When The Heart Beckons Read Online Free PDF Page A

He
was a McCallum. No sniveling or whining allowed. He would get Brett
back, damned if he wouldn’t. Cade he knew he would never see again,
not after thirteen years, but Brett ...
    Ross’s chest began to hurt. Like a huge fist
tightening, knuckling, squeezing ... He closed his eyes and
clenched the cigar between his fingers until the spasm of pain
passed. Then he staggered slowly from the window, past his desk and
the side table set out with brandy decanters and glasses, and sank
into the green and gold tapestry wing chair beside the fireplace.
I have to keep going—no slowing down, no giving in to this
damned weakness of the heart
, he thought, despising his own
debility, wishing he could conquer it with the same bold
ruthlessness he’d used to conquer every other enemy in his life. At
any cost, he had to keep his business empire running smoothly until
Brett returned. All these accursed problems were mounting up
alarmingly and if he wasn’t careful there wouldn’t be any McCallum
empire to hand over to his son.
    But I’ll be damned if I’ll sell
anything, especially the Ruby Palace Hotel
. That had been his
first big business success, opening the door to all the rest.
    I just have to concentrate on
business
, Ross decided, his glance coming to rest on Livinia’s
portrait, which hung over the green leather sofa against the wall.
Sort everything out. End this streak of bad luck.
    Bad luck, was that all it was? He was not a
superstitious man, but he had an eerie feeling that there was more
going on here than met the eye, much more than he had hinted at to
that private investigator, Everett Stevenson. Who had come to Brett
with the truth and shattered all the illusions Ross had taken such
pains to create during all these years? Why were so many of his
businesses experiencing losses and troubles within the past six
months?
    If I didn’t know better I’d think I was
cursed. Cursed with a punishment for what I did so many years ago.
Or I’d think that Boxer himself had come back to exact vengeance on
me. But Boxer is dead. Buried at the bottom of the sea. With no one
ever the wiser.
    And I don’t regret it
, Ross
McCallum thought, sitting up straighter as the pain in his chest
eased to the merest flicker. That piece of scum deserved exactly
what he got.
    Ross took several deep breaths and glanced
around the large, well-lit comfortable study, as if looking for
comfort in its handsome leather and brass appointments.
    Soon the Stevenson Agency will find
Brett and return him to me. We’ll sit right here and share a bottle
of port and talk everything over. I’ll explain. And he’ll forgive
me. And together well bring the McCallum empire back up to snuff.
Together we’ll show the world what the McCallums are made
of.
    The house was very quiet. And for just a
moment he thought he heard Livinia’s frail footfalls above, and he
could picture her pacing from her dressing table to her
silk-curtained bed, back and forth, back and forth, with tears
flowing down her pale cheeks.
    Sorrow gripped him, but he fought it off.
The past was dead. Livinia, Boxer, even Cade. Dead—and gone. But
Brett was very much alive and he
would
come back.
    Ross McCallum squashed his cigar in the
cuspidor beside his chair and stood up, his powerful hands balling
into fists. He had to focus on the businesses. On every thing he
had built for his son. Because that toad-eating Derrickson was
right about one thing—the losses he’d suffered in the past six
months had been significant. And if he wasn’t careful, he could
lose everything he’d spent his life and his sweat and his blood in
building.
    His gaze lifted yet again to the hauntingly
beautiful portrait of Livinia, sad and elegant in her blue satin
ball gown, clutching the lilies he’d given her that morning before
she posed. A tremor shook his powerful shoulders. He stilled it at
once. The tremor was not from pain, but from sudden, overwhelming
grief as he again thought of that horrible day