CHAPTER ONE
“Are you kidding me?”
Randolph Marshall shook his head. “I’m dead serious. You have until October twenty-three or you forfeit fourteen million dollars.”
“Fourteen million…” Indiana Lane’s voice trailed off as she stared across the desk at the attorney. “No, you’ve got to be kidding me.” She looked around the room. “I’m on ‘Candid Camera’, right? Or one of those other crazy prank shows?” She began to chuckle as she turned to look back at him.
“Miss Lane, trust me. I do not have time for pranks.” Exasperation dripped from each word. “I’m an old man with a bad heart. I don’t play games. I tell it as it is. Do you understand me?”
Indie’s smile began to fade as she stared back at the now frowning man. Okay, so he really was serious. He was shaking his graying head and looking at her like he wanted to give her a sharp rap on the knuckles. Ouch.
“Yes,” she said, gripping the arms of the chair, “I understand you but…but he hardly even knew me.”
Marshall looked unimpressed. “He seems to have known you well enough to want to make you a rich woman. Under certain conditions, of course.”
“But…but…” She was spluttering again. Come on, Indie, this is so not like you. You’ve negotiated with guerilla fighters and warlords and you’re thrown upside down by this? She drew in a slow, deep breath then got up and shoved her hands deep into her trouser pockets. Her brain worked better when she was standing.
“So let me get this straight. Based on the stipulations in my uncle’s will I have to find a man in the next…” she frowned, thinking, “…thirty days, fall in love, and get married in order to inherit this fourteen million dollars?”
Randolph cocked a grizzly eyebrow. “Nobody said anything about falling in love.”
“Well, I can’t very well just run off and marry the next man I run into, can I? One would hope I’d at least feel something for him…and he, for me.” She stopped talking when she saw the attorney’s expression. Was the man laughing at her?
“A real idealist, I see.” His smile was broader than the Cheshire Cat’s.
That got her riled up. “And who says I want his money, anyway?” The man was looking too smug and it was pissing her off. Big time. “Money has never been the biggest thing in my life, Mr. Randolph Marshall. And neither has marriage. I can do without both of them-”
“Yes, Miss ‘Save-The-World’. I know. And that’s exactly why your uncle did what he did. Don’t you worry. He filled me in on all the details.”
Now on top of pissing her off he was confusing the heck out of her. “What details?”
“Remember that conversation you had with him right after your mother’s funeral?”
She frowned. “That was nine years ago.”
“Yes,” Randolph said with a nod. "You were twenty-one years old and you sat in the library spouting off your idealistic philosophies to Samuel about not wanting to get married or have children. There are too many homeless kids in the world for you to even think of starting a family of your own. Isn’t that what you said?”
Indie straightened to her full five foot nine inch height and frowned at Marshall. What was he getting at? “Yeah, so what? I still think the same way.”
Marshall nodded slowly. “Ah-ha. And that’s what your uncle was afraid of.” He leaned forward and propped his elbows on the desk. “You’re going to be thirty years old in thirty days, Indiana. Thirty. Think of it. That old, and no man and no kids. No life except for running off to the favelas of Brazil to save orphans or chopping through the bushes and jungles of Colombia to search out drug dealers selling girls as sex slaves. Where were you this time? Africa?”
“Haiti,” she said, her tone sullen.
The lawyer heaved a sigh. “Haiti. And where next? Cambodia?” He shook his head. “Listen. Your uncle wants his bloodline to continue. He never had kids and you, his sister’s child, are his only hope of that. He wants you to get cracking while your eggs are still viable.”
“He what?” Indie almost burst out laughing. The audacity of the man. “He actually said that?”
“Yes, and more, but…” Marshall put his hand up, “you don’t want to know.” He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “So, are you on board? Can I cross you off my list of things to do this month and consider this sealed and set?”
Indie could only shake her head in disbelief. Between the lawyer and her now dead uncle she didn’t know which one was battier. They’d probably both been smoking the same…prohibited substance.
“Now you listen to me, Mr. Marshall.” She fixed him with a glare of defiance. “I have two things to say to you. Number one, I don’t want a single dime of Uncle Sam’s fourteen million dollars. I’ve gotten along quite well without his help and will continue to survive, I’m sure. And number two,” she raised an eyebrow, “if he’d wanted me to be married, barefoot and pregnant by age thirty he should have spoken a heck of a lot earlier than September twenty-three.”
For a long moment Marshall just stared at her, his lips pursed, then he nodded solemnly. “Well said, but let me implore you to think about it. You’re so concerned about doing good in the world, do you know how much more you could do with fourteen million dollars?” He paused as if to let that sink in. “And as for the timing, I think I know what happened.” He glanced down, shifted a couple of papers, then picked up the will. He reached for his glasses, put them on then peered at the document. “Yes,” he said with a sigh, “I was right. He miscalculated your age. When he updated this four years ago he had you down as twenty-four years old but you were actually twenty-five.” He looked up at her, peering over the top of his glasses like an old owl. “I guess he was planning to tell you but was biding his time, watching to see if things would work out. Probably thought he had at least a few more months before he had to tackle you on such a touchy subject.” He shrugged. “Who was to know he’d have been taken out by a heart attack at age sixty-six?”