The Tempted. Amanda Stevens
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Название: The Tempted
Автор: Amanda Stevens
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Зарубежные любовные романы
isbn: 9781474022873
isbn:
Tess’s heart sank. Immediately after Emily’s disappearance, she’d drained her savings to set up a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information pertaining to the kidnapping. That was all the money she had in the world, and her cleaning service had suffered a major financial setback, primarily because she wasn’t around to supervise and coordinate the work.
For the last three weeks, she’d haunted the sheriff’s station every day, looking for any scrap of information, any bit of news that would give her hope, that would give her confidence the police were doing everything that could be done to find her daughter. She’d worked with the volunteers, stuffing envelopes, answering phones, passing out pictures locally and to the organizations that could distribute them state-and nationwide. No job was too tedious or too overwhelming for her to tackle. She would do anything in her power to bring her daughter home, but Naomi was asking her to do the one thing she could not do. She couldn’t raise the reward offer. Not alone.
As if reading her mind, Naomi said sympathetically, “The CRN can set up a fund to help you out financially, but it’ll still be expensive. And it could take a while for the donations to mount up. Is there anyone who can help you out immediately?”
Tess shook her head. “Emily and I have no family except for my mother, and she’s certainly not a wealthy woman.”
“What about Emily’s father?”
Tess grew instantly defensive. “What about him?”
“I know he’s dead, but what about his family? Could they help?”
“Uh, no,” Tess said awkwardly, realizing her initial response must have seemed a little strange. “They’re on a fixed income, too. They wouldn’t be able to help.” Not that his mother would if she could, Tess thought. Mildred Campbell had been dead set against her son’s marriage to Tess, and her attitude hadn’t softened even when Tess had nursed Alan through the worst of his illness, when she’d kept vigil night and day at his deathbed. The child Tess had been carrying had only served to remind the grief-stricken woman that as one life began another was ending.
And now it was Emily’s life on the line.
What about her father?
A shudder racked Tess at the mere thought of her secret being revealed after all these years. Emily was in grave danger at the hands of her kidnapper, but the note proved she was still alive. She could still be found and rescued.
But if the truth came out now, there might be nothing Tess could do to save her daughter.
Chapter Two
“Here’s your mail, Mr. Spencer. And your messages.”
Jared Spencer stood gazing out the window of his father’s office—his office now—idly gauging the flow of traffic on the street nine stories below. He turned as his secretary bustled into the room. “Thanks, Barbara.”
She held up a newspaper. “I brought you a copy of the Journal, too. Your father always liked to read the paper first thing in the morning with his coffee.” She paused tentatively. “I seem to recall you take yours black.”
“You have a good memory.”
She turned back to the door. “I’ll get you a cup right away.”
“No, don’t bother,” he said, distracted. “I can get my own coffee.”
Her eyebrows rose. “It’s no trouble.”
“That’s all right. I don’t expect you to wait on me.”
“Whatever you say, Mr. Spencer.” She fussed with the mail for a moment, then folded the paper just so on his desk. “Oh, dear.” Her bifocals hung on a chain around her neck, and she perched them on the end of her nose as she scanned the headlines. “That poor little girl is still missing.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She looked up over her glasses. “You haven’t heard about it? A five-year-old girl was kidnapped almost three weeks ago from a school playground in Jefferson County. They still haven’t found her.”
“That’s too bad.” Jared walked over to his desk and glanced down at the paper. The little girl’s picture stared up at him. Dark hair, dark eyes.
“What a beautiful child,” he murmured, struck by the girl’s arresting features.
“I know. I saw the mother on television the day after it happened. She looked just devastated, poor thing. I have a grandson the same age as the little girl. I kept wondering how I would feel if it was my daughter standing in front of those cameras, begging some madman to bring her child home.”
“I hope they find her soon.” For a moment, Jared couldn’t tear his gaze from the little girl’s picture. He hated to think of an innocent child being taken from her mother, suffering unspeakable horrors at the hands of some psycho.
“I hope so, too, but after all this time…” Barbara trailed off, shaking her head. “The world is a sad place. But I guess you know that as well as anyone.” Her gray eyes swept the spacious office. “It just doesn’t seem the same without him, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Is there anything else I can get you, Mr. Spencer?”
“Not at the moment.” He looked up from the newspaper and smiled. “I’m still just trying to get my bearings.”
“You’ll do fine,” she said in a motherly tone. She paused at the door on her way out and glanced back into the office. “It will be strange, though, without him.”
That was an understatement, Jared thought, sorting through his messages. He still hadn’t gotten over the shock of his father’s sudden death. He kept expecting to look up and see Davis Spencer stroll through the double office doors, demanding to know what the hell Jared was doing sitting behind his desk.
Jared’s father had died four weeks ago from a massive coronary that had taken everyone who knew him by surprise. Jared had always thought his father would live forever. He was too stubborn, too powerful, too manipulative to do otherwise, but in the end, he’d been just an ordinary mortal, succumbing to an all-too-human frailty.
And so Jared had been summoned back to the corporate office in Jackson after a six-year stint in New Orleans, where he’d overseen extensive renovations to the grand old Spencer Hotel on Royal Street. The Jackson Spencer, opened at the turn of the century, was the flagship of an elegant fleet of four hotels scattered throughout the South, but the New Orleans Spencer, established some thirty years later, was the most famous, a crown jewel shimmering with old-world ambience and charm in the heart of the Vieux Carré.
The assignment to restore the hotel to its former grandeur had been both challenging and grueling, but it had also been a good place for Jared to make his mark. He’d СКАЧАТЬ