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“From what I understand, that’s a suburb.”
Then, when Willoughby recited her number, he jotted it down, even though he had no intention of calling.
He was going to fly to California as soon as possible. Brianna lost her father last year and her mother today. She needed to be with family, with someone who loved her.
And that someone was her big brother, Jake.
Chloe Haskell hadn’t been to the park in nearly ten years and wished she’d come sooner.
There was something liberating about swinging back and forth like a child again, allowing the summer breeze to muss her hair. She supposed there were some who would criticize a grown woman for enjoying herself in a playground, but Chloe couldn’t care less. She was doing this for Brianna—and for the woman who should have been swinging beside the child instead.
“Let’s go all the way up to Heaven,” Brianna said.
If only they could.
Desiree had been a wonderful mother, a devoted friend.
Brianna must miss her terribly.
Chloe missed her, too. She and Desiree had been more like sisters than friends, even though they hadn’t seen each other as often as they should have.
In retrospect, Chloe wished that she had taken time for personal visits to Dallas, but in her defense, she’d been busy, first attending college, then opening her own business. So the two women had kept in contact via long phone calls and e-mails.
There wasn’t much they hadn’t discussed over the past six years. When Chloe had decided to lease the old five-and-dime store in downtown Bayside and put in a dance studio, she’d called Desiree for advice. And Desiree, who’d retired once she’d moved to Dallas, shared the joys of married life with the wonderful older man she adored.
Of course, she also confided in Chloe about the problems she’d faced as a stepmother to her husband’s son, a “kid” who vowed never to accept her.
When Desiree was blessed with a daughter and at last had the family she’d been waiting for, Chloe had been thrilled for her and sent gifts regularly—little dresses and outfits she’d picked up, books, a toy or two.
It was hard not to envy Desiree’s good fortune—until her luck took a nasty turn.
First her husband suffered a massive heart attack and died, then, a couple of months ago, she brought Brianna out to California for what Chloe and the child believed was a special visit, a vacation of sorts.
But the reunion had been bittersweet.
“I need to ask you a favor,” Desiree had told Chloe, as little Brianna played in the colorful indoor playground at Burger Bob’s.
“Anything.” Chloe withdrew the straw of her chocolate shake and licked a dollop from the end. “You know that.”
Desiree wrapped the remainder of her burger into the bright yellow paper it had come in and pushed it aside. “I need you to take care of Brianna for me.”
“Of course,” Chloe’d said. “I’d love to babysit.”
“I’m afraid it’s more permanent than that.”
A cold chill that had nothing to do with the shake crept over Chloe, and she’d sensed Desiree’s explanation before she could utter the words.
Desiree tore at the edge of her napkin, then peered at Chloe with glistening eyes. “My cancer came back.”
While Chloe was in high school, Desiree had been diagnosed with lung cancer. When she’d completed her medical treatment and was in remission, Chloe’s father, who’d been first her employer and later a business associate, had sent her on an all-expenses-paid cruise to Alaska, where she met Gerald Braddock.
“And it’s terminal,” Desiree’d added.
The reality and the implication of the diagnosis slammed into Chloe, releasing a torrent of shock and grief. “You need to get a second opinion.”
“I’ve seen three different doctors, hoping for another diagnosis and more options. But they all agree. There’s nothing that can be done.”
The silence threatened to draw them into an emotional whirlpool, and it was all Chloe could do to hang on and not let it carry her away. Not while Brianna played just a few feet away.
“It sucks,” Desiree had said. “It really does. I’ve waited for years to have a child, and now I’m going to leave her. And miss watching her grow up. But if there’s anyone in this world who will love and care for Brianna the way I would have done, it’s you.”
“I…” Chloe had been dumbstruck. Desiree was only thirty-four—ten years older than Chloe. “Of course I’ll take Brianna. I’ll love her like my own. But maybe there’s something that can be done, something experimental. A promising new treatment. Perhaps one of the doctors in San Diego—”
“I’m afraid there isn’t anything that can be done.”
And she’d been right. In less than four weeks, Desiree had died.
The memory of that day faded as little Brianna drew Chloe back to the present.
“Too bad we can’t go to Heaven,” Brianna said. “Mommy loves chocolate. And so does Daddy. We could take them some of the brownies we made.”
“From what I understand, they have all the dessert anyone could ever want in Heaven. But you’re right. We have too many to eat all by ourselves. Maybe we can share them with someone else.”
Under the circumstances, Brianna seemed to be taking her mother’s death fairly well. Of course, Desiree had been preparing her for the past month. And then the two of them had shared a tearful, final goodbye more than a week ago.
Sacrificing her last days must have been tough for Desiree. But she hadn’t wanted Brianna’s memories to be tainted by a hospital setting or seeing her mother connected to tubes and wires. So she left the girl with Chloe more than a week ago, then went home to die.
There was a child psychologist in Dallas whom Desiree had been taking Brianna to see, and Chloe had every intention of following through on those appointments. The little girl seemed to be doing okay, but Chloe didn’t want her have any problems down the road.
“Tell me again how you met my mommy,” Brianna said.
Chloe had known better than to be entirely truthful, especially with a child. So she stretched things a bit. Softened them.
“My father owned a…dance place,” Chloe said. “And your mommy came looking for a job. I was a little girl, like you, and I thought she was the most beautiful dancer I’d ever seen.”
Why tell the child that Chloe’s father owned a bar and strip club? Or that on the day Desiree had shown up, she’d been sporting a black eye, a swollen jaw and a split lip?
“And then,” Brianna said, adding to the story she’d already heard several times, “when your daddy needed someone to watch you, she was the bestest babysitter in the whole, wide world.”
“That she was.”
Chloe’s father, Ron Haskell, was a gambler at heart and had won a seedy bar and strip club in a poker game. During the early years, when Chloe hadn’t been much older than Brianna, she spent a lot of time at the club, where the cocktail waitresses and dancers used to look after her. Desiree, who loved children, gladly babysat whenever Ron asked her. Before long, she and Chloe had developed a strong, loving bond.
Desiree, who’d had a lousy childhood and absolutely no family support, had learned to rely on her available resources—her beauty, her body and an ability to read her customers and alter her dances to fulfill their fantasies. Too bad it took her ages to hone the same ability when it came to reading her lovers and realizing she was a loser magnet when it came to romance.
All Desiree had really wanted was love and a family, yet, that dream had remained out of reach for years. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t successful in other ways.
Ron wasn’t a businessman, yet Desiree was a natural. And soon, thanks to her advice and managerial skills, the club began to turn a decent profit.
Desiree also prodded Ron to invest in other properties. With her innate business savvy and refusal to allow him to gamble all the profit away, Ron died a wealthy man.
“And because my mommy was so pretty and smart,” Brianna said, reciting her version of what Chloe had been asked to repeat several times already, “and because she was a good dancer, you’re making a book about her.”
“It’s not exactly a book. It’s more like a journal of memories that you can read when you get older.” Chloe had titled it Lessons from Desiree, which might be a bit lame, but creating it was somehow helping her deal with the loss of her best friend.
“And I get to write in it, too,” Brianna reminded her. “As soon as I go to school and learn how to spell.”
“That’s right, Breezy.”
They pumped their feet, swinging in silence for a while, the wind blowing Chloe’s long, curly hair and whipping a red strand across her cheek. It was probably a tangled mess right now, but she didn’t care.
She shot a sideways glance at Brianna, and when their gazes met, the child grinned. “You sure are a good swinger, Chloe. Just like my mom.”
“Your mom was a wonderful teacher.”
Brianna nodded, then scanned the small playground and gasped. “Oh! I need to get off. Can you help me?”
“Sure.” Chloe jumped from her seat, landing upright in the sand. She walked to the back of Brianna’s swing and slowed it to a stop. “What do you want to do now? You’re not ready to go back to the house, are you?”
“No. I want to play with Jenny and Penny. And they finally got off the teeter-totter and are climbing the slide. I want to do that, too.” Once her feet touched the ground, the little blonde, who favored her mommy, ran across the sand to join the two new playmates she’d recently met.
When Chloe had been a child, she hadn’t had many friends her own age, something she sorely missed, so it was nice to see Brianna socialize.
Gosh, it was just plain nice to have Brianna around.
Yes, they’d had—and would continue to have—moments of sadness and tears, but Chloe was determined to do everything in her power to ensure that Brianna grew up happy and loved.
Still, at times, Chloe feared she may have bitten off more than she could chew in the agreement she’d made with Desiree. But not when it came to motherhood, a new role she’d easily fallen into. Her reservations stemmed from staying in Texas for six weeks, as Desiree had asked her to, and facing the legalities and trouble she was bound to run into when she met Brianna’s stepbrother.
And the day of reckoning was closing in on her.
On Friday morning she would meet Jake Brad-dock in Dallas at Brian Willoughby’s office.
Years ago Desiree had taught Chloe to always put her best foot forward, especially when facing adversity. And that meant dressing to the nines, carefully applying makeup and holding her head up high. That particular piece of advice was in Lessons from Desiree and labeled #1: “Always look your best.”
And on Friday morning, Chloe intended to do just that. She would walk right into that meeting and take the upper hand.
Still, a feeling of dread settled over her whenever she thought about it.
Thank goodness she had a few more days to prepare mentally for the confrontation, which she expected the meeting to be. She’d promised to abide by Desiree’s wishes and she would insist that Jake comply with them, too.
Spotting a shiny glimmer in the sand, she stooped and reached for it.
A quarter.
Her father always said finding coins was a sign of luck, so when she and Brianna headed to the market later this afternoon, she’d have to buy a lottery ticket.
Just at that moment, Brianna squealed from atop the slide. “Jake!”
Chloe turned to see the little blonde slide to the bottom, lickety-split, then scamper toward a tall, well-dressed man approaching the playground with a sexy, Texas swagger.
Uh-oh.
She’d never met Jake Braddock, but she’d been told he had a young, brash J. R. Ewing aura. And this particular dark-haired man, with his expensive Western wear, had a stance that boasted money and power.
She brushed the quarter against the black fabric of her shorts, then tucked it into her pocket. She’d thought she had a couple of days before their confrontation, but it looked as though her time had run out.
She just hoped her luck hadn’t run out, as well.
Chapter Two
At the sound of Brianna’s voice, Jake picked up his pace and strode toward his baby sister. “Hey, munchkin. I’ve missed you.”
She hurried to meet him and lost a flip-flop in the sand. Faltering only a moment, she ran on without it.
When she reached him, he lifted her into his arms, catching a whiff of gumdrops. At least Ms. Haskell had kept her clean and shampooed.
“I didn’t think I would see you until a lot more days,” Brianna said, giving him a pint-sized hug that squeezed the heart right out of him.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to wait.” He brushed a kiss upon her cheek.
“You know what?” she asked. “Mommy went to see Daddy in Heaven.”
“I heard,” he whispered against her hair, his voice cracking with grief for her loss. “And I came to take you home with me.”
“Are you taking Chloe, too?” she asked. “She said I’m going to live with her.”
Over Jake’s dead body. And he’d lined up a legal team to make sure that wouldn’t happen.
“Hello, there,” a sultry, female voice said.
Jake turned to face a tall, shapely redhead who reminded him of Julia Roberts in her Pretty Woman days.
A scattering of freckles across her nose gave her a girlish appeal. But as his gaze dropped to a yellow bikini top and a pair of black shorts, he realized there was nothing remotely childlike about her body.
Damn.
Without a conscious thought, he zeroed in on a pair of long legs that could wrap around a guy, making his hormones kick up a notch and his brains leave town—permanently.
Double damn.
“Mr. Braddock?” she asked, reminding him it was his turn to respond.
He cleared his throat. “Yes.” And she had to be Ms. Haskell. Chloe. Desiree’s “dear” friend.
For a man who prided himself in maintaining control, he was having trouble finding his words.
“I’ve heard about you,” she said.
