The Golden Chance Read online

  “Why on earth should I call you Nick?” She took a swallow of cold tea.

  Nick Lightfoot didn't rise to the bait. Instead, he studied her in turn, his eyes thoughtful behind the lenses of his glasses. The window air conditioner hummed in the silence.

  “You're going to be difficult, aren't you?” he finally observed.

  “It's what I'm good at. I've had a lot of practice.”

  His eyes swept over the glass coffee table, spotted the stack of travel brochures. “Going on a trip?”

  “Thinking about it.”

  “California?” He flipped through a couple of the folders with their scenes of endless beaches and Disneyland.

  “Crissie used to say Southern California would be good for me. She always claimed I needed a taste of life in the fast lane.”

  Lightfoot said nothing for a few minutes, and Phila watched him out of the corner of her eye. He was a predator, she decided. His light gray eyes reflected little…only perhaps an unending search for prey and a cold intelligence. The thin lips, bold, aggressive nose and the high, blunt cheekbones made her think of a large animal. The heavy pelt of his dark hair was lightly iced with silver. He was somewhere in his mid-thirties, she guessed. And he'd done some hunting in his time.

  There was an unconscious arrogance in the set of his shoulders and a lean but powerful strength in his body. She knew that his must be a smooth, prowling stride that ate up ground as he moved. He could stalk a victim all day if necessary and still have plenty of energy left for making the kill at the end of the hunt.

  “You aren't quite what I expected,” Nick said finally, looking up from the brochures.

  “What did you expect?”

  “I don't know. You just aren't it.”

  “I've had phone calls from someone named Hilary Lightfoot who sounds like she runs around in an English riding habit most of the time. Also, some from a man named Darren Castleton. He sounds like he's running for office. Where do you fit into the scenario, Mr. Lightfoot? Crissie never mentioned you. Frankly, you look like hired muscle.”

  “I never met Crissie Masters. I moved from Washington to California three years ago.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “It wasn't hard. I made a few phone calls. Your ex-boss gave me your address.”

  “Thelma told you where I was?” Phila asked sharply.

  “Yeah.”

  “What did you do to her to make her tell?”

  “I didn't do anything to her. I just talked to her.”

  “I'll bet. You say that a little too easily for my taste.”

  “No accounting for taste.”

  “You're accustomed to people answering questions when you ask them, aren't you?”

  “Why shouldn't she have been willing to cooperate?” he asked with the mildest possible expression of surprise.

  “I asked her not to give out my address.”

  “She did say something about you wanting to dodge reporters but when she found out I wasn't interested in doing an interview, she opened up.”

  “You mean you applied pressure and she caved in.” Phila sighed. “So you are the muscle for your families. Poor Thelma. She tries, but she isn't very good at resisting pressure. She's been a bureaucrat too long.”

  “You, I take it, are better at it?” Nick's brows rose skeptically.

  “I'm a pro. And I'll save you a lot of time by telling you now that there's nothing you can say that will convince me to change my mind. I'm not about to sell back the shares in Castleton & Lightfoot that Crissie left to me. Not for a while, at any rate. I have some serious thinking to do about those shares. I may have some questions I want answered.”

  He nodded, looking neither annoyed nor startled. He just looked disturbingly patient.

  “What questions do you have, Phila?”

  She hesitated. The truth was, she did not really have any questions. Not yet. She hadn't been able to think clearly enough to come up with any. She was still trying to adjust to the trauma she had been through lately.

  First there had been the trial, which had dragged on for weeks, and then had come the shock of Crissie's death. Phila thought she would have been able to handle the trial if that had been all there was to deal with at the time. But the news about Crissie had been more than she could handle.

  Beautiful, bold, flashy Crissie with her California looks and her vow to get what was coming to her. The night of the vow came back to Phila now, a clear, strong image in her mind. It had been the first time she had tried more than a sip of alcohol.

  Crissie, looking a worldly twenty-one at the age of fifteen, had talked the clerk of an all-night convenience store into selling the teenage girls the cheap wine. Crissie could talk any man into anything. It was one of her survival skills.

  She and Phila had gone to the small town park near the river and drunk their illicit booze out behind the women's rest rooms. Then Crissie had outlined her plans for the future.

  There are people out there who owe me, Phila. I'm going to find them, and I'm going to make them give me what's mine. Don't worry. When I do, I'll cut you in for a piece of the action. You and me, we're like sisters, aren't we? We're family and family sticks together.

  Crissie had learned the truth of her own words the hard way. She had found the people she felt owed her and when she had tried to make them accept her, she had discovered the real meaning of a family sticking together. They had formed a solid wall against her and her claims of kinship.

  “I don't know if I'm ready to ask my questions yet,” Phila told Nick. “I think I'll wait and ask them at the annual C&L stockholder's meeting in August.”

  “The stockholders of Castleton & Lightfoot are all family.”

  “Not anymore.” Phila smiled, really smiled, for the first time in weeks.

  Nick Lightfoot appeared amused. “Planning to make trouble?”

  “I don't know yet. Possibly. Crissie deserves that much, at least. Don't you think? She loved to stir up trouble. It was her way of taking revenge on the world. Making a little trouble on her behalf would be a fitting memorial.”

  “Why was Crissie Masters important to you?” Nick asked. “Were you related?”

  “Not by blood or marriage, and that's probably the only kind of relationship you would understand.”

  “I understand friendship. Was Crissie your friend?”

  “She was much more than a friend. She was the closest thing to a sister I ever had.”

  He looked politely quizzical. “I never met the woman, but I've heard a lot about her. From what I've heard, the two of you don't appear to have had much in common.”

  “Which only goes to show how little you know about either Crissie or myself.”

  “I'm willing to learn.”

  Phila thought about that, and she did not like the direction her mind was taking. “You're different from the other two who called me.”

  “How am I different?”

  “Smarter. More dangerous. You think before you choose your tactics.” She spoke carefully, giving him the truth. She was accustomed to relying on her instincts when it came to judging people, and she was rarely wrong. She had developed survival skills, too, just as Crissie had. But she had not been born with Crissie's looks, so those skills had taken a different twist.

  “Are you complimenting me?” Nick asked curiously.

  “No. Just stating obvious facts. Tell me, who will the Castletons and Lightfoots send if you screw up your assignment to browbeat me out of the shares?”

  “I will try very hard not to screw up.”

  “How's your track record in that department?” she taunted, although she suspected it was excellent.

  “Not perfect. I've been known to screw up very badly on occasion.”

  “When was the last time?”

  “Three years ago.”

  The apparently honest answer surprised her, and thereby threw her off guard. “What happened?” she asked, with somewhat too obvious curiosity.

&n
bsp; He gave her a slow, remote smile. “We both know that what happened to me three years ago doesn't matter a damn right now. Let's stick with the issue at hand.”

  She shrugged. “You can stick with it if you like. I've got better things to do.”

  He studied the brochures on the table again. “Are you sure you want to go to California?”

  “I think so. I feel the need to get away, and it would be a sort of memorial trip in honor of Crissie. She loved Southern California. We were both born and raised in Washington, but she always said California was her spiritual home. She went down there to work as a model after she graduated from high school. It seems fitting somehow to spend some time there. She would have wanted me to have some fun.”

  “Alone?”

  Phila smiled, showing her teeth. “Yes. Alone.”

  Nick appeared to consider that for a moment, and then he switched back to the only topic that really mattered to him. “Are you going to fight the Castletons and Lightfoots every inch of the way, or is the word cooperation a part of your vocabulary?”

  “The word is there, but I use it only when it suits me.”

  “And right now it doesn't suit you to cooperate by selling those shares back to the families?”

  “No, I don't think so.”

  “Not even for a great deal of money?”

  “I'm not interested in money right now.”

  He nodded, as if she had verified a personal conclusion he had already reached. “Yeah, well, that settles that.”

  Phila was instantly wary. “What does it settle?”

  “My job is done. I was asked to approach you about the shares. I've done that, and I'm convinced you aren't about to cooperate with the families. I'll report my failure, and that will be the end of it.”

  She did not believe what he said for a moment. “You said you were going to try very hard not to screw up.”

  “I gave it my best shot.” He looked hurt that she would think otherwise.

  Phila grew more alarmed. His best shot, she sensed, would never be this ineffectual. “You never answered my question about who they'll send next.”

  “I don't know what they'll do. That's their problem.”

  She put her glass down on the table and eyed him narrowly. “That's the end of it as far as you're concerned?”

  He shrugged. “I don't see that I have much option. You've made it clear you don't even want to talk about the shares.”

  “You're not the type to give up this quickly,” Phila stated.

  His eyes widened. “How do you know what type I am?”

  “Never mind. I just do and you're not acting true to form at the moment.”

  “Disappointed?”

  “No, but I am very curious about what you're up to.”

  “Yeah.” His smile came and went again. “I'll bet you are. And I'm equally curious about what you're planning to do. But I guess we'll both find out all the results eventually, won't we? I'll look forward to hearing about whatever trouble you manage to stir up, Phila. Should make for an interesting annual meeting. Too bad I won't be there to watch you in action.”

  “Why won't you be there? You're a Lightfoot. Don't you hold stock?”

  “I still have the shares I was given when I was born and the shares I inherited from my mother, but they're a long way from constituting a controlling interest. I haven't paid much attention to them lately, anyway. For the past three years I've let my father vote my shares.”

  “Why?”

  “It's a long story. Let's just say I've lost interest in Castleton & Lightfoot. I've got other things to do with my life these days.”

  Phila's fingernails drummed a quick staccato on the arm of her chair. Mentally she flipped through a variety of possibilities she had not yet considered.

  Crissie had never mentioned this particular member of the clan. Maybe that was because he was estranged from the families for some obscure reason. He was certainly implying as much when he claimed he no longer voted his shares at the annual meeting. If that was the case, Phila told herself with a sudden rush of interest, she might find him very useful.

  “If you're no longer involved with Castleton & Lightfoot, just what are you doing with your life these days?” she asked bluntly. Almost immediately she sensed she had made a tactical error. The last thing she should do was show any interest in him. She should have been more subtle. But it was too late to take back her words.

  Nick seemed unaware of any blunder on her part. “I'm running my own business in Santa Barbara—Lightfoot Consulting Services. I just agreed to get in touch with you as a favor to the families. But the bottom line is that I'm not really sure I give a damn how much trouble you cause Castleton & Lightfoot. Have fun, Phila.”

  But he did not rise from the sofa and head back out into the heat, Phila noticed.

  “What does Lightfoot Consulting Services consult about?” she asked.

  He gave her an unreadable look. “We provide advice and information to firms trying to open overseas markets. A lot of companies want a cut of the world pie, but they don't have the vaguest idea of how to do business in Europe or the Pacific Rim countries.”

  “And you do?”

  “Some.”

  “Would you still be working in the family firm if you hadn't shot yourself in the foot three years ago?” Phila demanded.

  “I didn't exactly shoot myself in the foot three years ago.”

  “You said you screwed up badly.”

  “It was more like a family quarrel. But to answer your question, yeah, I'd probably still be with the firm if things hadn't happened the way they did. In fact, I'd still be running Castleton & Lightfoot if I'd stayed.”

  “You were running it?” She frowned.

  “I'd just gotten myself appointed CEO the year before I walked out.”

  “This is getting more and more weird. Why did you walk out if you'd just gotten appointed chief executive officer? What are you doing down there in California? Why did you do anybody the favor of contacting me? What is this all about?”

  A slight, oddly tantalizing light appeared in his eyes. “I've told you what this is all about, Miss Fox. I am no longer with the family firm. I got a phone call from the one person connected with Castleton & Lightfoot who still speaks to me on occasion, and I agreed to talk to you as a favor to her. I've talked to you. End of favor.”

  “And that's the end of the matter as far as you're concerned?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don't believe you.” Something was very wrong here.

  “That's your prerogative, Phila. Have dinner with me tonight?”

  It took a minute for the invitation to penetrate. She looked up at him blankly, aware that her mouth had fallen open. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me. It's too late to start for California this evening. I'm going to be spending the night here in town. I just thought we could have dinner. After all, I sure as hell don't know anyone else in Holloway. Unless you have other plans?”

  She shook her head slowly as the light dawned. “I don't believe this.”

  “What don't you believe?”

  “You aren't really going to try to seduce me in order to get back those shares, are you? I mean, it would be such a trite, old-fashioned, dipstick dumb sort of approach. Also a useless one.”

  He thought about that for a while, meditatively studying the ivy growing from a red pot on a nearby table. When his eyes came back to Phila's, she did not like the cool intensity she saw in his gaze. She had the impression he had made a major decision.

  “Miss Fox,” Nick said with a disconcerting air of formality, “just for the record, I would like you to know that if I tried to seduce you it would be because I wanted to sleep with you, not because I wanted to get my hands on those C&L shares.”

  She stared at him with narrowed eyes, trying to analyze, assess and categorize him. She had thought she had known precisely what to expect from any member of the wealthy, powerful Lightfoot and Castleton clans.
But Nicodemus Lightfoot was refusing to fit into the mold she had prepared for him. That just made him all the more dangerous, she reminded herself.

  But she couldn't get the idea out of her head that it might also make him all the more useful.

  “If I had dinner with you, would you spill any juicy family secrets?” she asked.

  “Probably not.”

  “Then what would be the point?”

  “The point would be that neither of us would be forced to eat alone.”

  “I don't mind eating alone. I often eat alone.”

  “You know something, Miss Fox? That does not surprise me. I eat alone a lot myself. Too often.” He got to his feet. “I'll pick you up at six. You know the local places. I'll let you make the reservations.”

  He walked to the front door and let himself out into the late-afternoon sun. He did not look back once.

  Phila took that as another danger signal. It was a minor point, that business about not looking back to see if she was watching him, but it was significant. Any other man could not have resisted one small glance over his shoulder to see how she was reacting to his sudden departure.

  She knew that his having failed to do so was not a reflection of unconcern on his part; it was a matter of self-discipline. The man was obviously in complete control of himself and was accustomed to being in equal command of the situation around him.

  The soft, husky roar of the silver-gray Porsche filled the empty street outside the house. Phila listened to the powerful car as it drove off and decided that Nicodemus Lightfoot was going to be a problem.

  Maybe that was what she really needed, Phila thought suddenly. Maybe she needed a problem she could sink her teeth into. It might do a lot more for this vague sense of depression than a trip to California.

  Foxes thrived on exercising their cunning, she reminded herself.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I thought you'd better know, Hilary, that I phoned Nick and asked him to contact that Fox woman.” Eleanor Castleton did not look up from her plants as she spoke. She moved around the heavily laden tables of the greenhouse, her gloved fingers working with assurance amidst the deceptively delicate blooms and leaves.