Texas Christmas. Nancy Thompson Robards

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СКАЧАТЬ he had a soft spot for spoiled debutantes, he might feel sorry for her. Although he did have to admit, she was nothing like what he might’ve imagined if he’d been inclined to follow the local players. She’d handled the drunk guy with grace and dignity. But then again, at three o’clock in the morning in the middle of an empty airport, who wanted to take on a guy who was three times her size? Things might’ve been different if she’d had her entourage in tow.

      Then again, maybe her entourage had ditched her, too—

      “But you are still going with me to the Raven Chair Affair next week?” Kate said. “Yes?”

      Rob let his body fall back into his chair, away from his keyboard, and exhaled audibly. Scrubbing the heels of his palms over his eyes, he purposely softened his tone. “May I choose the ‘bamboos under the fingernails’ option instead?”

      Kate rolled her eyes. “No, you may not. Raven Chairez could give the Foundation a lot of money. Somehow, I don’t think I’m the one who could sweet-talk her.” Kate raised her eyebrows at him in a knowing way. “You need to start practicing your manners. Now.”

      Raven Chairez was a piece of work. She was too old to still be throwing around her daddy’s money. Even worse was the way she threw fits when his money didn’t buy her exactly what she wanted. The only reason Rob knew this much about her was because Kate had briefed him about her. It struck him that if Pepper Merriweather was the poster child of the social pariah, then Raven Chairez was the picture of everything Rob hated about Dallas society. Plain and simple, she reminded him of his ex-wife. And when Kate had informed him that she’d heard through the grapevine that Raven Chairez was fixated on him—that he was a conquest she fully intended to make—Rob had made a point of avoiding all social situations where she might have the opportunity to corner him. Now, she was dangling the carrot of a potential hefty donation to the pediatric surgical wing.

      One of the best ways to clinch that donation was by attending her Raven Chair Affair annual gala. Of course he would attend. But that didn’t mean he had to pass up this opportunity to make his sister sweat.

      “Please promise me when you hire your new assistant, you won’t give her as hard a time as you give me over engagements like this.”

      “Are you kidding? That’s special treatment I reserve only for you. Speaking of the new assistant, when are we beginning the interviews?”

      They’d started the Foundation right after Kate had graduated with her master’s. She had been the one who had built it into what it was today, laying the groundwork for partnering with Celebration Memorial to build the pediatric surgical wing. In the process, she’d also taken on the additional duties of caretaker for Cody and himself after he’d gone through a string of personal assistants who didn’t work out.

      With his divorce and Cody’s accident, Rob had been under a lot of stress, and Kate had come to both his and her nephew’s rescue.

      It was time for his sister not only to separate the dual roles she’d been playing but to have a much deserved and long-overdue promotion within the Foundation. Rob had the unanimous support of the Foundation board, and it was a surprise Kate didn’t know was coming.

      “I’ve lined up several people for you to interview,” she said. “But I’m not sure I’ve found the right person yet. So I’m still looking. In fact, I had lunch with Agnes Sherwood the other day. I asked her and a handful of other women of discerning taste to keep their ears open and let me know if they hear of someone good who is looking.”

      Agnes Sherwood was one of the Dallas area’s most influential doyennes. She was the grand dame of the small affluent town of Celebration, Texas, and the woman had more money than the U.S. Treasury and commanded twice as much respect. She was just about ready to commit to a tidy donation for the pediatric wing but had to confer with her financial advisors.

      “So it won’t be long now and you’ll have your own entourage following you around tending to your every whim.”

      He scowled at his sister, and she laughed at him in return. She knew how much he hated the concept of an entourage. Yet he couldn’t help but think her word choice was ironic, given that he had just used it to describe Pepper and her lack of followers.

      It was more like Pepper Merriweather, party of one. Pepper Merriweather with the rosebud mouth.

      Pepper Merriweather, who’d obviously taken up residence in his head.

      Chapter Four

      Pepper wasn’t quite sure she’d heard the man correctly. She leaned in, over the desk in the Celebrations, Inc., catering office that stood between them, and asked, “Excuse me?”

      “I said, exactly how much did your father bilk out of the people who trusted him?”

      Pepper blinked and glanced at the Catering to Dallas cameras, which were rolling, then back at the man. Her first thought was, Oh, okay, this must be someone’s idea of a joke. A bad joke, granted, which they would edit out of the final footage. But when she smiled at the man and waited for him to smile back or give some other hint at a punch line, he didn’t.

      That’s when her stomach fell and Pepper realized this wasn’t a joke. The man was serious. She’d been set up.

      Before Pepper had returned to work on the set of Catering to Dallas, she and the show’s producers had agreed that any and all talk about her father and his case was off-limits on the show. Her father’s attorney insisted that trying Harris Merriweather’s case on a reality TV show could only hurt his chances for a fair trial when he got his day in court.

      “Answer me!” the angry man demanded.

      Pepper wanted to kick herself. How could she have been so naive to believe that the bigwigs of a reality television show that thrived on sensationalism would pass up the opportunity for the inside scoop about scandal and intrigue? Even Pepper had to acknowledge that it was fodder for good ratings.

      But they’d promised.

      And she’d believed them.

      The producers had put the man on the shooting schedule, had him masquerade as a customer interested in a catering estimate. They’d even told Pepper they were bringing him in for a short “day in the life of Celebrations, Inc.” vignette. This was to be a simple shot of her interacting with a potential customer. It was supposed to be a good way for her to ease back into the show.

      But obviously the joke was on her.

      Her next thought, as she glanced from the angry man to the rolling television cameras, was, Ooh, this was not how happily-ever-after was supposed to begin.

      As the man proceeded to berate her and her father, Pepper’s fight-or-flight response kicked in. She knew she had to get out of there. Without saying a word, she calmly turned around and grabbed her purse from a drawer in the filing cabinet behind her, stood and began walking to her car.

      “Follow her!” hissed Bill Hines, the director of Catering to Dallas.

      Pepper dared not glance back over her shoulder. Because if she did, she would be staring blankly into a television camera pointed at her face. She’d look like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. Except, as she beelined for her car, she decided it was more apt to say she felt like a deer on the run at the opening of hunting season.

      Thank СКАЧАТЬ