Merry Christmas, Daddy. SUSAN MEIER
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“Because people who don’t have money are always suspicious of people who offer it so freely.” Smiling smugly, she tossed a can into a cupboard. “There’s a catch. I know there is, so I’m not buying into this.”
“What if I told you there was no catch?” he asked.
“There’s always a catch.”
“Not this time.”
His quietly spoken statement stopped her. “You’re kidding? You’d let me live here for eighteen months and you’d shell out enough money to take care of my other expenses?”
“I have money. You need it. And you’d be giving up your holiday. Two-thirds of December and a few days into January. To me it’s worth it.”
Flabbergasted, she shook her head. “You rich people kill me.”
“Why?” he countered. “I’m offering you a simple way out of this and you’re too…too…”
“Stupid?” she inquired, her eyebrows raised questioningly.
“Stubborn,” he corrected her, “to take it. Why?”
“For a million reasons,” she said. “First of all, I don’t know you.”
“Ah, come on. Everybody in this city knows me, at least by reputation—good reputation, I might add. Even you, if you’re honest. In spite of the fact that you think my parties are too loud and too long, you know I’m basically a person of integrity. So, saying you don’t know me is no excuse.”
What he said was true. She did know him by reputation, but more than that she knew his family. Everybody knew his family. They weren’t merely pillars of the community. Until a few years ago when they retired in Georgia, they were the community. The most generous, most benevolent people in town…
Which made his offer even more than tempting. Knowing the family she’d be visiting were such likable, easygoing people made his offer possible. Very possible. Rent and expenses for eighteen months. She could actually quit her job as a waitress. Study full-time. Graduate early.
Suddenly he turned and strode toward the door. “I’ll tell you what, since this was a spur-of-the-moment idea, I’m going to give you some time to think about it. I’m leaving in my family’s private plane Friday afternoon at two, municipal field. If you’re not there, I’ll understand.” He paused and faced her again. “But if you want to come with me, pack for three weeks.”
Kassandra watched the door close behind him, then fell into her chair. She could tell from the way he issued that last order that he expected her to be at that airport at two o’clock on Friday.
He’d made an incredibly generous offer—one she could hardly walk away from—and he knew that.
But, then again, he obviously didn’t know about Candy….
At twenty minutes after two on Friday afternoon, Gabe’s plane was fueled and had been moved to the boarding area of the small airstrip. Gabe stood in the biting December wind, arms crossed on his chest, as he studied the parking lot of the municipal field. Kassandra was now late enough for him to officially assume that she wasn’t coming and had turned him down.
Which seemed impossible. Short of throwing in a block of Cayne Enterprises stock, Gabe didn’t know how he could have made her a better offer. Yet, obviously, his very lucrative, very generous proposition wasn’t good enough.
On the verge of giving up, Gabe saw Kassandra jump out of a late-model car someone else was driving. Though Gabe felt a burst of relief, followed by a stirring of guilt since he never thought to offer her a ride to the airport, he didn’t want to weaken. Couldn’t weaken. This trip had to be on his terms, because this was his family. He couldn’t have Kassandra calling the shots, or running the show, or even being smart with him.
Not in front of his family.
Somehow or other, he had to get control of this situation and he had to keep it. And that wasn’t going to be easy. Not only had this woman kept him and his noise in line for almost a year, but she’d arrived twenty minutes late, and Gabe had waited for her. She was smart enough to know her own power, and she also had him in a very precarious position. They both knew it. Because of his lie he was at her mercy. But what Kassandra didn’t seem to understand was that if she didn’t play this part right, there would be no point in taking her to Georgia.
Deciding the best thing to do would be to board the plane and leave her to her own devices with her luggage, so it wasn’t so obvious he was watching for her, Gabe stepped onto the first step of the three-stair entry to the streamlined vehicle. He made one quick backward glance to confirm the woman he saw really was Kassandra, then boarded, settling himself in one of the eight seats in the small but roomy craft. He even opened his briefcase and set papers all over the seat beside him so she wouldn’t realize he’d waited for her.
But twenty minutes later he was still waiting. Furious now, he tossed the paper he was reading to the seat beside him and was just about to go to the cockpit and tell the pilot to leave, when he saw the pilot walking toward him.
“Mr. Cayne, there’s a problem in the terminal that needs your attention.”
Gabe looked up at Art Oxford. “My attention?” he asked, confused.
“There’s a woman claiming you’re waiting for her…”
“Now, you know I’m waiting for a woman, Art!” Gabe said, bounding from his seat and starting out of the plane. “You should have just told them to let her through.”
“But this woman has—” Art began, but Gabe didn’t stay to listen to the end of his sentence. He didn’t have time to wait. In the few minutes it would take for the pilot to call to the terminal to tell security to allow Kassandra through, Gabe could straighten this out himself and probably more satisfactorily.
Storming across the tarmac, Gabe muttered to himself about incompetent people. Everybody had been told to let a five-foot-six blonde through to his plane, yet here he was having to make a personal identification. He bounded through the glass door, strode through the small terminal, burst into the manager’s office and nearly knocked Kassandra on her bottom.
Dressed in a black wool coat and fluffy cashmere hat, she didn’t look anything like the women Gabe normally dated. She wasn’t tall. She wasn’t slender. And she certainly wasn’t sophisticated. Though, she was cute. Cuddly. Sexy in a sweet kind of way. Unfortunately, she was also holding a baby. A little girl dressed in a one-piece pink winter garment with a bunny embroidered on the front. One shock of black hair peeked from beneath the rim of a pink knit cap. She was sucking on a plastic thing that must have been a modern-day version of a pacifier, though Gabe had never seen one that fit flat against a baby’s lips before. The minute Gabe stepped into the room, the kid spit it at him.
It thumped against his chest, then bounced to the floor.
“Hey!” Gabe yelped, jumping away from them. He looked at Kassandra, who appeared sufficiently mortified, but the baby only grinned, held out her arms and said, “Dada.”
Beyond angry, beyond confused, beyond everything, Gabe merely looked at Kassandra.
She cleared her throat, then bent to retrieve the pacifier before she turned to the airport manager. “Mr. Byron, could we have a little privacy, please?”
“Sure,” Charlie Byron said, rising from his seat. “You want me to take Candy with me?”
Kassandra shook her head negatively, then watched as Charlie left the room, closing the door behind him.
“This is the reason I keep nagging you about your noise,” Kassandra said as she shoved the dirty