The Forbidden Brother. Barbara McMahon

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СКАЧАТЬ mother for longer, of course. Hugo represented some of her work so I knew her first from business.”

      “So how did you two meet?” He wasn’t surprised to hear Jordan had swept her off her feet. He had that ability. Jed knew he’d never sweep anyone off their feet. He didn’t have the glib charm that Jordan displayed so easily. For him life was more serious. He didn’t think the world owed him anything. He had to make his own way. A slight, but significant difference between the two of them.

      Women liked the carefree charm of his brother, Jed knew. There’d been plenty of instances when they’d been in school and college. He was nothing like Jordan in that area. The few women he’d dated over the last decade had been casual friends. His work in foreign countries didn’t make for long-term relationships.

      “He came into the shop about a year and a half after I became the owner. He brought a painting to show me, wanting me to represent him. I declined based on the one painting, but he was persistent, insisted on taking me to dinner to discuss things. We began dating and before long he asked me to marry him. I said yes.”

      Where was the falling-in-love part? Jed wondered. Maybe Laura was still too raw from Jordan’s death to talk about that. Yet there was a hint of anger in her tone. Wasn’t that part of the grieving process, anger that the person who died had left?

      “You two were obviously not very close,” she commented.

      “Distances prevented it.” Distance and their past. Jed kept secrets few people knew he had. Jordan had moved on, why couldn’t he?

      “With today’s e-mail and telephones everywhere, you could have kept in closer contact if you both had wanted. I always thought twins were close,” she said.

      “Maybe ones who share more than just looks. I don’t have the family artist talent. Jordan couldn’t care less about load ratios and wind factors. He went his way and I went mine.”

      “And never the two shall meet,” she finished. “I didn’t even know you were twins,” she said sadly.

      Jed looked at her in surprise. “Jordan didn’t speak of me at all?”

      “Only to say you were the younger brother and worked out of the country and the family rarely saw you. Which explained why you weren’t at home for Christmas.”

      Jed didn’t want it to bother him, but it did. How could his brother be so close to this woman and not even mention they were twins? He had never fully understood Jordan. This was another incident to add to the list.

      They reached Sal’s Shack. It was situated right on the harbor, with a huge wooden deck jutting over the water, dotted with umbrellas to shade the tables—most of which were full of laughing, happy tourists and townsfolk eating lunch. The hostess led them to one of the umbrella-shaded spots near the railing. The bay was calm today, ruffled only occasionally by a gust of wind. The blue was deeper than that of the clear sky. A perfect June afternoon in Miragansett.

      Jed saw one or two people look their way as they walked through the crowd and do a double-take. They probably had known Jordan. Were they others who had not known he had a twin?

      He felt overdressed. Everyone on the deck was in casual shorts and cropped shirts. Dark glasses repelled the sun’s glare. Some had hats that lifted slightly in the gust of breeze from the sea. His suit was as out of place here as at the bridge site.

      As soon as he returned to his hotel, he’d change into something more casual. It’d been a long time since he’d taken a vacation. He’d planned to combine the business of Jordan’s estate with some time relaxing in the seaside town. Working in the jungle he wore khakis and the coolest cotton he could. Those clothes would fit in here, as well, he thought, surveying the other men.

      He looked at Laura. Her dress was pale pink and looked cool, sort of casual, yet businesslike. Her hair blew away from her face which left it available to his gaze. Her skin was lightly tanned, her dark glasses hiding her eyes from his.

      He wondered what she thought about dealing with him now, instead of his mother.

      He’d already run into trouble with his mom on the terms of Jordan’s will. She didn’t approve of Jed’s having the control and claimed she should have all of Jordan’s paintings. It was a formality only; if she had to she could buy them all. The money went into the estate and then it would be divided back between him and his parents. Still, he planned to follow the letter of the will. Jordan had obviously written it for a reason.

      Jed had been surprised to get a call from the lawyer once he’d spoken to his mother. He had not known Jordan had named him as executor. Everything had been put on hold until Jed could be located.

      He and Laura both ordered the shrimp subsandwiches and iced tea. The hum of many conversations gave a background white noise. Above it, the slap of waves on the sand beneath the deck could barely be heard. The erratic breeze from the sea kept the temperature manageable, though Jed did slip off the suit jacket and roll back his shirtsleeves.

      “It’s hot. Not many men wear suits here,” she commented.

      “I came straight from the airport. I saw my parents briefly then came to see you,” he explained. Now he wished he’d changed first. Still, he was on a short time frame and was impatient to get things going. He felt like a fish out of water here. He wanted to wind up the estate and get back to work. His second in command could handle things, but Jed liked to run the construction site himself.

      “I read the will,” she said. “It appears you have full authority. How does that impact the show? Will you let it proceed?” She withdrew the envelope from her purse and handed it back to him.

      “I knew nothing about the proposed show. When I discussed it with the lawyer who wrote the will, we made plans to liquidate assets as soon as possible. We’re already three months after his death. My mother can buy his pictures, based on your appraisals, and show them if she wishes. If his paintings weren’t selling, what was he doing for money?”

      Laura didn’t know how much their family talked to each other. Not much if Jed’s questions were anything to go by. She was curious about the true relationship. Jordan had said so little about his brother, or anything else actually—except how fabulously they’d live once his paintings sold. And how much he loved her. How he would treat her like a queen when the money began to roll in.

      Foolish pipe dreams she now knew better than to believe. Her face flushed in memories of the love they’d shared. How she never asked questions, always content to bask in the moment. She’d been an idiot in retrospect. But what a blissful few weeks she’d had.

      Jed was watching her. What had he asked?

      “Your mother subsidized him until he began to sell.” She tried to keep her tone neutral. Her parents lived a modest lifestyle in Iowa. She’d been raised to become self-sufficient at a young age. She couldn’t imagine her own parents thinking they had to support her at this point in her life. She looked away. That was unfair. They would have helped her in a moment’s notice if she’d really needed it. Maria had lots of money; she probably didn’t think two thoughts about subsidizing Jordan.

      “He was thirty and hadn’t begun to earn a living. Would he really ever have?” Jed asked.

      She bit her lip, feeling the wash of guilt. Would it have hurt her any to have hung one or two of his paintings in her gallery? Maybe some tourist would have bought them and given Jordan a boost that could have changed СКАЧАТЬ