by Cajio, Linda
He reached out and took her wrist to stop her. Instantly two sets of canine teeth closed gently around his arm. He looked down to discover Samson and Delilah gazing up at him almost gleefully. He let go of Rae, and the dogs let go of him. He smiled at her. “Be sensible, Rae, and realize that if Atlantic has to sue Merriman, you’re sure to be named a co-defendant. Probably, a judge will order you to vacate the property while a decision is being reached. Neither of us really wants to make a bunch of lawyers rich over this—”
Anger flashed in her green-gray eyes, and he found himself momentarily forgetting all thoughts of lawsuits and lawyers. She had the most beautiful eyes, he decided absently.
“I told you, Jed. I’m very sympathetic, but I’m not involved in your company’s dispute with my uncle. Call his lawyers. Uncle Merry can well afford to pay any settlement your company asks, especially now that he’s given up his Dom Pérignon and beluga caviar. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a broken water line to fix.”
She turned and walked away, the dogs pacing beside her. Jed caught up to them and fell into step next to her.
“Nice try, Rae,” he chided, as they retraced their way through the maze. “But you’ve got to be as crazy as Merriman, if you think you’re not involved in this. The deed is now in your name. Probably illegally.”
She gave him an appraising glance. “Personally, I think the only crazy one in this is you, Jed. How could you have been a part of a plan to plow the house under and replace it with hideous condos?”
“Very nice condominiums that would be in keeping with the gracious setting,” he corrected, ignoring the face she made. “It’s my job, Rae. And Atlantic planned to turn the mansion into a clubhouse for the complex.”
“A clubhouse!” She shuddered. “Now I’ve heard everything. Atlantic wants to turn a piece of history into a clubhouse. And you would have let them …”
“Atlantic will see to it that the house retains its character,” he told her in a cold tone. “Merriman insisted on that, and I would have too. This estate sits next to deep water, north of riverbank industries and Philly’s busy shipping traffic. It’s the most ideal spot for twenty miles to put up a marina and condo complex.”
They emerged from the maze, and Rae pointed to an enormous shade tree about one hundred yards away on the front lawn. Its leaves were in full fall technicolor. “See that oak? When I was eight years old, I fell out of that tree and broke my arm.”
“I remember,” Jed said. “It happened the first summer I worked for my father.”
“Then remember this. From the time I was five, I spent every summer here with Uncle Merry. I learned to sail in that deep water you’re so hepped up about. I slept in the same bed used by seven senators, ten congressmen, and three presidents. I learned to play the harp in the drawing room. I read the library’s signed copies of Poor Richard’s Almanac and Sons and Lovers. And I had my backside tanned for clipping off all the rose blossoms because I was playing Morticia Addams. I love this estate exactly the way it is, and I love the old man who let me be myself here.” Her voice broke, and Jed felt an odd protectiveness wash through him. She drew a deep breath in an obvious attempt to control her emotions. “There’s more than local heritage here. There’s a personal one. Believe me, Jed. The last thing your company wants to do is drag me into their dispute with my uncle. The very last thing. Samson! Delilah! See the gentleman to the front gate!”
Without another word, Rachel Barkeley turned and disappeared back into the maze.
As he watched her go, Jed was tempted to give her beautiful backside another tanning. He owed her one. After all, she’d tried to blame him for lopping off all the roses. A helpless chuckle escaped him at the memory. That little witch hadn’t changed at all. She was still feisty as hell, and still acting the innocent.
His amusement subsided when he remembered the mess Merriman had created over the estate. Obviously, Rae intended to fight a multimillion-dollar corporation, if she had to. He decided he’d have to do something to stop her. This wasn’t Rachel Barkeley’s fight.
He looked down at the dogs, who were waiting to see in which direction he moved.
“Let’s go, guys,” he said, beginning the long walk across the lawn to the front gate.
The dogs trailed behind him, clearly disappointed.
Rae was still muttering curses under her breath, when she reached the herb garden behind the house. The garden was planted in a fleur-de-lis pattern, and there was a white wooden gazebo at the bottom point. It was usually a beautiful sight year round, but mud created by the leaking irrigation line had been tracked throughout the planting bed and grass walkway of one section, ruining the effect.
“I have managed to cut off the water to this area, Miss Rachel,” said a small man, as he looked up from the hole she’d dug earlier. His formal British accent was still strong, despite many years spent in the States.
“Thanks, Burrows,” she said, and drew on a pair of filthy work gloves. She eyed her uncle’s butler sourly, noting the spotless vinyl apron that covered his equally immaculate black suit. Even his “Wellies” were relatively mud-free. She’d never seen Burrows truly dirty and most likely never would. Knowing Burrows, he probably dipped himself in Scotchgard stain repeller every morning. “Have you called the plumbers? And if you tell me one more time that I’m too old to be digging in the dirt, I’ll bean you with the shovel.”
“Yes, miss, and the plumber shall arrive shortly.”
“Which means next week,” she muttered, wondering how the day could possibly get worse. Don’t even consider it, she told herself. It might just happen.
She picked up a shovel and began clearing away more mud. Originally, she’d started the hole in order to assess the damage to the water line, but now she was grateful for the hard physical work. She didn’t want to think about her confrontation with Jed.
Unfortunately, the matter was taken out of her hands when Burrows said, “This section of the garden will have to be replanted. It is a shame Mr. Waters, Senior, retired to Florida. He was very knowledgeable. I’m afraid the new lawn service is incapable of doing more than trimming bushes and mowing lawns.”
Rae straightened and smiled bitterly. “Well, you just missed Mr. Waters, Junior, Burrows. He’s got quite an idea about what to do with the garden.”
“I have been expecting him, miss.”
She stared at him. “You have?”
The butler nodded. “If I may say so, miss, Mr. Merriman was very foolish over the sale of his home. Naturally, young Mr. Waters would return to discuss the matter with him when all other avenues of communication have failed.”
“Well, why didn’t you tell Uncle Merry he was being foolish?”
The butler straightened to his full height. He wasn’t very tall, but to the uninitiated, Burrows somehow always managed to project intimidation in spite of his size. “It wasn’t my place to do so, miss.”
Having been exposed to his imposing glare many times, Rae just glared back. “It never stopped you from lecturing him before over something stupid.”
“If you will remember, miss, my concerns were always for Mr. Merriman’s personal excesses, not his business ones, but if I may say so, he’s made very few.”
“Well, this one was a doozy.” She gripped the shovel handle tightly. “He agreed to sell the estate to Atlantic, then he came to me and told me what an idiot he’d been about the whole thing and that he was completely out of the deal. Next he told me he deeded over the place to me because he wanted to go into seclusion with what’s-his-face—”
“Sri Patel.”
“Thank you, Burrows. He wanted to go into the monastery with Sri Patel, because the Buddhist monk rescued him from bandits years ago, and they had had great philosophical discussions. Uncle Merry isn’t even a Buddhist!”
“Episcopalian, although he wasn’t a practicing member of the church,” Burrows commented.
“Then,” she went on, intent on venting her disgust with her favorite relat
ive, “he gave me a song and dance about how he knows I love the ‘old place,’ and that I’ll take good care of it. Annnd”—she pointed a finger at the stoic butler—“that it would be in better hands with me, than with him, because I wouldn’t have even considered allowing it to be desecrated for condos. I fell for his line of bull like the righteous sucker I was. But Atlantic never accepted the down payment back, Burrows! He never told me that! And now I’m stuck fighting Atlantic.” And Jed, she thought.
“Mr. Merriman has always avoided confrontation, miss.”
“I’d like to confront him on the seat of his pants,” she muttered, jamming the shovel into the mud. “Why didn’t he just come to me in the first place, if he wanted to go live in a monastery and discuss philosophy with his old friend? Why did he have to make a deal with a land development company? And where the heck were his lawyers during all this?”
“I believe he felt you were quite happy with your life in New York, and wouldn’t be interested in the estate—”
“Well, he was wrong,” she broke in. “New York was only a convenient base for my business.”
Burrows nodded in understanding. He ought to, she thought. The first thing she’d done upon moving in yesterday was to hook up her computer. That and a telephone modem were all she needed for monitoring the investments she made for her clients. She already felt more at home here than she ever had in her Manhattan townhouse.
“Mr. Merriman insisted on handling the sale of the estate himself rather than relying on his lawyers. His professional specialty was real estate law,” he said in answer to her third question.
“Which he never actually practiced, thank goodness!” Rae said, realizing nobody would ever be able to answer the question of why Uncle Merry had gone to a land development company—except Uncle Merry. She hoped the razor slipped when the monks gave her uncle the traditional head-shaving. “But now I know how he managed this mess without anyone finding out until it was too late. Do you suppose he did something illegal?” she worried aloud, thinking of Jed’s assurance that the estate couldn’t have been legally deeded over to her with the agreement of sale still outstanding.
“It would not have served Mr. Merriman’s purpose to leave you without legal recourse, Miss Rachel,” Burrows said. “I suspect, though, that he did operate in a gray area of the law in order to deed the estate over to you. Something that would be open to several interpretations. However, if I may say so, miss, as a last resort you could probably have Mr. Merriman declared mentally incompe—”
“Burrows!” she gasped in shock. “I could never do that. Uncle Merry’s crazy, but he’s not senile.”
The butler smiled the tiniest of smiles. “I didn’t doubt you for moment, Miss Rachel.”
She blinked. “Thank you, Burrows.” A thought occurred to her. “Why did you let him go halfway around the world without you? You always traveled with him before, and now Uncle Merry’s nearly eighty—”
She was interrupted by the dogs, who, having completed their mission, now raced into the herb garden.
“Get out of the damn mud!” she ordered Samson, as he leaped around her, happily trying to lick her face. The dog slunk away at the reprimand. Rae sighed and sat down on the edge of the hole. “Come here, you big goof.”
She was knocked down by one hundred pounds of happy Great Dane. Although she playfully fended him off, Samson still managed to get in a few kisses. Finally, she gasped, “Enough already! Up!”
Once Samson had backed off, she sat up. Delilah, more dignified, settled next to her. Rae put an arm around the dog and tugged affectionately on its ears.
“What will you do now, miss?” Burrows asked in a grave voice.
Knowing he wasn’t talking about the broken water line, she sighed. “Whatever I have to do to keep the estate from being turned into a marina-condominium complex.”
An image of Jed standing in the maze flashed through her mind, and she shivered. As a child she’d loved him, and after he’d gone to college, she always thought of him with affection. He had been a friend, but now she felt as if she didn’t know him anymore. He’d grown into a man—an attractive man. She pushed the thought away. Jed was right about one thing, though. What was for her a remembered and beloved refuge of freedom was just a piece of property to him. He’d probably been sent by the company because he knew Uncle Merry personally. She couldn’t blame him for doing his job. Anyway, it would teach Uncle Merry a lesson if Atlantic leveled their legal cannons at him. All she asked was that they not set their sights on her too. Atlantic would be damn sorry if they did, she thought. Realizing who her opponent at Atlantic would probably be, she swallowed heavily. Uncle Merry’s escape route was looking better and better by the moment.
“Do the Buddhists have nunneries, Burrows?” she asked.
“I believe so, miss.”
“Good. Call one of them and get me a standing reservation, would you?”
By some miracle, the plumber actually arrived a short time later and began the process of replacing the split water line. After a needed shower, Rae was just wrapping a large terry towel around her when the telephone rang.
Knowing Burrows was still out “supervising” the plumber, she stepped over to the bathroom telephone and picked up the receiver. Her uncle had insisted on a phone in every room—even the bathrooms—not for convenience, but because he hated to hear them ring more than three times.
“Barkeley residence,” she said briskly into the mouthpiece.
“Rae? It’s Jed.”
She clutched the towel more tightly against her damp breasts in unconscious reflex.
“What a surprise,” she said in a soft voice that belied the tension building inside her.
“How’s the broken water line?”
“Drier than I am,” she muttered, then blushed when she realized what she’d said. “What do you want?”
“I need to talk to you about the estate—”
“I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong number, Jed,” she interrupted. “You meant to call Uncle Merry’s lawyers.”
She hung up the phone.
It rang again.
Snatching up the receiver, she said angrily, “I told you—”
“Have dinner with me tonight.”
Stunned by the unexpected invitation, Rae dropped the receiver and the towel at the same time. Falling to her knees, she scrambled to pick up both of them.
“What did you say?” she asked breathlessly, as she tucked the receiver between her shoulder and ear. She rewrapped her towel around her bare torso, her fingers fumbling with the ends.
He chuckled at her question. “Have dinner with me tonight. We’ll just talk about old times, and how crazy your uncle is—”
Her laugh interrupted him. “You’re a smooth talker, Jed Waters. But I have enough sense to know that the conversation would eventually wind up with a discussion of the estate, which I am not about to discuss with you.”
“And which I don’t intend to discuss with you. Not tonight. This is an invitation to have a nice quiet dinner with an old acquaintance.”
“I would have preferred a nice quiet dinner with an old friend,” she said sadly, and replaced the receiver on the hook.
The telephone didn’t ring a third time.
Three
Jed sent flowers instead.
Cradling the bouquet of roses in her numb embrace, Rae stared at the card: “For Morticia Addams. With love from an old friend.” The word friend was underlined.
With a laugh, she shook her head. Under any other circumstances, she would have been touched by the gesture. She looked up at Burrows, who was just shutting the front door after the delivery man.
“Flowers. How nice,” she said in a wry tone. “And from Jed.”
“If you will allow me, miss,” Burrows said, taking the roses out of her hands. “I’ll see to them.”
“Thank you.” Rae smiled. “But don’t bother with a vase, Burrows. Just put them in the trash.”
The but
ler merely raised an eyebrow at her odd request. “Shall I dip them in battery acid to hasten their demise?”
“Nice touch.”
• • •
Seated across the desk from his boss, Jed gazed steadily at Henry Morrison’s reddening face.
“He … he’s gone?” Henry finally sputtered, his face turning an alarming shade of burgundy. “Barkeley’s up and gone to a damn monastery?”
“I did warn you, Henry, that Merriman was a little … eccentric,” Jed said, fully expecting the president of Atlantic Developers to explode like an overinflated balloon.
He wasn’t disappointed. With a great bellow, Morrison slammed his hands on the gleaming cherry desktop. The roars continued unabated, though mostly incoherent to the human ear. The man’s paunch actually seemed to shrink as he gave vent to a long tirade.
Silent, Jed waited out the tantrum. He’d given his boss bad news on more than one occasion, and the result had always been the same—an angry outburst, followed by cool logic. It all depended on how long it took Henry to run out of curses and breath.
Merriman had thrown everybody, Jed thought, and Rae had thrown him. Images of her, dirty face and all, had run through his mind as he drove back to the office. She’d grown up. Between the dogs and Merriman, he hadn’t realized how much of an impact she’d had on him. The moment he issued the dinner invitation, though, he knew it was the wrong thing to do. They were on opposite sides of the problem with the estate. For the moment anyway, he acknowledged, as he reminded himself of his conversation with the company’s legal department. He hoped she’d accepted the roses as the apology they were meant to be. It had been a long time since anyone had pricked his conscience, but Rae had done it with one word.
He refocused his attention on his boss, whose tantrum was beginning to wind down. Surreptitiously, he glanced at his watch. Four and a half minutes. Not too bad for Henry, he decided. If he was extremely lucky, he’d be able to pull off this next part.
