“You know the purpose of this meeting, Miss Talbot,” he finally said. “I’ve already told you most of what you need to hear over the phone, but there are several documents that you must sign, and also the matter of your brother’s confinement. Where shall we begin?”
“I’d like to get my brother out of jail.”
“Do you have fifty thousand dollars?” Caldwell asked, raising his brows inquiringly.
“No, but I thought bail could be arranged through a bondsman. Isn’t that the usual practice?”
Caldwell frowned. “It’s been difficult to find a bondsman to put up the money. Your brother is regarded as a flight risk.”
“What?” Ann said indignantly. “That’s preposterous.”
Caldwell stared at her. “Apparently you aren’t aware that when Tim was arrested several months ago for writing bad checks to a casino, he fled the jurisdiction.”
Ann closed her eyes.
“You haven’t been in close touch with your brother, have you?” Caldwell asked gently.
“No. Not lately. He avoids talking to me when he’s having... difficulties.”
“Well, he’s having very severe difficulties now. Unless you can come up with the cash to foot his bail, he will probably remain where he is.”
“I live in an apartment in New York, Mr. Caldwell, so I don’t have equity in a home or other property to mortgage. I have a few thousand in savings and that’s it.”
“Your writing career is not lucrative?”
“I’ve just begun it, Mr. Caldwell. I was a researcher for a publishing house before I started writing. Now I’m working on my third book and my first one just came out late last year. Royalties take a long time to arrive and the advances from the publisher are just enough to live on in the meantime.”
“Excuse me for being so personal, Miss Talbot, but your father was a very wealthy man. He left you nothing at all?”
“I wanted nothing, and he knew that. He left everything, the business and his real estate holdings, and all of his investments, to Tim.”
“And you didn’t even supervise your brother’s actions?”
Ann looked away from the lawyer’s probing stare. “Tim is a grown man and, for personal reasons, I wanted to be divorced from ScriptSoft and anything else associated with my father. I’m sorry if you can’t understand that.”
“But you must have known about your brother’s problem,” the lawyer insisted.
“I felt that it was his business,” Ann replied shortly. “What else do we need to discuss?”
Caldwell shrugged. “I told you most of it on the phone, as I said. ScriptSoft is insolvent, the people on the board of directors are suing your brother for mismanagement, and the Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing to prosecute him for stock fraud.”
“Is there any good news?”
Caldwell sighed. “Not much. A fresh infusion of several million dollars would save the day, allowing the present management to pay the company’s debts, trim the staff, sell off the stagnant real estate and reorganize. Short of that, the bankruptcy court will take over to portion out the meager assets to the creditors, most of whom won’t get very much because little is left.”
“What about Tim?”
“If he can’t make bail, he will remain in jail until his trial and then he will probably be convicted and do ten to fifteen years.”
“What happens if he pleads guilty to a lesser charge? Won’t that help?”
“He’s still likely to do time. The courts are cracking down on these manipulators. I’m afraid the eighties are catching up with us. I’m sorry.”
Ann shook her head. “How could this have happened to ScriptSoft? Didn’t anybody else at the company know what Tim was doing?”
“He was very clever, Miss Talbot. He inflated the stock, sold it off high and progressively drained the company. He owned the majority of the stock and as the controlling interest he had a free hand. By the time the board figured out what he was up to, it was too late. I assume from what you’ve just said that you were never informed or consulted about his management policies.”
“No. I owned the stock but never paid attention to the value of it. When the reports came in I threw them in a drawer.”
“Because there was bad blood between you and your father?” Caldwell asked.
“Yes,” Ann said crisply in a tone which indicated that Caldwell was definitely not to pursue this line of inquiry.
“I remember Henry Talbot,” the lawyer mused. “He was an astute businessman, very active in this community. I played in golf tournaments with him from time to time. He had to take it easy even then— his heart was never very good.”
Ann said nothing.
“I must say I’m very sorry to see his company come to this. It was once very prosperous, and your mother one of Port Lisbon’s leading hostesses. She was a lovely lady and I was saddened to hear of her death.”
“Thank you.”
“Cancer?”
“Yes.”
“Did she suffer long?”
“It seemed long.”
“What a shame. She was so young.”
There was a tap on Caldwell’s door and Ann was grateful for the interruption of his funeral dirge on the downfall of her family. He got up to have a hastily whispered conference with his secretary, and when he came back he was holding a slip of paper and wearing a strange expression.
“What is it?” Ann asked.
“I can’t believe this,” Caldwell said, shaking his head. “You have a visitor, Miss Talbot. A benefactor who read about ScriptSoft’s impending bankruptcy and Tim’s arrest in the Miami newspapers. He says he is willing to refinance the company and pay your brother’s bail in the bargain.”
“What?” Ann said sharply, sitting up straight.
The door opened behind Caldwell and standing before her was Heath Bodine.
Chapter 2
Ann would have known him anywhere. His lush black hair was shorter, there were a few lines around his eyes and mouth, and his lean body now had the hard muscularity of full manhood, but he was just as gorgeous now as when she had last seen him.
“Hello, Ann,” he said quietly, his wide, heavily lashed dark eyes fixed on hers.
Ann was stunned, speechless. She couldn’t look away from him. Her heart began to pound and she put her hand to her throat.
He was wearing brown pants with a beige, raw silk sweater and the same type of leather moccasins he had favored as a youth. His dusky skin was tanned an even deeper shade of amber than she remembered and the gold watch on his wrist gleamed against it. He seemed even more vibrant than her vivid memory of him, and she felt like a shadow by comparison with the vitality he brought into the room.
“Heath told my secretary that he is an old friend of yours,” Caldwell said. “I imagine you have a lot to catch up on so I’ll leave you two alone. Ann, we’ll talk later, I need your signature on some documents.”
The lawyer was gone before Ann could say a word. She stared at Heath, her mouth dry, her palms wet, acutely conscious of her own haggard appearance and reduced circumstances.
“Are you the benefactor Mr. Caldwell mentioned?” she finally managed to whisper.
“I am.”
“Is this some kind of cruel joke? Why on earth would you want to help me?”
“I have my reasons.”
“I can just imagine what they are,” Ann said bitterly.
“You don’t have the first idea,” he replied flatly, his eyes narrow and hard.
“Go home, Heath. I need a lot of cash and even if you had it, I wouldn’t take it from you.”
“Why, Princess? Is my money tainted?”
His use of his former nickname for her hurt more than she would have believed possible.
“Your money is nonexistent,” she said bitingly, feeling the need to hurt him back. “You were very pretty, Heath, but very poor. That’s why my father objected to you, remember?”
“Your father objected to the fact that my old man was a drunk and my mother the friendliest woman in town, not to mention that less than desirable Seminole blood flowing through my veins. But that didn’t matter to you when we were between the sheets, did it, Princess?”