The Secret Daughter Read online

  “It’s not a vacation. I’m visiting family. Near Baton Rouge. They grow sugar.” Noelani shocked herself by referring to the Fontaines as family. Then, uncharacteristically, bared her soul to a stranger. “Actually, they’re my father’s family. I lived with my mother, who was Hawaiian.”

  “So you’re hapa haoli. Your Caucasian half must account for the lovely auburn highlights in your hair. They’re quite striking, my dear. Is your father Scottish?”

  “I don’t know. We never met, and now he’s gone.” Noelani shut her eyes. “I was ten before my hair turned this funny color. My tutu, that’s my mom’s mother, said I was born with jet-black hair like all the other Hawaiian kids in our village—on Maui. My mother kept the books for Shiller’s. The largest sugarcane plantation in the islands,” she added proudly.

  The woman’s face fell. “Divorce affects so many families these days.”

  Noelani didn’t bother to set her straight.

  “It’s a shame, dear, especially as sugar must’ve been something your parents once had in common. But I’m sure your father’s relatives will appreciate that you’ve come so far to pay your respects.”

  “Hmm.” Noelani mumbled something noncommittal as she recalled her first glimpse of Duke Fontaine’s photo. She’d often seen Anela crying as she gazed at a snapshot of a stranger. Noelani recalled stealing into her mom’s bedroom to get a better look at the picture one day, after kids at school had taunted her about her lack of a father. Instinctively, she’d known it was the man in the faded photograph.

  Noelani’s seatmate moved on to another subject. “Hawaii is a wonderful vacation spot. I own a time-share on Kauai and fly over for two weeks every year. Is it boring, living full-time on an island?”

  “Boring?” Noelani was never bored. But then, she had nothing else with which to compare her life. “Ours is a seaside town. Two out of three adults work in cane. Shiller’s office operates year-round, so my mother never really got time off, even though the mill shuts down for two months to overhaul equipment. Social life picks up considerably during that period. My tutu took me to all the luaus, hukilaus and huli hulis.”

  “I’m familiar with luaus, where they pit-roast a pig. Locals net fish, I believe, at a hukilau. Huli huli is beyond my scope,” the woman said, and then laughed.

  “Mainlanders would probably call it a chicken barbecue. But we use a sweet molasses-based sauce. And islanders grab every opportunity to sing, dance and eat.”

  “I’ll bet you do the hula.”

  “No way. I’m a good kick-boxer, though.”

  “My, that sounds more like something men would do for sport.”

  Because their lunch was served, Noelani let the subject drop. Her grandmother had believed it was a fitting outlet for a young woman’s pent-up hostilities. She’d signed her only granddaughter up for lessons at age thirteen, insisting it’d help Noelani work through her grief and anger. A wise woman, her tutu.

  Following lunch, Noelani’s seatmate took a nap. The woman slept all the way to Dallas. Noelani barely had an opportunity to say goodbye, as she had to run to catch her connection to Baton Rouge.

  Her arrival there was greeted by pouring rain. Thunder shook the baggage terminal. If this was mild weather, as her seatmate had intimated, Noelani hoped she didn’t encounter bad weather during her brief stay in Louisiana.

  And her stay here would be brief.

  Gazing out at the ominous skies, Noelani was engulfed by a wave of homesickness. She watched people chatting with those who’d come to pick them up and felt more alone than ever.

  In Dallas, she’d seen greeters carrying signs with the names of various travelers. She peered around, hoping to see someone displaying her name—maybe even one of her half siblings. Until now, Noelani hadn’t realized how much she’d counted on being met by someone from Duke’s family.

  What were they like, these relatives she hadn’t even known about?

  As the carousel began to empty it became patently obvious that Duke’s kids weren’t imbued with the famous southern hospitality her mother had touted the one and only time Noelani succeeded in getting her to speak about the man she loved. She was always shuffled off to her tutu whenever she asked questions about her father, but on that one occasion Noelani refused to be ignored. In a rare unguarded moment, Anela described her absent lover as a dashingly handsome and charming southern gentleman. A hard man with a soft heart. Anela said then she’d love Duke Fontaine until the day she died. Noelani was sure she had.

  It wasn’t until much later that Noelani inadvertently learned that Duke had neglected to mention his marriage at the outset of his relationship with Anela. According to Tutu, Duke had also wanted to divorce his wife and leave his Louisiana home, but Anela refused to hear of it. It wasn’t until after he’d left Maui that she discovered she was pregnant—a fact that never altered her decision to let him go.

  Talk about decisions… After ten minutes of watching the baggage department clear out, Noelani collected her bags and went in search of a cab. If money to help shore up Shiller’s mill hadn’t been her prime objective in coming to this dreary place, she’d have asked the driver to take her straight to a hotel.

  But according to a terse telegram from Jackson Fontaine that had accompanied her ticket, a room awaited her at Bellefontaine. It was that address Noelani reluctantly gave the cabbie.

  Through a streaked window, she watched the skyline of Baton Rouge disappear in a mass of black clouds. Her cab crossed a wide, churning expanse of muddy water the driver said was the Mississippi River.

  Never before had Noelani felt so out of her element.

  Soon the city gave way to wet fields of tall cane. The knot in her stomach began to uncoil. As a child she’d played hide-and-seek in similar cane rows. Friends often broke off stalks and chewed them for the juice, but Tutu had warned it would ruin her teeth, so Noelani rarely sneaked a nibble. But, oh, how she loved the smell of burnt sugar that used to hang like mist in the air when they burned fields. More of life’s changes, she mused, watching field after field slide past. Agricultural developers had introduced new cane that was too tough to chew, followed by better fertilizers, which made it more advantageous to plow under old ratoons. As well, environmentalists had forced an end to burning.

  The driver pointed. “Up ahead, through those magnolia trees, is Bellefontaine. In French, Bellefontaine means pretty fountain. There are fountains all over the grounds. I’m not sure how many.”

  Noelani scooted forward as far as her seat belt allowed and craned her neck for her first look at Duke Fontaine’s home. A home he’d purportedly been willing to give up for her mother. Right! The gift of a lei promised that its recipient would return to the islands, but Duke had never made another trip to Maui. Plainly, by the look of this place, he’d gone on with his life in grand style while Anela pined hers away.

  Noelani counted four fountains on a huge manicured lawn. Not even the downpour detracted from the effect of tall white pillars and wide balconies supporting a mansion larger than Queen Emma’s summer palace. As a special treat one time, Tutu took Noelani on a tour of their most beloved Hawaiian ruler’s part-time residence. This home was more ostentatious.

  Unable to catch her breath, Noelani didn’t immediately realize the cab had pulled around to the back of the house. Awed by the home’s magnificence, and heedless of the falling rain, she stepped out for a better look. The fresh, rain-washed scent failed to cloak an acrid odor of charred wood.

  Standing several yards away from a jutting porte cochere, Noelani saw that a section of the mansion had burned. Recently enough so that a workman was even now attempting to spread tarps over a gaping hole in the roof. He leaned far out from the top rung of an extension ladder. The man was bare-headed, and dark hair lay plastered to his skull. Faded blue jeans and a gray T-shirt were molded to his wet skin.

  Suddenly the ladder slipped out from under the man’s sneakers and fell hard into a flower bed below. The man was left clawing at a
sagging rain gutter. He managed to grab the tarp with one hand seconds before the gutter cracked and a large section canted crazily. If he continued to kick, the section would break and plummet him to the ground below. Granted, that section of the house was only one story tall, compared to three in the main structure. Nevertheless, the man could break his neck.

  Heedless of her strappy leather heels and new linen suit, Noelani tore across the soft lawn, leaving her cabbie in the process of requesting her fare.

  ADAM ROSS, WHO’D BEEN HIRED by Casey Fontaine to restore Bellefontaine to historical perfection, swore roundly at his ladder. He maintained a tenuous grip on the canvas tarp and had one elbow buried in a weak rain gutter that had sustained damage during a recent kitchen fire. It wasn’t bad enough that this storm had blown in from the gulf, calling a halt to the job of his dreams; now Adam feared he’d break a leg or worse and lose the contract altogether. “Dammit to hell!”

  He kicked experimentally to see if maybe the ladder hadn’t fallen all the way to the ground. A warning crack and further sagging of the gutter forced him to freeze. Even at that, his hundred-and-ninety-pound weight was liable to rip the entire gutter from its shaky mooring.

  “Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!” He kicked again, only halfheartedly.

  “Quit swearing at the roof and hold still.”

  Adam wondered if he’d imagined the woman who appeared to be digging through the honeysuckle below and to the left of his swinging feet.

  “Are you hurt?” a low melodic voice inquired.

  “A few scrapes,” he muttered. “Probably bruised a rib or two. If you can lift that ladder, sweet thing, chances are I’ll live.”

  “Chances go down if you call me sweet thing again.”

  Adam couldn’t see much of his Good Samaritan. But he fell instantly in lust with her sweet-as-sugar voice. Lately, women hadn’t figured in Adam’s life. He’d been too busy building a business after working his butt off to graduate from LSU in restorative architecture. Certainly he’d never been smitten with a woman based solely on her voice. That was about to change, however, if this one got him out of his current mess.

  Damn, any woman capable of standing his heavy ladder upright the way the Amazon below had managed with the ease of a seasoned construction worker definitely owned a big piece of Adam’s heart.

  Despite a downpour few women of Adam’s acquaintance would’ve ventured out in, this one had come from nowhere, raised his ladder and then climbed a few rungs to guide his feet to safety.

  “Thanks,” he panted. “You saved my—” he’d been about to say job, but that sounded too parsimonious “—my life.”

  “Hardly anything so dramatic. But you’re welcome.”

  Now that the dangling man was safe and her heart had stopped hammering wildly, Noelani retreated and squinted up for a clearer look at him. She judged the man to be in his early thirties. Even on this overcast day, she could tell that his eyes were very blue. The steaming T-shirt plastered to his broad chest sported the logo of a local university. “Are you…Jackson Fontaine?” Her throat went dry as it struck Noelani that she might have given aid to her half brother.

  Adam stared down on a mass of black hair framing a face that seemed to be all eyes. He also noted a lot of leg below a short black skirt. A very nice package from his bird’s-eye view. “Stay put,” he ordered, having more pressing matters at the moment than cataloging his helper’s pleasing attributes. “Could you hold the ladder, please? I’ll secure these tarpaulins so they won’t blow away.”

  Either he hadn’t heard or else he chose to ignore her question. The fool hoisted himself off his safe perch onto the roof and left the metal ladder vibrating under Noelani’s fingers. She barely caught his request—or more to the point—his edict.

  He must be Jackson Fontaine. Who but the lord of the manor would deem it his right to keep a woman standing in the rain while he covered his castle? Oh, well. She couldn’t get much wetter. And it was a warm rain. Since she needed to speak to him, anyway, she might as well ensure he didn’t break his fool neck.

  “Hey, lady. How about you pay your fare and let me be on my way?”

  Adam slipped again when he heard the rough male voice heckling his savior. He tied the last tarp and quickly descended the ladder. As he did, he saw that his helper was having trouble unsticking one of her spiky heels from the mud around the honeysuckle.

  Skipping the last three rungs, Adam landed hard and grasped her elbow. He jetted her across the lawn to keep her from sinking those stilts she wore into the rain-softened grass.

  She jerked away from his hold. “I can walk on my own.”

  But Adam didn’t release her until they reached the asphalt drive. “The least I can do for causing you a problem is to pay your cabbie,” he said gallantly, peeling some bills off a money clip he’d dug, with great difficulty, out of the pocket of his soaking wet jeans.

  Noelani wanted to get out of the rain before she squared the debt she now owed her host. As the driver snatched his fare and jumped back into the cab, she hefted her suitcases and again wobbled gingerly onto the wet lawn, aiming for the front door of the mansion. All at once she was left clutching air.

  “We’ll go through the back door. It’s closer.”

  His second abrupt order in no way endeared him to Noelani. She stomped after him, kicking mud off her shoes and muttering darkly.

  Striding across slick cobblestones, Adam halted beneath a high-ceilinged breezeway. He propped her large suitcase against the wall and drew a hand through his dripping hair. “If you’re huffy because we’re going in the servants’ entry, sweet thing, don’t think you’re being slighted. This is where carriages used to deposit elegant women in ball gowns who visited the plantation during the social season.”

  “Really? Well, I’m going to drip water all over the ballroom floor.”

  Adam laughed. He was glad to see that this exotic-looking woman, who’d bowled him over with her competence, also possessed a sense of humor.

  More used to giving orders than taking them, Noelani felt at a disadvantage. Flipping aside her soggy hair, she said, “If you’ll tell me how much my fare was, I’ll reimburse you.” She unzipped her purse.

  “Forget it. You saved my bacon. We’ll call it even.”

  “I’d rather not. If you won’t take cash, then I insist you deduct what I owe you from my portion of the inheritance.”

  Adam blinked. As a good friend of Nick Devlin, the new husband of Casey Fontaine, Adam had observed the shock reverberating through the mansion when the siblings first discovered their father had a love child no one knew anything about. Adam recalled hearing that this secret daughter of Duke’s was coming for the property settlement. But not in a million years would he have imagined that he’d foolishly develop a sudden adolescent crush on the illegitimate Fontaine heir.

  Damn, the rumors floating around didn’t do her justice. With her uptilted eyes and black hair falling halfway to a narrow waist, wet or not, she was a beauty.

  But wait. She thought he was Jackson. A mistake Adam needed to rectify. “I’m Adam Ross, not Jackson Fontaine. At the moment, I occupy one of the family’s two garçonnières.” He jerked a thumb toward a squat tower Noelani had noticed and wondered about. “Jackson moved into the main house after his daughter came to live with him. Today he’s in New Orleans on business.”

  Noelani gaped at Adam, feeling foolish but not at all sure how to extricate herself from this conversation. Certainly they were now both aware that she’d mistaken his identity.

  “I restore historic homes,” he said pleasantly. “I guess you saw the fire damage.”

  “As you aren’t family, Mr. Ross, would you be so kind as to direct me to Cassandra Fontaine?”

  “Devlin,” he corrected smoothly. “Casey doesn’t go by Fontaine anymore. She married Nick last week. She’s out on the property overseeing the cane cutting. Their harvest was delayed but— That’s beside the point,” he muttered, getting a grip on his runaw
ay tongue.

  Noelani narrowed her eyes. This guy didn’t have a clue. You couldn’t cut cane in this deluge; it’d only mash the stalks into the mud.

  “I suppose I could take you to Auntie E,” Adam continued. “She’s their aunt, uh…your aunt…not mine.” Adam floundered as the woman to whom he spoke seemed slow to comprehend. “Esme Fontaine is Duke’s sister. She lives here at Bellefontaine.”

  More blank looks from the dripping newcomer.

  “Esme’s the only one around right now. Megan’s nanny, Tanya, left to collect her from preschool right before you showed up. Jackson’s daughter, Megan—are none of these names ringing any bells with you?” he finally asked.

  Shaking her head, Noelani rubbed her temples. She’d started out expecting to meet two relatives, and this man— Adam Ross—stood here blathering on about an aunt, a niece and a brother-in-law. Or would Nick Devlin technically be her half brother-in-law?

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” Adam said bluntly.

  “Noelani. Noelani Hana. I’m… Duke Fontaine is… My mother, Anela Hana… It’s too difficult to explain,” she said, blinking back tears. “Look, I’ve had a long flight from Honolulu, and I’m wet to the skin. Do you think I could see someone about getting a towel?”

  “Damn. Excuse my manners.” Adam reached around her and thrust open the screen, then the door. He grappled with her bags, accidentally brushing against her as he shoved his way inside, bellowing, “Auntie E! You have company.”

  Turning apologetically to Noelani, Adam added, “Jackson thinks Esme’s losing her hearing. Casey claims Esme plays her TV so loud she wouldn’t hear if dynamite went off on this level. Excuse me a minute, please. I’ll go knock on her sitting-room door.”

  Adam hurried away. Noelani found herself gazing around a tall-ceilinged shotgun hall, twelve to fifteen feet wide, that ran from one end of the house to the other. Scarred hardwood floors were glossy black. Large oil paintings of flowers and landscapes hung on walls illuminated by three chandeliers, whose diffused light shivered through hundreds of intricate crystal prisms. Off to her left, she saw Adam lope up a sweeping staircase.