Heiress (16 page)

Lane knew it was the letter in his suit pocket that was partly responsible for all his soul-searching. The opening lines of the letter haunted him:

Dear Lane,

I hope you never have to read this. I promised myself long ago that I would never tread on our friendship. But now I find myself in a situation where I must ask a favor of you. There's no one else I can trust. It's about my daughter, Rachel, Caroline's child. . .

Trust. The word nagged at Lane. He had done so little to deserve it. What troubled him more was the doubt that there was anyone among his own circle of friends whom he could trust with something so very personal in nature. Not a single name came to mind. The people he dealt with and called friends were not that at all. It was a sobering discovery at the age of fifty-six to realize you had no one you could turn to.

But whom did Rachel have? Motherless. Now fatherless. No blood relative who wanted her. Abbie had made that clear. Since meeting her at the cemetery, Lane had thought about Rachel often: the sadness, the hurt in her blue eyes, haunting him at odd moments. He wondered if she suffered much from the stigma of illegitimacy while growing up. He doubted that she could have escaped it entirely, considering how thoughtless and cruel other children could be at times.

Roused from his reverie by the sound of approaching footsteps, Lane glanced up and saw Rachel following the maître d' to his table. As he rose to greet her, he noticed how stiff and tense she appeared.

"Hello, Rachel."

"Hello. I'm sorry I'm late." Immediately she sat down in the chair the maître d' pulled out for her, then awkwardly helped him move it closer to the table.

"You're not late." Lane resumed his own seat. "I was able to leave the office sooner than I planned. It gave me a chance to relax and have a drink."

She seemed self-conscious and ill at ease, her glance skittering away without even meeting his as she opened the menu in front of her. "I know how busy you are and I'm grateful that you could spare the time to have lunch with me."

Her cheeks looked flushed to him, and he doubted it was rouge. She wore very little makeup, but with her skin and eyes, he didn't think she needed any. "It's my pleasure. It isn't often that I have lunch with an attractive woman."

She glanced briefly around at the other customers in the restaurant, her glance lingering on one or two of the more fashionably dressed women in the room. "You're very kind, but I doubt that, Mr. Canfield."

"You shouldn't. It's the truth." Belatedly he realized she was embarrassed about the way she was dressed. He blamed himself for not saying something when he had suggested meeting here, but it hadn't occurred to him. "Would you like something to drink before we order lunch?" he asked as the waiter came up to their table.

She hesitated briefly, "Perhaps a glass of white wine."

"A chardonnay or Riesling? We have a very nice—"

"The chardonnay will be fine," she interrupted.

"We'll trust your judgment on the vineyard and the vintage," Lane inserted to stave off the anticipated inquiry from the waiter, guessing—he was sure correctly—that Rachel wasn't knowledgeable about wines. "And I'll have another bourbon and water."

"Very good, sir."

"This is a beautiful restaurant," she remarked as the waiter left.

Personally, Lane regretted his choice, observing how uncomfortable she was there. He'd assumed that Dean had taken her to places like this in Los Angeles. Maybe not, though. Caroline certainly wouldn't have been impressed by it.

"It's a little stuffy, but the food is excellent."

"I'm sure it is."

Dammit, he felt sorry for her, although he suspected his pity was the last thing she wanted. He had intended this lunch to be something personal. He felt he owed that to Dean. More than that, he felt Rachel deserved it. He didn't want this to become a business discussion about the contents of Dean's will and the letter in his pocket. That had to be dealt with, but not now. After their drinks arrived and they ordered their meals, Lane started asking her questions, trying together to talk about herself and her work as a commercial artist, and relax a little. He discovered it wasn't easy to draw her out of her shell, but he persisted, responding to the challenge.

"Are you still living in Malibu?" he asked after his questions about her work gained him only meager responses.

"No. I have an apartment in the hills near the riding stable where I keep my horses."

"You have horses?" He remembered how involved Abbie was with the Arabian horses at River Bend. He should have guessed that Rachel would pick up Dean's obsession for them as well.

"Well, only two, actually. Ahmar is the gelding Dean bought me when I was twelve. He's the first horse I ever owned. Before that I had a pony—a Welsh-Arabian cross. Ahmar is nineteen years old now, but you'd never guess it. He still loves his morning gallops and gets jealous if I take my filly Simoon out instead."

"Ahmar. He's an Arabian, of course," Lane guessed.

"Of course," she laughed for the first time. He liked the warm spontaneity of the sound. "A fiery red chestnut. In Arabic, Ahmar means 'red.' He's my very best friend."

A horse for a best friend, Lane thought, noticing that she appeared embarrassed by her admission. If that was true, then her life must be lonelier than he'd thought.

The waiter returned with their food order: a lobster salad for Rachel and duck terrine for himself. He let it absorb her attention for a few minutes.

"You said you have another horse," he prompted.

"Yes, Simoon, a three-year-old filly. Dean gave her to me as a yearling. She's out of one of the mares he imported from Egypt a few years ago, and sired by his stallion Nahr El Kedar." Rachel described her at length, for a little while completely forgetting herself. It was a different Rachel that Lane saw then, warm and glowing, that wall of reserve lowered, but only briefly.

"What about boyfriends? I'm sure there's someone back there in L.A. waiting for you."

"No." She picked at the remains of her lobster salad. "Between my job and my horses, I don't have a lot of free time for dating. I go out once in a while, but not often."

Lane could tell by her expression that the experiences left a lot to be desired. As sensitive as she was, there was no doubt in his mind that she'd probably been hurt at one time or another. And the old saying "once burned, twice shy" was probably more than apt for her.

After Rachel had refused both dessert and coffee, Lane asked for the check. "I enjoyed the lunch very much. You were right. The food was excellent." She laid her napkin on the table and picked up her purse. "Thank you for asking me."

"Don't leave yet," Lane said, checking the movement she started to make. "I thought we might take a walk in the park across the street. There are a few things I want to talk to you about."

With a hand at her elbow, Lane guided her across the street to Sam Houston Park. They strolled together across the rolling green, past historical St. John's Church and the gazebo to the rushes growing along the bank of Buffalo Bayou. There Rachel turned and looked back at the modern skyscrapers of downtown towering over the small park.

"The architecture here fascinates me." A gusting wind blew her long hair into her face. She combed it out of the way with her fingers and held it, the pose pulling the loose blouse tautly across her breasts. Lane was not so jaded that the sight failed to arouse him. Rather, he felt a healthy stirring of desire in his loins, and had to remind himself that she was the daughter of a friend—not that he was entirely sure what difference that made. "I guess I get that from my mother. I don't know." She shrugged absently. "When I think of all that Los Angeles is doing to try to revitalize its downtown area and then. . . see this. I mean, there's construction going on everywhere."

"Counting cranes is Houston's favorite pastime," Lane said, referring to the giant construction cranes that poked their long necks from nearly every building site. "Some people want to declare them the state bird."

"I can believe it."

"If you want a better vantage point of the downtown buildings, we can walk over to Tranquility Park. It's just a block or so from here."

"I know you're busy. And I can't keep taking up your time. . .”

"It's my time." With a wave of his hand, he pointed out the direction they would take. "Before you leave for California, you should take a drive around Houston. There are high-rise buildings clustered miles apart on the outer loops with architectural styles that rival what you see here."

As they walked across the park with the sun beating down on them and the wind tugging at their clothes, Lane did something he hadn't done in years—decades, maybe. Impulsively he took off his tie, unbuttoned his shirt collar, and removed his jacket, hooking it over his shoulder on his finger. It was as if a weight had been lifted from him. He felt lighter, freer—even a little younger as he directed Rachel across the street again to the futuristic Tranquility Park.

Named after the Sea of Tranquility on the lunar surface, the park was built as a Bicentennial tribute to the Apollo flights to the moon, and constructed atop the concrete deck of a multilevel underground garage. As they wandered past the reflecting pools, Lane explained some of the symbolism in the park's design, with its grassy knolls representing lunar mounds, and the fountains, ascending rockets.

"I'm told it's beautiful in the late afternoon when the angle of the sunlight hits the fountains just right and turns the water golden," he said, then admitted, "Actually, this is the first time I've ever been here."

"It's peaceful here."

"It certainly is."

She walked over to a bench and sat down, gripping the edge of the bench with her hands. "You said you wanted to talk to me about something."

"Yes." Lane joined her. "I'm sure you must have guessed that Dean's will has been read. He named me as the executor of his estate."

"I see."

"Rachel." The rest was hard for him to say, even now. "There was no mention of you in the will. Legally, you could contest it. . . and probably be awarded a third of his estate. At this time, I can't tell you what that amount might be, but—"

"No." She shook her head, her expression sadly fatalistic. "I won't do that. River Bend, the house, the horses—all that is theirs. It never belonged to me. I won't claim part of it now."

"Rachel, I'm sorry." He could tell she was hurt.

"Don't be," she insisted with a tight little smile, trying to pretend she didn't care. "I think I always knew I'd be left out. I mean, why should anything change just because he's dead?" She bowed her head. "That sounded bitter. I didn't mean for it to."

In her place, Lane thought he would have been more than bitter. Even in death, Dean hadn't publicly acknowledged her existence. "I don't want you to misunderstand me, Rachel. Your father didn't forget you. It seems that shortly after you were born, he set up an irrevocable trust fund in your name. Today, between the contributions he made into it and the accumulated interest, the fund totals over two million dollars."

"What?" She stared at him incredulously.

Lane smiled. "The exact figure is something like two million, one hundred and eighty-seven thousand dollars, plus change. The way the fund was set up, the money was to come to you when you reached the age of thirty—or in the event of his death. . . unless of course you were under twenty-one at the time."

"I can't believe it." Tears swam in her eyes, but her expression was joyful. "Daddy—Dean did that for me?"

"Yes." Moved by her poignant display, he smiled even wider, more gently. As her hands came up to cup her nose and mouth and catch the tears that spilled from the inside comers of her eyes, Lane swung away the suit jacket he'd carried and reached out to draw her into his arms. "Child," he murmured, but she felt like a woman against him.

At first, she simply let him hold her and comfortingly pat her shoulder while she cried softly. But the tears seemed to wash away some invisible wall she'd built around herself. Soon she was leaning against him, letting him support her, her face buried in the crook of his neck, her fingers clutching the front of his shirt. Lane rubbed his cheek and jaw against the silken top of her head, wondering when he'd last felt as deeply as she did. His own emotions had been buried too long in his work.

"I don't believe it." She sniffed at the tears that wouldn't stop and wiped at her nose and eyes, trying to regain her control. "He must have really loved me. Sometimes, I—" She pulled back, gazing at Lane with haunted eyes. "Is this another of his presents to buy off his guilty conscience?"

"I think he loved you very much. And, like any father, he wanted to provide you with some financial security for the day when he couldn't look after you." That much Lane believed was true, but he wouldn't speculate on whether Dean's concern had been motivated by a guilty conscience.

Maybe Dean had lavished presents on her in the past to make up for the time he couldn't spend with her. Thousands of people did that. Was that a guilty conscience or an attempt to buy a child's love? Was either one really wrong? Lane had never been a parent. He couldn't say.

"I will tell you this, Rachel. He wouldn't have been much of a father if he hadn't taken steps to provide for your future."

"He was good to me—always." She moved away from him a little as she finished wiping the last of the tears from her face. Then she smiled wryly at him. "I can imagine what you think of me, falling apart like that."

"I think. . . you're beautiful." And he'd never meant a statement more. Impulsively he leaned forward and lightly kissed her lips, briefly feeling their softness and tasting the salt of her tears. Then it was his turn to wonder what she thought of him. But the look in her eyes seemed to be one of trust. He was stung by the possibility that she had regarded his kiss only as a fatherly peck.

"I'm not really sure any of this is happening to me." She shook her head vaguely. "Yesterday, I was wondering how I was going to keep both my horses. Dean always paid the boarding fees on them. I was going to look for a cheaper apartment when I got back. Now, with that much money, I can live anywhere I want, do anything I want."