Don’t Call Me Sweetheart

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Don’t Call Me Sweetheart

ISBN 9781419922688

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Don’t Call Me Sweetheart Copyright © 2009 Jeanette Ward

Edited by Helen Woodall

Cover art by Dar Albert

Electronic book Publication August 2009

The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are
registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not
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permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing Inc., 1056 Home Avenue,
Akron, OH 44310-3502.

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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons,
living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The
characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Dedication

To all my sisters of the pen who, like me, believe there
will never be enough romance.

“Christian, are you ready to begin?” The quiet words seemed
to wrench Christian Dade abruptly back to the present. Stephan knew without
asking it was a place he’d tried desperately to avoid for the past week.

“Begin? This isn’t a beginning, Stephan.” The man seated
across from the young attorney spoke in a voice filled with undisguised
anguish. His intense black eyes bore a haunted look and the dark circles
beneath them testified to the number of sleepless nights he’d endured. It was a
startling contrast to the striking good looks the strapping banker was known
for.

Stephan Thayer was saddened to see his friend, who under
normal circumstances, commanded attention and respect, now forced to deal with
a family tragedy of such immense proportions. And deal with it alone.

They had been close for years and he felt everything
Christian felt. The knowledge that he couldn’t erase the enormous amount of
pain his friend was shouldering ate at him as he watched Christian struggle
with one emotion after another.

“I know. What about your parents’ wills though? We need to
go over them.”

“No,” Christian declared sharply, lurching to his feet, his
formidable six-foot-two frame barely managing to contain the anger coursing
through him. “Because once I do, this will be finished. They’ll be finished! Don’t
you understand?”

“I probably understand more than you think I do,” Stephan
spoke quietly, saying things Christian needed to hear. Things he probably
feared hearing. “You’re hurting like hell on the inside, bud, but putting this
off won’t make it less real.

“That trucker tried his damnedest to miss your dad. You read
the accident report. He spread so much rubber along that stretch of highway
they’ll be picking up pieces of tire for months. Your folks just didn’t see him
coming.”

Christian closed his eyes and uninvited the tragic scene
flashed through his mind’s eye. His parents merging onto the busy highway
leading from Reflection Ridge to their country inn near Mt. Rainier. Joseph and
Helen Dade laughingly recalling bits of conversation shared with their son
earlier that day when they’d surprised him by stopping in with an invitation to
lunch.

Never realizing tragedy loomed in their future.

Never seeing the mountain of steel bearing down upon them as
they made their way home.

The tortuous image of the impact recreated itself again and
again, hounding Christian. The sickening sound of metal crumpling as the smaller
four wheel drive vehicle and the eighteen-wheeler careened into one another. The
squeal of tires as the truck jack-knifed across the road just before the
smaller vehicle shattered the steel guardrail, plunging to the ground far below
the elevated bypass. And the screams. Oh, lord…he imagined his mother’s
screams, echoing in his mind, relentless and terrifying.

So real. They seemed so real.

He forced his eyes open, dragging both hands wearily across
his face, driving the anger away by sheer force of will. “Okay. Let’s just get
this over with,” he said with a heavy sigh of defeat. He eased his large frame
back into his chair and turned toward Stephan, resolved to put this last ritual
behind him.

Stephan opened the file lying between them and pulled out the
documents that had been drawn up at Joseph’s request only weeks before. He
straightened the pages nervously, uncertainty etched across his features.

“Just give it here, Stephan,” Christian commanded. “If I
need something translated I’ll ask you for help.”

Several minutes passed as he carefully scanned the document.
His eyes narrowed dangerously as he reached the end and looked up, anger
clouding both his demeanor and his face. “What the hell is this all about?” he
demanded, purposefully pushing the paperwork back across the desk.

“The wills are cut and dried, Christian,” Stephan replied in
an even voice. There was regret in his soft brown eyes. “For reasons of their
own choosing, your parents opted to exclude your brother and leave everything
they owned to you.”

“Why?” Christian’s low voice made the question sound
anything but simple. He leaned forward, demanding answers to the questions
thundering through his mind. Parents weren’t generally prone to disinheriting
child without reason. So what was the reason? He wanted the truth, damn it. And
he wanted it now.

“It wasn’t their fault, Christian. They didn’t mean to keep
anything from you,” Stephan hastened to explain, nervously rolling his pen back
forth between his fingers. “It just…”

“What wasn’t their fault?” Christian demanded heatedly,
pushing himself out of his chair and bracing his splayed hands on top of the
polished cherry-wood desk. “You’d better let me in on these family secrets I
never knew existed and you’d better do it quickly! I’m sure you can appreciate
the fact that I’m suddenly a little short on patience. Finding out you’ve been
lied to by those you love tends to do that to a person.”

Stephan sighed. “Christian,” he began, then hesitated as he
appeared to search for the right words to soften the blow Christian
instinctively felt coming. “Please, you have to realize I couldn’t say anything
once your parents retained me as their attorney. God knows I wanted to.”

Christian stepped back, the rational side of his brain acknowledging
that his father’s attorney was bound by the same ethics to which he adhered. Honesty
and loyalty were as much a way of life to the attorney as they were to him. But
his warring emotions pushed aside all logic, demanding appeasement. He lifted
an eyebrow at Stephan, silently urging him to stop stalling and clear the air
once and for all.

“Your parents took on quite a bit of debt the last few years,”
Stephan continued solemnly, looking down at his steepled hands. “Roughly a
hundred grand.”

“Why in the hell would they do that? The business was
bringing in more than enough to pay the bills and keep them living comfortably.
They should have been deciding how to spend the interest from their retirement
accounts, not borrowing that kind of money.”

“Your parents didn’t plan any of this. Come on, Christian. You
know your father and he wasn’t the type to make foolish investments. And they
certainly weren’t squandering the income from the inn. There were things…things
they didn’t want to tell you about.”

“What things?” The words were spoken quietly but with a
deadly intensity that caused Stephan to look up in alarm.

“The part Cole plays in this situation,” Stephan answered
slowly.

Christian pivoted in frustrated fury, his hands buried deep
in his pockets.

“Cole?” He spat the name out of his mouth as if forming it
left the foulest of tastes in its place. “What does he have to do with the fact
that apparently Mom and Dad owe every bank within a fifty-mile radius?”

Christian’s dark gaze bored into Stephan’s as he swung back
around. The revelation that his brother had played an integral part in this
unfolding nightmare was pressing in on him from all sides. Cole was a
cold-hearted son of a bitch. But what had he done to push their parents in such
a dire position?

“This should help explain,” Stephan replied, handing
Christian a small white envelope with his and Cole’s names scrawled boldly
across the front in his father’s handwriting. “I’m sorry, Christian. I really
am.”

Christian stared at the envelope clutched tightly in his
hands, clinging to the hope that by touching something his father had recently
held he could somehow reach across the boundaries of death and once more feel
the special connection they had shared.

He drew out a simple letter scribbled on ordinary notebook
paper, his chiseled features tightening momentarily before a ghost of a smile
lifted one corner of his mouth. Joseph Dade’s choice of stationary for such an
important message was typical of the character that had defined him. Proud but
not arrogant, he had put little stock in what others thought of him.

Quickly Christian scanned the letter.

Christian, Cole,

Boys, this letter is for you and there’s another for your
mother. It’s going to be up to you to take care of her now. She’s going to need
your help with the business decisions, Christian. And to help her say “No” to
Cole. I’m sorry Cole, I just never had the strength to do it myself, even when
you were draining everything your mother and I had. We gave you so much while
we watched your brother managing so well on his own. Now we have to set things
straight the only way we can.

Over the years, due to helping Cole out of one mess or
another, your mother and I have accumulated a good bit of debt. You never knew
about this, Christian. We just kept hoping that Cole would find his way at some
point but I guess he never will. We have set aside an account at the bank and
the funds are to be used for running the inn. It’s the only asset we possess of
any value and it belongs to Christian with the understanding that his mother is
to remain there for as long as she wishes and the responsibility for her care
rests with him.

Christian, I want you to know that you have always been
the kind of son a man could be proud of and I just wish I could say the same
about you, Cole. But you’ve always been a maverick at heart, with little regard
for your actions or their consequences. You have it inside you though, to be
much more than you are because you’re my son. Don’t waste the rest of your life
trying to discover this truth. Make the most of yourself now. Be a man who can
hold his head up high.

Both of you remember I’ve always loved you and I always
will.

Dad

Christian hardly noticed when Stephan stood up and quietly
crossed the room to gaze out the office window, pretending to study the comings
and goings of the people who made the sleepy town of Reflection Ridge their
home.

“When did Dad write this?”

Stephan’s reply surprised Christian. “Two months ago. Everything
is pretty much the same now as it was when your father and I prepared these
instructions.”

“And with Mother gone also?” To actually say the words hurt
more than could be imagined but the time had come to find out where everything
stood.

“They left all their assets in your name,” Stephan answered,
moving back to the desk and leaning one hip casually against the solid mass. “As
was stated in the will, Cole will receive nothing in lieu of what was given to
him before the accident. In fact, I apprised him of the situation when he made
the same inquiries earlier this morning. I’m sure you can see now your parents
didn’t allow this to happen out of foolishness. It was only out of love for
Cole.”

“What I understand is that because of that heartless fraud I’m
in one hell of a mess,” Christian growled. “Just where is my dear brother now, Stephan?”

“Wisely heading as far away from you as possible,” Stephan
replied. “There’s actually very little to be done about the situation as I see
it, Christian. You’re in sole possession of Mountain Meadow Inn and all
property housed within. Your parents’ life insurance policies were,
unfortunately, cashed in quite some time ago to cover the numerous expenses
brought on by their commitment to financing your brother.”

Christian leveled a dark look in the attorney’s direction
for the reminder. The expression on Stephan’s face said things were going to
get worse before they got better. Inwardly he steeled himself for what was yet
to come. It didn’t take long.

“The county is threatening to seize the inn if the back
taxes aren’t brought current within the next thirty days though. And the bank
is threatening to foreclose if the mortgage isn’t brought current as well. At
the time of his death your father was working to find a way to deal with the
problem. He had just made the decision to use the last of his cash. I hesitated
to bring this up while you were dealing with the funeral arrangements.”

“How much.” It wasn’t a question. It was testimony to the
level of responsibility Christian felt toward preserving his father’s good
name. It seemed what one brother sowed, the other would reap.

“Twenty-three thousand.”

Christian closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. When
he opened them again he focused on the whiteness of his clenched knuckles. He
was facing few options at best. First he needed to find out how much there was
in that account at the bank.

“I need some time to think this through and check on a few
things, Stephan—“

“There’s more.”

“What more could there possibly be?” Christian thundered
explosively. “Did we lose our four-star rating? Or maybe the feds called to say
they discovered the inn was actually built on an ancient Indian burial site and
has to be moved?”

“It’s worse than that, I’m afraid,” Stephan answered,
running his fingers through his wheat blond hair in frustration.

“The account your father mentioned would have been more than
enough to pay off the loans and get you out of hot water, which was what he had
resigned himself to doing. But—”

“No, wait. Let me guess,” Christian cut in, his voice made
harsh as a clear understanding dawned on him of just how truly soulless his
brother had become over the years. “While we were at the funeral yesterday and
Cole was putting on such a splendid display of grief, he was mentally planning
how to spend the rest of Mom and Dad’s money, right?”

“Right,” Stephan concurred. “It seems Cole stopped at the
bank yesterday the minute we were finished at the cemetery.”

He paused, his sorrowful eyes imploring Christian for
forgiveness.

“I swear if I had thought Cole was capable of anything so
underhanded I would have insisted we go over these matters the morning after
the accident. I knew he could sign on your parents’ account, just like you
could. I should have seen this coming.”