Sweet Pretender Read online

  Sweet Pretender

  By

  Virginia Hart

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  "There's no reason to worry. I told you—"

  Jeremy cut her off. "You told me the girl would have more sense. Now tell me, when did you plan all this?"

  "But I—"

  "My father left the decision making for the company with me," he said suddenly as if in answer to a question she'd asked. "And I have free rein. So if your friend believes she'll be a wealthy woman if she marries my brother, she's mistaken. They can't marry! Tell her that!"

  Jeremy screeched the car to a stop. This can't be happening, Melissa told herself. But it was.

  The closeness she had felt in his arms was like a dream. His kiss, his touch, his murmured words of endearment had seemed so beautiful. The only logical explanation was that Jeremy had been pretending.

  Virginia Hart comes from a family of writers. Her sister writes mysteries, and her husband—who's even more romantic than Virginia's "heroes"—is an award-winning country music songwriter. Virginia, not to be outdone, has written mysteries, historical romances, Westerns, and now Harlequin Romances. Confusion is the order of the day at the Harts' Burbank, California, home, with Virginia at her typewriter, cola in hand—she says she's addicted—and her husband composing and singing at the top of his lungs. Their two sons, no doubt, add to the creative chaos.

  ISBN 0-373-02811-3

  Harlequin Romance first edition January 1987

  Copyright © 1987 by Virginia Hart.

  Philippine copyright 1987

  Australian copyright 1987

  CHAPTER ONE

  Melissa's eyes skimmed the tearoom in Hammond's Department Store before being drawn to the hallway in front of the employees' elevators. Her younger sister Arlene, still in her apron, was gesturing madly to attract her attention.

  "Now what is so important it can't wait until tonight?" Melissa asked with a touch of impatience. "There's a meeting in my boss's office and I can't afford to be late back from my coffee break. I'm not exactly Mr. Lowell's idea of a department head anyway."

  Arlene wasn't listening. She was peering into the tearoom, where everything was pleasantly serene. Greenery cascaded profusely from macramé and beadwork planters set into the ceiling, and vines twined in and out of the lattice-covered walls, accentuating the outdoorsy feeling and the refreshing coolness made possible by an excellent air-conditioning system. A gentle fall of water tinkled from a fish-shaped fountain, and chartreuse parakeets in white cages cooperatively raised their voices to provide entertainment for the diners. But Arlene, who worked in Albany's most popular tearoom, seemed immune to its relaxing environment and the haven it provided for weary afternoon shoppers. She was intent on seeing something else.

  "Look," she said at last. "There she is."

  "There who is?" Melissa's eyes followed her sister's pointing finger to a table by the window. An attractive woman in her mid-thirties sat alone, picking at a dinner salad as if fearful of what she might find under a lettuce leaf.

  "Mrs. Kerr. Who else?"

  "I can't believe you brought me all the way over here for this."

  "Isn't she beautiful?"

  "I don't care what she looks like." Melissa jabbed the elevator's Down button. "I don't approve of her or her offer to employ you. Mother and Dad wouldn't, either."

  "It isn't exactly employment," Arlene persisted. "It's more like an offer of an exciting all-expenses-paid holiday. With a salary besides. Think about it. If I'd won this chance on a TV show, you'd be shouting 'hooray.' "

  "You didn't win it. Besides, we've already made arrangements for our vacation. In Boston."

  "Boston! I've already seen the Bunker Hill Monument and Old Ironsides."

  "There's more to Boston than that. Our grandmother for instance."

  "We can drive over and see her any weekend of the year. I think two days is all she can take of us, anyhow."

  "Us?" Melissa raised an eyebrow. "You're the one who wears her out. Besides, why should this Kerr woman want to hire you to impersonate her daughter? The more I think about it, the more unsavory it sounds."

  "Unsavory." Arlene wrinkled her nose. "You make her sound like a bowl of stew."

  "A stew is exactly what you'd be in half the time, if I agreed to your escapades." A bell rang, the Down light blinked on, and the elevator doors slid open. "Aren't you supposed to be working?"

  "I've got a split shift today, remember?"

  "Then scoot along home and don't forget to pick up some coffee at the market. We're all out, and I won't have time."

  "Coffee!" Arlene groaned.

  "Yes, coffee. You're the one who can barely stumble to the table in the morning without it." Melissa glanced at her watch and shook her head. "Of all the times for me to be late. Mr. Lowell plans to discuss the best way to discourage tardiness in employees."

  As they stepped off the elevator on the ground floor, Arlene touched a hand to her sister's shoulder. "Don't walk so fast, Missy. I have to explain something—make you understand how different we are. Take your eyes for example."

  "What do my eyes have to do with it?"

  "They're the same sparkling green as our Scottish grandmother's. You're petite like Gram, too. And you stay that way, lucky you, without ever having to resort to dry toast and non-fat milk."

  "There's some point to this inventory, I take it?"

  "I, on the other hand, have eyes that are a heavenly blue, like the eyes of our forever-handsome and dashing papa. I'm taller than you by nearly three inches, and my figure is too curvy to be classified as petite. But, I might add, those curves are all in the right places."

  "You forgot to mention that you're a modest little thing as well."

  "I'm satisfied with my appearance," Arlene countered. "Why shouldn't I be? I'm stuck with it."

  "Why indeed? Now will you disappear and let me get on with my day? Or do you want to see me fired?"

  "Won't you listen? It's important. You can draw and paint like…"

  "Like Rembrandt?"

  "Better than that, if you ask me. I can't draw a straight line, even with a ruler. But I'm a wicked pianist, while you struggle over 'Chopsticks.'"

  Melissa exhaled through clenched teeth. "I'm giving you one final warning before I—"

  "What I'm trying to say, dear, is that I'm an adult now. Capable of making my own decisions. We're different people, you and I. Not only in our appearance, but in the way we feel inside. What you like, I might abhor, and vice versa. What would be wrong for you—"

  "Is wrong for you, too." The revolving door slowed maddeningly as Arlene, giggling, squeezed into the same section Melissa had chosen. Fortunately the insurance company where Melissa worked was only half a block away. If she hurried she could still make the meeting before everyone had settled in the conference room. "We'll discuss this later," she promised when they were outside.

  "There's nothing to discuss. Oh, listen, I'd be an ungrateful wretch if I didn't appreciate all you've done for me. If you hadn't agreed to play mother to me four years ago, I'd have had to go with our folks when Dad took that horrible job in Saudi Arabia. Just imagine me living in a place where a woman has to be escorted everywhere. I couldn't jog or ride horseback or even play tennis. I couldn't go to the market without a man to guard me. I want to please you, Melissa. Truly I do. But
this time…"

  "This time?"

  Arlene stopped walking. "I've already told Mrs. Kerr I accept her offer. I'll be able to earn in a single summer what it would have taken me the whole year to squirrel away. We'll be able to take our trip to the Greek islands much earlier than we'd planned. You already have your part saved."

  "You'd have yours, too, if you hadn't bought that wickedly expensive stereo equipment."

  "If, if, if. If we had wings we could fly to Greece under our own power and save air fare. See you later." Arlene wiggled her fingers and began to back away.

  "Count on it," Melissa called after her as she hurried back to work.

  All heads turned as she slid into the meeting room. Mr. Lowell stopped speaking, cleared his throat and scowled as she took one of the small notebooks and sharpened pencils that had been provided and found a seat.

  "Miss Brandon, we are discussing the horrendous number of employee-hours lost," Mr. Lowell told her with raised eyebrows, "by workers taking too long over coffee breaks. By their too-frequent visits to the drinking fountains and to the lavatories."

  Melissa nodded and held her pencil poised.

  "I like to remember what Longfellow once said." Mr. Lowell picked up the sign that sat on the desk before him and read with all the emotion Sir Laurence Olivier would have invested in Hamlet's soliloquy:

  "The heights of great men reached and kept

  Were not attained by sudden flight

  But they, while their companions slept

  Were toiling upward, through the night."

  The meeting progressed slowly. Someone from the Claims Department suggested that a merit and demerit system be devised for punishing the guilty and rewarding the virtuous. Two underwriters from Inland Marine, who were seated behind Melissa, snickered through it all and whispered ridiculous suggestions for rewards: pretty file clerks sacrificing themselves semi-annually to those who accumulated merits; a camel-of-the-Month scroll to be presented to the employee who stayed away from the drinking fountain for the longest period of time; chamber pots under all the desks to save trips to the rest rooms.

  Melissa hardly heard them. She could think only of Arlene and this new trouble the girl was planning to make for herself. By the time five o'clock arrived she all but ran out the door, her mind bursting with things she wanted to say when she got home.

  "Miss Brandon," someone called.

  "Yes?"

  She was certain she would have remembered if she'd seen the young man before. He was tall, with sun-streaked dark blond hair and an engaging smile. "Natalie Kerr wanted me to have a word with you."

  Aha! That was it. After their conversation Arlene had made a beeline to Mrs. Kerr and told the woman that Melissa objected to her dubious offer of employment. "If you don't mind," she told him crisply, "I'd rather say what has to be said on the way to the parking lot. It's been a long day."

  "Fine with me."

  His tan sport coat was an expensive one, she noted, and had probably been specially made to accommodate his shoulders, which were extremely broad in comparison with the leanness of the rest of him. His brown eyes were warm and his face—well—it would have been the perfect face for a man who hoped to talk someone into something.

  "I'm Brian Hendricks," he said as they left the building. He offered his hand, along with the smile that had certainly toppled stronger resistances than hers. He hunched his shoulders and squinted at the sky. "I don't know about you, but I enjoy the feel of the sun when I'm doing any number of things in the great outdoors. But when I'm locked into a coat and tie and trying to impress a pretty girl with my charm, I can appreciate a summer day far better if I'm viewing it through a window, from somewhere that's air-conditioned."

  Melissa sighed. The air was ovenlike. Besides, if she flew away without confronting Mr. Hendricks, he would flatter himself that she'd been intimidated by him.

  "I suppose we could stop for a few minutes at the coffee shop and get this settled."

  "Any oasis will do."

  "Why didn't Mrs. Kerr come herself?" she asked when they'd settled into a booth and ordered coffee.

  "She had an urgent appointment. But I can explain everything you might want to know about her plans."

  I'll just bet you can, Melissa thought. And you believe you can sweet-talk me into agreement.

  "You have an unusual sister," he went on. "Unusual in that she'd seek your approval. She is, after all, nineteen, isn't she?"

  "Nineteen or ninety-five, she's still my sister."

  "I understand. Natalie—Mrs. Kerr—is my sister, too, you see. There's nothing sinister about what she wants to do. Her problem is simple. She has an excess of pride."

  "I don't understand."

  "We were born, she and I, in Sandgate, a village in Connecticut. It's—"

  "I know where it is," she assured him, hoping to cut short the story of his life by a few minutes.

  He smiled tolerantly at the interruption. "I don't intend to bore you with a long family saga. But bear with me. Sandgate, being what it is, makes Natalie's problem what it is. Even more than in most small towns, everyone in Sandgate knows what everyone else is doing there. Lives merge, you might say."

  "And what has that to do with Arlene?"

  "When I was six, my parents decided they couldn't live under the same roof any longer. They couldn't, of course, remain in Sandgate and endure the gossip a divorce would cause, especially since we were only walking a tightrope at the edge of social acceptance anyway. My father had to work for a living. He was a salesman, and that put two strikes against us to start. So we moved to Albany."

  Melissa looked at her watch. "I don't mean to be rude, but…"

  "A moment longer, please. Natalie is older than I am, and at the time of our pulling up roots had just suffered the loss of her fiancé. Actually she was jilted in the crudest sort of way. The man decided to marry someone more suited to his position in society."

  "I still don't—"

  To keep up appearances, and not wanting her friends to pity her, she wrote all sorts of letters describing her new and exciting life in the big city. She wrote of her engagement and eventual marriage to a dashing, well-to-do older man who worshipped her, bought her everything a girl could dream of having and took her around the world.

  "Later she wrote of her lovely daughter, Jean, who could dance, sing and play the piano like an angel—that is, if angels can do those things."

  "And there was no husband," Melissa offered, deciding to give him only the time it would take her to see the bottom of her coffee cup. "No daughter."

  "Actually everything was fairly much as she'd described it."

  "Then…?"

  "Nat discovered that her doting husband was lavishing attention on another woman as well. Two women, in fact. One in Syracuse and another in Boston. She could have borne up under the shock of losing him. But Jean, who'd been a shy, submissive little thing until she turned sixteen, suddenly decided her life was meaningless and empty, that Nat was responsible for everything that had gone wrong with it. She packed up and went to live with her father."

  "Girls of that age often choose their fathers," Melissa told him. "After a while she'll see the truth and come home."

  "Not in time."

  "In time for what?" Melissa forgot temporarily the seconds that were ticking away. It was touching to think that a young man who probably had pressing problems of his own could care so much about those his sister faced.

  As if he sensed the change in her attitude, Brian relaxed visibly. His slow smile was one he might have worn had they been old friends talking over pleasant memories they shared. She almost wished they were. She liked him.

  "Sandgate is two hundred years old this month. There's to be a gala week-long bicentennial to end all celebrations," he said. "There'll be something slated for every night. Dances, dinner parties, you name it. Nat accepted all invitations with relish long before her breakup with her husband. She wanted to show off how well life had treated
her. Now suddenly, there is no life…"

  Melissa didn't interrupt him, though she could think of any number of solutions. A woman who had no qualms about hiring someone to stand in for her daughter shouldn't mind inventing an attack of yellow fever or, at least, of chicken pox.

  Her thought processes must have shown in her face because Brian broke off in the middle of his explanation, smiled with a kind of sadness in his eyes and shrugged. "A husband's absence at such an earth-shaking occasion," he told her, "might be attributed to the acceptable chasing of the almighty dollar. There could be a meeting of corporate heads halfway across the world or trouble in an African diamond mine. But a daughter's absence as well? Suspicion would begin to unravel the threads of Natalie's tale. In her youth, she'd acquired a partly deserved reputation for stretching the truth anyway. She considers it an act of God that her feet gave out on a shopping spree the day she stopped into the tearoom and caught sight of Arlene."

  "Arlene resembles your niece that closely?"

  "She wouldn't fool anyone who's seen Jean in person, no. But the likeness is sharp enough to pull the trick on someone who's only seen photographs. She's graceful and beautiful. Everything Nat would want in a daughter. And as a bonus, she plays the piano."

  "Yes, she's exceptionally talented."

  "Then you'll send her on her mission of mercy with your blessing?"

  Melissa traced the rim of her cup with one finger. "I didn't say that. I don't like the idea of my sister living a lie."

  "Did Julie Andrews lie when she pretended to be Mary Poppins? Did Elizabeth Taylor lie when she masqueraded as Cleopatra?"

  "You're confusing me, Mr. Hendricks."

  "I hope so."

  Melissa had never been one to make snap judgments. But somehow, she trusted him. It wasn't that he was nice looking. Jack the Ripper could well have been fair of face. No, perhaps it was the direct way he looked into her eyes. The lack of guile in his manner.