boot had been placed with equal precision in their slots according to color in one of the sections, and Stacey knew her underthings were laid away with the same obsessive neatness and attention to color that had made Angelique a neurotic’s dream.
But the simple fact was that in less than a week Stacey had already proven a failure at maintaining the rigid order that had come so effortlessly to her maid. The left side of the closet was a mess, with wads of tissue here and there on the carpet. Her inability to maintain order, like her every other little incompetence over trivial things, had further undermined Stacey’s secret lack of self-confidence and left her feeling increasingly inept and adrift.
Though she’d been raised by an elderly grandfather who’d seen women as social ornaments whose chief aims should be to marry well and be an asset to a wealthy husband, there was really no excuse in this day and age to not have pursued some kind of career that could at least support her.
But the truth was, she’d been petted and cosseted and spoiled until she was fairly useless. Yes, she’d filled up her time with charities and social activities and a political cause or two, but not much of that could be converted into the kind of cold cash that might keep her in her wealthy lifestyle of ease.
She really would make a good wife to some hard-driven millionaire who was looking for a trophy with a pedigreed background, but she’d be a zero at going it alone. Anything in life that hadn’t come easy or she’d not enjoyed, she’d been free to walk away from. And had.
But there was no walking away from the fact that in a few days, most of her beautiful things would be hauled off to storage in a warehouse somewhere, and she’d be living in a less exclusive section of the city. She’d be learning how to make her way around on buses and subways while she continued to search for a job she could do that would pay enough to keep a roof over her head. It would also have to pay the storage bill until she could bear to part with her things.
If she’d taken over her own finances three years ago when her grandfather had passed away instead of blithely continuing with the latent crook who’d slowly embezzled her money to invest in several risky financial schemes, she wouldn’t be in this mess.
Her only hope was that investigators could locate both him and what might be left of her money, and somehow get it back. The thief had fled to South America somewhere, so the hunt was not only complicated by distance but by the difficulties of cooperation between law enforcement agencies that often had more pressing crimes to solve than embezzled funds.
Her brain made another edgy circuit around every problem and frustration, and when it had replayed each one, a mental review of possible catastrophes began their inevitable parade through her thoughts. Her head had been pounding before she’d gotten out of bed that morning just after eleven, but even after a hefty dose of aspirin, it continued to thump. Whether the thumping was solely from the headache or merely the punishment of tortured thoughts, the pain was the same, as was the queasy anxiety she felt.
When she’d finally chosen something to put on and got dressed, Stacey walked out into her bedroom. Her gaze fell to the ivory carpet and fixed on the business card McClain had given her. She thought she’d tossed it in the wastebasket but she must have missed, and it had ended up on the floor.
The sight of it was a profound irritation. She couldn’t even throw something away and do it successfully. Aggravated, she picked up the card and started to toss it away again before she suddenly froze.
The bold scrawl on the back of the card gave the name of one of the most beautiful and exclusive hotels in New York. Seeing how he’d written the letters gave her a swift sense of McClain himself: bold, masculine, decisive.
His handwriting wasn’t something spidery or refined-looking or difficult to read. It was as blunt as he was, as unpretentious, but the letters seemed confident. The pressure he’d put on the pen fairly shouted guilessness; he’d not needed to dither over what to write, he’d just done it. He was a man who said what he meant and meant what he said, and there’d be no mistaking him because he was too straightforward.
Holding that card in her fingers seemed to calm a little of the anxiety that made her feel so sick. No one would cheat or steal from a man like McClain, if for no other reason than the fact that he looked like he could beat the daylights out of anyone foolish enough to trifle with him.
If he were in her place, he certainly wouldn’t be moping around his house wondering how he’d survive or where he’d live. He probably wouldn’t care that his closets weren’t tidy or feel incompetent because he couldn’t cook for himself or do his own laundry.
He wouldn’t be afraid to look for a job. If his friends shunned him, he’d probably say “To hell with them,” and he’d put all his energy and strength into making his own way in the world, even if he’d need to find some new way to live.
That was her impression of Oren McClain. Because of that, she wondered again what a man like him could possibly see in someone like her. Or was he the kind of man her archaic and chauvinistic grandfather had raised her to marry? The kind of man so driven and taken up with his wealth or position or his business life that he’d choose a wife as an accessory and make certain he selected one with breeding who could provide him with handsome and/or beautiful heirs?
Stacey supposed some Texas ranchers and oilmen might be the same on that score as some of the moneyed eastern elites. She turned the card over and read down through the list of phone numbers. There were six of those.
She felt a spark of hope. If Oren McClain was looking for a trophy wife, he might not be disappointed in her. She took good care of her skin and her body, and she had personal taste and a refined style that would never be an embarrassment to him.
Surely he wasn’t looking for a woman who could outride, outrope and outcowboy him, because he could have found a woman like that in Texas. Before her hope could rise very far, Stacey got a swift mental picture of a Texas cattle ranch. How did anyone survive socially and culturally so far from a city?
Did McClain have a maid? A cook? He’d talked like he had money, but how much money did he actually have? And how did he spend it? Did he spend it all on cows and land and pickup trucks and cowboy hobbies, or would he spend some on household help? How big was his house? Was it a cabin or something with some real size to it?
She thought again of his remark about jewels and designer duds. Her impression of him was of honesty and straightforwardness. Maybe he hadn’t exaggerated the things he could provide a wife. If anything, McClain might be the kind of man who understated things to avoid appearing a braggart.
Stacey’s hopes rose a little more as she considered all that. He’d said he’d come to New York to see her, to find out if she’d changed her mind, but she couldn’t just take him at face value. She needed more information, but she needed a means to get it that wouldn’t cost very much.
An Internet search got her started. Going by McClain’s business card, she found out which part of Texas he was from and managed to find newspaper coverage that mentioned McClain Ranch and McClain Oil. A social page in a San Antonio newspaper mentioned an Oren McClain in an article about an area fund-raiser weeks ago, but something else that had gotten her attention was the fact that a TV Western mini-series had been shot on location on McClain Ranch.
Stacey began to feel a little more at ease about Oren McClain. He apparently wasn’t a social outcast, he was well known in the area of Texas he was from, and she hadn’t seen his name associated with anything criminal.
She gave a self-deprecating groan. Her grandfather would have had the background of any potential husband investigated at least as far back as three
