Prologue
“Pregnant?” Andrew Walker figured the hard thud in his abdomen was his heart falling straight into his stomach. “Hannah is expecting a baby?”
“Yeah. That was the first thing I noticed when I met her this morning after she came home from visiting her mother’s relatives in Shreveport. I guess no one in the family thought to mention her condition to me before.” His twin brother, Aaron, sounded a bit surprised by Andrew’s apparent overreaction to a fleeting comment during an announcement-filled phone call.
“How, um, how is she?” Andrew asked, trying to wrap his mind around the news.
“Well, she nearly keeled over when I first saw her. Turned stark-white and swayed on her feet, scaring her family half to death. I thought she was startled by seeing me, for some reason, but it turned out she was just operating on very little sleep. Maybe a little dehydrated after a long drive.”
Andrew’s fingers had tightened so hard around the phone that he thought he heard the case groan in protest. “How, uh, how far along is she?”
His own uncharacteristic stammering annoyed him, but Aaron didn’t seem to notice. “Shelby said she’s due in mid-September, so about six months. I guess it’s a surprise to you, because you haven’t seen her in almost a year.”
Six months. “Um. Right. And the father?”
“Not involved. No one really talks about it, but I got the impression this was sort of a one-time-thing accident, you know? Shelby told me it’s totally out of character for Hannah, but the family figures she was still stinging after the fiasco with her ex-husband and indulged in a little ego boost that left her with unintended consequences. She’s doing well, though, and everyone’s excited about welcoming the first member of the new generation of Bells.”
Not knowing what to say, Andrew just sort of grunted in response.
Aaron quickly changed the subject
away from Bell family gossip. “Anyway, I just wanted to catch you up on what’s been going on here. I hope you’re happy for me.”
Andrew hadn’t been surprised to hear that Aaron had become seriously involved with a woman he’d known for only a matter of days. Even though he’d heard about Aaron’s adventures with Shelby Bell only by telephone for the past week, there’d been something in his brother’s voice that suggested Aaron had fallen hard and fast. Andrew had met Shelby the previous year and he could see how Aaron would be drawn to her. Apparently, the attraction had been immediate and mutual.
“Of course I’m happy for you,” he said. “So you’ll be staying at the resort?”
“Yes. Now that Shelby’s brother is down with a broken leg, they need extra help here this summer. The opening will become permanent when he leaves in the fall to start his firefighter training. Because I’m looking for a new career anyway, I’d like to try working in a fishing-and-camping resort. So far the behind-the-scenes part of it has been fascinating.”
“It’s hard work. I saw that during the two weeks I spent with them.”
“I’ve never been afraid of hard work. Just boredom. And I can’t see myself getting bored here with Shelby and the rest of her family. I can understand why they have so many loyal returning guests. It’s a great place for a getaway. A great place to make a home.”
Andrew couldn’t help thinking of his brother’s so-far limited attention span, so restless that at only thirty Aaron had already experimented with maybe half a dozen careers. Andrew, on the other hand, had worked in the D’Alessandro-Walker Agency, their family’s Dallas-based security and investigation business, from the time he was in high school and was now solidly entrenched to move into upper management when his father and uncles were ready to retire.
Through his job at the agency, he’d been hired by the Bell family almost a year ago to investigate a slick operator who’d been married to one of their own—Shelby’s beautiful cousin, Hannah. The ex-husband had been in the process of trying to bankrupt the resort after Hannah divorced him. Andrew had found evidence that not only was Wade Cavender’s legal posturing little more than a bogus extortion attempt, but he’d also been systematically stealing from the family for more than two years. Wade was now serving a too-short jail sentence for embezzlement. Andrew had thought he’d put his own complicated entanglement with the Bell family behind him—until his twin had stumbled upon a brochure for the Bell Resort and Marina in Andrew’s office and had impulsively decided to take a vacation there.
Trying to focus on the conversation, Andrew pushed thoughts of Hannah to the back of his mind. Yet he knew those images would lurk there in the darkness, ready to taunt him again as soon as he let down his guard—just as thoughts of her had been doing for almost a year now. “Have you told Mom and Dad yet that you’re staying there?”
“Just talked to Mom. Needless to say, she and Dad can’t wait to meet Shelby. Shelby and I are planning a quick trip to Dallas soon to meet the folks and pick up some more of my things.”
The Bell Resort was located on Lake Livingston, almost a four-hour drive south of Dallas. Aaron had planned to stay only a week or so, needing a chance to recharge and contemplate after leaving a job in which he’d been unhappy and unfulfilled. He couldn’t have predicted then that he would find a new love, a new home and a new career there.
“How does Shelby’s family feel about your moving in with her after knowing her only a week?”
“They’re—” Aaron paused as if searching for a word, then finished with “—adjusting.”
Aaron had saved Shelby’s life the day before when she’d been attacked and kidnapped by a criminal who’d been using the resort as a base for his stolen-goods fencing operation. Shelby had stumbled onto the scheme and had a knife pressed to her throat as a result. Fortunately Aaron rescued her unharmed, which made him the newest Bell family hero. Still, it had to be unnerving for her parents and grandparents to see how quickly she and Aaron, who was little more than a stranger to them, had become lovers.
As for Andrew himself, well, when it came to the Bell women, he was in no position to judge.
“I’d better go,” Aaron said. “Bryan’s waiting for me to help him repair an outdoor light fixture. A couple of punk kids broke it by throwing rocks at it.”
Aaron already sounded like an indignant resort property manager, Andrew noted. Had he not just been stunned by his brother’s unwitting announcement, he might have found it rather amusing. As it was, he sat for a long time after disconnecting the call, staring blindly at his work-cluttered desk and wondering what the hell he was supposed to do now.
Chapter One
Hannah Bell figured she had a few days at the most to decide whether to run or stand her ground. She’d never considered herself a coward, but she was leaning toward running. She’d be leaving behind her loving, close-knit family, a marketing job she’d trained for all her life and her cozy manufactured home in the family owned Texas lake resort where she’d grown up. She would miss this tidy little two-bedroom trailer, the first place she’d ever lived that was hers alone.
Sitting in her neutral-toned living room, she sighed heavily, one hand on her swollen tummy as she silently conceded she wouldn’t be going anywhere. As inviting as it sounded to disappear before the inevitable confrontation with Andrew Walker, she would stay and face the consequences of her own unprecedented behavior on one reckless winter night. It wouldn’t do any good to run anyway. Andrew was a P.I. He’d find her if he wanted to.
Would he want to?
Four rapid knocks sounded on her front door—her sister Maggie’s characteristic signal. “It’s unlocked,” she called out, too tired to rise.
Maggie entered carrying a plastic cup with a straw. It was almost five, so she was probably finished with her work for the day. Maggie had chosen the job of housekeeping supervisor, hiring and overseeing the cleaning staff for the sixteen-unit motel and eight cabins available for rent in the resort. Having majored in business and Spanish in college, Maggie performed her job efficiently and cheerfully. She kept her employees on task and held them to high standards of cleanliness and customer service, yet they still liked her and would gladly do anything she asked. Hannah had always been impressed with her sister’s easy people skills. Even though she worked closely with the public herself in her role as marketing and scheduling supervisor for the resort, along with manning the front desk for check-ins, she was more naturally reserved and had to put a little more effort into her interactions.
“I brought you a strawberry smoothie,” Maggie said. “I figured you could use an energy boost.”
Hannah accepted the cup gratefully. “Thanks, sis.”
“You’re welcome. So, big news about Shelby and Aaron Walker, huh?”
Swallowing a gulp of the cold, fruity beverage, Hannah nodded, giving herself a moment to choose her words before answering. “I was shocked to hear Shelby’s gotten involved with Aaron Walker. But, then, I didn’t even know Andrew’s brother was here.”
Having been out of the state for a couple of weeks visiting their mother’s relatives in Shreveport, Hannah had missed the recent excitement here at Bell Resort and Marina, a business her family had owned for three generations. Her impetuous and imaginative cousin Shelby had suspected that a man renting one of the vacation cabins was involved in something illegal and had found herself in danger when she’d been proven right. Hannah shuddered to think of the knife that had been held to Shelby’s throat only the day before. Maggie had told her all about the nightmarish scene and about Aaron’s daring rescue of their cousin. Shelby sported an ugly bruise on one cheek from the ordeal.
Hannah would bet it would be a while before the family recovered from that shock, especially right on the heels of Shelby’s older brother Steven’s accident. He’d broken his leg and suffered a concussion when he’d overturned a mowing tractor while working around the campgrounds. Two near-tragedies in less than a week had been hard on their grandparen
ts, not to mention Steven and Shelby’s parents. The family needed a few days of peace and comfortable routines.
Hannah was going to do her best to keep from upsetting them for a while. She had shocked them enough when she’d announced her pregnancy a couple months ago when it had started to become obvious. Now six months along, she still refused to name the father. She had let them believe her condition was the result of an impulsive and completely uncharacteristic one-night stand, which was true, with someone they didn’t know, which was not exactly accurate. She had made it quite clear that she wanted this child, that while her pregnancy might have been an accident, she would never label it a mistake. And bless their hearts, her family had rallied around her. She had no doubt they would welcome the newest member of their family with love and joy.
Sitting in a chair with the bottled water she’d brought for herself, Maggie brushed back her sun-streaked brown hair and studied Hannah with long-lashed hazel eyes. Hannah’s hair was a darker brown than her sister’s and her eyes were emerald-green. They would never be mistaken for twins, but she knew there were family resemblances between them, from their mother’s coloring to their father’s cheekbones.