Taking Over The Tycoon. Cathy Thacker Gillen

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СКАЧАТЬ looked out the door toward where Doug was walking along the beach with his nieces. As usual, whenever they were home or just hanging out, Sally had Lance’s old beach towel slung around her neck, and Susie had his beat up Frisbee clutched in her hand. Maude rang the dinner bell Kristy had mounted next to the door, and signaled them all in. Kristy smiled as they waved and headed toward the lodge.

      “The twins would enjoy going back to North Carolina, too.”

      Kristy wasn’t so sure about that, either. “The only thing that will make the twins happy is if they could have their father back,” she answered soberly, as she brought out pitchers of sweet tea. “And that’s not going to happen.”

      Maude paused. “You still miss Lance, too, don’t you?”

      Kristy didn’t know how to answer that. She missed the man she thought Lance had been when she married him. She lamented all the dashed hopes and lost dreams, and she still felt tied to him in some way. Unable to go back, not quite willing to move on. At least in that sense. Her throat aching, she busied herself getting a plate for store-bought rolls and a bowl for coleslaw. “When do you and Doug have to leave for your medical conference?” she asked instead, as the twins and Doug walked in and went straight to the bathrooms off the lobby to wash up.

      “Tomorrow. Early, about seven.” Maude started to close the doors behind them, then began to smile.

      “What is it?” Kristy asked.

      Her mother turned back to her, surprise in her eyes. “I thought you said your friend wasn’t coming.”

      HE WASN’T SUPPOSED to be here, but you would never know that by looking at Connor Templeton’s face, Kristy thought, her heart racing as she went to the front door of the lodge to show him in.

      Unlike the rest of the family, who were in shorts and T-shirts, Connor was still in the casual business clothes he’d had on earlier, including tie and sport coat. He had two bottles of wine—one white and one red—a bunch of flowers and a basket of gourmet cookies in his arms.

      “My goodness!” Maude said cheerfully, rushing past Kristy to lend a hand. “You really went all out this evening!”

      Connor looked past Kristy to the table in the middle of the hotel dining room, set with steaming food. “Looks like I’m just in time.” He smiled, stepping closer.

      Kristy bit her lip in embarrassment, knowing she was serving dinner a full half hour before she had told him she would, prior to privately uninviting him. Inhaling a whiff of his brisk masculine cologne, she replied, “Supper got ready quickly.” Which was true.

      Doug and the twins came out of the powder rooms in the lobby, smelling of hand soap and sea air. Susie and Sally looked at Connor curiously. Remembering she hadn’t made formal introductions earlier, Kristy said, “Girls, this is Mr. Templeton. Connor, my daughters, Susie and Sally. Connor is going to be eating dinner with us this evening.”

      Susie and Sally eyed Connor curiously, but didn’t seem to care one way or another whether he joined them. Kristy wished she could say the same. She, an accomplished hostess with years of experience entertaining guests, was suddenly all thumbs. Her mother, on the other hand, had already sprung into action and was quickly adding another place to the banquet table.

      The six of them sat down and said grace.

      “Everything looks delicious,” Connor said, as they began passing the food.

      “My husband and I taught all three of our children to be proficient in the kitchen,” Maude stated proudly.

      “What about you?” Doug asked, with an assessing look. “Can you cook?”

      “Uh, no, actually, I can’t,” Connor admitted as he helped himself to a crab cake and passed the platter. “In my house all the cooking was done by the chef. We weren’t even allowed in the kitchen. If we wanted something we had to request it and then wait in the dining room, or if we were sick, in our room.”

      Everyone was looking at him as if he were a Martian. “I’m guessing you’re wealthy?” Maude said eventually.

      “Very,” Kristy said.

      Undaunted, Connor shot her an assessing look. “I’m not sure I’d say very—”

      Aware she was risking his ire, she persisted anyway. “I don’t know what else you call old money and trust funds and multimillion-dollar business deals,” she said with a shrug. “But to me—to us—that’s wealthy, Connor.”

      Recognizing a shot across the bow when he saw one, Doug looked at Kristy curiously. “How do you know all this, sis?”

      “For one thing, I read the Charleston newspaper—Connor’s business deals are always being reported on the front page of the business section.” He was a full-fledged tycoon and then some. An entrepreneur herself, Kristy had to respect him for that. “I’m also friends with his younger sister, Daisy. And she’s talked about what it was like growing up in one of the wealthiest families of Charleston.” It hadn’t been all pleasant. Although, according to Daisy, these days Connor, his sisters and his mother were pretty close. His father, Richard Templeton—who had gone off to Europe to recover after a considerable scandal of his own making—was another story.

      “Plus,” Kristy continued, answering her brother’s questions, “when Connor and his partner, Skip Wakefield, started sniffing around my property, I made it my business to find out everything I could about their commercial real estate and development dealings in the area.” She had wanted to know what, and with whom, she was coming up against, in refusing to sell to them. Although to this point, it had been mostly Skip Wakefield, a pleasant if determined thirty-something bachelor, who had been darkening Kristy’s door every other week or so and putting forth proposition after proposition. Until this afternoon, Connor had been conspicuously absent. A fact she hadn’t really appreciated until now. Skip she could resist. Connor…well, he was not so easy to disregard. Both were handsome, successful, affable men. But there was something about Connor. Something in his eyes. A gentleness, an intuitive awareness of what she was thinking and feeling and considering, that left her on edge. She wasn’t used to having anyone able to read her mind or predict her next move. Even Lance hadn’t been able to do that. But Connor seemed at least a half step ahead of her. Like now, for instance. He seemed to realize she was planning to use not just his interest in her property, but his blue-blooded background to keep them from becoming friends. And seemed just as determined to prevent said action.

      “Why would they be sniffing?” Sally interrupted, perplexed.

      Connor grinned. “I think that is just a figure of speech,” he said, looking the little girl in the eye. “Kind of like when you say you’re really ticked off about something. You’re not really ticking, right?”

      “Our hearts are.” Susie piped up as she touched the center of her chest. “My daddy was a heart doctor for kids and he used to let me listen to my heart with his stethoscope.”

      “Mine, too,” Sally added seriously.

      “That’s nice.” Connor smiled at them gently, as if he were really enjoying their company.

      “Not to change the subject,” Doug interrupted soberly, “but how come you don’t have any guests here, Kristy?”

      Kristy swore inwardly. She had not wanted to get СКАЧАТЬ