Ruthless Read online

  “Well, actually he asked about you.”

  “He knows I work—”

  “I know, but he stopped by the bank and you weren’t there, so he assumed . . .” Arlene shrugged.

  “I was with Diane.”

  “I didn’t mention you had a lawyer.”

  “Good—because I don’t,” Kimberly said, kicking off her heels.

  “No lawyer? And why in heaven’s name not?”

  “It’s a long story—I’ll fill you in later. Just tell me about Robert.”

  “Well, the pixie was glad to see him.”

  “She should be—he’s her father,” Kimberly said woodenly.

  Arlene rolled her eyes. “If you can call him that. Anyway, he didn’t stay long, just said hello, hugged her and asked about you.”

  “Was anyone with him?”

  “Two men. But they waited in the car.”

  His bodyguard and chauffer. In recent years, Robert was never without either man.

  “Lindsay wasn’t upset?”

  “No,” Arlene admitted grudgingly. “And I guess he does have the right to see his daughter, but . . .” She shrugged her slim shoulders.

  “Of course he does,” Kimberly said, ignoring the ridiculous panic that chilled her to the very bone. She’d been married to Robert for less than two years, and he’d been a stranger. She hadn’t known him at all. The marriage had been a mistake from day one. They both knew it. And now, suddenly he wanted Lindsay. Ignoring the tightness in her chest, she reached for one of the cookies still cooling on racks near the window.

  “Well he isn’t much of a father, and don’t you stand up for him!” Arlene didn’t even try to hide her dislike. “You and I both know he walks on the dark side of the law.”

  “It’s never been proven,” Kimberly said, defending him instinctively, as she had for years. She couldn’t believe some of the stories she’d heard about him—wouldn’t. And yet ...

  “No, but then he didn’t do right by you. Carrying on with that Stella woman while you two were married.”

  “That Stella woman’s his wife now.”

  “And now she wants your daughter.”

  “She won’t get her,” Kimberly said, though she felt the familiar fear knot in her stomach.

  “Diane tell you that?”

  Kimberly frowned. “No,” she admitted, explaining about her visit with her attorney.

  “So Diane’s remarrying—that’s good,” Arlene said, scratching her head. “But what do you know about this McGowan character?”

  “Not much, except that Diane’s sure he’s the man for the job.”

  In the living room Lindsay giggled loudly, and Kimberly’s heart turned over. She glanced down the hall and spied her daughter. Lindsay, tired of her building blocks, was trying to do headstands on the couch. She tossed her legs into the air, tried to balance against the wall and ended up flopping back on the couch only to start the process all over again.

  “Things’ll work out,” Arlene predicted with a steadfast smile. “The Lord will look after you.”

  “I hope so,” Kimberly said.

  “I know so!” Arlene snatched her umbrella from the floor. “Don’t you worry, and if you take Lindsay outside, you bundle her up good. There’s already a foot of snow in the mountains. Winter’s coming early this year.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Kimberly replied.

  “Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Waving, she hurried down the hall and called a quick goodbye to Lindsay.

  As Arlene shut the door behind her, Kimberly snapped the blinds shut and thought ahead to meeting with Jake McGowan. Why did she feel there was something she should know about him? What was it?

  “Come on, Mommy! Let’s cut paper dolls!” Lindsay gave up her balancing act, turned off the television and, dragging one tattered, fuzzy pink bunny, dashed over to her mother. “Please, now!”

  “I thought you couldn’t wait to eat.”

  “We can do both!”

  Kimberly laughed, forgetting about Jake McGowan for the moment. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I might get confused and cut my hamburger with the scissors and pour ketchup all over the dollies.”

  Lindsay giggled. “That’s silly!”

  “So are you pumpkin,” Kimberly said, poking a finger in Lindsay’s belly.

  * * *

  “No way!” Jake growled, disgusted. His shirtsleeves rolled over his forearms, his tie strung loosely over the back of his chair, he sat amid boxes, pictures and framed awards that had been stacked against Diane Welby’s desk. With a flourish he signed the contract for the house and grounds Diane had owned. A second document took care of the legal practice. “You know how I feel about custody cases.”

  “She needs your help,” Diane insisted.

  “She doesn’t need me. There are several dozen lawyers in the yellow pages.”

  “Humor me, Jake—meet with her.” Diane skimmed her copies of the agreement, deed and contract before stuffing all the papers into a file and jamming them into her briefcase. Satisfied, she snapped the black leather case closed. “The movers will take care of all this—” she motioned to the office debris she was shipping to Los Angeles “—on Thursday.”

  “Good.”

  “Now, about Kimberly—give it a shot, okay?”

  Jake’s lips compressed, and he grew thoughtful. “Oh, I get it,” he drawled. “This is a ‘special client,’ right? Maybe a friend or a friend of a friend, and she’s upset you’re abandoning her.”

  “Something like that.”

  Shaking his head, Jake said, “Find someone else.”

  “Just meet with her. If it doesn’t work out, refer her to Dennis Briggs or Tyler Patton.”

  “They’re both good.”

  “Not as good as you are—”

  “As I was.”

  “You could be again if you’d stop wallowing in self-pity.”

  “Is that what I’m doing?” Jake asked, feeling his lips curve downward. He really didn’t give a damn.

  “Yes. And it’s such a waste. You could’ve been—could still be—the best!”

  “Maybe I don’t want to be,” he said, scowling darkly.

  “Suit yourself. But this time someone needs you.”

  “Humph.”

  Diane slid her case off the desk and walked to the door. Her hand rested on the knob. “Do yourself and me a favor—meet Kimberly Bennett. I’ll have Sarah set up an appointment next week.”

  “I’m going skiing next week.”

  “Then the next.”

  “It’s a waste of time.”

  “I don’t know why I bother with you.”

  “Neither do I.”

  Diane sighed, opened the door, then closed it again and, holding her briefcase in both hands, said, “Fine, consider it calling in my markers—okay?”

  Jake’s jaw clenched, and the knot in his stomach twisted. Diane Welby had helped him pick up the pieces of his life when he needed her most. Again the horrid grief seared his soul. There was no period in his life he’d rather forget more. The days and nights had seemed to run together in pitch darkness. And the pain! God, the pain had been so intense—so all consuming. He would have given up and accepted a fate of living in his own hell, had it not been for Diane.

  At the time, Jake and Diane had worked at a large firm in Portland. Diane had covered for him at the office—given him the time he needed—and comforted him when he didn’t want anyone around. She’d even helped him make the move from domestic to corporate law just so he could function again. Finally he’d managed to pull himself back together to the point where he could go on with his life. And he owed Diane Welby.

  A grim smile tightened his lips. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “I guess I owe you one, Dr. Welby.”

  Shaking her head, she laughed. “More than one, but who’s counting?” Opening the door again, she glanced over her shoulder. “And it won’t be Dr. Welby much longer.”

  He laughed. The pet name he�
��d given her when she’d cared for him would always stick. “Dr. Donaldson just doesn’t have the same ring.”

  “Work on it. I’ll see you at the wedding next week.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jake said with a cynicism too ingrained for his thirty-five years. Through the window he watched Diane slide into her bronze Mustang, and he wondered if she had any idea what she was getting herself into.

  Marriage, he thought with the same stygian anger that always consumed him when he thought of his own tragic, short-lived union, who needs it?

  CHAPTER TWO

  He was late. Checking his watch and frowning, Jake drove his pickup into the parking lot of his new office building. Tall maple and fir trees separated the lot from the main road, and the building itself, a pasty-colored stucco cottage with sloped roof, gables, moss-green shutters and several chimney stacks, reminded him of country homes he’d seen in Europe. Without the wooden sign swinging in the front yard, no one would guess this quaint little retreat to be a lawyer’s office.

  Perversely the office appealed to him, though he’d bought Diane Welby’s practice on a whim because he was tired of the run-as-fast-as-you-can pace of downtown Portland.

  He parked the pickup near the door and climbed out. Rain lashed at his neck and tossed his hair away from his face. Hiking the collar of his denim jacket against the wind, he lowered the tailgate and pulled out the first box of books he could reach.

  Despite a plastic tarp, the box was wet. The cardboard sagged as he carried the awkward crate through the lot and down a mossy brick path to the door. Cursing as the box began to split, Jake shouldered his way into the building.

  He dropped the box on his desk and rubbed the crick from the small of his back. As he surveyed the spacious room with its mullioned windows, fawn-colored carpet, any use fireplace and plaster walls, he wondered if he’d made a mistake.

  But he’d been bored with the rat race of the city and was sick of the high-rises, chrome, glass and crisp white shirts beneath neatly buttoned wool vests. He’d had it. If he never saw an athletic club again, or walked into a boardroom of self-important executives surrounding a hardwood table and puffing on cigars, or spent hours reading through the latest books on tax loopholes, it would be too soon.

  “So, here you are, McGowan,” he muttered as he spied a half-full bottle of Scotch shoved into his soggy box. His lips curled into a sardonic smile. Ignoring the fact that it wasn’t quite noon, he dusted off the bottle, twisted off the top and, mentally toasting this new turn of his career, muttered, “Cheers.”

  He took a long pull right from the bottle. As the liquor hit the back of his throat and burned a path to his stomach, he grimaced. Without bothering to recap the bottle, he strode outside.

  Sooty gray clouds moved restlessly across the sky. The wind whistled through the fir boughs, and rain peppered the ground. Growling to himself, Jake climbed into the rear of the pickup, threw back the tarp and yanked on a heavy crate. He’d overslept, got a late start packing these final boxes and now he couldn’t possibly drive to Mt. Bachelor by nightfall.

  Hearing the purr of an engine, he glanced over his shoulder.

  A sleek black Mercedes wheeled into the lot. The driver, a woman, yanked on the emergency brake, cut the engine and climbed out. Clasping a billowing black jacket around her, she headed straight for the cottage. She didn’t even glance his way, but sidestepped the puddles and walked crisply along the path. Once inside the open door, she stopped dead in her tracks. “Hello?” she called in a voice so low he could barely hear it. “Sarah? Are you here?”

  Jake vaulted from the bed of the pickup. His eyes narrowed on the rich woman and her raven-black coat and matching boots. He hauled the box off the back of the truck and followed her path just as she, perplexed, walked back outside. Statuesque, with high cheekbones, skin flush from the cold and mahogany-colored hair dark with the rain, she stared at him through the most intense blue-green eyes he’d ever seen. “Excuse me, I’m looking for Jake McGowan,” she said, offering a tentative smile.

  “I’m McGowan.”

  “You?” she repeated as if she didn’t believe him. Her gaze moved from his wind-tossed hair to his scuffed boots. “But I thought—the man I’m looking for is a lawyer. . . .”

  “As I said, I’m Jake McGowan,” he repeated flatly.

  Kimberly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. This was the hotshot attorney Diane had told her about? This man dressed in worn denim, in desperate need of a shave and smelling slightly of alcohol? “There—there must be some mistake.”

  “If you say so.” He shifted a huge box full of books and desk paraphernalia and carried it down a short hallway—to Diane’s office, or what had been Diane’s office.

  Wary, half-expecting him to own up to the fact that he was the groundskeeper, Kimberly followed a few steps behind, noting the man’s broad shoulders stretching taut a cotton T shirt, his lean hips, low-slung, extremely faded jeans and well-worn leather boots.

  He dropped the crate in the one empty corner of the office, then turned to face her, resting his hips on a large walnut desk and crossing his arms insolently across his chest. “What can I do for you, Ms.—?”

  “Bennett. Kimberly Bennett. I have an appointment with Mr. Mc—you—this morning.”

  Something flashed in his eyes. “So, you’re Kimberly Bennett,” he drawled as if her name were distasteful. His gaze moved slowly from her head to her feet, then he glanced through the window to the parking lot at her car.

  “Diane told you about me?”

  “A little. But your appointment is next Monday.”

  “This is the second—”

  “Sarah told me the ninth.”

  “Oh, no.” Kimberly thought ahead to her schedule at the bank. Next week was overbooked with trust clients starting to put together their year-end information. “I don’t know if I can make it then ... look, I’m here now. Can’t you just see if this is going to work?” she asked. “I don’t know if I can get away next week.”

  He smiled as if at some private joke.

  Kimberly plunged on. “Diane must’ve mentioned how desperate I am,” she said nervously. “I don’t want to lose my daughter.”

  “Not even to her father?”

  Why did he sound so bitter? “Not to anyone. Lindsay’s only five. The divorce was hard enough on her, and Robert and I agreed that I should have full custody.”

  Jake’s brows shot up.

  “But he’s changed his mind.”

  “Why?” His strong, chiseled features were taut beneath his tanned skin.

  Kimberly’s shoulders squared at the antagonism charging the air. He hadn’t said as much, but she felt as if he didn’t trust her, didn’t believe her, though they’d barely met. “He claims it’s because he remarried and his new wife can’t conceive children.” Her lips twisted at the irony of it all. Robert, the man who had once thought she should consider abortion as the solution to her surprise pregnancy, now wanted his daughter all to himself. “Robert claims Stella doesn’t want to adopt.”

  “He claims?” Jake repeated. “You don’t believe him?”

  “It’s difficult—with Robert.”

  “Why?”

  Kimberly bristled. Damn, these questions were personal. What did you expect? “He, uh, was less than honest while we were married.”

  Jake’s mouth twitched. “And now he wants full custody?”

  “That’s what he says.” She felt herself shaking inside, shaking with the rage that gnawed at her often during the nights when she couldn’t sleep. “He told me he’d go to any lengths, even if it meant proving me unfit.”

  “Could he?”

  “Prove me unfit? No! Of course not.” Her cheeks flushed angrily. “I mean—it’s not true. He has no proof, no evidence—and I don’t even think he’d go through with it, but I don’t know. He’s been obsessive about Lindsay lately.”

  “Lindsay’s your daughter?”

  “Yes.”

/>   “And Stella’s his wife—have I got it straight?”

  “Right.”

  His silvery eyes were cold, his gaze intense. “Wasn’t Robert ‘obsessed’ with your daughter while you were married?”

  “No—not at all.” She cleared her throat. “At times he acted as if she didn’t exist.”

  “And yet, now that he’s changed his mind, he’d go as far as to claim you’re unfit?”

  Was this man baiting her? “I believe him.”

  “Because of his track record?”

  That did it. “Look, I’m just telling you what he told me—okay? That’s what he’s threatened.”

  Scowling to himself, Jake plowed one hand through his wet, near-black hair. Then, noticing the condition of the room for the first time, he muttered something under his breath, cleared a dusty stack of files from a nearby chair and waved her onto the cushion.

  Kimberly perched on the edge of the chair.

  “I wouldn’t worry about the unfit business,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “Why not?”

  “If there’s no proof, your husband’s attorney won’t go along with it.”

  “His attorney would jump off a cliff if Robert told him to.”

  Jake actually grinned—a crooked smile twisted by derision.

  Kimberly smiled back. “Will you take my case?”

  “I don’t usually handle custody or domestic problems—”

  “You did once. Diane said you were the best in Portland.”

  “She’s stretching the truth.”

  Kimberly’s eyebrows raised. “And why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe to satisfy you.”

  “I don’t think so, Mr. McGowan. She seemed to think you could help me.”

  “Any attorney can help you,” he replied evenly.

  “I want the best.”

  “Then try Ben Kesler,” he suggested coldly, feeling the irony of the situation. The bastard had been Jake’s wife’s lawyer. “He’s gained quite a reputation for himself as a divorce attorney.”

  “Can’t do it,” she said softly as all the color drained from her face and her voice threatened to give out.

  “And why not?”