The Delacourt Scandal Read online

  “Asking questions is second nature to me.”

  Tyler had nothing more to hide. “You can ask me anything you want to, as long as I can reserve the right not to answer.”

  “Deal.” Maddie held out her hand to shake on it.

  Tyler ignored it and leaned closer to press a kiss to her lips. He fought the temptation to linger and savor the sensations the simplest touch stirred in him.

  “What was that for?” she asked.

  “Our deal was too important for anything less than a kiss to seal it.”

  “Kisses have a way of getting us in trouble,” she reminded him.

  He grinned. “Then we’ll just have to practice until they’re no longer any danger.”

  Maddie responded with a low chuckle. “I don’t see that happening, Tyler.”

  “What? The practicing?”

  “No, making them less dangerous.”

  He regarded her evenly. “You may be right about that, darlin’. You definitely may be right about that.”

  Dear Reader,

  The most wonderful time of the year just got better! These six captivating romances from Special Edition are sure to brighten your holidays.

  Reader favorite Sherryl Woods is back by popular demand with the latest addition to her series AND BABY MAKES THREE: THE DELACOURTS OF TEXAS. In The Delacourt Scandal, a curious reporter seeking revenge unexpectedly finds love.

  And just in time for the holidays, Lisa Jackson kicks off her exciting new miniseries THE MCCAFFERTYS with The McCaffertys: Thorne, where a hero’s investigation takes an interesting turn when he finds himself face-to-face with his ex-lover. Unwrap the next book in A RANCHING FAMILY, a special gift this month from Victoria Pade. In The Cowboy’s Gift-Wrapped Bride, a Wyoming rancher is startled not only by his undeniable attraction to an amnesiac beauty he found in a blizzard, but also by the tantalizing secrets she reveals as she regains her memory.

  And in RUMOR HAS IT…, a couple separated by tragedy in the past finally has a chance for love in Penny Richards’s compelling romance, Lara’s Lover. The holiday cheer continues with Allison Leigh’s emotional tale of a runaway American heiress who becomes a Mother in a Moment after she agrees to be nanny to a passel of tots.

  And silver wedding bells are ringing as Nikki Benjamin wraps up the HERE COME THE BRIDES series with the heartwarming story of a hometown hero who convinces his childhood sweetheart to become his Expectant Bride-To-Be.

  I hope all of these breathtaking romances warm your hearts and add joy to your holiday season.

  Best,

  Karen Taylor Richman

  Senior Editor

  Sherryl Woods

  THE DELACOURT SCANDAL

  Books by Sherryl Woods

  Silhouette Special Edition

  Safe Harbor #425

  Never Let Go #446

  Edge of Forever #484

  In Too Deep #522

  Miss Liz’s Passion #573

  Tea and Destiny #595

  My Dearest Cal #669

  Joshua and the Cowgirl #713

  *Love #769

  *Honor #775

  *Cherish #781

  *Kate’s Vow #823

  *A Daring Vow #855

  *A Vow To Love #885

  The Parson’s Waiting #907

  One Step Away #927

  Riley’s Sleeping Beauty #961

  Finally a Bride #987

  ‡A Christmas Blessing #1001

  ‡Natural Born Daddy #1007

  ‡The Cowboy and His Baby #1009

  ‡The Rancher and His Unexpected Daughter #1016

  **A Ranch for Sara #1083

  **Ashley’s Rebel #1087

  **Danielle’s Daddy Factor #1094

  ††The Littlest Angel #1142

  ††Natural Born Trouble #1156

  ††Unexpected Mommy #1171

  ††The Cowgirl and the Unexpected Wedding #1208

  ††Natural Born Lawman #1216

  ††The Cowboy and His Wayward Bride #1234

  ††Suddenly, Annie’s Father #1268

  ◊The Cowboy and the New Year’s Baby #1291

  ◊Dylan and the Baby Doctor #1309

  ◊The Pint-Sized Secret #1333

  ◊Marrying a Delacourt #1352

  ◊The Delacourt Scandal #1363

  Silhouette Desire

  Not at Eight, Darling #309

  Yesterday’s Love #329

  Come Fly with Me #345

  A Gift of Love #375

  Can’t Say No #431

  Heartland #472

  One Touch of Moondust #521

  Next Time… Forever #601

  Fever Pitch #620

  Dream Mender #708

  Silhouette Books

  Silhouette Summer Sizzlers 1990

  “A Bridge to Dreams”

  Maternity Leave 1998

  “The Paternity Test”

  ††The Unclaimed Baby 1999

  SHERRYL WOODS

  Whether she’s living in California, Florida or Virginia, Sherryl Woods always makes her home by the sea. A walk on the beach, the sound of waves, the smell of the salt air, all provide inspiration for this writer of more than sixty romance and mystery novels, fifty of which have been published by Silhouette Books. Sherryl hopes you’re enjoying these latest entries in the AND BABY MAKES THREE series for Silhouette Special Edition. You can write to Sherryl or—from April through December—stop by and meet her at her bookstore, Potomac Sunrise, 308 Washington Avenue, Colonial Beach, VA 22443.

  Dear Reader,

  For someone who once measured her writing in column inches for newspapers, the mere idea of writing an entire book was daunting. To have written fifty books for Silhouette staggers me.

  I am so fortunate to be able to tell the kind of strong, family-oriented stories I love for a publisher who understands and appreciates the empowering value of romance in a woman’s life.

  And best of all, I have had the chance to touch the lives of so many readers. Thank you for spending your time with my books and for sharing your thoughts with me. I hope we’ll be together another fifty books from now.

  With all good wishes,

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  “Bryce Delacourt is the most powerful, sanctimonious man in all of Texas, so, yes, if you can find a way to bring him down, by all means do it,” Griffin Carpenter said, his wrinkled face an inscrutable mask. Only the tell-tale blaze of excitement in his black eyes indicated to Maddie Kent the intensity of his passion for this particular story.

  No one knew why Carpenter had it in for the power brokers of Texas, but he’d made it his life’s work to expose their foibles. In his late fifties now, he’d been described alternately as an ambitious crusader or a vengeful, mean-spirited man. Maddie didn’t care which he was or what his reasons were. Those were the words she had been waiting most of her life to hear, the chance she’d worked her butt off to get.

  The Delacourts had ruined her family, and now they were finally going to pay. If there was so much as a hint of a scandal in their past, so much as a whiff of illegalities in their business dealings at Delacourt Oil, she would find it. And she would expose them for the heartless, rotten human beings they were behind their facade of generosity an
d family loyalty and perfection.

  Her own passion for the hunt had been a long time building. She had been ten when her father had come home one day to announce that he’d been fired, cast aside because of a simple mistake that anyone could have made. As he told it, it had been nothing more than an accounting error that should have meant nothing to someone with the Delacourt wealth.

  But Bryce Delacourt was a hard man, and so Frank Kent found himself out of work without a reference. He would never work as an accountant again, at least not for a company of any size or respectability. Delacourt had seen to that.

  The humiliation of it had broken the man Maddie had adored. For five years, his self-esteem in tatters, he had moved from one dead-end job to another, never earning more than minimum wage. His family had suffered far more due to his increasing depression than because of the lack of income. The warm, generous man who’d been involved in every aspect of his children’s lives was gone, lost in lonely, self-imposed isolation and bitterness.

  When Maddie was fifteen, her father committed suicide. He’d almost botched the attempt and had lain in a coma for two horrendous weeks before finally getting his wish and dying.

  That final act of a sad and desperate man had all but destroyed the family, financially and emotionally. Maddie’s mother had retreated into her own private hell, aided by alcohol. Her brothers had turned into street thugs to get what they wanted. Only Maddie had used that defining moment to strengthen her resolve to succeed. She had vowed at her father’s grave that one day she would be in a position to make the Delacourts feel that same kind of pain.

  Now, thanks to Griffin Carpenter, she had her chance. She didn’t care why Carpenter hated Bryce Delacourt or any of the others who fell victim to his paper’s venom. It was enough that the publisher’s agenda matched her own. Most newspapers in the state were in awe of the Delacourt wealth and power, but Carpenter had his own resources and a pit bull’s tenacity when it came to digging up dirt on the entrenched power brokers of the state.

  Carpenter’s Dallas-based tabloid, Hard Truths, was a wealthy Texan’s worst nightmare. His reporters turned over rocks and crept through back alleys in search of scandal. More often than not, they found it, then took delight in sharing it with the public in the most colorful terms possible.

  It was not the sort of journalism Maddie had trained for or respected. She’d attended one of the nation’s best journalism schools, taken her fair share of courses in media ethics and responsibility. And she intended to follow all of those rules with absolute diligence—once she had written this one exposé….

  For now, though, she was happy to be Carpenter’s newest recruit, and she intended to be his best. In no time at all the Delacourts would be making headlines, and for once it wouldn’t be on the society or business pages. She planned to make them the talk of Texas, until they understood humiliation as intimately as her father had.

  She gazed across the wide mahogany expanse of Griffin Carpenter’s desk, straight into eyes glinting with anticipation.

  “I won’t let you down,” she vowed to her boss.

  Then she mentally whispered the same words to the father she had lost so long ago.

  Chapter One

  Tyler couldn’t help noticing the woman sitting at the other end of the bar. She had been there for the past week. Petite, with auburn hair cut boyishly short, she had a sweet face with a very kissable mouth—innocence and the promise of sin combined. Tonight she was wearing a prim little white blouse and a bright red skirt that kept creeping up, revealing a very shapely thigh. More of that intriguing innocence-sin contradiction.

  She was a plucky little thing, fending off passes with a few words and an engaging smile, nursing what appeared to be ginger ale. What she was doing here in the first place was beyond him. She wasn’t looking for a man, that was clear enough. Nor did she drink. And yet here she was at O’Reilly’s, night after night, same stool, same bland, disinterested expression, same polite brush-offs.

  In times past Tyler would have taken that as a challenge. Harmless flirting with a beautiful woman was second nature to him, as it had been to his brothers. Any one of the Delacourt males would have moved closer and satisfied his curiosity.

  At the moment, though, Tyler just wasn’t up to his usual casual banter. He had way too much on his mind. His whole future, for instance.

  Until a week ago he’d been out on a rig in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast for three straight months, trying to forget the past, trying to lose himself in hard, physical, mind-numbing work. At the end of the day all he cared about was a cold beer, a rare steak and sleep. That was the way he wanted it, the way he needed his life to be—clear and uncomplicated. Women were a definite complication. Family was both a blessing and a curse. He’d intended to steer clear of both for the foreseeable future.

  Then the edict had come down that all Delacourts were required to be in Houston for his parents’ fortieth anniversary bash. Even Trish, who never came back to Houston if she could avoid it, had been corralled into attending. Only his brother Michael had escaped, because he and Grace were away on their honeymoon.

  There was nothing on earth Tyler hated more than being all dressed up in a fancy tux, unless it was being back in an office. In the past week he’d found himself in both these situations.

  And if Bryce Delacourt had his way, Tyler would stay in Houston indefinitely. Judging from his father’s offhand comments, Tyler had a hunch that this time it was going to be a whole lot harder to wrangle his way out of the Delacourt Oil corporate headquarters and back onto a rig. He envied Trish and Dylan their escapes to the peace and tranquility of Los Piños all the way across the state. They were back there now, out of their father’s reach, while Tyler was still here, still very much under his thumb.

  He took a sip of his beer and wondered if the time hadn’t finally come to cut the family ties completely—professionally speaking, anyway. He wouldn’t be the only one in the family to do it.

  His oldest brother, Dylan, had been the first to shun the family business, infuriating their father by setting up shop as a private eye. Then Trish had managed to slip away to another city, have a baby and open her second bookstore—all before their father had caught up with her just in time to see her wed a rancher. Jeb had one foot in Dylan’s business, which he’d moved to Los Piños after his marriage to a pediatrician there, and another at corporate headquarters, but he managed to stay out from under Bryce Delacourt’s control most of the time.

  Only Michael relished being at the helm of a multinational oil company and, ironically, their father couldn’t seem to see that he was the only one really suited for the job. Usually Michael provided adequate cover for Tyler, but his current absence had reminded their father that he had one remaining son he could groom for the executive suite.

  More than the others, Tyler hated the thought of disappointing his father, but he hated paperwork even more. He shuddered at the prospect of facing a lifetime of it. There were oil companies around the country—around the world, for that matter—that would be happy to hire someone with his lifelong history in the business, with his expertise and willingness to work endless hours, with his daring and fearless approach to oil exploration. Maybe it was time to check into some of them. Maybe it was time to stop worrying so much about being a dutiful Delacourt and worry more about being himself.

  His thoughts dark, he barely glanced up when the woman from the other end of the bar slid onto the stool next to him. For once the prospect of an evening’s flirtation didn’t do a thing to lighten his mood. He just wanted to be left alone to wrestle with the past and with the decision that had to be made about the future.

  “Hi,” she said, leveling amber eyes straight at him until he finally met her gaze.

  “Hi, yourself.”

  “I’ve seen you here before.”

  “Every night this week,” he agreed, turning back to the beer he’d been nursing, hoping she would take the hint and go away.

&nb
sp; “I thought you’d make a pass by now.”

  The offhand observation caught his attention. He regarded her with a wry look. “Did you now?”

  “You’re the only male in this place who hasn’t.” She made the claim with a surprising lack of conceit and just a hint of puzzlement.

  Tyler regarded her with amusement. “Since you turned down every one of them, I figured I’d cut my losses and save myself the trouble.”

  “Then you were interested?”

  “Any male with blood still pumping through his veins is interested in an attractive female.”

  Suddenly her expression brightened. “You think I’m attractive?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t be coy. Of course you are.”

  “I know that,” she said with a touch of impatience. “I just wasn’t sure if you did. I wasn’t certain you’d even noticed me. You looked kind of lost, as if you were off in another world and not too happy about it. That’s why I decided to break my rule.”

  “What rule is that?”

  “I never, ever, talk to men I don’t know, not without a proper introduction. I’m Maddie, by the way. Maddie Kent. It’s Madison, technically, but whoever heard of a woman named that? I think it was a family name on my mother’s side. She was convinced it could be traced back to James Madison, but I never saw any proof of it.” She beamed at him. “Who are you?”

  “Tyler,” he said, deliberately leaving off his last name. Mention of “Delacourt” in this part of Texas tended to stir up all sorts of reactions that had more to do with his father or the family wealth than him. He’d learned to hedge his bets when he first met a woman, see if her reactions were genuine before he laid his full identity on her.

  “Why are you here, Maddie?” he asked. He gestured toward the ginger ale. “It’s obvious you’re not a big drinker.”