Isabel Cabot Livres

It was for a good reason, but a reason she was not free to divulge, that Lynn Mead had summoned Joe Healy to the town of Culls' Landing on Cape Run. Joe was a detective, and Lynn feared that Daniel Farnsworth, with whom she was spending the summer as a private secretary, was headed for real trouble. Daniel's purpose in leasing Ponder Point Manor and inviting his until-now estranged relatives to be his guests had been looked upon with suspicion by everyone concerned, though none had refused the expense-paid vacation. It was not until his overtures at reestablishing friendly relations were backed up with detailed--and very generous--plans to assist each of them financially that the suspicion began to wane. Daniel was very convincing in claiming to owe these people this much because when they had done him out of a fortune years earlier, they had driven him to achieve affluence and prominence on his own. Lynn Mead, though, knew that Daniel's real purpose was far removed from what met the eye. William, Austin, and Nancy Farnsworth, Lillian and Max Loomer and their daughter Cory had in store far more than a surprise. What was about to happen at Ponder Point Manor would rock every one of them--and Lynn feared that Daniel Farnsworth's scheme would prove to be his own undoing.

Even before she reached Hobbs, Susan Blair met two of the town's most eligible young men. Neil Wesley, the older of the two and a doctor, quickened her pulse, but it was his brother Bob who began an immediate campaign for Susan's evenings. Susan had driven to Hobbs to spend the first summer in several with her father, an itinerant efficiency expert, but it came as a surprise that Hamilton Blair's current assignment was with the Rhys Industries. Susan knew the Rhyses well. She had just completed college with the twins, the reckless, headstrong Gilda and the handsome Gideon, who had played a major role in Susan's social--and romantic--life in college. She had even met their grandmother--and had cataloged Hester Rhys as a sweet old lady. If Susan's own plans concerning Neil Wesley were threatened by his brother's persistence and Gideon's renewal of his former claim on her time, Susan was not afraid that she could handle the situation diplomatically and easily. But she reckoned without Hester Rhys. Far from being meek and mild, Hester controlled the family business and fortune with a dictatorial hand--and she had already decided that the confident, levelheaded Susan was the perfect woman for the irresponsible grandson who would one day control the family's financial interests.