Reflected Pleasures. Linda Conrad

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СКАЧАТЬ a lot more to the unusual assistant than her outward appearance. Ty felt it in his gut. As he drove his Jeep down the block toward his attorney’s office, he went over what was bothering him about Merri.

      It had seemed miraculous that he’d come back from New Orleans, discouraged at not being able to locate a new assistant, only to find that his attorney, Frank, had hired one right out of the blue.

      And what an assistant this one was. All the other women—and it had always been women—who’d accepted the position had been stunning beauties with little knowledge of charitable organizations.

      He’d wondered about that each time. In the first place, why would any single woman want to relocate to tiny out-of-the-way Stanville, Texas, and dedicate her life to helping a children’s charity? It hadn’t made any sense, even though he’d always hoped they would stay.

      But this woman was…different from the others. Merri was businesslike and professional-looking, with her black pantsuit and sensible, low-heeled pumps. And she seemed genuinely interested in living in this two-bit town.

      Stanville was his home. He loved it here and was truly grateful that he could leave the big cities behind, except for short visits, and come back to settle in the one place that had always felt welcoming. Ty had enough money to live wherever he wanted. And he wanted to be here.

      But he still couldn’t get his head around why a nice young woman would want to bury herself here.

      His thoughts went back to his new assistant. Her skin was fair and creamy, and she looked like she should be a natural blonde. But instead of highlighting whatever she had been born with, the hair that she’d pulled up in a tiny bun on the top of her head was dull and the color of an unattractive wood table. Brown. Just brown.

      He’d never met any woman that seemed so unconcerned with her appearance. She didn’t wear any makeup or jewelry, which shouldn’t have seemed so out of place, but on her it did. She was tall and her body appeared to be as skinny as a toothpick. Though it was hard to really judge what her body looked like under the heavy suit jacket and pants.

      It was her eyes that had most captured his attention. Hidden behind inch-thick, black-rimmed glasses, those deep-set windows to her soul were an incredible shade of green. They sparked as she controlled her displeasure with him and the unfamiliar surroundings, and sizzled when she studied him from under her ultra-thick lashes.

      Emeralds. Yes, perhaps those eyes could be called the color of emeralds. Expensive and exclusive.

      In total, there was something off about the picture Merri Davis presented to the world. He couldn’t quite say what yet. But given enough time, he would figure it out.

      Ty parked, went into the attorney’s office and was ushered immediately into Frank’s conference room. The new donor they were expecting was a rich farmer from the panhandle and hadn’t arrived at the office just yet. But Frank was waiting for Ty, sitting at the far end of a conference table that was big enough to seat twenty.

      Frank stood and shook his hand. “Sorry about your great-aunt Lucille Steele, Ty. But she was rather advanced in age, wasn’t she?”

      Ty nodded and took a seat. “Yeah. And she died peacefully in her sleep. We should all be so lucky to go that way.

      “But I do wish I could’ve talked to her one last time,” Ty continued. “I had an interesting experience with a gypsy while I was there and I would’ve loved to ask Lucille what she knew of her. Now I guess I’ll never know.”

      “Interesting? You want to talk about it?” Frank sat down in his chair again and leaned back.

      “Not much to say. She was a strange old lady who gave my cousin a book and gave me a mirror…then she just disappeared. I don’t know her reasons, but it feels wrong.”

      “You want me to have a private investigator do a little digging? Maybe try to find her?”

      “I guess so. I can give you the very few things I know about her later. But it really doesn’t seem terribly urgent now that I’m home. At the moment, I want to talk about the new assistant for fund-raising you hired while I was gone.”

      “Merri? I think she’s the answer to all your problems. We were really lucky to get her.”

      “That’s just it, Frank. How did we get her? I hadn’t been able to get so much as a nibble on anyone who was qualified and would also be willing to relocate this far out in the sticks. I was about to give up.”

      Frank smiled. “Between us, we have now come up with five different women to take that job. And none of the first four worked out due to circumstances beyond our control. I was talking to…”

      “Just a minute. It sounds like you might know why the other assistants quit. Do you?”

      “I have a good idea,” Frank admitted. “In a couple of the cases I managed to conduct cursory exit interviews and checked with outside sources.”

      He studied Ty for a minute, then continued. “It seems that most, if not all, those women had marriage and not employment in mind when they agreed to take the job.”

      “Marriage?” It suddenly hit him what Frank must mean. “You mean to me?”

      “Well, your picture has been in several of the state-wide Texas magazines as an eligible bachelor. Think about it. You’re filthy rich. Single. Good-looking…in a rough-and-tumble sort of way. Why wouldn’t a woman want to take her best shot at that?”

      It took Ty a minute to get enough of his powers of speech back to make it clear why not. “I never gave any of those women…or anyone else for that matter, the impression that I was looking for a wife. I’m not.”

      He fought to bring his voice under his command. “I have no intention of getting married. Not now. Not ever.”

      Frank raised his eyebrows. “Never? That sounds like a broken heart talking. You want to tell me the story?”

      “No.” It had been ten years since he’d given a single thought to his old college flame, Diane, and to what a fiasco becoming engaged to her had been. And he didn’t want to think about it now, either.

      Instead he shifted the conversation back to the original question he’d had when he walked in the door. “I want you to explain why and how we found Merri Davis…and I want you to assure me that she won’t be like all the others. I want to know absolutely that she intends to stay in Stanville and doesn’t have designs on me.”

      “I think you can tell by looking at her that she isn’t like all the others,” Frank said with a smile. “She’s refined and all business. You would do well to take some lessons from her in how to behave around donors. I believe she’s got the sophistication and the congeniality you lack. Try to absorb some of it, will you?”

      Yeah, maybe. But there was still something about her that didn’t sit right….

      “Anyway,” Frank continued, “I had been telling my old friend Jason Taylor—you remember the Taylor family from here? He’s been my best friend since grade school, even though he’s a hotshot attorney out in L.A. now.”

      “Yes, I know of him. His mother and Jewel were best friends when they were girls. But what does he have to do with…?”

      “Jason СКАЧАТЬ