Roz Fox - The Secret Daughter

Adam kicked at the ladder again.

“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 a bruised 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. Despite a downpour few women of his 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.

“Are…are you Jackson Fontaine?” she asked, her voice suddenly hesitant.

“I’m Adam Ross. I restore historic homes. I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Noelani. Noelani Hana. I’m…Duke Fontaine is…”

So this lovely woman was the secret daughter. Duke’s little indiscretion. The illegitimate Fontaine heir.

Dear Reader,

One of the biggest challenges in writing linked books like the Raising Cane trilogy—especially a project involving three individual authors—is finding characters we love to love. Seeing the characters as people you’d want to know and live with for an extended period of time is essential to writing any book. When three writers carry over characters from each other’s stories, it’s like populating a small town.

Eve Gaddy, K.N. Casper and I met and brainstormed probably twenty scenarios and twice as many possible heroes and heroines before we decided to set our family in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the heart of sugarcane country. Casey and Jackson Fontaine have roots in their ancestral plantation, Bellefontaine, stretching back to the Civil War. They’ve grown up in the sugarcane business and are itching to prove their worth to a controlling father. When their parents go off on an around-the-world second honeymoon, it seems the perfect opportunity. Except the Fontaine family has enemies and family scandals. Love interests show up, which further complicate their lives. It takes three books to solve the family’s problems, bring in the crop of sugarcane and unite three sets of lovers. I hope you’ll enjoy Casey’s Gamble, The Secret Daughter and Jackson’s Girls.

Sincerely,

Roz Denny Fox

P.S. I love to hear from readers at P.O. Box 17480-101, Tuscon, AZ 85731, or e-mail me: rdfox@worldnet.att.net.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Duke & Angelique Fontaine: Owners of Bellefontaine, recently deceased

Cassandra (Casey) Fontaine: Bellefontaine plantation manager and daughter of Duke and Angelique

Nick Devlin: Riverboat casino owner and builder; married to Casey

Jackson Fontaine: Bellefontaine business manager and son of Duke and Angelique

Megan Fontaine: Jackson’s four-year-old daughter

Esme Fontaine: Duke’s opinionated sister

Noelani Hana: Illegitimate daughter of Duke Fontaine and Anela Hana

Adam Ross: Nick’s friend and historic home renovator

Roland Dewalt: Long-standing neighbor of the Fontaines

Murray Dewalt: Roland’s son and longtime friend of Casey and Jackson

Vivian (Viv) Pontier-Renault: Casey’s best friend

Luc Renault: Jazz musician and Viv’s husband

Tanya Carson: Megan’s nanny

Betty Rabaud: Fontaine family cook

Bruce Shiller: Owner of sugar plantation in Hawaii where Noelani grew up

Denise Rochelle: Current Fontaine employee, romantically interested in Adam Ross

Chuck Riley: Copilot who flew with Duke Fontaine

Remy Boucherand: Police detective investigating suspicious events at Bellefontaine

In researching the trilogy, we discovered that everything we’ve ever heard about Southern hospitality is completely true. Our heartfelt thanks go to Kenneth and Mary Jane Kahao, longtime sugar growers in the Baton Rouge area, for squiring us around. Because of them, we were able to tour cane fields during cutting season and get an in-depth look at a working sugar mill.

Nor would our books be so rich with the history of the sugar industry if not for the generosity of Caroline Kennedy, Director, and Jim Barnett, Curatorial Assistant, of the West Baton Rouge Museum. (Caroline was quick to inform us she wasn’t that Caroline Kennedy.)

Our apologies for any errors or bits of poetic license we may have taken in order to weave the fictional fabric of our linked stories.

I also want to thank my husband for driving us to and from Louisiana, and for the hours he and Mary Casper spent reading our stories for continuity. They’re the best.

And thanks to Paula, Laura and Beverley, our editors, for their coordination, support and the insight needed to move this project from start to finish.

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

“BETTY! BETTY RABAUD. I thought it was you. Wait, let me catch my breath. I’ve been hoping I’d run into you one of these days. I declare, can anything else go wrong for Casey and Jackson Fontaine?” Ignoring a stiff October wind, Mary Louise Chastain ran up to her friend outside a local café. She used to be a cook at the Woodlands, owned by Roland Dewalt, the Fontaine family’s nearest neighbor. And Betty was her counterpart on the larger plantation.

Betty Rabaud loved few things in life as much as she loved gossip. Her role as housekeeper-cook at Bellefontaine certainly gave her access to lots of the good stuff. She couldn’t help it if her affluent employers had been involved in so many disasters—each one worthy of gossip—during the past few months.

Today it happened to be news that had somehow leaked into the community. The recently deceased Duke Fontaine had fathered an illegitimate child. Glancing both right and left before pulling the ever-present unlit cigarette from between her lips, Betty tucked it over one ear and said in hushed tones, “Ain’t it something, Mary Louise? But how did you hear?”

“Murray Dewalt dropped by to see how I was getting on. I’d already heard rumors about the arson at Bellefontaine, how they had an expensive harvester go missing, and about Casey Fontaine taking up with that riverboat casino owner. Murray’s not one to talk out of turn, mind you, but I squeezed some information out of him. ’Cause he feels so bad for the way his dad fired me in one of his fits of temper. Not that I’d ever go back to the Woodlands, and Murray knows it.”

“Humph,” Betty grumbled. “I figured maybe it was Roland spreading dirt about Duke’s family, seeing how Duke stole the woman Roland had his heart set on marrying.”

“Isn’t that water down the toilet? Oh, sure, Roland bellyached to his old cronies, although he’s a loner, that one. If you ask me—and no one does—Roland Dewalt’s becoming a hermit.”

“Let’s go inside where we can eat and chat some more, Mary Louise. Today’s my day off, so I’m not in any rush.”

“Mine, too. Having a day off is new for me. Roland Dewalt expected me to work seven days a week, and for a lot less than I’m making working a shorter week for Baumgartner’s.”

The friends went inside and sought an out-of-the-way back booth.