Beverly Barton: Grace Under Fire

Yeah, Tyree, she's perfect-but not perfect for you. Not even for a brief fling. How do you think she'd feel if she knew you were Booth Fortier's nephew? Especially if it turns out that Uncle Booth was behind Dean Beaumont's and Byram Sheffield's deaths… Hell, what was he thinking? Of course his uncle had ordered their deaths. And if Jed knew his uncle, Booth Fortier had wanted all the occupants of the car to die that night. Grace had barely escaped; and once his uncle became aware that she had now instigated an investigation into their deaths, she would be in grave danger.

Jed couldn't allow himself to become personally involved with this woman. It wouldn't be fair to either of them. And from what he'd learned about Grace through the files Dundee had put together on her, she'd been hurt more than enough for one lifetime. He had to keep things strictly business between them.

While in Louisiana, he'd be walking a fine line, trying to balance the truth with the lies. He'd be working with Dundee 's and the FBI to find evidence that substantiated the accusations in Grace's anonymous letter. He'd be guarding Grace as closely as possible, even before the first threat was made on her life. And it was only a matter of time until that first threat happened. Also, once the time was right, he would make contact with his uncle. That meeting was something he dreaded. But for their plans to work, he had to visit Booth. Several times. He had to convince his uncle that, after all these years, he was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. And he had to find a way to make contact with the federal agent who had infiltrated his uncle's organization. Undoubtedly something had happened recently to make it impossible for the agent to contact anyone in the bureau without jeopardizing his position.

"We're here."

Grace's soft, sultry voice instantly snapped Jed from his thoughts. He surveyed the area as she drove the Mercedes through the white wrought-iron gates that opened at a touch of her finger on the automatic control inside her car. A long paved drive, lined with massive oak trees dripping with Spanish moss, led to the old antebellum mansion. Consisting of three stories, the first was graced with whitewashed brick pillars across a wide veranda and a second story balcony was decorated with white columns and fancy white wrought-iron banisters.

Grace Sheffield Beaumont had been born into a life of wealth and privilege, with a pedigree that could be traced back to Europe. Until her father's emergence into the media industry forty years ago, the men in Grace's family had been gentlemen farmers since before the Civil War. And the women had all been ladies of breeding. Quality. Not a peasant in the bunch.

And what had Jed's family been? Several generations back, when Grace's ancestors had been pillars of Louisiana society, Jed's had been pirates. In the past century they had been bootleggers, racketeers. Criminals, the whole lot of them. And one noteworthy relative-his mother's father Vernon Fortier-had become the head of a crime syndicate, the job taken over and his territory enlarged by his only son, Booth. Without any children of his own, Booth had been grooming Jed to follow in his footsteps, but had been careful to keep his nephew out of the mainstream. Jed had been given the best of everything-everything that dirty, illegally earned money could buy. Most of his life he'd heard the rumors about his family, his uncle in particular, but he hadn't wanted to believe them. Growing up he'd been sent to private schools, taken to Europe for vacations, expected to attend a top-notch university. But then the summer after he'd graduated from high school, he'd learned something that changed his life forever.

Jed's mother, who had spent most of his life secluded in a private sanitarium for mental patients, had told him that her brother, his beloved uncle Booth, had murdered the man she loved-Jed's father-when he found out that Lance Tyree had gotten her pregnant before their elopement. At first he'd thought his mother's accusations were simply the ramblings of a disturbed mind. But when he'd confronted his uncle, he'd seen the truth in the devil's black eyes.

Grace parked the car in front of the old mansion, then got out and started for the steps leading to the front veranda. The minute her foot hit the first step, the massive double wooden doors opened. A small, gray-haired man in black slacks and white shirt stood in the open doorway. The butler, Jed figured, Nolan Rowley, who'd worked for the family over thirty-five years.

"Come inside." Grace invited him in with a sweep of her hand.

"May I take your bag, sir?" Nolan asked.

"No, thanks. I can manage it myself."

"Very well, sir." Nolan turned to his employer. "Will you need me to drive y'all into town this morning, Miss Grace?"

She shook her head. "Not today, thank you, Nolan."

The old butler-cum-chauffeur nodded and quickly disappeared down the back hallway. A divided spiral staircase possessed a good part of the massive black-and-white marble-floored entrance foyer. Glancing up, Jed could see all the way to the third floor, which he figured had once been the servants' quarters and might still be.

"Laverna has aired out and prepared a guest room for you. I thought you might like to unpack-" Grace eyed his lone canvas bag "-and freshen up-" she glanced at his beard stubble "-before I take you into town to Sheffield Media's headquarters and introduce you to the staff."

"I'm about as fresh as I get," Jed told her, putting a humorous glint in his eyes when he smiled at her.

"Oh, I see." She avoided looking directly at him. "Well, you can deposit your bag and unpack if you'd like. And if you'd care for breakfast, Dora can prepare you something-"

"I'm not much of a breakfast eater. I grabbed coffee and a couple of doughnuts at the Atlanta airport before takeoff this morning."

Grace huffed ever so softly, then said, "Let me show you to your room."

Jed got the distinct impression that Miss Grace didn't approve of him. Good. Let's keep it that way, he decided. If she found him a bit rough around the edges, if she didn't like him, it would be easier for them to maintain the distance necessary for their professional relationship.

Grace Beaumont was about as luscious a lady as he'd come across in many a year. She was like a ripe peach hanging precariously on a limb, ready to be picked. And if there weren't a hundred and one good reasons for him to keep his distance, he'd take a sweet, juicy bite out of her.

Rein in your libido , Jed cautioned himself. The last thing he needed while on this assignment was a love affair. Hell, everything was already complicated enough as it was.

Elsa met her brother at the back door, catching him as he tried to sneak into the house. She'd been up all night, worried sick, half out of her mind, because he hadn't come home or called. Her greatest fear was that he was back on drugs. He'd been doing great lately, ever since going through rehab his senior year in high school and enrolling this past fall at St. Camille Community College. Troy wasn't a bad kid, just easily manipulated by others.

"Where the hell have you been?" Elsa studied her nineteen-year-old brother, looking for any signs that he might be high. Although he looked a bit scruffy and needed a shave, he seemed to be sober.

"Who are you, the police?" Troy asked defensively.

"I'm the woman who has been a mother to you since you were a kid, that's who I am. I'm the sister who put her own life on hold to make sure you and Sherrie and Milly had food in your bellies and clothes on your back. I'm the person who worries about you."

Troy shrugged his slender shoulders. Built like their dad, her brother was tall and lanky, almost skinny. He wore his dark hair shoulder-length and had his ears, his nose and his tongue pierced.