“Yeah, I heard.”
Susannah’s eyes flew open. She hadn’t realized that Nicole was within earshot. She’d sent her little sister home with the Parkers hours ago, with instructions to clean her room and do her homework. Judging from how Nikki’s room had looked this morning, that should have taken her a couple of weeks.
Where was she? Susannah scanned the foyer, which was large and beautiful, the prettiest foyer of any ranch in the county. Her mother had decorated this foyer right before she died. Susannah had been fifteen at the time—Nikki a toddler. Susannah had been allowed to pick out the paneling, and she’d chosen a honey pine that she still loved just as much today.
Of course, she loved every inch of Everly Ranch, which had been in her family for six generations. Every hole in the knotty pine floor, every beam and timber and pane of glass. Every leaf on every peach tree in the thousand-acre orchard.
Finally, Susannah spotted Nikki lying at the foot of the staircase, her brown hair fanned out on the floor, just a shade redder than the wood. Her feet were cocked up on the third tread, the cordless phone resting on her stomach. It was her favorite position for a long chat with…
Probably with Eli. The new ranch boy over at the Double C had been spending a lot of time over here, in spite of Susannah’s objections that he was too old for Nikki. It was the new hot spot between Susannah and her sister. Just mention the name Eli Breslin, and things got ugly in a hurry.
Right now she ignored the sight of the phone. She wasn’t up to swimming in that swamp tonight.
“Yeah,” Nikki repeated, a little louder. “I heard.”
Susannah straightened. “You heard what?”
Nicole gave her an oh-brother look.
“Heard about your super-sized mess.” She kicked her bare feet and began using her toes to play with the banister. She knew that irritated Susannah, who actually cared how hard the servants worked.
Nikki had also changed into her tightest cutoff shorts, also guaranteed to annoy. The cream-lace dress she’d worn to the party was probably on a heap in her closet, right above a mildewing swimsuit or stinky sneakers.
“Yep,” Nikki continued when she didn’t get a rise out of Susannah on the first try. “A real mess. Everybody’s talking about it.”
“Everybody? That’s probably a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think? I’ll bet there are Bedouins in the Sahara who haven’t a clue.”
Susannah leaned toward the mirror over the end table and pretended to check her lipstick, although she’d chewed it off hours ago, back in Chase’s guest room.
“And speaking of messes, if I went upstairs right now and looked in your room, what would I find?”
She could see, even in the mirror, the glower that passed across Nikki’s face. She bit back a sigh. Teenagers were so…melodramatic. And the last thing she needed today was more melodrama.
Nikki swung her feet around and sat up, balancing the phone on one knee. “You’re unbelievable, you know that? Your engagement is falling apart, you’re the laughing stock of the whole county, and all you can worry about is my room?”
“Don’t be absurd. My engagement is not falling apart.”
“Oh, yeah? That’s not what I hear.” Nikki climbed to her feet. Her face was bright and feverish, as if she’d worked herself into a real state.
Susannah turned around, more disturbed than she wanted to let on. “What do you hear?”
“I hear that woman in the accident today was Chase’s secret lover. I hear she was trying to commit suicide because Chase was planning to marry you.”
Susannah’s stomach tightened. “Is that what Eli Breslin told you?”
Nikki scowled. “He’s not the only one saying it. You should have seen the Parkers, when they drove me home. They kept looking at each other in this totally shocked way. And then they’d look at me like, poor little kid, she doesn’t even know what’s going on.”
“I think you’re imagining things, Nikki. The woman in the crash today is just an old friend of Chase’s. She was coming to see him, but she’s a diabetic, and she had gone into insulin shock. That’s why she lost control of her car.”
This was the story she and Chase had agreed on, after they’d left Josie Whitford, pale-faced and frightened, lying in the guest room. As much truth as possible, they’d decided. Not a word of the impostor Chase. It was quite possible, judging from his intimate knowledge of Chase’s history, that he was someone from around here, and they didn’t want to tip him off. Of course, there still was a possibility that the “fake” Chase had been fabricated by Josie Whitford to advance some agenda they didn’t yet understand. Susannah felt sorry for the young woman, but she wasn’t buying her story wholesale. She still had some serious reservations.
Apparently Nikki did, too. She’d scrunched up her nose and mouth. “A diabetic old friend?” She snorted. “Do you expect me to believe that?”
All in all, it was a pretty good story. Still, she might have liked to try it out for the first time on a less cynical audience.
Nikki had scrunched up her nose and mouth. She looked very young when she did that, though of course she’d have died if anyone pointed that out.
She snorted. “A diabetic old friend? Do you expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t care what you believe.” Susannah shrugged. “If you prefer to invent lurid fantasies, that’s your choice. All I ask is that you not bore me with them. I’ve got to make some calls for the Burn Center tonight, and I’m tired.”
With a curse, Nikki tossed the phone toward its regular table, but she missed. The plastic went clattering to the floor.
“God, you really don’t give a damn about him, do you? I know you told me it was just a business deal really, whatever that means. Personally, I think it’s disgusting. You shouldn’t marry a man you don’t have one single feeling for.”
Susannah drew her brows together. “Nikki, that’s out of line. You know I care deeply about Chase.”
“Care deeply?” Nikki snorted. “I care deeply about my iPod. That’s not how you describe the man you’re going to marry. Eli says you just want the Clayton money. He’s right, isn’t he? You wouldn’t care if Chase had a hundred secret lovers, would you?”
Her tone was poisonous, even more insulting than usual. Susannah felt the blood drain from her face. Nikki had always been a handful, even as a toddler. She’d seemed older than her years, more precocious and demanding than such a little girl should be. Certainly more than Susannah, who had been forced into surrogate “motherhood,” much too early, knew how to control.
Susannah had always suspected that, behind Nikki’s brash facade, lay a painful insecurity. It made sense. Whether it was fair or not. Nikki probably felt abandoned by their parents, who had died together in a car crash so long ago she hadn’t had a chance to know them. So yeah, Susannah understood. She even ached for her stormy little sister, who didn’t have the memories Susannah had to sustain her.
She just hadn’t known what to do about it.
Maybe, she thought, looking at Nikki now, she had made a mistake, not fully explaining why she and Chase had agreed to a marriage of convenience. She couldn’t just gloss things over anymore, the way she’d done when Nikki was a child. Maybe, at sixteen going on forty, Nikki was old enough to handle all the facts.
“Sit down,” Susannah said.
Nikki looked wary. “Why? I don’t want to hear another lecture about Eli.”
Susannah