Haunting Rachel (2 page)

Rachel stood there until the light changed again, but when she rushed across the street, there was no sign of him.

No. No, of course there wasn’t.

Because it hadn’t been him.

Realizing that her legs were actually shaking, she found a table at a nearby sidewalk cafe where she could keep an eye on that corner, and ordered a cup of hot tea.

It hadn’t been him, of course.

It was never him.

“Are you all right, miss?” the waitress asked when she returned with the steaming cup. “You look sort of upset.”

“I’m fine.” Rachel managed a smile she doubted was very reassuring, but it was enough to satisfy the young waitress. Left alone again, she dumped sugar into the tea and fixed her gaze once more on the corner.

Of course it hadn’t been Thomas. Her mind knew that. It had been only a stranger with a chance resemblance that had seemed stronger because distance had helped it seem that way. And perhaps a trick of the light had helped, as well as her own wishful thinking. But it couldn’t have been Thomas. Thomas had been dead nearly ten years. No, they had never found a body, or even the wreckage of the plane, but Thomas’s life had certainly ended somewhere in the impenetrable depths of a South American jungle.

Even though he had promised to come back to her.

Her knees were steady once more when Rachel finally got up nearly an hour later and left the cafe. And she didn’t let herself stop or even pause when she passed the corner where a memory had so fleetingly stood. Knowing that she was late helped her to walk briskly, and common sense pushed the memory back into its quiet room in her heart.

It was after three o’clock on this warm and sunny Tuesday when she went into a building in downtown Richmond. She went up to the fourth floor, entered the law offices of Meredith and Becket, and was immediately shown in to see Graham Becket.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said at once.

“Rachel, you didn’t have to come down here at all,” Graham reminded her as he moved around the desk to take her hand and kiss her lightly on the cheek. “I told you I’d come to the house.”

“I needed to get out.” She shrugged, then gently reclaimed her hand and sat down in his visitor’s chair.

He stood looking down at her for a moment, a somewhat rueful expression on his face, then went back around the desk to his own chair. A tall, dark, good-looking man of thirty-eight, and a highly successful attorney, he was accustomed to female interest.

Except from Rachel. He knew Rachel fairly well. He had been her father’s attorney for nearly ten years and one of the executors of the estate after Duncan Grant and his wife had been killed eight months ago. But knowledge didn’t stop Graham from hoping that one day she would notice he was a man who was closer to being one of her contemporaries than her father’s.

And a man, moreover, who had been half in love with her for years.

Today, she hadn’t noticed.

“More papers to sign?” she asked, her slight smile transforming her serene and merely pretty face into something haunting.

Graham had tried to figure out what it was about that smile that made Rachel instantly unforgettable, but to date had been unable to. Her features, taken one by one, were agreeable but not spectacular. Her pale gray eyes were certainly lovely, but the dark lashes surrounding them were more adequate than dramatic, and her nose might have been a trifle large for her heart-shaped face.

Gleaming auburn hair framed that face nicely, but it was unlikely that fashion mavens would copy the simple
shoulder-length style. Her mouth was well-shaped and her teeth even and white, but there was nothing especially memorable about either.

Despite all that, Rachel had only to smile that slow smile of hers to become a stunningly beautiful woman. It wasn’t only Graham who saw the transformation; he had heard more than one man and a number of women comment on it over the years.

And even then, her smile was only a shadow of what it had once been. Before Thomas Sheridan’s death. Until the loss of her fiancé had changed Rachel so fundamentally, she had smiled often, her face so alive that strangers had stared at her on the streets. Afterward …

“Graham?”

He recalled his wandering thoughts and opened a file folder on his desk. “Yes, more papers to sign. Sorry, Rachel. But I did warn you that Duncan’s estate was complex.”

“It’s all right. I’m just wondering when it’ll all be over.”

He looked at her across the desk. “If you intend to keep a hand in the business, it’ll never be over. But if you mean to accept Nicholas Ross’s offer to buy you out …”

“I’m still thinking about that. Do you think Dad would have wanted me to sell out, Graham?”

“I think he expected you to. The past few years, your life hasn’t been in Richmond except for holiday and vacation visits home, and those were brief. Ever since you moved to New York, I think he realized it wasn’t likely you’d come back here to live.”

“Yes—but I don’t have to live here to keep the business. I could hire a manager to run my half, you know that. Between you, Nicholas, and a manager taking care of
things day to day, I’d have to show up only periodically for board meetings.”

He nodded. “True enough.”

“I don’t know beans about investment banking, so I could hardly be a hands-on boss anyway. And all those investments Dad had personally, they’re so diverse, there’s no way I could keep track of them on my own.” She seemed to be arguing with herself, frowning a little. “At the same time, several of the companies Dad invested in aren’t in a position to buy out his interest right now, so I’d have to find other investors if I wanted out—that, or take a loss. Either way, it means time and trouble.”

Graham looked at her searchingly. “In a hurry to get back to New York? I thought you said you’d taken a leave of absence and didn’t mean to go back until summer.”

“That’s what I said, and what I meant. But … I don’t know, I’m getting restless, I guess.” She shrugged. “I’m not used to being idle, Graham.”

After a moment, he said, “But it’s more than that, isn’t it? It’s memories. The house is getting to you.”

Rachel got up and went to stand before a window that offered a view of the busy street below. Graham remained in his chair, but turned it to keep watching her, and when she remained silent, he went on quietly.

“After Thomas was killed, you couldn’t wait to get out of that house. Went back to college first and then to New York. And your visits home even then were always brief, because you were always busy.”

“Trying to make me feel guilty for neglecting my parents?” Her voice was a little tight.

“No. They didn’t feel neglected, if that’s been worrying you. They understood, Rachel.”

“Understood what?”

“How much of your past was bound up in Thomas.
How old were you when you first knew you loved him? Twelve? Thirteen?”

Rachel drew a breath. “Ten, actually. He came to pick up Mercy from my birthday party, and he kissed me on the cheek. I knew then.”

It required an effort, but Graham kept his voice dispassionate. “And since his sister was your best friend, you saw a lot of him. I imagine he was at the house quite often even before you two began dating. You were sixteen then, weren’t you?”

She didn’t seem surprised by his knowledge, probably attributing it to her father and casual conversation rather than any extraordinary interest in her. “Yes.”

“So Thomas spent a lot of time at the house. Years, really. All the time you were growing up. Eating meals in the dining room, sitting with you in the den, listening to music in your bedroom, walking by the river. That place is filled with him, isn’t it?”

She turned and leaned back against the window casing. She was smiling just a little, wistful, and it made her beautiful again. “Yes, the house is filled with him. And even now, after all these years, it hurts to remember him.”

“Of course it does. You never really let him go, Rachel. You couldn’t. There was no funeral where you could say good-bye, just a memorial service months later when his parents had finally given up hope. And, by then, you’d bolted off to college, where there weren’t any memories of Thomas. For you, there was never any … closure.”

She looked at him almost curiously. “You knew him, went to school with him. Was it so easy for you to accept his death?”

“Easier than for you, because I was never close to him. I wasn’t … emotionally involved. His death was a tragedy and I was sorry, but no memories haunted me.”

She hesitated, then let out an unsteady laugh. “Haunted. That’s a good word. I thought I saw him today.”

“What?”

“On a street corner while I was waiting for the light to change. I looked across—and there he was. I could have sworn it was Thomas.”

“What happened?”

“A truck went past, and when I could see the corner again, he was gone. I ran across and looked, but … My imagination, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Well. My imagination of course.”

“Or just a man with blond hair,” Graham said steadily.

“Yes. I know.”

“But this isn’t the first time you thought you saw him.” Lightly, she said, “I’m going nuts, is that what you’re saying?”

“What I’m saying is, don’t let memories and wishful thinking become an obsession, Rachel. Thomas is dead. Don’t you believe that if he were alive, he would have somehow gotten word to you, that he would have managed to come back to you?”

“Yes. Yes, I do believe that. Because he promised he’d come back to me.”
And because he came back to me once, came back from death to say good-bye to me.

But she didn’t say that, of course. She had never told anyone about that, not even on that horrible dawn when she had awakened both her parents insisting her father try to get in touch with Thomas’s boss because she was certain something terrible had happened.

“Then you know that what you saw was simply someone who looked a bit like Thomas.” Graham’s voice was still matter-of-fact.

Rachel felt a faint flicker of amusement as she left the window and returned to her chair. “I think you really are worried about my sanity, Graham. Well, don’t be. I was shaken at first, but my common sense asserted itself pretty quickly. I know I didn’t really see Thomas on a street corner.”

Except for that first instant, when she had been
sure …

“I’m glad. But, Rachel, if you need someone to talk to—”

“Thanks.” She was grateful for his concern and the offer, and it showed in her affectionate smile. “But I think it’s just as you said. I never got the chance to say good-bye to Thomas, and I’ve never faced up to all the memories at home. He’s just very … alive to me right now. It’s something I’ll have to work my way through, that’s all.” She smiled at him. “Now—didn’t you say something about papers to sign?”

The house where Rachel had grown up was an elegant Georgian mansion built on extensive acreage on the James River. The house was more than two hundred and fifty years old, and had been in the Grant family for much of that time. Remodeled from time to time by various Grants, it now contained such luxuries and
conveniences
as carpet, closets, and bathrooms, as well as modern wiring, central heating, and air-conditioning. Yet it had maintained its graceful air despite those changes, and was considered one of the most beautiful houses in Richmond.

Rachel got out of her mother’s sedan at the front drive and stood for a moment, studying the house. Not for the first time she wondered if she was being hasty in even considering selling the place. Yes, the house was far too
large for one young woman who didn’t care for entertaining and didn’t have to in her work—the only real excuse for a single person to own such a place. And, yes, there were too many memories here, many of them painful. And her uncle Cameron wanted it, would enjoy it, and would keep it in the family at least a while longer.

But … it was her home. She had actually been born in this house, with a doctor in attendance, since her parents had been determined to uphold that tradition. Until she had gone away to college and then moved to New York, Rachel had always lived here, just as her father and grandfather before her. Her roots were here.

Did she really want to give it up? And if she did, were her reasons the right ones? Or was she just being cowardly in wanting to run away once more to New York without facing the pain of loss?

Not questions that were easily or simply answered, she knew. Shrugging them off for the moment, Rachel went into the house. She was greeted just inside the door by the housekeeper, Fiona, who was as dour as usual. A part of the Grant family for more than twenty years, Fiona moved more slowly these days in late middle age, and her superstitious nature could be a trial at times, but she loved this house and took excellent care of it.

Which was why she resented any intrusion into her routine.

“That Darby Lloyd has been sending things down from the main attic all day. How’m I supposed to do my work with those men of hers tramping up and down the stairs, Miss Rachel?”

Rachel had known Fiona too long to be disturbed by the forbidding stare or acid complaint. Laying her purse on a side table in the large entrance hall, she shrugged and said, “You know it has to be done, Fiona. We have to have
a complete inventory and appraisal of everything in the house—and that includes all three of the attics. Just be glad it’s only Darby doing the appraisal. You’d really hate it if a bunch of strangers were constantly underfoot for the next few weeks. Wouldn’t you?”

The housekeeper ignored the question. “But she has the second floor hallway filled wall to wall, and I can’t even vacuum—”

“Fiona, you can vacuum later. I’m sure Darby’s just moving the stuff out temporarily while everything’s getting tagged, otherwise she wouldn’t have room to work. Just be a little patient, all right? I’ll go speak to her about blocking the hallway.”

“If you can get through,” Fiona sniffed.

Rachel was able to get through the upstairs hallway, though it required a bit of maneuvering. A family could fill large attics with an astonishing variety of furniture, especially over generations and many shifts in style and taste; items partially blocking the hall ranged from Revolutionary chests and Regency tables to—of all things—a sixties-style beanbag.