friends all had plans to attend the same college right there in Texas. In short, they were parting ways. But Jennifer decided she’d bear the lunches and the silly talk, as she thought of it, until the end of summer. Then she’d be on her own.
In contrast, her parents had been immersed in the social whirl all her life, unfortunately. It wasn’t that they were uncaring—Jennifer knew her parents loved her. It was simply that they weren’t there all that much. As a kid, she spent most of her free time with the housekeeper, Ida, who taught her how to clean, or with the cook, Tony, who practically made her a professional chef. As it turned out, Jennifer loved doing hard, honest work with her hands. It filled her with a purpose she hadn’t known she’d needed.
After Jennifer finished school, she came back to Dallas and lived in her own apartment with a private entrance in her parents’ house. She could have invited anyone she wanted to her place, but she had never had a man stay over. Not that her parents would have minded or objected. She was an adult, after all. It was just that none of the men she knew affected her that way.
Maybe because of what had happened during her junior year of high school.
She had never told her parents—or anyone else—about being caught alone on campus by a boy. She’d been leaving school later than most of the students following a meeting with her math teacher. It was January and almost dark, and she was distracted by thoughts of her conversation with the teacher. She wasn’t fully alert while weaving through the rows of vehicles in the parking lot as she headed for her car.
The boy was a senior—a clean-cut, all-American star football player. Most of Jennifer’s friends had crushes on him. Jennifer didn’t, thinking him too cocky and into himself. Perhaps that was the reason he had accosted her that afternoon.
Trapping her between two parked cars, he fumbled with his pants zipper, exposing himself to her. At first, she was too shocked to think. But she came to her senses when he shoved his other hand up her skirt, attempting to yank her panties off.
Frantic, Jennifer had let out an earsplitting scream. Although the parking lot had appeared deserted, a male voice responded with a shouted, “Hey, what the hell?”
Mr. All-American let loose a savage curse, snarling, “You better keep your mouth shut about this, bitch.” He sprinted away in the opposite direction.
Without thinking, Jennifer ran to her car, even as she could hear the man who had shouted running toward her. Her parents weren’t home when she arrived there, shaken and teary-eyed. Hearing the boy’s snarled threat echo in her mind, she had never told anyone of the incident.
Though Jennifer had been physically uninjured, the experience had left her wary of the opposite sex. Over time her anxiety had faded as she realized all males were not like Mr. All-American. She had even indulged her curiosity one time while in college. Although she liked the young man, the act was disappointing, leaving her feeling empty. And so, she had never invited a man to spend the night.
Not that her parents would have noticed even if their daughter was having a mad, passionate affair. They were busy socializing in Dallas and in the exclusive gated community where they resided, changing partners with their closest friends.
Yes, changing partners.
Jennifer had only recently found out about her parents’ game. She hadn’t a clue how many friends there had been or how many years they had been experimenting. In truth, she didn’t want to know. She could barely look at her parents’ faces or be in their company for more than a few minutes. Even though she knew her parents’ lifestyle was their business, she felt betrayed, as if they had been lying to her for years about who they really were underneath the façade of “social appropriateness” and their picture-perfect marriage. It made her want to do something to shock them right back.
So she had resigned from her job the day after coming home from work and catching a glimpse of her father and his best friend’s wife, Annette Terrell, in a compromising position in one room, and her mother and the woman’s husband, William, in a similar position in another.
Now, two weeks later, Jennifer knew she had to leave home, to take a break until the hurt subsided. She could barely look at her parents without feeling ill, and wanting to cry. She loved them, but what she had witnessed had deeply shocked her. Perhaps someday, she would be able to be in the company of her parents without that awful image tormenting her. But that day had not yet arrived.
Alone in her bedroom, Jennifer sat cross-legged on her bed, her laptop balanced on her knees. She was searching for escape, and employment, to keep her mind occupied. In effect, she was intent on running away from home … and her memories. It was time to stop living in a house of lies.
One week later, Jen left her parents a note. It read: I’m off to see the Wizard—Marsh Grainger, that is, the famously elusive business wizard of Dallas. It’s about a new job. I’ll be in touch.
She also emailed her best friends, whom she had met her first year in college. They had remained close ever since, staying in touch mostly by email, phone and texts. Although they all lived within driving distance, they led busy lives—three of the women were married with children, and the other two were busy chasing careers. Even so, “the gang” managed to get together every couple of months.
Hi, all, she wrote them. I’m taking off for a while, will be in touch soon.
Jennifer knew the next time she checked her email, there would be long messages from her friends, demanding to know exactly where she was and what she was up to, but she just wasn’t ready to talk about what had happened. And she wasn’t ready to tell them that she was interviewing with Marshall Grainger, whom they knew had a reputation as a womanizer.
Her mother probably knew, too. She fully expected her mother to start calling her cell phone as soon as she discovered that Jennifer was gone. That was okay—her parents could call all they wanted. It didn’t mean she had to answer. After all, even she couldn’t entirely explain why Marsh Grainger’s ad for an office assistant had appealed to her. But she needed space and distance—and she was pretty sure the wizard, who was rumored to prefer his hill country ranch to the craziness of high society in Dallas, could help her with that.
Marshall Grainger needed help. He needed an office assistant as well as a cook who would also clean the sprawling Texas hill country home that doubled as his workplace.
A cousin in the wealthy Grainger family of Wyoming, South Dakota and Montana, Marsh was, in a word, loaded. He owned a huge cattle ranch in Colorado, run by an excellent manager and former Marine buddy, Matt Hayes. The ranch had been in Marsh’s family for generations. Growing up, he had spent most of his summers there and he knew the ranching business inside and out.
But Marsh was not a cattleman at heart. He was a businessman, considered a force to be reckoned with in more ways than one. He was six foot four inches tall, slim and rangy with rugged features defined by high cheekbones and a strong, square, rock-hard jaw. A thick mane of gleaming hair the exact shade of rich dark chocolate matched the slightly arched brows above slate-gray eyes.
While Marsh owned the building that housed his company, nestled among many other tall buildings in Dallas, he rarely traveled into the city. He avoided the scene in Dallas like the plague, preferring to work at home in the large house set dead center on more than fifty acres.
At present, Marsh was desperately trying not to allow himself to be hopeful. After weeks of using all avenues of advertisements available to him, there was a chance he’d soon be able to hand the ranch books, the household bills and several duties of his main business over to a new assistant.
