Miss Charlotte Surrenders. Cathy Gillen Thacker

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СКАЧАТЬ for an extension on our loan.”

      “Charlotte, that balloon payment is due in ten days,” Hiram reminded her. He steepled his long, bony fingertips in front of him and regarded her over the rim of his bifocals.

      This was going to be harder than she had thought; Hiram didn’t look as if he were going to budge. Telling herself to be as fiercely determined on the inside and soft on the outside as her mother had always been, Charlotte crossed her legs demurely at the knee. She tossed her head flirtatiously and offered him another smile. “I can trust you to be discreet, can’t I, Hiram?”

      “Absolutely, Charlotte.”

      “My sisters and I are a little short on cash at the moment.”

      Hiram disengaged his fingertips and dropped his forearms to his desk. He leaned forward, his expression regretful. “As much as we here at First Unity Bank would like to help you, Charlotte, we can’t give you an extension on the balloon payment.”

      She kept the smile plastered on her face with a great deal of effort. She was not going to give up until she got her way. “Why not?” she asked, summoning up the sweetness that came so naturally to her sister Isabella. “You gave us a loan the last time we were in financial trouble.”

      “And at that time, we financed the maximum amount available to you and your sisters,” Hiram explained sternly. “Since then, you’ve paid down nothing of the principal. That’s why the balloon payment is due now.”

      “What about a second mortgage?” Charlotte asked.

      “Against what? You’ve already borrowed against ninety-nine percent of what the property is worth. If I might be so bold,” Hiram said as he picked up a pen and doodled aimlessly on the notepad in front of him, “there is a solution here. There’s an auto plant going in here in the next few months. It’s expected to be operational within a year.”

      Charlotte toyed with the strand of fake pearls around her neck. “What does that have to do with us?”

      “Six thousand people will be moving to the area, looking for homes. Homes that we don’t currently have.”

      “I’m not a home builder, Hiram.”

      “I know that. But Heritage Homes is, and they want to purchase Camellia Lane, Charlotte, and turn it into a subdivision of affordable tract homes. Frankly, I think the three of you would be fools to refuse the offer,” he continued. “With the money you and your sisters earned from the sale of Camellia Lane, you could pay off the mortgage on the property and be out of debt completely.”

      “Forget it. There’s no way we’re selling Camellia Lane,” Charlotte said firmly. It was their home. It was all they had left of her parents.

      “Perhaps you need time to consider,” Hiram suggested kindly.

      “I don’t think so.” Charlotte got up and started for the door.

      “There’s something you should know, Charlotte,” Hiram said, his voice hardening. “If you don’t pay the fifty-thousand-dollar balloon payment, the bank will have no choice but to foreclose on the property.”

      “I bet that would just break your heart, wouldn’t it?” Charlotte said, whirling to face him.

      Hiram removed his bifocals and set them ever so slowly on his desk. “I know you’re upset, Charlotte dear. But First Unity didn’t get you and your sisters into this mess. The bank and I are only trying to help.”

      Trying to force them into a corner so the bank could make a profit was more like it, Charlotte thought. “Tell me, Hiram, who is representing Heritage Homes?”

      He didn’t answer. But then, Charlotte thought bitterly, he didn’t have to.

      * * *

      BRETT WAITED UNTIL all three Langston sisters were gone, then let himself into the house and headed straight for the library.

      He frowned when he saw the top of the desk. Last night it had been covered with Charlotte’s papers and notes. Now it was clean as a whistle. He had been hoping to get some idea how far along she was in her investigation of Sterling.

      Brett tried the desk drawers. Locked. Cursing, he picked up the phone and punched in his credit-card number. Seconds later, Franklin came on the line.

      “Brett? What have you got?”

      Not as much as I’d like so far, he thought. “Charlotte Langston called your secretary last night.”

      “Yeah, I know. Marcie told me this morning. She also said she hung up on Charlotte. I suppose it’s too much to hope Miss Langston won’t try again?”

      “Way too much,” Brett concurred grimly.

      “Have you learned anything else?” Franklin asked.

      “Just that Charlotte Langston and her sisters are in desperate need of money.” Briefly, Brett explained what Charlotte had told him. “She’s meeting with the bank this morning to see about a loan,” Brett finished.

      “You think that’s why she’s so hell-bent on unmasking Sterling?” Franklin asked.

      “That’s part of it,” Brett said.

      “And the rest?”

      “She sees it as a challenge.” And Charlotte Langston was not a woman to turn away from a challenge, Brett had discovered.

      “Any chance she’s onto you?” Franklin asked.

      That, Brett thought, remembering the three-way conversation he had eavesdropped on the evening before, was a difficult question. “She doesn’t trust me.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because she doesn’t see me as a farmer, despite the fact I passed her quiz on cotton with flying colors.” Brett hoped the dirt samples he had taken and sent out to the lab this morning would help bolster his image as agriculturalist extraordinaire.

      Franklin harrumphed his displeasure. “You want me to put someone else on the job?” he asked gruffly.

      “Nope,” Brett said quickly. This wasn’t a job he would trust to anyone else. Charlotte Langston needed special handling. “I’m staying.”

      Brett heard a car pull up in front of the house. None of the sisters was due back for hours! “Gotta go,” Brett whispered into the phone, as he heard a car door slam. He dove for cover behind the long leather sofa, stretching out along the cushions just as a key turned in the lock. Because the sofa faced the fireplace, with its back to double doors leading into the library, he wouldn’t be seen by whoever had arrived unless she actually came into the library.

      Someone slammed into the house. Brett inhaled the faint scent of lilacs. Charlotte, he thought. Her high heels clicking on the parquet floor, she bypassed the library and headed straight for the kitchen.

      Brett breathed a sigh of relief. He was about to get up from the sofa when another car pulled up out front. Cursing his ill fortune, he stayed where he was and continued to feign sleep in case anyone spotted him. In the meantime, he thought, СКАЧАТЬ