by Geeta Kakade
The sooner she was indoors the better. Before she’d turned off her headlights she’d noticed the path around the side of the house that curved around the side to the front. As she didn’t have an opener for the garage door she’d better walk to the front and ring the doorbell.
Glad the shrubbery had been cut back and the path was clear, Christy told herself the caretaker had to be somewhere.
Pausing in front of the large door, Christy took a deep breath. Going through that door would be a little like lifting the lid of Pandora’s box. Answers to the past lay beyond that door. Answers that might be better left undisturbed. Fighting the urge to turn tail and run, she willed herself to calm down as she rang the doorbell.
Her heart raced as she waited. After a few long drawn minutes, she pressed the bell again. The chimes rang loud and clear within the house. Where was the caretaker the lawyer had mentioned?
Calling the lawyer’s cell phone from Sacramento, to let him know she would be arriving later than she’d thought due to two accidents on the highway, Christy had been told someone would drop off a key to the house in the mailbox. They would also try to contact the caretaker and let him know she was coming. It was Sunday or someone from the law office would have met her plane.
Christy rang the doorbell and waited. Maybe the caretaker took Sundays off too.
Fitting the large key in the keyhole, Christy turned it. It turned smoothly but the door didn’t yield to her pushing. To complicate matters, the porch light had not been turned on.
Doubts threatened to submerge Christy as she struggled with the door in the dark. Maybe she should have waited till the morning to come here, but checking into a motel would have eaten into her savings. Watching the pennies till she found work again was a must.
Christy shook her head impatiently and kicked the door. It didn’t give. She was sure it was just like the original one in her grandparents’ old home in Beverly Hills. All wood, with a tendency to stick when the weather changed.
Putting a hand up, she impatiently pushed her hair off her face. She had to get in. Setting her handbag down, Christy put her shoulder against the door and shoved. Nothing happened.
A look around confirmed the area was lonely and deserted. There was no one she could ask for help. There was also no way she could get a cab to take her to a motel as her cell phone had run out of charge. It was late and she was very tired. Desperation made Christy take a few steps back and then throw the full weight of her body against the door.
It yielded suddenly, hurling her over the threshold. She stretched her hands out, expecting to fall. Instead of the ground, she came into contact with something firm and unmistakably human. Naked flesh. The scream she let out split the darkness.
"One wrong move and you’re dead. I’m the caretaker and I’m armed."
Shock was a squeak, quickly subdued. Sound might be considered a wrong move.
"Who the hell are you?”
The rasp of the male voice froze the blood in her veins as she was grabbed around the waist. Swiftly she felt two hands run over her from waist to shoulders tracing her shape.
"I’ll be dammed."
A flash flood of adrenalin poured through her system, sharpening her other senses. Christy bit her lower lip to hold back all sound. Her nose wrinkled at the scent of brandy. Her ears had caught the hint of arrogant impatience in his voice. Fear was the taste of chalk on her tongue. Awareness sharpened each sense to knife point. Her fingers were spread-eagled over his chest conveying sensation to her brain. Warm, pulsating, male.
“Let go of me.” She said as she dropped her own hands to her side.
The lights came on, and Christy blinked. All the man was armed with, was the largest scowl she’d ever seen. The anger in his eyes made them shine like a predator’s. Christy felt her toes curl with delight inside her handmade leather shoes.
"Well, well, well," drawled the man. "Look what the tide washed up. A burglar with an eye to fashion."
Four inches separated them. Warm breath brushed her forehead as he scanned her face, then her body.
Christy bit her lip. The dark shadow on his cheeks the insolent way he was looking at her quickened her heartbeat, set nerve endings throbbing.
"Like what you see?"
Christy felt herself flush from head to toe. She hadn’t meant to stare. "I’m not a burglar."
"Then do you mind telling me why you’re here?"
Christy frowned. There was something wrong with the man. His speech was slurred. Even as she watched, his eyes closed. He had to struggle to open them again. Drops of sweat beaded his forehead and upper lip. Recalling the smell of brandy on his breath she held hers. Dealing with a drunk was all she needed now.
"Who are you?" Christy demanded, willing her voice steady.
His brows drew together. "I told you. I’m the caretaker. The name’s O’Keefe. Who’re you?”
Christy blinked. A lump of nervousness lodged in her throat. Henry Brigham, the lawyer she’d spoken to, had mentioned the caretaker was called O’Keefe.
Cute, thought O’Keefe, very cute. Just his luck he had to be sick tonight. Under different circumstances he would have liked to get to know the woman glaring at him. Would have loved to thread his hands through her windblown hair and kiss that angry mouth. He’d like to see how long it would take for passion to replace the anger in those eyes, see that face soften with desire.
"I’m the new owner.” Christy stepped back and assessed the rest of him. Worn gray jeans clung to long legs. A frisson of fear shot through Christy. His eyes were closing again. The last thing she had the energy for was dealing with a drunk caretaker.
"Weren’t you told to expect me?” She put every bit of authority she possessed into her voice.
The mists parted for a moment. O’Keefe’s body snapped to attention. Anger at hurricane strength, swept his first impressions of her out of his mind. His jaw clenched so tight it hurt.
"You’re Jake’s daughter?”
Christy stiffened. She had stopped thinking of herself as Jake’s daughter a long time ago.
"I’m Christabel Hathaway." Jake hadn’t wanted his daughter. He’d made that very clear by leaving.
The silence stretched for a minute before he said, "I should have guessed you’d come." O’Keefe made the words an insult.
“What do you mean?”
"Couldn’t wait to claim the money, could you?”
"What money?”
Henry Brigham had been very precise on the telephone. She owned the house and its contents. Nothing else.
"The money you’ll get for this house when you sell it, of course. Isn’t that what’s finally brought you here?” The man took another step back. "Greed makes a powerful incentive."
His attitude, on top of everything else she’d been through that day, was too much.
"What I do with the place is none of your business." Christy imitated Mother’s crisp, upper-crust-of-society voice. “Do you live here?”
The man leaned against the wall and folded his hands across his chest. "Yep."
The desire to ask him if he’d known Jake bubbled to the top. How he had died. If he had ever mentioned her. One look at O’Keefe’s narrowed eyes, and she changed the enquiry into an attack. “Some caretaker you are. Too drunk to hear me almost break the door in."
"I’m not drunk," he said curtly.
And she was born yesterday. Christy’s look conveyed her disbelief.
"I didn’t hear you at first because I was asleep. I’ve got some damn bug. I took some brandy with the medicine because the chills wouldn’t stop. It knocked me out cold. I heard you at the door and I was coming to it when you threw yourself into my arms."
Christy felt her face burn. O’Keefe’s words reminded her of the way his flesh had felt to her touch. The feel of his firm hands running over her body sent a quiver of apprehension through her. Mother would say a gentleman would not have brought the subject up again. Christy looked at O’Keefe and realized gentle was har
dly a prefix one would use for this man.
He punched the answering machine and they both listened to Henry Brigham’s message about her arrival.
“You didn’t hear that?”
“I told you I didn’t,” he snapped angry with himself for being so out of it.
After a moment’s silence he added abruptly, "I’m going back to bed. Make yourself at home. The bedrooms are all upstairs. I have a room and a bathroom off the family room."
He disappeared and Christy had to order herself to take slow steadying breaths. Everything else had to wait. Exhaustion insisted finding a bed take priority over everything else. She could no longer make sense of her thoughts. Her mind had been overloaded with too much, in too short a span of time. Christy headed for the stairs.
“It isn’t right for them to be in the house without a chaperone,” said Phillip angrily.
Agnes giggled, “That isn’t necessary anymore,” she said. “Young people are different these days.”
“Are these the two I’m supposed to bring together? They’re like chalk and cheese.”
“So were we in the beginning,” retorted Agnes. “Don’t you remember?”
He did remember, arriving from the east on the stagecoach, meeting Agnes’ parents at a dinner that evening given at their home. His host had taken him there. They had introduced him to their sixteen year old daughter and he had called again the next morning. He had been allowed to talk with her while her chaperone sat in a corner of the room.
For three visits they had discussed the weather and her family and he had realized he was getting nowhere. He had finally told her of his dream of getting a wagon and joining the gold rush in the hills of Sierra Nevada. She had looked excited by the prospect and started asking questions. He had called at her parent’s place every day after that talking to her about his dreams of travel and adventure finding she wanted those two things as much as he did. A month later she had agreed to marry him and a week later they had left, their wagon loaded with things for their new home.
CHAPTER TWO
She woke at dawn Monday morning to the sound of birds chirping. There were no birds outside her apartment. Was she still asleep and dreaming? Total recall took a minute. Her birthday discovery, the flight, the caretaker. Christy’s eyes examined the room. The wallpaper on the walls was a pretty rose pattern, the four poster was huge. There was an enormous chest of drawers and mirror against the far wall. The furniture was dusty and uncovered but under the dustsheet on the bed the bed linen had been clean and smelt surprisingly fresh.
The room was big with a huge window in front that let in the light. Christy hadn’t drawn the curtains last night and she could see the shadow of a tree against the window.
She went to the window and looked outside. The crescent beach was beautiful and the blue green color of the water incredible. She hadn’t heard the name Silver Lake City before she’d seen the name on the envelopes and wondered what kind of place it was. This was gorgeous. Fifty miles east of South Lake Tahoe, the colors of the water was just as incredible as Lake Tahoe.
Christy went into the bathroom. She couldn’t wait to explore the house.
Fifteen minutes later she was in the kitchen. Her tour of the upstairs had revealed four bedrooms besides hers and a bonus room. As she came down she could tell the house was old and beautiful. The entry way was paved with the grey stone. Was it the original stone from this area? Christy hoped so.
There were some beautiful old pieces of furniture in the living room. Someone had covered the downstairs furniture with dust sheets and she was thankful for that.
As a girl she had shared Grandma Hathaway’s interest in antiques and old houses. Going through Grandma’s collection of books, listening to her talk about the furniture in the house and studying the auction catalogs sent from New York made her able to value what she saw in the house at a glance. Some of these things were really valuable.
Between the living room and the family room was a bar area…one that O’Keefe obviously felt entitled to use…judging from his condition last night. There was a little hallway with a door beyond it, probably the room the caretaker used. There was another door in the hallway. One of them might lead outside but she wasn’t going to take the chance of running into the caretaker by trying the doors. Christy turned away quickly. The kitchen was next to the family room.
She paused in the doorway liking the large room with the old table in the eating area immediately. The windows here were large and the room was bright. There was an old stove in the corner just for display with piles of dishes on it. The electric stove to one side wasn’t very clean but it worked. Christy, rinsed the kettle, filled it and placed it on the stove.
She found a box of tea bags in the shelf above. The only things she could find in the refrigerator were a loaf of stale bread cartons of old take out and a half eaten pizza that had sat there for a week or more. The drawer for veggies yielded some apples and on the counter was a bunch of bananas. The cabinets had a bit more to offer. Cans of tuna and chicken and a few vegetables, some pancake mix, even a bag of rice.
Two things she was sure about. The caretaker had to leave and O’Keefe had to clean the stove and the refrigerator before he cleared out.
A few minutes later, Christy stepped into the living room with a steaming mug of tea in her hands. High beamed ceilings, huge windows. Her gaze fell on the dusty marble mantelpiece and the framed photographs on it. Everything else faded, as her heart jumped into her mouth.
With a hand that shook, she picked up the picture of herself on a swing. It had been taken when she was six. She knew because there was a copy of the same picture in her album at home.
Christy shut her eyes to hold the tears back. The picture brought back so much. She could still remember the joy of being pushed on that swing, then being carried into the house on a pair of strong shoulders. She’d held on to her father, feeling warm, secure, loved. It had been a beautiful sunny day, and she’d always associated sunshine and birdsong with happiness ever since. The scent of security was her father’s tobacco, the best feeling his thick grey-black hair under her fingers.
Mother had told her Jake had left because he had stopped caring for them. If he hadn’t cared, why keep her picture all these years? Why leave her this house?
Christy looked at the other photograph on the mantelpiece. It had been taken on a boat. Both Jake’s hair and beard were white. The fish he held, looked enormous. Standing next to him was the caretaker, O’Keefe, holding an equally large fish.
Without realizing what she was doing, Christy put a hand out and touched her father’s image.
O’Keefe had told the truth. He’d known Jake well.
O’Keefe woke at six. His first impression was one of relief that he felt fine. Watching the house next door in the pouring rain had chilled him to the bone and he’d developed a fever that had lasted two days.
A sound got him to his feet checking for the gun under his pillow. A second later he relaxed even as he frowned at his memories of last night.
He had to get rid of the woman who had turned up last night, claiming to be Jake’s daughter. She couldn’t stay here. He had enough on his hands without baby-sitting a spoiled selfish woman. Christy Hathaway hadn’t an ounce of compassion for her father when he’d been alive but had rushed down here to claim his property six months after he was gone. He wanted as little as possible to do with her.
He had hoped the lawyers wouldn’t find her but for him to be able to carry out Jake’s wishes he knew they had to.
His uneasiness grew as his memory served up details of last night.
The pat down had been automatic. The curves had been disturbing.
A woman could be used to destroy the mission as well as a man.
She had smelled of lilacs and her eyes were as blue as Jake’s.
Dammit he couldn’t still be running a fever could he? Picking up the container with the over the counter analgesic in it he downed four pills as a precaution.
Pulling on a pair of jeans he went out to the kitchen.
He’d texted HQ that he would be back on duty tonight. That meant eight p.m. He had no contact with the men who worked the other shifts. There were three of them, each doing eight hour spells, with no knowledge of each other’s names or whereabouts; their only contact HQ.
He was here for work and nothing else mattered.
O’Keefe came to a dead stop in the living room door. She stood in a beam of sunshine that poured through the open window. With her hair down, in blue silk pajamas and a darker blue robe she was looking at the photograph Jake had held in his hands so often.
O’Keefe’s smile held no humor.
She was a small Venus with a perfect figure, silky blond hair and enormous teal blue eyes.
The innocent look didn’t deceive him for a minute. Under that surface beauty was a rock hard, cruel center. Christy Hathaway and her mother didn’t have a kind bone in their bodies. If they had, they would have responded to Jake’s pleas for news of his only child. One letter would have made a world of difference to his dying friend.
As Jake’s illness had progressed, O’Keefe had made excuses for spending all his time at Cupid Lodge. Every single day, he’d seen the same scene enacted over and over again. Jake’s anxious wait for the mail. Its arrival with no sign of the letter he wanted so badly. Disappointment had repeatedly blown out the light of anticipation in his friend’s eyes. O’Keefe had seen Jake’s eyes fill with tears too many times to forgive, or forget.
Damn it all. It wouldn’t have cost them anything to get in touch with just once. Not a single darn thing.
“Good morning!” Christy Hathaway turned and caught sight of him.
Were those tears in her eyes? He didn’t care. He wasn’t going to exchange pleasantries with her.
“Shall I call a cab to take you to town? There’s are two motels and a hotel you can stay at while you list the house. A property like this should sell in no time.”
Christy’s eyes widened. Who did he think he was? President of the Strong Arm Tactics Club? And why wasn’t he wearing a shirt? She didn’t like the way her gaze kept drifting to the matt of dark hair on his muscled chest.
