The Millionaire Takes A Bride

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Not now. Not ever.

“So, are you ready to tell me about Uncle Will…and Aunt Faith?” Jackson asked once Noah had left the room.

“Pretty low-down of you to try to pry it out of my child,” Georgia accused him.

For a moment she could have sworn he looked ashamed of himself. Practically contrite. Then the look vanished, replaced by his more familiar expression of firm determination.

“I merely wish to know where my brother is hiding out. I’ll do whatever I have to, to find out.”

“I’ve already told you, Jackson, I have no idea where Will is. He was here for a while, that much is true. But they purposely didn’t tell me where they were going when they left. Now you’ll just have to believe me and be on your merry way….” Georgia rattled off in a rush.

“Just slow down a moment, please.” Jackson signaled with upraised hands. “Faith is your sister, correct?”

She nodded and bit her lower lip.

“Is she the other half of the ‘they’ who departed to some mysterious destination with my brother?”

Georgia nodded again.

“Why does Noah call my brother Uncle Will?” he continued. She could see the light of truth slowly dawning on him. “Did Will marry your sister?” His voice rose on a note of pure shock and amazement.

“Well…they were only engaged when they came to visit,” Georgia slowly explained, “but they’re probably married by now.”

There, she’d said it. The cat was out of the bag. The hamster was out of the cage. Elvis had left the building.

Jackson’s face darkened in a slow, simmering rage. She saw his fists clench at his sides as he faced her across the small kitchen.

“But y-you…” he sputtered, suddenly choking on his words. He jabbed the air with his forefinger. “All last night, you let me believe that you and Will… You argued with me about marrying him!”

“I never said a word about Will and me being romantically involved,” she said. “If you recall, I told you in no uncertain terms that I had no intention of ever marrying your brother. I merely said he was a mature, intelligent adult who had a right to marry whomever he wished to marry.”

“Meaning your sister,” he said as if struck by divine revelation.

“Well…yes,” she admitted.

“You tricked me, Georgia Price!” he roared. “You and my brother and your sister, Faith. The three of you tricked me into coming out here, to the middle of God only knows where, during a flood of epic proportions, I might add. When the real action was happening somewhere else, at some mysterious location perhaps a thousand miles away. How clever of you all. How awfully clever. I’ll bet you’re very proud of yourself. I’ll bet you’ve secretly been laughing your head off at me, haven’t you?”

Georgia swallowed hard and barely dared to glance at him from lowered lids. “Not at all. I haven’t been gloating, if that’s what you think. I’m honestly relieved that you finally know the truth.”

“That makes two of us!” he roared. Rain lashed at the big bay window in the kitchen, echoing the force of his rage. Georgia had lifted a cup and saucer in her hand and now heard it rattle. She quickly set it down on the table again.

She didn’t reply. What could she say? She thought it best to let him pace and blow off some steam. She only hoped he wouldn’t blow the roof right off the house.

“My brother must have known I had my eye on him. You two flounced around this town for weeks, acting like a couple in love. You even had an engagement announcement printed in the local paper, stating you were to marry him today!”

To hear Will tell it, the story went something like this: Will had told Jackson that he’d met a wonderful woman and thought he was falling in love. But when Jackson started asking too many questions, Will grew worried. He knew Jackson might have him followed by a private investigator who’d also dig up all he could on the woman in question. It had happened before. And each time, Jackson had somehow found Will’s girlfriends unworthy of marriage to a Bradshaw. Sometimes he’d even paid the girls money to disappear, just as their father had done to him. But Will knew the pattern and he was determined that it wouldn’t happen again. Not with Faith.