“Were you heading to the reception alone?”
“Uh...” The mantel clock dinged the hour. Hurry, hurry, her thoughts whispered. How long would Josh be? Dare she wait? Did she even want to?
“Yes, actually, I am going alone. Would—” The invitation lodged in her throat.
“Would you like an escort?” he offered with an old-fashioned bow.
She recalled how Gran would giggle when Gramps greeted her that way, and she wished she could feel that giddiness, too. Becki had to admit she didn’t relish the idea of a two-hour drive alone in the encroaching darkness. “If you’d like to join me,” she heard herself respond.
“What are friends for?”
His expression was friendly, undemanding, but the uneasy feeling crept down her spine again. She shook it off. It was just the way the evening had been going that made her so unrealistic. “Give me a few minutes to get dressed.”
Neil glanced at his dark dress slacks and crisp white shirt. “Am I okay?”
“You’ll be fine.” She hurried up the stairs to her grandparents’ bedroom, where she dropped the earring into Gran’s jewelry box and then went to the closet.
Her fingers glanced over the emerald satin gown that Josh had wanted her to wear. She lifted out the red one next to it and frowned at the low neckline.
“That one’s very nice.”
Becki startled at Neil’s voice behind her. She clutched the dress to her chest and whirled toward the door. “What are you doing up here?”
“Thought you might need some help.” He leaned casually against the door frame. “Those earrings would look stunning with that dress. Did your Gran have a matching necklace?”
“Uh, I’m not sure.” She should have known the earring would pique Neil’s curiosity. He prided himself on his expensive tastes, a trait that had taken her far too long to notice.
“Let’s look.” He strode toward the dresser.
“What? No. There’s no time.” She shooed him out. “You need to let me get dressed or we’ll be late.” She’d forgotten about his habit of making himself right at home, whether invited or not. Josh would never do that.
She locked the door behind him before peeling off her shirt and jeans. Winslow’s business card tumbled from the pocket. Do you care more about your sister than a house? it taunted.
I do. If she wanted to help her sister, she needed to make the call.
Before she could change her mind, she dialed Winslow’s number and gave him the go-ahead to list the house. Josh would be furious that she’d asked Winslow of all people, but if she put off the decision until she could find someone better, she’d talk herself out of it. Or...Josh might. She dressed quickly, then wavered at the bedroom door.
She couldn’t just leave without telling Josh. What if he’d still planned to take her on the tour despite their fight?
Part of her—the part that could never stay mad at him—wished she had the courage to call and ask. But it was too late now. She jotted a quick note to tape to his door. She’d call his sister once they were on their way.
By the time Becki descended the stairs, Neil was checking out Gran’s antique tea trolley in the living room. She pulled on a pair of long, white evening gloves she’d found in Gran’s room. “I’m ready.”
Neil’s gaze widened, and he let out a low whistle. “You look stunning.”
“Thank you, kind sir.”
“Didn’t find a necklace to go with the dress?”
Her hand splayed over her bare throat. “No. It’s okay without, isn’t it?”
“Exquisite.”
Her face warmed. He could be very charming when he wanted to be. So why did his flattery make her feel so edgy tonight?
She shrugged off the sensation. Between finding the jewelry and fighting with Josh, not to mention learning Sarah had left her husband and deciding to put the house up for sale, anyone would be edgy.
He lifted the wrap she’d draped over her arm and dropped it on her shoulders. “This is a beautiful place. I can see now why you’re so fond of it.” He tapped the ornate paneled wood beneath the stairs. “Any trapdoors or secret passages like you see in the old movies?” he asked conspiratorially.
“Not that I know of.” She opened the front door and let the dog in.
Neil took the hint.
Outside, Becki breathed a sigh of relief that Josh still wasn’t home. She sent Neil over to tape the note to Josh’s door while she called Sarah’s cell phone to let her know they were on their way.
An automated message said, “The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service.”
Returning to the car, Neil caught her arm. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I don’t know. We need to hurry.”
FIFTEEN
Only one thing could’ve made Josh feel worse than Bec feeling as if she couldn’t count on him. Winslow was hammering it into her front lawn.
The man gave the for-sale sign one last whack and then scuttled back to his motorbike as Josh pulled into the driveway.
Josh rammed his truck into Park. He got that she was mad at him. Got it loud and clear. But mad enough to leave?
She loved this place. This place. Not him. He shoved the thought away.
He strode past her car and pounded on the back door.
Bruiser slammed his paws into the door with a howl, then sat back on his haunches and wagged his tail, tongue lolling.
“C’mon, open up. We’re neighbors, Bec. You can’t not talk to me forever.”
Josh crossed his arms and watched for movement through the window. Figured she’d pick today to actually stick to her no-talking promise.
He shouldn’t have walked out the way he did. When two more minutes passed and she still hadn’t come to the door, he stalked to his house.
Deep down he’d known this day would come. With all the trouble she’d had, it was a wonder it hadn’t come sooner. But for how desperate she’d been to clear her grandparents’ names, the last thing he’d have expected her to blow off was tonight’s reception.
If she still wanted to go on tomorrow’s car tour, he supposed she’d let him know. In the meantime, he might as well take care of the animals so there’d be less for his pet-sitter to bother about. He stripped out of his old-fashioned getup, put on a pair of jeans, then got to work cleaning the birdcage. When he’d finished, he laid a fresh sheet of newspaper in the bottom and coaxed the lame bird back inside, wishing he could have won Bec’s cooperation as readily.
“At least you understand that I just want to help you. Don’t you?” he cooed to the tiny sparrow. “A woman with any sense would appreciate a guy who wants to protect her.”
A chuckle rose behind him. Anne.
“They say talking to yourself is the first sign of senility.”
Josh snapped the cage door shut. “What are you doing here?” He whistled for Tripod and lifted him into the laundry tub.
“Becki called and told me that Hunter and I were off the hook for the car tour.”
Josh’s heart jerked. So she was bailing on the tour, too. Not just tonight’s reception. He schooled his expression and lathered the shampoo into the dog’s fur. “I’m surprised she gave that up so easily.”
“It wasn’t your idea?” Anne sounded surprised.
Apparently Bec hadn’t shared the rest of their discussion. “No. I was looking forward to the tour.” Now that the jewelry had been recovered, he’d figured they could dig up evidence to clear her grandparents’ names without the risk.
“But you were so worried she’d be in danger, I just assumed—”
“You assumed wrong.” He focused on scrubbing the dog’s coat, doing his best not to betray how irked he was that Bec didn’t talk with him before canceling the t
our. Never mind that she wasn’t talking to him. He supposed now that she’d decided to hightail it back to the city, she didn’t need the freelance job. She was just like Mom and every other woman he’d ever tried to get close to.
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?” He turned on the short hose he’d rigged to the tap and rinsed the dog’s fur.
“Your infernal—” She waved her hand at the sink. “You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Fuss with your pets when you have people problems.”
“I do not.” Josh rubbed Tripod down with a towel and then lifted him to the floor. If Bec wanted to be childish and not speak to him, let her. He’d insisted the detective on the jewelry-theft case keep the Graws’ name out of the paper. He was ready to turn over every rock to find the guy. What more did she want?
“How did you get Becki so mad at you?”
“Why should you care?”
Anne looked at him as if he’d just landed from another planet. “Because I’ve never seen you as happy as you’ve been these last couple weeks.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. I’ve been a basket case worrying about Bec’s stalker.”
Anne’s eyes sparkled. “And you’ve loved every minute of it.”
Josh pushed past his sister and snatched up the kettle to fill. “That was an act for O’Reilly, remember? It didn’t mean anything.”
“Yeah right, that’s why you’ve been doodling potential names for your future kids on the scratch pad by the phone.”
“Get real.” He glanced at the pad on the counter, then nudged it under the electricity bill. “I was trying out potential bird names.”
Anne caught the edge of the pad with her index finger and drew it back into view. “Little Becki? Think she’d like having a bird named after her?”
“It was a joke.” His thoughts drifted to the day he’d found her old journal, how right she’d felt in his arms, how his heart had soared to discover that she’d dreamed of them as a couple, a family.
“Right. Do you want to be single for the rest of your life?”
He set the kettle on the stove and snapped on the burner. “Is there a point to this conversation?”
“Do you know what Mom said after your high-school sweetheart ran off for the city?”
“Was that before or after Mom headed in the same direction?” Bitterness dripped from his words. He winced. He thought he’d gotten over his resentment. Anne was pushing all of his buttons today.
Anne lounged in a kitchen chair as if utterly oblivious to the thorn she’d twisted in his side. “She said it was for the best. That you didn’t love the girl enough to marry her.”
“How would she know?” And what did a high-school flame have to do with any of this? She was ancient history.
“Because I told Mom that the afternoon Charlotte left, you took apart that old Cadillac with Mr. Graw instead of chasing after her.”
“She’d made her position clear. I wasn’t enough to keep her in Serenity.” Not for his mom, either, for that matter.
Anne leaned forward and pierced him with a hard stare. “When you really love someone, you’ll fight for them no matter how far or fast they run.”
Josh unhooked a couple of mugs, a spark of hope warming his heart. “Did Bec tell you that?”
“No. Mom did when Dad didn’t chase after her and beg her to come home.”
Josh pinched the bridge of his nose. But the pressure inside his head only escalated. “Maybe he was respecting her choice. Maybe he didn’t want to make her feel worse for leaving. Maybe he figured if she really loved him she wouldn’t have left in the first place.”
“Are we talking about Dad or you?”
The kettle screamed.
He snapped off the heat. “Isn’t there someone else you can irritate?”
“What’s the worst thing that would have happened if you’d chased after your high-school sweetheart and she turned you down again?”
“I would have been humiliated.”
“And you didn’t love her enough to take that risk?”
“I—” He clamped his mouth shut. Poured the water into a teapot. “I was young.”
“You do it with every woman you date. You pull back the instant you discover they don’t value something the same as you.”
“Because relationships need to be built on shared values. If Mom had loved living in the country, she wouldn’t have run off for the glitz of the city.”
“Maybe, but you don’t fall in love with a checklist of ideals. You fall in love with a person, with all her faults and differing opinions—the way God made her. And you trust God to help you make it work, because relationships get messy no matter how many boxes on your checklist you’ve ticked.”
“This from the woman who wears a wedding band to avoid being picked up by guys.”
Her gaze dropped. She twisted the gold band.
“I’m sorry. I—”
“No, you’re right. I have no business giving advice. But I still think you should go after her.”
“She won’t even open the door. What would you suggest? I ram it down?”
“What are you talking about? She’s not home. Didn’t you get the note she left?”
“Of course she’s home. Her car’s still in the driveway.”
“That’s because Neil drove her to the reception.”
Josh’s heart felt as if it’d been ripped from his chest. “Neil?”
Anne opened the front door and untaped a folded paper. “I’m sure she explained everything in this.”
Josh glanced at his watch. Bec must’ve called Neil the second he’d left. “How could she go back to that creep after one little fight?”
“Why don’t you go after her and find out?”
Josh unfolded the letter. His heart did a funny flip at the sight of a couple of tear-size wrinkles on the paper.
Dear Josh,
I wasn’t sure if you’d still want to go on the tour with me so when Neil stopped by and offered to escort me, I agreed. We’ll hitch rides on a few of the other cars tomorrow. Might add some diversity to my article.
“Might give her more opportunities to ferret out what people know about the jewelry theft,” Josh muttered under his breath. She was too obstinate for her own good. He flipped through his address book and dialed the number for the tour’s director.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure word of the stolen jewelry’s recovery gets spread. At least then Bec will be safe.”
“You could go make sure of that yourself, you know.”
“I think I can do without your advice. It was your ridiculous idea that got me entangled with Bec in the first place. I was perfectly happy being single.”
“Liar.”
Bec’s betrayed expression flashed through his thoughts. Her crackly I thought you were someone I could count on echoed painfully in his ears. He’d let her down.
Sure, her idea had been irrational, but he could’ve discussed options with her. Maybe they could have found a way to use the jewelry to catch the guy.
“May I help you?” the tour director asked over the phone, jerking Josh from his thoughts.
“Uh, sorry, no. Wrong number.”
Anne lifted an eyebrow as he hung up the phone.
“Don’t gloat.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Being humiliated in front of a room full of strangers can’t be any worse than spending the rest of my life wondering if I could have won her back.”
“Let alone living without her.”
“Yeah, that, too.” Josh dashed to the bedroom and quickly changed back into his old-fashioned getup, then snatched up the keys to his truck. “Lock up, will you?�
� He jogged across the driveway to hook his truck back up to the trailer.
He stopped short at the sound of Bruiser barking.
Sarah’s husband stood on the back porch, his hands cupped around his eyes, peering through the kitchen window.
“What are you doing?”
The man jolted back. “Looking for my wife. Have you seen her?”
Josh bristled at the thought of what he might’ve done to make her leave this time. “Not since the night she went home with you.”
Rowan smoothed his expensive-looking suit and gave Josh’s outfit a cursory once-over. “Do you know where Becki is?”
“Not at the moment. But I can let her know you’re looking for her next time I see her.”
Rowan gave one last glance over his shoulder at the kitchen window. “Don’t worry about it, thanks.” The man climbed into his car and hightailed it out of the driveway before Josh finished hooking on the trailer.
A few minutes later two police cruisers pulled in, followed by Smith’s Plymouth. Hunter jumped out of the first cruiser and strode toward Josh, a sober look on his face.
“What’s wrong? Did something happen to Bec?”
Hunter flashed him the paper he was carrying. “We have a warrant to search the premises.”
“For the other glove? I already told you she’ll turn it in if she finds it.” Josh snatched the warrant from Hunter’s hand. “Please tell me you’re not trying to pin this on the Graws.”
A thump sounded at the porch door—Bruiser throwing himself at it, barking frantically.
“Can you tie the dog up at your house until we’re done?” Hunter asked, confirming Josh’s fear.
Henry Smith—the insurance company’s private investigator—studied Josh for a full thirty seconds before speaking. “Where is Miss Graw?”
“Why? She has nothing to do with this.”
“A missing fifty-thousand-dollar necklace and earring set say otherwise.”
* * *
The instant Neil drew close to the parking lot of the Grand Hotel, Becki scanned the rows of cars for her sister’s. She had no idea what Sarah’s idea for catching the jewel thief was, but at this point she’d be happy just to find her sister was safe.
Fatal Inheritance Page 17
