“What changed? Not what I said about Lionel hiding something, because—”
“It just put it in a different perspective for me, one I’ve been too narrow-minded and locked into past thinking to consider.”
“So, even if that other surname isn’t attached to you? But, maybe to some other branch of the family?”
He nodded. “It’s immaterial to who I am. It might be important to Lionel, and if that’s the case, I’ll respect that. I know it’s not how I want to define myself, it’s not how I have defined myself.”
“So…what will you do with it? Your Hamilton legacy, I mean.”
“The money?”
“And whatever other responsibilities or inheritances might be in your future, yes.”
“Keep them for our offspring?”
She laughed. “You really are forward-thinking.”
“Okay, let’s just say I’ll make sure it stays somewhere safe, on the off chance my progeny feels differently about his or her legacy than I do.” He tipped her face up to his. “Are you okay with that?”
“It’s not your money or your name I’m after, Mr. Smith.”
“Good.” His grin was quite suggestive. “So…what are you after, then?”
“Starting the new year in Chapel Hill. And the best chicken Marsala a girl can get.”
“Feeling lucky, are you?”
“Oh, there’s no feeling about it. Lottery winners the world over should envy me right now.”
“I rather like that notion.”
“So…upstairs? Or hidden room?”
“You know, whatever secrets Lionel might be protecting will be his cross to bear. That’s been his choice.”
“So, you’re not going to look.”
He shook his head. “No. I’m not going to look.”
She glanced over her shoulder, toward the hall leading to the study. “The whole secret room…”
He laughed. “It’s killing you, isn’t it?”
“I can’t believe it isn’t killing you. Just for curiosity’s sake.”
“How about this—come upstairs with me, and we’ll talk about the future.”
“Talk?”
“Amongst other things.”
He really did have the most wicked twinkle in his eyes.
“And then?”
“And then if you want to go treasure hunting, you can go while I cook.”
Her eyes widened. “You’d really let me go find out?”
“Just because I’ve decided not to doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know everything you might need to know about the family you’re entangling yourself with.”
“And if I find something…interesting?”
“Your call.”
“I’m warning you, no way will I be able to not tell you. I’m a terrible secret-keeper.”
“Okay.”
“You really are the most perverse man.”
“I know it seems that way, but honestly, my perspective has shifted into an entirely new orbit.” He tugged her up the stairs. “One that involves you, me, and whatever we might discover as we head down our path. It’s going to come with Hamilton stuff. And I hope it comes with a lot of Lafferty stuff, too. There will be good, and bad, and frustrating, and wonderful. But, at the core, it’s just us. That’s what I want to focus on.”
“Then you’d rather me not look?”
“I’m telling you that what matters is that we both do what we need to do, and the other of us will respect that. Want me to hunt with you?”
“I know it’s presumptuous of me to say this, but yes, I think you should know.”
“Okay.” He tucked her hand in his and they went back down the stairs.
“Right now?”
“Seems like as good a time as any. I don’t want you distracted when I take you back upstairs and have my way with you.”
“But—this could be a very momentous occasion.”
He swung around and brought her flush up against him. “The momentous occasion happened when I met you. And the momentum has been building ever since.”
“You really mean that, don’t you? I mean, you really don’t care what’s in that room.”
“I think what’s in that room is a burden Lionel chose to adopt. And he’s requested it be left that way. And you’re right…as to the rest, I truly, honestly don’t care. It’s so odd, after all this time, but I’ve really come to peace with it. I know my path.” He backed her into the corner between the foyer and the hallway leading to the study. “And I want you on it with me.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
She smiled. “Okay. So…who do we get to clean up the mess?”
“You’re okay with me sealing the room back up?”
“I’m okay with you taking me upstairs and talking about our path and having your way with me and clouding my mind with all kinds of wonderful future things. I’m okay with respecting your uncle’s wishes, and I’m thinking he will be more than happy to take care of his study, especially when you tell him you decided to leave the Hamilton skeletons be.”
“You know, I never thought I’d say this, but I actually feel sorry for him,” Trevor said. “And I feel a little bad, pushing him like I have. The whole time I was angry because he wouldn’t put my needs first, because he wouldn’t trust me with the truth. I thought he was being overly conservative, and keeping up appearances above all, like my family has always been. I never thought I was being selfish. Or that I was truly asking him to jeopardize something that might really matter to him.”
“You had a right to know.”
“I think he is protecting something, or someone. And it might not mean anything to anyone but him, but I should have respected that, or even at least considered it.”
“You didn’t know.” She kissed him. “You do now, and you’re respecting his wishes to handle it his own way.”
“If he lets whatever secrets he’s harboring die with him—”
“Then maybe that’s where they should lie.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
She grinned. “I’m always right.”
“I thought you were imperfect.”
“Usually right, then.”
“Well, for me, you’re just right.”
She melted. “The things you say.”
“The way you look at me.”
She smiled. He grinned.
“Come on, Curls. We have a date with destiny.”
“Well, never let it be said I’d keep destiny waiting. Or you.”
He pulled her right down on the center of the grand staircase and, grinning, began unbuttoning her shirt. “The things you say.”
Epilogue
T revor and Emma did forge their own path. Chapel Hill became home to Emma’s pet-sitting service as well as their new home together, which housed several mutts, two stray cats, and a recalcitrant pygmy goat. With a lot of hard work, Trevor’s business continued to grow, and did even better when Emma lured Chelsea away from Hamilton Industries to come work for her new husband.
Lionel continued to rattle around in his mountaintop retreat, never alone, always a staff around him, but intensely lonely, nonetheless. Thinking about the love he’d lost, as he often did, with the passing of his dear Tru. And the secrets he’d kept, both selfishly and selflessly, realizing now just how great the cost had been to him. And he wondered if he’d made the right decisions…. And yet, what choice did he have? He’d been protecting Trudy’s legacy as well.
And at that very same time, in a neighboring county, another young man was about to make a discovery that would change his life. Sending him on a quest that would shake the very foundations of everything Lionel, and those who had come before him, had believed to be true. Secrets would finally be exposed, and nothing would be safe and secure again.
FINDING MR. RIGHT
1
F or two months, Maggie Bell walked past him every day on her way out of the office, and every day she took in that tall, leanly muscled body
, those incredibly well-fitted Levi’s hanging low on his hips thanks to his tool belt, and forgot everything else just to take it all in.
Take him in.
As the guy in charge of earthquake retrofitting her office building, he usually carried a roll of architectural plans in one hand and a radio in his other as he dealt with his men, looking confident—not to mention smoking-hot—and every day she thought the same thing.
Yum.
She actually knew him, at least vaguely. Not that he’d remember, but twelve years ago they’d gone to high school together for one semester. Back then, she’d been a bookworm and a true science geek, and little had changed. Jacob Wahler had been the basketball star, a tough kid, though kind enough to be the only guy on his team to ever bother to smile at her. Twice she’d helped him with his chemistry homework, and then there’d been that one time he’d asked her to shut the door—when she’d walked in on him in a dark classroom with his hands down the jeans of a cheerleader.
God, she’d hated high school.
Twelve years, and she’d not ever looked back, but she was looking now. Jacob had gotten a little taller, and had filled out that long rangy body, which now appeared to be rock hard and clearly honed from the physicality of his job. And then there was everything from the neck up, which packed just as much sexual heat as the rest of him. Dark hair curling just past his collar, even darker eyes, olive skin, and a quick smile capable of melting Greenland faster than global warming.
But no matter how gorgeous, she reminded herself that guys like him weren’t her fantasy, and never had been. She was a cerebral woman, and she went for cerebral men.
It was her thing.
Unfortunately her thing wasn’t working so well. Somehow her Mr. Right always turned into Mr. Wrong, but she had other issues to worry about, such as her job.
She was lead chemist at Data Tech, a company run by two brothers, scientists who together employed other scientists on the cutting edge of technology. Tim and Scott West funded individual projects and innovative inventions that they deemed impressive and viable.
She planned on being both impressive and viable. In light of that goal, she’d been working on a skin care technology that acted as a drug delivery for cancer prevention treatments and gene repair agents. The idea wasn’t new, it was actually in the preliminary experimental stages at many labs across the world, but no one had been consistently successful, not yet. She was close to it though, possibly within the next year or so—if Data Tech continued to fund her.
Tim and Scott had a lot to gain in her success, as they would claim the fame and fortune from it. Maggie didn’t care about that, what she cared about was revolutionizing the delivery of drugs to the bloodstream. Every time she thought about it and the possibilities—treating skin cancer, for example, a method which could have saved her own mother—she felt so hopeful about the future, about saving lives, that she could hardly stand it.
What this meant, what it had meant for two long years, was work, work, and more work, and little-to-no social life—hence drooling after Jacob Wahler, aka Sexy Contractor Guy. Today alone she’d been in her lab since eight A.M., and as it was six P.M. now, her eyes were a little blurry. She knew she needed to call it a day and go home to the empty condo she’d bought last year.
Unbelievably, here it was again, a week before Christmas and she’d scarcely noticed the festive decorations all around her, much less even pulled out her own boxed tree and Christmas stocking for Santa. And really, what could Santa possibly bring her anyway?
A man…
That thought came out of nowhere but it was true. She wanted a man for Christmas. She realized it was sexist and anti-feminist, and set women back decades but she didn’t care. She was a chemist, a woman with a brain who knew how to use it, and she was using it now to wish for a man.
Tonight she’d settle for a man-made orgasm…
Wow, she was more tired than she’d thought, and she slipped out of her lab coat, flipped off the lights in the lab, and headed into her connecting office. There she shut her laptop and slid it into her briefcase. She was going to go home, find her Christmas decorations, and get festive. Maybe sip some eggnog and try to figure out how to get un-alone. She walked out of her office and into the construction zone as she headed toward the elevators and told herself in the grand scheme of things, she was fine. Fine.
Fine.
Okay, that was a few too many fines, but she really was.
“Hey, Mags.” Scott West, boss number one, poked his head out of his office, having to peer around a ladder. He was very cute, which usually made her dizzy if she looked at him too long. He wore a white lab coat over his expensive Hugo Boss shirt and pants, looking like a very expensive Doogie Howser. He was a nice catch, and they’d gone out once several weeks back, and that had been really nice, too. But then he’d gone traveling, and she’d been buried in her lab testing and reporting on the results, and…and they’d not gotten together again.
“Did you get a look at the showroom today?” he asked.
The showroom was on the lobby floor, filled with all the inventions Data Tech had funded, like the rainmaker that harvested water from the air, a motorized pool lounger, a human exoskeleton that could carry heavy loads over long distances, snorkel radio gear, lightbulb sheets, and any of a hundred other wild and crazy things.
“There’s a new exhibit,” he told her. “Floating furniture made with matching sets of repelling magnets. The couch can support up to two thousand pounds, can you believe it? How cool is that, a floating couch?”
“Very,” she said, wondering who would want a floating couch.
He smiled. “I’m putting one in my office. They’re carrying it up now. Want to stick around and see?”
Was he gearing up to finally ask her out again? Unlike Jacob, Scott was her type. She knew this. He was cerebral, brilliant really, and extremely into science, which made him perfect.
“Hey.” This from boss number two, who poked his head out of his office, right next to his brother’s.
They were identical twins. Crazily competitive twins, with Tim into robotics and Scott into molecular bionics. They ran Data Tech as a legacy to their father, while each doing their damnedest to one up the other, at work, at play, in any way they could.
Tim tossed a glass vial to Maggie. Her latest formula, which she’d given him a few days ago. “It’s beautiful,” he told her. “But we’ve added a secret ingredient. Let us know what you think.”
She held the vial up to the light but didn’t see any change. “What is it?”
“Tim,” Scott said, suddenly looking unhappy. “I—”
“Just something to smooth the formula,” Tim said over Scott. “It’s a secret until you let us know if you like it.”
“I’ll try it out tonight.” She’d been running test groups on the drug delivery formula using Vitamin B3 and other essential oils as the drug of choice. So far, she’d been inconsistently successful, but she would get there.
“Tim.” Scott sent his brother a long look. “I thought we—you know I wanted to…”
“Spit it out, bro.”
But Scott appeared to have lost his words, and just glanced at his brother.
“Lethologica,” Maggie said. “The state of not being able to find the word you want.” She patted Scott’s arm. “Don’t worry, it happens to me all the time, it’ll pass.”
Scott blinked and she smiled, but he didn’t return it. “I’ll test it for you,” he said instead, reaching for the vial. “No need for you to have to.”
“Oh, no, that’s okay. I don’t mind at all.”
“She doesn’t mind,” Tim said to Scott. “Let it go. ’Night, Maggie.”
Maggie looked at Scott, who clearly wasn’t going to ask her out now. “’Night.”
“Maggie.” Scott eyed the vial. “I really think—”
“’Night,” Tim repeated, putting a hand over his twin’s face and pushing him back into his office. “Don’t have too
much fun tonight, Maggie.”
Okay, they were acting strange. But who was she to judge? As for having fun, ha. After a lifetime of being the nerd, of going to Stanford three years ahead of her peers, of completing college before anyone her age had even begun, she’d gotten damn good at not having fun.
And wasn’t that just the problem.
Turning, she walked to the elevator. She could see Jacob and his crew at work, just down the hall. He stood on a ladder, pulling a hammer out of his tool belt, reaching far above him to a ceiling tile, that long, hard body all stretched taut…
The elevator dinged and she stepped into it, craning her neck, not to see all the pretty decorations, but to catch the last view of Jacob’s tush as the doors slid shut. Was Scott’s butt that cute? Since he always wore a white lab coat, she couldn’t say.
Outside, she drew in a breath of the cool L.A. evening air and headed to her car as her cell phone rang. It was her sister Janie, a UCLA professor who did not have the geek gene. Nope, Janie had somehow snagged a normal life for herself. She’d married and brought two beautiful kids into the world, and was determined to make sure Maggie did the same.
“Hey, Mags.” Janie’s mouth was clearly full. “Sorry, chocolate stuck in my teeth.”
“Don’t tell me you’re still eating leftover Halloween candy.”
“A Baby Ruth bar. Sinful, I’m telling you. Why do you think they call it a Baby Ruth? Why not a Baby Jane or something?”
“It was supposedly named for Grover Cleveland’s baby daughter.”
“Your brain works in the oddest ways.”
“I know.”
“Uh-huh. And do you also know if you’re coming for Christmas Eve?”
“Bringing the pumpkin pie.”
“Spending the night?”
“Wouldn’t want to miss Santa.”
A lie, and they both knew it. Maggie just didn’t want to be alone in her condo on Christmas morning. “What am I supposed to get you for Christmas, by the way? You already have everything you could want.”
“You could bring a date.”
When Maggie laughed, Janie sighed. “Well, you could try. Your Mr. Right is just right around the corner, I know it.”
To All a Good Night Page 10
