Nobody's Child. Ann Major

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      One

      Nothing sells like celebrity murder.

      Especially not on a humid, spring night in Houston, Texas, when lilacs and wisteria as well as wild water lilies have suddenly decided to bloom early—and all these magic blossoms are three times their normal sizes.

      Thus, the hottest ticket in that southern city of skyscrapers, freeways and sluggish brown bayous on that cool Saturday night was the Martin Lord bankruptcy auction at the Castle Galleries in the city’s fashionable Southwest.

      Quite naturally everybody, absolutely everybody, attended. The Wests from their great ranch, El Atascadero, near Westville and Theodora West’s even more famous ranching cousins, the Jacksons from their far grander ranch, were there en masse. Mercedes and Wayne Jackson, Amy and Nick Browning, as well as Megan and Jeb Jackson had all come. Yes, the rich, the greedy, the overdressed, the envious, as well as the merely curious were there to watch and to gloat at the widow’s latest humiliation, as one by one, Cheyenne’s most beloved and most prized possessions went on the auction block.

      The gossips buzzed.

      Had she killed Martin?

      Or had his older brother?

      There had always been gossip about Martin and Cheyenne Lord even before Martin’s chain-draped, nude body had washed ashore on an oyster reef in Galveston Bay six months ago. Even in Houston, the youngest, brashest city in Texas where flamboyant behavior on the part of the city’s rich is almost a duty, the couple, who had lived both extravagantly and scandalously, had continually raised the bar of vulgar excesses.

      Take the Lords’s wedding seven years ago at the Jackson Ranch in south Texas when Martin had gotten roaring drunk and ridden one of Jeb Jackson’s prize bulls up the aisle to take his vows. Not to be outdone, the groom’s older brother had stormed in late during the reception and forced the bride to kiss him. And not a brotherly kiss, but a kiss so electric with white-hot passion that every single guest had been charred by its carnal sizzle. Indeed, Mrs. Gilchrist, a gray-headed society matron, whose seat had been the closest to the embracing couple, had told everyone who would listen that wisps of steam had arisen from her very own cuticles for as long as the couple’s lips remained fused.

      Fortunately before Mrs. Gilchrist’s fingernails could be completely eviscerated, Cheyenne had fainted in Cutter’s arms. The rogue would have carried her off, had not the groom and his groomsmen seized Cutter by the throat and hurled him to the ground. They might have killed him, if Jeb and Tad Jackson hadn’t pulled them off and rushed the unconscious Cutter Lord to a hospital.

      Cutter retaliated by seizing control of his younger brother’s fortune and firing Martin from Lord Enterprises. Thus, had it not been for Martin’s rich friends, the newlyweds would have begun their lives together almost penniless.

      There had been more talk when Cheyenne had delivered a strapping, ten-pound son with a shock of ebony hair less than eight months later.

      Even more talk when Cutter had showed up in the hospital nursery and possessively glowered down at the baby that looked so alarmingly like him and then exchanged cruel, damning words with the new mother who had almost died giving birth to the boy he claimed as his son.

      The baby had started to cry, and Cutter had picked him up. Then as the child quieted, Cheyenne had burst into tears, and when Cutter had tried to take her into his arms, too, Martin had summoned security. Cutter had been dragged away.

      There had been even more talk when Cutter had refused to back down from the financial decisions he had made regarding Martin, and the brothers failed to patch up their quarrel.

      Things had quieted down a bit when Cutter had moved to the south of France, and Martin and Cheyenne Lord, aided by loans, had settled into their vulgarly stylish marriage and endeared themselves to the city by planting a magical garden and throwing frequent and flashy parties at which the bride always served her wonderfully spicy food.

      The talk had resumed, however, when the bride’s married sister, the flamboyant Chantal West, had left her husband, Jack West, and seduced Martin on Cheyenne’s front lawn. The gossips had had a field day with the rumors Chantal started about Cheyenne. Soon everybody knew that the sweet, sad-faced Mrs. Martin Lord, whose flowers grew bigger than everybody else’s and whose exotic herbs had a taste all their own, had never had a daddy to claim her. Chantal reported that Cheyenne’s mother had been a tramp who raised gators, cast spells, cooked for cowboys and slept with whichever one she took a fancy to.

      It was the notorious Chantal who first made everybody aware how the weather in Houston always got warmer and how trees bloomed out of season after every Lord party. How everybody got a little crazy, too. How couples who hadn’t slept together in years would go home and make love to each other all night long.

      Martin Lord, who had an obsession for upstaging his rich brother, had liked notoriety of any sort. Thus, he hadn’t discouraged his mistress from gossiping about his wife’s strange powers and scandalous past. Martin, who’d had a Texas-size ego and a mania for media attention, had gotten himself proclaimed the leading real-estate tycoon in the state. He had had an enormous import-export business as well. His wife had become a celebrity caterer and the author of five wonderful, bilingual, coffee-table cookbooks. Still, there were those who said they could see beneath Cheyenne’s beauty and sophistication to the wild bad blood that they now knew raced in her veins. Everybody said that no recipes were richer or spicier or hotter than hers. But what really made her books off-the-chart bestsellers was that rumor Chantal had started about Cheyenne’s food having aphrodisiac qualities.

      The Lords had lived high. They owned a mansion in Houston’s best neighborhood, a showplace ranch in south Texas, and a villa on a high cliff in Acapulco.

      They’d lived like kings. In spite of the gossips.

      Right to the end.

      But Martin Lord had died broke.

      No.

      Worse than broke.

      Martin Lord had left his lovely widow and son, Jeremy, millions of dollars in debt, five million to be exact, to dangerous people on both sides of the border.

      But the most dangerous СКАЧАТЬ