First Love Read online

  * * *

  “THE BASTARD!” DONNA threw her dish towel into the sink and tears began to run from her eyes. Her husband tried to comfort her, to place his big hands upon her shoulders, but she shrugged him off. “How could you, George? How could you believe Garreth Monroe?”

  Nadine reached for the screen door, but let her hand drop as she heard the tail end of the argument. Ben was running up the back steps, Bonanza leaping and barking at his heels. Nadine’s finger flew to her mouth. “Shh!” she ordered, but it was too late, her parents both turned and saw them huddled on the porch.

  Nadine wanted to drop through the dusty floorboards, but Ben, oblivious to the argument still simmering in the kitchen, yanked open the door.

  “You may as well both come in,” their father said, and Nadine noticed that his normally ruddy complexion was ashen. He gnawed on his lower lip and his hands fidgeted along the dirty red-and-black elastic of his suspenders. Sawdust was sprinkled in his hair and his broad shoulders looked as if they were weighted by invisible bricks. “As this concerns everyone in the family, we’d better talk it out. Sit down.” He kicked a chair away from the dining room table and, without a word, Nadine and Ben slumped into the worn wooden seats. “I’ll tell Kevin when he gets home.

  “You all know that I’ve been promisin’ everyone in this family a whole lot of money. Education for you kids, a new house and car for your mother…everything.” His jaw wobbled slightly, and he paused to clear his throat. No one in the room dared breathe. “Well, it’s not gonna happen. The money I gave Mr. Monroe to invest is gone.”

  “Gone?” Ben cried. “Gone where?”

  George shrugged. “The investment didn’t pan out.”

  “What do you mean, ‘didn’t pan out’?” Ben demanded, and Nadine’s stomach squeezed so hard, it hurt. “Where did it go? To old man Monroe’s pockets? To pay for one of his mistresses? To send his son to a private school?” Ben’s face was flushed, his eyes flashing fire.

  “Now, hold on. I knew the investment was risky,” their father admitted, and Donna made a small whimpering sound. She leaned against the sink for support. “That’s the only way to make money—big money. The bigger the payoff, the riskier the investment.”

  “What investment?”

  “Oil wells.”

  “Oh, God,” Donna whispered.

  “You mean dry wells?” Ben demanded.

  Nadine felt sorry for her father as he nodded curtly and said, “It appears that way.”

  “But who says so? Monroe?”

  “I saw the geological survey,” their father replied. “There’s nothin’ there but an empty hole.”

  “Oh, it’s not empty,” Donna said bitterly. “It’s filled with every dollar we ever saved! It’s filled with the house we used to own, and it’s filled with our dreams, George, our damned, beautiful, foolish dreams!” Tears were tracking freely down her face, and Nadine wanted to run anywhere to get away from the awful truth and the doom she saw in her mother’s eyes.

  “How could you trust a Monroe?” Ben demanded. “Everyone in town knows old Garreth’s as greedy and crooked as his brother-in-law. He was in on it, too, wasn’t he? I’ll bet it was Thomas Fitzpatrick’s idea. Monroe doesn’t have the brains to pull off a scam like this!”

  “It wasn’t a scam.”

  “Like hell!” Ben said, standing and kicking the table.

  “Ben!” Donna’s back stiffened, but he didn’t listen to his mother.

  He whirled, and planting his flat hands on the table, glared at Nadine. “Now you know what the Monroes are like, little sister,” he snarled. “All of them. Cut from the same cloth. And your precious Hayden is no different than his old man.”

  “Oh, God,” Donna whispered. “Nadine. Not Hayden Monroe!” The lines of her face carved deep into her once beautiful skin, and Ben, realizing what he’d done, gritted his teeth.

  Nadine’s spine stiffened, and though her eyes burned hot with unshed tears, she wouldn’t break down. She cared for Hayden, probably even loved him. And, deep down, he felt the same for her. She knew it.

  “He’s the boy you were sneaking out with?” Donna demanded.

  “Oh, hell,” Ben grumbled, apparently sick with himself.

  “Who’s been sneaking out?” Kevin wanted to know as he shoved open the screen door.

  “Nadine. With Hayden Monroe.” Donna’s condemning stare landed full force on her daughter. Her fingers curled around the edge of the table. “There’s just one thing I want to know,” she said, her voice trembling, and Nadine braced herself for the blow. “Tell me the truth, Nadine. If you lie I’ll find out anyway.”

  Nadine lifted her gaze to meet her mother’s. “What?”

  “Are you pregnant?”

  “Pregnant?” Kevin repeated, shaking his head. “What’s going on here?”

  Their father eyed his firstborn. “What’re you doing home so early?”

  “I’m home for good, Dad,” Kevin replied as he flopped into a chair. “I got laid off today.”

  “Laid off?” Donna said, and Nadine hated the disappointment in her parents’ eyes.

  “Don’t you know? They’re cutting back shifts. The newest guys like me got pink slips.”

  Nadine felt the doom settle over the roof of the little frame house.

  “If you ask me,” Kevin said, “old man Monroe has lost it. And it’s probably because of his son. The kid’s gone ’round the bend, I guess.”

  “Hayden?” Nadine whispered.

  “You don’t know?” Kevin’s eyes scanned everyone in the room. “Hayden Monroe is in the hospital. He wrecked the old man’s boat this afternoon and the girl he was with, his fiancée, she’s been life-flighted to San Francisco. There’s a question whether she’ll make it or not.”

  Nadine’s life splintered into a million pieces. “And Hayden…is he…?”

  “Oh, he’ll be all right. Those Monroes are lucky bastards. The way I hear it, he broke a couple of ribs and tore up his leg, but he’ll survive.”

  Donna was already reaching for the telephone, no doubt to confirm the story. Nadine crouched lower in her chair, her eyes hot with unshed tears.

  The kitchen seemed to disappear, but she could still hear her mother’s quick questions to a friend of hers who worked at County Hospital. It was true enough; Hayden was lying in the hospital emergency room, in pain, perhaps more seriously hurt than Kevin knew.

  She heard the receiver click and slowly raised her eyes to meet her mother’s. Donna nodded. “The Galveston girl is critical—crushed pelvis, possible internal injuries, but Hayden Monroe will be fine. There’s a question about him ever walking without a limp, but he’ll survive.”

  “He’s at County?” Nadine asked, involuntarily reaching for her purse.

  “That’s right.”

  She felt her father’s hand on her shoulder. “I hate to do this, missy,” he said, his voice rasping with regret, “but you’re not going anywhere.”

  “I’ve got to go….” She felt everyone’s eyes on her.

  “You’re grounded,” her father said. “Don’t even ask me for how long ’cause I can’t begin to tell you. Now you listen here, young lady. There’ll be no more sneaking out. Until Hayden Monroe is transferred to a hospital in San Francisco to be with his own doctors, you aren’t going anywhere.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t argue with me, Nadine. Believe me, I know best.” His faded eyes held hers. “I’ve learned my lesson about the Monroes the hard way, and I’m not going to stand by and see you get hurt.”

  Panic surged through her. “I won’t—”

  “You heard me. That’s it. We won’t speak of it again. As far as I’m concerned, you’re to forget you ever met Hayden Monroe.”

  BOOK TWO

 
San Francisco, California

  The Present

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MIST GATHERED OVER the tombstone, and the sod, recently turned, smelled fresh and earthy. Chilled to the bone, Hayden shoved his hands in his pockets. Sleet drizzled past the upturned collar of his old leather jacket and dripped from his bare head and nose.

  He stared at the final resting place of his father, strewn with roses and carnations and lilies, and he whispered under his breath, “I hope you got what you deserved, you miserable bastard.”

  A lump filled his throat and his eyes burned with tears he refused to shed. Hayden Garreth Monroe III had been a pathetic excuse of a father. He’d shown his son no love, nor kind words—only strict discipline and upper-crust values.

  From his pocket, Hayden withdrew a leather baseball, autographed by Reggie Jackson, and hurled it into the soil. The ball wedged deeply, nearly buried with the old man. Fitting, Hayden thought bitterly. His father had paid a fortune for that baseball, given it to Hayden and never once played catch with his only son. He’d never had the time, nor the inclination.

  “Rest in peace,” Hayden muttered, before turning and never once looking over his shoulder.

  His old Jeep was idling at the curb, and Hayden slid into the torn driver’s seat, wrenching the wheel and gunning the accelerator. Leo, a battle-scarred Lab and his best friend in the world—perhaps his only friend—was seated in the backseat. “One more stop,” Hayden informed the dog. “Then we’re history around here.”

  Driving through the gates of the cemetery, he headed into the city for yet another ordeal—a meeting with William Bradworth, of Smythe, Mills and Bradworth, his father’s attorneys.

  * * *

  BRADWORTH’S PRIVATE SUITE fairly reeked of blue blood and big bucks. From the mahogany walls to the leather club chairs situated stiffly around a massive desk, the rooms were meant to invite conversation about money, money and more money. Even the view of San Francisco Bay didn’t disturb the Wall Street atmosphere that some high-priced decorator had tried to transfer from East Coast to West.

  The phony ambience made Hayden sick.

  Shifting restlessly in his chair, he glanced from the balding pate of William Bradworth to the window where sleet was sluicing down the glass and the sky was the color of steel.

  Bradworth’s voice was a monotone droning on and on. “…so you see, Mr. Monroe, except for the money that’s been set aside for your mother, her house, her car and jewelry, you’ve inherited virtually everything your father owned.”

  “I thought he cut me out a few years back.”

  Bradworth cleared his throat. “He did. Later, however, Garreth had a change of heart.”

  “Big of him,” Hayden muttered.

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Well, I don’t want it. Not one damned piece of rough-cut lumber, not one red cent of the old man’s money, not one stinking oil well. You got that?”

  “But you’ve just been left a fortune—”

  “What I’ve been left, Bradworth, is a ball and chain, a reminder that my father wanted to control me when he was alive and is still trying to run my life from the grave.” Hayden gave a cursory glance to his copy of the last will and testament of Hayden Garreth Monroe III, lying open on the polished desk. He slid the damned document toward his father’s arrogant son-of-a-bitch of an attorney. “It won’t work.”

  “But—”

  Standing, Hayden planted both of his tanned hands on William Bradworth’s desk and leaned forward, his gaze drilling into the bland features of a man who had worked for his father for years. “I didn’t want the company when the old man was alive,” he said in a calm voice, “and I sure as hell don’t want it now.”

  “I don’t see that you have much choice.” Always unflappable, Bradworth leaned back in his chair, putting some distance between himself and Hayden’s imposing, aggressive stance. Tenting his hands under his chin, like a minister ready to impart marital advice, he suggested, “You can sell the corporation, of course, but that takes time and you’ll have to deal with your uncle—”

  Hayden grimaced at the mention of Thomas Fitzpatrick.

  “Tom owns a considerable amount of shares. Meanwhile the employees will want to keep getting paid and, unless you want to close the doors and put those people on the unemployment rolls, Monroe Sawmill Company will keep turning out thousands of board feet of lumber from the mills.”

  Hayden’s back teeth ground together. Even from the grave, the old man seemed to have him over a barrel. Hayden didn’t have much love for Gold Creek, where the oldest and largest of the mills was located, but he didn’t hate the people who lived there. Some of them were good, salt-of-the-earth types who’d worked for the corporation for years. Thrown out of work, they’d have no place to turn. A fifty-five-year-old millwright couldn’t be expected to go back to school for vocational training. The whole damned town depended upon that mill one way or another. Even the people who worked at Fitzpatrick Logging Company needed a sawmill where they could sell the cut timber. The banks, the shops, the cafés, the taverns, even the churches depended upon the mill to keep the economy of that small town afloat. It was the same with the other small towns around the smaller mills he now owned.

  With the feeling that he was slowly drowning, Hayden said, “Look, Bradworth, I know about selling companies. I just got rid of a logging operation in Klamath Falls, Oregon. So there must be some way to get rid of the mills around Gold Creek.”

  The attorney drew back his lips in what Hayden surmised was supposed to be a smile. “Your Podunk logging operation in Klamath Falls—what did it consist of? A few trucks, maybe a mill or two and some timber? Handling a small-time business is a lot different than running an operation the size of Monroe Sawmill, son.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I just don’t want it. I don’t care if I ever see a dime of the old man’s money.”

  Bradworth’s eyebrows raised a fraction. “So you want to donate the corporation, lock, stock, barrel and green chain to—whom? The homeless? The Cancer Society? Needy children?”

  Hayden’s lips flattened against his teeth. “That’s a start.”

  “How?”

  “You’re the attorney—”

  “Right. So that’s why I’m telling you. We can’t go out and donate a wood chipper to the Salvation Army. You know, most people would jump at a chance to own a company like this.”

  “I’m not most people.”

  “Obviously.” Bradworth’s gaze raked down Hayden’s body, taking quick appraisal of his soggy jeans, flannel shirt and battered running shoes. His wet jacket had been cast casually over the back of one of the attorney’s stuffed leather chairs. Water dripped onto the expensive burgundy-hued carpet. “As for the charitable organization of your choice, I’m sure the board of directors would be more than happy to take your money—but not in the form of the corporation, so you can sell Monroe Sawmill Company to a rival firm, if there is one that wants it, or raffle it off piece by piece to some corporate raider who’ll close up shop and put the employees out of work. Your choice. But for the time being, you are, whether you like it or not, the majority stockholder and CEO of the firm, and the next board meeting is scheduled for January 15.” Bradworth glanced meaningfully at his desk calendar. “That’s barely two months away. I doubt that anyone will buy the company from you by then.” He reached behind him, opened a sleek walnut credenza and pulled out several binders. “These,” he said with quiet authority, “are copies of the company books. I suggest you study them. As for the town house in the Heights, here are the keys, along with a key to the Mercedes, BMW and Ferrari. There’s also the summer place at—”

  “Whitefire Lake,” Hayden supplied, thinking of the remote house on the shore, the only place he remembered from his youth with any fondness. He’d enjoyed his few years on the lake and the su
mmers thereafter…until his entire life had been turned inside out. “I know.”

  Bradworth’s lips pursed. “As for the money and company stock, it will just take some time to go through probate and transfer everything to you. I’ve already started putting things in order—some of the buildings need to be cleaned and repaired, leases need to be transferred. Some of the assets of the corporation are personal and—”

  “I don’t give a damn!” Lead weight seemed to settle over Hayden’s broad shoulders. “This is ludicrous,” he remarked, though the attorney probably thought the same. It wasn’t a secret that Hayden and his father had never gotten along. But the old man insisted on cursing him, even from the ever-after.

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” Bradworth admitted as he shoved the will back across the desk. “But there it is. Now, how will I reach you?”

  “You can’t. Just take care of everything ’til I get back.”

  “But I’ll need to know where you are so I can keep in touch—”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll call you.” Grabbing the damned documents, the notebooks and the keys, Hayden snagged his jacket with his other hand and strode over yards of expensive carpet to the door. He paused with his fingers resting lightly on the knob. “What’s going to happen to Wynona?” he asked, eyeing the attorney.

  “Who?” But the lawyer’s face tightened spasmodically and Hayden’s stomach turned sour.

  “Wynona Galveston,” Hayden replied without a trace of bitterness.

  “I don’t know who—”

  “Save it, Bradworth. Just let her know the old man’s gone. She’ll be interested.”

  Bradworth cleared his throat. “She’s been provided for—”

  “Bought off, you mean. Like all the rest.” Casting a disgusted glance over his shoulder, he added, “Dear old dad left a helluva mess, didn’t he?” Without waiting for a reply, he strode through the door, slammed it shut behind him, and walked quickly through the maze of corridors lighted by recessed bulbs. At each intersection in the labyrinthine hallways, original paintings and sketches in pastoral country scenes graced the walls. The whole effect was reminiscent of an Englishman’s club. Brass lamps and oxblood leather chairs, mahogany tables strewn with copies of Forbes, GQ, and the like were grouped in intimate circles in the reception area, decorated much as Hayden remembered his father’s den. All that was missing was the old man himself and the ever-present, sweet smoky scent of his father’s private blend of pipe tobacco.