Page 1 of Theirs to Treasure

Chapter 1

“Damn it, Betty, have you forgotten the forty grand you lost two years ago?” Chance asked.

“Fine, so I trusted someone I shouldn’t have, sue me. But Josie isn’t like that. You loved her when you were children. You were heartbroken the day her mother took her from our home. I know that I can trust Josie, and you should know that, too.” Betty calmly defended her former foster daughter as she took Chance’s coffee cup to get him another refill. “Honey, you drink way too much of this stuff,” she chided.

“We were talking about you being too trusting. I worry about you and Butch. I don’t want to see you taken advantage of again. What happens if Josie finds out you guys are loaded, and it turns out she’s just reestablishing ties because she wants to bilk you?”

“Then I’ll probably give her some money, because I’d know she’d need it for a good reason,” Betty said. Chance’s eye twitched.

“Anyway, you know exactly how much Butch and I have because you’re the one who handled all of our investments. We’re quite comfortable, and I thank you. You made sure all the people you love were taken care of, because that’s the kind of man you are.” She patted her foster son’s hand. “But you’re wrong about Josie. We’ve been talking on Skype for a month now, and she hasn’t asked for a single thing. She’s grown into a lovely young woman.”

Chance felt his other eye begin to twitch.

As soon as he left Betty’s house, Chance called the private investigation firm that his old company used. He hired them to run a background check on Josie Decker. He wanted to know every damn thing there was to know about his former foster sister before her next Skype call with Betty Hutchins.

By the time he got back to his office, he had missed four calls. Business and his charities kept him hopping, but his guys had come through. An inch thick file sat on his desk.

Chance took his time going through the file. The investigator that Chance hired had been unable to access the sealed records from her childhood. But he was privy to some things because he had lived with her. Chance knew that Josie had left Butch and Betty’s house when she’d been eight years old. In the file there was a newspaper clipping that showed Josie at fifteen, in a Tampa grocery store, grinning with her little sisters on each hip, who couldn’t be more than three. Josie showed signs of what a gorgeous woman she was going to be, with big eyes, warm brown skin, dark black hair and a huge infectious smile as she held the twin little blond girls. The erstwhile reporter had taken the photo after Josie had been the one millionth customer at the store and had scored a thousand-dollar shopping spree.

But since graduating high school, she had worked nearly seventy hours a week so she could take custody of her six-year-old sisters. They might only be her half-sisters, but that made no difference to Josie, they were her life. When the girls were eleven, Josie started night school, and after six years, she graduated with a degree in business. She’d raised them in a tough neighborhood and kept them on the straight and narrow. Once again, Betty knew her foster kids.

* * *

“Why don’t you introduce yourself? I’m sure she’d love to see the little boy she played with,” Betty encouraged as she wiped down the kitchen counter after her last Skype session with Josie.

Chance didn’t have a good answer for her. He’d watched the last three sessions out of Josie’s line of vision. His excuse to Betty was that he just wanted to make sure Josie was on the up-and-up. Of course, after seeing the file on her, he knew that she had nothing but good intentions toward Betty and Butch.

He remembered being thrust into the Hutchins’ home when he was three, after his parents died. He’d cried and cried every night for his mom and dad. The only thing, the only one, who had been able to console him had been the little girl named Josie. Back then he couldn’t say her name, so he’d called her Zee. She’d held him and played with him. Without her, those first few months would’ve been unbearable.

When he first saw her on Betty’s computer screen, her face knocked the wind out of him. She’d literally taken his breath away. He’d dreamt about her golden-brown eyes but he’d forgotten just how beautiful her whole face was, and that smile. How could he have forgotten that Josie smile? She enthralled Chance. She was beautiful inside and out. His memories weren’t wrong.

“Why don’t you admit that you were wrong about the girl, and that you think she’s a hotty?” Betty teased. She put out a tray of banana bread and milk. Chance sat down with a resigned sigh as he snagged a piece of the warm treat.

“You were right about her.”

“Of course I was.” Betty sat down and gave her son a satisfied smile as they ate in silence for a while.

“It sounds like you’re trying to get her to move here and start a business. That’s a big step.”

“She’s ready for it. She has the smarts, determination, and the degree. Now all she needs are for the dominos to fall into place and she should be fine. She needs a new start. She’s been living her life for others long enough,” Betty said firmly.

Chance couldn’t disagree, and the idea of having Josie Decker living in Fate Harbor appealed to him intensely, not unlike Josie herself. “She’s got to believe she’s done it all on her own, or she won’t go for it,” Chance warned.

“If we can’t pull that off, then they need to take away our membership to the Busybody Club,” Betty said with a twinkle in her eye.

* * *

“I promise to introduce myself the first day she arrives, Betty. I just don’t want to do it over Skype, okay? Will you quit nagging me about this?” Chance pleaded for the eightieth time. They sat at the kitchen table waiting for Betty’s computer to ring with that day’s call. He blew across his steaming coffee cup.

“I should never have agreed to let you watch our Skype sessions,” Betty huffed. “But we have managed to coordinate everything perfectly between the two of us. I think today is the day we’re going to get her to agree.”

“I never doubted you,” Chance grinned.

“Honey, I know you’re going to introduce yourself, in your own time, in your own way. Don’t think I don’t know what you have planned, young man. You might think you’re pulling one over on me, but I’ve got you figured out.”

Chance studied the woman who was truly his mother now. A prickle of apprehension slid down his back. “Just what do you think you have figured out?” he asked carefully.

“Chance Reynolds, this is about more than just you and Josie, and don’t think I don’t know it. You’re trying to—”