The Seductive Impostor - Softcover

Chapman, Janet

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743486293 ISBN 13: 9780743486293

Publisher: Pocket Books, 2004

Synopsis

The first in a dazzling duo of romances featuring two sisters from the ruggedly beautiful Maine coast...and the men who sweep them away.
Rachel Foster wishes Sub Rosa -- the seaside mansion she helped her father build and the scene of a terrible tragedy -- would crumble into the sea. But Keenan Oakes, Sub Rosa's new owner, is moving in and stirring up the dark secrets of the cliff-perched manor....
Now, in the heat of a sizzling attraction, can Rachel clear her family's name while risking her heart on Keenan...and on a passionate love like nothing she's ever known?

About this title

About the Author:

A native of rural central Maine, Janet Chapman (1956–2017) lived in a cozy log cabin on a lake with her husband, three cats, and a stay young bull moose. The author of the hugely popular Highlander time-travel series, she also wrote numerous contemporary romances.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Chapter Three

Rachel sighed in relief when the last tumbler dropped into place with gentle precision. She spun the giant lock and pulled open the huge titanium door, revealing the darkness beyond. Warm, climate-controlled air rushed past her as she stepped inside and trained the beam of her flashlight around the interior.

Nearly as large as her kitchen at home, the huge vault was organized with shelves and cubbies and smaller safes against two of the walls. On the other two walls sheet-draped artwork was hung. Every square inch of space had been utilized and was brimming with treasure.

Rachel wasn't impressed. She slid the heavy pack off her shoulders and set it on the floor. She opened the buckles and pulled out the bronze statue, then used her flashlight to hunt for an inconspicuous place to set it.

It didn't belong here with the legitimate art collection, but since she didn't know where Thadd's secret room was, this vault would have to do. Better the contraband eventually be discovered in Thadd's possession instead of hers and Willow's. It would be Keenan Oakes's problem then. The man couldn't very well expect to waltz into a billion-dollar estate without having a few surprises to deal with.

That thought perversely warmed Rachel's heart. Keenan Oakes owned Sub Rosa now, and his great-uncle's legacy was going to rear up and bite him on his butt.

Rachel set the statue in one of the cubbies, then pulled the small painting out of her pack and unwrapped it from the towel she'd used to protect it for the trip here. She pushed the sheets on the far wall aside until she found a space large enough to hang it. She returned to the pack and pulled out the silver tankard, wine cup, and snuffbox next, and gently set them in another cubby beside a vase that looked as old as the earth itself. She pulled the ruby and gold ring her father had given her out of her pocket, set the beam of her flashlight on it one last time, then reached up and dropped it inside the wine cup, flinching at the sound of metal falling on metal.

With a sigh of regret for having given up her father's gift, she turned and dug into the bottom of the nearly empty pack again and pulled out the emeralds.

Rachel clamped her tiny flashlight between her teeth and aimed it at the smaller, sequentially numbered safes. Holding the wrinkled paper next to the lock on safe number sixteen, she moved the dial to match another set of numbers written in black ink. Just as they had on the larger door, the tumblers fell with expected accuracy. The small door opened, and Rachel sighed again in relief.

"Thank you, Daddy, for thinking of everything," she whispered into the darkness. Frank Foster had thoughtfully given her a laundry list of the art she now possessed, along with a list of combinations and codes. He hadn't, however, given her the exact location of Thadd's secret room.

And she had to find it. The letter had also mentioned designs for fishing boats that had been built at the Lakeman Boatyard years ago. Special boats, with hidden compartments for smuggling stolen art into the country.

Designs that likely had Frank Foster's name on them.

Rachel wanted them destroyed. She wanted every last trace of her father's involvement in Thadd's illegal hobby gone.

Rachel shone her light into the small safe and was surprised to see a velvet bag already sitting there. She opened the velvet sack she had brought with her and dumped the contents into her hand. The beam of her light immediately shot out in glowing green ribbons going in a dozen directions.

She reached into the safe and pulled out the second velvet sack and opened it, only to find an exact duplicate set of emeralds.

Well, hell. What did this mean?

They were obviously forgeries. Thadd must have had copies made of the original emeralds. But what were they doing here, in this safe? Surely the lawyers had inventoried this vault shortly after Thadd's death and would have found them.

And they would have known they were stolen, wouldn't they? Wasn't there a database somewhere that listed stolen and unrecovered art? Surely these emeralds would have been on it.

Unless the appraisers had realized these were fakes. It wasn't a crime, was it, to possess copies of stolen jewelry?

Rachel shrugged. She would just leave the real ones with the fakes, and they, too, would become Keenan Oakes's problem.

She used the velvet bag to wipe off any fingerprints on Willow's emeralds, put them back in their bag, and was just placing them in the small safe when every overhead light in the vault suddenly snapped on.

Rachel dropped the other velvet pouch and watched, dismayed, as the fake emeralds tumbled out. She tried but failed to catch them, banging her forehead into the small safe door, slamming it shut with a resounding click. Everything clattered to the floor, including her flashlight and the cane that had been hooked over her arm.

Rachel whirled toward the vault door and saw that several lights in the library had also come on. The raised voice of a woman echoed from somewhere below, carrying up the grand staircase and along the marble hall toward her.

Rachel bent to her good knee and searched for the fallen fake emeralds, scooping them up and hastily stuffing them into the remaining velvet sack.

She stopped then and glared at the closed safe door.

Dammit. She had to get out of here.

The voice of the woman grew louder, along with the tap of heels on the marble floor. Whoever she was railing at was upstairs now and coming toward the library.

Rachel shoved the pouch of forgeries in her pocket, quickly deciding that one set of emeralds was enough to leave behind. She would get rid of the fakes later, and pray it would be years before anyone noticed the emeralds in safe number sixteen were actually real.

She grabbed her pack, cane, and flashlight, and ran limping from the vault, stopping only long enough to close the huge door and spin the lock. She pushed the bookcase closed, concealing the vault.

Rachel looked toward the hearth on the far side of the room and decided it was out of reach of her crippled knee. She ducked into the storage closet instead, just as the library door swung open.

"I don't care, Kee," the woman shrilled on the other side of the closet door. "You promised we would go to the Renoir party. Then you suddenly decide you just have to come to this godforsaken monstrosity instead. It's freezing in here."

"Jason found the electrical box," the man said softly.

Rachel scrunched herself against the back wall of the closet, unable to suppress a shiver. The man's voice had been low, curt, and thin on patience. But the shrew didn't seem to hear what Rachel could: the quiet building of tension, the ominous calm before the storm.

No, the fool continued railing at the man who could be none other than Mr. Keenan Oakes. Dammit. He wasn't supposed to arrive until Friday.

"I don't know what all the hurry was for," the woman continued. "There's nobody here. You said this place has been empty for three years. Another week wouldn't have mattered."

Rachel silently nodded agreement.

"This might be some grand mansion you've inherited, but it's at the end of nowhere, Kee." Her voice dripped with distaste. "Maine! What in hell is there to do in Maine! It's a two-hour drive to the nearest airport. And this place is filthy. You should have hired someone to come open the house first, and that way we could have arrived after the Renoir party."

Rachel pictured the woman waving her hands about the giant library at the dark honey oak bookcases that reached twelve feet high, the heavy, oversized furniture covered with sheets, and the dusty tomes lining three of the walls.

Keenan Oakes still had nothing to say. Rachel decided he either had the patience of a saint or was deaf.

Rachel closed her eyes and covered her ears. A lover's quarrel was not supposed to be a spectator sport.

The woman suddenly snorted. "But this cold, moldering pile of rocks suits your Neanderthal brain perfectly, doesn't it?"

Rachel tried to decide whether the lady was brave or stupid. She wasn't sure she could take much more of this waiting. She was cramped, uncomfortable, and she agreed with the woman -- the house was cold. Her right knee throbbed and she ached all over. And she was using every bit of willpower she possessed to keep from sneezing out the dust collecting in her nose.

With the abruptness of a runaway train hitting a mountain, the woman suddenly stopped shouting. "What did you say?" she shrilled.

"I said that was enough, Joan. I told you to wait and come later with Mikaela."

"But I've been planning for us to attend this party for weeks. You said we would go."

"Then go."

"But you're supposed to go with me. All my friends are expecting the two of us."

Joan's voice had lowered to a simper now. Rachel pictured her pouting at Keenan, who stood as tall as a giant and had shoulders as wide as a doorway. Keenan Oakes now had more money than God and looks the devil would envy, if his picture in the newspaper could be believed.

He also had a very stupid girlfriend.

"I said that was enough, Joan. You'll have to go to Monte Carlo alone. Mikaela's due to arrive in a few days, and I intend to be here to meet her."

"Mikaela. It's always Mikaela. Your boat's got a whole crew of babysitters, Kee. She won't miss you for the time it will take to fly to Monte Carlo and back. What's one more week?"

Silence was all Rachel heard for an answer.

"Kee!"

"I asked the driver who brought us here to wait. He'll take you back to the airport," came his softly spoken words through the closet door. "And Joan?"

"Yes?" she asked, her voice suddenly sounding hesitant for the first time.

"Don't bother coming back."

Just for a minute, Rachel almost felt sorry for Joan. But only a minute. Any woman who couldn't handle a demigod didn't deserve one. Rachel thought Keenan Oakes was letting the shrew off lightly. Most men wouldn't be so kind for the assault his ego had just received.

...

About this edition

• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0743486293
• ISBN 13: 9780743486293
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384