by Debbie Mason
“Was the truth. I need this job, and you know it.”
“No, I don’t. I had no idea things were that bad.” She glanced at Connor before asking her grandmother, “When did you and Serena file the insurance claim?”
“I…What day is it now?” Arianna’s grandmother asked as she rubbed her furrowed brow. “I don’t…Why are you asking me anyway?” Helen’s tone had gone from confused to defensive. “You should be talking to your sister. I have no time for this.”
“Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Fairchild,” Connor said. “I’ll take care of it. I deal with this sort of thing all the time. I’ll have it straightened out for you in no time.” He rarely dealt with insurance settlements, but he had no doubt he could handle this. Though it would definitely take some time, which, lucky for them, he had a lot of these days.
Helen studied him for a moment and then slowly nodded. “We’d be happy to accept your help, wouldn’t we, Arianna? I may have misjudged you, young man.” Helen smiled while tapping his leg with the end of her cane. More gently this time than the last.
“That’s kind of you, Connor, but we don’t need your help. I’m sure Serena took care of the claim,” Arianna said.
But he could tell by the uneasy look in her eyes that she wasn’t sure. She had reason to be wary. Lorenzo Romano, their sister Jenna’s ex-fiancé, had shot Serena before setting fire to Tie the Knot. From all accounts, like Arianna, Serena had been having difficulty dealing with the trauma. After what they’d been through that night, it would be more surprising if that weren’t the case. Unlike her sister though, Serena had left town to deal with her issues.
“Okay. Just give me the name of your insurance company then, and I’ll put some pressure on them,” he said.
“I don’t remember it offhand. I’ll get Serena to call—” The horn blasted from his Porsche, cutting off Arianna, who looked more than a little relieved at the interruption. “You’d better go, or you’ll miss your drinks date,” Arianna said with smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She was obviously worried, and like her grandmother, overwhelmed.
He took out his phone, texted Jenna for Serena’s cell phone number, and then texted Brooklyn to tell her he needed five more minutes, promising to make it up to her later.
He got an Oh yeah, you will from Brooklyn, and Serena’s cell phone number from Jenna, as well as a question as to why he wanted it. He planned to stop by the manor to talk to Jenna, who was Greystone’s wedding planner, before he left town. He’d answer her question then.
Helen once again tapped him on the shin. “Get off your device. It’s rude. Young people these days…”
“Sorry about that. I just need one more minute to take care of something,” he said as he added Serena’s contact information and then quickly texted her his question.
Arianna looked from his phone to his face. “I don’t believe you. You texted Serena, didn’t you?”
He smiled, looking down at his phone when it pinged. His smile turned into a grimace at Serena’s response. He raised his gaze to Arianna. “You mind if I grab a glass of water before I hit the road?”
As though she could tell from his expression that the news wasn’t good, she briefly closed her eyes before nodding. “Glamma, I’ll meet up with you on Ivy Road.”
“All right. Bring a bottle of hand sanitizer and some breath mints with you.” She gave Connor another tap on the shin before jauntily walking away, swinging her cane. “Don’t worry. I won’t knock down any more of your uncle’s signs,” she called over her shoulder. “No need to now that we’ve got the primary in the bag.”
“You might want to lose her cane. She doesn’t look like she needs it,” Connor said when he joined Arianna on the porch.
Arianna glanced at him as she opened the front door. “Serena didn’t file the claim, did she?”
“I’m sorry. I wish I had better news, but no, she didn’t. Your grandmother told her she’d taken care of it.” Arianna looked demoralized at the news, and he went to give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze but thought better of it and lowered his hand.
As he followed her inside, he took in the open space. The living room was decorated in shades of cream and blue, with bookshelves on either side of doors that opened into a glass-enclosed, three-season room filled with plants and comfortable-looking furniture. He wasn’t surprised to find the home beautifully furnished and decorated. Helen Fairchild had great taste. She’d passed down both her elegant style and talent for design to her granddaughter.
He’d visited the house as a teenager, when Arianna had stayed with her grandmother, and knew there were two bedrooms to his right, one on either end of the short hall. To his left was the French country-style kitchen with stainless-steel appliances and cream-colored cabinets that matched the bookshelves.
Arianna walked through to the kitchen and went to open one of the cupboards with her injured hand. He was close enough to hear her sharp inhalation, see her eyes squeeze shut.
“Let me,” he said, gently cupping her shoulders to move her out of the way. He opened the cupboard. “Do you want a glass?”
“Please.”
He wouldn’t have heard her if she hadn’t been standing beside him, so close her shoulder and hip brushed against him. So close he could smell her scent of orange blossoms and jasmine. It was a classic, timeless fragrance that spoke more of the woman she used to be than the one she’d become.
She seemed broken, defeated, and fragile now. When she’d been married to Summers, she’d been seductive, sophisticated, and outspoken. A woman who liked the finer things in life, who traveled to Provence and Positano, who’d once thrown lavish dinner parties that were the talk of Boston and designed wedding gowns that cost a small fortune.
He’d admired the woman she’d been, stood in awe of her talent, sophistication, and beauty. But this woman got under his skin and burrowed her way into his heart. He wanted to vanquish the demons that haunted her and take away her pain. But already he could feel her regaining control, breaking contact, putting up her walls.
With her head bowed and the fingers of her left hand curved around the marble countertop, she moved a few inches away.
“Can I get you anything for the pain?”
She shook her head, her buttermilk-blond hair falling forward to hide her face. “No. I’m fine.”
“Don’t, okay? It’s me. The guy you dated for two years. The guy you told your secrets and dreams to.” The guy who loved you to distraction. The guy you said you’d love forever.
Connor blew out a noisy breath, wondering what had gotten into him. Being this close to Arianna and actually having the woman talk to him after years of avoiding and ignoring him was messing with his head. Not to mention the part about her being alive and well. Even if she wasn’t completely okay.
“Neither of us have been that guy or that girl for a very long time,” she said, taking the glass from him and turning to walk to the sink in the turquoise island with its butcher-block countertop.
“No, we haven’t. We’ve grown up. And evolved grown-ups let people help them. You don’t have to deal with this alone, Arianna. I want to help. Think of it as my way of making amends for having to represent your ex in your divorce.”
She snorted and turned on the tap. “Evolved grown-ups are also honest. You didn’t just represent Gary. You used the divorce to get back at me. You never forgave me for breaking up with you.”
“You don’t seriously believe that, do you?” he said, instead of asking her why she’d broken up with him. It was something he’d always wanted to know. Because she had gutted him that long-ago summer night, and it had taken him months to get over her, even if it hadn’t felt like he was over her at all that night in her hospital room.
“Oh, so you’re telling me our breakup had nothing whatsoever to do with you representing Gary in our divorce?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” he said, leaning past her to fill his glass with water, getting another whiff of her perfum
e as he did. He needed to focus on something other than how amazing she smelled or he might do something stupid like bury his face in her neck. Instead he concentrated on putting the glass on the counter and taking the other glass from her to fill.
“I’m kinda shocked you think I’d do something like that.” Maybe even a little hurt. “I’m a corporate attorney, Arianna. I don’t handle divorces for our clients unless I have no choice, which, back then, I didn’t. It was either represent Summers or forget about ever being made partner. His family is the firm’s biggest and longest-standing account. Gary’s godfather is one of the founding partners.”
“I didn’t know,” she said, refusing to meet his eyes when he placed the glass in her hand.
“You should have known I wasn’t that kind of man.”
She lifted a shoulder. “For seven years I lived with a man who was. I guess that colored my perception.”
For as long as he could remember, Connor had been ambitious and laser-focused. As the middle son, he’d always felt like he had something to prove. And he liked the lifestyle his career afforded him. He would have laughed if someone suggested he’d put his job on the line by refusing to take on a case. But that had been before the night in the hospital with Arianna.
Her ex had come to him ten days after Arianna had nearly died. He’d wanted Connor to represent him in his divorce from wife number two. All Connor could see was Arianna’s face on the day of her divorce hearing. He’d wanted to punch Summers in the face for putting him in that position. So he’d taken great pleasure in turning him down. But Summers was used to getting his way. His godfather begged and then tried to bribe Connor to take the case. Connor refused. He’d gambled and lost.
He pushed the thought aside, took a drink of water to wash away the bitter taste in his mouth, and then looked at Arianna. “Now that you know I had no choice but to represent Summers, can you forgive me?”
“I walked away without anything to show for those seven years. I lost clients because of him. I nearly lost Tie the Knot…” She gave her head a small shake. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Yeah, it does. I can’t apologize for doing my job back then, but I can help you now if you’d let me. You can start over, Arianna. The money from the insurance—”
“Start over? I can barely get dressed on my own, Connor. I can’t legibly write my name or get a glass out of a cupboard or go one day without pain.” She bowed her head and whispered, “Sometimes I wish they had let me die.”
He reacted without thinking, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Don’t. Don’t say that, Arianna. Don’t ever let me hear you say that again.” Unlike that night at her hospital bedside, he was far from calm. He knew her, and he knew her well. Tie the Knot had been her life, her passion, her baby. And now it was gone, and he heard the abject despair in her voice. He shook her a little to get her to look at him, desperate to get through to her. “You’ve been home from the hospital just over a month. You need time to heal. It’ll get better. I promise.”
She lifted ocean-blue eyes filled with desperation and tears. “It won’t get better, Connor. The scarring, the nerves in my…” She shook her head as if she could no longer go on.
He drew her carefully into his arms, surprised when, instead of pushing him away, she leaned heavily against him. It just about killed him. She’d always seemed so strong and self-sufficient. “It will. One step at a time. And the first step is getting your insurance claim settled.”
“I don’t even know where to start. I have nothing. No paperwork, no laptop or desktop. Everything was either in my apartment or in the shop.” She hadn’t lifted her head. Her lips moved against his chest, her warm breath heating the skin beneath his shirt.
The feel of her in his arms, her mouth against his skin, and the smell of her perfume brought back memories of the past, dreams he’d once had for their future. He stroked her hair, getting lost in those memories and dreams for a minute. Something, he wasn’t sure what, brought him back to the present. “Leave it with me. I’ll figure it out.”
He sensed they were no longer alone and glanced over his shoulder. No one was there. But as he returned his attention to Arianna, the cream wooden blinds on the window across from them clacked and flapped. He looked over his shoulder again, only this time he leaned back. The front door was open, ushering in a warm breeze that carried with it the smell of crushed autumn leaves. He’d just decided he hadn’t closed the door properly when he heard the roar of a V10 engine. He knew then who’d opened the door. Brooklyn had gotten tired of waiting.
Arianna lifted her head from his chest. “Is that your car?”
“Yeah, and I have a feeling she isn’t stopping”—he grimaced at the sound of squealing tires—“to pick me up.”
“I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I’ve kept you too long. If you hurry, maybe you can catch her,” Arianna said, backing away.
He was sorry too. Sorry that she’d stepped away from him. He missed the feel of her in his arms, knowing at least for those few minutes she was safe and he didn’t have to worry about her. He didn’t want to leave her on her own, but it was obvious she now felt more uncomfortable than comforted.
“Unless Brooklyn gets pulled over, there’s not much chance I’ll catch up to her.” Or make it up to her, for that matter. Which he felt bad about. But maybe, in the end, it was for the best. At least until he got Arianna out of his heart and his head for good. And that wasn’t going to happen until he knew she was well on the road to recovery.
Chapter Three
Colleen Gallagher stood in the manor’s dining room beside the open French doors with Simon, her black cat, at her feet, watching as her grandson Daniel and her granddaughter-in-law, Maura, shared a leisurely cup of coffee on the patio now that Maura’s sons and their significant others had taken their leave after Sunday brunch.
As it always did, seeing her great-grandsons happy and in love warmed Colleen’s heart. Although she wasn’t completely enamored with Connor’s choice. Most likely because she knew down to her very soul that the only woman for Connor was Arianna Bell.
Colleen wondered if that’s why it felt like a dark cloud had been following her about the manor today. She’d had similar feelings before, and it usually boded ill for Greystone Manor and the Gallaghers. She glanced at Maura and Daniel whispering at the table. If she had to point a finger at where the trouble might be coming from this time, she’d aim it directly at her grandson. His campaign promise to build an office tower on Main Street was sowing discord in town as much as his attempts to seduce Maura, his brother Sean’s wife, were sowing discord in the family.
And while they’d seen their fair share of trouble at the manor since Colleen’s heart had given out on All Saints Day two years past, this thing between Daniel and Sean had the makings of an all-out family war. Colleen knew without a doubt, if she didn’t up her ghostly game, there wouldn’t be much she could do to keep her family together.
They were all that mattered to her, them and the manor, and Simon, of course. From where she stood, she could see where she’d died despite her family’s best efforts to save her. At a hundred and four, it had been a good day to die and a good way to go. Except she was still here. More or less. A ghost of her former self.
“I’m not any better at this ghost gig than I was the day I missed my ride to heaven, now, am I, Simon?”
He was too busy tracking a blue jay flitting from cedar to oak tree to confirm or refute her observation. Whether he did or not, she knew it to be true.
She’d been a little worried she might be headed for hell instead of heaven that afternoon in November, so she appreciated the extra time the Lord had granted her to make things right. For the most part, she’d made good use of her time, righting wrongs from the past, matching her great-grandchildren with the loves of their lives. But she could no longer be satisfied with the status quo as far as her ghostly abilities went.
As it stood, she couldn’t stick a toe out of the manor. Oh, she’d tr
ied, all right, and had been bounced back by an electric force field. There were a few things she could do though. Like if she yelled loud enough in the ear of someone staying in her old suite, they sometimes heard her. Typically scared the living bejaysus out of them too.
She could also walk through walls and such, and people, which was almost as discombobulating as sticking a toe outside the manor. If she concentrated really hard, she could even lift and push things about. It didn’t always work, and when it did, it depleted her energy, leaving her as weak as a baby.
And it wasn’t like she could easily call on someone to lend a hand. Other than Simon (who didn’t have opposable thumbs), no one could see or hear her when she needed them to. Sometimes the wee ones were able to see her, which caused its own set of problems. Jasper knew when she was about. He’d sensed her presence almost from the beginning. He used Simon as her tell. If he saw the cat, Jasper knew Colleen was somewhere close by. Though Simon seemed to have an agenda of his own these days.
Almost from the beginning she’d known he was not your average cat. He’d arrived at the manor days before Colleen passed. Over the last few months she’d seen signs that Simon, who at times acted like lord of the manor, might actually be William Gallagher. The family’s patriarch and once privateer. Or pirate, some said.
William had claimed most of the property in the area known as Harmony Harbor in the early seventeenth century and had gone on to build what would eventually become Greystone Manor. Over the centuries the sandstone-colored mansion had been added to and improved upon until it had become what it was today, their home and a hotel.
Just before she’d passed, Colleen had been fighting to keep a developer’s hands off her beloved Greystone. He was the canny sort, trying every dirty trick in the book. He’d been quiet these past months, but she was certain he was out there somewhere, plotting his next move.
She’d done what she could to thwart him by locking the estate up tight in her will. She’d left it to her great-grandchildren. The only way it could be sold was if they all agreed. You could bet she’d haunt every last one of them if they decided to sell.
