Heartwishes (19 page)

Gemma wasn’t interested in kitchens, new or otherwise. She was concerned about the local gossip and didn’t want to be part of it. “I’m not after anyone,” she said. “I’m here to do a job and that’s all.”

Sara led her to the stairs and they went up. “I think I should warn you that you’re causing a bit of a stir around town. You’ve been seen with two bachelors, Colin and Tris. This is Mike’s and my bedroom.”

Gemma looked at a big four-poster bed that was obviously an antique, as was everything else in the room. The bed was draped with the same red and blue Indienne cloth that she’d seen at Mount Vernon. “Martha Washington style?”

“As best as I could manage,” Sara said, smiling. “Out that window you can see the front garden.”

Gemma looked out to see what had to be an acre of concisely laid-out rectangles and squares, all edged with boxwood. Each bordered shape contained flowers, often with an ornamental tree in the center. Red tulips would fill two boxes, while yellow tulips were in another one. In the distance Gemma could see an orchard in bloom. “It’s gorgeous. And . . . and accurate,” she said, giving the garden her highest compliment. It was an accurate layout of a formal eighteenth-century garden.

“Thank you,” Sara said sincerely. “You wouldn’t know it now, but all winter long we had backhoes in here and about fifty workmen. We put in over a hundred fruit trees and six hundred shrubs. I lost count of the bulbs and annuals.”

“Don’t get her started or she’ll tell you the Latin name of every plant,” came a deep, raspy voice from the doorway.

Turning, Gemma saw a man who was instantly familiar to
her. He moved like some of the athletes she’d tutored. He had a confidence about him that came from knowing he could physically handle whatever came his way.

“Hello,” Gemma said, grinning. “You must be Mike.” She held out her hand for him to shake.

He didn’t take it. Instead, he shot out his fist as though he meant to hit her in the head.

“Mike!” Sara said.

Years of training made Gemma react instinctively. After she ducked his fist, she turned sideways to him and her hands came up to protect her face.

Mike put out his left, Gemma dipped again, and she brought her right to his ribs. Of course he blocked her, as she knew he would.

Smiling, he reached out to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you, Gemma.”

“A true pleasure,” she said.

Behind them, Sara groaned. “I can see that you two are going to be friends.”

Mike pulled a key from his pocket. It was on a ring with a pink flamingo on it. “Sara’s idea,” he said, “but the key is to my gym. You’re welcome at any time.”

“Thank you,” she said. “My side was cut and I haven’t been able to work out since I got here.”

“How’s the injury now?”

“Still red, but healed,” she said.

“Think you can do some boxing?”

“Of course,” she said. She knew that true athletes didn’t complain. If she did, invariably, someone would say, “You want some cheese with that whine?”

“We all saw the way you stood on Colin’s shoulders and got that kid.” Mike’s eyes were laughing. “At last year’s fair I did the same
thing with him, except that he held on to my ankles and danced around the ring.”

“Like a trained bear,” Gemma said.

“Exactly! Come on downstairs and I’ll get you something to drink. Take any supplements?”

“Fish oil, Bio-E, Adren-All. The usual.”

“Michael,” Sara said, “should I start getting jealous of you two?”

Gemma stepped away from Mike. “Sorry, I—”

“Yes, definitely,” Mike told his wife. “And the only way for you to win me back is to start going to the gym with me every morning.”

Sara walked between them to leave the room. “In that case, I hope you two have a great time. You can visit your son on alternate weekends.” She went down the stairs.

“She isn’t angry, is she?” Gemma asked.

“Not at all.” Mike put his hand on Gemma’s shoulder, and she knew he was checking out her deltoid.

“Soft,” she said.

“Absolute mush. Maybe this afternoon . . .”

“Gladly,” she said, and smiling, they went downstairs.

In the kitchen, Mike gave Gemma a glass of juice. “No carbonation, no sugar.”

“And no flavor,” Tess said.

“Did you meet my baby sister?” Mike asked.

She looked from one to the other. It took a moment, but she could see the resemblance.

“Tris is looking for you,” Tess said. “Are you two an item? Have you thrown out Colin already?”

Mike looked at his sister. “You’d better back off of her. She can take you down.”

“I think I’ll find Tris,” Gemma said and left the room, drink in hand. When she went outside, she saw more garden, more lawn,
more trees, and close by were several old buildings that she knew had once been part of a plantation. In the shade of a big tree was a huge stainless steel grill. Tris was standing by it, talking to a tall, handsome man who was holding a pair of tongs.

“Hey!” Tris called when he saw Gemma. “Come meet Luke.”

“He’s the author you’ve never heard of,” said a voice to her right. She didn’t need to look to know it was Colin, but she did turn. Like she had to breathe, she had to know how he felt about what had taken place between them.

It took only a glance to see that he didn’t remember what had happened. He smiled at her as though she were his sister, fondly, even protectively, but certainly not with any adult, male-female interest.

Of all the things she’d imagined in the last week, that Colin wouldn’t even
remember
what had happened had not been one of them. The red hot heat of the anger that surged through her was something new. She’d never before felt anything like it—but she was determined not to show it. She took a few breaths, then looked back at Luke. “Actually,” she said as she turned so Colin was out of her line of vision, as she couldn’t stand to look at him, “I read your first book.” She went toward Luke, her hand extended. “I loved it. Your research was excellent.”

“A couple of guys at the college look over my manuscripts. They’re sticklers for perfection. If I get even a shoe buckle wrong, they let me know.”

“Did you meet Mike?” Tris asked.

“He greeted me with a fist aimed at my head.”

Luke looked concerned, but Tris laughed. “So what did you do?”

“Ducked, of course, then I came back at him with a left uppercut.” She demonstrated.

Through this exchange, Colin had been left standing, as excluded as though he weren’t there.

Gemma kept her back to him as she looked at the grill. “What’s cooking?”

Luke was looking over Gemma’s head at Colin, whose face showed his bewilderment at having her back turned to him. “Nothing yet,” Luke said, “but Mike ordered the most organic of the organics from Ellie. Have you met her?”

Before Gemma could answer, Colin stepped forward. “I introduced her to Ellie.”

Gemma still couldn’t stand to look at him. “Tris and I had breakfast together at her store. I had some divine chocolate concoction.”

Gemma’s refusal to include Colin in the conversation was now so pronounced that Luke quit looking puzzled and showed his amusement. “So Gemma,” Luke said, “Tris was telling me about some magic Frazier thing. What is it?”

“The Heartwishes Stone,” Colin said as he again moved forward, but this time he stepped between Tris and Gemma. Given that Colin was so large, this meant that Luke had to take a step back.

Chuckling, Luke said he thought he was needed in the house.

The last thing Gemma wanted was to cause more gossip. “I think I’ll go with you,” she said, but she stopped when Tris said to Colin, “Have you found out anything more about this Stone everyone’s been talking about?” That sparked her curiosity.

Luke went into the house, but Gemma stayed by the grill. She still had her back to Colin.

“Tris,” he said, “would you mind if Gemma and I—” He broke off when Tris’s cell rang.

“Sorry, but my profession says I have to answer this.” He pushed a button and listened. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He looked at Colin. “Mr. Gibson had a heart attack. I have to go to the hospital.”

“I’ll drive you,” Colin said.

“No thanks!” Tris said quickly. “He’s under care now, so I can
travel at less than warp speed.” He looked at Gemma. “I’m really sorry, but I have to leave.”

“I understand. Don’t worry about me.” When he seemed to want to say more, she put her hand on his arm. “Go! And thanks for all your help.”

“You’re very welcome.” He bent forward to kiss her cheek, but then glanced at Colin, and on impulse he gave her a quick, sweet kiss on the mouth. “I swear I can still taste the chocolate,” he said, then started running toward the front of the house and his car.

For a moment Gemma stood where she was. She was very aware of Colin standing close to her, but she didn’t look at him. She thought of several things to say, but none of them came out. Instead, she just turned on her heel and started toward the house.

Colin placed all two hundred-plus pounds of himself in front of her, but she didn’t look up at his face. “Gemma, I apologize for whatever I did to make you angry at me.”

“I’m not angry. I think I should help in the kitchen.” She tried to step around him, but he blocked her path.

“This is because I fell asleep in your bed, isn’t it? Rachel sent Lanny to get me up. I was so dead asleep he said he thought he was going to have to fire a canon to wake me up.”

Gemma listened with her head down. “Fine. I understand. You were tired.”

“And you fed me that wonderful breakfast. It was great to eat a home-cooked meal.”

She didn’t reply, just stepped around him. “I really do need to go inside now.”

“Sure,” he said. “I didn’t mean to keep you.”

When Gemma got inside the house, she saw that Tess and Sara had been watching out the window.

Tess was smiling in an I-told-you-so way, but Sara went to
Gemma and took her arm. “Whatever you’re doing to Colin, I
love
it!” she said softly. “He needs to have his whole life shaken up.”

Gemma didn’t want to discuss her personal problems with someone she’d just met. In spite of what Tris had said, she still worried that if Mrs. Frazier found out what had happened, she’d lose her job.

“Sorry, but I have no intention of doing anything with any of the Frazier sons. Is Joce around?”

“Sure,” Sara said as she let go of Gemma’s arm. “She’s upstairs with the babies.”

“I shouldn’t disturb her.”

“I’m sure she’d like your help.”

Gemma went up the stairs and found Joce snuggled in the big four-poster holding a baby with a bottle, about eight months old, another one squirming on the bed beside her.

“May I?” Gemma asked as she looked at the baby on the bed.

“He’d love it,” Joce said. “He’s David and this one is Edilean.”

Gemma gently picked up the little boy and held him as he pulled at her hair, then tried to put her necklace in his mouth.

Joce nodded to the bed beside her and Gemma climbed up, the baby on her lap. “Too much for you downstairs?”

“Oh yes,” Gemma said as she tickled little David and made him laugh. “That woman Tess . . .”

“She takes some getting used to, but I can tell you that if Mike likes you, she will.”

“He gave me a key to his gym.”

“Wow! What did you do to get one of those?”

“I’ve done a little boxing.”

“That would do it,” Joce said, smiling. “Want to hear what I found out about Julian?”

“Definitely.”

“He was the grandson of Shamus and Prudence Frazier, who were—”

“One of the founding seven.”

“You’ve been doing your research. Yes, they were part of the original group who first settled this town. Their eldest son, Ewan, went back to England, reclaimed the title of the earl of Rypton, and bought the Lancaster house back.”

“Wasn’t there a name change somewhere?”

“That’s why I had so much trouble finding Julian. For some reason, the name Frazier was dropped and they reverted back to Lancaster. But then, my ancestors were named McTern in Scotland, but in America they were known as Harcourt. I have no idea why.”

“People change their names for all sorts of reasons. What else?”

“Ewan Frazier married a woman named Julia McBride, and they had a baby, Julian. But she died in childbirth and the next year he married Rose Jones. By the dates, she was already pregnant when they married. She gave birth to Clive.”

“So who was Winnie?”

“I have no idea, but I’ll keep searching.” When little Edilean finished her bottle, Joce put her on her shoulder to burp. “So what’s going on with you and Colin? Luke said you weren’t speaking to him.”

Gemma didn’t want to lie, but neither did she want to tell the truth. “Too much gossip was starting and I don’t want to be labeled a home wrecker.”

“Whose home would you be wrecking?”

“The one Colin plans for him and Jean.”

“Luke’s old house,” Joce said. “He hated selling that place, but Colin wore him down. When Colin wants something, he goes after it and doesn’t give up.”

“That’s what my college adviser said about Mrs. Frazier.”

“Colin is worse,” Joce said. “Would you mind looking after the babies for a minute while I make a trip to the bathroom?”

“Sure. Why don’t you go downstairs and get something to drink and visit with your friends? I’ll look after the babies. I can make raspberries on little bellies for an hour at a time.”

Joce laughed as she got off the bed. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“My sister has two daughters, and when I’m around, she and her husband take a second honeymoon. I think they’re now on their sixth one.”

“You are my new best friend.”

“You’re the third candidate proposed to me today.”

“Oh?” Joce asked. “Who were the others?”

“Sara for history, Mike for sports, and now you for babysitting.”

“You’re leaving out Tess,” Joce said without cracking a smile, but then her face softened. “When you get to know Tess, you’ll like her. She’s had a tough life, and she tends to be hostile to newcomers.”

“I guess I’ll always be a ‘newcomer’ because my job here is temporary.”

“Are you kidding? Luke said that both Colin and Tris were about ready to go into one of Mike’s horrible kickboxing bouts over you.”