a few months ago.
Walking over to his desk, Zach sank into the highbacked chair. Swiveling around, he gazed blindly at the framed aerial photograph of his luxury resort in Aspen. He distinctly recalled Arielle telling him that she was a teacher at some nursery school in San Francisco. So why had she relocated to Texas? And where had she come up with the money to buy the most prestigious preschool in the Dallas area?
He supposed that her older twin brothers might have had something to do with that. If he remembered correctly, she’d told him that one was a highly successful divorce attorney in Los Angeles and the other owned the largest construction and development company in the south. They certainly could have afforded to front her the money to buy the school. In fact, they’d been the ones who’d given her the week’s ski trip, complete with deluxe accommodations at the Aspen Forsythe Resort and Spa for her twenty-sixth birthday.
Focusing his attention on the photograph of the luxury mountain resort, Zach couldn’t help but grin when he thought about the first time he’d met Arielle. It had been her engaging smile and flawless beauty that had first attracted him. Her silky, dark auburn hair had complimented her porcelain skin to perfection and she had the prettiest hazel eyes he’d ever seen. But as the evening wore on, it had been her sense of humor and obvious intelligence that had him thoroughly captivated. By the following morning, they had become lovers.
As he sat there thinking about what had been the most exciting, memorable week of his life, his office door opened. His sister slowly walked across the room to lower herself into the chair in front of his desk.
“Did you speak with Mrs. Montrose about Derek?” she asked, propping her cane against the edge of his desk. “She’s always been extremely fair and since the accident, she’s been very understanding about his uncharacteristic behavior.”
Zach shook his head. “Helen Montrose is no longer in charge at Premier Academy, Lana.”
“She’s not?” There was a hint of panic in his sister’s voice. “Who’s taken over for her? Is he going to have to serve the suspension? Did you explain to whomever’s in charge now that Derek’s normally a very well-behaved little boy?”
“Arielle Garnier is the new owner and administrator,” he answered, searching his younger sister’s pretty face. To the outward eye Lana looked the picture of health. But she still had days when the fatigue of recovering from her horrific accident was overwhelming. “I don’t want you to worry about it. I’ve taken care of everything and promised to have a talk with Derek about what’s acceptable and what isn’t. He won’t have to serve the suspension, unless he bites the other children.”
“That’s a relief,” Lana replied, finally smiling as she sat back in the chair. “He’s settled down quite a bit now that I’ve had the casts taken off and we’ve moved back into the condo. And as our lives get back to normal, I’m sure his behavior will continue to improve.”
With Lana having two badly broken legs, internal injuries and a couple cracked ribs, Zach had insisted that his sister and nephew move into his place during her recovery. And it was a damned good thing that he had. After her release from the hospital, Lana couldn’t take care of herself, let alone see to the needs of an extremely active four-and-a-half-year-old boy.
“How did your physical therapy session go?” Zach inquired, noticing Lana wince as she shifted to a more comfortable position. “You seem to be having a little trouble.”
“I’m ahead of where the therapist expected at this stage, but it’s not the exercises I’m doing that’s causing my soreness today.” She pointed to the floor-to-ceiling glass behind him. “It’s this dumb weather. Since the accident I’m better at predicting a rainstorm than a barometer.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the bright sunlight and brilliant blue sky just beyond the window. “It looks fine out there to me.”
“I don’t care,” she objected, shaking her head. “My knees are telling me it’s going to rain buckets sometime today, so grab an umbrella when you go out.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” When he watched her shift again, he offered, “If you’d like to go home and get some rest, I can have Mike pick up Derek from school in the limo.”
Lana nodded as she levered herself out of the chair, waving Zach back down in his seat, and reached for her cane. “That might not be a bad idea. I promised him I’d bake some chocolate chip cookies for his afternoon snack. And a nap before I get started would be nice.”
“Just don’t overdo things.”
She laughed as she made her way to the door. “No danger in that.”
“By the way, I’m heading up to the ranch this weekend. Would you and Derek like to go along?” he asked, thinking they might like to get out of town for a while. Located just north of the city, the ranch where he and Lana had grown up had become a peaceful weekend getaway.
Turning, she shook her head. “Thanks, but now that I’m doing better, I think Derek needs some uninterrupted mommy time. Besides, you know how it floods up there when it rains. I don’t want to be stranded for the next few days while we wait for the water to recede. But please, give Mattie my love and tell her that Derek and I will be up to visit in the next couple of weeks.”
“I’ll drive myself and leave Mike here to take you wherever you need to go. If you change your mind, have him drive the two of you up to the ranch.”
“I will, but don’t count on us,” she suggested, smiling.
After his sister left, Zach returned to work. But soon his thoughts were straying to Arielle Garnier and how absolutely amazing she’d appeared that morning. There had been a glow about her that he found completely fascinating.
He frowned. As unbelievable as it seemed, she was even prettier now than she had been when they’d first met.
But he wondered what brought her to Dallas. When they first met, she’d told him that she’d been born and raised in San Francisco and how much she loved it there. Had something happened to change her feelings? And why hadn’t she moved to Los Angeles or Nashville to be closer to one of her brothers?
By the time he left the office for the day, Zach was filled with far more questions than he had answers. Something just didn’t add up. And even though where Arielle lived or what she did was none of his concern, he decided to stop by the school on his way out of town. He had every intention of finding out why a woman who had been perfectly content with her life a few months ago would make such a drastic change.
“Thank God it’s Friday,” Arielle muttered as she pulled her raincoat close and splashed through the ankle-deep water covering the school’s parking lot on her way to her red Mustang. “The whole day has been one big royal pain in the neck.”
The gentle spring rain that had started shortly before lunch had quickly turned into a torrential downpour and had continued throughout the afternoon, causing the pre-K field trip to the petting zoo to be canceled. Then, if thirty extremely disappointed four-year-olds hadn’t been enough to contend with, one of the little girls in the three-year-olds ‘class stuffed a bean up her nose during craft time and had to be taken to the urgent care facility around the corner to have it removed.
Opening the car door, she quickly closed her umbrella, threw it into the backseat and slid in behind the steering wheel. She couldn’t wait to get home to her new apartment, slip into a baggy pair of sweats and forget the entire day ever happened. Since becoming pregnant, she’d started taking a nap when the children took theirs. Having missed hers this afternoon, she was not only tired, she was cranky, as well.
But her well-laid-out plan to spend a quiet weekend at her new home came to a swift end when she backed the low-slung car from her reserved space, drove halfway across the parking lot and listened to the motor sputter twice, then die. When all of her attempts to get the car going again failed, she closed her eyes and barely resisted the urge to scream. She should have known when Zach Forsythe showed up first thing this morning that it was going