Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

his voice raw and weary. “The cat’s too far out of the bag to shove it back in. Save your energy for salvaging your own reputation when people start wondering if the granddaughter is as big a cheat as the old man was.”
    “I told you—nobody knows who I am!” Well, almost nobody. Ian didn’t count, did he?
    “It will be all right, Dad. I’ll just withdraw the paintings and everything will be fine.”
    But everything wasn’t fine. She finally understood why her Grandpa Rainbow never signed a canvas.
    Forger .

Newport Beach
    Wednesday night
19
    B liss stared at the credit cards and debit cards on her kitchen table. Every time she’d tried to use one of them today, the “request” had been denied. She’d had to pay for the all-day spa treatment out of her own checkbook. She hadn’t really understood how much it cost until she sat there and wrote the check. Three thousand dollars plus six hundred in tips. Thirty-six hundred dollars for a facial, pedicure, body peel, botox shots, haircut and three-color frost, body waxing, manicure, massage, makeover—all the things a woman her age needed not to look her age.
    Thirty-six hundred bucks. Jesus.
    She was used to just signing a chit and never looking at the amount, because the money all came out of Forrest family funds. Or it had, until she tried to make her father surrender some control over the land.
    Is he really mad?
    He’s really determined. Different thing entirely.
    As always, Rory had been right. Her father was going to do things his way and to hell with who got hurt in the process.
    “Bliss?” Rory asked from the bedroom.
    “In the kitchen,” she said.
    She looked up as he came into the kitchen, rumpled and too sexy to be over fifty. Life really was unfair to women, she decided all over again. Not that Rory had complained about how she looked. After dinner they had gone at each other like teenagers and finally had fallen asleep in a slippery, satisfied pile.
    Why is this the one man for me when there’s a world full of males I can handle without breaking a sweat?
    There wasn’t any answer. There hadn’t ever been, but she kept asking anyway, hoping one day she would figure it all out.
    “What are you doing?” Rory asked, rubbing his bare chest idly.
    “Wondering how long Daddy’s going to stay mad.”
    Rory looked at the pile of plastic cards while a combination of anger and helplessness coursed through him. Ward knew all about fighting to win. Bliss knew only how to be rich. Rory had always admired Ward’s bottom-line business sense, but he hated seeing it applied to the woman he loved.
    “How much do you owe?” he asked.
    She lifted one shoulder.
    “Guess,” he said.
    “I just sign, I don’t look.”
    “Twenty thousand? Thirty?”
    She glanced up at him with hurting blue eyes. “Why is he doing this? It’s not like I’m asking him to give up the ranch. Just the places that are important, like Sandy Cove and the beaches we used as children and the canyon where Three and Granna Sandra died, and—”
    “The places you’re describing are among the most easily developed, most accessible, and most valuable land on the whole damn ranch.”
    “It’s my history even if it isn’t his. It’s Savoy money he’s spending, not his own. It’s my money, damn it!”
    “Bliss…” Rory cursed under his breath and tried again, wondering if she would listen, really listen, this time. “Your mother argued that point most of her married life. It didn’t do her any good. It won’t do you any good. The only money you control is in trust funds. Saying that it should be different won’t put one penny in your bank accounts.”
    There was a long, unhappy silence.
    “He always ends up winning,” Bliss said in a thin voice.
    Rory didn’t argue. It was the truth.
    “Once, just once, I want him to lose,” she said fiercely. “Is that too much to ask?”
    “How much are you willing to give up for it?” Rory asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    “You willing to try marriage again?”
    She gave him a startled glance and almost smiled. “Why?”
    “It’s the only way I can protect you. Ward respects a man’s right to stand up for what is his. But an employee getting in the way of a family dispute would be fired.”
    “He’d never fire you. You’re the son he never had. He cares for you more than he does for me or Savvy.”
    Rory just shook his head. “Ward would hand me my corporate pink slip and go out hunting pheasant without a