help but like the elderly woman and her candid observations.
“It’s all right, dear.” The old woman patted Heather’s hand. “I have no illusions about how important most of these people think they are. And my son and daughter-in-law are the two biggest ducks in the puddle.”
“Well, your son is the president of Southern Oaks Bank and Trust.”
“Pish posh. It doesn’t matter what job somebody ends up with, they should never forget where they came from.” Mrs. Wainwright grinned. “I’ll bet you didn’t know that John grew up the son of a tobacco farmer who was land rich and dirt poor.” She pointed an arthritic finger toward Jake. “But your young man seems to be different. You can tell he’s got money, but he doesn’t appear to act like he’s better than everyone else. I’ll bet he hasn’t forgotten who he really is and where he came from.”
Heather stared at Jake. She still knew very little about him. Busy getting ready for the race, she hadn’t had the opportunity to ask where he grew up, about his childhood or his family.
Were his mother and father still alive? Did he have siblings? Could Mandy have family that Heather knew nothing about?
She didn’t have a clue. But she had every intention of finding out.
As Heather continued to think about it, she had to admit that Mrs. Wainwright was correct in her assessment of him. Jake had never made her or anyone at the farm feel as if they were beneath him. Even Clara had commented that he went out of his way to make everyone feel comfortable.
Heather had watched him with the grooms and stable boys and he never failed to greet them by name or stop and talk to them for a few minutes. And he was probably the only billionaire she’d ever heard of who sat at the kitchen table to eat his meals with his housekeeper, her teenage grandson and his farm manager.
“Are you ready to thank our host and hostess for a nice evening and head home?”
Heather jumped. Lost in thought, she hadn’t realized that Jake had ended his conversation with the bank president and crossed the lawn to join her and the man’s mother.
Introducing him to the elderly Mrs. Wainwright, she smiled. “It was nice chatting with you.”
“It was my pleasure, dear.” Mrs. Wainwright placed a bony hand on Heather’s arm and motioned for her to lean close. “You hang on to your young man,” she said in confidence. “Mark my words, he’s the real deal.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Wainwright.” She smiled. “I’ll try to remember that.”
* * *
After bidding the Wainwrights a good evening, Jake waited until he and Heather were seated in his car before he apologized. “I’m sorry, honey.”
“What for?” She looked thoroughly bewildered and so damned beautiful it was all he could do to keep from stopping the car and taking into his arms.
“Wainwright had no right to ignore you the way he did.” When the man dismissed Heather as if she didn’t exist, a protectiveness he’d never known he possessed had consumed him and Jake had wanted to punch the bastard in his big pretentious nose.
They fell silent for some time before he felt Heather staring at him. “What?”
“Tell me more about yourself.”
Glancing her way, he frowned. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything. Where did you grow up? Do you have siblings?” She laid her soft hand on his thigh and he had to concentrate to keep from steering the car into the ditch. “Does Mandy have an extended family?”
“What brought this on?” he asked, covering her hand with his to keep her from moving it. He liked when she touched him.
“Jake, we have a child together and beyond the fact that you’re a successful divorce attorney in Los Angeles, I know very little else about you,” she said quietly.
“There’s no big mystery. My siblings and I were born and raised in San Francisco. I have an identical twin brother named Luke—”
“My God, there are two of you?” She sounded truly shocked.
Grinning he nodded. “But don’t worry. He’s always been the quiet, more serious one of us.”
“In other words, your exact opposite.” She looked thoughtful. “Is he married?”
“As a matter of fact, he just got married a few months ago. He and his wife, Haley, are expecting their first child in about six and a half months.” To his surprise, Jake found that he liked sharing details about his family with Heather. “And we have a sister, Arielle. She’s ten years younger. She got married last month and is five months pregnant with twin boys.”
Heather was silent so long, he thought she might have fallen asleep. “I’m so happy that Mandy is going to have aunts, uncles and cousins.” She paused. “What about grandparents? Are your parents still alive?”
“No, our mother was killed in a car accident when Luke and I were twenty.” He took a deep breath. No matter how long it had been, he still missed the woman who had give him and his siblings life.
“I’m so sorry. What about your father?”
He snorted. “We only met our father once. After he made our mother pregnant with me and Luke, he took off and she didn’t see him again until we were almost ten. That’s when he showed up, stuck around only long enough to make Mom pregnant with Arielle, then took off again.” It was his turn to pause. “We recently got word that he was killed in a boating accident a couple of years ago.”
“Who finished raising your sister after your mother died?” she asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
“Luke and I were in college and managed to work out a pretty good system. He would work one semester and take over most of Arielle’s care while I went to school. Then I’d lay out the next semester, get a job and I’d be responsible for her while he attended classes.”
“My God, Jake, that had to have been so hard for both of you.” She turned her hand, palm up, to clasp his. “Did you try to get in touch with your father to see if he would send money to help out with your sister?”
Stopping the car at the entrance to Hickory Hills, he used the remote Clara had given him to open the wide iron gates. “We tried, but it proved to be impossible. We didn’t even know his real name.”
Her mouth dropped open. “He lied about who he was?”
Jake nodded. “We didn’t find that out and who he really was until we were told he was dead.”
When he drove the car through the gates, he pushed the button to swing them shut and as they traveled the long oak-lined drive, he decided to omit his newly discovered grandmother’s name. Emerald Larson was Mandy’s great-grandmother but he still wasn’t comfortable with the fact or with the way she manipulated her grandchildren.
“Mandy does have a great-grandmother,” he said, watching Heather from the corner of his eye. “We learned about her at the same time we found out about our father’s death.”
She
