Bride in Barbados (3 page)

"On what grounds?"

Travis's narrowed gaze was hard. "The old man was dying.
He couldn't have been in total command of his mental faculties." The
desperation of his own personal situation brought an edge of
ruthlessness to his voice.

The attorney took a long breath and gazed at a plaque in a
corner of the room for a moment. Then his eyes came back to Travis's
rugged face. "It won't work, Travis. Your grandfather consulted an
attorney on Barbados about the wording. There aren't any loopholes. He
also took the precaution of flying in a psychiatrist from the Mayo
Clinic. The doctor gave him a thorough examination and wrote a detailed
report of Mr. Sennett's mental and emotional condition at the time the
will was made. I believe your grandfather said he'd deposited a copy of
the report with that Barbadian attorney—Wrigley or Wiggins,
something like that. Didn't you know about it?"

A sinking sensation pressed into the pit of Travis's
stomach. "Wiggins," he murmured. He knew the man. He was young, but a
good lawyer. Not in Valdez's league, maybe, but he had apparently seen
that Harris covered all the bases. "And, no, I didn't know about Wiggins or the psychiatrist.
Evidently this all transpired during the two days I was in New York on
bank business. No wonder the old man was so anxious for me to go."

Valdez smiled. "You have to admit he handled everything
shrewdly. Doesn't sound like an unstable man to me."

"Dammit, Tony!" Travis came to his feet in indignation.
"He promised me that the Barbadian holdings would be mine. My blood and
guts are in that plantation now. For two years he told me I'd earned
the right to take over there, and I have!"

"You are free, of course, to consult another
attorney—or several others. But if you want my opinion,
Travis, you'll only be wasting a lot of time and money if you pursue
this."

Travis moved restlessly about the room, then returned to
his chair and folded his long frame into it. "No. I trust you. I'll
take your word for it, but I don't like it. If I'd known what Harris
was up to, all the whining and pleading in the world wouldn't have
brought me back to Barbados."

Elbows planted on his desk, Valdez brought the tips of his
pudgy fingers together. "Can you scrape together enough in the next
fifteen months to buy out your cousins' interests?"

Travis's look was pungent. "Are you aware of how much
property on the island is worth these days?" He shook his head. "Not a
chance. Not without selling some land, which I won't do."

"And you're not willing to give it all up?"

"No," Travis countered emphatically.

"That leaves you with only one recourse. Get yourself a
wife and get her pregnant as quickly as you can." Travis's look was
scornful. Unaffected, Valdez continued, "Untold numbers of men have
found themselves faced with less attractive alternatives." He grinned
drolly. "Surely there must be one or two ladies tucked away somewhere
who wouldn't mind becoming Mrs. Travis Sennett."

"Under the circumstances," Travis retorted sarcastically,
"I wouldn't count on it."

"Come on Travis." The lawyer's tone attempted to coax
Travis into a better frame of mind. "Marriages are made every day for
less noble reasons than to perpetuate a family dynasty."

Although it didn't make his situation any more tolerable,
Travis knew the man was right. In his initial shock and anger he had so
far forgotten himself as to confide in Kay Harte the conditions of his
grandfather's will. She had made it clear that she'd be willing to
marry him. He had suspected for a long time that Kay was in love with
him, but he didn't feel the same way about her. He had always taken her
for granted, and he knew that he would continue to do so. He'd make Kay
a rotten husband and, besides, the thought of spending the rest of his
life with her gave him a claustrophobic feeling. No, that alternative
was definitely out. Because he knew she genuinely wanted the best for
him, though, he had phoned Kay before his departure to let her know
what course of action he had decided to take.

"Do my cousins know the terms of the will yet?"

"Mr. Winston called me yesterday," Valdez admitted. "I had
to put him in the picture. He's one of the heirs, after all."

"Curt and Violet couldn't be bothered with coming to the
funeral," Travis muttered resentfully, "but you can bet they'll be on
my doorstep on my thirty-fifth birthday."

"They'd have no reason to be if you're married and a
father by then."

Valdez's calm assumption that his position wasn't as
unacceptable as Travis seemed to think irritated Travis. "You're a big
help!"

"I've given you my best advice. That will is airtight."

"Well…" Travis got to his feet. "I'll keep you
informed, Tony." He started for the door, then stopped to add with
black humor, "I don't suppose you know the name of a good marriage
broker. Somebody ought to put out a catalogue for us poor lovelorn
creatures who are in the market for spouses."

"Somebody probably has," Valdez observed wryly.

"Probably." Travis lifted his hand in a halfhearted salute
and left the office.

He lunched in a Chinese restaurant near the Blaylock
Building. Leaving the restaurant afterward, he shucked his jacket and
tie, draped them across his shoulder and walked the streets for hours,
trying to see some acceptable way out of his dilemma that he and Tony
Valdez had missed. It was a futile undertaking. The old man had him in
a box.

Finally, he turned his steps toward his hotel, arriving
there after six. He was hot, rumpled, tired and, for the moment,
defeated. He had wrestled his thoughts around so long that he had a
thundering headache. He didn't want to think about his problems
anymore. He didn't want to think about anything, at least until he'd
had a night's sound sleep.

He was so wrung out that when he reached his room, he fell
into a chair, intending to rest briefly before getting cleaned up.
Instead, he fell asleep and stayed that way for almost two hours.

He awoke feeling only slightly refreshed, but his headache
wasn't pounding as loudly as before. After showering and dressing in
tan trousers and a cream linen dinner jacket, he decided that what he
needed was the biggest steak the hotel had to offer and several good
stiff drinks, after which he would fall into bed and know nothing
thereafter until morning.

A wide silver slave bracelet flashed as Susan Warren ran a
brush through the tumbling length of her silver-blond hair. She turned
sideways, head slightly tilted, to scrutinize the slender lines of her
floor-length gown. The black crepe, stitched all over with threads that
glittered under the lights, was fastened on one shoulder, leaving the
other shoulder and both arms bare. Split to above the knee on one side,
it hugged her figure provocatively. Black spike-heeled spaghetti-strap
sandals further enhanced her long, leggy look.

Satisfied, she laid her brush aside and, leaning closer to
the mirror, brushed blue-gray eyeshadow on her lids, a color that
emphasized the blue highlights in her emerald eyes. She had
well-proportioned patrician features and dark brows and lashes that
needed little makeup ordinarily, but the glaring lights under which she
performed made her ivory complexion, even with the light tan she had
acquired since coming to Miami a few months earlier, look washed out
without generously applied cosmetics. Her mascara was heavier and her
lip gloss darker than she wore when she wasn't singing and, except for
evening wear, she hardly ever used eye shadow at all.

The dressing room was too warm. It was situated in a
ground floor corner of the hotel far removed from the central
air-conditioning unit, and the air flowing from the vents was usually
thin and not very cool. Since Susan's personal situation made it unwise
to ask favors of the hotel club manager, Dirk Cantino, she had brought
a small electric fan from her apartment. It sat on a worn wicker chair
and she moved closer to it as her emerald gaze flicked to her
wristwatch. It was eight forty-five, still ten minutes too early to go
along the corridor to the hotel's expensive supper club, the Top Hat,
for the first of her two nightly performances.

She turned to allow the fan to blow on her from another
angle and, sighing, wondered how much longer she would be able to keep
the job she'd obtained just three months earlier. She had managed to
hold Dirk Cantino at arm's length thus far, but it was becoming more
difficult. The last thing she wanted was to get involved with someone
like Dirk, who was egotistical, shallow and impractical beneath a thick
layer of charm.

She had left New Orleans four months ago after breaking
her ten-month engagement to Frank Rosier, a man very like Dirk. It had
taken her a long time to see through Frank's veneer and realize that he
was never going to be any more stable or mature than he already was,
that he would spend his life drifting from one get-rich-quick scheme to
another, and probably one meaningless affair to another, even if she
gave in to his pleas and married him. The charming, considerate man she
had thought she loved was merely an attractive shell; the real Frank
Rosier was quite a different person.

Consequently she was totally immune to the same surface
attractiveness in her new boss. The problem was that Dirk, unaccustomed
to being brushed off by women, refused to believe it.

A sharp tap sounded on the dressing room door. "Susan! You
decent?" Without giving her time to do anything about it had she not
been, Dirk Cantino opened the door and stepped inside. His light blue
eyes roamed over her figure appreciatively before coming to rest on her
face. "Sweetheart, you look delicious enough to make a man want to take
a bite."

"He'd better not, unless he's looking for an acute case of
indigestion," Susan retorted. "I once studied judo, remember?"

Irritation hesitated in his expression before he laughed,
tossing a wayward lock of blond hair back from his forehead. "You're a
great little kidder, honey." He strolled over to her and lifted a
curling strand of silver-blond hair between two fingers, an intimate
gesture that infuriated Susan. "How would you like to come up to my
room after the last show for a nightcap? I've got a big deal in the
making, and there could be something in it for you."

"That's nice." She had to resist a desire to slap his hand
away from her hair.

"There's a chance I can go to one of the best hotels in
Vegas as club manager, with stock in the corporation as a part of my
salary. What do you think of that?"

"I hope it works out for you, Dirk." She had heard about
too many of his "big deals" to believe it would, but she meant it
sincerely. It would be a relief not to have to work for him any longer
and be able to keep her job at the same time.

"They need singers in Vegas, honey. It's the big time. And
I'll be in a position to help you. Come upstairs later and we'll
discuss it."

Unable to submit to his touch any longer, Susan moved her
head to one side to release the lock of hair he was holding and stepped
back, putting the chair and fan between them. "Thanks, but I can't make
it tonight." She looked pointedly at her watch. "I'd better go. I'm on
in ten minutes." She switched off the fan.

Dirk followed her from the dressing room. "Think it over,
Susan. I'll have drinks and a tray of canapés waiting, and it would be
a shame to waste them."

Susan, who had hurried ahead of him down the corridor,
pretended not to hear. She turned a corner, taking the hall that led to
a side door of the club near the raised platform where she did her act.

Jacky Thornton, a balding man barely five feet tall who
acted as MC and played piano for her, greeted her as she stepped into
the shadowy corner at the back of the stage.

"Hiya, Susie. You okay tonight? How's the throat?"

"The scratchy feeling's gone, Jacky. Looks as if it wasn't
a cold coming on after all, thank heaven. What kind of house do we have
tonight?"

"The place is full. They seem like a pretty friendly
bunch, too. Hey, I like that dress."

Susan smiled fondly at the little man. "Thank you, Sir.
Are you ready?"

Jacky walked to the microphone, a cue to a man at the back
of the room to flip the switches controlling the spotlights. There was
a low murmuring, followed by a smattering of applause. Jacky told a few
jokes to warm up the crowd before introducing Susan.

She sang a Rogers and Hammerstein medley followed by some
more recent folky tunes. She had the sort of low, sultry singing voice
that fit slow, often melancholy, songs.

As she sang, she realized that Jacky was right. It was a
friendly crowd, and they were responding well to her. She was halfway
through her act before she recognized the dark, striking looking man in
a light-colored dinner jacket as the same man who had sat through both
her performances the night before. As on the previous evening, he sat
alone at a table near the stage and watched her with narrowed eyes.

There was a lancing penetration in his look that sent a
small, unsettling shiver up her backbone. She had been in the business
long enough not to let the customers distract her, even the occasional
drunken heckler who had to be invited to leave by the manager. But if
this man had had too much alcohol, he held it extremely well. Maybe it
was his deeply thoughtful expression, as if he were trying to pin down
where he had known her before, that gave her the slight feeling of
discomposure. She knew, however, that his thoughts must be on a very
different track, for she was sure she had never met him. He was not the
sort of man a woman forgets.

She regained her slipping poise by tearing her gaze from
the stranger's dark face and singing to a table of middle-aged
businessmen, clearly having a carefree night on the town before
returning to their jobs and their wives.