Family Secrets Read online

  “That’s the largest we have, two bedrooms and a sitting room. But –”

  “That will do just fine. Sally and Nicky will share a room.”

  Amanda thought that the nanny looked less than ecstatic at that news. She beckoned to the bellman, who had returned to the lobby and was wheeling a luggage cart toward the freight elevator in the service wing.

  He looked confused. “But Miss Bailey, the lady was awfully anxious to get her bags, and I promised I’d bring them right up.”

  The cart was piled with suitcases – at least a dozen of them, all sleek dark green leather. “Those are all Miss Arden’s?” Amanda said faintly.

  He nodded.

  She sighed. “All right, John. Go ahead.” She took a pair of big brass keys from the desk clerk. “I’ll show you up myself, Mr. Worthington.”

  Though the old-fashioned elevator had been converted to self-service, there had been no way to make it larger or faster. The close quarters had never disturbed Amanda before, but today she felt almost stifled, and she thought the ride up to the sixth floor had never taken so long.

  She stared at the grillwork in the elevator door and tried to ignore the sensual aura that seemed to radiate from the corner where Chase Worthington stood. She’d never experienced anything of the sort before; the man seemed to generate a personal force field that was even more intense in a confined space.

  She sneaked a sidelong glance at him. He was leaning against the wood-paneled wall with his eyes closed.

  It’s your imagination, she told herself firmly. He’s not even trying to create a sensation! But of course, that was the problem; he didn’t have to try.

  A soft, slightly sticky hand gently stroked her arm, and Amanda felt a twinge deep inside as she looked down into Nicky’s big hazel eyes. Poor little guy, she thought. He was obviously worn out, so perhaps he really wasn’t as spoiled as he’d first appeared.

  Despite his dirty face, he really was a handsome child, with the longest dark eyelashes she’d ever seen on a small boy. His skin was fair, with a soft flush across his high cheekbones, and there were a few freckles sprinkled on the bridge of his nose. His eyebrows were as dark as his hair, and their aristocratic arch would have told her he could be stubborn, even if his conduct hadn’t already given him away. And his mouth was soft and finely shaped –

  “Don’t bother the lady, Nicky,” the nanny said sharply.

  Amanda started to speak, and thought better of it.

  Chase opened his eyes. “Come here, Nicky.” He swung the child up into his arms. “You’re tired out, aren’t you, buddy?” he whispered.

  Nicky shook his head defiantly, but a moment later he snuggled his face into his father’s neck and by the time they reached the door of the suite, his eyelashes lay heavily against his flushed cheeks.

  Amanda unlocked the door and led the way immediately to the larger of the two bedrooms. “If you need protective rails for his bed, we’ve got some in the storage room,” she said.

  Chase glanced around the room and carefully laid the child on the double bed farthest from the door. “He’ll be fine.”

  Amanda tugged a blanket from the bottom drawer of a big chest and draped it gently across Nicky. He whimpered a little.

  “I’ll just have to get him up for his bath and his dinner,” the nanny said.

  Chase frowned. “It seems to me you’ll have an easier time with both if you let him sleep a while first.”

  The nanny’s eyes snapped, but she said, “Yes, sir.”

  Amanda handed her one of the keys to the suite. “The restaurant is open from six in the morning to midnight. We also have room service – not quite around the clock, I’m afraid, but I think you’ll find it adequate.” She led Chase back to the cozy little sitting room and pointed at a door. “The other bedroom is through there. It’s smaller, but it has a king-sized bed. I thought –”

  “Thank you, Miss Bailey.” His voice was almost a drawl. “I appreciate your consideration.”

  Amanda felt herself turning red. All she’d meant to say was that Nicky and his nanny would be more comfortable in the double room. She hadn’t expressed it very well, that was true, but it wasn’t necessary for Chase Worthington to turn a simple statement into a suggestive one! She said, stiffly, “The kitchenette is stocked with fruit and cheese, and if there’s anything else you’d like...” She stopped abruptly, wondering what he’d make of that opening.

  But Chase said only, “I can’t think of a thing at the moment.”

  Amanda gave him the other key and moved toward the door. She’d made sure everything was in place a couple of hours ago when she’d brought the fruit basket up, and she was grateful that there was no need to check the rooms now. She couldn’t quite imagine strolling through Chase Worthington’s bedroom, with him right behind her, to make sure the proper number of towels were hanging in his bath! “I hope you’ll enjoy your stay.”

  He shrugged. “Well, that depends on how the work goes, of course. I don’t mean to sound ungracious, but Springhill wasn’t my choice. If this movie wasn’t a sequel to the one we shot here a few years ago, I doubt I’d have ever set foot in the place again.”

  Amanda nodded. “The natives like it, but Springhill isn’t exactly an exhilarating experience for visitors. It will be far more lively than usual with the production company around. I wasn’t here the year you did Winter of the Heart, so I’m looking forward to all the excitement I missed then.”

  “I hope we don’t disappoint you.” His voice was dry.

  “I’m sure you won’t.” He was obviously very tired, she thought, and anxious to be alone. But as she paused with one hand on the doorknob, an impulse beyond her control made her say, “I’m sorry about Mrs. Worthington.”

  He nodded abruptly, but he didn’t answer.

  Amanda quietly let herself out of the suite. That was dumb, she thought. What had made her say that? As if it would matter to Chase Worthington, two full years after his wife’s death, that a complete stranger felt sorry about his loss!

  Stephanie was still in the lobby, sitting on the arm of a wing chair and patiently waiting for the locations manager to show up. The limousine driver was standing beside her. “I thought I was going to go deaf,” he was saying as Amanda crossed the lobby. “The kid carried on like that all the way from the airport. I got the impression he’d done it all the way from Los Angeles.”

  “Considering how impossible my own offspring can be,” Stephanie murmured, “I should bite my tongue. But that is a thoroughly disagreeable child.”

  “You’re right,” Amanda said.

  Stephanie’s eyes went wide. “You agree with me?”

  “Oh, yes – I think you should bite your tongue.” And I ought to shut up as well, she thought. But she went on anyway. “Nicky Worthington is four years old and he’s in a strange new place and he’s lost his favorite teddy. Maybe you should at least wait till tomorrow to decide he’s impossible.”

  “Ouch.” Stephanie made a face and followed her to the registration desk. “You win. I apologize. But I still suspect I’m right, and if you’re thinking of trying to rescue that child, Mandy, give it up.”

  Amanda straightened a stack of papers. “Rescue him from what?” she asked, more to herself than to Stephanie. “And even if I thought he needed rescuing – what business would it be of mine?”

  “None,” Stephanie said crisply. “And it’s going to be a very long four weeks if you don’t remember that.”

  The desk clerk put the telephone down and inserted a message slip into a mailbox. “I didn’t even know Chase Worthington had a kid.”

  “You didn’t? Oh, you’re new in town, aren’t you, Tricia? So of course you don’t know all the background.” Stephanie propped her elbows on the marble slab which formed the front of the registration counter. “Well, let me fill you in.”

  “Are you indulging in gossip, Stephanie?” Amanda murmured.

  “Of course not. I’m giving necessary information to an i
mportant member of your staff so she doesn’t slip and put her foot in her mouth. I’d have thought you’d have made sure of that much yourself.” She turned back to the clerk. “When Chase Worthington and Desiree Hunt came to Springhill a few years ago to film Winter of the Heart, they –”

  “Desiree Hunt?” Tricia said. “Isn’t she the one who –”

  “Don’t get ahead of me,” Stephanie warned. “You’ll mix me up. When they came to make the movie that spring, Desiree Hunt was also Mrs. Chase Worthington. A couple of months after the film was done, their baby boy was born, and two years later – ”

  “I’ve seen that movie,” Tricia objected. “She doesn’t look pregnant.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” Stephanie agreed. “She was delighted with herself for keeping it hidden. She did such a good job of concealment, in fact, that there were rumors at the time that the baby wasn’t Desiree’s at all.”

  Tricia looked confused.

  Amanda thought it was time to take a hand. “All the tabloids made it sound as if something fishy was going on,” she explained. “You know the sort of thing they pass off as news.”

  Stephanie looked at her in surprise. “You amaze me, Mandy. Don’t tell me you’re a closet fan after all!”

  “I admit I read magazine covers while I’m waiting in line at the supermarket. Doesn’t everybody? But that doesn’t make me any kind of fan – it’s just impossible to avoid the man’s name.”

  “And here I thought you didn’t even watch his show.”

  “Of course I do, sometimes.” Amanda smiled. “When there’s nothing else worth watching.”

  Stephanie looked at her thoughtfully for a moment and then turned back to Tricia. “At any rate, the tabloids hinted that the baby was Chase’s love child, and suggested Desiree had adopted him.”

  The usual scurrilous trash, in other words, Amanda thought. She reached for the pile of afternoon mail and started to sort it.

  “It made a great story,” Stephanie went on, “though personally I think there was nothing to it. Desiree was playing a sixteen-year-old, and of course the producer would have had a fit if he’d discovered halfway through the filming that she was pregnant. At any rate, just about two years ago she was flying to Hawaii to do another movie when the plane crashed... Oh, here’s the locations manager, finally. I’ve got to go.” She met him halfway across the lobby and with a casual wave vanished out the front door.

  “I remember that crash,” Tricia said. “There were several movie stars on the plane, weren’t there?”

  “Hmm?” Amanda considered the stack of bills and sighed. “Yes, there were.”

  “But why is Chase here now?”

  “Because this movie’s a sequel to Winter of the Heart.”

  “I know that. I mean – why would he do it? Won’t it bring back all kinds of bad memories?”

  Amanda looked up from the last envelope and thought about what Chase had said upstairs, about not wanting to come back. Still, he could have turned down the job. The fact that he hadn’t brought up all sorts of intriguing possibilities. “Maybe he hopes it will bring back good ones instead.”

  “Oh,” Tricia sighed. “I hadn’t thought of that. Coming back to the place they were so happy, and bringing his little boy... That’s awfully romantic.”

  Yes, it was, Amanda thought. She wondered if that was why Chase had reacted as he had, with that curt nod, when she’d brought up the subject of Desiree. “Go ahead on your dinner break if you like. I can take care of the desk while I pay these bills.”

  But she didn’t get much work done. Jessamyn Arden called to complain that her room was too warm, and Amanda sent the bellman up to check the air conditioner. A couple of crew members who were bunking together reported a lack of towels, and the hotel’s handyman came down from the last available guest room to report that the leak in the hot water pipes was beyond his ability to fix. Amanda took one look at his water-soaked uniform and decided the matter was critical. She was on the telephone trying to reach a plumber when Chase came to the registration desk.

  She cupped her hand over the phone. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  “I’m in no hurry.” His voice was lazy. He reached across the desk for the daily newspaper which lay beside the telephone, and his hand brushed her arm.

  Amanda felt the contact like a jolt of electricity. It took all the poise she possessed not to jump or pull away. Instead, she handed him the other sections of the paper, trying to look calm. She was very grateful that the plumber came to the telephone just then so she didn’t have to say anything more.

  Chase leaned against the desk with his back to her, ankles crossed, apparently absorbed in the front page and completely unaware of Amanda. But she couldn’t keep from looking at him. His hair seemed so soft that her fingertips itched to touch it, and the strong line of his profile begged to be traced.

  She swallowed hard. This was embarrassing. She hadn’t felt like this about a man since...

  I’ve never felt this way about a man, she admitted.

  It wasn’t that there had never been any males in her life, either, whatever Stephanie seemed to think. But none of them, no matter how attractive, had ever caused her to react the way that Chase did. And he’d managed the feat simply by appearing in the same room and breathing the same air.

  And why should she be surprised about that? If Stephanie was right, half the women in Springhill had already gone nuts over Chase Worthington; it would be no wonder if he’d conquered the other half by the time he left town. There was something very unusual about the man, as if he produced some magic chemical which attracted females as surely as nectar drew bees.

  Keep your distance, Amanda, she warned herself. It was none of her affair how attractive Chase Worthington was, any more than it was her business how he brought up his son. As long as she remembered to follow her own rules, she’d have no trouble.

  She noticed how wide and strong his shoulders were under the cotton sweater, and how his hair swirled sleekly away from the crown of his head.

  And she knew that despite her determination, Stephanie was right. With this man under the same roof, it was going to be a very long four weeks.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Chase lowered the newspaper and looked at Amanda over the edge of it. “This is a small town, isn’t it?”

  The remark was so far from anything she’d expected that it took her off guard. “What?” That was great; she sounded almost panicky. “I’m sorry, I don’t quite know what you mean.”

  Chase folded the paper and handed it back to her. “Getting a plumber to come at this hour of the day is a miracle.”

  Amanda shrugged. “I called his house and caught him at dinner.”

  “That’s what I mean. The plumbers I’ve encountered all have unlisted home phones.”

  “Well, the inn is a fair-sized account, for Springhill.”

  Chase propped one elbow on the marble counter. “Tell me about the other advantages of small towns.”

  When he smiled, the impact of his personal appeal was even stronger. The skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled invitingly, and his face seemed to glow. She’d never noticed before, despite all the photographs she’d seen, that one of his canine teeth was slightly crooked. The tiny imperfection lent him a rakish charm that no perfect smile could possess.

  Amanda felt a little dizzy. It was a good thing they hadn’t figured out a way to broadcast that personal radiance, she thought, or the feminine half of the nation would come to a screeching halt on Thursday nights during his show...

  The soft chime of the telephone drew her attention to the switchboard. By the time she transferred the call to the requested room, she still hadn’t regained her balance – but she could at least pretend that the way he looked at her wasn’t turning her insides to jelly.

  Chase had propped both elbows on the marble counter and put his chin in his hands. It was the kind of pose someone Nicky’s age might assume when studying a fascinating object, and
Amanda wondered if he realized it. “Do you do everything here?” he asked.

  “I can. I started as a chambermaid.”

  “And worked your way up?” He sounded a bit doubtful that it was much of an improvement.

  Amanda put her chin up. “Did you come down to chat about jobs, Mr. Worthington?”

  “Not exactly. I’m looking for a bookstore. The gift shop’s closed, and I just realized I have a whole evening ahead of me and nothing to read.”

  “Not even a script to memorize?”

  He shook his head. “That would be a waste of time. It’s been through four revisions already and no doubt they’ll still be changing lines as we’re shooting. Tonight, I just want something relaxing, and Nicky’s copy of Green Eggs and Ham isn’t going to do it.”