He knows. He’s going to ask me point-blank if Emily is his, and I’m not going to be able to lie…

“Tess?”

She turned toward Jared, her hand at her heart. In spite of her trepidation, a secret thrill raced through Tess. She couldn’t deny that she still felt something for Jared Spencer. But there was danger in the temptation he offered her. If she let Jared back into her life, the serpent would be sure to follow.

He gave her a bemused look. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and relaxed. He didn’t know about Emily. He couldn’t. “I’m just surprised to see you, that’s all.”

He smiled at her, and Tess’s heart began to pound in earnest. She was a grown woman, for goodness’ sake. She shouldn’t be reacting so strongly to a good-looking man.

But of course, Jared wasn’t just any man. He was her daughter’s father. That alone made him irresistibly sexy.

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

Welcome again to another action-packed month of exceptional romantic suspense. We are especially pleased to bring you the first of a trilogy of new books from Rebecca York’s 43 LIGHT STREET series. You’ve loved this author and her stories for years…and—you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! The MINE TO KEEP stories kick off this month with The Man from Texas. Danger lurks around every corner for these heroes and heroines, but there’s no threat too great when you have the one you love by your side.

The EDEN’S CHILDREN miniseries by Amanda Stevens continues with The Tempted. A frantic mother will fight the devil himself to find her little girl, but she’ll have to face a more formidable foe first—the child’s secret father.

Adrianne Lee contributes a terrific twin tale to the DOUBLE EXPOSURE promotion. Look for His Only Desire and see what happens when a stalker sees double!

Finally, Harper Allen takes you on a journey of the heart in her powerful two-book miniseries, THE AVENGERS. Guarding Jane Doe is a profound story about a soldier for hire and a woman in desperate need of his services. What they find together is everlasting love the likes of which is rarely—if ever—seen.

So join us once again for a fantastic reading experience.

Enjoy!

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

The Tempted

Amanda Stevens

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born and raised in a small, Southern town, Amanda Stevens frequently draws on memories of her birthplace to create atmospheric settings and casts of eccentric characters. She is the author of over twenty-five novels, the recipient of a Career Achievement Award for Romantic/Mystery, and a 1999 RITA finalist in the Gothic/Romantic Suspense category. She now resides in Texas with her husband, teenage twins and her cat, Jesse, who also makes frequent appearances in her books.

Books by Amanda Stevens

HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

373—STRANGER IN PARADISE

388—A BABY’S CRY

397—A MAN OF SECRETS

430—THE SECOND MRS. MALONE

453—THE HERO’S SON*

458—THE BROTHER’S WIFE*

462—THE LONG-LOST HEIR*

489—SOMEBODY’S BABY

511—LOVER, STRANGER

549—THE LITTLEST WITNESS**

553—SECRET ADMIRER**

557—FORBIDDEN LOVER**

581—THE BODYGUARD’S ASSIGNMENT

607—NIGHTTIME GUARDIAN

622—THE INNOCENT†

626—THE TEMPTED†

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Tess Campbell—Her little girl is missing, and in order to find her, Tess may have to reveal a secret she swore she’d take to her grave.

Jared Spencer—Six years ago, Tess left town without a backward glance. Now she’s walked back into his life, but before he succumbs to temptation, Jared has to know the truth about that night.

Royce Spencer—Taught all his life that winning is the only thing that matters, he will do anything to best his older brother, Jared.

Ariel Spencer—Is she frightened of her husband, or is she a willing accomplice in his dangerous machinations?

Cressida Spencer—She knows the sort of woman she wants for her son, and Tess Campbell is not the one.

Melanie Kent—One of the few people who knows Tess’s secret, she paid a huge price six years ago for her involvement with Royce Spencer.

Willa Banks—A dedicated volunteer or a suspect?

This book is gratefully dedicated to my editor, Denise O’Sullivan, without whom EDEN’S CHILDREN would not have been possible.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Prologue

“Mama?” Five-year-old Emily Campbell sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes as she tried to peer through the darkness. Someone was sitting beside her bed.

“Your mother’s not here. Go back to sleep.”

“I want my mama.”

“She’s not here, I said. Now hush.”

Emily began to cry. “I want to go home. Why can’t I go home?”

“Because your mother had to go away for a while, so she asked me to look after you. Remember? I told you that.”

Yes, but Emily still didn’t believe it. Her mama would never go away and leave her for this long. Where was she? Where was Grandma JoJo? Why hadn’t they come for her? A terrifying thought struck Emily. What if something had happened to them?

“I’m scared,” she whimpered.

“Why are you scared? You’re not hurt, are you? You’re not sick. I’m taking real good care of you, just like I promised I would. And look at all these pretty dolls…I got them just for you.”

It was true. Emily hadn’t been hurt. She’d been taken care of, although sometimes she was left alone for long periods of time, locked in this room. And she did have lots of toys to play with. They just weren’t her toys.

“Can I have Brown Bear?” she asked in a tiny voice.

A soft, cuddly toy was placed in her arms, but Emily pushed it away. “I want my Brown Bear.”

A frustrated sigh. “Are we going to have to go through this every night?”

Emily began to wail. “I want my Brown Bear! I want my mama!”

“Stop that!”

A hand touched Emily’s shoulder in the darkness, and she tried to flinch away.

“I’m not going to hurt you. It’s a picture of your mother. Put it under your pillow and it’ll make you feel all better.”

The picture was slipped into her hand, but Emily didn’t want it. She didn’t want it anywhere near her. The lady in that photograph wasn’t her mother, no matter how many times she was told differently.

“Look at your mama. Isn’t she pretty?”

“That’s not my mama.”

“Sure it is. It’s just been so long since you saw her, you’ve forgotten what she looks like, that’s all.”

It had been a long time since Emily had seen her mother. So very long. But she still remembered what her mother looked like. She had long, glorious hair, just like the lady in the fairy tale Emily loved so much, and a smile that made Emily feel all warm inside. The woman in the picture looked nothing like Emily’s mother.

But she didn’t put up a fuss this time. She took the picture and stuffed it underneath her pillow without a word because she didn’t want the light to be turned on. In the dark, she could make believe this really was her room, and that her mother was just down the hallway.

Sniffing back her tears, Emily lay down and curled up beneath the covers, closing her eyes and pretending to fall back asleep. She tried to imagine her mama sitting beside her on the bed, reading to her from the book that had been Emily’s favorite since she was little. “Good night, Mama,” she whispered, so softly no one in the darkness could hear her.

Chapter One

Eden, Mississippi

Tess Campbell sat in the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and tried very hard not to scream. Her nails dug into her palms as she listened in despair to the explanation of why the search for her five-year-old daughter, who had been missing for almost three weeks, was being scaled back.

The small office was crowded with law enforcement personnel and others involved in the search, but the only one who seemed capable of making eye contact with Tess at the moment was Naomi Cross, who worked for the Children’s Rescue Network, an organization founded to help parents of missing and exploited children.

Of all the people in the room, Naomi was the only one who truly understood Tess’s agony because Naomi’s own daughter had vanished ten years ago, the victim of an abduction with bizarre similarities to Emily’s.

Naomi had been a lifeline to Tess during the days following Emily’s disappearance. She’d provided the kind of emotional support and common-sense advice that only someone who had been through the same kind of hell could offer. But there was nothing Naomi could say or do now to ease Tess’s torment. Her only child was still missing, and the police were giving up. They’d written her off. Emily would now become another statistic.

Tess’s stomach knotted with tension. Each step of the investigation had brought its own special agony—the terror and panic during the initial, frenzied canvassing of the area around the school when her daughter had first gone missing, the pity Tess had seen in the eyes of the other parents as they’d try to reassure her that Emily would be found, safe and sound.

The second day had brought another parade of horrors as the ground search had been widened into the countryside. Bloodhounds had been brought in and divers had gone into the lake while Tess had waited helplessly by the phone.

But, then, the next step had brought renewed hope. Volunteers from all over the state began pouring in to help in the search, and a command center was set up to process incoming and outgoing information. The National Crime Information Center was alerted so that every law enforcement body in the country would have an accurate description of Emily in the event that someone might spot her.

Then came more waiting. More praying.

The national registries for missing and exploited children were notified.

And as the search progressed, a new reality had slowly settled over Tess. The terror and panic of those first few hours, the disbelief and lingering hope of the next several days eventually metastasized into a deep, seeping dread. Emily might not be coming back. Ever.

Tess had once heard someone on TV, another grieving mother, describe the disappearance of her child as a slow, torturous death. But it was worse than death to Tess because there was no finality, no acceptance. No goodbye. Just a nagging hole inside her heart that grew larger and larger with each passing day.

And now the next step had arrived. The search and investigation were being cut back.

“Don’t misunderstand me, Tess,” Sheriff Mooney was saying. “There’s not a man or woman in this department who won’t remain dedicated to finding Emily. But we have to be realistic. The volunteers have families and jobs they have to get back to, and we have other cases. We just don’t have the manpower or the resources to continue an all-out search.”

Tess closed her eyes, mustering her courage, clinging with every ounce of her strength to the belief that her daughter was still alive. “You can’t give up,” she said hoarsely. “She’s still alive! I know she is. I can feel it.” Her gaze shot to the photographs of Sheriff Mooney’s grandchildren mounted on the wall behind his desk. “What if it was one of them? Would you give up then?”

The sheriff flinched, as if her words cut a little too close to the quick. “We’re not giving up, Tess. That’s not what I’m saying.”

“It sure sounds like it to me,” she said bitterly. “What about the FBI?”

“They’ll continue to advise and offer technical support on the case, just as they have been. That won’t change.”

“But they won’t be a presence in the investigation, will they? They won’t leave an agent in Eden, because they’re giving up, too.” Tess leaned forward, her fists clenched so tightly her nails cut into her skin. But she welcomed the pain. It kept her focused. It kept her angry, and that was exactly what she needed at the moment.

She couldn’t afford to give in to her grief, to the bone-chilling terror that had racked her since Emily disappeared from that playground ten years to the day Naomi Cross’s child had gone missing from the same schoolyard.

No trace of Sadie Cross had ever been found, and the date of the abductions, along with the physical resemblance of the two girls and the similarities in their backgrounds, had prompted the police to theorize that the same kidnapper had taken both children.

But then two days after Tess’s daughter disappeared, Sara Beth Brodie, one of Emily’s kindergarten classmates, had been abducted from a nearby drugstore. She’d been found safe and sound a few days later, and as it turned out, her kidnapping was unrelated to the other two. But her rescue had buoyed Tess’s hopes just the same. Didn’t the police understand that Sara Beth’s safe return meant that Emily could still be found, too?

Or were they more convinced than ever that Emily had met the same fate as Sadie Cross? That ten years from now, no trace of Tess’s daughter would have turned up, either?

But there was a difference in the two cases. A week after Emily’s disappearance, a note had been discovered on the windshield of a vehicle parked in Tess’s driveway. The message, apparently written by a child, read: I come home soon mama.

Those words tore at Tess’s heart, gave her yet another faint ray of hope to cling to. Emily was still alive. She was still out there somewhere. The police couldn’t stop looking for her now. They couldn’t.

“What about the note?” She forced herself to speak in a rational tone, even though her mind raged against the terrible images of her daughter, alone and hurt, crying out for her mother. “It has to mean something.”

Lieutenant Dave Conyers, the lead detective on Emily’s case had been standing across the room staring out the window ever since Tess arrived. He was a tall man, thin, good-looking, with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. He turned now and faced her.

Like everyone else present, he looked exhausted, haggard and guilt-ridden, his face revealing all too plainly that he wished he were anywhere in the world but here in the same room with Tess. “I told you what the results were from the crime lab. They ran all kinds of tests on the paper, including electrostatic detection. A partial fingerprint was detected under ultraviolet, but when we scanned the print and ran it through the database, we didn’t get a hit. Nor was it Emily’s.”

Emily had been fingerprinted and issued a photo ID containing all her vital statistics her first year in pre-school. The program had been conducted by Naomi Cross’s group, the Children’s Rescue Network, to aid the police in just such a contingency. Tess had readily agreed to participate in the effort, but she’d never thought she would actually need the card. No parent did.

“We also had a handwriting expert compare the note with some of Emily’s school papers,” Lieutenant Conyers continued. “But his analysis was inconclusive. I hate like hell to say this, but the note could be a hoax.”

“No!” Tess said stubbornly. “I don’t believe that. It was from Emily. I know it was.”

“That’s what you want to believe. That’s what we all want to believe, but the expert couldn’t make that determination. Evidently, printing, especially by a child as young as Emily, is a lot harder to analyze than cursive writing.” He glanced at Tess. “You’re Emily’s mother, and you weren’t so certain at first the note was from her.”

“I know, but maybe that’s because she had to write it under duress. She was scared. Even an adult’s handwriting would be affected under similar circumstances.”

“That’s true enough,” Conyers agreed. “But the note itself doesn’t make much sense when you think about it. A message from a kidnapper is usually either a ransom demand or a taunt to the police or to the child’s parents. Why would the kidnapper allow Emily to write such a note, and then risk being caught by delivering it?”

“I don’t know,” Tess said numbly. “To let me know that she’s alive?”

No one said anything, but Tess could sense their doubt. And on some level, she knew Lieutenant Conyers was right. The note didn’t make sense. For one thing, it had been placed on the windshield of Naomi Cross’s Jeep Cherokee instead of Tess’s Ford Explorer. Naomi had been to see Tess that day, and her vehicle had been the only one in the driveway because Tess’s was parked in the garage. The SUVs were so similar in color that the initial assumption was that the kidnapper had mistaken Naomi’s vehicle for Tess’s, even though Tess’s was a much older model.

But maybe that wasn’t the case. Maybe someone had deliberately put the note on Naomi’s car to torment her as well as Tess.

Could anyone really be that cruel or that sick?

A day ago, Tess wouldn’t have believed it possible to plunge any deeper into despair. But now that the search for Emily was being scaled down, now that everyone else was going back to their normal lives, she knew what it felt like to be truly alone and helpless. This, the final step, was perhaps the most agonizing of all.

Something of her anguish must have shown on her face because Sergeant Abby Cross, a detective in the Criminal Investigations Unit and Naomi’s sister, said gently, “I know how all this must sound to you, Tess, but in spite of the setbacks, the search will continue. Calls are still trickling in on the hotline, and we’ll follow them up. We won’t give up on Emily. We won’t forget about her.”

Abby shoved back a lock of dark, glossy hair as she stared at Tess. She wasn’t as beautiful as her sister, Naomi, nor as tall and willowy, but there was compassion in her brown eyes. A softness in her smile in spite of her years in law enforcement.

Tess had liked Abby at once, and she wanted to believe her now. Wanted to take solace in Abby’s assurances. She was a good cop. With the help of an ex-FBI profiler, she’d cracked the Sara Beth Brodie case. She was working on Emily’s case now, and Tess wished that she was in charge instead of Dave Conyers. Abby had found Sara Beth. Maybe she could find Emily, too.

But in ten years, not even Abby Cross had been able to locate Sadie, her own niece, and Naomi had been forced to endure that slow death, to exist in the terrible purgatory of never knowing what had happened to her child.

One by one, Tess studied the faces around her, and she knew that the same thought was paramount on everyone’s mind. In the last ten years, three of Eden’s children had gone missing. Only one of them had returned. If they didn’t find Emily, if they never determined what had happened to Sadie, how many more children would be taken? How many more parents would have to suffer?

“TESS, WAIT A MINUTE!”

Tess had been heading across the parking lot to her car, but she paused now as someone called out her name. Turning, she saw Naomi Cross hurry across the asphalt toward her. Even from a distance, even in her despair, Tess marveled at the woman’s extraordinary beauty. She was tall and thin, with a flawless complexion and large brown eyes rimmed with thick lashes. She looked like a model as she hurried across the parking lot toward Tess.

By comparison, Tess knew her own looks had suffered since her daughter’s disappearance, so much so she hardly recognized herself in the mirror these days. She’d lost weight, and her face, thin to begin with, now appeared pale and gaunt. Her blue eyes were shadowed with grief and exhaustion, and her hair hung in a limp ponytail down her back. For Tess, makeup and hair appointments had become a thing of the past. It was all she could do to drag herself out of bed each morning and get dressed.

But it was more than Naomi Cross’s looks that provided a stark contrast. She exuded a strength and quiet dignity, garnered from her tragedy, that Tess knew she would never be able to muster.

Naomi stopped beside Tess and placed a hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”

Tess let out a ragged breath. “No. How could I be, after what they just told me in there?”

“I know what you’re feeling,” Naomi said gently. “When it first happens, you think nothing could be worse than learning your child has disappeared. But then comes the day when the police stop actively searching for her. When the volunteers all go home, the command center is shut down, and your daughter becomes just another face on a milk carton. Life returns to normal for everyone but you.” Naomi paused. “That’s when your faith is most sorely tested.”

Tess wrapped her arms around her middle. “I’m not sure I have any faith left.” She searched the early-morning sky. White clouds scattered across an intense, blinding blue, and the sun hovered in the east. It was late August, still hot and humid, the temperature marching steadily upward to the nineties. But in spite of the heat, Tess thought she could detect a hint of fall in the air. Or maybe it was her mood. Maybe it was a portent. The seasons would be changing soon. Would her daughter still be missing?

“I want her to come home. I want to hold her in my arms again. She’s just a baby. She didn’t deserve this. How could something like this happen?” she asked angrily.

When Naomi reached a hand to touch her arm, Tess flinched away. Immediately remorse set in. Naomi had been nothing but kindness. “I’m sorry,” Tess whispered, putting a trembling hand to her face. “I didn’t mean to lash out at you like that. I don’t do that. I don’t—”

“Lose control? Fall to pieces? Maybe it would help if you did.”

Tess wished she could fall apart. She wished she could scream at the injustice and cruelty of a world that would allow this to happen to an innocent child. She wished she could just let go, beat her fists against her chest, tear her hair, do something, anything, to give rein to her rage. But losing control wouldn’t help Emily, and control was about all Tess had left.

She glanced at Naomi and the hollowness inside her deepened. “How do you do it? After all these years, how do you keep going?”

Naomi glanced away. “Sometimes it might be easier to just give up, to lose all hope. To accept what fate has doled out to me. But then I think about Sadie out there somewhere, wondering if I’m still looking for her, and I make one more phone call. I follow up on that last lead. I do the next interview because if she is still alive, I want her to know that I haven’t given up. That I’ll never give up.”

“I won’t give up, either,” Tess said fiercely. “But the police have.”

Naomi squeezed her hand. “I know it seems that way now, but the case will remain open. Leads will be followed. My sister has put a major career change on hold until they find Emily.”

Tess lifted her head. “Career change?”

“Abby’s applied for acceptance at the FBI Academy, but no matter if she’s accepted or not, she’s not going anywhere until Emily is found. That’s how committed she is.” Naomi glanced over her shoulder at the sheriff’s station. “They all are, Tess. You have to remain committed, too. There are things you can do on your own to find your daughter, and the Children’s Rescue Network can help you.”

“I’ll do anything,” Tess said brokenly. “You know that.”

Naomi nodded. “The first thing is to stay connected with as many of the missing-children’s networks and foundations around the country as you can.”

There were so many of them, Tess had discovered. Most of them founded in memory of someone’s missing child, just like the Children’s Rescue Network had been founded in Sadie Cross’s memory. A year from now, ten years from now, would such a foundation be Tess’s only consolation, her only connection to a daughter she loved more that life itself?

“You’ll want to keep Emily’s story in the news and her picture in front of the public as much as you can,” Naomi said. “And you’ll have to find creative ways of doing that now that media interest is waning. You might also want to think about starting a Web site. We can help you with that.”

Tess wasn’t as proficient on a computer as she should be in this day and age, but she knew about the Internet’s power, its ability to reach millions of people in the space of a heartbeat. The rest she would learn.

“What else?”

Naomi paused. “You can go proactive.”

“What do you mean?”

“If the note I found is genuine, then the kidnapper has already made contact once, and he was willing to risk detection to do so. You could do another round of television and radio interviews, asking for your daughter’s safe return. It’s possible the kidnapper will respond to your pleas.”

Tess seized on her words. “Then you think the note was genuine. You don’t think it was a hoax as the police seem to.”

“I’m not an expert,” Naomi cautioned. “But I can tell you this. For a split second after I found that message, it crossed my mind that it was from Sadie. I know that sounds crazy. She’s fifteen years old now, almost a young woman, but I guess a part of me still thinks of her exactly as she was the last time I saw her.” A shadow darkened her expression, but her eyes were bright and dry. “The point I’m trying to make is that the note touched me in some way. I think a child wrote it.”

Relief welled inside Tess. “I think so, too. I think that child was Emily.”

“If she did write it, then we have to assume she’s still alive. And if she’s alive, someone may have seen her. A neighbor or a family member of the kidnapper may have suspicions, but for whatever reason, hasn’t come forward. You may have to increase the reward offer, and you may also want to consider hiring a private-detective firm to look at the investigation in a different way.”

Tess’s heart sank. Immediately after Emily’s disappearance, she’d drained her savings to set up a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information pertaining to the kidnapping. That was all the money she had in the world, and her cleaning service had suffered a major financial setback, primarily because she wasn’t around to supervise and coordinate the work.

For the last three weeks, she’d haunted the sheriff’s station every day, looking for any scrap of information, any bit of news that would give her hope, that would give her confidence the police were doing everything that could be done to find her daughter. She’d worked with the volunteers, stuffing envelopes, answering phones, passing out pictures locally and to the organizations that could distribute them state-and nationwide. No job was too tedious or too overwhelming for her to tackle. She would do anything in her power to bring her daughter home, but Naomi was asking her to do the one thing she could not do. She couldn’t raise the reward offer. Not alone.

As if reading her mind, Naomi said sympathetically, “The CRN can set up a fund to help you out financially, but it’ll still be expensive. And it could take a while for the donations to mount up. Is there anyone who can help you out immediately?”

Tess shook her head. “Emily and I have no family except for my mother, and she’s certainly not a wealthy woman.”

“What about Emily’s father?”

Tess grew instantly defensive. “What about him?”

“I know he’s dead, but what about his family? Could they help?”

“Uh, no,” Tess said awkwardly, realizing her initial response must have seemed a little strange. “They’re on a fixed income, too. They wouldn’t be able to help.” Not that his mother would if she could, Tess thought. Mildred Campbell had been dead set against her son’s marriage to Tess, and her attitude hadn’t softened even when Tess had nursed Alan through the worst of his illness, when she’d kept vigil night and day at his deathbed. The child Tess had been carrying had only served to remind the grief-stricken woman that as one life began another was ending.

And now it was Emily’s life on the line.

What about her father?

A shudder racked Tess at the mere thought of her secret being revealed after all these years. Emily was in grave danger at the hands of her kidnapper, but the note proved she was still alive. She could still be found and rescued.

But if the truth came out now, there might be nothing Tess could do to save her daughter.

Chapter Two

“Here’s your mail, Mr. Spencer. And your messages.”

Jared Spencer stood gazing out the window of his father’s office—his office now—idly gauging the flow of traffic on the street nine stories below. He turned as his secretary bustled into the room. “Thanks, Barbara.”

She held up a newspaper. “I brought you a copy of the Journal, too. Your father always liked to read the paper first thing in the morning with his coffee.” She paused tentatively. “I seem to recall you take yours black.”

“You have a good memory.”

She turned back to the door. “I’ll get you a cup right away.”

“No, don’t bother,” he said, distracted. “I can get my own coffee.”

Her eyebrows rose. “It’s no trouble.”

“That’s all right. I don’t expect you to wait on me.”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Spencer.” She fussed with the mail for a moment, then folded the paper just so on his desk. “Oh, dear.” Her bifocals hung on a chain around her neck, and she perched them on the end of her nose as she scanned the headlines. “That poor little girl is still missing.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She looked up over her glasses. “You haven’t heard about it? A five-year-old girl was kidnapped almost three weeks ago from a school playground in Jefferson County. They still haven’t found her.”

“That’s too bad.” Jared walked over to his desk and glanced down at the paper. The little girl’s picture stared up at him. Dark hair, dark eyes.

“What a beautiful child,” he murmured, struck by the girl’s arresting features.

“I know. I saw the mother on television the day after it happened. She looked just devastated, poor thing. I have a grandson the same age as the little girl. I kept wondering how I would feel if it was my daughter standing in front of those cameras, begging some madman to bring her child home.”

“I hope they find her soon.” For a moment, Jared couldn’t tear his gaze from the little girl’s picture. He hated to think of an innocent child being taken from her mother, suffering unspeakable horrors at the hands of some psycho.

“I hope so, too, but after all this time…” Barbara trailed off, shaking her head. “The world is a sad place. But I guess you know that as well as anyone.” Her gray eyes swept the spacious office. “It just doesn’t seem the same without him, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Is there anything else I can get you, Mr. Spencer?”

“Not at the moment.” He looked up from the newspaper and smiled. “I’m still just trying to get my bearings.”

“You’ll do fine,” she said in a motherly tone. She paused at the door on her way out and glanced back into the office. “It will be strange, though, without him.”

That was an understatement, Jared thought, sorting through his messages. He still hadn’t gotten over the shock of his father’s sudden death. He kept expecting to look up and see Davis Spencer stroll through the double office doors, demanding to know what the hell Jared was doing sitting behind his desk.

Jared’s father had died four weeks ago from a massive coronary that had taken everyone who knew him by surprise. Jared had always thought his father would live forever. He was too stubborn, too powerful, too manipulative to do otherwise, but in the end, he’d been just an ordinary mortal, succumbing to an all-too-human frailty.

And so Jared had been summoned back to the corporate office in Jackson after a six-year stint in New Orleans, where he’d overseen extensive renovations to the grand old Spencer Hotel on Royal Street. The Jackson Spencer, opened at the turn of the century, was the flagship of an elegant fleet of four hotels scattered throughout the South, but the New Orleans Spencer, established some thirty years later, was the most famous, a crown jewel shimmering with old-world ambience and charm in the heart of the Vieux Carré.

The assignment to restore the hotel to its former grandeur had been both challenging and grueling, but it had also been a good place for Jared to make his mark. He’d earned a lot of respect and accolades from his peers over the years, even if at times his drive and determination had made him one of the most hated men in the company. But that, too, had toughened him. At the age of thirty, he’d already become a man to be reckoned with.

Which was a good thing. His younger brother, Royce, had had six years to make inroads in the upper echelons of the Spencer Hotels Corporation while Jared had been out toiling in the trenches. For as long as Jared could remember, he and his brother had been fierce rivals, a situation encouraged by their father to prepare them for the “real” world.

Whether it was on the football field, in the classroom or climbing the corporate ladder, Jared and his brother had been taught at an early age that it was a winner-takes-all world. The loser, it was always understood, got nothing.

But where Jared had thrived on the competition, Royce had grown bitter over the years. He deeply resented Jared’s ascension to the presidency of the company, even though the position didn’t offer complete autonomy. Jared answered to a powerful board of directors, and his promotion could prove all too temporary if he didn’t live up to expectations. His age and experience troubled the old-timers on the board, and they would be watching him closely for any slipups, any lapses in judgment that would give them ample cause to remove him.

Jared didn’t know what his brother had to complain about. As executor of a trust set up by their father, Royce had acquired no small amount of power himself.

Frowning, Jared thumbed through the mail. The trust had come as a complete surprise. Unbeknownst to anyone except Davis Spencer and his attorneys, he’d devised the ultimate contest between his sons. The first to produce a Spencer grandchild was given, upon Davis’s death, complete control of a fifty-million-dollar trust.

But Royce didn’t seem to appreciate the fact that the real prize wasn’t the trust, but his family. He had two great kids, a son and a daughter, but unfortunately, he seemed all too preoccupied with the money and the power it brought him. And even that wasn’t enough.

“The board should have named me president,” he’d ranted after the funeral, when he’d learned of Jared’s appointment. “Their decision had nothing to do with who’s the better man for the job. You got that appointment solely because you’re the eldest. Don’t kid yourself into thinking you deserve it. You’ve been away for six years. Six years, damn it, while I stayed here and worked my butt off. While I catered to the old man’s every whim.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing down in New Orleans?” Jared retorted. “I paid my dues, too, Royce. I spent fourteen and fifteen hours a day, seven days a week, on that project. You want to talk about working your butt off? You want to talk about sacrifice?”

“Oh, please.” Royce gave him a killing look. “You were in New Orleans, for God’s sake. Do you know what I would have given to be in your place instead of stuck here with the old man?”

“You could have been there. That project was up for grabs six years ago. But you weren’t willing to start out at the bottom, like I was.”

“Oh, yeah, it was up for grabs, all right. And you grabbed it so fast, it made my head spin. You just couldn’t wait to get down there and prove yourself, could you? You couldn’t get out of Mississippi fast enough.”

That part was true, Jared thought, but not for the reasons Royce had mentioned. Jared’s leaving had nothing to do with their father and very little to do with ambition. He’d left Mississippi because of Tess.

Tess.

Funny how he hadn’t thought of her in years, but the moment he’d returned to Mississippi, the instant he’d smelled the roses at the lake house, her image had popped into his head. He’d been transported back in time, to the very moment when he’d first realized that Tess Granger, the daughter of his mother’s housekeeper, had grown into a beautiful, desirable woman.

He was just back from his graduate work at Harvard that summer, home for the first time in nearly two years. The family—including Royce and his new wife—had all driven up to the lake house for the weekend, but by Sunday afternoon, everyone except Jared had gone back to the city. He was finally alone, and the solitude suited him at the time because he’d been feeling pressured by everyone in his life, especially by his father, who insisted it was time for Jared, as the eldest son, to assume his rightful place in the company. And then there was the endless competition with his younger brother—it had all become overwhelming.

Jared had been restless that afternoon, in desperate need of a diversion. And just like that, there she was. A sun-kissed Eve, tempting and beguiling, skinny-dipping in his swimming pool.

Tanned and slim, her golden-brown hair trailing like a mermaid’s behind her, she glided through the water like a dream. She didn’t have a stitch on, but she seemed completely oblivious to her blatant sexuality.

Who was she? Jared wondered as he watched her from the French doors that looked out on the pool. And what was she doing trespassing on private property?

Not that he cared, of course.

When she turned and floated on her back, he saw that she’d pilfered one of his mother’s prized roses and brazenly tucked it behind one ear.

Opening the French door, he stepped out on the patio. She didn’t appear to hear him, but floated serenely on the water, eyes closed.

“Hello there.”

She gasped, sank, swallowed water, then began to flail wildly. Finally getting her balance, she plunged lower into the water, covering her breasts with her hands. “I…thought everyone was…gone,” she managed to sputter.

Jared grinned. “Obviously.” He walked over and picked up a towel from one of the patio tables and offered it to her.

It took her a moment to regain her composure, but she did so admirably. She gave him a cool, reproving look. “Turn around, please.”

Jared complied. Behind him came the sound of splashing water as she swam to the side and hitched herself out of the pool, then grabbed the towel from his hand.

“You can turn back around now.”

Swathed from neck to knee in white terry cloth, she lifted her chin defiantly. “I suppose you’re going to tell my mother about this.”

“Tell your mother?” How could he, when he didn’t know who she was or where she lived? On the Eden side of the lake? Most of the locals did. The north side was reserved for vacation homes and exclusive estates owned mostly by out-of-towners, and was sometimes derisively referred to as Sin City by the locals.

“You don’t know who I am, do you?” she challenged.

“Should I?”

“I’m Tess.”

“Tess?”

A look of annoyance flickered across her features. “Joelle Granger’s daughter. You remember Joelle, don’t you? Your housekeeper?” She said it almost as a jeer, as if she was chiding him for something other than his faulty memory.

Joelle had served him breakfast on the patio just that very morning, so, of course, Jared remembered her. But he also remembered her daughter as a scrawny kid with wild, curly hair and braces. This couldn’t be Tess.

“My God,” he said incredulously. “When did you grow up?”

She shrugged. “Oh, let’s see, I think it was just after you left for your Ivy League education up north. Harvard, wasn’t it? I guess you didn’t get back down here to the sticks very often after that. Except for the wild party you threw one New Year’s Eve that my mother and I had to clean up after.”

He winced at the censure in her tone. “Sorry,” he muttered, not knowing exactly what to say in the face of her animosity. “You were paid for your services, weren’t you?” He knew it was the wrong thing to say the moment the words left his mouth, and sure enough, her expression darkened.

“Oh, of course. We’ve always been well paid for our services, Mr. Spencer.”

“Call me Jared.”

“That wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“Why not?”

She gave him a withering look. “Because my mother works for you.”

“She works for my parents. That doesn’t have anything to do with you and me.”

“Sure it does.” She picked up her clothes.

“Wait,” Jared said impulsively. “Don’t go yet.” He hadn’t met a girl he’d found this interesting in ages.

“I have to go. My mother sent me over here to make sure the house was locked up after everyone was gone. But since you’re here, you can look after things yourself. You don’t need me.”

You’re wrong, Jared thought. He did need her. He hadn’t been a bit lonely until she showed up, but now the prospect of spending the evening alone…without her… “Look. We’ve obviously gotten off on the wrong foot here. Stay, and let me make it up to you.”

“How?”

“We could just hang out for a while. There’s no one here but me. I could fix you dinner, wait on you for a change.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And what would you expect in return?”

He hesitated a fraction too long. The towel she’d been clutching slipped a bit, and Jared’s gaze dipped.

When she saw the direction of his stare, her face flushed bright pink. “In your dreams, buddy.”

“Hey,” he said to her retreating back. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

She turned at that.

He nodded toward the soggy rose that still clung to her hair. “You’ve trespassed on private property and stolen one of my mother’s prized roses. Serious crimes that usually entail dire repercussions. But if you stay and have dinner with me, we’ll just forget all about it.”

She gave him a hard, measuring look. “There are two things you need to know about me, Mr. Spencer. One, I don’t respond well to threats.” She reached up and snatched the rose from her hair, tossing it to the ground at his feet. “But here. By all means, take back the rose. I don’t care much for the expensive hybrids anyway. All show and no substance, if you ask me. Like some people I know.”

“Ouch.” He grinned. “That hurt. What’s the second thing I should know about you?”

She gave him a sly smile. “Don’t worry about it. You’re never going to get close enough to need that information.” And with that, she disappeared inside the pool house to dress.

As last lines went, it was a good one, and Jared had been left staring after her, intrigued, amused, and aroused as hell.

She’d stolen his heart that day, but it wasn’t until the end of the summer that he’d learned what an accomplished thief she truly was.

Scrubbing his face with his hands, he leaned his head back against his chair and closed his eyes. But strangely enough, it wasn’t Tess’s image that troubled him. It was the little girl’s picture in the paper that haunted him. The missing child. For some reason, Jared couldn’t get her out of his head.

“WHAT ABOUT THE BANK?” Tess’s mother asked at dinner that night. She looked tired tonight, Tess thought. Joelle Granger was still a young woman, not yet fifty, but Emily’s disappearance had aged her. The lines in her careworn face had deepened, and her light brown hair had seemed to gray overnight. Like Tess’s, her hazel eyes were rimmed with shadows.

She, Tess, and Melanie Kent, Tess’s best friend, were seated around her dining-room table, but no one felt like eating, even though the chicken casserole was one of Joelle’s specialities.

Tess stared at her plate. Wherever Emily was, had she been given food? Or was she hungry, her little stomach swollen and knotted in pain?

Tess pictured her little girl, weak from hunger, too sick even to cry out…

Overcome by the images, she pushed away her plate. “I’m sorry, Mama, but I can’t eat a bite.”

“Try to force something down, honey. You can’t keep doing this.”

“Maybe in a little while.” The thought of food made Tess nauseated, so she tried to concentrate on something else. “I went to the bank this afternoon after I talked to Naomi Cross. There’s nothing they can do. I don’t have enough equity in my house to use as collateral, and there’s nothing in the business worth liquidating.” Tess’s cleaning service had been built primarily on her own blood, sweat and tears, commodities not necessarily valued by a loan institution. “Mr. Cobb was very nice, but as he pointed out, he isn’t running a charity organization.”

Melanie gasped. Her lovely features contorted in anger. She’d always reminded Tess of a classical painting with her large, lost eyes and brooding mouth. “He didn’t say that!”

“Not in so many words, but that was the implication.” Tess rubbed her forehead. “I understand their decision. I do. It’s business. They can’t afford to take on hard-luck cases, but my daughter’s life is at stake. You would think—” She broke off, shoving back her chair as she began stacking plates.

“Leave the dishes,” her mother scolded. “I’ll take care of them later.”

“No, Mama, let me do them. I need to keep busy.”

When her mother started to get up, Melanie said quickly, “Keep your seat, Joelle. I’ll help Tess.” Grabbing the plates, she balanced them in her lap as she deftly guided her wheelchair toward the kitchen.

“You girls don’t have to do that,” Joelle protested. “I’m perfectly capable of washing my own dishes.”

“You’ve done more than your share of dishes,” Melanie insisted, referring to Joelle’s long tenure as the Spencers’ housekeeper. “You deserve a little pampering.”

But even though both Joelle and Tess had installed ramps and made their homes as wheelchair accessible as possible after the accident, Joelle’s cramped kitchen was still hard for Melanie to navigate. She unloaded the dishes in the sink, then moved back to give Tess room to work.

“I’m just in the way,” she muttered.

Tess glanced over her shoulder as she started the dish water. “Stop that. You’re never in the way, and you know it. I don’t know what I would have done without you these last weeks.”

Melanie bit her lip. “I just wish I could have done more. I wish I could have prevented this. Oh, Tess, when I think about the way she looked that afternoon—” She broke off, her blue eyes filling with tears. “If I’d just waited with her a little longer…”

Melanie was the librarian at Fairhaven Academy, and she always stopped by every afternoon to see Emily before Tess picked her up from school. On that particular day, she’d been one of the last people to see Emily before she disappeared.

Tess sighed. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known. And besides, there were other teachers on the playground that day. They didn’t see anything, either.”

“I know, but—”

“But nothing. I meant what I said earlier. I don’t know how I would have gotten through this without you.”

Melanie’s eyes softened. “We’ve always been there for each other, haven’t we?” Melanie’s rehabilitation after the accident six years ago had been a long and painful ordeal, but contrary to what she’d said, Tess hadn’t been there for her. Not for a long time. And for that, she’d never quite been able to forgive herself.

She forced a smile. “We’ve been through a lot together, that’s for sure.”

“Too much,” Melanie said with a grimace, tucking her silky blond hair behind one ear.

Tess turned back to the sink, squirted soap into the hot water and began washing the dishes. As she worked, her mind drifted back in time, to the summer her and Melanie’s lives had been linked—and changed—forever…

Friends since childhood, Tess had always been the more practical of the two, the more studious, the one who never got into trouble while the impetuous Melanie seemed to hover on the brink of one disaster after another.

So it had come as a surprise to both of them when, in the summer after their junior year in college, Tess had been the one to fall in love, and with a man totally unsuited for her.

Jared Spencer was older, for one thing. More sophisticated. More worldly. Tess sometimes wondered how she had ever let him get under her skin the way he had. He wasn’t her type at all. She’d always held nothing but contempt for the southern aristocracy with their customs and attitudes and machinations.

But in spite of her disdain and no small amount of resistance, Jared had finally gotten to her. He’d pursued her arduously and won her over, and sometimes still, in looking back, Tess wondered why he’d been so persistent. Was it a simple case of the forbidden fruit? Had she, the housekeeper’s daughter, been an irresistible temptation to rebel against a lifetime of expectations?

Melanie, perhaps not to be outdone, or perhaps because the Spencer charisma had enthralled her, too, had promptly gotten involved with Jared’s younger brother, Royce, although she’d kept the relationship a secret. Tess hadn’t suspected a thing until she’d opened the door one night, and Melanie had collapsed, hysterical, into her arms.

It wasn’t until Tess had finally gotten Melanie to calm down that she noticed the marks on her friend’s arms, the telltale discoloration where someone had grabbed her roughly.

Tess stared at the bruises in shock. “Melanie, who did this to you?”

Melanie didn’t want to tell her at first, but then finally she whispered, “Royce.”

Tess gasped. “Royce Spencer? But you don’t even know him!”

Melanie glanced away, unable to meet her friend’s gaze. “We’ve been seeing each other.”

“Melanie! He’s married!” Tess blurted in horror. In fact, he was practically a newlywed. His sudden marriage had created quite a clamor within the family, Joelle said, coming as it had after his announcement that he would not pursue an MBA at Harvard, as his brother had done before him, but would instead go directly to work for the Spencer Hotels Corporation.

“I didn’t know he was married,” Melanie defended. “Not at first. And then when I found out, I was already in love with him. I tried to break it off. I swear I did. I know now what a mistake it was. Tess—” She clutched Tess’s arm. “You should have seen the look in his eyes tonight when he grabbed me. I thought he was going to kill me. He was completely out of control.”

Tess could hardly comprehend what her friend was telling her. Melanie, involved with a married man? Royce Spencer, capable not only of infidelity, but violence?

In truth, Tess had never cared much for Royce Spencer. He’d always been on the wild side, and just a little too sure that he could get whatever, and whomever, he wanted. He and Tess had had an altercation once at the lake house when he’d made a pass at her. Tess hadn’t told her mother about it because she’d handled things herself. She’d slapped Royce’s face, he’d laughed and apologized, and for a while, he’d pursued her even harder. But then he’d finally given up, and that had been the end of it.

But this!

“What happened?” she asked.

“I gave him an ultimatum,” Melanie said almost defiantly. “I told him if he didn’t leave his wife, I’d tell her about us.”

“Oh, Mel.”

“You hate me,” Melanie whispered. “I can see it in your eyes.”

“I don’t hate you.” What Tess felt at the moment was shock. Disbelief. And, yes, more than a little disappointed. Dating a married man—that just wasn’t done in her book.

“But you’ve lost respect for me,” Melanie said. “I don’t blame you. I don’t respect myself much at the moment.”

“We’ll sort all that out later,” Tess murmured, her mind still reeling. “What we have to do now is make sure you’re okay. Do you need to see a doctor?”

“He just grabbed me. He didn’t…hit me.”

“But he threatened you,” Tess said. “Maybe we should go to the police.”

“No!” Melanie’s eyes widened in terror. “Don’t you see? No one can know about this. Royce said if I told anyone, he’d kill me. And I believe him. You don’t know how dangerous he is—”

“She’s right,” Tess’s mother said from her bedroom doorway.

Both girls spun to face her. Wrapping a white chenille robe tightly around her, Joelle crossed the room to examine the bruises on Melanie’s arms. When she finally looked up, her eyes were grave, almost frightened. “No one can find out about this, Tess.”

“But he threatened her! We can’t let him get away with that!”

Joelle’s expression was resolved, worried. “You think the police would believe you? It would be Melanie’s word against Royce’s, and even if she did manage to convince the authorities she was telling the truth, the family would buy Royce’s way out of it. I’ve watched them get him out of one scrape after another for years, always making excuses for his behavior, always covering up for him. I’ve been afraid for a long time what that boy might be capable of.”

Tess stared at her, stunned. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“I didn’t think I had to,” Joelle said wearily. “I hardly ever let you go over to the lake house. I thought all I had to do was keep you away from him. From all of them. And it wasn’t hard, because you never seemed to like any of the Spencers anyway.”

“But Jared’s different,” Tess protested. “He would never hurt anyone.”

Joelle gave her an uneasy glance. “He may not be like Royce, but he is still a Spencer. It’s time you realize what that means, Tess. The Spencers will protect their own, no matter who they have to step on in the process. I want you to stay away from him. Do you hear me?”

“She’s right,” Melanie whispered. “You have to stay away from the Spencers before something like this happens to you.”

But what none of them had known at that moment, not even Tess, was that she was already irrevocably tied to the Spencers….

Shoving the memories aside, Tess finished the last of the dishes. She dried her hands on a dish towel, then went to kneel beside Melanie. “I need to talk to you.”

Melanie looked surprised by the urgency in Tess’s voice. “Of course. What is it?”

“I know where I can get the money I need.”

Melanie frowned. “Where?”

Tess bit her lip. “Jared’s back in Mississippi. I read in the paper that he’s been named president of the Spencer Hotels Corporation.” The article had featured a picture of Jared at a big charity event held at the New Orleans Spencer. He’d been accompanied by a beautiful redhead with a spectacular figure. His fiancé, the caption had said. Tess hadn’t wanted to look at that picture too closely, but somehow she hadn’t been able to tear her gaze from it. Jared was getting married. “I’m going to drive to Jackson tomorrow and see him,” she told Melanie.

Melanie gripped the arms of her wheelchair. “No!”

“It’s the only way, Mel. I have to do this for Emily.”

“Emily is precisely the reason why you can’t do this!” Melanie’s face had gone deathly white. “Have you forgotten why you left town that summer? Why you felt you had to marry Alan Campbell, a man you weren’t in love with? Have you forgotten what happened to me?”

“I haven’t forgotten anything.” Tess’s gaze dropped to Melanie’s wheelchair. “How could I?”

“You can’t tell him about Emily. You can’t!”

“I know all the reasons why I shouldn’t,” Tess said quietly. “I know what the dangers are. But what if we’re wrong about the kidnapping, Melanie? What if Royce had something to do with Emily’s disappearance, and I didn’t tell the police about him? What if he has her, and I’ve kept silent all this time?”

“Tess, listen to me,” Melanie said desperately. “You know that’s not possible. The police think that whoever kidnapped Sadie Cross ten years ago came back and abducted Emily. Royce had nothing to do with it. But if he finds out about her now, do you think he’d stand by and let that trust slip through his fingers? Even with Emily missing, if he thought you were still a threat to him, he’d come after you in a heartbeat and you know it. He might even come after me, too.”

Melanie’s pale, thin face hardened with hatred. “Look at me, Tess. Take a good long look. I’m in this wheelchair because I threatened Royce Spencer. He’s the one who forced us off the road that night and left us both for dead.”

“I know you’ve always thought that, but the police—”

“Wouldn’t even investigate. They never even went out to check Royce’s car. It was all swept under the rug, just like it would be now, if you threatened the Spencers. But you thought it was Royce, too, that night, Tess, or else you never would have left town. You would have stayed and fought the Spencers if you hadn’t been afraid for your life. And for your baby’s life.” Melanie cast a glance toward the kitchen door, then lowered her voice so that Joelle wouldn’t overhear them. “You burned your bridges by keeping silent, and that took extraordinary courage. Don’t get cold feet now. Think of everything you’ve done to protect your daughter.”

It was true. Tess had gone to great lengths to guard her secret, not the least of which had been changing Emily’s birth certificate. Alan Campbell had been a medical student before he’d gotten too sick to continue his studies, but he’d still had connections at the hospital in Memphis where he’d trained. He’d had one of his friends who worked in medical records change the entry of Emily’s birth from April to August, a full year after Tess had left Eden, as well as the date on all Tess’s medical records.

All she’d had to do then was apply for a corrected birth certificate from the state. And since Emily was small for her age, no one had questioned the four-month discrepancy in her development when Tess had returned to Eden two years later. No one knew Emily’s true birthday except for Tess, Joelle, Melanie and Emily’s pediatrician. And there was no way Royce could get his hands on those records.

“Please, please, think about what you’re doing,” Melanie begged. “You can’t tell Jared the truth. You can’t.” Only one other time had Tess seen the same level of terror in her friend’s eyes. “You can’t take the chance that Royce would find out. He’s still dangerous. He got away with attempted murder back then, and his family helped him. They’d help him now, too, if they had to. For God’s sake, don’t bring those people back into our lives.”

Tess glanced up at her friend. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have a choice. They have money and I don’t.”

“Yes,” Melanie said bitterly. “And what if Royce uses his money to make certain Emily stays missing forever? Have you considered that?”

Chapter Three

Secrets have a way of coming back to haunt you, Tess’s mother had warned her that summer. As Tess hovered nervously in Jared’s office doorway the next day, she felt almost sick with apprehension. The prospect of what she was about to do terrified her.

Melanie was right. The consequences of Tess’s actions today could be dire. The threat that had driven her from town—and from Jared’s arms—that summer still posed a grave danger. If he refused to help her, she could be risking everything for nothing. She could be putting her daughter in even more jeopardy.

But what choice did she have? What choice had she had six years ago?

Tess swallowed and took a fortifying breath, slowly, deeply, to calm herself, repeating the litany she’d chanted to herself all through the sleepless night. I’m doing this for Emily.

Across the room, Jared stood at the window, oblivious to her presence, and for a moment, the urge to slip away before he noticed her was almost overwhelming. But Tess hesitated, her gaze moving over him, drinking in the familiar lines of his body. The wide shoulders. The narrow waist and slim hips. He was just as tall as she’d remembered, his hair still dark.

In point of fact, Tess had forgotten nothing about Jared Spencer because she still dreamed about him. She still thought about him at night, after Emily had gone to sleep, when the TV was turned off and the house settled into deep silence. Sometimes lying in bed, unable to drift off, Tess would wonder about what might have been, but mostly she thought about what was never meant to be.

She and Jared had come from two very different worlds—his one of wealth and privilege, hers one of hard work and sacrifice. Still, it might have worked, they might have made it work, if it hadn’t been for a series of events that summer that had changed Tess’s life—and Melanie’s—forever. The night Melanie had showed up at Tess’s door had only been a portent.

But Jared had loved her once, Tess thought, her eyes misting. He’d once promised her there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her.

Would he feel that way now when he found out the truth…?

“Promise me,” Tess whispered as she and Jared lay on his boat, watching the stars turn on one by one in an indigo sky. They were alone on the lake, drifting aimlessly, neither of them anxious to return to shore. To reality. “Promise you won’t say anything until I’m ready.”

Jared rolled to his side and propped himself on his elbow, gazing down at her. “They’re going to find out about us sooner or later, Tess. They may even already know.” He trailed a finger down her bare stomach, making her shiver. “Why are you so afraid?”

“You know why. I’m not the sort of girl your parents would want to see you bring home. They won’t approve of me and you know it.”

He hesitated, frowning. “They will in time.”

“But what if they don’t? What if my mother loses her job?”

“You think she’d get fired because of us? I wouldn’t let that happen.”

“Maybe you couldn’t stop it. Maybe they’d kick you out, too.”

“I’m not a kid, Tess. I’ve got my own place. I’m not exactly worried about being homeless.”

“But you’re destined to take over the company someday. It’s what you want. Your father could force you out because of me.”

“Stop borrowing trouble. That’s not going to happen, either.”

He was trying to reassure her, but Tess longed to hear him say that he didn’t care if it did happen. He could be happy without the Spencer money, without the prestige and power, so long as he had her.

But he didn’t say it, and Tess was afraid his silence spoke volumes.

She closed her eyes as his fingers whispered along her skin, barely touching her and yet eliciting a response so needy, so primal, she hardly recognized herself. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to her. She was too levelheaded. And she didn’t even like the Spencers.

But Jared was different. He always had been, and Tess was only now starting to admit to herself that she’d nursed secret feelings for him for years. Maybe that was why she was so reluctant to bring their relationship out into the open. Jared Spencer was a fantasy come true. She didn’t want reality screwing up everything. When his family found out about them…if they made him choose…

Tess shivered, and Jared pulled her even closer.

“I’ve got an idea,” he murmured.

“What?”

“My family’s having a celebration here at the lake next week. It’s my parents’ anniversary. I want you to come as my date. Maybe once you get to know us, you’ll realize we aren’t the monsters you seem to think we are.”

“I can’t,” Tess said in alarm. “My mother has to work that night, and I promised I’d help her.”

Jared rolled to his back and stared at the sky. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Why not?” she challenged. “I’m not ashamed of what my mother does for a living. If it’s good enough for her, it’s good enough for me.”

“Still wearing that chip on your shoulder, Tess? Still think you’ve got something to prove?”

“It’s not that.” She drew her knees into her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. “I just want you to see me for who I really am. Don’t expect me to change just because of us.”

“Then why should I have to change?”

“I never said you did.”

“Not in so many words, but there’s always this underlying tension when we’re together,” he said. “I always feel as if I have to make excuses for who I am and for what my family has. You put up defenses that I don’t know how to break through.”

“If I’m so much trouble, why do you even bother?” she asked, stung by his words.

“Because no matter how hard you try to push me away, I can’t stop thinking about you.” He tugged her down beside him, holding her close, discarding her bathing-suit top in one fluid motion. “I can’t stop wanting you,” he whispered.

The night air swept over Tess, cooling her, drawing an inevitable response. But Jared was there to keep her warm. Jared was there to cover her nakedness with his, making her want him so badly Tess could hardly believe that just a few short weeks ago, she’d never been with a man, never experienced the intense pleasure of lovemaking.

But Jared had changed all that.

He kissed her deeply, making her melt in his arms. Making her sigh his name.

“Meet me,” he whispered in her ear.

“When? Where?”

“I’m going to New Orleans tomorrow, but I’ll be back next week for the party. Meet me down by the lake after dinner. I can’t spend the whole evening under the same roof with you and not touch you.”

“Touch me now,” she begged.

And he did. Over and over….

As the memories spun away, Tess saw that Jared had turned from the window and was staring at her. Her face flushed hot, and she braced herself for his reaction. Her mouth dry, the muscles in her throat taut and aching, she stared back at him. And for the life of her, she couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

But it didn’t matter because his first words said it all.

“May I help you?” he asked in a tone that held not the slightest note of recognition.

THE YOUNG WOMAN who stood in his doorway looked as if she might turn and bolt at any second. When Jared started across the room toward her, she did exactly that.

“Wait!”

She hesitated, glancing over her shoulder. Uncertainty flickered in her eyes.

“Are you lost?” When she didn’t answer immediately, he said, “Whose office are you trying to find? Maybe I can help you.”

Resentment flashed in her hazel eyes. “I’m not lost. I came here to see you.”

“Do we have an appointment?”

“No.” Her chin lifted. “I slipped passed the receptionist in the lobby. And your secretary wasn’t at her desk.”

He cocked his head slightly, studying her. “Do I know you?”

“I’m Tess,” she said, and now it was annoyance that settled over her features, precisely the way it had six years ago when he’d failed to recognize her.

Stunned, Jared could only stare at her. Back then her transformation from a gangly teenager to a striking young woman had taken him by surprise, but this new metamorphosis was even more shocking. And disturbing.

He wouldn’t have recognized her. Not in a million years. Her face was pale and drawn, with dark circles underneath her eyes and deep pain within. And she was so thin! Not fashionably slender, but skin and bones, as if she’d been sick recently and hadn’t completely recovered. She wore a slim, dark skirt and white, sleeveless blouse, but the elegant lines of her clothing did little more than hint at the curves she’d once had. The curves he still remembered so well.

She’d pinned up her hair, taming the curls that used to cascade down her back so freely. Gone was the luster, the golden highlights that had glinted like fire in the sunlight. He’d always loved Tess’s hair, Jared thought with a stab of regret he didn’t want to analyze too closely.

It was he who stood speechless now.

She took a tentative step inside his office. “If you have a moment, I’d like to speak with you.”

At least her voice hadn’t changed. It was low and slightly husky, not as overtly sexy as Demi Moore’s or Kathleen Turner’s but close. When she’d used that voice to whisper to him, to tell him how much she loved him, how much she wanted him…

It had been a lie, of course. She’d played him for a fool that summer, and he would be crazy if he gave her anything more than the time of day.

He glanced at his watch and frowned. “I have a meeting in fifteen minutes. I can spare you ten of those.”

Some of the old resentment flashed again in her eyes, but something else, another emotion he couldn’t quite define, subdued it. She nodded and walked into his office.

He motioned for her to take a seat and he moved around his desk, putting the heavy expanse of granite between them. “So what can I do for you?”

“First, let me say, I heard about your father, and I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” Jared said curtly. He wished he could take some satisfaction in the pain he saw in her face, but he couldn’t. Not even after what she’d done.

“So this is all yours now,” she said softly, glancing around the commodious office. Her gaze came back to his. “Just the way it was always meant to be.”

He shrugged. “Somehow I don’t think you came here to congratulate me.”

Regret flickered in her eyes. Regret for what she’d done? For what she’d thrown away?

She placed her purse in her lap, the fingers of her right hand moving back and forth over the clasp, squeezing and releasing, squeezing and releasing. She was obviously nervous. Jared couldn’t imagine what she had to say to him after all these years. And though he had a good deal he’d like to say to her, he held his tongue.

“I realize you’re a busy man, so I’ll get right to the point.” Her chin lifted slightly. “I need money. A lot of it.”

He schooled his outward reaction, but inside, Jared was astounded. Tess Granger was the last person he would have expected to come asking for money. Six years ago, she’d worn her pride like a shield, against him, against his family. Against the whole world, he sometimes thought.

And now here she was, with her hand out.

“That’s a little ironic, don’t you think? That you would come here, of all places.”

Color tinged her pale cheeks. “This isn’t easy for me. Believe me, if there’d been any other way…” She trailed off, closing her eyes for a moment. “But I thought…we were close once—”

He cut her off. “Do yourself a favor, Tess. Don’t go there.”

The flush deepened, but anger glinted in her eyes.

“All right,” she said in a grim, determined voice. “I’ll put it as simply as I can. My daughter is missing, and I need money to get her back.”

“Your daughter?” Jared’s gaze dropped to her left hand. She wore a thin, gold band around her third finger. “You’re married?”

“I was.” Her gaze met his without wavering. “My husband died a few years ago. I have a five-year-old daughter named Emily. Almost three weeks ago, she was kidnapped from a school playground. We don’t know by whom or where she was taken. The police have—”

“Wait a minute.” Jared picked up the newspaper from his desk and opened it to the picture of the missing child. For some reason, he hadn’t been able to toss the paper out. “Is this your daughter?”

Tess’s face grew even paler as she stared at the photograph. “Yes. That’s Emily.”

Jared turned the paper so that he could study the picture. He was struck, as he had been yesterday, by the extraordinary beauty of the child. In spite of her dark hair and eyes, she looked a lot like Tess, although he hadn’t made the connection before, at least not consciously. But now he could even see that same damnable pride in the way the little girl held her chin, that same glow of defiance emanating from her brown eyes. And also like Tess, there was something exquisitely vulnerable about the child, something that brought out a protective instinct in Jared he never even knew he possessed. The thought of someone taking that innocent little girl, harming her—

He glanced up at Tess. “I’m sorry. I’ve only been back in Mississippi a few days. I’ve been living in New Orleans for the past six years.”

“Yes, I know. I…heard,” she stammered, as if not wanting to reveal how she’d come by the information. Had she been asking about him? Keeping tabs on him? Jared was hard-pressed to believe it considering their final conversation.

“I heard about the kidnapping, but I never dreamed the victim was your daughter.” He got up and moved around the desk to stand in front of her. “What happened?”

Tess’s eyes filled with tears, and for a moment she struggled for composure, putting a hand to her mouth as if to suppress her emotions.

No matter how much he’d hardened his heart during the past six years, Jared couldn’t resist that. She was so obviously a woman in agony. A woman who desperately needed help. He sat down beside her, not taking her hand, but finding that he wanted to.

“What happened?” he asked again.

She drew a quivering breath and turned to face him. “I don’t know how much you remember about Eden, but Emily was kidnapped from the playground at Fair-haven Academy, a private school on the north side of town. Do you remember it?”

“A big, ivy-covered building, manicured grounds?”

Tess nodded, and Jared wondered if she had any idea that she’d just presented him another irony. Tess Granger, a fierce and proud member of the proletariat, sent her child to a private school, just as the Spencers had done for generations. Just as she’d once ridiculed them for doing. “Don’t try to change me,” she’d warned him over and over. He’d never tried to change her. All he’d ever wanted to do was love her, but that hadn’t been enough, he thought with an edge of bitterness.

“When I went to pick her up that afternoon, the teachers couldn’t find her. She’d been with a group of her classmates on the playground, but no one saw her wander off. No one saw anything. No cars, no strangers, nothing. It was as if she vanished into thin air.”

“The little girl who disappeared a long time ago,” Jared mused. “She went to Fairhaven, too, didn’t she?”

Tess nodded. “Her name was Sadie Cross. No trace of her was ever found. Emily disappeared on the anniversary of Sadie’s abduction.”

A chill crawled up Jared’s backbone. “What do the police make of that?”

“They think there’s a connection. Not only did Emily disappear on the anniversary of the abduction, but she also bears a resemblance to Sadie. Both have dark hair and brown eyes.” Her gaze settled briefly on Jared’s face before she glanced away again, as if she couldn’t quite meet his eyes. “A profiler was brought in. He thought that Sadie’s abductor might have taken her to replace someone in her life, a child who had died perhaps, and that ten years later, Emily might have been taken to replace Sadie.”

The chill inside Jared deepened. He had a sudden vision of the lake, of the secrets that could be hidden below the crystalline waters. “Is it possible that Emily was taken on the anniversary of Sadie’s disappearance just to throw off the police?”

She looked almost stricken by the idea. “I…guess it’s possible. The police have no real leads, no evidence, no clues except for a note that was found on a car in my driveway.”

“A ransom note?”

“No, a note from a child that said…she’ll be home soon. The police think it could be a hoax, but I know it was a message from Emily. I know she’s still alive, but the police have given up on her.”

“What do you mean, the police have given up on her?” Jared said with a frown.

“They’ve scaled down the search. Hundreds of volunteers came from all over the state to help in the initial ground search, but now, after so much time has passed…Emily could be anywhere.” Tess wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “But I don’t care where she is. I don’t care what I have to do to find her. I’m not giving up. I’ll never give up.”

She was so close and she seemed so frail, so distraught. The desire to touch her was so strong that Jared rose and strode over to the window, putting distance between them. “You said you needed money.”

“I’ve offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to her whereabouts, but that may not be enough. And I want to hire a private investigator, especially now that the police have cut back on their search. All that takes money, and I don’t have any,” she said simply. Once, there might have been a spark of defiance in her tone, but now she merely sounded…desperate.

Jared turned to face her. “How much do you need?”

She bit her lip. “I’ve been told the reward should be at least fifty thousand dollars. I don’t have any idea how much a private investigator will cost.”

He walked over to his desk, sat down, and pulled out his checkbook. “Do you have anyone in mind?” When she shook her head, he said, “We’ve used a firm here in Jackson on occasion. The guy in charge knows his stuff. I’ll be happy to give you his number.”

“Thank you.”

Jared filled in the check, scribbled his name, then handed it across the desk to her.

Her gaze lifted to his. “Just like that? No…questions asked?” The intense relief in her eyes was almost painful to witness.

“Your child is missing,” he said grimly. “I think that pretty much answers all my questions.” He nodded toward the check. “Will that be enough to start?”

She glanced at the amount and gasped. “I didn’t mean…that’s too much…”

“You said you didn’t know how much it would take. Will that get you started?”

She seemed overcome by emotion. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she finally managed to say. “I’ll pay you back. Every cent of it, no matter how long it takes me.”

He held up a hand in protest. “Don’t worry about that now. Just find your daughter. Will you keep me posted?”

Fear flickered across her features. “There’s one other thing.”

“Yes?”

She glanced down at the check in her hand. “I don’t know how to say this after you’ve been so generous.”

“Just say it.”

“Could this remain confidential?”

Annoyance darted through him. “If you think I’m going to issue a statement to the press—”

“That’s not what I meant,” she cut in. “I’d…rather your family not know.”

He gave her an exasperated look. “They’re not the ogres you’ve always made them out to be, Tess. Do you really think any one of them would have refused to help if you’d come to them? Even after what you did that night—”

Tess rose swiftly, as if she suddenly couldn’t wait to get out of his office. “Just promise me.”

“You’ve always been one for extracting a lot of promises, but it seems to me you’ve never been that great at keeping them.”

She gave him a hard, brittle look. “Only when I had good reason not to.”

“Is that so?” He stood and walked around the desk to face her. She still looked as if she wanted to flee, but to make sure she didn’t, he reached out and took her arm. Awareness shot through him. “Why did you do it, Tess?”

“What does it matter?” she asked. “It was a long time ago.”

“Really? Because it seems like yesterday to me.”

“Jared—”

It was the first time he’d heard her say his name in six years, and he couldn’t help but respond. The throaty quality of her voice…the way she gazed up at him…

“Just tell me why,” he said almost savagely.

A hint of the old rebellion glinted in her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about that night. What’s the point?”

“The point is—” He drew her slightly toward him. “You took something valuable that night, Tess. Something that didn’t belong to you. And then you just walked away. I’m not letting you leave here until you tell me why.”

Chapter Four

Because your brother wanted me dead, Tess almost blurted.

She caught herself in time. She couldn’t tell Jared about the conversation she’d overheard that night between Royce and his wife, Ariel. She couldn’t tell him about the accident that had left her best friend in a wheelchair, because Royce Spencer was still a threat. His motives for wanting Tess and her daughter out of the way were as strong as ever.

He had his own children now, Tess had read somewhere. A boy and a girl. The perfect family. But Emily would always remain the first Spencer grandchild. The heir to a secret trust that only a handful of people had known about until Davis Spencer’s death.

And that was why Tess had left town. That was why she’d married Alan Campbell, a young man who had been just as lonely and scared as she was that summer. Alan had given Tess his name so that Emily could be born a Campbell. And in return, Tess had watched over him, remained by his side until he’d succumbed to the AIDS-related disease that had ravaged him.

But she could tell Jared none of that.

She shouldn’t have come here, Tess thought in despair. She should have found another way to get the money instead of opening up all these old wounds. She’d long ago resigned herself to the fact that she and Jared were never meant to be, but she’d taken comfort in the knowledge that she’d done the right thing back then. She had Emily, and they were both safe.

But her daughter was no longer safe. Emily was missing, and in order to save her, Tess had willingly walked back into a den of lions.

A shudder ripped through her as she thought back to that night. As she remembered the fear and desperation that had driven her from Jared’s arms….

“Tess, I swear. I’ve never seen you like this. You’re as nervous as a cat,” her mother scolded. “What’s wrong with you?”

They were standing in the spacious kitchen in the Spencers’ lake house, preparing for the anniversary celebration. Though it was to be a small, intimate affair, a caterer had been brought in from the city to prepare the meal, but it was Joelle’s job to keep everything running smoothly. And since the caterer had arrived shorthanded, Tess had been pressed into serving.

She’d grown more nervous as the evening wore on. What if she spilled something—the three-thousand-dollar bottle of wine Davis Spencer had purchased at an auction to much fanfare and publicity—all down the front of Cressida Spencer’s white gown?

“Sorry, Mama,” Tess muttered as she righted a crystal champagne flute she’d almost toppled. “I’ll try to be more careful.”

Joelle frowned at her. “Is something wrong, honey? You look a little pale, and you haven’t been yourself for days. Are you coming down with the summer flu?”

“I’m fine, Mama. Just a little tired.”

But it was more than that. Tess’s period was almost a week late, and she was never late. She tried to tell herself it was just stress, but what if she really was pregnant?

I can’t be, she thought desperately. She and Jared had been so careful. They’d always used protection. And they hadn’t been together that many times anyway.

It only takes once, a little voice taunted Tess.

“What are you going to do?” Melanie had asked Tess earlier when she’d driven Tess out to the lake house.

“I’ll have to tell Jared,” she said.

“What if he wants you to get rid of the baby?”

Tess had recoiled in horror. “He wouldn’t!”

“What do you think he’s going to do, Tess? Marry you? Spencers don’t marry ordinary people like us. They find ways to get rid of us.”

Trying to block out her friend’s warning, Tess whirled back to the counter, away from her mother’s suspicious scrutiny. But the sudden movement brought on a wave of dizziness. As Tess grabbed for the counter to steady herself, her hand hit one of the goblets, knocking it to the floor. French crystal shattered against African slate.

Horrified, Tess dropped to her knees and began picking up the shards.

“I hope you realize that glass was Lalique,” said a cool voice above her.

Tess looked up, dreading to see who stood over her. The white silk dress came into focus first, then the diamonds around her wrist, then Cressida Spencer’s smooth, lovely features. Tess’s heart began to pound. In truth, she’d always been a little frightened of Jared’s tall, blond mother.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.