House of Strangers (Harlequin Super Romance) (13 page)

“Excellent. Put it very carefully into a brown-paper envelope without smearing his prints. Use a paper towel. Then bring it to me.”

“Does this mean I don’t have to steal his toothbrush?”

“Steal it, Trey. Just in case this isn’t enough.”

“Mama, I feel like a total idiot doing this stuff.”

“It may save us all in the long run. Now bring me that glass.”

A
T LUNCH
Trey checked the parking lot behind the mansion. Paul’s car wasn’t there. Good. After he ate he strolled over to the house. Ann volunteered to take him around.

He had to admit he was impressed. He’d never seen the house in its glory days, but he felt some strong pangs of jealousy that this stranger, this outsider, should be the one to resurrect his family’s home.

Sue-sue wouldn’t like it one bit. She’d turned the house down flat after Aunt Addy died and had made Trey put it on the market immediately. But Sue-sue tended to want what other people had. When Sue-sue was angry, she made Trey’s life hell. He could deal with the no-sex part, but having to keep her from yelling at the kids wore him out.

He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to ditch Ann long enough to go upstairs to steal Paul’s toothbrush, but just
as they started up the front staircase, Buddy called her from the kitchen.

“I know my way around,” Trey said. “You go on. You don’t have to play tour guide.”

“Okay, but watch your step.”

He ran up the stairs. He didn’t know which bathroom Paul was using. The master bathroom was a mess. Unusable. The middle bathroom hadn’t been touched, but showed no signs it had been used, either.

He opened the door to the back bathroom. Jackpot. Paul’s toothbrush hung on an antique rack beside the equally antique medicine chest. He checked for Ann or workmen, then wrapped a paper towel around his hand, snatched the damp toothbrush and stuck it in his pocket.

He opened the door to the back bedroom. The suitcase beside the bed showed just how primitively Paul was camping out. He might be able to search Paul’s luggage, after all, but as he started across the room, he heard voices coming up the stairwell. He barely had time to back out, shut the door and meet Ann and one of the crew coming up the stairs.

“You see everything?” she asked.

He knew his face looked guilty. “Wonderful, wonderful. Can’t wait to see it all done. Well, gotta go.” He pushed past her and raced out of the house and to his truck in the square. He called his mother from his cell phone. “Got it, Mama. I’ll bring it to you right this minute.”

S
INCE THE RAIN
had changed its mind again and decided to continue, and since he couldn’t persuade Ann to come with him to lunch in town, Paul spent the afternoon in the library morgue. He found the story about his father’s wedding to Karen Bingham. He looked further back without
finding an announcement of their engagement. In a socially prominent family like the Delaneys, he would have expected a story on an engagement party and a formal photo of the bride-to-be.

Four bridesmaids and a champagne brunch at the Delaney mansion didn’t exactly constitute a shotgun wedding, but it wasn’t the big shindig he’d have expected of the Delaneys. He noted that Karen Bingham had been given away by her grandfather, because Mrs. Bingham was widowed. At the end of the story the reporter slipped in a statement that the combination of the Bingham and Delaney holdings would eventually make the young Delaneys the largest landowners in the county.

He checked the byline at the head of the story. Wilda Mae Hepworth had written it. He remembered seeing the name somewhere recently. He went to the desk and asked the librarian, Vivian, if he could look at her copy of the county paper.

He was right. The byline was still at the head of the society news column. Either Wilda Mae had started reporting when she was in diapers or she was still writing in her dotage.

“Vivian,” he asked, “do you know this Wilda Mae Hepworth?”

Vivian giggled. She was given to giggling and turning bright red every time he spoke to her. “Know her? She’s my great-aunt on my daddy’s side. I’ve known her all my life.”

“And she’s still writing this column?”

“Yessir.”

“Do you think I could talk to her, off the record, that is?”

“I don’t see why not. Aunt Wilda Mae loves to talk.
There’s precious little about this county she doesn’t know.”

“Would you mind calling her for me?”

“When would you like to see her?”

“Does she live in Somerville?”

“About four miles out toward the interstate.”

“Then how about now?” He looked at his watch. It was four o’clock.

“Okay.” Vivian’s pointed little face was avidly curious, but she didn’t ask questions. She went into her small office and came out smiling a few minutes later. “She says come ahead. She’ll brew some fresh sweet tea. Let me give you directions.”

Twenty minutes later Paul pulled into the gravel driveway of a white cottage that had been well maintained and probably predated his house by fifty years. The garden would be a riot of color in a month or so. At the moment there were butter pats of jonquils everywhere and a carpet of purple hyacinths.

He’d expected a fragile little lady in a lace collar. Wilda Mae, however, outweighed him by at least fifty pounds, was nearly as tall as he and had apparently put on eye shadow and lipstick just before he arrived. Her white hair was short and crinkly and he could see pink scalp beneath. She leaned slightly on a twisted blackthorn cane with a silver fox head as big as his fist.

After he had introduced himself and gone through all the formalities and given the information he knew would be required of him, his hostess, who sat stiffly in a large Victorian velvet armchair, asked, “So why do you want the dirt on the Delaneys?”

He blinked. She had a voice as big as the rest of her. He hoped there was no one else in the house.

“Don’t worry. I live by myself. Put three husbands in
the ground and don’t plan to follow them in any time soon.” She paused. “Drink your tea.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I asked you a question.”

“Can this be off the record?” he said.

“Unless you’re planning to commit a crime, then I have to report it. Otherwise, I never tell anybody anything.”

“I don’t exactly want the dirt on the Delaneys, but I would like some information.”

“Which generation?”

“How about starting with Trey Delaney’s father?”

She shook her head and sighed so deeply her bosom rose and lowered like a drawbridge. “Sad story. I wouldn’t have expected the rest of them to stand up for him, but Adelina Norwood should have. She’d been through the same thing.”

“Adelina Norwood?” This was a new name.

“Miss Addy. You bought the house from her estate.”

“Oh. I didn’t know her name.”

“There were three sisters. Maribelle, the oldest, was wild as a March hare from the time she hit this earth. Addy was the quiet one, but she fought hard for herself. Pity she lost. She had the talent to become a concert pianist, I do believe.”

“I’ve heard. I have her piano.”

“Oh, good.” Wilda Mae slapped her hand against the velvet. Paul saw that the fingers were twisted with arthritis. He wondered how she managed to write her column.

She noticed his glance. He decided there wasn’t much she didn’t notice. “I’ve got a big computer on the dining-room table. I write from here, then modem my copy to the paper.”

“I see.”

“Got to go with the times, I say. Now, where were we?
Oh, Addy was the middle daughter. Sarah was the youngest and the only one still living. She had the good sense to marry Harris Pulliam and get away from her sisters. You met Ann yet?”

“She’s helping to restore my house.” He realized that at some point the Delaney mansion had become “my house.” He couldn’t remember exactly when he’d begun to call it that, but it surprised him.

“Darling girl, that Ann. Talented, too. Should never have married that Corrigan boy. He bled her dry and ran around on her all the time, is what I heard. She deserves a decent man who loves her and will give her a big family.” She peered at him with the unspoken question—Are you that man?

Suddenly he didn’t know the answer. Could he be that man? The prospect was becoming more and more appealing every time he looked at Ann.

He said nothing.

“Conrad—David’s father and Trey’s grandfather—had a coronary and was never right in the head afterward. His death nearly killed Maribelle. She did love the man, God knows why. You seen Burl Ives do ‘Big Daddy’? Well, that was Conrad. Thought his word was law. It wasn’t, of course, Maribelle’s was, but Conrad never saw that. He decided it was time for David to come home, take over the business and marry the girl he’d been engaged to for three years. Between them, he and Maribelle and Karen’s momma drove that poor boy until he didn’t have any choice but to do what they wanted.” She shook her head. “Killed him in the end.”

“Killed him? I thought he died in a hunting accident.”

“Oh, he did. But he’d never have been riding that crazy horse with a fifth of bourbon in him if he hadn’t been the unhappiest man ever walked this earth. I got one of his
caricatures. Want to see?” She started to heave her bulk up, but he stopped her.

“Later, before I go.”

“It’s a real killer. I look like a blimp with an attitude.” She roared with laughter, then turned sober instantly. “There was some legal shenanigans went on about then, but I never found out what.”

Paul’s ears pricked up. “What sort?”

“Conrad called in his lawyer and Judge Dalkins, his pal on the bench. They had a couple of secret confabs. I suspect they were working a deal about Mrs. Bingham’s land. I heard tell it was something about the marriage.” She shook her head. “I hate not knowing.”

Paul just bet she did. Something about the marriage. Had his father gotten a quiet divorce from his mother, or even an annulment? He’d have to check the county records.

Wilda Mae’s next words, however, startled him even more. “Whatever they were up to, they never got it done. Judge Dalkins hit a deer driving home from court two days later and was killed. I kept an eye on court records for a time, but nothing came up with the Delaney name on it. Then Conrad had that stroke a week before the wedding. He couldn’t even go to the ceremony. I doubt if he remembered what he’d been trying to do.”

Had David told his father about his French marriage? “What about the lawyer?”

“Long dead. If it was something illegal, and knowing Conrad it could well have been, he’d never have put anything down on paper, anyway.”

“Tell me about the wedding.”

“Not much to tell.” Wilda Mae shrugged. “Little Episcopal church looked pretty enough as I recall, and I imagine Karen looked radiant—all brides do. It was a real
small affair. I had to pull strings to get invited myself. The one thing I do remember is that the bridegroom looked like he was about to throw up. Maribelle said he had a touch of food poisoning.” She snorted. “Food poisoning, my foot.”

“He looked scared?”

“Miserable is more like it. Everybody assumed Karen was already pregnant, but she didn’t have Trey for a full eleven months.” She grinned that malicious grin. “You have no idea how many ten-pound, seven-month babies we have around here.” Wilda downed the remains of her tea. “Young man, this has been delightful, but I got a deadline at six o’clock and I haven’t written the first word. You come back and I’ll dish some more dirt for you. For instance, about Addy and Conrad.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“They were lovers for Lord knows how many years right under Maribelle’s eye in Maribelle’s house. Everybody knew but Maribelle.” She heaved herself ponderously to her feet. “Whetted your appetite, haven’t I?”

“Yes, ma’am, you have.”

“Good. Then you’ll have to come back. Not often I get a gentleman caller as handsome as you.”

On the front porch, she said, “Never showed you that caricature. Next time I’ll have it out.” She stood under the dripping eaves of her antebellum cottage and watched him drive away. He could see her in his rearview mirror until he turned the corner onto the paved road.

The more he learned, the more he didn’t know. There was no one left alive who could tell him whether David had told his father about his marriage to Michelle. No one who could tell him whether or not Conrad tried to get a quiet annulment. Maybe that was why David was so miserable on his wedding day.

As he said “I do,” David must have known he was committing bigamy. He must have spent the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. No wonder he lost his grip when Michelle finally showed up on his doorstep. The killing was looking more and more like manslaughter and less and less like murder one.

P
AUL PICKED UP
a pizza and a six-pack of beer on his way home from Wilda Mae’s. He ate his solitary dinner on his upstairs porch in the twilight.

He loved this porch. He almost expected to see a tiger creep through the jungle beneath. After he ate he called Giselle and reported his meeting with Wilda Mae word for word.

“When Michelle appeared, your father must have really lost it,” Giselle said.

“If he hadn’t hidden her body, he probably would have gotten off with a couple of years for manslaughter. Down here he might even have received just probation.”

“Probation? Are you serious?”

“In those days and with that family, dead serious.”

“Come home, Paul. I feel like you’re in the middle of some weird Southern-gothic epic down there.”

“Sometimes I do, too. But I like it. I like the people. I’ve even developed a grudging kind of affection for my half brother, although his mother makes the hackles rise at the back of my neck. I’d always heard Southern women were formidable. That doesn’t begin to describe them. Next to Karen Lowrance, Tante Helaine was a marshmallow.”

Giselle laughed. “I don’t believe it.”

“Trust me.”

After he hung up, he realized he hadn’t gotten that list
of estate buyers from Trey. He was about to pick up the telephone to call him when it rang.

“Hey.”

Ann’s voice. His heart sped up. “Hey, yourself.”

“Trey left me this gigantic printout this afternoon to give you and I forgot. Can I bring it over now?”

“Stay where you are. I’ll be there in five minutes.” He hung up before she could protest.

He remembered to take a flashlight with him. He splashed through puddles like a kid. Two kisses and he, Mr. Sophisticated, was acting like a teenager. He ran up her steps and banged on her door.

“It’s open.”

He was met by Dante, the dog’s entire body wiggling in delight at seeing him, although his face still looked like Buster Keaton on a bad day. Paul ruffled the dog’s ears. “Hey, Dante, old man.”

“I’m in the workroom,” Ann called. “This is delicate. I can’t stop.”

He stood behind her table and watched her work. She had on heavy gloves and was pouring a viscous gray liquid into a six-foot-length of plaster mold. She didn’t look up. “Don’t speak until I’m through.”

He liked the way the lights over her table turned her brown hair into the shining red-brown of an otter’s pelt. He liked the way she concentrated.

After five minutes, she put down the pot she’d been holding, shoved the safety glasses to the top of her head, pulled off her gloves and said, “Okay. Now you can talk.”

“What are you doing?”

“Casting new crown molding to replace the areas that are split and broken in your dining room. The pour has to be just right or it doesn’t fill in all the cracks.”

“Where did you learn to do things like that?”

“I had six years in Washington and New York working with people who make me look stupid and clumsy.”

“I’ll never believe that.”

“They taught me a lot. I still work freelance for both the studios I had full-time jobs with.”

“Is that why you were in Buffalo?”

“Right. I am really good at golf leaf, although I hate doing it—one sneeze can cost your client a thousand bucks.” She came around the table. “Sorry I forgot to bring you Trey’s printout. He brought it over this morning, but you’d already left, so I brought it home in case the boys decided to use it for cleaning brushes or something.”

“I’m glad you forgot it. Gives me an excuse to come over here.”

“Where did you disappear to? Surely you weren’t flying in this weather.”

“I went to the library. Some more research.”

“Someday you’ll have to tell me what you’re researching so diligently.”

“Someday maybe I will.” She hadn’t invited him to sit down, so he stood awkwardly with the printout in his arms threatening to disgorge itself onto the floor.

“So, uh, would you like a drink?” The offer was grudging, but Paul wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Some of that white wine would be nice.”

She poured them each a glass and brought his to him. He sat on the couch. She sat in the chair. He sipped. She sipped. Silence.

“So, you’re going to try to buy back the chandelier?” she asked.

“Depends on how much they paid for it in the first place.”

“I guess.” More sips. He was certainly a sparkling conversationalist. He wanted to tell her the truth, tell her about his quest, explain to her that he didn’t want to hurt her or her family, but that he might. Tell her not to trust him. Only to love him.

Suddenly they both began to speak.

“You first,” he said.

“My mother wants to know if you’d like to come to dinner this Sunday at my grandmother’s.”

“I’d like that if I wouldn’t be intruding.”

“Of course not. I thought maybe you and I could go visit Miss Esther after dinner.”

“Miss Esther? Refresh my memory. I’ve met so many people.”

“She worked for the Delaneys most of her life. She wound up looking after Miss Addy full-time until she died.”

“I remember. Yes, I’d like that.”

“She’s retired and living on a very nice pension from Aunt Addy, but both her sons live in Cincinnati or Cleveland or one of those cities. I don’t know how much company she gets. She knows everything there is to know about the Delaneys.”

“Wonderful. You will come with me, won’t you?”

“I don’t think she’d let you into her house if I didn’t.”

“Thanks for both invitations. What time is dinner?”

“About one.”

“Where does your grandmother live?”

“You’d never find it alone. It’s in the country. You can drive us both. I’ll direct you.”

He hadn’t yet gotten used to eating dinner in the middle
of the day and supper in the evening. “I have an invitation for you, too.”

“Not another dress-up-and-go-to-town dinner. Paul, I just don’t have time.”

“Trey invited me and his ‘kissin’ cousin’ to dinner Wednesday night.”

“He didn’t mention it today.”

“I guess he wanted me to ask you. So what do I tell him?”

He could see her hesitation. “Sure, I guess so. Why not?” More hesitation. “Paul, you do realize that my mother is going to put you under a microscope when you come to dinner, don’t you?”

“I hadn’t.”

“She will.”

“Why?”

“If a man is…eligible, my mother is going to check him out as future son-in-law material. I’m sorry. I had to warn you.”

He started to laugh. “My
tante
Helaine used to put every pimply-faced adolescent who wanted to take out one of my sisters through hell. I know the drill.”

“I didn’t know you had sisters.”

“Two. They’re actually my cousins, but Tante Helaine raised all three of us, so I consider them sisters. Giselle is four years older than me, and Gabrielle is two years older.”

“Are you close?”

“With Giselle, as close as we can be, considering we don’t see one another often enough. We talk on the phone almost every day. With Gabrielle…” He shrugged. “She always resented me. She had to move into Giselle’s bedroom when my…when I moved in.”

“Why do you say
Tante
Helaine? A holdover from your French heritage?”

“Tante Helaine was born and raised in France. I spoke French before I spoke English. It’s the French word for aunt.”

“I know. What happened to your parents?”

“My mother…died. My father…” He left it dangling. She would assume he’d divorced them.

“Were you happy? Did they treat you well?”

“They were wonderful. Uncle Charlie taught me to play baseball and basketball, although I’m not tall enough to be any good. Tante Helaine taught me to cook. She said men make the best chefs.”

“She wanted you to become a chef?”

“Possibly. But I always knew I wanted to fly.”

“But didn’t you say you grew up in Queens?”

“Queens and barely middle-class. Somehow I managed to wangle an appointment to the Air Force Academy. I’ve been flying ever since.”

“But you stopped.”

“Not flying, just flying big transports. Uncle Charlie would be upset if he knew how screwed up my right arm is. He wanted me to be a major-league pitcher.”

“Do you mind talking about it?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. It’s over with. I made out better than the other two guys. I can still fly. They can’t.”

“Was it a crash?”

“It was a crash that didn’t happen, thank God. Look, let’s drop it.”

“Sure. Sorry.” She stood. “More wine?”

He wasn’t about to leave any sooner than he had to. “Thanks.”

When she handed him her glass, he asked, “What about you? Tell me the story of your life.”

“Bor-ring. I got a master’s in art history—heaven only knows why except that I’ve loved art all my life. I eloped with a guy who had big dreams and no discipline. I stuck with him through six years and so many infidelities I lost count, and when I couldn’t take it any longer, I quit and came home to my family to lick my wounds.”

“How could any man in his right mind be unfaithful to you?”

“Travis would have been unfaithful to Cleopatra. She would have chopped off his head, which is what I should have done.”

“You say you came home. Where from?”

“New York. A job I loved, friends I adored, a city that thrilled me.”

“So why’d you leave? I mean, a divorce doesn’t necessarily mean you uproot your whole life, does it?”

“I’m basically a country girl. Besides, I like things clean. I still get the excitement when I do a job in a big city, but when I do I’m living on an expense account. That’s a bunch better than a cold-water walk-up. Where did you live before?”

“A high-rise in New Jersey.” He put his glass on the coffee table and took a deep breath. “Look,” he said, “I don’t know what I’ve done to upset you, but I wish to God you’d tell me so I can fix it. Here we sit talking like total strangers with a four-foot coffee table between us when what I want to do is haul you out of that chair and into my arms. Maybe I should just do it and stop asking permission.”

She jumped up and set her glass on the kitchen bar. “You haven’t done anything. It’s me. I look at you and I think what could you possibly see in a country girl like me, anyway?”

He had her in his arms before she could turn around.
He swung her to face him and wrapped her so tightly that her hands came up against his chest. “What did that bastard you married
do
to you? How could you not know that you’re the most beautiful, the most desirable—”

“Stop.”

He kissed her. Fiercely at first to capture her lips. Then he tasted her gently, sweetly, savoring the white wine that still lingered on her tongue, gently nibbling that sensuous lower lip, kissing her eyes, then drawing his lips along her cheekbone to her throat.

After a moment’s resistance she came to him. She felt so soft. Women had no idea how exciting that softness was to a man. He fought with his conscience for all of thirty seconds. His conscience lost.

A
NN KNEW
she shouldn’t be kissing Paul. She’d made herself promise to keep him at arm’s length. But it had been so long since a man had held her in his arms, kissed her.

Actually, nobody had ever kissed her that way. She felt her body resonate, begin to come alive all the way down to her toes. When she responded to his kiss, it was as though she’d been desert dry and suddenly he’d opened a tap that flooded her with sensation and longing. She didn’t remember when she’d begun to want him, but that didn’t matter any longer.

She wrapped her arms around him, fitted her body against him, felt his hands cup her bottom and pull her toward him. He was aroused.

Well, so was she. When he slipped his hand under her shirt and unhooked her bra, then slid it and her shirt over her head, she nearly sobbed at the release. And when he began to stroke her breasts, to circle her swollen nipples with his fingers as gently as snowflakes, she could only
arch her back, close her eyes and abandon herself to his touch.

She took off his shirt and clasped him naked breast to naked breast. Too late to pull away, too late to stop the inevitable.

But she didn’t want to stop. He hooked his finger in the waistband of her jeans, unzipped them expertly with one hand and pushed them over her hips. He ran his lips and tongue down her body, then bent to pick her up.

She heard his quick intake of breath. His bad arm.

She stepped out of her jeans and took his hand, swept aside the curtains that hid her bed and led him there.

“I want…” he began.

She held him and whispered, “It’s all right,” against his ear. She lay back and pulled him with her so that he knelt on one knee at the side of the bed.

He stripped quickly and pulled a condom from the pocket of his jeans.

She caught her breath at how beautiful he was in the pale light. He bent over her once more and with aching slowness began to ease her panties down.

She didn’t want careful or slow. She wanted him
now.
All she could say was “Please, please,” but it was enough.

He took only a second to put on the condom, then came to her with the same urgency she felt.

She lost track of time, of body, of mind, until there was nothing but the joy of having him inside her, meeting the thrust of her hips with his, faster and faster until she thought she’d die if she didn’t reach the top. She heard herself cry out, and then he hurled her over the crest with so much pleasure it was nearly pain. A moment later when she felt him spasm, she climaxed again.

When she began to breathe normally again, she held him in her arms, wanting to keep him there forever.

Eventually, however, he slid up beside her and pulled her to him. She played with the dark curls on his chest and for a moment thought how little she knew of him. She no longer cared. All that mattered was that he lay beside her, holding her, his breath soft against her hair. She felt exhausted. She could barely keep her eyes open….

She awoke when she lost the sensation in the arm that was trapped underneath him. She slipped it out, then silently raised herself to look at him.