Family Reunion

DedicationLetter to ReaderTitle PagePROLOGUECHAPTER ONECHAPTER TWOCHAPTER THREECHAPTER FOURCHAPTER FIVECHAPTER SIXCHAPTER SEVENCHAPTER EIGHTCHAPTER NINECHAPTER TENCHAPTER ELEVENCHAPTER TWELVECHAPTER THIRTEENCHAPTER FOURTEENCHAPTER FIFTEENCHAPTER SIXTEENEPILOGUECopyright

To: The Lyon Family

Scott glanced at the envelope addressed to the family. It should have gone to the executive offices, he thought as he walked away. Then the return address registered.

Judge Nicolette Bechet

He went back and picked up the letter. Nicki—with an address out of the city, in one of the rural parishes.

He fingered the envelope. Curious. A little excited, even.

He had as much right to open it as anyone. So without examining his logic too closely or too scrupulously, he slid a finger beneath the flap of the envelope.

Her signature was full of sweeps and flourishes—not what he would have expected at all.

Scott read the letter six times. She wanted to help the family find Margaret Hollander Lyon. Also, not what he would have expected.

Scott thought of all the dead-end leads that had been followed in the search for his aunt. Maybe he shouldn’t burden the family until he knew more. He could talk to Nicki himself.

After all, he’d waited two years for the chance.

Dear Reader,

How important is family? And how profound are the effects when there are rifts in the family? This final book in THE LYON LEGACY, Family Reunion, explores the way two people are affected by the difficulties in their families and how their struggle to love one another leads to healing.

As I wrote about Scott Lyon and Nicki Bechet, I thought of my own family and how easy it sometimes is to take for granted the ties that bind us—ties of history, of shared memories, of love. I also thought about the “families”

I’ve been blessed to find over the years—women friends, neighbors, my sister writers in the romance community. All of them are valuable, and I made a commitment, as I wrote, to do more to nurture all those connections.

I hope as you read Family Reunion, you’ll also think of your family and be reminded how precious family is.

Happy reading.

Peg Sutherland

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE

March 31, 1997

THE PACK OF about fifty reporters and cameracrew members outside the New Orleans courthouse were hungry. That was how Scott Lyon would have described it. Hungry and circling for the kill.

Scott shifted the Minicam on his left shoulder. He glanced around, uncomfortable with the atmosphere. This felt personal and he knew why—Judge Nicolette Bechet.

Judge Bechet had handed down a controversial decision today in a child abuse case. The unsubstantiated allegations against a popular local politician had gripped the city’s attention. Following as it did so closely on the judge’s personal problems, which had also raised eyebrows and set tongues wagging, Judge Bechet’s handling of the case—and the subsequent jail sentence she’d imposed—had drawn considerable scrutiny.

Now, the judge would be grilled, then roasted on tonight’s late news and on the pages of the morning paper. Standard operating procedure. Nothing to get in an uproar over. Scott knew the drill.

But today, he had some qualms. Today, he kept remembering the haunted look in Judge Nicolette Bechet’s eyes the last time he’d turned his camera on her.

Scott looked up at a second-story window in the sturdy old courthouse. The judge’s office. He remembered its location from the first ambush interview, when he and WDIX-TV’s ace, R. Bailey Ripken, had stormed the judge’s chambers—just two days after her father had died of a drug overdose—and demanded answers to questions they’d had no business asking. The judge had been under siege ever since WDIX broke that story.

Scott regretted his part in exposing her family’s secrets.

The horde of reporters was growing. Growing noisier and restless and more convinced of its right to know with every minute that passed.

Scott eased the camera off his shoulder. It was heavier than usual.

“What?”

That was R. Bailey Ripken. First name Ramona, a closely-guarded secret in journalistic circles; she’d confessed it to him her first week on the job. Scott inspired that kind of trust, especially from women.

“I need a pit stop,” he said. It wasn’t true. He didn’t need to use a washroom. But something was driving him to get out of this mob, something he couldn’t explain to himself, much less to the Crescent City’s exposé queen.

“Now? You’ve got to be kidding? She’s bound to come out any minute!”

“I won’t be long.”

“Scott!”

He was already elbowing his way through the crowd, and was tempted to ditch the pricey camera. He’d heard the disbelief in Bailey’s voice. But what could she do? Have him fired? He smiled grimly to himself. Okay, so sometimes family connections gave a guy the edge.

He’d been around long enough to know better than to march right up to the front door. He’d have the entire gang of reporters right behind him. He went to a side door. He was familiar with the building layout. As he mounted the broad stairs to the second floor, his sneakers squeaking on the well-worn marble, his heart was thumping a little harder than usual. He knew the rules and what he had in mind broke most of them.