question. “I’m not sure he would look at them, sweetheart.”
“Well, if he did look, maybe that would help him know who we are again. He’s in a lot of these pictures, too.” Flipping pages, she touched her red fingertip to several photographs of her and her grandfather smiling together. “Maybe seeing them would help him remember us. If he could do that, maybe he’d get well. I just want him to get better.”
Joan slid an arm around her daughter’s thin shoulders, grasping her in a tight hug. The Alzheimer’s that had slowly taken over Zane Cooper’s mind had robbed Helena of the only father figure she had ever known. “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re one special kid?”
“Grandpa Zane did all the time before he forgot who I was,” Helena said wistfully.
“He was right. And the next time we visit him at Sunny Acres we’ll take one of the albums with us.”
“Girl Scout’s honor?”
“Girl Scout’s honor.” Joan dropped a kiss on Helena’s head, drawing in her child’s sweet, clean scent. “Now, it’s time to go to bed in your own room.”
“I’m not sleepy. Can’t I look at the pictures a little longer?”
“No.” Rising, Joan rearranged the throw pillows to one side of her bed. “Tomorrow’s a school day,” she continued as she nudged down the comforter and sheets. “And I have to get up early and meet a new client. In fact, I’ve got several new clients scheduled to begin programs at the spa, so I have to be there early every morning this week.”
Not for the first time Joan sent up silent thanks that, when the Lone Star Country Club evolved into a nationally known resort, the board of directors added living quarters for upper-management employees. Joan’s moving into one of those suites meant Helena could come home each day directly after school, instead of going to day care. Joan smiled at the thought of the checklist her nine-year-old daughter had made for herself. Each afternoon after her homework was done, Helena touched base with certain employees on her list to see if they needed her help. From assisting with swim classes to stuffing envelopes to folding napkins in the restaurants, Helena had her routine so perfected that Joan could pretty much check her watch and know Helena’s exact whereabouts any given afternoon.
“How early do you have to leave for the spa?” Helena asked.
“Even before your ride to school gets here.” Joan gathered the albums off the bed and slid them into the bookcase beside the tufted slipper chair that matched her comforter. “You’ll have to come up to my office each morning and tell me goodbye, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. Chief Stone called and invited us to a cookout at his house tomorrow night.”
“Can I play Frisbee with Warrant?” Helena asked, referring to the chief’s golden retriever.
“I doubt I’d be able to stop you.” Two months ago Ben Stone had surprised Joan by asking her to dinner. He was forty-five to her twenty-eight; growing up, she had thought of him only as a police officer. Now she was cognizant of him as a handsome, attractive man. One whom she sensed would soon like their relationship to move into intimacy. That was a step Joan wasn’t sure she wanted to take.
She slid a finger down Helena’s nose. “Chief Stone said to tell you he’s making your favorite homemade ice cream.”
Helena grinned. “Chief Ben makes almost as good chocolate ice cream as Grandma Kathryn used to.”
“Off to bed, now,” Joan said, giving Helena a firm but loving tap on the bottom.
Reluctantly Helena crawled off the bed and made her way out the door.
Joan followed, saying, “I’ll turn off the lights in the living room, then come in and kiss you good-night. Be sure and brush your teeth before you climb into bed.”
“Okay, Mom.”
Fifteen minutes after kissing Helena good-night, Joan stood on the dark balcony that jutted off her living room, staring at the starry night sky. The cool little breeze that swirled the hem of her silky white robe around her ankles made her shiver.
The suite she and Helena lived in was on the club’s third level. Before dinner Joan had used the computer in her office to look up which suite Bonnie Brannigan had reserved for Hart. That suite was on the same level, three doors away.
Stepping to the waist-high railing, Joan leaned, counting each separate balcony where ivy and geraniums spilled over the wrought-iron railing. Her gaze settled on Hart’s suite. The drapes were closed in both the living room and bedroom. She could see no light seeping around the edges.
She eased out a breath. Ten years ago she’d been eighteen, broken-hearted and pregnant, and would have given anything to have him near. Anything to have just known where he was.
And what would she have done if she had known? she asked caustically. Gone after him and begged him to want her? Begged him to love her the way she did him? Begged him to want and love the child she was carrying?
Hart had walked out on her. All her going after him would have done was enhance the despair and mortification she had felt when she realized his claiming to want and love her was a lie.
She shoved at a wisp of hair the breeze batted against her cheek. Ten years ago she had made a vow not to let her unborn child down. To give her the best life possible. To protect her.
Joan had no idea what kind of man Hart O’Brien had become. She could not second-guess what he might do if he discovered Helena was his daughter. Ignore his child? Befriend her? Walk away as easily as he had done ten years ago, leaving Helena with a shattered heart?
No, Joan thought as the need to protect welled inside her. Hart O’Brien had made his bed a long time ago. He had stepped on her own heart, but he wasn’t getting a shot at Helena’s.
For the first time Joan gave thanks for her parents’ unending need to maintain appearances. That need had motivated them to send her to stay with her aunt in Dallas when they found out she was pregnant. When she brought Helena home to Mission Creek, Joan had learned her parents had told everybody she’d had a whirlwind romance with a Dallas attorney who had died weeks after they’d eloped. Everyone in Mission Creek had accepted the story. Joan had done nothing to change that. Why should she? Why not protect her child from the stigma of being illegitimate?
Everyone believed Helena’s father had died before she was born. There was no reason Hart shouldn’t believe that, too.
No reason to tell him Helena was his.
Chapter 3
Hart said goodbye to Yance Ingram outside the bomb crime scene, then rode an elevator, complete with a small, tinkling chandelier, to the third floor. There he unlocked the door to the executive suite Bonnie Brannigan had reserved for him. The sumptuous rooms were full of mahogany furnishings, Oriental rugs and silk drapes the color of burnt sugar. The suite sported two televisions, a stereo system and a full bar setup.
For Hart the opulent surroundings represented the height of irony. His previous living quarters in Mission Creek had been a cramped, going-to-rust trailer, which he and his mother shared on the outskirts of town. Then Vonda O’Brien had been
