there. He’d know. She started to ask him, but a gut reaction stopped her, warning her to remain
quiet. Why was Charlie carrying her? Was he rushing her back to the house? Or was he—?

Grunting, Charlie shifted her weight in his arms. She closed her eyes and kept them closed as she tried to think.

“How can such a little thing be so damn heavy?” Charlie said aloud. “Just hang in there. It’s not much farther.”

What wasn’t much farther? Leslie Anne wondered. The house? Help? What?

Why couldn’t she think straight? Maybe it was because her head kept pounding as if a giant hammer was beating on it. And she felt sick to her stomach and terribly dizzy.

Suddenly Charlie stopped. He heaved a deep sigh. Leslie Anne opened her eyes a fraction and glanced around. They were nowhere near the house. Actually they were on the cliff overlooking the river. Why had Charlie brought her here?

Before she realized his intentions, Charlie lifted her out over the edge of the cliff and let go of her. Realization hit her suddenly. She screamed and grasped for Charlie, barely managing to grab hold of his jacket.

“Damn, I thought I’d knocked you out cold.”

What was he saying? He really did intend to throw her over the cliff, didn’t he?

As she held on for dear life, she looked up at him and said, “Why are you doing this?”

He grabbed her wrists and jerked her hands off his jacket, then her held tightly, dangling her over the edge. Her feet swayed in the air as she thrashed about, trying to find her footing.

“If Tessa had married me, she could have saved you and herself. If she’d married me, it could have all been mine. That was G.W.’s plan—for Tessa and me to marry. And
even when she kept refusing me, I thought that eventually she’d give in. So did G.W. That’s why he made me the executor of his will, if for any reason Tessa couldn’t be. But he finally gave up and so did I.”

“I’m confused, Charlie. How is killing me going to change anything?”

“You’ll be dead and Tessa will have a nervous breakdown,” Charlie said. “And all this will happen before G.W. changes his will that leaves me in charge of his fortune.”

“Please, don’t do this.” She thrashed around like mad, trying to get her feet to touch the ground.

“Stop wiggling around,” he told her. “I’ll drop you if you don’t be still.”

He laughed, the sound frighteningly maniacal.

Leslie Anne caught a glimpse of someone coming up behind Charlie. Since her vision was slightly blurred, she couldn’t make out who it was. But it had to be someone who’d help her. If she could just manage to keep Charlie from tossing her over the cliff for another minute or two, there might be a chance she wouldn’t die.

“How did you find out about Eddie Jay Nealy being my father?” she asked.
Keep him talking. Buy yourself some time
. “Have you always known? Did Granddaddy tell you?”

“Inquisitive little bitch, aren’t you? But don’t think you can say or do anything that will stop me.”

“Please, just tell me before you…”

“Your aunt Sharon let it slip one night when she was as high as a kite and we were in bed together. The next morning she didn’t even remember I’d screwed her, let alone that she’d told me the family’s deep dark secret.”

“Please, Charlie, don’t do this. Please.” She felt him loosening his grip, releasing her wrists. He was going to
drop her. She’d fall off and down the cliff and hit either the water or the bank below. Either way, she’d be dead.

“Help me!” Leslie Anne screamed as Charlie released her and let her fall free.

D
ANTE SHOVED
Charlie Sentell aside as he reached out for Leslie Anne, praying with everything in him that he could save Tessa’s child, a child who, under different circumstances might have been his. With one foot planted firmly on the edge of the cliff and the other skidding precariously over the ledge, he grabbed Leslie Anne around the waist, then yanked her toward him and into his arms. His foot slipped. Dirt and grass oozed up around his shoes as he dropped to his knees, all the while hanging onto the priceless bundle in his arms. He fell backward, onto the solid earth. He heard rather than saw the struggle between Tessa and Charlie. The man screeched incoherently as Tessa kept asking him why.

Dante rolled over and laid Leslie Anne on the grass. Their gazes met. He reached over and caressed her cheek. “You’re safe, honey. Stay put.”

She nodded. He came up on his knees, then stood. Tessa pounded her fists all over Charlie’s head and chest as he tried to duck and at the same time grab her. Just as Dante moved in to grasp Charlie, the man managed to circle Tessa’s waist and whirl her around so that her back was to his chest. Before Dante could do anything except watch helplessly, Tessa gave Charlie a backward shove and the two of them
went plummeting over the edge of the cliff. Dante cried out and grasped for Tessa, but their hands missed by a hairbreadth. He rushed to the ledge and watched as Tessa grabbed hold of a thick tree root protruding out of the side of the jagged cliff. Charlie hung on to Tessa, refusing to release her. Dante held his breath and prayed.

This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t lose Amy a second time. The first time had nearly destroyed him.

“Tessa!” He lowered himself to his belly and extended his reach as far down the side of the embankment as he could, but his grasp didn’t extend quite far enough to reach her. “Let her go, you son of a bitch,” Dante called to Charlie.

“Never.” Charlie Sentell smiled.

Damn the bastard.

Tessa wriggled, trying to free herself from Charlie’s tenacious grip. Suddenly his hold about her waist began to loosen. His hands slid down her hips. She wriggled again as she hung on to the tree root with every ounce of her strength. Dante tried again to reach her, leaning over the edge as he dug the toes of his shoes into the earth.

Charlie’s death grip eased down Tessa’s thighs.

“I can’t hold on much longer,” Tessa cried to Dante. “He’s pulling me as hard as he can.”

“Hold on, Tessa. Please, honey, hold on.”

Suddenly two big hands circled Dante’s ankles from behind. He glanced over first one shoulder and then the other. Dom Shea held his right ankle, Vic Noble the left.

Thank you, God!

With Dom and Vic holding him, Dante inched farther down the rocky embankment until his fingertips grazed Tessa’s. Holding her around the calves, Charlie gave Tessa one final jerk. Simultaneously, Dante grabbed onto Tessa’s
hands and pulled while Charlie Sentell lost his hold on her and fell through the air. Dante tugged Tessa up, as Charlie fell.

Dante was too busy holding Tessa in his arms to see Charlie hit the river below, but in the back of his mind he thought that no one could survive such a fall.

“Oh, Dante.” Tessa melted against him, holding him with all her might.

“He’s our hero, Mama. He saved me again. And he saved you.”

Leslie Anne pulled away from Lucie, who’d been holding her back, and came running toward her mother and Dante. Tessa eased out of Dante’s embrace and opened her arms for her daughter. The moment she engulfed Leslie Anne, Dante wrapped his arms protectively around both of them.

“Lucie, why don’t you help Dante get Ms. Westbrook and Leslie Anne back to the house?” Dom said. “Vic and I will call the sheriff and then go down to the river and see if we can locate Sentell’s body.”

S
EVERAL HOURS LATER
, after Sheriff Coburn had come and gone, after Charlie’s body had been retrieved from the river and after G.W. had issued a command for everyone—Celia, Myrle, Olivia and Tad—to go home, Tessa pulled Dante out of Leslie Anne’s room.

“Are you sure you’re ready to leave her alone?” Dante asked.

“She’s not alone. Aunt Sharon and Daddy are with her and will stay with her so you and I have a few minutes to talk.”

“Do you think we can hash everything out in a few minutes?”

“We can’t hash out
everything
—” she emphasized the
word “—if we live to be a hundred. But I think there are a few things we can settle pretty quickly.”

“Such as?”

“Let’s go downstairs,” she said. “We need complete privacy.”

Dante followed her down the stairs and into the library. She closed and locked the door, then turned to him. All he could see was Amy’s blue eyes looking at him.

“I might have once been a girl named Amy Smith, but I have no memory of being her. For all intents and purposes I’m Tessa Westbrook. Can you accept me for who I am
now?
”

“What do you mean? Can I love you the way I once did now that you go by a different name? Of course I can. I do. I think on some purely instinctive level I sensed all along that you were Amy.”

She groaned. “That’s just it. I’m not Amy. I can never be Amy again. No matter how much either of us wish I could remember the past, remember what we meant to each other, I can’t remember. I never will. The doctors explained that any memories I had are lost to me forever.”

“I know that.” His mind knew what she was saying was true, but his heart was having a difficult time accepting the fact. This beautiful woman—the only woman he had ever loved—wasn’t Amy Smith any longer.

When he reached for her, she sidestepped him. “You were attracted to me when you didn’t know I was Amy, so do you think you can learn to love Tessa Westbrook?”

“I do love you, no matter what your name is. You and I were made for each other. We were destined to be together,” he told her. “God has given us a second chance, the kind of second chance most people only dream of—having a lost love return from the dead.”

“I believe you could be right about that.” She smiled at him, all the while tears gathered in her eyes.

Amy’s eyes
.

“Even when we didn’t recognize each other, our hearts—maybe even our souls—knew who the other was,” Dante said.

“Things won’t be the same, you know. I’m not Amy Smith. And you’re not that crazy-in-love nineteen-year-old boy.”

He walked toward her, determined to hold her. To hold Amy in his arms once again.

She didn’t hesitate, didn’t put up an argument of any kind when he embraced her. She wrapped her arms around his waist and lifted her face for his kiss.

The sweetest kiss he’d ever known.

And then they simply held each other. And cried.

T
IME STOOD STILL
. Lost all significance as Dante held her. She didn’t remember loving him when she’d been Amy Smith, but she loved him now as Tessa Westbrook. Whether or not her heart remembered him, she didn’t know. But there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that her soul recognized his, that their souls were united now and for all eternity.

“Dante?”

“Hmm…?”

“Were we lovers?” she asked. “I mean were you and Amy lovers?”

He cupped her chin and lifted her face. “Yes, we were lovers. I told you, didn’t I, that she—that you wouldn’t even let me kiss you for a couple of months after we first started dating.”

Her heart had come up with this incredible notion and she had to voice it, had to find out if what she hoped for could
possibly be true. “Dante, did we make love anytime close to the night I was…that Eddie Jay Nealy kidnapped me?”

He kissed her forehead, then looked directly at her. “The night before you disappeared, we made love in my car. We pulled off into an alley there in town and made love before I took you home.”

She grasped Dante’s hand. “If we made love right before I was kidnapped, then isn’t it possible that I got pregnant that night? Don’t you think there’s a chance that Leslie Anne could be yours?”

He pulled away from her. “You don’t know how I wish that was true. I’d give anything if I was Leslie Anne’s father.”

“But you don’t think you are, do you? Is it impossible?”

He shook his head. “No, it’s not impossible, just highly improbable. You see, Amy and I—you and I used protection. I never made love to you without using a condom.”

Hope died within her. But not quite all hope. “Condoms aren’t foolproof.”

“No, they’re not.”

“I think we should make certain that she isn’t yours,” Tessa said.

“When we have the DNA test run on you to confirm that you are Amy Smith, we’ll have one run on Leslie Anne to see if she’s mine.”

Tessa held out her hands to him. “And if she’s not? If she really is Eddie Jay Nealy’s?”

Dante took her hands in his and pulled her to him. “I love you…Tessa. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, if you’ll have me. And I’d like to be a father to Leslie Anne, whether she’s biologically my child or not.”

“Oh, Dante, do you mean that? Do you love me…love my daughter and me so much that it doesn’t matter?”

“Lady, the only thing on earth that matters to me is that you’re alive and in my arms and that you’re mine. Now and forever.”

“I love you, Dante Moran. I’m sure I loved you when I was Amy Smith, but I can’t believe I loved you then half as much as I do now.”

“You’re going to marry me one of these days, aren’t you?” He nuzzled her neck.

“You bet I am. But maybe you and I should get to know each other. After all, you’re a stranger to me and despite your having known me as Amy Smith, you really don’t know Tessa Westbrook all that well.”

“How long a courtship do you have in mind?” he asked. “I’m a patient man, honey. I’ve waited seventeen years to find you, so I can wait a little while longer to make you my wife. But not too long.”

“How does six months sound to you?”

Groaning, he frowned at her. “During that six months, we don’t have to be celibate, do we?”

She laughed. “God, I hope not. Now that I’ve discovered how fabulous sex can be, I’ll probably be jumping you every chance I get.”

“I like the sound of that.”

Tessa took his hand. “I should be getting back to Leslie Anne.”

“I’ll go with you. It’s time I got to know my new daughter.”

“Oh, Dante.” Emotion caught in her throat. If only…dear Lord, if only…“I don’t want Leslie Anne to know that there’s a chance you might be her father. Not until we get back the DNA results. I’m not going to build up her hopes only for her to find out that you’re not her father.”

“I agree,” he said. “But between now and then, I’m going to prove to Leslie Anne what a great dad I can be.”

Together, hand in hand, Tessa and Dante left the library, walked up the stairs and to Leslie Anne’s room. Tessa would cherish that fragile kernel of hope in her heart. If there was any true justice in this world, Dante would be her daughter’s father. But whether he was or not, she knew that the three of them could be a family, just as she and Leslie Anne and G.W. and Sharon were a family. Love and commitment made a family, not just the bonds of blood.

The minute Dante opened the door to Leslie Anne’s sitting room, she came rushing toward him. “Aunt Sharon and Granddaddy told me all about how mother was once a girl named Amy Smith and that you two were in love and…oh, Mama…Dante…it’s all so wonderful, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sweetheart.” Tessa wrapped her arms around her daughter. “It’s all so very wonderful.”