Heiress for Hire (2 page)
Danny watched in shock as Mark reached into the truck and pulled out a battered suitcase, then a box heaped with dingy stuffed animals and a faded yellow blanket. He carelessly dumped them on the driveway.
"Here's all her stuff."
"Her stuff?" Danny looked dumbly at the box, the birth certificate still clutched in his hand.
"Yeah. Piper's shit. Your daughter. I can't keep her any more. The kid always did creep me out with her big eyes and her imaginary friends."
Mark Johnson climbed into his truck and gave him a wave.
Then he pulled out and started down the drive with more speed than was strictly wise on a dirt road. He'd tear up his shocks doing that.
Danny looked at the kid he'd thought was a boy. The kid who was supposedly his kid.
And decided it wasn't wise to wish for things. Sometimes they arrived when you least expected it, in different packaging than you'd planned.
He'd just gotten his family in the form of one very skinny, silent, eight-year-old girl.
Whose mother had overdosed and whose stepfather was a selfish asshole.
Oh, boy.
Danny took a deep breath and looked down at the kid. Piper. His kid. Daughter. Damn.
"Hey," he said, crouching down into a squat so he could get a better look at her. "So your name's Piper, huh? Is that a nickname?"
She shook her head, the bill of her Cincinnati Reds baseball cap covering her face. The hat looked filthy, old, the bill cracked in the middle and an oily line of dirt circling the rim. Her shoulders were dusty, her white tank top thin from too many washings and faded into a dingy gray. The denim shorts that hugged her tiny waist were too small for her, which was amazing considering a dandelion fluff probably weighed more than she did. He was guessing those shorts were meant for a toddler, not an eight-year-old girl, and the sight of it made his heart clench and his gut churn.
No one had been taking care of this child in a long time. "So, okay, Piper's your real name. Got a middle name? A last name?"
A long, slim finger stretched out and pointed to the birth certificate. Right. Her name must be on it. He studied it. "Piper Danielle Schwartz. Now that's a fine name. Got style. Says you're coming into a room."
She shrugged her shoulder.
Okay. So this wasn't going to be easy. "My name is Danny Tucker."
Nothing but a nod.
He spoke in what he hoped was a gentle voice. "Can your take off your hat, Piper? I'd just like to see you."
A violent shake left and right. Her hands gripped the hat on her head, holding it in place.
"Alright, that's fine. You don't want to take it off. But can we just twist it a little to the side so I can take a gander at you? I never knew I had a daughter, and I'm pretty excited about it." Danny couldn't stop himself from touching one of her tiny hands, stroking it just a little. He could hear her quick breathing, feel the tension in her body. "I'm probably going to get on your nerves over the next couple weeks, because I'm going to be staring at you all the time, thinking how lucky I am you came along.
"I'm going to twist your hat, just a little now." Heart pounding, he turned the cap until the bill hung over her ear and her face was clear for him to see in the burning afternoon sun.
Piper had a long, angular face, a ruddy complexion, and brown eyes that were the exact shade of hot chocolate. Just like his. He felt punched in the gut, kicked in the nuts, clawed in the eyes. Jesus Christ, she looked just like him. There was no doubt in his mind this was his kid.
And he'd never known a thing about her. All these goddamn years, when he could have put her in nicer clothes, given her the love she so clearly wasn't getting, he hadn't even known she existed.
"Well, aren't you a pretty little thing," he whispered, because it was true. She was dirty and thin enough to cause concern, with big limpid eyes that knew too much, feared everything. Her hair seemed to have been cut short like a boy's, none of it showing beyond her hat. But she had great bone structure, long eyelashes, and a plucky kind of backbone that had her shaking her head immediately.
"I'm not pretty." The words were soft but confident.
"Says who?"
"Mark."
"Well, what does he know? He doesn't look all that bright to me." And it was a good thing he'd left when he did, or Danny would have been hard pressed to keep his fist out of Mark's face.
"He's a butt head," Piper said.
Danny laughed, pleased to see his daughter was a good judge of character. "I think you're one hundred percent correct. If ever I saw a butt head, Mark is it."
He stood up, put his hand on her shoulder. Slow and steady. That's what he needed now. "You hungry?"
She shrugged.
"Well, I am. Working in the fields all day makes a man hungry as a bear. I'm not much of a cook, but if we're lucky, my mom has fried up some chicken and baked some biscuits." He pointed to the farmhouse across the field. "That's where my mom and dad live. Your grandma and grandpa."
She stiffened beneath his fingers.
"But first we'll take your stuff into my house and let you pick a bedroom. I got two spare ones you can choose from. You like looking at the front of the yard or the back?"
"Don't matter. I can sleep on the couch."
Danny had to uncurl his fist from his side. There wasn't a damn thing he could do about the past. He had Piper now. All he could do was try and make it right from here on out. "Nah. Since you're going to be living with me forever, you got to have your own room. A girl needs her space, a place to get away from her old man."
"Forever?" Piper said, her small voice sounding frightened and insecure.
"Yep. See this land, Piper? See all these soybean plants growing as far as you can see?" Danny pointed with his hand over all the land that was his, his parents', and he felt the familiar comfort, the pride, the joy that came from knowing this was Tucker land. Always had been, always would be. "This here farm belongs to me and my parents, and my dad's parents before, on back more than a hundred years. Tuckers own this land, and we're the kind of folks who stick. When we say forever, we mean forever. And nothing, not drought or bugs or floods, can make us leave. You see what I'm saying?"
She shook her head, stumbling a little over the rough gravel as they walked to the house.
"I mean that forever is until the end of time." He took her chin, tilted her head toward him. "If I'd a known about you, I'd a come for you. And now that I've got you, I'm keeping you."
It was as simple as that, even if it made his palms sweat and his heart race.
INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.
Amanda punched the screen of the ATM in frustration as the message mocked her. The stupid thing was broken, obviously. It claimed insufficient funds on all six of her credit cards, which was absolutely impossible. She had thousands and thousands of dollars available for cash withdrawal on these cards.
Yet this was the third machine to tell her she didn't, and she was pretty damn sure it was the last ATM in Cuttersville.
Her father had instituted his little plan of tough love, no money ever, before he'd even talked to her. He had premeditated her pen-nilessness. If she wasn't the victim, she might actually appreciate his cunning.
As it was, she just wanted to scream like a bad actress being slashed by a killer.
Pulling her rental car into a parking spot, she dug her Coach wallet out of her brand-new handbag. Coach was really much more appropriate for Cuttersville than her Hermes bag. It could withstand the dust and the bacon grease that had created a permanent sheen on the seats at the Busy Bee Diner. And if it got trashed, she was only out five hundred bucks instead of five thousand.
It had made perfect sense. Yesterday. Now she wished she had the five hundred bucks so she could buy a plane ticket back to Chicago where she knew people, had friends she could beg for a place to stay and contacts to get a decent job. Here in Cuttersville, she had a cottage for another six weeks that the locals claimed was haunted and a multitude of minor acquaintances.
Including the change in her wallet, she had exactly fifty-seven dollars and twelve cents. She was going to die.
Tapping her fingernail on her lip, she assessed her options. She could hitchhike back to Chicago, with the likelihood of being murdered along the way about ninety-seven percent. She could call her mother, but she was in Europe at some spa Amanda couldn't remember the name of, having miraculous treatments designed to restore elasticity to her aging skin. There was her cousin Stuart in
She could call a friend and ask to borrow money, which would be humiliating in the extreme and a last resort.
Or she could get a job in Cuttersville and earn the money to get back to Chicago.
Not that she had any skills, so to speak, but she was intelligent. She could learn on the job. And Boston Macnamara was almost like a friend and understood how difficult her father could be since he worked for him.
Boston
could get her hired at Samson Plastics, the factory that fueled Cuttersville's economy and just happened to be owned by her father. It would burn ol' Daddy Delmar's butt if she got hired on at Samson.
Mentally shifting through her wardrobe to see if she'd brought any cute little suits with short skirts, Amanda pictured having her own little office, a phone with a cordless headset, and a personal secretary to fetch her coffee. Sounded like the perfect job for her.
"What do you mean you can't hire me?" Amanda lay on the ugly chintz couch in Shelby and Boston's living room and rubbed her forehead. Her head hurt. Her feet hurt. And she was hungry. Baby was lying in a ball on her stomach, looking as forlorn as she felt.
Boston
put his hands into the pockets of his immaculate black pants. He looked nearly as out of place in Cuttersville as she did. But somehow, he had fallen in love with a local girl and was staying permanently. In this fussy Victorian house that was the showpiece on the Haunted Cuttersville Tour.
Amanda wished one of those alleged ghosts would reach out and slap him right now.
"I'm not in HR, Amanda. I don't do the hiring."
"So? You're the freaking VP. Can't you tell HR to hire me?" She instantly detested the desperate tint to her voice. She knew she wasn't pathetic enough to beg, she just knew it, but she'd never been in this position before. She felt… unsure of herself, and she didn't like it.
Shelby, Boston's new wife, came into the room with a glass of lemonade. "She's our friend, Boston. Surely there's something you can do for her." She held the glass out to Amanda. "You look peaked. Have a drink."
Great. She was penniless and she looked peaked. "Listen to your wife, Boston, she's a wise woman." Amanda didn't bother to sit up but sipped the lemonade sideways and then set the glass on the floor. Baby gave a yip, so Amanda put her down on the floor and watched her rest her button size front paws on the top of the glass and stick her nose down into the lemonade. She gave a tentative lick then jerked back in surprise at the tartness. It was cute enough to almost make Amanda feel better. Almost.
"I would hire you, Amanda, but I really can't. It's like this. Say I work at McDonald's."
Amanda wasn't sure whose snort was louder, hers or Shelby's. They exchanged amused glances.
Shelby
was not exactly the match Amanda would have chosen for Boston. His brand-new wife had never left Cuttersville, had enough hair on her head for six people, and thought dressing up was wearing something knit. But Shelby was an honest, down-to-earth woman, and one of the most truly decent people Amanda had ever met—not that that was saying much. Good people were harder to come by than a funny sitcom.