by Tamara Leigh
“Let’s get you inside.” Taking most of my weight, he walks forward.
“Inside?” I glance at the back door of the cottage.
“Would you prefer that I collect your pistol first?”
Actually, I would. Or am I being ridiculous? After all, if he had illicit designs, he could have done something before now. Not only have we been alone several times, but he has a key that allows him access when I’m at my most vulnerable.
“Well?”
And I could probably outrun him considering that hitch of his.
“Piper?”
And it’s not as if he just rolled into town and has no history here.
“Piper!”
And Uncle Obe trusts him. “Ow!” I clap a hand to my cheek. “You slapped me again.”
Axel raises his eyebrows. “That was a pat. And you looked dazed.”
“I was thinking!”
“And in the meantime, your bump is swelling. Do you want help or not?”
I nearly decline. “All right.”
He repositions his hand lower on my waist—ripple, ripple—and walks me forward. Though the movement intensifies the throb at my temple, I’m half grateful because it distracts me from all that inane rippling.
Finally we reach the single step, and Axel practically lifts me onto it. As he pulls the screen door open, a bowl of dog food catches my eye. “What happened to Errol?”
He nods over his shoulder. “There.”
Sure enough, the big lug lies on the far side of the yard gnawing on a stick—probably the one that knocked me out. Something is very wrong about that.
“If it would make you feel more comfortable, he can join us inside,” Axel says.
The king of dribble whose loyalty surely lies with this man? “I would hate to come between him and his stick.”
A moment later we’re inside the cottage, and memories unfold like crisp, clothesline-dried sheets that release the scent of sunshine when shaken out. As Axel leads me through the shelf-lined room stocked with canned and boxed food items, I remember the little girl I was the first time Mom and I accepted Uncle Obe’s offer of a place to live—the Christmas he dressed up as Santa.
“Sit,” Axel says, and I startle to find myself in the unpretentious kitchen where Mom and I made our first and last attempt at canning. We simply couldn’t get the lids to pressurize.
I lower into the chair Axel has pulled out from the little breakfast table and look around. I haven’t missed this place. After all, what is there to miss? A knotty, old kitchen table that creaked alarmingly when I leaned across it to share a dessert with Mom? An ancient refrigerator that’s still humming and shuddering, the sounds of which probably wouldn’t be as comforting now as when I was a child settling down for the night in a bed not my own? A monstrously ugly oven that burned more than it baked? Distorted windows that had only the view of the backyard to recommend them and through which Mom kept an eye on me? No, nothing to miss, especially considering my kitchen in L.A. And yet…
Axel returns and hands me ice wrapped in a kitchen towel. “Hold this to your head while I get some rubbing alcohol.” He disappears through the narrow doorway that leads to the front half of the cottage.
I press the towel to my temple, and as the chill seeps through, the ache begins to ease, and I remember what led to my first stay at the cottage. That day at our house in town, I didn’t know that the cause of my parents’ first separation was another woman. All I knew was that it frightened me, particularly the tearful words Mom flung at my father, who merely looked annoyed. And increasingly so until Mom saw me peering at them from where I hugged the doorframe. She smiled so brightly I thought I had imagined the whole thing, but when she hurried to me, tears were in her eyes.
Shortly, with suitcases in hand, we checked into a motel. Days later, Uncle Obe let us into the cottage. Despite my mothers sorrow that seemed to perch in every corner, with each successive stay I came to appreciate the cottage and estate grounds a little more.
“Let’s get you cleaned up and take you to see a doctor.”
Startled to find Axel once more beside me, I tilt my face up. “What?”
“You need to have your head looked at.”
That’s blunt. And I start to say so, but I see the gauze in his hand and catch the scent of alcohol. Oh. That kind of doctor. “That won’t be necessary. I’m feeling better.”
“You had that dazed look again.”
“It’s called thinking.”
“Or concussion.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine.” Our fingertips brush as he relinquishes the alcohol-steeped gauze pad. Ripple, ripple. I’m going to have to do something about that. Starting with Grant, even if I have to go through his assistant to reach him.
“There it is again,” Axel says.
“What?”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “The dazed look.”
I sit straighter. “My head is perfectly fine. I’m just—” What? Bothered by his touch? Maybe something is wrong with my head. Why else would I be so affected by this ponytailed meddler?
“I’m driving to Asheville this afternoon to visit your uncle. You can go with me and have someone in the emergency room examine your head.”
Perhaps that isn’t such a bad idea. I really don’t feel right.
“Are you going to clean the cut or should I?”
I jerk my arm up and pat at the cut that stings like the dickens.
Axel pulls out the chair opposite and settles into it. “So what can I do for you?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you didn’t come up here to catch me in a compromising position, then…?”
I pat some more. “Well, I heard your voice and…” Pat, pat. The door! “Thank you for fixing the doorframe so quickly.”
He smiles, but not the kind of smile you give away—the kind you keep to yourself. “You’re welcome. Anything else?”
“Actually, yes. In case you haven’t noticed, the mansion is a mess. Uncle Obe used to have a cleaning woman come in daily, but most of the rooms look as if they haven’t been touched in years.”
“Miss Victoria passed away a year ago.”
I remember her, though she had about as much to say to me as my uncle did on the rare occasion we crossed paths. Of course, she was deaf.
“I’ve encouraged your uncle to find a replacement, but he hasn’t.”
It would be hard to replace Victoria, who posed little threat to Uncle Obe’s privacy. “I’d like to find someone before he comes home. Any suggestions?”
He shrugs. “I’ll ask around. Anything else?”
I squelch the impulse to bite my lip. “I’m uncomfortable with you having a key to the mansion.”
Without sign of offense, he pulls a ring of keys from his pants and removes one. “On the condition that until your uncle returns, you let Errol in at night.”
As much as I’d like to refuse, I say, “All right,” and pluck the key from him.
Axel rises. “I’ll give you a ride back to the big house.”
I jump to my feet. “Oh, I can…” I slap a hand to the table to steady myself.
“You can’t.” His hand steadies me.
Little ripples. Very little ripples. I’m definitely on the mend, but not so near my destination that I can refuse his offer.
Shortly Axel putters the golf cart down the rise, and I sit beside him, my thigh glancing off his despite my attempt to maintain space between us.
He slows to negotiate the narrow garden path, then brakes near the back door. “Here you are. We’ll leave for Asheville at one.”
I exit the cart and turn back to tell him that I can drive myself but am struck by the unbalanced feeling of having stepped off a boat. All right, so I will ride with him.
With a whir, he turns the golf cart. “Don’t lie down, in case it is a concussion.”
I swing away, and my head throbs anew. “Thanks a lot, Axel.” I can’t believe he didn’t apo
logize for knocking me out with that stupid stick. It wasn’t intentional, and it was more my fault than his, but he should have said something.
Especially after you thanked him for helping you. I didn’t, did I?
I enter the kitchen and close the door. As I turn the lock, my eye is once more drawn to the repaired doorframe—proof that if Axel wants in, he doesn’t need a key. Just as Bart and Luc don’t need a key, or anyone else for that matter.
Maybe letting Errol in at night isn’t such a bad idea.
“Forgive me?”
“Of course, Grant. I know how busy you are.” Although, really, how long does it take to make a call to check up on me?
“You’re an angel, Piper.” He chuckles. “Most of the women I’ve dated would have had a fit if I didn’t return their calls within five minutes.”
What if it had taken five days? Ooh, I’m not quite as understanding as he thinks. All things “Pickwick” considered, it would have been nice to have his support, even if only by phone.
“I really am going to have to ask you to marry me, you know.”
He’s said it so many times that its tingle factor has declined considerably. “Yes, you are, but—”
“—when the time is right.”
I clench a smile. “Absolutely.”
“Speaking of which, did I tell you that the timing of the new ad is perfect?”
Groaning under my breath, I rise from the sofa that I dropped to after the fifteen-minute hold I waited through to speak to him.
“We have Jacobs on the run. If he wants to stay in the race, he has a lot to answer for. You should have seen him backpedaling when the reporters cornered him yesterday.”
I cross to the rolling ladder, climb to the shelf where I left the feather duster when Grant came on the line, and resume the task of making this corner of the mansion more habitable.
Grant continues without pause. As the dust flies amid the ticklish rays of the afternoon sun, I toss out the occasional “uh-huh,” “right,” and “good for you” to let him know I’m listening. And I am. Sort of. Fortunately, any pertinent developments in his campaign will be included in Celine’s daily report.
“Now I know his daughter was over the age of consent when the nude pictures were taken—”
With a gasp, I tune back in to the voice coming across my earpiece.
“—but what does it say about how she was raised? Jacobs can spout family values all he likes, but this is a reflection of him and his parenting.”
The feather duster quivers in my hand. Nude pictures… Jacobs’s daughter… the Fourth of July parade… Piper Pickwick.
“I’m telling you, that kind of scandal does not sit well with conservative voters.”
Feeling as if air is leaking out of me, I drop my chin to my chest. And yelp when my injured forehead hits a rung.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Just… bumped into something.”
“Well, as long as you’re not bleeding.”
Actually, I am, though just a little through the gauze I taped over the broken skin. “I’m fine.”
“Good. So how’s the weather in… what’s the name of the town?”
“Pickwick.”
“Right. I’ve heard of the Pickwicks. They were a fairly prominent family at the turn of the century—about the time of the Vanderbilts, I believe.”
“Yes.” And now is not the time to establish my connection to them. Of course, if Grant ever gets past the thinking-of-asking-me-to-marry-him stage, I will have to elaborate on my last name. But by then he will have been reelected. Unless Janet Farr with the New England accent is after me.
“My uncle went to college with one of them—until the guy got kicked out.”
Oh, Lord.
“Can’t remember his name, but I think he was the eldest of the four boys.”
Uncle Jonah, Luc and Maggie’s father.
“So who in Pickwick requires the services of the best image consultant in Los Angeles?” There’s a smile in Grant’s voice. “Wouldn’t be one of those Pickwicks, would it? If so, you might want to double your fee. I understand they’re off the deep end.”
I try to laugh. “Well, I’m sure your schedule is packed, so I’ll let you go.”
“We’ll talk again soon.” A pop sounds across the line. “Kisses, Piper. One on your cute little nose.”
I wrinkle it. “Kisses back.”
The line goes dead. And once more, it’s just me and my deep-end relatives.
11
We’re here.”
The voice speaks over a vision of colorful bouncy balls that plummet from overcast skies and shoot back up after striking the pickled-corn pavement.
“Wake up, Piper.”
I look around, but the disturbingly familiar voice has no body and the balls continue to shower around me. It strikes me then that none have come near enough to graze me. I stick out a hand. A blur of Blue speeds toward it and I hold my breath, but the ball comes to a screeching halt bare inches from my fingers and then swings wide and continues to the pavement. Its impact scatters bright yellow kernels, and it bounces back up, though with less force than the other balls. I compromised its momentum.
“Oops,” I murmur when it stalls above my head.
It drops again. And blows a raspberry at me over its shoulder. I don’t think that’s possible…
When it grips my shoulder and shakes me, I swat at it, but it shakes me again. “I’m sorry,” I mumble, “but you were in my airspace.”
“Your airspace?” the ball says in a very masculine voice. “Come on, Piper, this is becoming a habit. And I don’t care to be accused of slapping you again.”
Hold it! The balls suddenly suspend around me like the skirts of my mothers polka-dot dress that I ran to when Maggie called me fat in front of her friends in first grade.
I open my eyes, and Axel’s face is inches from mine, concern in his intensely Blue gaze. He does have incredible eyes, and I think I could get used to the mustache and goatee, but that long hair… Why, I’ll bet Delilah felt the same way about Samson.
Axel draws back as abruptly as a child who has touched a hot burner.
What’s his problem? I was just admiring—
Admiring? Hello! You are taken. Well, soon to be. Or later.
“You fell asleep.”
I straighten in the passenger seat of Axel’s top-down Jeep. I must have been exhausted to drift off with the air whipping at my hair. “I can’t believe you let me fall asleep, especially since you’re the one who’s so worked up that I might have a concussion.”
“I was somewhat occupied with driving, but I did wake you twice.”
“I don’t remember you awakening me.”
“Then I won’t take offense at being given the evil eye before you snorted back to sleep.”
“I do not snort.”
“You do.” His mouth turns up. “I could hear it above the road noise.”
How embarrassing.
“But I’ll keep it between us.”
As if I care to share my secrets with him! Now if he were Grant… I’m struck by how wrong it is that Axel knows about my snorting and Grant doesn’t.
I pull the door handle and step out of the Jeep and into the hospital parking garage. “Let’s see how my uncle is doing.”
An hour and a half later, having been assured that the knee surgery went well and Uncle Obe would be out of recovery soon, I sit on an examining table as the elderly doctor who has poked at me for fifteen minutes jots something on my chart.
“Well?” I ask.
“Perhaps a slight concussion, Mrs. Wick—”
Mrs.? I glance at Axel where he stands nearby.
“—but I don’t see any need to keep you under observation. However, as a precaution, I will ask your husband to wake you every two hours for a couple of nights.”
“He’s not my—”
“She’s not my—”
“Oh.” The doctor pushes his rimless glass
es up his nose and looks at Axel. “Regardless, wake her every couple of hours.”
He thinks we live together?
“I’m just a friend,” Axel says, “but I’ll arrange for someone to keep an eye on her.”
Since when did he become my friend? And just who is he going to get to stay the night with me?
A while later, Axel and I leave the emergency room and enter the elevator.
“I told you I was fine.” I attempt to keep space between us despite the press of the other occupants. “And as far as someone staying with me at night, that’s overkill.”
He nods.
So we understand each other. I feel better. That is, until we step into Uncle Obe’s room and into the middle of a family gathering. I lurch back and come up against Axel.
“They don’t bite,” he says in my ear. “At least not in broad daylight.”
I scan the faces of those whose eyes land on me. My red-headed, Easter egg-thievin’ cousin Luc is here, and beside him is his mother, Adele, to whom Botox has been kind—in a stiff way. At the foot of the hospital bed, Bart and his mother, Belinda, perch on opposite sides of the mattress, and near Uncle Obe’s head sits a girl with glasses poking out from dark hair that hangs around her face. She looks a bit like the one I saw entering church with Maggie yesterday.
“Piper.” A drawn-looking, IV-connected Uncle Obe lifts his head from the pillow.
“Piper?” Aunt Adele zips her gaze down me and shakes her head. “My, you have changed.”
“I’ll say,” Luc mutters.
“Yes,” Aunt Belinda says.
Bart stands taller. “Told you.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Come in.” Uncle Obe motions me forward. “You too, Axel.”
I smile. “I’m sure the number of visitors you can receive is limited, so I’ll come back later.”
“Don’t worry about the nurses,” says a man I didn’t notice until now. “We have an understanding.” Past Aunt Adele’s shoulder, he turns from the window, and for a moment I stare into my father’s face. But it’s the youngest of the brothers—Bartholomew, Bart and Bridget’s father—who always bore such a striking resemblance to my father that the two could be momentarily mistaken for each other. Even though he has packed on twelve years, twice as many pounds, and there’s silver among his red hair, the resemblance remains.
