Don’t Call Me Sweetheart Read online

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Don’t Call Me Sweetheart

  ISBN 9781419922688

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Don’t Call Me Sweetheart Copyright © 2009 Jeanette Ward

  Edited by Helen Woodall

  Cover art by Dar Albert

  Electronic book Publication August 2009

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing Inc., 1056 Home Avenue, Akron, OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Don’t Call Me Sweetheart

  Jeanette Ward

  Dedication

  To all my sisters of the pen who, like me, believe there will never be enough romance.

  Chapter One

  “Christian, are you ready to begin?” The quiet words seemed to wrench Christian Dade abruptly back to the present. Stephan knew without asking it was a place he’d tried desperately to avoid for the past week.

  “Begin? This isn’t a beginning, Stephan.” The man seated across from the young attorney spoke in a voice filled with undisguised anguish. His intense black eyes bore a haunted look and the dark circles beneath them testified to the number of sleepless nights he’d endured. It was a startling contrast to the striking good looks the strapping banker was known for.

  Stephan Thayer was saddened to see his friend, who under normal circumstances, commanded attention and respect, now forced to deal with a family tragedy of such immense proportions. And deal with it alone.

  They had been close for years and he felt everything Christian felt. The knowledge that he couldn’t erase the enormous amount of pain his friend was shouldering ate at him as he watched Christian struggle with one emotion after another.

  “I know. What about your parents’ wills though? We need to go over them.”

  “No,” Christian declared sharply, lurching to his feet, his formidable six-foot-two frame barely managing to contain the anger coursing through him. “Because once I do, this will be finished. They’ll be finished! Don’t you understand?”

  “I probably understand more than you think I do,” Stephan spoke quietly, saying things Christian needed to hear. Things he probably feared hearing. “You’re hurting like hell on the inside, bud, but putting this off won’t make it less real.

  “That trucker tried his damnedest to miss your dad. You read the accident report. He spread so much rubber along that stretch of highway they’ll be picking up pieces of tire for months. Your folks just didn’t see him coming.”

  Christian closed his eyes and uninvited the tragic scene flashed through his mind’s eye. His parents merging onto the busy highway leading from Reflection Ridge to their country inn near Mt. Rainier. Joseph and Helen Dade laughingly recalling bits of conversation shared with their son earlier that day when they’d surprised him by stopping in with an invitation to lunch.

  Never realizing tragedy loomed in their future.

  Never seeing the mountain of steel bearing down upon them as they made their way home.

  The tortuous image of the impact recreated itself again and again, hounding Christian. The sickening sound of metal crumpling as the smaller four wheel drive vehicle and the eighteen-wheeler careened into one another. The squeal of tires as the truck jack-knifed across the road just before the smaller vehicle shattered the steel guardrail, plunging to the ground far below the elevated bypass. And the screams. Oh, lord…he imagined his mother’s screams, echoing in his mind, relentless and terrifying.

  So real. They seemed so real.

  He forced his eyes open, dragging both hands wearily across his face, driving the anger away by sheer force of will. “Okay. Let’s just get this over with,” he said with a heavy sigh of defeat. He eased his large frame back into his chair and turned toward Stephan, resolved to put this last ritual behind him.

  Stephan opened the file lying between them and pulled out the documents that had been drawn up at Joseph’s request only weeks before. He straightened the pages nervously, uncertainty etched across his features.

  “Just give it here, Stephan,” Christian commanded. “If I need something translated I’ll ask you for help.”

  Several minutes passed as he carefully scanned the document. His eyes narrowed dangerously as he reached the end and looked up, anger clouding both his demeanor and his face. “What the hell is this all about?” he demanded, purposefully pushing the paperwork back across the desk.

  “The wills are cut and dried, Christian,” Stephan replied in an even voice. There was regret in his soft brown eyes. “For reasons of their own choosing, your parents opted to exclude your brother and leave everything they owned to you.”

  “Why?” Christian’s low voice made the question sound anything but simple. He leaned forward, demanding answers to the questions thundering through his mind. Parents weren’t generally prone to disinheriting child without reason. So what was the reason? He wanted the truth, damn it. And he wanted it now.

  “It wasn’t their fault, Christian. They didn’t mean to keep anything from you,” Stephan hastened to explain, nervously rolling his pen back forth between his fingers. “It just…”

  “What wasn’t their fault?” Christian demanded heatedly, pushing himself out of his chair and bracing his splayed hands on top of the polished cherry-wood desk. “You’d better let me in on these family secrets I never knew existed and you’d better do it quickly! I’m sure you can appreciate the fact that I’m suddenly a little short on patience. Finding out you’ve been lied to by those you love tends to do that to a person.”

  Stephan sighed. “Christian,” he began, then hesitated as he appeared to search for the right words to soften the blow Christian instinctively felt coming. “Please, you have to realize I couldn’t say anything once your parents retained me as their attorney. God knows I wanted to.”

  Christian stepped back, the rational side of his brain acknowledging that his father’s attorney was bound by the same ethics to which he adhered. Honesty and loyalty were as much a way of life to the attorney as they were to him. But his warring emotions pushed aside all logic, demanding appeasement. He lifted an eyebrow at Stephan, silently urging him to stop stalling and clear the air once and for all.

  “Your parents took on quite a bit of debt the last few years,” Stephan continued solemnly, looking down at his steepled hands. “Roughly a hundred grand.”

  “Why in the hell would they do that? The business was bringing in more than enough to pay the bills and keep them living comfortably. They should have been deciding how to spend the interest from their retirement accounts, not borrowing that kind of money.”

  “Your parents didn’t plan any of this. Come on, Christian. You know you
r father and he wasn’t the type to make foolish investments. And they certainly weren’t squandering the income from the inn. There were things…things they didn’t want to tell you about.”

  “What things?” The words were spoken quietly but with a deadly intensity that caused Stephan to look up in alarm.

  “The part Cole plays in this situation,” Stephan answered slowly.

  Christian pivoted in frustrated fury, his hands buried deep in his pockets.

  “Cole?” He spat the name out of his mouth as if forming it left the foulest of tastes in its place. “What does he have to do with the fact that apparently Mom and Dad owe every bank within a fifty-mile radius?”

  Christian’s dark gaze bored into Stephan’s as he swung back around. The revelation that his brother had played an integral part in this unfolding nightmare was pressing in on him from all sides. Cole was a cold-hearted son of a bitch. But what had he done to push their parents in such a dire position?

  “This should help explain,” Stephan replied, handing Christian a small white envelope with his and Cole’s names scrawled boldly across the front in his father’s handwriting. “I’m sorry, Christian. I really am.”

  Christian stared at the envelope clutched tightly in his hands, clinging to the hope that by touching something his father had recently held he could somehow reach across the boundaries of death and once more feel the special connection they had shared.

  He drew out a simple letter scribbled on ordinary notebook paper, his chiseled features tightening momentarily before a ghost of a smile lifted one corner of his mouth. Joseph Dade’s choice of stationary for such an important message was typical of the character that had defined him. Proud but not arrogant, he had put little stock in what others thought of him.

  Quickly Christian scanned the letter.

  Christian, Cole,

  Boys, this letter is for you and there’s another for your mother. It’s going to be up to you to take care of her now. She’s going to need your help with the business decisions, Christian. And to help her say “No” to Cole. I’m sorry Cole, I just never had the strength to do it myself, even when you were draining everything your mother and I had. We gave you so much while we watched your brother managing so well on his own. Now we have to set things straight the only way we can.

  Over the years, due to helping Cole out of one mess or another, your mother and I have accumulated a good bit of debt. You never knew about this, Christian. We just kept hoping that Cole would find his way at some point but I guess he never will. We have set aside an account at the bank and the funds are to be used for running the inn. It’s the only asset we possess of any value and it belongs to Christian with the understanding that his mother is to remain there for as long as she wishes and the responsibility for her care rests with him.

  Christian, I want you to know that you have always been the kind of son a man could be proud of and I just wish I could say the same about you, Cole. But you’ve always been a maverick at heart, with little regard for your actions or their consequences. You have it inside you though, to be much more than you are because you’re my son. Don’t waste the rest of your life trying to discover this truth. Make the most of yourself now. Be a man who can hold his head up high.

  Both of you remember I’ve always loved you and I always will.

  Dad

  Christian hardly noticed when Stephan stood up and quietly crossed the room to gaze out the office window, pretending to study the comings and goings of the people who made the sleepy town of Reflection Ridge their home.

  “When did Dad write this?”

  Stephan’s reply surprised Christian. “Two months ago. Everything is pretty much the same now as it was when your father and I prepared these instructions.”

  “And with Mother gone also?” To actually say the words hurt more than could be imagined but the time had come to find out where everything stood.

  “They left all their assets in your name,” Stephan answered, moving back to the desk and leaning one hip casually against the solid mass. “As was stated in the will, Cole will receive nothing in lieu of what was given to him before the accident. In fact, I apprised him of the situation when he made the same inquiries earlier this morning. I’m sure you can see now your parents didn’t allow this to happen out of foolishness. It was only out of love for Cole.”

  “What I understand is that because of that heartless fraud I’m in one hell of a mess,” Christian growled. “Just where is my dear brother now, Stephan?”

  “Wisely heading as far away from you as possible,” Stephan replied. “There’s actually very little to be done about the situation as I see it, Christian. You’re in sole possession of Mountain Meadow Inn and all property housed within. Your parents’ life insurance policies were, unfortunately, cashed in quite some time ago to cover the numerous expenses brought on by their commitment to financing your brother.”

  Christian leveled a dark look in the attorney’s direction for the reminder. The expression on Stephan’s face said things were going to get worse before they got better. Inwardly he steeled himself for what was yet to come. It didn’t take long.

  “The county is threatening to seize the inn if the back taxes aren’t brought current within the next thirty days though. And the bank is threatening to foreclose if the mortgage isn’t brought current as well. At the time of his death your father was working to find a way to deal with the problem. He had just made the decision to use the last of his cash. I hesitated to bring this up while you were dealing with the funeral arrangements.”

  “How much.” It wasn’t a question. It was testimony to the level of responsibility Christian felt toward preserving his father’s good name. It seemed what one brother sowed, the other would reap.

  “Twenty-three thousand.”

  Christian closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. When he opened them again he focused on the whiteness of his clenched knuckles. He was facing few options at best. First he needed to find out how much there was in that account at the bank.

  “I need some time to think this through and check on a few things, Stephan—“

  “There’s more.”

  “What more could there possibly be?” Christian thundered explosively. “Did we lose our four-star rating? Or maybe the feds called to say they discovered the inn was actually built on an ancient Indian burial site and has to be moved?”

  “It’s worse than that, I’m afraid,” Stephan answered, running his fingers through his wheat blond hair in frustration.

  “The account your father mentioned would have been more than enough to pay off the loans and get you out of hot water, which was what he had resigned himself to doing. But—”

  “No, wait. Let me guess,” Christian cut in, his voice made harsh as a clear understanding dawned on him of just how truly soulless his brother had become over the years. “While we were at the funeral yesterday and Cole was putting on such a splendid display of grief, he was mentally planning how to spend the rest of Mom and Dad’s money, right?”

  “Right,” Stephan concurred. “It seems Cole stopped at the bank yesterday the minute we were finished at the cemetery.”

  He paused, his sorrowful eyes imploring Christian for forgiveness.

  “I swear if I had thought Cole was capable of anything so underhanded I would have insisted we go over these matters the morning after the accident. I knew he could sign on your parents’ account, just like you could. I should have seen this coming.”

  “It’s not your fault, Stephan,” Christian ground out hoarsely, trying to console the guilt-ridden counselor with what little compassion he could dredge up. “We both read the will. The way the account was set up originally anyone whose name appeared on it was an owner. And evidently Cole’s name was never removed.”

  A short laugh escaped him but the sound was devoid of all traces of humor.

  “Amazing how one little oversight can change so much, isn’t it?”

  “Will it really change s
o much?” Stephan asked. “You’ve been pretty successful at the bank up to this point. Surely you have a little set aside?”

  Christian had already done the mental calculations. He knew just how far his personal assets would stretch and the results looked dismal to say the least.

  But he’d be damned if he’d let his father’s name be tarnished, or the business he had worked so many years to establish go on the auction block because of his worthless brother.

  “You know what?” Christian asked, his voice flat and once more tinged with bone-crushing weariness. “I thought the day of the funeral was the worst I had ever endured but after the bombs you’ve just dropped in my lap, I’ve changed my mind. There aren’t any more little surprises you haven’t told me about yet, are there?”

  “No, that’s the last of it,” Stephan answered, gathering the papers up into a neat pile. “But you didn’t answer my question. Can you handle this financially?”

  “I’ve had a little luck here and there but I’m nowhere close to financially independent,” Christian admitted, absently rubbing the back of his neck where it had started to ache shortly after his arrival. “There’s a helluva lot at stake here and I want to study my options from every angle before I make any irreversible decisions. Right now, I’ve got to have some time to think. I’ll be in touch.”

  Christian rose from the comfortably padded leather chair in which he had just spent some of the most uncomfortable moments of his life and strode from the lawyer’s office. He had no clear destination in mind, he only knew that in the space of a few short minutes his entire world had been turned upside down and he had a harsh deadline to meet if he was going to succeed in setting things right.

  The early November morning was picture perfect, but for the first time in his life Christian failed to fully appreciate the natural beauty surrounding him. In the east Mt. Rainier’s glacier-capped dome automatically drew his eye. It soared majestically over the small, tranquil town of Reflection Ridge where Christian had spent a quiet childhood. The familiar sight triggered memories and sent them flashing through his mind like a badly spliced movie, leaving his heart raw with aching.