Jude Deveraux (10 page)

Brad
smiled at her so that his eyes crinkled at the corners. 'You can't BS me. I was
told the truth about you, remember? By the way, the books you accumulated on
eighteenth-century gardening are in that big pine cabinet in Mrs. Farrington's
bedroom. You must have every book ever published about eighteenth-century
gardens.'

For the
first time since she'd arrived, Eden smiled — really smiled. It wasn't a polite
little grin; it was a big wide smile that involved her entire face. She'd
missed this in the years since she'd left Arundel. Someone who knew her.
Someone who liked the same things she did. In the years since she'd been away,
it seemed that all the men she'd met had wanted her for what she could give
them. Their attitude toward Melissa had been one of tolerance. They were
willing to put up with a child, but they hadn't really been interested in her.
She'd been too quiet and withdrawn to interest them. In the end, it seemed that
it always came down to having to choose between her daughter and some man. Eden
had never hesitated in choosing her daughter.

But
now, for the first time since she was a teenager, Eden was alone - free,
actually. It was difficult for her to remember a time when she wasn't someone's
mother. When she was still a teenager, she'd seen kids her age jumping into
convertibles as they ran off to spend the day at the beach. Sometimes she'd
been nearly overwhelmed with envy. Never in her life had she spent an entire
day at the beach. Her parents hadn't believed in such frivolity, then she'd had
the responsibility of a daughter. As for packing up Melissa and going by
herself, that wasn't something that Eden could quite manage to do.

What
she had done was throw herself into gardening. She'd spent her days in the
garden, with Melissa never far away from her. Often, Mrs. Farrington had joined
them, not to work (she couldn't contemplate using a hoe) but to sit under a
tree in a pretty wrought-iron chair and read things like the Declaration of
Independence (which one of her ancestors had signed) to Melissa, Eden, and
Toddy.

Now,
Brad was bringing back to Eden the memories of those wonderful days so vividly
that she, well, she was feeling as though she was waking up. Design gardens?
For a living? Get paid for doing something that she loved to do? When she'd put
herself through college, it had been a small community college, and the choices
of study had been limited. Garden design had not been offered. She'd taken
courses that she thought would help her get a job as a teacher or in museum
work or publishing. 'Design gardens?' she said at last.

'Yes,
something like what's at the Belltower House.'

At that
Eden's eyes widened. 'The Belltower House,' she said under her breath. It was
one of the most beautiful houses ever built in the United States in the eighteenth
century. In the 1950s it had been derelict but had been rescued by the local
townspeople and restored beautifully. There had been a gasoline station in
front of it, but that was torn down and in its place was put a reproduction of
an eighteenth-century garden. No modern plants were allowed. It was gorgeous
and accurate.

'The
people we're aiming at with these houses are retired D.C. people. Power,
brains, been everywhere and seen everything. We think that the historical aspect
of the houses will appeal to them, and we thought that making the gardens look
as historically accurate as the houses would also appeal to them. Of course the
landscape company that's been formed by some of the local kids would put in the
gardens and later maintain them, so you wouldn't have to do the digging.'

'Local
kids?'

'Okay,
so they're adults and they're Drakes, Mintons, and one Granville by marriage,
namely my daughter's worthless husband, but I think they can do the job. Maybe
you could manage them. They all need direction.'

She
blinked at him. 'If I'm understanding this clearly, you're asking me to take
over a landscaping company that has a contract, more or less, for two hundred
houses.'

'That's
about it.'

She
narrowed her eyes at him. 'Did you just come up with this idea or did you
develop it a while ago?'

His
face lost its humor. 'If you're asking me if I've been wining and dining you in
an attempt to get you to help with my new subdivision, the answer is no. But
I'll be honest with you: I am desperate for help. When you met my daughter, was
she smiling?'

'No.'

'Her
life is a mess right now. She married some big, good-looking kid from Louisiana
in her last year of college and got pregnant right away. Actually, I think she
was pregnant before, but that's neither here nor there. She came home, and I
saw right away that as soon as he saw the Granville house he planned to sit
down and do nothing for the rest of his life. I gave him many lectures about
how we all have to work for what we've managed to keep over the centuries, but
nothing registered with him. He said that in Louisiana he helped his father do
some landscaping. Between you and me I think he probably dug ditches. Anyway,
at Camden's crying requests I talked my partners into letting this moron become
involved in the landscaping. He went out and hired the blackest of the black
sheep in this town to work for him, and now he expects
me
to buy him
half a million dollars' worth of equipment and turn him loose on the gardens of
all the houses. He doesn't know a daisy from a liatris, so how can he put in
gardens that look like something Thomas Jefferson might have enjoyed?'

Brad
put his hand over his eyes. 'I tell you I'm caught in a three-way vise. I have
my investors threatening me if Remi messes up. I have my daughter, who expects
me to perform a miracle and make her talent-less husband into a great
businessman, and I have this kid telling me he can't do anything until I buy
him half of John Deere.'

Eden
crossed her arms over her chest. 'And just this minute you came up with the
idea of turning this entire mess over to me and getting me to straighten it
out?'

Brad
grinned at her. 'Actually, that's completely accurate. One hundred percent
right on. I think you must be a mind reader.'

In
spite of herself, Eden laughed, and her body relaxed. 'Your son-in-law is from
Louisiana? Does he have one of 'those' accents?'

'Sometimes
I can hardly understand him. You wouldn't
really
consider doing this,
would you?' There was hope in his voice, but also a belief that it would never
happen.

'Let me
think about it. You say the books are in my bedroom?'

'With
your notebooks. Do you think you could make up your mind by, say, ten o'clock
tomorrow?'

'What
happens at ten?'

'I'm to
meet Remi at the John Deere dealer.'

Again,
Eden laughed. Family, she thought. All the problems of family. When she left
Melissa and Stuart and the baby Melissa was about to have, Eden had thought she
was saying good-bye to family. But here was an invitation to plunge into a family
complete with squabbles and real problems. In this case, though, it looked a
bit like diving headfirst into a swimming pool that she
knew
was empty.

'Is the
John Deere dealer still on Berkshire?'

'Hasn't
moved since 1954.'

'I'll
meet you there at ten tomorrow and talk to your son-in-law.'

Brad
grabbed both her hands in his. 'I so appreciate this. You don't know . . . ' He
stopped and smiled at her. 'I'm not yet sure, but I think maybe everything Mrs.
Farrington said about you was right.' He said the last very softly, and he had
that unmistakable look on his face: he was about to kiss her.

As he
bent his head toward her, Eden stepped back and the moment was lost. When he
kissed her for the first time, she wanted it to be from passion, not gratitude.
She took her hands from his. 'You better go. I'll need to go through my books
tonight and see . . . See what a fool I am if I even consider this.'

'Yeah,
okay,' he said, stepping back. He took His car keys out of his pocket.
'Tomorrow.' He seemed to want to say more, but instead he turned and walked
away. He looked back once and waved, then she heard his car start and saw the
tail-lights as he drove down the driveway.

Standing
alone in the moonlit garden, Eden shivered. Moments ago, it had seemed very
warm, but now she was cold. Hurriedly, she ran up the stairs and back into the
house.

It was
utterly quiet inside, but she could feel the presence of another human being.
McBride. Right now all she wanted to do was take a shower and settle down with
her gardening hooks and think hard about Brad's offer of a job. Could she do
it? It had been years since she'd even read a gardening book. Could she
remember all that she'd learned? Had she even learned enough to be able to
design gardens from scratch? Plant heights, pH levels, bloom time, pruning —
they all had to be considered. And then there was the entire eighteenth-century
philosophy of design. They were complicated gardens. And would she be able to
get along with Brad's son-in-law, Remi? She'd never been able to get along with
her own son-in-law, so how could she think of taking on someone else's?

She
made herself a cup of tea and finished cleaning the kitchen while her thoughts
tumbled on top of one another. When at last she was ready to go upstairs, she
thought about staying downstairs and sleeping on the couch. Upstairs was Mr.
McBride and the confrontation she wanted to avoid. When she'd moved him into
her house she had good reasons, but right now she couldn't remember one of
them. Had she really wanted protection from Brad? She smiled at that idea. She
was beginning to think that being protected from Mr. Braddon Norfleet Granville
was the last thing she wanted.

She
stopped at the foot of the stairs and took a deep breath. Firm, she told
herself. She had to be firm.

Eden
flung open Jared McBride's bedroom door. She didn't care if she caught him in
the nude. On the way up the stairs, she'd put strength in her spine, and she
wasn't going to waver in her resolve. 'Mr. McBride,' she said, with her mouth
in a hard line, 'I want you out of my house now. This minute.'

He was
sitting on his bed, his arm in the sling on top of the covers, the scratch on
his cheek clearly visible. His blackened eye seemed to have grown bigger and
darker in the last few hours. If she hadn't known differently, she would have
thought he'd used makeup on it.

'Yes,
of course,' he said, then with grimaces of pain, he moved the cover off his
legs and slowly got out of bed. 'So you think Granville is all right, then?'

'Of
course he's all right!' she snapped. 'Contrary to what you're insinuating, I
don't hurt people who come to my house by invitation.'

He
paused, his bare feet on the floor, his sweatpants pulled up to his calf. He
had a bandage around his right ankle, and she could see what was clearly the
oval pattern of teeth marks on his ankle.

'I
meant that you feel sure that there's no danger he'll hurt you,' he said
softly. 'Sorry for spying  on   you,  but  it's 
the  habit  of an  old policeman. Protection. I knew you didn't
know Granville and he was here alone with you, so I was concerned. You're a
beautiful woman and you wouldn't believe the things that I've seen men get up
to when they're alone with a beautiful woman.'

She
knew he was lying; she could feel it in her bones. But no matter what was
coming out of his mouth, his wounds were real — and they had been caused by
her. As he stood up, the bite on his foot oozed blood. Closing her eyes for a
moment, she tried to give herself strength, but it didn't work. 'All right. Get
back in bed. You can stay here tonight.'

'No,'
he said tiredly. 'You're right. I should get back to my own house. It's not
right that a man should stay here alone with an unmarried woman.'

At that
she sat down on the chair by the wall. 'Tell me, Mr. McBride, do you lie to everyone
or is there something about me that brings out the worst in you?'

'I have
no idea what you mean,' he said as he hobbled toward the old dresser. She
hadn't been in this room since the house had become hers, but she saw that Mrs.
Farrington's son hadn't taken all the good pieces. The chest was pine and
looked country, but she knew it was worth a lot of money. For a moment she
could see Mrs. Farrington's smile. She'd managed to save some good pieces from
the greed of her son, and Eden wondered what else was in the house.

But
first she had to deal with the nuisance of McBride. 'I would like to know the
truth about what you're doing here in Arundel. Are you one of those treasure
seekers? Are you looking for those lost jewels?'

'Sorry,
but I don't know what you mean.' He was on one foot now, hopping to the chair
by the bed where his shoes and socks were.

'You're
no more a fisherman or a hunter than I am. Everything in your house is
brand-new, as though you don't want anyone to know who you are or where you
came from.'

'House
fire. Burned everything,' he said quickly, and Eden was sure that he was
smiling.

'The
night I saw you in this house you were snooping around. You weren't looking for
a fuse box. You were looking for something else. I called the electric company
and they said that my lights are not on the same circuit as yours.'

'It was
a mistake. I thought they were together.' He was sitting on the chair, his
hands folded on his lap, and he was looking at her expectantly.

He's enjoying
this, she thought. Cat and mouse. But who was the cat and who was the mouse?
'Where's your table saw? I looked in vour garage, and there's nothing in there
but a pickup truck. Brand-new. No table saw.'

'Power
handsaw. The deputy must have misunderstood. The circular saw is under the
workbench.'

'Shall
we go look?'

Ostentatiously,
as though in enormous pain, he stood up, using the chair as support. 'Yes, of
course. Let's go look now.'

Eden
threw up her hands in surrender. 'Get back in bed,' she ordered. She knew she
was being a wimp, knew that he was exaggerating his pain, but his foot was
bleeding, courtesy of her teeth. 'I guess you're hungry,' she said in disgust.

'No,
ma'am, I can do without food,' he said meekly as he hobbled to the bed. 'But I will
take you up on your offer of hospitality for another night, and I promise that
I'll leave tomorrow.'

'Good,'
she said, and she left the room.

Eden
wanted to kick herself. The man had the ability to make her forget all that
she'd planned to say to him. She went downstairs to the kitchen, got the soup
out of the refrigerator, and heated a bowl of it. She put leftover salad into
another bowl, poured a big glass of sweet tea, then also poured him a glass of
wine. He was probably taking pain medications so the wine would knock him out.
At least she'd have one night without his snooping.

She
carried the tray up to him, cursing herself every step of the way. He was back
in bed, his head lolling around as though he were at death's door. She put the
tray on the end of the bed and turned to leave.

'Did
you have a nice night?'

'No
thanks to you,' she spat at him. Then, in spite of her best intentions, she
turned on him. 'How could you spy on us like that? Who do you think you are
that you can snoop around my house with a flashlight, then lie to the police so
that they believe every word you say? Do you know that they made fun of me? I
come home to find a strange man in my house, I defend myself, yet 
I
am 
made  a  laughingstock in  this  small town. I will never
be able to live this down. Do you know what my life is going to be like because
of you? I can't understand why they believed
you
and not me.'

When he
said nothing, she made her hands into fists and turned to leave the room.

'FBI,'
he said, his mouth full.

She
stopped where she was, then slowly turned back to him. 'What?'

'I'm
FBI. The sheriff knows that. If he hadn't been told who I was, I'd have been
thrown in jail until I rotted. People around here like you, something about
your being 'one of them.' I hope that doesn't mean you're part of some cult
that we'll eventually have to clean out. We lose too many men in those raids.'

Eden
was standing in the doorway, her mouth open, her eyes wide, too stunned to
move.

'Your
sheriff told me what he thought of me before he put out the story that I was a
great hero and that you were a dingbat Yankee. Do I have that right? It seems
that down here being a Yankee is worse than being a serial killer. Certainly
worse than being an FBI agent working on a case. I think that if it had been up
to your sheriff he would have put a few bullet holes in me to add to the bite
wounds. You better sit down before you faint. Here.' He held up the glass of
wine. 'I think you need this. I can't drink this with those pills the doctor
gave me or I'll pass out. Or was that your intention?' He took another slurp of
soup and stopped talking.

Eyes
wide, Eden walked across the room and took the wine from him, drinking it in
one long chug. When she'd finished, she sat down on the end of his bed. 'Why
would the FBI be interested in me? There are no jewels.'

He
gestured with a piece of French bread. 'I don't know anything about any jewels,
but it sounds like a good story. Maybe you'll tell me about it sometime. If you
can get away from lover boy, that is. How long have you known Granville?'

'None
of your business,' she said, looking at him. The wine was giving her courage.
'I want to know why you're here and what you want.'

'Do you
know a man named Roger Applegate?'

'No.'

'Sure?'

'Yes.
If you don't tell me what's going on, I'm going to call the sheriff and tell
him you're a liar.'

Jared
grinned. 'He already knows that, but you're right in that he'd love to have
something to bring me in on. If he'd had his way he would have turned me over
to the mob. If there'd been a mob, that is.'

She
glared at him.

He
smiled at her. 'So who is Granville?'

'Not
that it's any of your business, but he's my lawyer — which I'm sure you know.
Why are you here? What were you looking for in my house?'

'I don't
know.' He took another bite, then took an infuriatingly long time chewing it.
'I've been in this bed for many hours now and I've had a lot of time to think.
I didn't want this assignment, but my boss said I was the only one who could do
it.'

'Do
what? What
is
your assignment?'

'To  
seduce   you   into   telling 
me   what  you know.'

'What?'
Eden asked, aghast. 'Seduce me?'

'Not
necessarily seduce as you mean, just sweet-talk you, that sort of thing.'

'To
find out what I know,' she said quietly. 'Know about what?'

'That's
just it, we have no idea. And, you know what, I don't think you do either. In
the last hours I've had time to think and to listen. Yes, I sneaked down the
stairs — at great pain, I might add — and I listened to every word that lover boy
said to you. He's besotted, isn't he? But then I can understand him. Under
different circumstances — ' He looked her up and down until she glared at him.
Smiling, he looked back at his soup.

'Anyway,
after much thought, I decided that you didn't know anything and that what with
your having a boyfriend, I wasn't going to be able to do this the way the boss
wanted me to. I don't think I'm your type. Even when my face isn't black and
blue, I don't think I'm your type. I think you like, well, boring men, like
Granville.' 'If that's supposed to make me tell you that I don't like men like
Brad Granville and that I really like lying, snooping, creeping prevaricators
like you, then it won't work.'

Jared
grinned at her and put his empty tray on the chair by the bed. 'I've been
watching you, Ms. Palmer, and I decided that you were going to be too difficult
for me to put on an act of being the kind of man you liked just so I could find
out about Applegate.'

'Who is
this man Applegate?' Eden asked, exasperated. She wanted this all to be a
dream. Tonight she'd been offered what could be a wonderful job, something that
would turn her life around in a way that she'd never imagined, but now she was
being told that the FBI wanted something from her.

'He's a
spy. Hand me my wallet, would you?' He motioned to the dresser.

Eden
got up, got the wallet, handed it to him, then sat back down on the end of the
bed. The way she was feeling she might faint, and she didn't want to fall out
of a chair onto the hard floor.

He
handed her a photo and pointed to one of three men. The man was frowning, as
though he didn't want his photo taken. 'Have you ever seen him before?'

She
studied the picture. 'No, at least not for any length of time. I can't say that
I never saw him on an elevator or working for someone or walking through my
publishing house. But I've never known him in a way that would make me remember
him.' She handed the photo back to him, and he carefully put it in his wallet, then
put the wallet on the chair.

He
fluffed his pillows, leaned back against them, and put his arms behind his
head. 'That's what I thought, and I think you're telling the truth.'

'Why
would I lie? What does this man, this spy, have to do with me?'

'When
he knew he was about to be caught, he ate a piece of paper with your name on
it. We found it in his stomach after he was dead.'

At that
Eden stood up. She was going to her own bedroom and in the morning she would
laugh about this. It had all been a hilarious dream.

Jared
caught her arm and pulled her back to the bed, where she sat on the edge of it,
facing straight ahead, her eyes glazed.

'Why?'
she whispered.

'That's
what we want to know. As you can imagine, you've been pretty thoroughly
investigated, but we could find nothing in your past or your current life that
would link you to a spy of Applegate's caliber.'

She
looked at him. 'I was investigated by the FBI? And you found nothing? Am I
supposed to be grateful for that?'

'Look,
I know this is a shock to you, but I took a big chance when I told you about
this. My telling you is a gesture of respect, actually. My boss wanted me to
make you fall in love with me, then I was to try to get you to talk and tell me
what you know. But I've read every word about you, and I've spent a whole day
listening to you and watching you, and I've come to the conclusion that you
don't know anything. Or don't know that you know it, that is. After much
contemplation about this, I decided that I should just tell you what was going
on and ask you to try to figure out what you know.'

'Respect?'
Eden whispered. 'Respect? You have respect for me? You've snooped and spied on
me, and you've pretended to be much more injured than you are so I'd feel sorry
for you. Where's the respect in all that?'