House of Strangers (Harlequin Super Romance) (15 page)

Tonight the blinds were closed against prying eyes. The
only light came from the candles. She walked past him onto the porch.

“Paul, this is lovely. It’s like being in a tree house.”

“That’s what I call it—my tree house.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. “You smell wonderful.”

“Thank you for the roses.”

“You should have roses every day.” He turned her in his arms and kissed her softly. Behind him he heard Dante subside with a sigh and a thud as though saying, “Not again.”

The evening was as perfect as Paul hoped it would be. He had vowed not to mention the Delaneys or Rossiter or his family. They talked about flying and art restoration and plays and ballets and music. They drank the wine and ate the pâté and took Dante for a tour around the overgrown garden, then came upstairs, drank more wine and finally, without speaking, they took off their clothes and made love.

Afterward Paul lay on his back, watched the candles on the porch gutter, and wished he could end every night of the rest of his life like this, wrapped in Ann’s warm embrace with the scent of her body and the perfume of her hair in his nostrils.

Maybe it was possible, but only if he dropped his quest right this second before he stirred up any more mud. Why not simply finish his house, move in, fly his airplane, maybe even buy the field from Hack? Was Ann worth living the rest of his life without knowing what had happened to his mother?

He’d spent more than thirty years without knowing. Most of those years he’d assumed he would never have a clue, and so had dismissed the possibility from his mind.
Why not go back to the days before Giselle found all that information hidden in her mother’s closet?

He closed his eyes. He couldn’t
un
know something. When he’d finally read the report from the detective his uncle Charlie had hired to try to find his mother, he knew he could never take refuge in ignorance again. He had to go on, and he had. Until at last he discovered the man who was his father.

He no longer cared about humiliating the Delaneys by revealing their scandals. He no longer wanted to take everything they owned and hand it back to them. He rather liked Trey. The guy reminded him of a bumbling puppy who hadn’t quite been paper-trained.

Above all, Paul wanted Ann.

His second cousin. She had a right to know that.

But if he told her, she’d know he was a fraud and she’d leave him.

“Hey, sleepyhead, this time I’m the one to do the skulking home after midnight,” Ann whispered.

“Don’t go.”

“I have to. Tomorrow is Sunday, remember? You’re invited for Sunday dinner at Gram’s.”

He groaned. “Do I have to?”

“You bet you do. Now kiss me and let me go to my lonely bed.”

“And leave me in mine.”

“Right.”

“All right. I don’t renege on invitations even if they turn into inquisitions.” He caught her wrist. “But only if you’ll go flying with me tomorrow afternoon.”

He heard her intake of breath. “Oh, Paul—”

“Say yes. I want to show you my world.”

“If I have to. But no funny business.”

“No funny business and we’ll land as soon as you want to.”

“Then, I suppose…”

P
AUL DIDN’T THINK
he’d ever seen so much food outside a restaurant. He could feel his arteries clogging, but as he munched his second piece of fried chicken it didn’t seem to matter.

He’d learned about Ann and her family. Nancy Jenkins taught sixth grade, loved horses and old houses, had married Buddy Jenkins and never lived anywhere except Rossiter.

Buddy, born and raised in Arkansas, with no family left to speak of, had come to Rossiter fresh from a tour of duty with the MPs and had fallen in love with little Nancy Pulliam, the schoolteacher. Instead of moving to a larger town and a bigger job, he’d wound up as a small-town chief of police. He’d started restoring old buildings to make ends meet, and with Ann’s help and inspiration, he’d taken enough classes and studied under enough master craftsmen to become an expert in his own right.

“Now,” Ann’s mother said as she served Paul his second piece of pecan pie, “tell us about you. How on earth did you end up in Rossiter?”

He’d worked on his story, but this was his first chance to trot it out in public. He glanced at Ann, who gave him an “I told you so” smile.

He took a deep breath. “I was at loose ends and looking for a new project.”

“But in Rossiter? How on earth did you even know the house was for sale?”

Now for the first bold-faced lie. “I’ve always been interested in antebellum mansions—”

“Honey, I hate to tell you this, but the war ended in
1865,” Nancy Jenkins said with a smile. “The Delaney house is a whole lot younger than that.”

“I do know that, Mrs. Jenkins.” He grinned back at her. “But at this point and in this area it seemed to me that all the really good stuff was already snapped up. Either that or way beyond repair.”

“So you were looking for a place?” Buddy asked.

“Actually, I was being a pain to my family in New Jersey. My sister Giselle suggested I take a trip—a very long trip, I think, is what she suggested. I decided to drive to New Orleans, maybe stop at Natchez and Vicksburg along the way, maybe see some Civil War battlefields.”

“Down here, I’ll have you know we refer to that war as the Northern Aggression,” Gram said. “More tea?”

“No, thank you, ma’am.” He was about to float away already. “I was driving from Shiloh to Memphis and passed the sign for Rossiter. I turned in because I was hungry and looking for a place to eat. I passed by the For Sale sign on my way to the café. Believe me, I had no intention of buying that house. I just asked to see it to pass a couple of hours so I wouldn’t have to check into my motel too early.”

Sounded plausible to him. He hoped the others bought it. “Goodness! You are a real man of action,” Nancy said.

“Probably more like crazy,” Buddy snorted.

“So what does your family think of your move?” Nancy asked.

“I only have a couple of girl cousins left, both of whom I consider sisters, since their mother raised me. Giselle is actually my first cousin.”

“Ann told us your mother died young.”

He stiffened. “Yes.”

“And your father?”

“Left us.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Nancy really sounded sorry. It wasn’t simply chitchat. “And you’ve never married?”

He caught Ann’s eyes raised to heaven and heard her groan under her breath.

“Not so far. Too busy.”

“But you’re not too busy now, are you? That is certainly a big house for one person.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Mother,” Ann snapped, “knock it off.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You darned well do. Come on, let’s help Gram with the dishes.”

After lunch he tossed a baseball left-handed with Buddy for a while.

“Ann was one hell of a softball pitcher,” Buddy said as they sat on Gram’s front steps to cool off. “Couldn’t run worth a damn. I told her Babe Ruth hit home runs because he didn’t like to run, so she started doing the same thing. That was before she went off to college and took up art restoration. And met that idiot she married.”

When Ann came out to tell him the kitchen was finally clean, she carried two large covered plastic dishes that he assumed were leftovers from dinner.

He turned to Buddy. “We’re going flying.”

“But first we’re going to drop in on Miss Esther,” Ann said. “Don’t tell me you forgot. Then if we have time, maybe you can take me flying.”

“You promised.”

Buddy stood and from the second step of the porch loomed over Paul. “You all be careful.” Paul understood the words were as much threat as warning.

“Yessir.”

M
ISS
E
STHER’S
little cottage was down the street and around the corner from the Delaney house. It was newly
painted white. The lawn and shrubbery were immaculate, and he could see perennials beginning to sprout in the flower beds.

Miss Esther answered the door with her hat on. “I know y’all finished church a while back, but your church and my church put a different time limit on Sunday services.” She looked down at the covered plastic dish. “Don’t tell me that’s Sarah Pulliam’s fried chicken.”

“And half a Dolly Madison cake. She says she hopes you like them.”

“Indeed I do. Come in and sit down while I put these in the icebox and get out the ice for the tea.” She beamed at Paul.

“Can I help?” Ann asked.

“It’s all ready. Just be a little minute.”

The cottage was small, the furnishings no longer new, but every bit of wood shone with polish. The wood floors sparkled. On a table by the window sat at least twenty pots of African violets, most in bloom. On another table stood at least as many framed photos of what must be Miss Esther’s family.

She came in with a heavy tray, but when Paul tried to take it from her, she shooed him away. “I can carry a tray, young man. I been doing it all my life.”

Paul had no idea how old she was. She was thin, but there was no stoop in her bony shoulders and her white hair was twisted into a fat bun on the back of her head.

She sat in a Lincoln rocker on the other side of the coffee table, settled them with their iced tea and homemade shortbread cookies that made Paul wish he hadn’t eaten so much Sunday dinner, and said, “I am glad you called. I have been meaning to stop by and see what all
you’re doing to my house, but I been too busy getting the garden ready to plant.”

“We’re a long way from finished, Miss Esther,” Ann said, looking ruefully at the cookies. “But come by any time.”

“Yes, please do,” Paul echoed.

“Now that we’ve taken care of the chitchat, tell me how come you two are visiting a worn-out old black lady on a fine Sunday afternoon.”

“You don’t look worn-out to me,” Paul blurted.

Miss Esther stared at him a moment, then burst out laughing. Paul blushed.

“I’ll bet you want to know about the folks who lived in that house before you bought it, don’t you?”

“I’ve already found out a good deal about them, but I thought you might fill me in on the last generation and how the house came to be in such bad shape.”

Miss Esther shook her head. “Miss Maribelle left that house and a trust fund to Miss Addy for her lifetime. It was plenty to take care of what needed to be kept up, but Miss Addy wouldn’t spend a dime on the house. And pretty soon, she started going downhill. The doctors called it ‘senile dementia,’ whatever that is. So far as I was concerned, she just got crazier and crazier. Sometimes I swore I was gonna walk out and make Mr. Trey hire a real nurse.”

“But you didn’t,” Ann said.

Miss Esther sighed. “Couldn’t. I spent most of my life looking after the Delaneys. Mr. Conrad—that’s Miss Maribelle’s husband—gave me this little house free and clear when the few black folks in town all lived north of the railroad track. After he died, Miss Maribelle kept me on and hired help for me when I needed it.”

“I’ve heard Maribelle could be difficult,” Paul said.

“Huh. She could get up on her high horse, and she had a bad temper that just come outta nowhere sometimes. She never would apologize, but every time she flew off the handle, she always tried to make up for it afterwards. She gave me my first African violet. She felt so bad about bringing young Mr. David home from France and making him marry Miss Karen, she had those windows put in the ceiling of the old summerhouse and fixed it up so he could use it to paint in.”

“Why didn’t the house pass to Trey when Maribelle died?” Ann asked curiously. “Maribelle left him everything else.”

Miss Esther looked away. Paul saw her gnarled old hands grip the arms of the rocking chair. “Miss Addy made her promise, even after Miss Maribelle found out about Miss Addy and Mr. Conrad.”

“You knew about that?” Ann said with a gasp.

“Let me tell you one thing, child. Servants know nearly all there is to know about the people they work for. Those people do not know one solid thing about them. Remember that.” She nodded to punctuate her words. “For years Miss Maribelle treated Miss Addy like the poor relation she was letting use her piano to teach lessons. Toward the end that changed. Miss Addy seemed to get the upper hand. Don’t know how. Maybe something to do with Mr. Conrad. Anyway, Miss Addy had no intention of leaving that house if Miss Maribelle died, so they fixed it up between ’em so she wouldn’t have to. If you want to find out any more, best find Miss Addy’s journal.”

“Journal?” Paul said, and glanced at Ann.

“Either it got thrown out or went in the estate sale,” Ann said. “We haven’t found a journal.”

“Of course you haven’t. She hid it.” The old lady laughed and rocked furiously. “Then when she got so
crazy, she couldn’t remember what she’d done with it. I used to find her wandering around the house barefoot in her nightgown in the middle of the night pulling out drawers and looking in the backs of closets. She used to say to me, ‘Esther, we have to find it. It’s the third one. I must destroy it.’ I’d calm her down, and a month or so later off she’d be again.”

“What did she mean, the third one? And why did she want to destroy it?”

“Don’t know. She never did find it, though, ’cause the night she died she held my hand and made me promise if I found it I’d burn it without reading it.” Miss Esther sniffed. “Guess she didn’t want nobody reading about her goings-on with Mr. Conrad.”

“What happened when Uncle David got killed?” Ann asked. “Who got the money and the businesses then?”

“Miss Karen got some insurance money and some of the business, but most of it went to Mr. Trey. She got the house—”

“I thought Maribelle got the house,” Paul said.

“Not the Delaney house, Mr. David’s house—the one he built for Miss Karen after they got married. The house out on the land. Mr. Trey’s house it is now. I hear tell he’s done added on and added on—even got him a swimming pool. Mr. David and Miss Karen didn’t live with Mr. Conrad and Miss Maribelle but a year or so, even though Mr. David spent a good many more nights sleeping in that studio in the backyard than at home. Didn’t go to his own house any more than he had to. I fed him as many breakfasts after he moved out as I did before. He used to say my kitchen was the only place in the world felt like home to him.” She shook her head. “Poor boy.”