Dawn Temple - Moonlight and Mistletoe

This man expected her to be thrilled, to simply agree to whatever Walker had in mind, pocket the check and send him on his merry way. No doubt with a grateful hug and hearty thank-you. She’d never been so disappointed or outraged in her entire life.

“Shayna?” Kyle’s normally robust voice was smoother than fresh cream. “I’m sure that much money comes as a shock-”

“Shock? It’s an insult!” she hissed. She could practically feel the blood draining from her face. Brinks immediately scrambled to his feet and came to stand at her side, his massive body braced against her hip.

Her temper, which normally took forever to erupt, rose to a full boil as she bundled the wad of papers, check and all, and chucked them at the trash. They bounced off and landed under the table. The placid look on Kyle’s face melted into confusion, but not even temporarily rendering him speechless could lessen Shayna’s anger.

“What does your no-good client expect in return for a quarter of a million dollar payoff, Mr. Anderson? Maybe he wants me to murder Patty and bury her body on my mountain?”

“No, of course not. Shayna, calm down-”

“Calm down! I don’t think so. How dare that…that-” she couldn’t come up with a word vile enough to describe Dr. Walker “-that man, try to buy me off.” The last words emerged as a shriek, but she was beyond caring. How dare he suggest she sell her pride.

Hands fisted at her sides, fury blackened the edges of her vision. “He’s afraid of what Patty’s information will do to his precious reputation, so he sends you down here with a counteroffer. Of all the rotten, lowdown, dirty-”

“Shayna!” Kyle’s shout ended her tirade. She barely heard Brinks’s growl over the roaring in her head. Kyle grabbed her arms and gave her several firm shakes. “Breathe, Shayna, breathe.”

Shocked, she drew in a gulp of air. Her temper had never before gotten so out of hand that she nearly passed out. Hell, she didn’t even know she could get that mad.

“Better?” Kyle asked gently, slowly releasing his hold on her arms.

Embarrassed, she nodded. Fearful her knees would give out any second, Shayna threaded her fingers into Brinks’s fur and tensed every muscle in her body. “Your time is up, Mr. Anderson. I think you should leave now.”

Brinks seconded the order with a teeth-baring snarl.

Barely holding herself together, she marched back to the front door, listening to the slap of Kyle’s thin-soled shoes and the patter of Brinks’s nails crossing the wood floor behind her. Her fingers shook as she yanked the door open. Another gust of wind roared inside, but she was too numb to feel the cold. Anger made an excellent insulator.

Kyle tossed a last wary look at Brinks. If not for the dog, Shayna knew Kyle wouldn’t have left without a fight. Feeling deflated, she leaned against the door and waved Kyle toward the front porch. Unfortunately, he stopped in the open doorway and turned to face her. His unexpected maneuver put them much too close for rational verbal communication, but pure stubborn pride wouldn’t allow her to back off a step.

He put a knuckle under her chin, leaving her no choice but to meet his gaze. Gone was his practiced charm and polish. All she saw was kindness and concern. The warm combination made her as light-headed as her earlier debilitating burst of temper.

“I’m sorry to have upset you, Shayna, but you have to realize this isn’t over. Please read the agreement. You’ll see that Walker’s only trying to make things right.”

He sounded so convincing that it took her a second to remember he was a master player, a lawyer, a professional manipulator. A man not to be trusted.

Frowning, she stepped back from his tempting touch and straightened her spine, doing her best to look strong and intimidating. “You can tell your client that unlike my mother, I cannot be bought.” Then, before he could respond, she slammed the door in his face.

Kyle swore viciously as his dumpy rental slogged down the curvy mountain road. This should have been a one-day assignment. Get in, get her signature and get out. He hadn’t expected to be delayed by a tiny package of grit and pride. Shayna Miller’s disdainful glare had made him remember what he’d once been-the delinquent son of a two-bit criminal, a kid without hopes or dreams. A kid without a future.

But that kid was gone. Kyle had locked him away a long time ago.

The tires squealed as his foot agitated the accelerator. The car zoomed too fast around a corner, sending the tail end flying dangerously close to the mountain’s edge and his briefcase to the passenger floorboard. He eased off the gas. Struggling to regain his composure, he drew in a lungful of dry, forcefully heated air.

Law had been an ironic yet deliberate choice. He’d vowed to become his father’s complete opposite. He’d worked hard, graduated at the top of his class, and after taking a grunt position at Thomas, Peake and Moore, had worked his way up, establishing a reputation for unconventional yet effective tactics while always working within the bounds of the law. Seeing that stricken look on Shayna’s face had made him feel like a heartless jackass, no better than the Walkers and Patty Hoyts of the world.

She obviously despised Patty and Walker, and he couldn’t blame her. At least she’d lucked out and somehow landed with James Miller, who, from all reports, had managed to give her a mostly happy childhood. That put her miles ahead of most children in that situation.

Still, his instincts kept insisting something didn’t add up. Most people would be overjoyed to receive a quarter of a mil, but not Shayna. She had freaked out, gotten so overwrought she nearly passed out.

Although, he had to admit that the melodramatic line about murdering Patty had almost been funny-until her face had turned blue. She’d reminded him of one of his foster sisters, who used to hold her breath until whatever adult was in charge gave in to her demands.

Was that it? Had she-like her mother-put on an act and tried to play him for a fool? Her response had been frighteningly real, but a good con woman needed Oscar-caliber acting skills.

The ping of his BlackBerry cut off his internal line of questioning. He was expecting word regarding pieces of Shayna’s background report that hadn’t been completed this morning when he’d left L.A. Maybe whatever information Amanda, his secretary, had dug up would explain whether Shayna’s irate, over-the-top response to Walker’s offer was genuine or not.

Amazed to be getting cell reception amid the massive, shadowy trees and steep, rounded slopes, Kyle made a grab for his fallen briefcase and the cell phone tucked inside. The lightweight car veered to the right. Jerking upright, he overcorrected. The tires skied over the road’s glassy surface, sending the car sideways down the mountain. The tail flared, throwing him into a full skid.

Hands gripped tightly at ten and two, Kyle steered into the skid. The drum of adrenaline rushing through his brain blanketed out all sounds. His lungs froze. Suddenly the swirling stopped, replaced by a swift loss of altitude. The car hit ground with enough force to rattle his skull but not enough to deploy the airbags.

Inertia slammed him against the doorframe. Cautiously he flexed his muscles. His head felt ready to split open, and his knees, which had jammed into the steering column, stung like a son of a bitch.

He rolled his neck to check the view out his window. A relieved breath shuddered through him. The landscape tilted at a forty-five-degree angle, the car’s grille was buried nose down in the ditch, but he hadn’t gone over the edge.

Hands shaking, he shoved the door open with his shoulder and crawled out of the crumpled car. Wind and freezing rain slapped his face. He ducked back in, retrieved his coat and shrugged it on before snagging his briefcase off the passenger floorboard.

He scrambled up the steep embankment as fast as he could, slipping to his knees several times in the icy mud. Night was falling quickly, the already-freezing temperature plummeting, the rain lashing at him furiously.

Once he reached the road, he took shelter under a large tree. It blocked the deluge, but the wind continued to roar under the canopy of branches. To his right, something rustled through the underbrush just as the sun disappeared. Nature towered above him, blocking the moonlight, but the crooked beam of his headlights bouncing off the side of the ditch showed Kyle all he needed to see.

She was to blame for this mess.

She had him so frustrated and confused that he’d gotten careless.

She, with her sexy Southern drawl, her stubborn refusal, her well-portrayed outrage.

And whether she knew it or not, Shayna Miller had escalated the stakes. Now it was more than just business.

Now it was personal.

Shayna took Kyle’s advice and read Dr. Walker’s “generous” compromise. Definitely a shocker. By all rights, she should be even more livid than when she’d seen the check. No one would blame her if she suddenly burst into tears or started flinging breakables against the wall, but at the moment all she felt was numb. Overwhelmed. Lost.

Tossing the offending document onto the coffee table, she pushed to her feet and stood in front of the fireplace. Stirring up the flames helped melt away a layer of disbelief. As did imagining feeding the annoying papers to the hungry fire.

When she’d first seen that check, she’d been terrified. What would a man like Walker demand in exchange for such an obscene amount of money? Turned out the quarter mil was only a down payment. The full agreement, which turned out to be little more than an appalling, drawn-out employment contract, promised her a million dollars if she cooperated.

Wanted: one formerly mistreated and unwanted child to play the part of Dr. Steven Walker’s long-lost, much-loved and stupidly forgiving daughter. Experience as Patty Hoyt’s stooge preferable. Ethics: optional. Pay: one million dollars. Office hours: one hour on live television-as the surprise guest for the debut episode of Dr. Walker’s new talk show.

She could practically see the tagline: Benevolent father and prominent family therapist welcomes daughter he never knew into his happy family, saving her from a lonely life of poverty and despair.

What a load of malarkey. Or was it? All Shayna had to go on was Patty’s word that Walker had paid her off when he’d learned she was pregnant. Hell, even that much of her backstory could be a lie.

Sagging against the arm of the couch, she rested her sock-covered feet on the hearth. Walker’s offer did come with one very appealing caveat. In return for Shayna’s cooperation, he would pay Patty fifty grand a year for life, providing mommy dearest didn’t so much as blink in Shayna’s direction.

That kind of peace held way more appeal than a million-dollar bribe. Not that any prize could ever tempt her to agree to such a ludicrous plan.

She couldn’t believe that pompous jerk actually thought she’d go on national television and tell the world her daddy hadn’t taken good care of her. Sure, money had been tight in the Miller household, but they’d always had everything they needed. She’d had a far better life than a lot of kids. A hell of a lot better than the life she’d been living before James Miller became her daddy.

Letting her body fall backward, Shayna lay across the couch, staring up at the portrait over the mantel. It had been taken at the annual Moonlight and Mistletoe Ball. She’d been ten, with Bugs Bunny teeth and her first pair of high-heeled shoes. Daddy had looked handsome despite the four-inch-wide red-and-gold tie she’d insisted he wear, because it matched her new dress.

Even now she still considered it one of the happiest nights of her life. Despite the complete lack of physical similarities, the picture screamed family.

And now Kyle Anderson, her personal messenger of doom, had delivered a bizarre request that threatened everything she’d ever cherished. Dredging up her and James Miller’s past on national television would stir up entirely too many questions. With answers that could very well mean the end of her life as Shayna Miller.

Kyle had managed to talk himself out of his unjustified anger with Shayna during the forty-minute hike back up the slick, icy mountain. He’d decided to withhold judgment on whether or not she was playing him until he’d had a second chance to thoroughly outline Walker’s plan. But after standing in the freezing rain, banging on her blasted door for five minutes, his good intentions had vanished. His fury rocketed back to full force.