Debra Ullrick (2 page)

Notwithstanding anything contained herein, in order for my son, Harrison James Kingsley, to receive his full inheritance as set forth above, he must first prove that he is capable of operating my businesses. As proof of such capability, Harrison must start his own business, which business may be in any manner of industry or trade but which (a) must be located in a community other than Boston and specifically in a community in which he is unknown to the other residents, and (b) must show a profit of at least 1,000 dollars before his twenty-fifth birthday. If he fails to satisfy the foregoing requirements on or before his twenty-fifth birthday, all my assets will be divided equally between the following charities...

Anger bubbled up inside Harrison as it did every time he read that section of his father’s will. He tossed the paper onto the desk, pinched his eyes shut and pressed the bridge of his nose with his fingertips and thumb. How could his father do this to him? Give him so little time to accomplish this? Did his father really hate him that much? Or was he still punishing him for the death of his mother? Harrison didn’t know. But what he did know was that his father still controlled him, even from the grave.

Harrison Kingsley, Sr. had controlled and manipulated him since his birth. Every minute of Harrison’s day had been planned by his father, who ordered the staff to see to it that his strict regimen was followed to the letter. Not only had he been told what to wear, where to go, when to go, who to see, but also whom he was to marry.

It was there Harrison had drawn the line. On the day of his twenty-first birthday, he eloped and married the love of his life, Allison. When his father found out, he was livid and stripped Harrison of any and all income. To this day, Harrison had no idea how his father had managed it, but no one would even consider hiring him for fear of his father’s vengeance.

Harrison had even thought about moving out west in hopes of gaining employment there, but he’d had no money to support them along the way. The final determining factor came when his wife developed complications and was confined to her bed during the remainder of her pregnancy. No other choice remained but to once again succumb to his father’s strict rule of thumb.

Soon after his sons were weaned from their mother’s milk, Allison disappeared, leaving a note saying she no longer loved him. Harrison’s heart had been ripped from him that day and his only consolation was his sons.

Days after his father’s death, Harrison received a parcel that contained two letters. One from Allison, and one from a Mrs. Lan informing him that Allison had been killed in a buggy accident, and that the woman had been asked if anything ever happened to Allison, to send the letter to Harrison.

Allison’s letter stated how she’d never stopped loving him, and that his father had forced her to leave by threatening to withdraw all financial support from them. When that hadn’t worked, he’d threatened to send the boys to boarding school. Allison knew how Harrison despised the idea of sending his sons to boarding school and how powerless he was against his father. She loved him and the twins too much to let that happen, so she’d left. Harrison felt the pain of that decision even now. What kind of father did something like that to his son, anyway?

He’d always known his father resented him and blamed him for his wife’s death. But to go to those extremes? To strip him of the wife he loved and his innocent children of a mother’s love? That was low, even for his father.

Determination rose up inside of Harrison like a geyser. His boys had suffered enough at the hands of their grandfather. He’d be hanged if he’d let them lose their inheritance, too. Therefore, he decided he would do whatever it took to make sure that didn’t happen. His father thought he’d defeated him even in his death. Well, he’d show him.

His gaze slid to the will sitting in front of him.

His only hope in fulfilling the detestable stipulation his father had thrust on him in such short notice was the one line from Miss Bowen’s advertisement,
“Guaranteed full return on investment within three months, including interest.”

He gaped at the envelope staring back at him, wondering if its contents would seal his fate or secure his future. Perhaps it was a good sign that this one had been mailed directly to him instead of going through the newspaper. He read the return address.

Miss Abigail Bowen

777 Grant Street

Hot Mineral Springs, Colorado.

Just where Hot Mineral Springs was in Colorado, he didn’t know. Didn’t matter. Going out west to see the rugged Rocky Mountains he’d heard so much about from his friends and their travels was something he’d always wanted to do. Now he just might get that chance.

He pressed his hand to his aching, nervous gut, and drew in a deep breath, blowing it out long and slow as he broke the seal off the envelope, and slipped the letter from its pouch.

Dear Mr. Kingsley,

From what you have said in your posts regarding the stipulation in your father’s will, it sounds like this business arrangement would be as advantageous for you as it would be for me. Therefore, after much consideration, I have decided to offer you the first chance at this opportunity.

Please let me know what you decide as soon as possible so I can let the other gentlemen who responded to my advertisement know your decision.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Abigail Bowen

Harrison paused and gazed at nothing in particular in the large office decorated only with the finest of furnishings. This whole arrangement was almost too good to be true. Either that or it was just crazy enough to work.

The way he saw it, this was his only chance to get the inheritance he needed to secure his twins’ future. And since no other prospect had presented itself, he had no other choice but to give Miss Bowen’s dinner theater prospect, something she had mentioned in one of her previous letters, a try. What money he had saved from working for his father wouldn’t go far if he didn’t find a way to secure at least his position in his father’s businesses, if not the outright inheritance.

It would also enable him to fulfill his lifelong goal to right the wrongs his father had done to the fine people in Boston, and to restore the Kingsley name to what it had once been.

The discovery of his father’s true legacy still pained him greatly. It was after the death of his mother that his father had changed so drastically. He’d become a bitter, angry, vindictive man with no scruples when it came to business. Every time Harrison thought of the things his father had done, how he had cheated those poor people out of their businesses and their homes, his stomach churned with sorrow and disgust. Like now. The only way to take care of those matters would be to take Miss Bowen up on her offer, and then come back to take over the helm and set things right.

Rather than take the risk of his post to Miss Bowen getting lost in the mail and her taking on another partner, he decided to go a faster route. He would send a telegram and head out west immediately.

He quickly penned a short telegraph message and reached over and pulled the string, ringing for his butler.

Forsyth stepped into his office and stopped in front of the expansive desk, his posture stiff as a wooden plank, his black suit and white shirt pressed to perfection, his white gloves immaculate. “What may I do for you, sir?”

“Have Staimes pack my clothes. Tell him we’ll be going out of town for a couple of months or so. Let Miss Elderberry know, too, so she can pack for her and the boys. I’ll need you to take care of things here while I’m gone.” Harrison handed his trusted butler, who never revealed or spoke of Harrison’s affairs with anyone, a folded slip of paper. “Send this telegram out immediately and purchase tickets on the next train heading to Hot Mineral Springs, Colorado.”

“Yes, Mr. Kingsley. Will that be all, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. I will take care of this immediately.”

“I know you will. Thank you, Forsyth.”

“You’re quite welcome.” With that, the aging man who’d served his father well, and now him, turned and left the room.

The leather chair creaked as Harrison settled his back into its softness. His gaze dropped to the letter, her letter, still lying on his desk. A peace he hadn’t felt in a long time settled inside him. He had a gut feeling this arrangement would indeed fulfill the nonsensical stipulations in his father’s will along with everything else, too.

He could be back in Boston in three months with a new future for himself and his family, a future filled with hope that he himself had never known.

* * *

“Abby, this telegram is for you.” Colette Denis walked into the room of Abby’s three-story mansion, holding a slip of yellow paper. Abby was so grateful Colette and her two sisters had decided to come with her to Hot Mineral Springs. Since her mother’s remarriage, the Denis sisters’ maid services were no longer needed back in Paradise Haven. Mother refused to let them go, though, until Abby had come up with a plan to take them with her. She needed their services and the sisters had no family in Paradise Haven so they were more than happy to move with her and to work for her.

Abby dropped the washcloth she was using to wipe down the windowsills and bookshelves in her office into the bucket of soapy water. She dried her hands on the only dry spot left on her apron and took the telegram from Colette. “Thank you, Colette.” She slid the paper into the pocket of her skirt. “Did you remember to stop by the mercantile and post my ad for a carpenter on their bulletin board?” Colette had a tendency to get distracted and forget what she was doing. Abby did, too, so she could relate to the girl who had a good heart but a somewhat scattered brain.

“
Oui.
Well, at least I tried to, anyway.”

“What do you mean, you tried?” Abby’s lips pursed into a frown, and she pushed back the wet strands of hair plastered on her cheeks.

“When I went to tack it onto the corkboard, I could not reach the only empty place. This nice man offered to help, so I gave it to him. But when he looked at the ad, he asked if he could keep it.” Colette wrung her hands and her green eyes shaped like an almond shell drifted over to Abby, then cut to the floor.

“Is something wrong, Colette?”

Colette glanced at Abby, then back at the ground again. “I—I am so sorry,
mademoiselle,
but he is here.”

“Who’s here? The man who kept my post?”

“No,
mademoiselle.
Mr. Kingsley.”

“Mr. Kingsley?” Abby frowned, then her eyes bounced open at the recognition of the name. “Mr. Kingsley is here? Now?”

“
Oui.
I am sorry.” Remorse crackled through Colette’s voice. “That telegram came several days back, but I forget to give it to you. When I went to wash my dress just now, I found it.” Colette rattled on, intermingling French with English.

Abby heard nothing more as she looked down at her soaked apron and the simple blue dress she wore to do chores in. She caught Colette’s gaze glossed over with unshed tears. Her heart went out to the poor girl who tried so hard, but always seemed to fall short. She looped arms with Colette and headed toward the door. “Don’t you go crying now, you hear? I know you didn’t mean to forget. Nothing in this life is worth fretting over. Everything will work out the way it’s supposed to. God has a plan. Even in this.” Abby encouraged her, sincerely hoping she could take some of her own advice. What was she going to do? He was here!

Well, she couldn’t let that bother her. He was here, so she might as well go ahead and make the best of it. She just hoped and prayed he wasn’t one of those snobbish businessmen like the city council members were, one who would surely look down his nose at her attire and might even judge her for it. Nothing in his letters indicated he was. But even if he was, she decided as they headed to the door, that was his problem, not hers.

Realizing she still had a hold of Colette’s arm, Abby let it go, but her attention stayed riveted on the sixteen-year-old girl, looking for any sign that she felt better. The frown on the young girl’s heart-shaped face disappeared, and Abby was glad to see it. “Are you all right now?”

A moment and Colette nodded.

“Good.” Abby smiled, and without looking where she was going, she stepped into the hallway and turned right. Her body collided into a granite wall of flesh and stumbled backward.

Something warm, strong, yet gentle secured her arm.

“Oh. I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was—” Words escaped her the instant her eyes landed on the sculptured face of the handsome man gazing down at her, still holding her arm.

He looked every bit as startled as she was. “Are you all right, miss?”

“I’m—I’m fine. Thank you.” She straightened. Only mere inches from him, her eyes never drifted from his. Something was different about his eyes. Abby looked at one, then the other. One was minutely wider, and the other looked like it hadn’t quite awakened yet because the outer half of his eyelid rested against his eyelashes a little heavier than the other one did.

That wasn’t what was different about them, though.

Abby placed her fingertip on her lip. It was something else. Then she spotted it. Her mouth formed into an O. Both eyes were grayish-blue except the right one. A third of the lower iris was hazel. The amber color started small at his pupil, but spread out, ending with the same grayish-blue as the rest of his eye. She had never seen anything like that before. “I’m sorry for staring, but you have very unusual eyes. They’re quite beautiful.”

Those same eyes, surrounded by long but straight medium brown eyelashes, twinkled. “Thank you.” He said it like he meant it, but his closed-lipped smile didn’t stretch very far. Far enough, though, to reveal a crescent-moon line on one side of his half-full lips and a quarter-crescent moon on the other. “Could you please tell me where I might find Miss Abigail Bowen?”

“Abigail? Oh. Oh. Yes. I’m Abby.” She waved her hand at her momentary lapse into forgetfulness because no one ever called her Abigail. Except her mother, and that was only when Abby was in trouble.