An Heiress on His Doorstep

As he moved toward her, she noticed his confident, sort of predatory walk. His head dipped slightly as he looked down to her shoeless foot. “Did you lose your glass slipper, Cinderella?”

“I think I was kidnapped.” Was it technically a kidnapping when one’s own father was behind it?

“You think? Don’t you remember?”

Remember? What if she couldn’t remember. That would make his life difficult, and she liked the idea of that.

“Who are you?” he asked.

He knew good and well who she was. Okay. That did it. Scaring the stuffing out of a girl then playing dumb was not the way to win a financée and influence people. She plastered a confused expression on her face and rubbed her fingertips over her forehead. “I—I can’t remember.”

He gave her a doubtful look. “You’re not going to faint, are you?”

Why not? she thought. She needed a ride; this guy needed a lesson.

She made herself go limp and dropped like a stone.

An Heiress on His Doorstep

Teresa Southwick

TERESA SOUTHWICK

lives in Southern California with her hero husband who is more than happy to share with her the male point of view. An avid fan of romance novels, she is delighted to be living out her dream of writing for Silhouette Books.

The fortune-teller said…

To be a princess and live in a palace—love is the risk, deception the malice.

If the three born on February twenty-ninth rub the magic from the lamp and make a wish—on that day that comes only once every four years—each shall receive her most coveted desire.

But there is peril.

Each of the three must see beyond the evident. Look into the soul of the one her heart has chosen.

Only then will she find the truth that is hers alone.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Chapter One

September 15, 2004

Jordan Bishop said goodbye to terror and went straight to furious. Being kidnapped was not the way she’d planned to start her first vacation in two years.

She looked at the guy who’d abducted her. He was hardly more than a kid, an average-looking young man. Average height, average looks and average brown hair. They’d been waiting on this deserted road for what felt like hours, and he’d refused to tell her why. Jordan was fed up.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she said.

He glanced over at her from the driver’s seat. “Do you see one, sweetheart?” His voice was rife with sarcasm.

That does it, she thought.

She pressed her legs together. “I wonder how this leather seat would hold up in the event of an unfortunate accident.”

That wiped the sarcastic expression off his face. “You gotta go in the bushes.”

“Any port in a storm,” she replied.

She’d been terrified when he’d grabbed her, expecting to be assaulted or murdered any second. But that feeling faded when he kept driving. After stopping, he hadn’t made a single threatening move. It felt like he was waiting for something. And she didn’t intend to be around when the wait was over.

He got out of the car and walked around to her side, opening the door with his keys in his hand. He unlocked the cuff hooked to the passenger handhold above her head. The other cuff was attached to her wrist. When he glanced away to put his keys back in his pocket, she swiveled in her seat and kicked out as hard as she could with both legs, making him stumble backward. If she’d known she would be in this mess, she’d have dressed more appropriately. Now was no time to worry about her tight skirt. At least it was short, giving her some maneuverability.

While the creep was getting his footing, Jordan jumped out of the SUV. She winced when a small rock dug into her bare heel. She’d lost one of her pumps when he’d first grabbed her.

He grinned. “Nice try.”

“I thought so.”

As he started toward her, she braced for her next move. She was about to find out if all those self-defense classes were worth the price. When he put his hands on her upper arms, she jabbed the three-inch spike heel of her remaining pump into his instep. He cried out, but before he could react, she raised her knee and rammed it into his groin. He grunted in pain and doubled over wheezing, then dropped to the ground groaning. This was the part where she was supposed to run like hell.

But where? Even if she knew which way to run, she was out in the sticks, with no sign of civilization in sight. She had to get the keys, but she didn’t want to get in too close to him. Even though he was still rolling around and groaning. But how long did it take a man to recover from a knee to the groin?

“Bishop’s not paying me enough for this,” he muttered to himself.

Bishop? He couldn’t have said what she thought she’d heard. “What did you say? Who’s paying you?” she demanded.

He glared at her. “Your father.”

“My father? I don’t believe you.”

“I couldn’t make up something this weird,” he said, sitting up. “He hired me to kidnap you.”

“Why?”

“It’s a setup. To find you a man.”

“You?” she asked, shocked.

“No. And I resent your implication and your tone.”

She didn’t give a rat’s behind what he resented. “Look, buster, my patience is wearing thin. You scared me out of my wits, you handcuffed me.” She held up her wrist with the dangling metal still attached. “And you made me lose my shoe. It was my favorite pair and very expensive.”

“You’re an heiress. You can afford it. Bill your father.”

“That’s not the point. And none of your business. Start talking. I want the facts, from the beginning.”

He held his head in his hands. “Your father has the perfect guy for you. Sir Galahad is due here any minute to waltz in for the rescue. You know, be your hero. After that you’re supposed to fall for him and get married. Happy ever after and all that crap. It’s the truth. I swear.”

“I don’t believe this,” she said, throwing up her hands.

But the statement was rhetorical, because the more she thought about it, the more she did believe him. It would certainly explain why her father had been so insistent that she have lunch with him today. The kidnapper knew where to find her because her father had set her up. “So when was this guy supposed to be here?”

“An hour ago.”

“Figures. Apparently Daddy picks heroes as well as he picks kidnappers.”

“It’s my first kidnapping and not my sphere of expertise,” he said defensively.

“So where did my father find you? Thugs-R-Us?”

“Very funny. I work part-time at Bishop, Inc. while I go to college.”

He wasn’t very tall, about five-six or five-seven to her five foot one. But he was beefy. If he hadn’t surprised her when she’d been leaving her father’s office, her self-defense moves would have been more effective. They wouldn’t have been effective just now if he’d been a professional kidnapper. Why had he done it?

“Did you need the money? Is that why you agreed to this ridiculous Machiavellian farce?”

“I bet you think I don’t know what that means.” He looked up at her, his eyes narrowed. “It’s hard to say no to your father. And he’s my boss.”

“You should get another boss.” She couldn’t get another father.

“No kidding.”

She tried not to feel sorry for him, but he really did look pathetic sitting in the dirt at the side of the road. Speaking of which, she hadn’t seen another car come along the whole time they’d been here. What the heck was her father thinking? Rage expanded inside her.

“So who’s the tardy Prince Charming my father is trying to hook me up with this time?”

“Didn’t get his name.”

“And no way to contact him,” she guessed.

“Nope.”

She was twenty-four-and-a-half years old. Her father had pretty much ignored her for the first twenty-four. But he’d changed in the last six months. Right after his heart attack when she’d been in New Orleans for her birthday. A near-death experience gives you a different perspective he’d said. From her perspective, he was acting just plain weird. His explanation was that he wouldn’t be around forever, and he wanted to see her settled and secure before he kicked the bucket.

At first she’d thought the change was really sweet and had high hopes of finally building a relationship with him. But he’d gone after this the way he’d built his business—with single-minded determination. He’d started small, with a casual introduction to a man of his choice, then dinner for three, then dinner for three where only she and the man showed up. Then a weekend away for her and her dad. But dad had been conspicuously absent. It was just her and Harman Bishop’s current front-runner for her affections.

And the problem was escalating. Last week he’d given Clark Caldwell, a guy she’d broken up with, the key to her apartment to arrange a romantic dinner for two. Her dad wasn’t the subtle type. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. Another day, another guy. No regard for consequences or whom he steamrolled. He’d been butting into her life no matter how often or how vehemently she told him to stop.

But this was the last straw. How stupid did he think she was? And what kind of clown was he trying to set her up with? What kind of man would go along with this? Scratch that. She so didn’t want to know.

The guy groaned as he stood up, then without warning grabbed her. “Okay. Back in the car.”

“No way,” she said, pulling hard to try and free her arm.

“I gotta take you back to your dad.”

The thought of the man who’d set this series of events in motion generated a red-hot haze of fury. She grabbed his right ear and yanked.

“Ow,” he cried, dropping his hand from her arm. “Look, lady,” he pleaded, “I only got half the money. If I don’t—”

“Tell it to someone who cares.” In a strictly reflex action, she raised her knee again.

“Okay, okay, you win.”

She backed away and looked around. They were on a farm-to-market road somewhere in Texas, and she couldn’t be more specific because this idiot had driven her around for hours. On either side of the two-lane road, rolling hills stretched as far as the eye could see. No stores, no houses, no phones. And she’d dropped her purse with the cell phone inside when she’d been abducted.

Behind her she heard her father’s lackey mutter something like “not enough money in the world to put up with this crap.” No kidding. When she got ahold of her father, she was going to give him a piece of her mind. Of course, she’d done that many times in the past, and still he’d pulled a stunt like this. She had to think of some way to stop him, to convince him not to interfere in her life.

She took a step, and a pebble bit into her heel again. “Ouch,” she said, looking down.

Then she heard the SUV engine roar to life. Spinning around, she watched the big tires throw up dirt and rocks as it screeched onto the road.

The car stopped beside her. “Your hero should be here any minute.” Then the window went up, and her abductor drove away.

At first she was too stunned to move. Then she was too angry to think straight.

“That damn thug-in-training should be grounded for the rest of his natural born days,” she ranted, limping in a circle.

“Harman Bishop is going to rue the day he messed with me,” she sputtered. “An accident of DNA does not give him carte blanche to commandeer my life.”

Jordan stood by the side of the road, one shoe off, one shoe on, the handcuff still dangling from her wrist. She looked toward the west. She knew it was west because the sun was descending in the sky and would soon disappear behind the rolling hills on the horizon. In the distance, she saw a car coming from the direction her kidnapper had gone. Was this her hero?

The vehicle, a very pricey luxury model, stopped in front of her. The door opened, and a man got out. He was tall, muscular and looked to be in his early thirties, just exactly the age her father would have chosen. As he moved toward her she noticed his confident, sort of predatory walk. She noticed he was late, too.

When he stopped in front of her, she saw that his eyes were hidden behind aviator sunglasses. His head dipped slightly as he looked down to her shoeless foot. “Did you lose your glass slipper, Cinderella?”

So Mr. Wonderful was playing dumb. “Are you my prince here to see if the shoe fits?”

“I’m here to see if you need help. Car trouble?”

“Not exactly.”

He frowned as he looked around the empty road. “How did you get here?”

She started to raise her arm, and the handcuff jangled at the end of her wrist. “I—I think I was kidnapped,” she said.

Was it technically a kidnapping when one’s own father was behind it? How could he do this to her? And how could this guy go along with it? What was in it for him? Most people sent a card when they wanted to reach out and touch someone. Her father picked a hell of a way to say he cared. And did he really? He hadn’t even hired a competent kidnapper. He got an amateur, a guy she could take with weeny moves, and now this winner. Men, she thought disgusted.

He continued to stare at her when she didn’t answer right away. “You think you were kidnapped? That’s a new one,” he mumbled. “Don’t you remember?”

Remember? He was taking the playing dumb thing to a new high, or low as the case may be. What if she couldn’t remember? That would make his life difficult, and she liked the idea of that. She embraced the saying “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” What if she gave this bozo enough lemonade to drown in?

“Who are you?” he asked.

He knew good and well who she was. Okay. That did it. Scaring the stuffing out of a girl then playing dumb was not the way to win a fiancée and influence people. She was going to make this as difficult as possible for him. She plastered a confused expression on her face, and it didn’t require Drama 101 to pull it off. She really was confused by the events of the past few hours.

With the handcuff dangling in front of her, she rubbed her fingertips over her forehead. “I—I can’t remember.”

He gave her a doubtful look. “You’re not going to faint, are you?”

Why not? she thought. She needed a ride; this guy needed a lesson. She made herself go limp and dropped like a stone.

Chapter Two

J. P. Patterson automatically reached out and caught the woman against him. As he lifted her limp body into his arms, her head settled onto his shoulder and he studied her face. It was fine-boned and lovely, with smooth, soft-looking skin. And she was heavier than she looked, which he attributed to muscle, because her pencil-thin skirt wouldn’t hide any fat.

Nine out of ten guys would be grateful this woman had fallen into their arms. Apparently J.P. was number ten because he wished she’d fainted in front of the other nine guys. This beautiful brunette had scam written all over her. He didn’t for a minute believe this act and cursed the fact that he couldn’t just let her hit the pavement. But he had no illusions about trying to get the truth out of her.

He had to give her credit. This scheme was definitely more elaborate and imaginative than the ever-popular sneaking into his hotel room and waiting naked in his bed. The dangling handcuff, the missing shoe and being stranded in the middle of nowhere were all nice touches. Her mission to meet him had been planned and executed with the precision of a military invasion. And that wasn’t ego talking. It was the voice of experience.

He didn’t flatter himself that women fell all over him because of his sex appeal and animal magnetism. The only magnet was his fortune. He’d made People magazine’s list of the fifty most beautiful people—Sexiest Gazillionaire it read under his picture. Again, nine out of ten men would be flattered. To him, it was simply more publicity he didn’t want or need.

Women threw themselves at him on a fairly regular basis. Just like this one in his arms. The question was, now what did he do with her?

This was the road to his house. It seemed obvious she’d had someone drop her off here so she could wait for him to come by, knowing he wouldn’t be able to leave her. He thought about setting her on the blacktop to see how fast the faint would last. He could simply drive away. Unfortunately, his mother had raised him to be a gentleman. He turned toward his SUV and managed to open the passenger door and get her inside.

He looked over his shoulder in the direction of town. He’d just come from there; the sheriff was there. Turning her over to the sheriff would be his best option. But it was a long drive and the estate was closer. Besides, his mother had just arrived for a visit, and she was waiting. He belted the stranger in and went around the front of the car, then entered the driver’s side.

He drove to the estate in a couple of minutes. Again he thought how precisely she’d planned her campaign as he braked in front of the closed security gates. He pressed the button on his remote control and the gates opened wide. He guided the vehicle up the long, tree-lined drive, then parked in the semicircular area in front of the house. Turning off the ignition, he glanced at the woman in the other seat.

She opened her eyes—big, beautiful brown eyes, he noticed—and sat up. How convenient.

“Where am I?”

Classic question and certainly in character for the part she was playing. But he was sure she knew exactly where she was. He could end her game any time, but he wanted to wait. It would give him a certain satisfaction to watch her reaction when she tripped up and the plan imploded. And she would trip up. He was certain of that, too.

“This is my home,” he said, opening his door. “I brought you here to call the sheriff and report the kidnapping.” He watched her closely.

“I can’t wait.”

A cool customer. Detail noted. He got out of the car and went to her side to swing the door wide. She slid out and her skirt rode up, revealing a flash of shapely thigh. A calculated move, like baiting a hook. He didn’t plan to be her unsuspecting mackerel. But he had to admit, if there was any silver lining to the situation, this view of tempting, tanned flesh was it. Then she was standing on the concrete driveway, wobbling because she was wearing only one high heel.

“You might want to take your shoe off,” he suggested, pointing to her foot.

A dainty foot, he noted. And her nylons were in shreds. That short Band-Aid of a skirt didn’t hide much of her legs and her thighs were pretty spectacular, too, even in the tattered panty hose.

To steady herself, she touched his arm. Her hand was small and warm against his skin, and his pulse spiked once before he drew in a deep breath to stabilize it.

She slipped off her high heel then straightened and looked it over as if she’d never seen it before. “Looks like real leather.”

“It does,” he agreed. “You apparently have a memory of genuine leather.”

“Apparently I do. Along with exceptionally good taste in footwear.” She shook her head. “I like this shoe, and I wish I knew where the other one was.”

The comment seemed sincere, but he would bet she wasn’t all that worried. Her accomplice was probably taking good care of it. “Let’s go inside.”

She turned and froze. Her jaw dropped as she silently stared for several long moments at his house. Either she’d really fainted, which he doubted, or she hadn’t peeked on the way up the drive to preserve the pretense that she’d passed out. Either way, her surprise seemed genuine.

“Good Lord, it looks like a castle. Turrets and towers and stones, oh my.”

“It is a castle. Very famous in this part of Texas. In fact that’s how the town of Castle Rock got its name.”

She rubbed her forehead. “I don’t remember if I’ve ever heard of it.”

He studied her, again waiting for a slip in her facade. A weakness in her expression. He found none. Not surprising since the rest of this operation had been planned so precisely and in such a detailed manner. He couldn’t believe her research hadn’t included information about where he lived, so he had to assume her apparent shock meant she was a very good actress.

Then he looked at the impressive stone walls surrounding the extensive manicured grounds of the estate. He studied the main entrance to the house, stately and towering above them. The sheer majesty of the building was something he always took for granted, along with the heavy double doors that led inside.

But he tried to put himself in her shoes, so to speak, he thought, glancing at her bare feet. He lived in the country on five acres and the security surrounding him was state of the art. If she’d been casing the place, he would know. That meant she probably hadn’t seen it in person. Up close, it must look pretty extraordinary.

He’d always thought so. “In the late 1800s, my family made more money in cattle than they knew what to do with. Someone on my mother’s side decided to buy an English castle. They took it apart and reassembled it here in Texas brick by brick.”

“That must have cost enough to feed a third world country for a year.”

“Probably.” He was volunteering a lot of information to someone who was trying to con him and could only chalk it up to pride in the family digs. Besides, he figured she’d done her homework and already knew the details. “We call it Patterson palace.”

“A palace,” she said, an odd expression on her face. Then she met his gaze. “Patterson? Is that your name?”

As if she didn’t know. “J. P. Patterson. And you are?”

“I wish I knew.” She shifted her bare feet and winced, then brushed the bottom of one bare foot across the top of the other. “Ouch. You wouldn’t think a palace would allow pebbles.”

“It’s not Camelot,” he said wryly. “Let’s go inside. My mother’s waiting.”

Her gaze narrowed as she looked up at him. “She is?”

“Yes.” He didn’t like the look on her face. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s just something about a guy in his thirties who lives with his mother.”

“Without a memory, you know this—how?”

“Instinct. Just an impression. I can’t explain it.” She shrugged. “If it’s all the same to you, maybe I’ll just take my chances back on the road.”

Her implication irritated him, and he felt compelled to defend himself. “My mother lives in a condo in Dallas. She’s here to visit.”

“If you say so. And since we’re here, I can call the sheriff. Like you said. I’d appreciate the use of your telephone.”

“After you,” he said, holding out his hand.

With an air of stubbornness, she lifted her chin and preceded him up the four steps to the entrance. When she stopped at the door, he reached around her and opened it.

She halted in the entryway, staring from side to side, then up at the ornately carved stone ceiling. “Wow.”

“This way,” he said. “Mother’s probably in the great room.”

Pride in the family digs took him only so far, and he was done now. The sooner he got the sheriff out here to deal with this faker the better.