of all people knew that Fletcher had his flaws and could be arrogant at times, but she could deal with that. What she refused to deal with was letting her sisters lose the only home they knew and a chance to fulfill their dreams by attending the colleges they desired.
She couldn’t help but wonder what her father had been thinking to put a second mortgage on their home—a mortgage for which the full balance was due within a year of his death. There was no way she could come up with a million dollars. Fletcher, in the role of a friend, had made her an offer that she couldn’t refuse. It would not be a love match, he was fully aware of that. She would, however, as agreed, perform her wifely duties. He wanted kids one day and so did she. And Pam was determined to make the most of their marriage and be a good wife to him.
“I want the three of you to make me a promise,” she finally said to her sisters.
“What kind of promise?” Jill asked, lifting a suspicious brow.
“I want you to promise me that you will do everything I ask regarding my engagement to Fletcher. That, you will make me, as your oldest sister, happy by supporting my marriage to him.”
“But will you be truly happy, Pammie?” Paige asked with an expression that said she really had to know.
No, she wouldn’t truly be happy, but her sisters didn’t have to know that, Pam thought. They must never know the extent of her sacrifice for them. With that resolve in mind, Pam lifted her chin, looked all three of them in the eyes and told a lie that she knew was going to be well worth it in the end.
“Yes,” she said, plastering a fake smile on her lips. “I will truly be happy. I want to marry Fletcher. Now, make me that promise.”
Jill, Paige and Nadia hesitated only for a moment and then said simultaneously, “We promise.”
“Good.”
When Pam turned back to the sink, the three girls looked at each other and smiled. Their fingers had been crossed behind their backs when they’d made their promise.
* * *
It was probably inconsiderate of him to show up without calling first, Dillon thought, as he turned into the long driveway that was marked as the Novak Homestead.
He had arrived in Gamble, Wyoming, earlier that day, with his mission on his mind. What had happened to his great-grandfather’s other four wives, the ones he had before he married Dillon’s great-grandmother, Gemma? According to the genealogy research James Westmoreland had done, Gamble was the first place Raphel had settled in after leaving Atlanta, and a man by the name of Jay Novak had been his business partner in a dairy business.
Dillon would have called, but he couldn’t get a signal on his cell phone. Roy Davis, the man who owned the only hotel in Gamble, had explained that was because Gamble was in such a rural area, getting a good signal was almost impossible. Dillon had shaken his head. It was absurd that in this day and age there was a town in which you couldn’t get a decent cell signal when you needed it.
He had finally gotten a signal earlier to contact his secretary to check on things back at the office. Not surprisingly, everything was under control, since he had hired the right people to make sure his billion-dollar real estate firm continued to be a success whether or not he was there.
Dillon parked his car behind another car in the yard and glanced up at a huge Victorian house with a shingle roof. It was very similar in design to his home in Denver and he wondered if that was a coincidence.
According to what he’d heard, four sisters occupied the house and the oldest was named Pamela Novak. He understood Ms. Novak had had an up-and-coming acting career in California but had moved back to Gamble upon her father’s death. She was now operating the drama school a former teacher had recently willed to her.
When Dillon got out of the rental car he took time to stretch his legs. Like most Westmorelands he was tall, and because of his height he’d always enjoyed playing basketball. He’d been set to begin a career in the NBA when he’d gotten word of the plane crash that had claimed the lives of his parents and his aunt and uncle, leaving fourteen younger Westmorelands in his care.
It hadn’t been easy and Tammi, his girlfriend from college, had claimed she would stick by his side no matter what. Less than six months into their marriage she had run back home hollering and screaming that she couldn’t handle living on a ranch with a bunch of heathens.
That was after she had failed to convince him to put his youngest brother, Bane, who’d been eight at the time, his cousins—Adrian and Aiden—the twins who’d been ten, and Bailey, who’d been seven, into foster care because they were always getting into some kind of mischief.
He had understood that most of their antics had been for the attention they’d needed after losing their parents. However, Tammi had failed to see it that way and wanted out of the marriage. One good thing that had come out of his divorce was that he’d realized it was meant for him to be single and, as long as he was the head of the family, he would stay that way.
Another good thing about his divorce was that the younger Westmorelands—all of them with the exception of Bane—had felt guilty about Tammi leaving and had improved their behavior. Now the twins and Bailey were in college. Bane...was still Bane.
“You lost, mister?”
Dillon quickly turned around to look into two pairs of dark brown eyes standing a few yards away. Twins? No, but they could pass for such. Now he could see that one of the teenage girls was a head taller than the other.
“Well, are you?”
He smiled. Evidently he hadn’t spoken quick enough to suit them. “No, I’m not lost if this is the Novaks’ place.”
The taller of the two said, “I’m a Novak. We both are.”
Dillon chuckled. “Then I guess I’m at the right place.”
“Who did you want to see?”
“I want to see Pamela Novak.”
The shorter of the two nodded. “That’s our sister. She’s in the house talking to him.”
Dillon raised a brow. He had no idea who him was, and from the distasteful way it had been said, he really wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. “If she’s busy I can come back later,” he said, moving back toward the car.
“Yeah, because he might get mad if he thought you’d come calling just to see Pammie,” the taller one said.
A look of mischief shone in their eyes as the two girls looked at each other and smiled. And then, screaming to the top of their voices, they called, “Pammie, a man is here to see you!”
Dillon leaned against his car with arms across his chest, knowing he had been set up, and the two teens were having a little fun at his expense. He wasn’t so sure how he liked it until the door to the house swung open. At that moment he literally forgot to breathe. A strikingly beautiful woman walked out. It didn’t matter that she was frowning. The only thing that mattered was that she was definitely the living, breathing specimen of the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen.
She couldn’t have been any taller than five-eight, and was slim with just the right curves in the jeans she was wearing. She had shoulder-length black hair flowing around
