Texas Christmas. Nancy Thompson Robards
to you, Rob, not me. I’m pretty sure they’re nontransferable.”
“Mmm-hmm,” he grunted absently, opening and skimming an email about a project update that he’d been waiting for.
Even if Cody’s wheelchair was a stark reminder of past mistakes, at least his boy was alive. That was all that mattered. More pressing was the fact that Cody would need at least one operation soon if there was ever going to be a chance that he’d walk again. Sadly, even with the Macintyre Family Foundation’s personal commitment to raising the money to build the pediatric surgical wing, the facility wouldn’t be ready for a while.
If he had the damn money in hand, he’d pay for the wing himself so it could be built now, and he wouldn’t have to bother with parties and schmoozing and all the painful gyrations that went along with getting someone to do you a favor.
“Rob? Are you listening to me?”
“Not if you’re still haranguing me about the parties.”
“It would be good for you to get out every once in a while,” she persisted.
His thoughts drifted to the kiss he’d shared with Pepper.
“How long are you going to punish yourself for something that wasn’t your fault?”
He squinted at the computer screen, pointedly ignoring her, hoping Kate would take the hint and not go where this conversation seemed to be heading.
The door to his past was closed. Period. He would not revisit the events he’d permanently sealed behind it.
Instead, he allowed himself to revisit the memory of the kiss. It was a harmless memory. A good memory. Something that made him smile, no matter how fleeting and unsubstantial it was. But it was just a memory. He could relive it, but he wasn’t going to try to recreate it. They each had their own set of weighty baggage. So they were both better off leaving each other alone.
Spending time with his son was something real and concrete. Something he wanted to do. It certainly wasn’t punishment. No, punishment would be spending the evening with people who would cross him off their guest list the second his net worth fell off the Forbes Rich Roster.
Much in the same way the Dallas social set had exiled Pepper and her family. She was the perfect example of how society would chew you up and spit you out once you’d fallen from grace. At one time she’d been at the top of everyone’s guest list, too. Now she was the poster child for social pariahs. And as far as everyone knew, she’d had nothing to do with her family’s fall from grace.
If he had a soft spot for spoiled debutantes, he might feel sorry for her. Although he did have to admit, she was nothing like what he might’ve imagined if he’d been inclined to follow the local players. She’d handled the drunk guy with grace and dignity. But then again, at three o’clock in the morning in the middle of an empty airport, who wanted to take on a guy who was three times her size? Things might’ve been different if she’d had her entourage in tow.
Then again, maybe her entourage had ditched her, too—
“But you are still going with me to the Raven Chair Affair next week?” Kate said. “Yes?”
Rob let his body fall back into his chair, away from his keyboard, and exhaled audibly. Scrubbing the heels of his palms over his eyes, he purposely softened his tone. “May I choose the ‘bamboos under the fingernails’ option instead?”
Kate rolled her eyes. “No, you may not. Raven Chairez could give the Foundation a lot of money. Somehow, I don’t think I’m the one who could sweet-talk her.” Kate raised her eyebrows at him in a knowing way. “You need to start practicing your manners. Now.”
Raven Chairez was a piece of work. She was too old to still be throwing around her daddy’s money. Even worse was the way she threw fits when his money didn’t buy her exactly what she wanted. The only reason Rob knew this much about her was because Kate had briefed him about her. It struck him that if Pepper Merriweather was the poster child of the social pariah, then Raven Chairez was the picture of everything Rob hated about Dallas society. Plain and simple, she reminded him of his ex-wife. And when Kate had informed him that she’d heard through the grapevine that Raven Chairez was fixated on him—that he was a conquest she fully intended to make—Rob had made a point of avoiding all social situations where she might have the opportunity to corner him. Now, she was dangling the carrot of a potential hefty donation to the pediatric surgical wing.
One of the best ways to clinch that donation was by attending her Raven Chair Affair annual gala. Of course he would attend. But that didn’t mean he had to pass up this opportunity to make his sister sweat.
“Please promise me when you hire your new assistant, you won’t give her as hard a time as you give me over engagements like this.”
“Are you kidding? That’s special treatment I reserve only for you. Speaking of the new assistant, when are we beginning the interviews?”
They’d started the Foundation right after Kate had graduated with her master’s. She had been the one who had built it into what it was today, laying the groundwork for partnering with Celebration Memorial to build the pediatric surgical wing. In the process, she’d also taken on the additional duties of caretaker for Cody and himself after he’d gone through a string of personal assistants who didn’t work out.
With his divorce and Cody’s accident, Rob had been under a lot of stress, and Kate had come to both his and her nephew’s rescue.
It was time for his sister not only to separate the dual roles she’d been playing but to have a much deserved and long-overdue promotion within the Foundation. Rob had the unanimous support of the Foundation board, and it was a surprise Kate didn’t know was coming.
“I’ve lined up several people for you to interview,” she said. “But I’m not sure I’ve found the right person yet. So I’m still looking. In fact, I had lunch with Agnes Sherwood the other day. I asked her and a handful of other women of discerning taste to keep their ears open and let me know if they hear of someone good who is looking.”
Agnes Sherwood was one of the Dallas area’s most influential doyennes. She was the grand dame of the small affluent town of Celebration, Texas, and the woman had more money than the U.S. Treasury and commanded twice as much respect. She was just about ready to commit to a tidy donation for the pediatric wing but had to confer with her financial advisors.
“So it won’t be long now and you’ll have your own entourage following you around tending to your every whim.”
He scowled at his sister, and she laughed at him in return. She knew how much he hated the concept of an entourage. Yet he couldn’t help but think her word choice was ironic, given that he had just used it to describe Pepper and her lack of followers.
It was more like Pepper Merriweather, party of one. Pepper Merriweather with the rosebud mouth.
Pepper Merriweather, who’d obviously taken up residence in his head.
Chapter Four
Pepper wasn’t quite sure she’d heard the man correctly. She leaned in, over the desk in the Celebrations, Inc., catering office that stood between them, and asked, “Excuse me?”
“I said, exactly how much did your father bilk out of the people who trusted him?”
Pepper blinked and glanced at the Catering to Dallas cameras, which were rolling, then back at the man. Her first thought was, Oh, okay, this must be someone’s idea of a joke. A bad joke, granted, which they would edit out of the final footage. But when she smiled at the man and waited for him to smile back or give some other hint at a punch line, he didn’t.
That’s when her stomach fell and Pepper realized this wasn’t a joke. The man was serious. She’d been set up.
Before Pepper had returned to work on the set of Catering to Dallas, she and the show’s producers had agreed that any and all talk about her father and his