Forgotten Father (7 page)

“I need a psychiatrist?” she asked, tears pressing
at the back of her eyes.

“You’re not crazy,” Dr. Gallagher said, his face
compassionate, “just because you’ve responded this way to a major
shock. But Dr. Miller can help you deal with this episode. He’ll
explain it better than I can. He’ll help you get on with your
life.”

Get on with her life? How could she, when she’d lost
entire weeks of her life?

Her hand fisted around a fold of bed sheet, she
tried to calm herself down, tried to quell the panic forming in her
midsection.

She’d eventually remembered everything last time. It
had come back in bits and pieces until she’d regained the whole,
shattering experience.

Heaven help her if this forgotten episode was as
painful as the last. But she was older now, an adult. Surely she
could handle it.

“Okay,” Delanie said after a moment. Wanting to
erase the worry on his face, she smiled mistily up at the doctor.
“I don’t understand all this, but it’s not like I have a lot of
choices.”

“There’s one more thing,” Dr. Gallagher said
awkwardly. “Something you may or may not be pleased to discover,
given the circumstances.”

“What?” she asked, made nervous again by his obvious
discomfort.

“You’re pregnant.”

“What!”

He looked down, his voice business-like. “From the
levels of hormone in your blood test, I’d say you conceived in the
last two or three weeks.”

“Which I can’t remember,” she said numbly.

“When you came in,” he started awkwardly, “as a
matter of routine, we examined you for assault.”

Delanie looked at him in shock.

He lifted his gaze to hers. “While we found…evidence
of recent sexual activity, there was no bruising or tearing…no
indication of rape.”

“My God,” she breathed in mixed horror and
relief.

“So,” the doctor continued, “the obvious conclusion
would be that the intercourse was…consensual.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice faint. Would she have
remembered consensual sex?

“I know it must seem strange,” he said, “not
remembering, but the last month or so is not a long period. Surely,
the relationship you had previously—“

“None.” She stared at him, profoundly disturbed. “I
had no relationship, at least, not like you’re talking about. No
husband. No boyfriends for the last six months. No one. I’ve been
working so hard on this project the last year or so, I haven’t
really…seen anyone.”

Dr. Gallagher looked at her, obviously more
distressed by this information than by the gap in her memory.
“You’re a very attractive woman, Ms. Carlyle. There haven’t been
any men you’ve been attracted to? No relationships developing that
might have…gone in this direction?”

“None,” she said, not quite able to grasp the news
that she was actually pregnant. She was going to have a baby.

By a man she couldn’t even remember.

******

EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER

Surreptitiously wiping at the baby drool on
her sleeve, Delanie smiled at the lawyer as he held the door to his
office open for her.

Donovan would have been amused. Delanie’s
only clean suit and Jenna had tried to soothe her poor aching baby
gums on it just as her harassed mother was trying to escape the
house.

But if Donovan Riese were alive, Delanie
reflected sadly, she wouldn’t have had to make this trip to one of
Boston’s most expensive lawyers in the middle of a work day.

“If you’ll both have a seat,” the lawyer
said pleasantly, moving behind his desk, “we can get on with
business.”

Glancing up from her stained sleeve,
Delanie’s gaze collided with that of the other man in the room.
Unlike the lawyer, his expression was anything but affable.

Mitchell Riese, her brain told her, while
her senses absorbed a wealth of other data. She remembered him from
the painting in Donovan’s study.

Only the formal portrait hadn’t done him
justice, she thought, her heart beating faster as their eyes met.
Tall and well-built, he had short, dark hair and the most piercing
blue eyes.

She drew in a shaky breath, struggling to
subdue her sudden surge of hormonal interest. In his dark, well-cut
suit, he looked trim and far too sexy given the fact that his
expression was about as remote as the North pole.

She didn’t bother trying to remember when
and how they’d met before, if they ever had. After eighteen months,
she’d become accustomed to maneuvering her way around the six-week
blank spot in her life. No matter how she struggled or how much she
tried to let it come naturally as Dr. Miller suggested, the wisps
of impressions and images she held from that time never wove
themselves together.

She still couldn’t remember Jenna’s
father.

Delanie shoved aside the wave of despondency
at the thought, focusing instead on the man next to her.

With his current grim expression, Mitchell
didn’t look much like his portrait, Delanie thought, remembering
Donovan’s office at The Cedars. But she knew without a doubt who he
was. Suspected, too, that they’d met sometime during her forgotten
interval, but there was no use in straining herself to retrieve the
circumstances.

Very aware of the man next to her, she sank
into a chair facing the lawyer’s desk. Mitchell Riese said nothing
to her, his hard gaze on the lawyer.

For some reason, Donovan’s grandson was very
angry. With a single glance, she could tell that, despite the fact
that his expression was best described as impassive. His hostility
was given away by the rigidity in his facial muscles and the
precise way he lowered himself into the other chair facing the
desk.

“Let’s get on with it, Parker,” Mitchell
Riese said, his words abrupt.

Delanie frowned at his terse tone. Turning
to address the lawyer, she said, “Mr. Parker, I’m not sure why I’m
here—“

In the chair next to her, Mitchell snorted
derisively.

“—
in your letter you said
something about Donovan’s estate…,” she continued, not
acknowledging the interruption. Despite his scrumptious good looks,
Mitchell Riese’s attitude difficulties weren’t her
problem.

“Yes,” Alec Parker said, shuffling a stack
of papers on his polished desk. “Well, to be blunt, Ms. Carlyle,
you’re mentioned in Mr. Riese’s will.”

Surprise rippled through Delanie. Donovan
had been a kind friend to her, particularly since she’d become a
single mother, but he’d said nothing about his will. She’d have
been astonished if he had. When Mr. Parker had called her for the
appointment, she’d assumed there were estate issues concerning the
job she’d done at The Cedars.

“I’m mentioned in the will? Are you sure?”
she asked, puzzled.

“Come off it, Delanie,” Mitchell cut in,
obviously annoyed. “You know very well what’s going on here.”

She glanced at him, not trying to hide her
icy reaction to his tone. “As much as your faith in my ability to
read minds is touching, Mr. Riese, I’d still like Mr. Parker to
explain the purpose of this meeting.”

His hard blue gaze still on her, Mitchell’s
lip curled as he sat back in his chair.

“We’re here,” Alec Parker said, clearing his
throat, “to discuss an unusual bequest—well, it’s not the actual
bequest that’s unusual, but the handling of what has been a family
asset—“

“Just spit it out,” Mitchell advised
sardonically. “She knows what’s coming, despite this innocent
maiden act she’s putting on.”

Delanie swung around in her chair. “I have
no idea what your problem is, but I have a job to get back to, so I
wish you’d let the man say what he’s trying to say!”

Mitchell straightened in his chair, his eyes
suddenly blazing with wrath. “Oh, you know very specifically what
my problem is. You deliberately set out to achieve this end and
now—“

“Okay, let’s calm down,” Alec Parker
interrupted, his voice soothing. “There’s no point in getting
upset. The situation is the way it is and we have to deal with
it.”

“What exactly is the situation?” Delanie
demanded, astonished by the rage she felt emanating from Donovan’s
grandson.

“When Donovan Riese died,” the attorney
said, “he left a large and complicated estate.”

Delanie nodded. “I knew he was very
wealthy.”

“Didn’t you just,” Mitchell muttered.

“Yes,” Mr. Parker said hastily, “the estate
is very complicated and made more so by the existence of what has
been a family holding.”

“I don’t understand how this has anything to
do with me,” she said, confused and disgustingly aware of the
too-attractive, too-hostile man sitting next to her.

“Well,” the attorney cast a warning gaze in
Mitchell’s direction, “I need to explain that to you. But first you
have to understand how the property known as The Cedars was
left.”

“Okay,” she agreed, ignoring Mitchell as he
rose abruptly from his chair and went to stand in front of the
window.

“The Cedars, as I said, is a family-held
property. I believe Mr. Donovan Riese’s father built—“

“Grandfather,” Mitchell inserted, not
turning away from the window.

“Oh, yes,” Alec Parker shuffled his papers
again. “Two generations. That’s why we’re even in this situation.
It was Donovan’s grandfather who built The Cedars a few years
before he died.”

Delanie glanced at Mitchell’s back, rigid
beneath the dark material of his Italian suit. What the heck was
eating the man?

And what had Donovan done with his will?

The gallant, elderly man had been a
sweetheart after her life had turned upside down. He’d visited her
in Boston on several occasions and had even sent gifts to Jenna
over the first months of her life.

But Delanie had no clue as to what the heck
was going on with The Cedars and his will.

When she’d gotten out of the hospital after
her amnesiac period, she’d gone back to Boston and picked up her
life as best she could. As far as she was concerned, The Cedars was
simply a fascinating job she’d been fortunate to be involved
with.

A place where she must have met and become
involved with Jenna’s father and subsequently lost her mind for six
weeks. Nothing more.

So why the heck was she sitting here
embroiled in an argument over Donovan’s beloved Cedars?

“When William Riese purchased the land in
the late 1800s,” Alec Parker said, “and built the resort and the
villa situated on it’s grounds, he wanted it to be available to all
the members of the Riese family. So he left the resort to his son
and daughter with the stipulation that all Riese descendents were
to share equally in it’s ownership for at least two
generations.”

“Very interesting, but I’m still baffled,”
Delanie murmured. “Where do I come in?”

The lawyer glanced at Mitchell where he
stood in front the window, his back to the room.

“Let me continue. William’s daughter,
Miriam, died in her thirties without issue. His son, Robert,
however, had one son, Donovan.”

“Okay,” she said, giving him an encouraging
smile. Apparently, this circuitous story was the only way she would
find out why she was here.

“Donovan also had one son,” Mr. Parker said,
responding with a brief, furtive smile of his own. “Walter Riese
then married and produced the only remaining descendent of
William.”

The attorney nodded toward the dark-haired
man in front of the window. “Mitchell is the last of the Rieses now
that his father and grandfather are both dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Delanie murmured, still
wondering why she was sitting here.

“The…entail…for want of a better word,” Alec
Parker said, “ended with Donovan’s generation. After that, The
Cedars became property, as any other property, to be bequeathed in
any way the individual family members chose.”

“All right.” Delanie’s heart began to
pound.

Mitchell wheeled around to face her. “And,
as you well know, Donovan left his half-ownership of The Cedars to
you, Ms. Carlyle. In payment of services rendered, we can only
assume.”

“What?” she gasped. “He left The Cedars to
me?”

“Only his half,” Mitchell said, a bitter
smile curling his lips. “The other half is mine.”

Delanie stared at him, aghast.

“So we’re partners,” he said, enmity in his
eyes.

“Oh, my God,” she muttered, “what was
Donovan thinking?”

“As to that,” Alec Parker said
apologetically, “I have no idea. Although I drew up this will for
him just under six months ago, he simply gave me instructions on
how to handle the bequests. He made no explanations, left no
letters.”

“So…so I
own
half of The Cedars?”
she said, bewildered.

“Yes.” Mr. Parker nodded. “The two of you
own the resort jointly.”

“Jointly,” she echoed, the word faint. She
and the devastatingly handsome, implacably hostile man by the
window owned a business together?

No wonder Mitchell Riese was so angry.

Could she sell out, she wondered wildly,
glancing at his dark-clad, powerful figure.

Take the money and run?

But her conscience kicked in at that point
and she paused.

“Donovan actually left this to me, of all
the people in his life,” she murmured, half to herself.

“Yes,” the attorney confirmed again,
flashing a concerned glance at Mitchell. “Although he left the rest
of his considerable estate to his grandson, this property—his
portion of it—was left to you.”

“He didn’t say why, but he specifically
wanted me to have his half of The Cedars?” Delanie asked, still
confused. The old man had loved the place. Why leave half of it to
her?

“That’s right.”

“Okay.” Still feeling dazed, Delanie stared
unseeing at the attorney’s face. She and Donovan had shared an
appreciation of the old building and it’s picture-perfect setting.
The deep verandas and old-fashioned bathroom fixtures. The wood
floors and big windows.