Read the book: «Ask Anyone»

Praise for the novels of
New York Times bestselling author
SHERRYL WOODS

“Sherry Woods writes emotionally satisfying novels…. Truly feel-great reads!”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

“Compulsively readable…Though the serious issues raised are handled with honesty and integrity, Woods’s novel easily rises above hot-button topics to tell a universal tale of friendship’s redemptive power.”

— Publishers Weekly on Mending Fences

“Woods’s latest entry in her Sweet Magnolias series (after Stealing Home ) is sure to please fans and entice new readers with…flesh-and-blood characters, terrific dialogue and substantial stakes.”

— Publishers Weekly on A Slice of Heaven

“Sherryl Woods is a uniquely gifted writer whose deep understanding of human nature is woven into every page.”

— New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers

“Redolent with Southern small-town atmosphere, this emotionally rich story deals with some serious issues and delivers on a number of levels.”

— Library Journal on A Slice of Heaven

“Sherryl Woods…writes with a very special warmth, wit, charm and intelligence.”

— New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham

“Sweetly satisfying, clever characters and snappy, realistic dialogue…a delightful read.”

— Publishers Weekly on About That Man

“Sherryl Woods gives her characters depth, intensity, and the right amount of humor.”

— Romantic Times BOOKreviews

Ask Anyone

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR

Sherryl Woods

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Dear Friend,

I’m so delighted that the TRINITY HARBOR series is back in print and that you’ve joined us for book two in the series. Trinity Harbor is a town where there are always unexpected things just around the corner, but none more so than what happens to Bobby Spencer in Ask Anyone.

Little does laid-back Bobby know that his life is about to be turned completely upside down by the arrival of Jenna Kennedy, a woman on a mission to prove to everyone that she no longer deserves the label of monumental screwup that has been pinned on her by her family.

Of course, with King Spencer as a father, Bobby knows a whole lot about trying to win parental respect, but his sympathy toward Jenna’s plight may not be enough for him to make the kind of major commitment she’s hoping for.

Once again, Anna-Louise Walton is around to lend a sympathetic ear and to provide the kind of moral guidance that you’d expect from a minister with a huge heart. And of course you’ll get to catch up with Daisy, Walker and Tommy, as well as with Tucker, whose compelling story, Along Came Trouble, is also available now.

So come home with me to Trinity Harbor once more. I promise some laughter, maybe even a few tears and, of course, some wonderful new friends to welcome into your heart.

All best,

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Epilogue

Prologue

H is son was making a spectacle of himself. Robert “King” Spencer had just hung up on the Trinity Harbor mayor, who was outraged not only by what was going on over at Bobby’s this morning, but by just about everything Bobby had done lately. He had a list, and King had been forced to listen to every fool thing on it.

“Fine people ought to be getting ready for church at this hour on a Sunday morning,” Harvey Needham had groused in conclusion. “Instead, they’re over at your son’s gawking like a bunch of tourists at an amusement park. This has to stop, King. The man’s out of control. And I’d like to know what you intend to do about it.”

“Not a blasted thing,” King had told him, and slammed down the phone.

He sighed heavily. It wasn’t as if this was the first time one of his children had stirred things up in Trinity Harbor. His daughter, Daisy, had almost given him a coronary when she’d insisted on letting that stray boy and his uncle into her life last year. The gossipmongers had had a field day, almost costing Daisy her teaching job in the process. Now, thank the Lord, she and Walker Ames were respectably married and Tommy was on good behavior, which meant it was time for King to turn his attention to his younger son and namesake.

Unfortunately, Bobby was proving to be as difficult to control as Daisy had been. King had almost laughed when Harvey had asked him to step in. As if Bobby would pay an iota of attention to anything his daddy had to say! He seemed to have the idea that he was too old to take advice from his father. So far, that hadn’t stopped King from offering it, but he was beginning to think he was wasting his breath.

What his son—both of his sons, for that matter—needed was a good woman in his life. King had been searching high and low for someone who fit his criteria, someone with a little spunk and a lot of class. So far the search had been in vain, but he hadn’t given up. Of course, once he succeeded in finding a likely candidate, there was no guarantee Bobby would cooperate. More likely the opposite.

The sad truth was that Bobby was stubborn as a mule. King had no idea where he got the trait, but it was a blasted nuisance. Any other man would get at least a token amount of respect from his namesake, but not King. When he tried to advise his son, Bobby merely regarded him with tolerant amusement, then went right out and did what he darn well pleased.

The rebellion had started ten years ago, when Bobby went away to college. King had expected him to take business management or maybe even animal husbandry, something that would serve him well when he took over their Black Angus cattle operation at Cedar Hill, the farm the family had owned for generations.

Instead, the doggone fool had gotten his heart broken by his childhood sweetheart, and in an act of pure spite toward his daddy had signed up for cooking classes. As if that weren’t bad enough, he’d topped it by dropping out his sophomore year and heading to France to take some fancy course in preparing gourmet food. When King had put his foot down and refused to pay for the trip, Bobby had gone out and earned the money himself. He’d worked at a fast-food joint over in Richmond for six months, putting every cent toward an airline ticket. King had never been so humiliated in his life…at least not until Bobby had come home with a diamond stud in one ear.

What kind of real man wanted to learn to cook? That was the question that stuck in King’s craw. Wasn’t that why they paid a housekeeper, so they’d never have to set foot in the kitchen except to raid the refrigerator? And if a man had to cook, what was wrong with a damned fine steak prepared on a grill or taking a wooden mallet to a pile of steamed crabs? That was the only kind of food preparation King wanted any part of.

Now Bobby owned the yacht center in town, spent his nights cooking in the club’s restaurant and devoted his daytime hours to trying to drive his daddy into an early grave by upsetting all the town fathers with his big ideas about developing the waterfront. If he had a specific plan in mind, Bobby hadn’t shared it with his father, but it must be a doozy if old Harvey was in such an uproar that he was trying to drag King into the middle of the fray.

Harvey didn’t like turning to King for anything. The fool liked to believe he was his own man, but when push came to shove, who did he ask for help? That’s right, King Spencer, the man whose family had settled Trinity Harbor way back when. Even Harvey was forced to admit that the Spencer name still counted for something in this part of Virginia.

Not that King didn’t relish a good fight from time to time. Nothing made him happier. He just hated having to publicly side with outsiders against a member of his own family.

He had two choices. He could head on over to Bobby’s and add his two cents to the commotion outside, or he could bide his time and say his piece over Sunday dinner. For once in his life, King opted for discretion.

Besides, he didn’t really want a lot of witnesses around when Bobby told him to mind his own damned business.

1

T here was a merry-go-round in his front yard. Okay, not a whole merry-go-round, just one lavishly carved, brightly painted carousel horse, but it was enough to make Bobby Spencer’s jaw drop. He hadn’t seen anything like it since a trip to the Santa Monica Pier years ago on one of the rare occasions when his father had deigned to leave his beloved Virginia.

That white-and-gold horse was also enough to have drawn most of the neighborhood kids out on a steamy Sunday morning to stare at it in fascination. The only thing that seemed to be keeping the curious youngsters from climbing onto that horse was the presence of a beefy uniformed security guard lounging in a rickety lawn chair about two feet away.

He had a merry-go-round horse and an armed man in his front yard. Bobby was pretty sure he’d awakened to stranger scenes in the past twenty-eight years, but he couldn’t remember when. It was almost enough to make him regret moving away from the family estate at Cedar Hill, where the nearest neighbor was half a mile down the road. Of course, then he would have had King to contend with, and that would have been much worse than this innocent little spectacle.

Only after he’d been standing there, slack-jawed, for a full minute, the morning paper absentmindedly clutched in one hand, did he realize that he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, and that any minute now, he was going to become part of the sideshow on his front lawn. Already Sue Kelly and Frannie Yarborough were ogling him with appreciative glances that Bobby might have found flattering if the two spinsters hadn’t been at least seventy and, even worse, the two biggest gossips on the block.

Just when he was about to dart inside to put on something halfway decent and maybe drink enough caffeine to come up with a way out of this crazy situation, a police cruiser rolled to a stop at the edge of the lawn. The county sheriff—his own brother—emerged grinning.

Tucker’s arrival was followed in short order by another cruiser. This time it was Bobby’s brother-in-law, Walker Ames, who got out, cast one look at the scene and, displaying even less restraint, burst out laughing. He and Tucker exchanged an amused look, then strolled toward Bobby, making a pretense of looking somber and official. If he’d been armed, Bobby would have shot ’em both on the spot. No jury on earth—or at least around these parts—would have convicted him.

“Where’s the cotton candy?” Tucker asked, barely containing another grin.

“Very funny,” Bobby snapped, in no mood for his brother’s wit.

“You got a permit for starting up a carnival in a residential area?” Tucker continued, clearly undaunted by Bobby’s sour attitude. “We’ve been overlooking Frannie’s fortune-telling, but this is a little harder to ignore.”

“You don’t have to enjoy this quite so much,” Bobby said.

Tucker’s grin spread. “Sure I do. Best time I’ve had all weekend.”

“So where’d it come from?” Walker asked, his fascinated gaze fixed on the horse with its prancing feet and bejeweled harness. Someone had taken great care with the restoration. It was in like-new condition.

Bobby’s scowl shifted to encompass his brother-in-law. “How should I know?”

“It is in your yard,” Tucker pointed out.

“So are you, but I sure as hell didn’t invite you,” Bobby retorted.

“Seems cranky,” Tucker observed to Walker.

“Downright irritable,” Walker agreed.

Bobby studiously ignored the ribbing. They’d tire of it eventually. Besides, if he was going to get to the bottom of this unexpected gift horse, he needed their help. They might be acting like idiots at the moment, but they both had halfway decent investigative skills, and the authority to go along with it. Without a jolt of coffee, he couldn’t even think.

“Maybe I should call Daddy and get him over here,” his brother said, his expression innocent. “He might have some ideas.”

Bobby frowned at Tucker, who could be an annoying son of a gun on his best days. “You do, and you’re a dead man. Leave Daddy out of this. Besides, I’m sure someone has called him already. People always love to report to King when one of us is causing a scene. Who called you, by the way? Never mind, let me guess. It was the mayor, right?”

Sadly, his nemesis lived just around the corner, close enough to keep an eye on everything that Bobby did. Not that Bobby was prone to wild parties or overnight guests in his restored Victorian house facing the Potomac River, but Harvey was always lurking around, probably hoping for something he could use against Bobby. Bobby had actually caught him outside with a ruler measuring the grass one day, checking to see if Bobby was in violation of the town’s overgrown-lot ordinance.

“Harvey did express some concern that you were desecrating the Sabbath, to say nothing of violating several zoning ordinances,” Tucker admitted. “Though he lacked confidence that I’d handle it with deliberate speed.”

“Which is why I’m here,” Walker explained. “Backup, in case your brother doesn’t follow the letter of the law about arresting the people responsible for public nuisances.”

“This is not my damned nuisance,” Bobby retorted. “Oh, forget it. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going inside to put my pants on before Sue and Frannie faint dead away over there.” The two women were fanning their flushed faces ineffectively, their gazes locked on him as if they hadn’t laid eyes on a partially clothed man in decades. The truth was, they probably hadn’t. He waved, clearly flustering them. He’d no doubt have tuna casseroles waiting on his front porch for the next week because of this. They seemed to think a man on his own was likely to starve, despite the fact that Bobby cooked for a living.

“What do you want me to do about this?” Tucker asked, looking none too eager to do a blessed thing.

“Make it go away, ” Bobby said emphatically. He gestured to encompass the entire scene. “All of it.”

“Don’t you even want to know how that horse got here?” Walker asked, clearly overcome with curiosity himself.

Walker probably wanted all the details to relate to Bobby’s sister, who was bound to have a million and one questions. In fact, Bobby was somewhat surprised Daisy hadn’t beat her husband over here.

Bobby was actually pretty sure he knew what the arrival of the horse was all about. Maybe not the specific person who’d sent it over, but that fancy carved horse was clearly part of someone’s bid to get his attention focused on a proposal for the boardwalk development he was planning. He’d had half a dozen unsolicited calls requesting appointments to make presentations since he’d announced a few weeks ago that he had signed the papers to buy the last parcel of riverfront land he needed. In his only public comment on the acquisition, Bobby had made the mistake of mentioning that he intended to get the project started this fall in the hope that it would be completed by the following summer. Eager developers had been crawling out of the woodwork ever since.

“I’ll leave it to you two crack lawmen to figure out who’s behind this. You have my permission to take the person responsible into custody for trespassing. And with all these other people crawling all over my lawn, that ought to help you meet your arrest quota for the month,” he said, throwing it out as an irresistible challenge. Tucker really hated being accused of having quotas of any kind. “Meantime, I’m getting dressed and making coffee. Join me once you’ve solved the mystery and gotten rid of this circus.”

Unfortunately, he had a suspicion that wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d made it sound. Just as well. He’d have plenty of time to whip up a fluffy omelette and some hash browns before the two of them made it inside. Something told him he was going to need a lot of sustenance to get through the rest of a day that had started out this badly.

Jenna Pennington Kennedy was a royal screwup. Ask anyone, especially her father, who was giving her one last chance to prove herself with this boardwalk-development proposal for Trinity Harbor, Virginia.

Okay, he hadn’t exactly given her the chance. She’d read about the prospect in the Baltimore newspaper and come after it on her own, without saying a single word to her domineering father or her brothers. They would have snatched the opportunity right out from under her, either by going after it themselves or simply by squelching her initiative with hoots of derisive laughter.

Unfortunately, though, her sneakiness seemed to have been for naught. The man she’d been told to contact—the one who owned the riverfront property and was looking to develop it—was steadfastly refusing to see her. His secretary claimed he wasn’t seeing anyone yet, but Jenna suspected it was because she was a female. In the development business, she ran across a lot of macho males who ignored anything a woman had to say unless it pertained to sex. Since sex had been nothing but trouble for Jenna, she had no intention of indulging again, at least not in the foreseeable future. Better to concentrate on things she understood, like riverfront development.

Whatever the real story was behind Bobby Spencer’s refusal to see her, this morning she had taken steps to snag his attention. She’d sent the man an extraordinarily rare carousel horse, part of an elaborate 1916 Allan Herschel carousel with a Wurlitzer organ that had cost her every penny of her savings and the entire trust fund her mother had left her. She’d considered it an investment in her future. Given the current state of the stock market, it probably wasn’t as risky a decision as it seemed.

If all else failed, she assumed she could auction off the carousel—currently under lock and key in a Maryland warehouse—and at least get her money back. If she succeeded, it would become the centerpiece of this project, and Bobby Spencer would pay handsomely for it.

Of course, in an attempt to prove to her father that she could be sensible when necessary, she had also sent along a guard to protect the expensive antique from the sticky fingers of curious kids and the remote possibility that a knowledgeable thief would try to make off with it.

The whole plan had been a stroke of genius, if she did say so herself. Too bad she’d had to keep it from her father. He might have been proud of her, for once.

Jenna sat in her car down the block and happily watched the crowd on Spencer’s lawn growing, despite the halfhearted attempts of two policemen to get it to disperse. Heck, if she’d thought to open a concession stand on the block, she could have sold enough lemonade on this hot July morning to pay the guard’s salary.

She’d give it another half hour, let Bobby Spencer begin to see what a draw an old carousel could be for the town, then she’d seize the moment to demand an appointment to make her complete presentation.

Despite years of being regarded as a second-class citizen in her own family’s company, Jenna had complete confidence in her design for the Trinity Harbor boardwalk. In her favor, she had an abiding nostalgia for all the old-fashioned beach towns she’d ever visited. People could get gaudy seaside entertainment in Ocean City. They could find more elaborate amusement parks just down the road from here at Kings Dominion or Busch Gardens. What a quaint little town like Trinity Harbor required was charm, and nobody understood charm better than a woman who’d spent her whole life with a bunch of men who were clueless on the subject.

But despite her self-confidence about the end result, Jenna resented the fact that she’d had to go to such an extreme just to put herself on Spencer’s radar. What kind of businessman ignored the overtures of an expert? His behavior didn’t bode well for their working relationship, but she was desperate. She’d work with the worst CEO in corporate history for this chance.

More dispiriting, though, than being dismissed by a stranger was having to jump through such elaborate hoops to prove to her father that she understood the business as well as he did and that she deserved to be more than decoration for the front office. If she’d been another son, he would have taken these things as a given. Dennis and Daniel had never had to prove themselves. They just showed up and made a pretense of working. As long as beachfront condos went up and didn’t fall down, her father was content. It annoyed the daylights out of Jenna that he never saw her brothers’ flaws—and never forgot hers.

Not that her father didn’t have more than ample reason to distrust her judgment, she conceded reluctantly, but he bore some of the responsibility for her disastrous elopement himself. Randall Pennington had been an overprotective single dad who’d never had the first inkling about how to raise a daughter. After Jenna’s mother had died, he’d settled on boarding school and tough love for his only daughter, while his sons had stayed at home under his watchful but indulgent eye.

As a result, Jenna had abandonment issues. She also had control issues. Big ones. She’d never had to consult a shrink to figure that out. A couple of episodes of Oprah had done it.

In an act of pure rebellion—and teenage lust—she had married the most irresponsible boy on God’s green earth. To this day, he hadn’t held a job more than the six months it took for boredom to set in. She shouldn’t have been surprised that his attention span for women was no longer.

But to an eighteen-year-old girl who’d lived a sheltered boarding school life, Nick Kennedy had seemed wild and sexy and dangerous. His ability to make her father see red just by walking in the door had been one of his primary attractions.

Nick had also been a helluva kisser, which had led to her second mistake in judgment. She’d gotten pregnant so fast, it must have set some kind of a record. Her only consolation was that it had been after the wedding ceremony, not before. Nick was already straying before their daughter’s birth, which had provided Jenna with her second dose of abandonment issues.

Now she had a precocious nine-year-old who was the spitting image of her daddy in looks and temperament. If Jenna had allowed it, Darcy would be pierced and tattooed in every conceivable spot on her plump little body. Jenna shuddered at the thought of what might happen the next time Darcy went to visit Nick, whom she could twist around her little pinky. Discipline and good sense were not among Nick’s strengths. And in recent years he’d been given a tab at his neighborhood tattoo parlor.

But the final nail in her coffin as far as her father was concerned had been her divorce. He didn’t believe in divorce. Not ever. Mistresses were just fine, apparently. It was an odd set of moral values, in Jenna’s opinion, but there it was. Leaving Nick was another black mark on her record with dear old Dad, even though he hated the guy. Another incomprehensible incongruity, to Jenna’s way of thinking. Trying to keep up with all of them gave her hives, but she did try.

She could have moved out of her father’s house—where a housekeeper was now looking after Darcy—and away from Baltimore, struggled to find some kind of work for which she was qualified and probably lived happily ever after, but Jenna was stubborn. She still craved her father’s approval and her rightful share of the company. Hoping for his love after all these years was probably a wasted effort, but she even harbored hopes of that, which was why she was still living under his roof and accepting the paltry, nonliving wage he used to keep her there.

She had worked for Pennington and Sons for the last seven years, ever since her quickie divorce in Reno. She was bound and determined to make her father regret that he’d only acknowledged the existence and contributions of her two worthless brothers in naming the business. She knew more, worked harder and had more vision than Dennis and Daniel combined, but all she got was a paycheck and the occasional patronizing pat on the head when she saved their sorry butts after they’d overlooked some little detail that could have cost the company a fortune. In fact, she was just about the only person in the firm who actually seemed to read and comprehend the fine print of their contracts.

This Trinity Harbor job was her chance to prove herself creatively, and no male chauvinist jerk was going to deprive her of it. If she had to take Darcy out of her current school come September and move down here so she could get in Bobby Spencer’s face 24/7 until he caved in and gave her the deal, then that’s what she’d do.

And after seeing him on his front lawn in his boxers, his body bronzed and his brown hair bleached by the sun, a rakish diamond glittering in his ear, the prospect promised to be a whole lot more entertaining than she’d envisioned when she’d driven away from Baltimore towing that antique horse in a trailer behind her beat-up Chevy.

She’d been thinking arrogant, crotchety old man, and, instead, she was going to be going toe to toe with a body—a man— so gorgeous he could make her forget her longstanding resolution not to even think about sex again until she hit menopause. Given her history of mistakes in judgment, her luck was not necessarily taking a turn for the better.

2

B obby stared at the fancy little gift card that Tucker had brought inside. The guard had apparently handed it to him.

“’There’s more where this came from,’” he read aloud, then looked at his brother. “What does that mean?”

“I think it means you’d better keep an eye on the front lawn or you’ll wind up with a whole amusement park out there,” Tucker said. “Won’t be any need to develop the boardwalk. You can just invite folks over here, put a few burgers on the grill and make a fortune without ever leaving the house. There won’t be another town in the entire state that can compete with that kind of down-home atmosphere. They’ll be writing this place up in Southern Living. ”

Bobby shot a sour look at him. “The card’s not signed,” he noted.

“I imagine that’s to keep you guessing,” Walker chimed in with another of those annoying grins.

“Looks to me like a woman’s handwriting,” Tucker added. “Thought I smelled a trace of perfume, too.”

“Is that the kind of top-notch investigative work the people of this county can expect from the sheriff?” Bobby inquired. “I could figure out that much.”

“Any time you want to sign up to be a deputy, let me know,” Tucker retorted.

Bobby scowled at him. “Didn’t the guard have any idea who’d hired him?”

“As a matter of fact, he did, but he wasn’t inclined to share it,” Tucker said, snatching Bobby’s cooling food from in front of him and shoveling it down.

“Hey,” Bobby protested, “what do you think you’re doing?”

“Having breakfast,” Tucker said blandly. “The mayor rousted me out of bed, and I’m starved. Besides, you weren’t eating it. This is the least you can do after spoiling my day off.”

“I’m not the one who called, and I was going to eat that myself,” Bobby countered.

Tucker shrugged. “It would have been too cold. Fix yourself something else. Last I heard you were a professional cook.”

“I’m a chef, dammit, and that’s not the point.” Bobby sighed heavily. “Aren’t the two of you on duty? Isn’t it your job to find the woman who sent this card?”

“Actually, I’m not officially on duty. As for the rest, sometimes the smartest, most efficient thing a cop can do is nothing. I’m thinking the woman behind all this will find you,” Tucker said. “Got any bacon? I’m in the mood for some nice, crisp bacon.”

“Fix it yourself,” Bobby said, then looked toward his brother-in-law. “Since my brother is more interested in filling his stomach than using his brain, what about you? Do you have any bright ideas about this?”

“Tucker’s right. If someone went to this much trouble, they’re going to show up to see how it turned out,” Walker said, then added, “Damn, I’m sorry Daisy’s missing this. Your sister would have to pick this weekend to take Tommy off to Williamsburg for an educational adventure.”

“Thank God for small favors,” Bobby grumbled. He’d forgotten about that trip. It was the only reason his sister wasn’t in the thick of things. “Having the two of you here is bad enough. I don’t need Daisy putting in her two cents. And Tommy’d be out there right now trying to charge people to take pictures. That boy has a true entrepreneurial spirit.”

Finally thinking of something to smile about, Bobby said to Walker, “By the way, I’ll bet you twenty bucks that those two haven’t done an educational thing since they got to Williamsburg—unless you consider riding the roller coaster at Busch Gardens to be some form of higher education.”

“That’s a sucker bet,” Walker said. “No question about it.”

Just then the doorbell rang. Bobby frowned and didn’t make a move to answer it. He’d had about as much unwanted company as he could take this morning.

“Well?” Tucker prodded when it rang again.

“Well, what?”

“Aren’t you going to answer it? Remember what I said, that mysterious woman is likely to come looking for you. That could be her. Your mystery could be solved right here and now.”

Bobby considered the possibilities. Tucker could be right. Or, more likely, it could be his father, urged to interfere by the mayor. It could even be some kid with a bunch of unanswerable questions. Or his buddy Richard, wanting some kind of a comment for this week’s edition of the Trinity Harbor paper to go with the pictures he’d no doubt snapped of the chaos outside. When news happened in Trinity Harbor, Richard’s journalistic instincts kicked in within seconds. He wouldn’t miss this.

Bobby wasn’t interested in dealing with any of them, not even the woman responsible for disrupting his peaceful Sunday morning.

“Nope,” he said, and poured himself another cup of special blend French roast coffee. He was beginning to feel almost human, and he wasn’t about to ruin it.

Whoever it was leaned on the doorbell.

“I can’t stand it,” Walker said finally. “I’ll get rid of them.”

Instead, five seconds later he returned to the kitchen looking vaguely bemused by a voluptuous redhead wearing a power suit and slinky three-inch spike heels. The dichotomy wasn’t lost on Bobby. Clearly the woman hadn’t gotten sidetracked on her way to church. She looked like a cross between a politician and a hooker.

When she teetered on those heels, he was forced to reconsider. He began to lean toward the image of a kid playing dress-up. There was something vulnerable in her eyes to back up that opinion. He really, really hoped this was not the woman responsible for that horse. He was a sucker for female vulnerability. His protective instincts rushed into action, overriding every defense mechanism he worked to keep in place.

“Nice job,” Bobby said to Walker, who merely shrugged over his inability—more likely, disinclination—to get rid of the interloper.

“You must be Bobby Spencer,” the woman said, offering her hand and a dazzling smile.

Bobby’s gaze narrowed. Reluctantly, he shook her outstretched hand. “I am.”

“I’m Jenna Kennedy of Pennington and Sons.”

“Nice to meet you,” Bobby said, recognizing the name of the Baltimore-based company that had been pestering him for a week now for an appointment. His secretary hadn’t been happy about his repeated refusal to talk to the woman. Maggie had thought she sounded sincere. Maggie was an annoyingly soft touch, which was why Bobby frequently wound up in meetings he didn’t want to have.

He forced a stern expression. “Sorry you wasted your time,” he told her. “But I don’t conduct business in my kitchen, especially not on a Sunday morning. Call my office.”

To her credit, she didn’t turn tail and run at the lack of welcome. “I would, but it’s the funniest thing. No one there seems to be able to give me an appointment without your say-so. Either you’re a control freak, you’re stonewalling me in particular for some reason or you’re just generally rude and bad at business.”

“Or maybe I’m just busy,” he said mildly, not liking her accusations one bit. Especially the one about rudeness, since it seemed to echo Maggie’s assessment. He prided himself on being a gentleman. Good manners was one of the things King had drilled into all his children, right along with respect for their Southern heritage.

Of course, the truth was, he had been stonewalling Jenna Kennedy. Though he hadn’t settled on a specific plan for his boardwalk project, he knew one thing for certain—he didn’t want to deal with a woman. Not that he had anything at all against women. His sister was one, after all. And some of his best friends were females. But ever since his childhood sweetheart had run off with his best friend, he hadn’t been inclined to get close to another woman. He had trust issues galore, according to Daisy.

Once burned, twice shy. That was the expression his sister used when she was scolding him about being skittish and telling him it was time to get over it and move on. She also added a lot of hogwash about his obsessive compulsion to take over the town being a bid to prove that he would have been the better choice for his old girlfriend. Like he really gave a rat’s behind what that traitorous female thought of him, especially after all these years.

“Not every woman you fall for is going to go running off with your best friend,” Daisy usually pointed out.

“Especially now that he’s already married to my former fiancée,” he generally retorted.

He frowned at Ms. Jenna Pennington Kennedy. “Look, I’m assuming that carousel horse was your idea.”

“It was,” she said.

“It was a nice touch, but I really don’t think this will work out,” he said.

“Why? You haven’t even heard our proposal.”

“It just won’t,” he said flatly. “Walker, could you show Ms. Kennedy out?”

Walker looked as if he wanted no part of this, but he dutifully said, “Ms. Kennedy,” and stepped back to give her room to pass. She didn’t budge.

In fact, she scowled first at Walker, then at Bobby, and planted her sexily shod feet a bit more firmly on the floor.

“Not just yet. Mr. Spencer, I don’t know what your problem is, but it’s my understanding that you want the kind of riverfront development that will put Trinity Harbor on the map. I can give you that.”

“Really?” Bobby said, not bothering to hide his skepticism. His attention kept drifting back to those shoes and her well-turned ankles. He almost missed the rest of what she had to say.

“You don’t want gaudy,” she said with impressive confidence. “You don’t want Ocean City. You want something that won’t overwhelm the size of the community, something with charm, some green space and a sense of the town’s history. Am I right?”

To Bobby’s deep regret, she had intuitively pushed all the right buttons. “Yes,” he conceded with a great deal of reluctance. “But if you understand that, why is there an antique horse on my front lawn disturbing the Sunday peace and quiet?”

“I had to get your attention,” she said reasonably. “I thought that would do it.” She grinned. “And it worked, didn’t it?”

Walker and Tucker were watching him expectantly. What the heck? he thought with a sigh of resignation. She was here. He had to start talking to prospective developers sometime. Besides, Ms. Jenna Pennington Kennedy was obviously the persistent type. She wasn’t going to go away until she’d said her piece. He could see her in the morning and have her out of town by noon.

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow,” he told her. “In my office. Ten o’clock. If you’re late, I won’t be waiting.”

A dazzling, relieved smile that could fell a stronger man than Bobby spread across her face. “You won’t regret it,” she said, reaching for his hand and enthusiastically pumping it.

Bobby sighed as the seductive scent of her perfume wafted through the air. He already did.

King slid into his favorite booth at Earlene’s first thing on Monday morning. He’d almost stayed home today, but he wasn’t going to let a little thing like being publicly humiliated by his own son keep him from the pleasure of seeing his friends the way he did every single day of the year, rain or shine.

It was bad enough that Harvey had been the first one on the phone on Sunday, but the chatter had kept up all the livelong day. He hadn’t had a minute’s peace. Worse, first Bobby and then Tucker had called to cancel out on the family dinner. Neither one of them had stayed on the line long enough for him to get a straight word out of them about what was going on. He’d been left with enough fried chicken to feed an army and enough indigestion to keep him from touching a single piece of it. It was damned annoying. He looked forward to that chicken all week.

Which was why, the second dusk fell, he had driven past Bobby’s to see for himself what all the commotion was about. That merry-go-round horse that had gotten Harvey’s drawers in a knot was still sitting out there. Half the neighborhood kids were still hanging around gawking at it, too, along with what looked like a dozen carloads of adults. Since all the locals had probably been by right after the word spread at church that morning, these had to be out-of-towners drawn by word of the rare antique that had sprung up on his son’s front lawn.

To top it off, King had spotted Richard Walton snapping pictures for this week’s edition of The Trinity Harbor Weekly . He was accompanied by his wife, King’s very own pastor, Anna-Louise. Irritated, King had forgotten all about his intention to drive straight by without making his presence known. He’d pulled up to the curb and rolled down his window.

“Woman, don’t you have better things to be doing than poking around out here like a tourist?” he’d grumbled. “Why aren’t you over at the church, saving souls?”

Completely unintimidated, Anna-Louise had turned one of her placid smiles in his direction and strolled right on over to look him squarely in the eye. “Should have known you’d be skulking around here somewhere,” she commented. “Why don’t you park and walk on up to your son’s front door if you’re so curious about what’s going on? I’m sure Bobby would be happy to see you. He could probably use some moral support about now. I imagine it’s been a trying day.”

“I doubt he’d be interested in anything I have to say. He never is. Besides, do you honestly think I could get a straight answer out of him?” King had scoffed. “Not likely. He stayed away from Cedar Hill today, because he doesn’t want to tell me a blessed thing.”

“Richard interviewed him a few minutes ago. You’ll be able to read all about it later this week,” she said, looking smug. She knew perfectly well how King felt about that nosy husband of hers poking into things, especially things that had to do with the Spencer family.

“You know, Anna-Louise, for a woman as well-versed as you are in God’s word, you have a nasty habit of forgetting all about it when it suits you,” he’d charged.

She’d leveled a look at him that would have wilted a lesser man. “Oh?”

“Whatever happened to honoring thy father? Isn’t that one of the Ten Commandments?”

“It is,” she’d agreed.

“Well?”

“I’m not sure of the relevance,” she’d said, then reached into the car to pat the hand clenching the steering wheel. “King, I really don’t think this horse has anything to do with you. Believe it or not, it’s Bobby’s problem, not yours.”

“He’s my son, dammit. What he does reflects on me.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sakes,” Anna-Louise had snapped impatiently, “he’s not the one who put the horse here. In fact, from what he said to Richard, I gather that he’s every bit as anxious as you are to make it go away. Now either go inside to lend him your support or go on home and sulk.”

King had gone home to sulk. He’d spent the whole evening trying to figure out why everyone—himself included—was so stirred up. It was an awful lot of hoopla over one itty-bitty piece of a kid’s amusement-park ride. Anna-Louise was right about one thing. The whole situation would be over with and forgotten in no time. He just had to go about his business and ignore it.

Which was why he was in his regular booth at Earlene’s awaiting the arrival of his friends. A rousing conversation about the price of beef would get his juices stirring.

Pete Dexter was the first to arrive. “Oh, boy,” he murmured with a shake of his head as he slid in opposite King. “Bobby’s gone and stepped in it now.”

King regarded him with a lofty look. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Harvey’s out for blood. He claims Bobby is trying to stage a coup and take over the whole blessed town.”

King gritted his teeth. So he wasn’t going to be able to ignore this after all. “Where would he get a numbskull idea like that? Bobby’s not interested in taking over anything. That boy doesn’t have a political bone in his body.”

“Then why did he go and buy up all that property? Whoever develops it is going to set the direction of Trinity Harbor for decades to come. And Harvey’s bound and determined that it’s not going to be your son. He says Spencers have been in charge for too long as it is, that it’s time for fresh blood to take this town into the future.”

King clung to his temper by a thread. “Just how does that pompous fool propose to stop Bobby?”

“The way I hear it, he’ll tie him up with zoning regulations and red tape until Bobby gives up and walks away from the whole deal. Then I imagine he’ll try to snap up that land for a pittance and do whatever he wants with it. You ask Will what he thinks when he gets here. I heard a rumor he sold a couple of parcels to the mayor a while back before Bobby could snap ’em up. My guess is Harvey would like to see condos all along the waterfront. Next thing you know, none of us will be able to stick a toe in that river without being charged with trespassing.”

King stared at his oldest friend. “Harvey told you this?”

“Not about the condos, that’s Will’s idea. But Harvey told a whole roomful of people about the rest at lunch yesterday. I was eating crabs over at Wilkerson’s at Colonial Beach. Harvey was holding forth like a preacher. He was talking so loud and his face was so red, I thought he was going to keel right over onto the seafood buffet.”

“Did you set him straight?” King asked.

“Me?” Pete looked baffled. “What was I supposed to say?”

“That no son of King Spencer’s would ever walk away from a fight, for starters,” King declared fiercely. He might not be entirely in tune with Bobby’s plans, but no upstart like Harvey Needham was going to sabotage them. “Did you tell him that?”

“No,” Pete admitted.

“Then you’re as big a damned fool as he is,” King said, sliding out of the booth and tossing some money on the table for the coffee he’d never touched.

“Now, King—” Pete began.

“Don’t you try to placate me, you old coot. I thought loyalty still counted for something in this town. Guess I was wrong.”

He stalked off to the sound of Pete’s sputters of protest and the hushed whispers of everyone else in Earlene’s. The way things were going, the entire conversation would be reported in The Weeky, right alongside that spread of pictures Richard had taken over at Bobby’s.

Once King got outside in the hot, muggy morning air, he sucked in a deep breath and tried to calm himself down. He was going to kill that boy of his with his bare hands. He didn’t have time to waste an entire morning on this kind of nonsense. He needed to get home. Somebody had to run that Black Angus operation that his sons didn’t give a hoot about.

But first, maybe he’d go on over to the Social Services office and see if Frances could spare him a little time. The woman had been driving him up the wall since she’d stolen first place in a spelling bee from him a half-century ago, but she had a level head on her shoulders. In the last year, he’d begun to count on that.

Frances had kept him from strangling Daisy and given him some sound advice and pleasant company along the way. Maybe if he offered to take her out to play bingo tomorrow night, she’d keep his mind off of Bobby until his temper cooled down. The last place King wanted to spend his golden years was a jail cell. And Tucker would slap him in one, no question about it. He didn’t bend the rules for anybody.

When King arrived at Social Services, Frances was on the phone. The blessed woman was always on the phone, but he’d finally learned better than to try to interrupt her. She got downright feisty. He sat down and waited with what to him passed for patience. Fortunately, Frances didn’t test him beyond his limits.

“I imagine you’re here to talk about Bobby,” she said with a resigned expression when she’d finally hung up.

“You heard,” he said bleakly.

“Not only heard, I went by there yesterday. It was quite a scene.” A wistful look passed across her face. “Seeing that carousel horse took me straight back to when we were kids. Remember? We used to have a carousel right here in town. And a skating rink, miniature golf and bingo on the boardwalk. I wish we could have all that back again. Kids need to know there’s more to life than video games and computers.”

King had a dim recollection of those days, but bingo and an old carousel were the least of his concerns. He sighed and regarded Frances with a plaintive look. “What am I supposed to do about all this nonsense Bobby’s mixed up in?”

“Nothing,” she said emphatically. “I know that goes against your nature, but Bobby can handle whatever’s going on. Besides, I don’t know what you’re so upset about. I thought you’d be pleased as punch.”

King stared at her. “Pleased? Why the devil would I be pleased?”

“Because the way I hear it, the woman responsible for that horse turning up on Bobby’s lawn is gorgeous and single. She’s from a good family. Of course, she’s from Maryland, not Virginia, but you can’t afford to be picky if you want him to start providing you with some grandchildren to dote on. On top of that, she’s already proved that she knows how to get Bobby’s attention.”

That certainly put a new spin on things, King decided thoughtfully. “Gorgeous, you say?”

“Yep, and a redhead,” Frances confirmed. “I ran into Tucker later in the day and he said Bobby’s tongue was just about hanging out. He also said Bobby would probably deny that with his dying breath.”

King’s spirits brightened considerably. “Is that so?” An idea popped into his head, one that required immediate action. He jumped up and headed for the door.

“What’s your hurry?” Frances asked. “You heading back to Earlene’s?”

“No time,” King said. “I’ve got something more important to take care of.” He whirled around, went back and planted a solid kiss on Frances’s mouth. “Thanks.”

Cheeks pink, she regarded him with a startled expression. “What did I do?”

“Same as always,” he said with a grin. “Put things in perspective.”

She laughed. “Glad to help, though I have a feeling Bobby might not see it that way. Am I right?”

King gave her a bland look. “Frances, I think you’re a treasure. Remember that.”

“I’ll remind you of it,” she said.

She would, too. Over and over. But that was okay, King thought, as he rushed out of her office feeling more upbeat than he had in months.

Let Harvey Needham rant and rave. Let Bobby try to keep him in the dark. King had a plan. Nobody could get the better of a man with a solid plan and the determination to implement it.