Читать книгу The Marriage Contract - Anna Adams - Страница 8

“YOU LOVED ME, so you decided to make me live with strangers? My parents trusted all of you, but no one thought I might be better off with a family who cared about me?” Clair curled her fingers into the towel, wadding it against her stomach. Unbelievable.

“You don’t understand. We weren’t able to protect David and Sylvie, and we didn’t think we could save you from Jeff Dylan, either.”

Clair licked her dry lips. “You looked for me now because he died?”

“When you first left, I used my husband’s influence to watch over you. I made sure you stayed around the D.C. area, and my friend in Social Services led all Jeff Dylan’s inquiries astray. I know this may not comfort you, but we worked hard to keep him from finding you.”

“He could have hired detectives.”

“He did, but they always stumbled across the false trails my friend laid. She stepped outside the lines for me.”

Clair turned and dropped the towel on the desk.

“Maybe I owe you gratitude, but I don’t know what to say.”

“I don’t expect you to trust me, but I’m glad you’re home. I’m sorry about the way I talked downstairs. I just knew you’d inevitably run into Nick Dylan, and I thought I’d test the waters, find out how you’d respond.”

“I already saw him.” She closed her eyes against that nagging image of his shocked face when he’d seen her. “I don’t care about him.”

“You don’t?”

Clair shook her head, trying to convince herself. From the moment she’d accepted Mrs. Franklin’s invitation, she’d wondered if it might be time to come home. She’d given her resignation to the landscaping firm she’d worked for in Boston. Whatever happened, she was ready for more-southern climates. “I don’t ever have to see Nick Dylan.”

“Don’t fool yourself. He wants this community to accept him. He doesn’t keep to his side of the Dylan hill.”

“I’m not afraid of him.” Clair lifted her chin, and Mrs. Franklin planted her hands on her hips.

“Why would you be with all of us behind you? We’re on your side.”

Clair considered. Why would she want to stay in a place where people she’d trusted had developed feet of clay?

Because she wasn’t fourteen anymore. She could reason beyond a fourteen-year-old’s pain, and she didn’t care about clay feet or disappointment. She’d been happy in Fairlove. Her mother and father were buried in the ground her family had lived on for generations. She belonged in Fairlove.

She dropped her company manners. “Is my parents’ house still standing?”

Mrs. Franklin looked puzzled, but Clair held her breath, waiting for an answer that meant everything to her. Jeff Dylan had stood in the dusty dirt driveway while she and her father and mother packed the last of their things into a rental truck. Jeff swore he’d never touch the house again. He just wanted to watch it decay until the earth claimed it.

He’d always talked like a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher.

“It stood for over a hundred years,” Mrs. Franklin said at last. “It wouldn’t crumble in a mere twelve years, but it looks neglected. Let me drive you out there.”

Clair struggled to add kindness to her tone. She’d rather rebuild relationships than choke them all off just because they hadn’t turned out the way she’d hoped.

“Thank you, but no. I need to see it on my own the first time.” Living in foster care, she’d stopped depending on anyone for support. Truthfully, she wanted to believe someone on the face of this earth would back her up if she needed help, but she’d long since forgotten how to reach out and trust.

“If you haven’t already had breakfast, I’ll make it for you when you get back.” Mrs. Franklin touched her throat again, a nervous gesture Clair remembered. “You’ll come back?”

Nodding, Clair flipped open the top of her backpack and plucked out the small purse that held her driver’s license. “I want to come back, Mrs. Franklin. And no, I haven’t had breakfast.”

“Clair, I’m so sorry about the past—about everything.” The other woman folded her arms across her stomach.

Clair nodded, uncomfortable with her own need for a relationship as much as with Mrs. Franklin’s. “You don’t have to apologize. I think we both want to start again from here.”

“I do.” Eyes filled with surprising tears, Mrs. Franklin scooped the hand towel off the desk. “Go on, and I’ll start breakfast. Good Lord, I forgot I have other guests.”

She vanished through the bathroom door, and Clair made her escape. She’d like to forgive and forget, but she had to be sure she could before she made a move. Every breath she took here in Fairlove made staying more important to her. For twelve years, she’d taken action to keep from indulging in self-pity. Often action had translated into running away. She needed a more mature attitude if she was going to make a home here.

She drove out of town to the familiar road that led to her family’s old house. She saw the roof first, rising above the trees. It looked surprisingly intact, but time, neglect and peeling paint had colored the clapboard siding a dreary gray. Clair nosed her car onto the old graveled drive, sparsely covered now in patches of thin grass. She got out and picked her way through ruts onto Dylan property, property that had once been Atherton.

Suspended above the oak door her grandfather had carved, a wooden sign banged against the house. Normally this sign hung from an iron arm attached to one of the clapboards. Rust had decayed the chain at the end farthest from the house, and the sign had scraped a rut in the wood.

Clair read the sign, even though she knew every curlicue in the burnt engraving. The Oaks. An ancestor had named the house for the great gnarled trees that surrounded it. Clair’s father had burned its name into the current sign one hot summer day when she was still too small to reach the top of his workbench. Once in every generation an Atherton had to make a new sign for their home. Responsibility for renewing the sign had passed down through the family with the house.

Fresh grief swamped Clair, but she choked back tears, unwilling to waste any more valuable seconds. She’d ached too deeply to surround herself with the familiar sensations, the sigh of the breeze that wound a loving embrace around the corners of her home, the click of branches that seemed to tap each other in secret conversation a human couldn’t understand.

Ahead of her, something moved in the long uncut grass. A bird rose with a startled cry, and a wiry black feline sprang into the air.

“Hey!” Clair raced for the cat to shoo it away, but the bird had flown out of reach.

Clair stopped abruptly. Its original prey gone, the cat sagged into a crouch, seemingly more interested now in her than in the liberated meal that mocked him from the air.

“Go away.” She firmed up her voice and wondered about rabies. Had this feral feline had its shots? The cat growled. Who knew a cat could growl? “Go away!”

Throwing its entire scrawny body into a hiss, the cat looked painfully hungry. Half its right ear was gone, and something had nipped out patches of its coat. Just as Clair began to feel a sense of sympathy for a fellow stray, it turned and streaked out of sight. The grass closed, and she stood alone.

She turned slowly in the new, unnatural silence. Wildlife rustled in brush that had taken over her mother’s once carefully landscaped lawn. Twelve years of neglect gave the house a lost look, which Clair connected with.

She wanted to fix the house, make it a home again.

She could look all she wanted, but she was a trespasser here. She had no rights. She wasn’t allowed to change anything—couldn’t help a bird, feed a wild, hungry cat, or clean up the bits of trash that had blown against the kitchen wall.

Fighting a sense of futility, she understood the crippling failure that had hounded her father to his grave after he’d lost the house to Jeff Dylan. She didn’t dare go close enough to peer through a dirt-stained window. Emptiness inside her left her unable to look at the bare spaces inside those walls.

WHEN SHE RETURNED to the bed-and-breakfast, Julian Franklin met her at the top of the steps. Decked out for court, he reminded her of the old days, when her father had teased him about his “litigious” wardrobe.

“Hello, Judge.”

His smile, lacking his wife’s nervous edge, greeted her. “Selina told me you’d arrived. I wanted to welcome you.”

He held out his hand, and Clair clasped it. “Your house is lovely.”

He turned toward the door and opened it for her. “All due to Selina’s reconstruction plan. I always do what she tells me when she makes a plan.”

Clair laughed. “You’re subtle, sir. Are you saying she’s made a plan for me?”

He took her hand again. “I don’t have time to be subtle. I declared a recess to give myself a brief break from court. I wanted to tell you we’d love to have you stay here as long as you can.” He let her go and reached back for the door. “God, you look like Sylvie. I’ve missed you and your mom and dad. There’s been a hole in my life ever since you left.”

“Mine, too.”

Grinning, he looked back one last time. “You listen to my wife. She’s rarely wrong.”

Clair smiled back at him as he headed out. If Selina was never wrong, she’d been better off in foster care. Hard to believe.

She glanced into the dining room. It looked empty, but a man’s husky voice came from around a paneled corner.

“I won’t do it, Wilford. I don’t care who finds out about the will or anything else Jeff did. You’re an executor and my attorney. Get me out of this. Give everything to my mother.”

“You know it doesn’t work that way. Your cousin will inherit and move her out like yesterday’s rubbish.”

Clair leaned around the door frame, shamelessly curious, but when she met Nick Dylan’s dark blue gaze, she almost lost her balance and fell. She fled—from him and the appalled-looking white-haired man he was talking to.

An image of The Oaks reared in her mind, peeling, anchored deeper to the ground by its aura of neglect. She’d lost everything to that man’s family. She’d had to flee, or she’d say things that would force her to leave a town where Dylan word might still rule.

Crossing the lobby, she snatched a newspaper off the stack on Mrs. Franklin’s desk and sprawled on the love seat. Footsteps made the floor creak. She knew when she looked up she’d see Nick standing in the doorway.

“Good morning,” he said.

She nodded. He looked lean and barely leashed, as if the powerful emotion that darkened his eyes might explode from his body at any moment. Restraint furrowed strong lines from the aristocratic nose someone had bent for him to his surprisingly full mouth.

“Maybe we should talk.” The husky voice that had drawn her into the dining room took on a deeper timbre.

He stepped closer. She held still while inwardly she strained to look indifferent. Nick Dylan would never best her as his father had.

“I don’t need to talk to you.” Her voice sounded smooth to her, and she took courage.

“I know who you are.”

“Because I look like my mother. You remember her?”

He took another step closer. Losing her grip on her composure, she pressed against the love seat’s cushions.

“Are you afraid of me, Clair?”

“Your father bought our mortgage and bided his time until Dad got in trouble and he could demand payment in full. Jeff hounded my father into his grave, and why? For the sake of his sick, obsessive love for my mother. He destroyed my father out of vengeance. Should I be afraid of you?”

Nick yanked at his black tie as if it had tightened around his throat. “I’m not my father.”

“Then give me my family’s house. Do what’s right.” Her unreasonable demand poured out of her.

His desperate look reached inside her, made her feel for him. “I can’t.”

The other man had come out of the dining room. “Nick, your hands are tied until you do what your father wanted,” he said. He took Nick’s arm, but Nick pulled away.

“We’ll talk somewhere else, Wilford.” He turned back to Clair. “I can’t give you that house. You’re asking me to do what I cannot do.” He turned and waited for Wilford to leave in front of him.

Clair let out her breath when the door closed behind his too-straight back. She resisted the sympathy she’d felt for his pain. His weakness gave her strength.

It seemed he wanted to give her house back, and she’d take it if he gave her the slightest opening.

She turned her face to the newspaper, visions of her empty home haunting her. What if she stayed? What if she found a job?

Assuming she could persuade Nick Dylan to at least sell her the house, she’d still never find the kind of money he’d want. How would she find a job that could pay her that kind of money?

She simply didn’t have the qualifications to afford a falling-down, hundred-year-old house. After she’d dropped out of college, she’d been a ticket taker in a theater, she’d managed a Laundromat and she’d washed dishes in a diner. Then she’d found landscaping. She’d planted other peoples’ yards from D.C. to Boston for the past five years. But without a degree, she couldn’t command the kind of pay a qualified landscape designer could.

“Clair? Why are you sitting out here?” Mrs. Franklin had come out of nowhere—or at least from the shadows behind her desk. She set her mouth. “You’re upset because you saw the house.”

Clair didn’t feel comfortable enough with Selina yet to share what had just happened between herself and Nick. She attempted a smile that trembled uncomfortably on her lips. “The judge met me at the door.”

Selina smiled knowingly. “I thought he’d drop by. He’s glad you’re home.”

Home? Clair wasn’t sure yet. She changed the subject, lifting the paper. “Still published twice a week?” The pages rustled in her shaking hands. She flattened the paper on her lap.

“Thursday’s edition still carries the classifieds.”

Clair understood Mrs. Franklin’s message. “I haven’t said anything about looking for a job here.”

“But you’d like to stay? You feel strong ties. The house wouldn’t have bothered you if you could just leave.”

“You make it sound as if I can turn my life around overnight.” But hadn’t she already decided to stay? The moment she’d received Mrs. Franklin’s invitation? Hadn’t she decided then?

Mrs. Franklin came around the desk, ushering Clair before her into the breakfast room. “At least think about staying.”

“I’m thinking I can’t buy my house back.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

Clair stopped beside a small round table that glittered with crystal and china, and reminded her of the table her mother used to set. “Where do you want me to sit?”

“Wherever you like. You didn’t answer me.”

She hadn’t because Mrs. Franklin’s eagerness, after twelve years of silence, put her off. “Most recently I worked for a landscaper. I notice there’s a landscaping business on the square.” She pulled out a chair and sat while the older woman brought a coffee carafe from the sideboard and poured her a cup. She left the carafe on the table.

“Paul Sayers owns Fairlove Lovelies. Do you remember him? No, you wouldn’t. He moved here about four years ago. Still new in town.”

“Nearly a stranger.”

Mrs. Franklin smiled. “We have a new subdivision going in by Lake Stedmore. The development company hired Paul to maintain the common areas. Why don’t I call him?”

“Why don’t I think about it first?”

“I’m crowding you.” The older woman’s cheeks flushed. “You were part of my life, as much as I could keep you in sight without alerting Jeff Dylan. I care about you, and I guess I’m trying to make up for those years.”

Touched, Clair let down her guard. “You have nothing to make up. I’ve made my own decisions for a long time.” She grimaced, remembering some of them, a love affair with a professor that had, however unfairly, ended her college career, the jobs and towns she’d left because she hadn’t belonged. She could have made herself a home in any one of those places. “I’d like to stay, but I’d have to find a job and I’d have to face the fact that I’ll never live in my house again.”

“Do you love The Oaks more than the town? People who care about you, people who hold your history in their memories live in Fairlove, and we want you back now that it’s safe for you.”

Clair wanted to believe. “I’m not sure I can stay when I’m afraid I’d be letting Mom and Dad down if I don’t try to get the house back.”

“I’ll ask Paul Sayers to come over. You just talk to him. You don’t have to decide now.”

Agreeing to meet him meant she’d made a decision. Clair knew herself well enough to realize she’d accept a job if the landscaper offered it. She wanted to be sure before she took action, but she heard herself answering, “I’ll call him if you’ll give me the number.”

Mrs. Franklin pursed her lips. “Let me do this one thing for you, and then I’ll lay off.” She clapped her hands together. “Now, do you want the continental breakfast, or can I make you bacon and eggs and home fries like your mama used to make?”

Clair set the menu aside, hungry after such an exhausting morning. “No contest. I’ll take the bacon and eggs, thank you.”

Mrs. Franklin turned smartly for the kitchen and Clair opened the paper. A man and woman came into the dining room so completely engrossed in each other she couldn’t help watching them. She envied the couple their intimacy.

As they took the corner table, she tried to return her attention to the newspaper. The dry cleaners had an advertisement that promised they’d clean six shirts for a low, low price. So Nick Dylan had found himself a bargain.

“All right, I talked to Paul.”

Clair jumped. “I didn’t see you come back, Mrs. Franklin.”

She set a plate on the mat in front of Clair. “Better start on this. Paul’s coming over. He had some free time, and he said he wanted to talk to an experienced worker.”

Clair felt a bit nauseous, but she picked up her fork. “This is a huge decision. I still think I should take some time to make it.”

“Talk to Paul. Then think.” Mrs. Franklin straightened the knife at Clair’s right hand. Her gaze made Clair uncomfortable. “You look so much like your mother.”

“I think you’ve confused me with her. That’s why you’re so glad to see me.”

“Maybe partly. I’m ashamed I couldn’t do more for you, but maybe I want to know you better, too. And you have a right to live in the town where you were born. Fairlove can be a good place to live.”

“If your name isn’t Atherton and you don’t attract the hatred of a Dylan.”

“Jeff Dylan loved your mother once.”

“Then he hated her, and he hated my father and me.”

“I don’t think Nick Dylan is like his father. If you can stand seeing him around town, you’ll like living here again. Leota stays up at the house. She hardly ever comes down to town, and she won’t have anything to do with the likes of you or me.”

“You?” Clair was surprised. “You’re a judge’s wife. You’re just the kind of people Leota Dylan liked.”

“She likes most judges’ wives.” Mrs. Franklin turned away, and this time she was clearly hiding her thoughts. “We’ll talk about Leota later. My other guests will think I’m ignoring them.”

Clair welcomed time on her own to put her meeting with Nick Dylan behind her and think about her impromptu interview with Paul Sayers. About whether she should even consider talking to this man about a job in a town where Nick Dylan looked at her as if she’d risen from the dead.

Her breakfast went untouched as she stared at the newspaper whose ink she’d smeared, but not read. Did she have enough courage to try to make a life in Fairlove?

“Excuse me. Are you Clair Atherton?”

She looked up. A tall man towered over her table, his jeans clean but stained, his belly a gentle protrusion above his wide leather belt. He pried a Braves baseball cap off wild brown curls sprinkled with gray and threaded his fingers through them.

“You must be Paul Sayers.”

He nodded. “Selina tells me you have experience and you might be looking for work. I could use another pair of hands.”

Folding the paper away, Clair pointed at the other chair. “Do you want to sit down?”

He sat and hitched his chair closer. “Do you have any references? I know you won’t have them on you now, but you can bring them to me.”

She nodded. “I worked for a nursery in Connecticut for about two years, and then I moved on to a couple of landscaping firms in Boston.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a notepad. “I can write down names and numbers right now.”

As she wrote, he said, “I’ll take them, but first I need to know how long you think you’ll be staying in town.” He reached for a cup from the next table and poured himself coffee. “Not that I should ask, but I’ve had a hard time keeping people for longer than a season.”

She hesitated for a long moment. He was asking for a commitment. And it scared her, but this was a commitment she suspected she’d been running to, not one she would run from.

“I’ve come home,” she finally said. Paul Sayers didn’t know her, didn’t know her family. She didn’t have to prove she belonged in Fairlove to him. “I lived here once.”

“Good. Wait a minute. Atherton? Your family owned that old house in the oak grove at the bottom of the Dylan estate?”

She nodded.

“I hate seeing folks let a fine old place like that go. It’s a beauty, or it could be if someone with a little elbow grease took it over. Do you plan to buy it back?”

She looked away, not wanting to show him how much the loss of her home hurt. “I’d need more than one job to manage that.”

Paul nodded. “I sure can’t pay you that kind of money, but the company’s young. If your references pan out and you’re a strong worker and you actually stay, you’d be helping me stake my business in this town. If the business grows, my employees grow with it.”

“I don’t have a degree.”

At his crooked smile, Clair wished she hadn’t felt quite so compelled to be honest. Her embarrassment amused him.

“Mine’s over twenty years old,” he said. “Thanks for telling me, but I’m happy to teach anyone who stays. I figure I’m grooming people who’ll take ownership in my business.” He picked up his coffee cup and sipped. “Do you think Selina would bring some breakfast for me?”

“Probably.” His matter-of-fact attitude put Clair at ease. She freshened his coffee cup from the carafe. “How often does she arrange job interviews for her guests?”

“Not very.” Paul took a sip before he said, “Between the two of them, I guess the Franklins know most of what goes on in this town. If you work out, I may consider paying her a recruiting fee. Why don’t you tell me what kinds of jobs you’ve done for those other companies?”

“I have some sketches.”

Clair drew her pad out of her backpack, and they talked work. Mrs. Franklin brought breakfast for Paul without being asked. Finally he pushed back from the table and stood.

“Why don’t you drop your résumé by my office in the morning and meet my two associates. We’ll assume you’ll start on Wednesday, and I’ll call you if I have any questions about your references.”

“Thank you.” As she stood to shake his hand, she noticed the familiar scent of mulch. “I think I saw your office on the square.”

“I took over the Tastee Cone shop.” He dragged his baseball cap over his hair and smiled crookedly. “I hear my neighbors miss the ice cream.”

Clair wondered. She’d been too young to understand nuances, such as socially acceptable businesses for the square, when she’d left. What if she had come back to a place she’d made up to comfort herself? It looked the same, but so far the people hadn’t turned out the same as she’d remembered them.

She refused to think that way. She’d decided to stay. Now she had to find out if she’d really come home.

“Mrs. Franklin thinks highly of your work, and I’m grateful you had the time to come by here.”

Paul was buttoning his jacket as Selina Franklin came through the swing door from the kitchen. “You’ll probably work with me the first few days—kind of a probation period. I want to see what skills you bring, and then I’ll pair you with other staff who complement what you know. This being winter, you know we’re mostly cleaning, preparing for the spring.” He lifted his hand to Mrs. Franklin. “What do I owe you?”

“Not a thing. I’m glad you had a free hour. Did you and Clair finish your business?”

“To our mutual benefit, I hope. Thanks for everything, Selina. I’ll see you Wednesday, Clair.”

He left, and Clair turned awkwardly to her hostess. “I’d like to hug you, Mrs. Franklin, but I remember my mother telling me to keep my muddy hands off your dress.”

“You always did like growing things, didn’t you?” She dropped her arm across Clair’s shoulders and squeezed. “What do you say you call me Selina, and I’ll tell you what I propose for your living arrangements.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sit down. I’ll join you in a cup of coffee. We’re not too busy right now.”

“Mrs. Franklin, I can’t let you do anything more for me.”

“Selina. And I want you to do a few things for me. When we finish our talk, I’ll show you my back garden. It’s a jungle.”

Clair stared in dismay at the third cup of caffeine Selina had poured for her. “That lovely garden?” she said. “I used to think it was a playground.”

“It looked like one. The judge had more time to work with it back then, but his taste ran to the gauche.” Selina crossed her legs. “And I’m being generous. Since he took office, I’ve hauled away the candy-striped poles. I took down the birds and the wires he used to make them look like they were flying. I even got rid of that horrible birdbath sculpture his mother insisted we keep in front of her window. You remember the Furies in stone? They were most indecent—looked like snake women writhing all over each other, but then, you know the judge had to get his taste from somewhere.”

“Are you asking me to work on your garden?” Excited, Clair forgot her caffeine buzz and sipped the coffee. “I’d love to, but like Paul said, I can’t do much more than clean and plant bulbs for the spring.”

“Cleaning.” Selina sighed in overstated relief. “Just what I need back there. You do what you can after your work with Paul, and I’ll give you a room until you find a place to live.”

“I’m not going to pretend I don’t want to.” A garden she’d loved as a child proved irresistible. “You have a deal.”

“Great. Take today to rest. You can start tomorrow.”

“Thanks.” She set her napkin on the table and broached an uncomfortable subject. “Can I ask you one more favor, Selina?”

“Ask away. I’ll do what I can.”

“I appreciate your help, but I remember how this town works. Please don’t make me some sort of a…community project. I’d like to start fresh.”

“Don’t worry. I haven’t told anyone else I had any part in bringing you back here. As far as they’ll know, you decided to come home.”

“They? I don’t think I want to know who else was in on your plan all these years.”

Selina’s mouth quivered, but she wound her arms around Clair. “You’re going to be all right now.”

Clair hugged her back. Maybe coming home really was the right decision.

Clair unpacked the rest of the things from her car and then checked Selina’s gardening shed for tools. She made a list of things she’d need and slipped it into the pocket of her jeans to take to Bigelow’s General Store.

As she shopped the garden section at Bigelow’s, she found herself circling flats of pansies. Her mom’s crocuses had heralded the end of winter every spring. In fall, she’d planted pansies in her favorite flower bed by the front door.

Clair wanted to go home and tell her parents about today, that she’d met Nick Dylan and survived, that she’d found a way to stay in Fairlove if she got the job with Paul Sayers.

Maybe she couldn’t tell them in spoken words. Maybe she hadn’t been able to force herself to look inside the house, but she could do something about the way the outside looked. Purple had been her mom’s favorite, so Clair added purple pansies and soil nutrients to her purchases.

She parked at the end of the driveway again, got out and followed the path she’d made earlier, marked by the bent grass.

Taking tools, plants and bucket up to the house required a couple of trips, but contentment stole over her. She forgot about time as she pulled weeds and restacked the bricks that had fallen away from the retaining wall in a dry puddle of crumbled mortar.

She hummed to herself while she blended the nutrients into the black earth. She ought to leave this flower bed for another day or two, but she couldn’t. One of the Dylan attorneys might turn up at Selina’s and tell her to stay off Dylan property.

She planted the pansies, then brought water from the stream that ran behind the house to thoroughly moisten the bed. At last she stood back to admire her work.

The sad, chipped house paint nagged at her, but the past twelve years had taught her not to dwell on what she couldn’t change. Her pansies gave The Oaks an air of hope again. She felt foolish about being too afraid to look inside earlier.

Clair marched around the house to the kitchen window and scrubbed at the glass until she could make out the white enamel sink. Because dirt filmed the other side of the window, too, she still couldn’t see anything in the shadows.

“Clair?”

She recognized his voice. Slowly, she turned and found he’d taken control of his emotions, and he’d inherited the Dylan ability to gaze arrogantly at the rest of the world as if he understood its relation to him. Patience stalked behind his gaze. He could wait for what he wanted.

Would this Dylan know how to grind the family ax against her?

“I’m surprised to find you here,” he said.

“Surprised I’d trespass?” He gestured at the house. “Seeing this place has to hurt you.”

Ashamed of the way she’d fled without looking back earlier, she put on some arrogance of her own. “It looks better now, with the pansies. They’re trespassing, too.”

“How much have you missed this house?” His unexpected question suggested he’d stumbled upon the solution to a mystery.

Uneasily, she headed back to the front of the house to collect her tools. “I’ve missed it enough that I won’t promise not to trespass again.”

“I didn’t ask you not to come here.” His voice came from close behind her.

His changed mood signaled a shift in the balance of power between them. She picked up her things in one armload for the return trip to her car. Nick stood behind her again when she turned. He nodded toward the house.

“Do you want to go inside?”

Her breath caught. She wanted to go in. More than anything. But he was Nick Dylan. The son of the man who’d taken hearth and home from her. She couldn’t make herself beholden to him.

“I have to leave.” Immediately, she cursed her foolishness. He was the one person who could let her into her old home. She turned back. “Maybe some other time, I could come to your office and pick up the key?”

“You know where I work?” He seemed surprised that she would have talked to anyone about him.

“It’s a small town.”

“Come to my office. I’ll have the key for you.”

She held back, feeling suddenly vulnerable. To think she would walk into her house again, touch the walls and floors her mother and father had loved, dispel her nagging sense of having dreamed her first fourteen years.

But how much of Nicholas Seton Dylan’s character rose out of his father’s gene pool? He must have ulterior motives.

She forced herself to take measured steps back to her car. In case he was watching her as his father had watched her mother…